Blood Soaked and Contagious (19 page)

“Viruses do mutate to adapt themselves to different situations. The influenza virus is a sterling example of that. HIV is also amazing in that respect. I suppose it is possible changes have occurred as the zombie virus has passed between more hosts and different segments of the global population.”

Her facial expression was deadly serious and lacked the warmth I was used to seeing. I already felt incredibly uncomfortable and Jayashri’s icy countenance didn’t do a single thing to improve my state of mind.

“Can I ask a favor of you?” I thought it was appropriate to be equally serious.

“Anything within my power.”

“If I die, please make sure they cremate me right away. I don’t want anybody to be at risk for me making a surprise reappearance.”

“Consider it done.” It was exactly what I wanted from her. All I could do was give her a hug. It didn’t seem like the sort of moment in which you issue a grateful “Thank you,” and then go about your business.

Charlie returned with a tote bag over one shoulder and my Man Scythe in her hand. I confess that I was happier to see my weapon of choice than I was to see an attractive woman bringing me dinner in a bag.

“My baby!” I reached out both hands and made gimme gestures, Charlie looked puzzled. “The weapon. I mean, I wouldn’t be upset if you decided you like m… um ... Yes, the weapon, please.” I had nearly stumbled over some odd concepts, thought better of it, and tried to clarify matters as quickly as I could.

She handed it to me and, God help me, I hugged it. You can keep your teddy bears, stuffed rabbits, plush unicorns, and other cushy toys. Nothing in the world made me feel as secure as my Man Scythe.

“Well,” Charlie said. “I’ve seen guys get misty about trucks, guns, and hunting dogs. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you’d be lovin’ up on that, but if you kiss it, I’m going to go bunk out at Shawn’s place.”

“Don’t worry. She’s too sharp. I want to keep my tongue.”

Jayashri turned to Shawn’s dumbstruck sibling and explained, “You see, our Frank is special, much like an idiot savant or someone who has been touched by a god. His actions may not make sense. His words may confuse. His results, however, must not be ignored.”

“You mean he’s going to pull a ‘Rain Man’ any second?”

“If Rain Man had been a genius with weapons and bloody mayhem, then I would have to say yes. Yet,” Jaya patted me on the cheek, “for all his special qualities, he is a gentle, warm, loyal, and very silly boy.”

“Is there a reason why you two are talking about me as though I’m not here?”

“Not really. I just want to make sure you’re not going to pounce on me during the night and be all crazy.” Charlie emphasized her point by making fists with both hands and cracking her knuckles.

Jayashri laughed at both of us and told Charlie she didn’t need to worry at all about me. Then she told me to turn around so she could put new bandages on my back.

Truth be told, I don’t remember a lot of what they discussed next. I made non-specific noises at appropriate places in the conversation, but my mind was elsewhere.

I was attempting to remember every time I’d been exposed to the bodily fluids of someone who had been infected. It would have been simpler to recall every time I’d slept with someone over the past two years or so. One. Her name was Allison, and I met her in Glasgow at a pub.

How many times had I been exposed to blood, sweat, or some other form of people juice that originated in an infected body? I couldn’t come up with a number. All I could think of was “far too many times.”

The most recent time was the little boy I decapitated over by the old McDonald’s. I had his blood on my hands at the very least, in more ways than one. That instance alone would have been enough to infect me. It
should
have infected me, based on the information Bajali found on the web.

There should have been a fever, short but high. Chills. Sweats. That is what happened with Mister Yan. He’d simply smiled and said, “Oh, I have flu.” Then the first critter came after him in his garden and got a hoe in the brain for his trouble.

I had at least two zombies tell me they weren’t interested in eating me within a 24-hour period. The one I blew up was more interested in keeping me out of the fight than he was in eating me, or he would have done that right away.

If logic would hold the argument, I was clean, by virtue of experiential data on the subject. Jayashri also had a vital point: if I had been infected over the past several days, I would either be dead and starting to regenerate, or I would be up and undead already.

Cogito ergo illegitimus non carborundum, I was clean. Case closed. Not feeling vastly better about all of it, but case closed.

In the case of Mister Yan, the only infection cycle I’d witnessed personally, he went from “I have flu” to being attacked by hungry undead cannibals in 48 hours. Grandmother Yan told me he had traded cabbage for broccoli three days prior to the onset of symptoms. She never developed any symptoms, despite sharing the same bed as her husband.

Based on that timetable, you contract the contagion and are being chased down within five days. Again, if I’d been infected, I’d already be dead.

Still not feeling good about it.

Something in the back of my head told me I ought to emerge from my navel exploration, because it had been quiet for a while. I looked up and turned around. Charlie and Jayashri were watching me quietly. Time to cover my tracks.

“Oh. Sorry. I must have nodded off for a minute there.”

“That’s okay, Frank, you’re healing up. That takes a lot of energy out of a person. Doesn’t it, Jaya?”

“It most certainly does. As his physician of record, I recommend you both have dinner, drink plenty of water, and that he,” she pointed at me with both hands, “go to bed shortly thereafter.”

“I’ll take care of it. Don’t you worry. I think Frankie Rain Man and I have an understanding.” Charlie looked incredibly smug when she said that. I couldn’t fathom why.

“Ah. Frankie Rain Man is wondering who made you my babysitter.”

They both looked at me and said in unison, “Everybody.”

“Oh.” What else could I do? I shut up and handed my fate into the hands of a woman I barely knew. The Groin Mariachi was quietly gleeful and wanted to know if she could use castanets with any skill. “Oye, Gringo. Preguntale la rubia si quiere bailar contigo.” No. I’m not about to ask her if she wants to dance or click my halves together. Put a sock in it.

Jaya kissed me on the forehead, admonished me to take a walk out in the sun tomorrow, and turned to my Passionflower Babysitter and told her to make sure it happened. Charlie saluted and promised, and they shared a laughter-filled hug over it. My favorite doctor slung her bag over her shoulder and left us to our own devices.

“All right, Frankie Sack ‘o’ Nuts, let’s do some food!”

“Are you going to keep doing strange things with my name, Charlotte Marie Cooper?”

“Mmm. Let me think.” She actually put her finger to her lower lip, tapped it a few times, looked around, and then said, “Yes, I do believe I will. Got a problem with that?”

“It probably wouldn’t do me any good to tell you if I did, would it?”

Charlie smiled at me. The Olympic Smile Judges gave her a 9.3. It was just that sweet and winning of a facial expression. Even my jaded and under-sexed heart was moved by it.

“Honestly, Francis, if it really bothered you, I would probably stop. Thing is, you just keep smiling. That doesn’t look like annoyance to me. Should it?”

Busted. Owned. Bitch slapped. Bent over and filled with Cheez Whiz.

“Hey! What’s for dinner?!”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re slick, Mister Frank?” I would have been worried if she hadn’t been smiling.

“Only when I’ve rolled in olive oil,” I said, returning the smile.

We broke into the dinner bag simultaneously. Naan bread, paneer tikka masala, from the smell of it, and a Tupperware bowl of something that made sloshing noises. Charlie wondered out loud about the contents of the bowl and was strangely timid about having a look inside.

“Oh! That’s right, they don’t have Indian food where you come from.”

She was a little sheepish with her reply, “Well, not really. There was one Indian family in town, but they kept to themselves. The closest we got to ethnic cuisine was takeout Chinese.”

I was agog. Aghast. Flummoxed! Growing up in Northern Virginia, ethnic food and communities were something you just took for granted. Before life started to fall apart, you could barely go three blocks without some kind of Asian or kabob restaurant. I took it upon myself to educate this delightful, but woefully under-educated lady.

We sat, we ate, and I told her about what she was tasting and funny stories about eating in unfamiliar bistros in my travels. The conversation was full of laughter, the way the best conversations are. She brought it around a bit when she asked what my first experience with zombies was.

I gave her the rundown on Scotland. My description of Inspector Andrews got her laughing, and I decided I really enjoyed the sound.

She returned the favor. Her first encounter with the living dead was a bit more personal. Her cousin’s boyfriend came back from the dead.

Charlie and her cousin, Chloe, were driving around a shopping center parking lot after grabbing a pizza for dinner. She told it to me as if cruising the parking lot on a Friday night during summer break when you’re home from college was the major form of local amusement. Small-town America.

They were stopped at the stop sign in front of the liquor store, when Chloe’s boyfriend came out of the store and pulled her cousin out of the passenger window of the car. By the time Charlie got around to the other side of the car, Chloe was dead and the boyfriend was slurping the blood out of a hole in the girl’s neck.

Undead boyfriend took out four of the local high school football stars before someone pulled a shotgun off the rack in his pickup and took off the top of the zombie’s head with a 20-gauge slug.

Chloe came back about 48 hours later. Charlie took off the top of her head with the closest thing she could find, a shovel. It was a closed-casket funeral, and no one talked about it.

“On the upside,” Charlie said, “no one else in the family contracted the virus. We were a bit worried for our sister, Shelly, who is the youngest, but it turned out to be mono.”

“Hey, what did you go to college for?”

“I was a Psych major with a minor in English Lit for undergrad. I was going for my Masters in Psychology when all this fun broke loose.”

Attractive. Brainy. Snarky. Spunky. Plus, she had an addictive laugh. It looked like I had another marvelous person in my life, worth recovering for at the very least.

“What did you do with your life before things got all bent out of shape?”

I hadn’t been expecting the question, even though it made sense she’d ask, and I had to give myself a few breaths to decide what I wanted to say and what I would rather not get into. Back then, there were a few topics I avoided at all costs.

“My family had money, thanks to the Internet boom. Dad got out of it before that bubble went bust, invested the money in other things, and pretty much set us all up for life.”

“Sweet!”

“Not really. You get things given to you and you lose touch with the world. I went to college, tried Pre-Med. Flunked. Went to a different school and tried Fine Art. Didn’t flunk. But I couldn’t get a job with that degree, so I started wandering with some of my family money.”

“Well, that’s better than a lot of what I’ve seen when family money is involved. At least you got a clue that you needed to explore your identity and had the means to do it.”

“I suppose you’ve got a point there.” I rubbed my eyes. I think I was starting to feel tired, even in the face of good conversation with a delightful new friend.

“Yeah. I’ve seen that face before. You need to be asleep, so let’s get you situated.”

“I’m not going to disagree with you. Where are you going to sleep?”

“If I’m supposed to keep an eye on you, then I’ll be sleeping right here.” She pointed meaningfully at the sleeping bag.

“What? In here? With me? In the same room?”

“No, Frankie Stick-A-Butter, I’m going to hang from the pipes by my toes, fold my wings around me, and snore in your face all night. I’m going to sleep with you.” Her face didn’t really allow for argument, but I wasn’t completely sure how comfortable I was with the idea. Large, angry Southern older brothers featured prominently in the results I imagined for such a sleeping arrangement.

“Er. Ah. Nargle?”

“Any funny stuff and I’ll pinch your nipples so hard they’ll feel it in Tibet. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal.” I found that threat to be very clear, and I didn’t doubt her ability to make it a reality. “But. Uh. The sleeping bag is not all that big.”

“My friend, you are as ‘special’ as Jaya says. See those blankets folded in the corner cubbyhole, underneath your graphic novel collection? I have to say, you’ve got some of my favorites, by the way.” Incandescent smile. “We’ll unzip the bag and toss blankets on ourselves. If something happens, I’ll be right there if you need me.”