INFECtIOUS (20 page)

The Devil Made Me Do It

"It was
recently brought to my attention that some of our
number call
the diseased, 'Zombies'."

My face is a
bright red beacon. It's chilly in this big room and I'm certain there must be
obvious steam emanating from my warm, humiliated face. I sneak a glance at
Aunty. She isn't looking at me, but she has a pained expression on her face,
her lips pressed in a hard line.

He continues,
"Obviously, a very derogatory way to think of and refer to our neighbors.
But it stuck with me. I spent some time thinking and praying about that term.
And, believe it or not, friends, there is some unique truth in that word. Not
just for them, but also for us. Let me share with you what the Spirit has laid
on my heart.

Before
The Lord came back for His own, leaving all of us here and changing the world
forever, people used to watch television and movies about zombies.
Zombie movies
were one of the most popular ways to pay to be terrified.

The
undead.

The
walking dead.

Reanimated
corpses crawling out of their graves.

And what did
zombies do? They ate the living. Hits us close to home doesn't it?

The comparison
is easy to make. The world out there is getting sicker. And I don't mean the
disease. Murder is commonplace here in
Toccoa
. Babies
are being aborted and sold as delicacies to the rich. Pravda is harvesting and
selling stem cells and umbilical cords from aborted babies, promising healing
and rejuvenation to people desperate enough to buy and eat them.

Such dark
times," he says with tears forming in his eyes. Out comes the hanky.

I listen and
silently beg God for my name to not come up in this sermon so pointedly meant
for me.

Rev.
Depold
continues and clears his throat of the phlegm of his
emotional moment, "They have lost all respect for human life. In Roman's
Chapter 3 verse 10 we read:

 
There is none righteous,
not even one.

There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God;

All have turned
aside,
together they have
become useless;

There is none who does
good
, there is not
even one.

Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep
deceiving,

The poison of asps is under their lips;

Whose mouth is full of cursing and
bitterness;

Their feet are swift to shed blood,

Destruction and misery are in their paths,

And the path of peace have they not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

I'd say that's a
pretty fair commentary on our neighbors. Some of you have been sheltered within
our community, but many of you know well of what I speak. We live in dangerous
times my friends. Our missionaries are out there, on the battlefield, seeking
to save that which is lost.

But the word
zombie isn't only for the lost. It's for us too. How you ask? How can I compare
Christ's beautiful bride, the church, to a decaying reanimated corpse? We are
Living
, but we have the same disease. The curse of sin waits
in our members looking for an opening to strike. We are not as safe here,
inside our fence, as we would like to believe.

Romans Chapter 7
verse 14 speaks about the Living, not the lost. It tells us about our sinful
nature. When the scientists test the Living, what do they find? They find the
same LS in our blood. No less of it than anyone else. We have been healed, but
we still fight the sickness. We still need our Healer on a daily, hourly basis.
We read:

...I am flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For that which I'm doing,

I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to
do,

but
I
am doing the very thing I hate.

This is Paul!
The great apostle speaking!
Paul who wrote much of the New
Testament.
Who saw our Savior on the road and was struck blind at the
sight of His glory. He says:

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh;
for the

wishing
is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good

that
I
wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish.

But if I am doing the very thing that I do not wish, I am no
longer the one

doing
it, but sin that dwells in me.

He's almost
calling "sin" a thinking, sentient being. That lives in him and
exercises
it's
own will
against him, causing him to sin. That old phrase, "The
devil
made me do
it" could find defense in these verses.

I want to be
perfect for my Lord. Don't you? If you could somehow never sin again, whatever
the cost, wouldn't you take it? I would. Or at least my heart, my brain, my
belief would. But my friends, it's not to be. We still live in these bodies for
a while longer. And these bodies are married to sin.
  

Our hearts are
alive in Christ, but our bodies are dead in sin. We are zombies.

What does that
look like for us?" Rev.
DePold
stares straight
at me. I swallow hard and look down.

He turns away
and continues, "Zombies are committed to the fulfillment of one desire -
eating the living.

When our zombie
comes out, we are that irrational. We are selfish with only ourselves in mind.

Zombies
disregard their own well being and the wellbeing of others to get what they
want. They would dive off the side of a hundred foot cliff if they smelled
human flesh at the bottom. And we can be that careless with our own lives and
each other."

I know what he
means. I know I'm guilty of selfish moments. But so is everyone else. As guilty
as the whole room is, I feel certain that everyone else is thinking just of
Aunty and I and our shopping trip. Our focus on fashion has seemingly brought a
new danger home to them. If they knew the whole story, they'd know it was a
danger that was already here. I didn't bring it to them. It lives here among
us.
If anything our going out brought that danger out into
the open.
Prepared us to be cautious.
We did
them a favor.

Lost in my inner
rant I've missed some of the sermon. I pick it back up on Rev.
Depold's
final point on zombies.

"More than
just scary, zombies make you sad. They are someone's mother or brother or
husband or daughter. They are a shell of what they used to be. Back then,
watching a zombie flick, you could feel sad about the little girl, alone on the
screen, a lonely zombie. I ask
friends,
maybe we could
come up with that for each other.
 
Be
more patient with each other's inner zombie.

And, more
importantly, could we find the same heartbreak that Christ felt for the lost?
Yes, they hate us. Yes, they long for our blood. But Christ died for those who
hated Him. They screamed for His blood, the blood that bought our healing. I'm
not asking you to die for them, though God might ask that of you.

What I'm asking
is for you to fall in love with them. To see in them the potential that God
sees. To ask
yourselves
, 'What can I do to reach them
in the little time we have left?'

My friends, we
need to become infectious to the infected. Our lives should draw them. Our love
should be obvious, setting us apart and making them want what we have. Someone
who belongs to God should walk in a way that makes the lost want to have what
we have been given. It is a gift we could never deserve. Are we behaving as
those indebted or have we had the gift so long we have begun to think it was
our right all along?

Let us pray.

Father, May we
be
honest enough to face the zombies within, may we have the
courage to forgive the zombies around us, give us compassion for the dead
around us and grace for the dead within us.

Amen."

I Can't Handle Any More
Markowitzs

I can't believe
how relieved I am to be back in the Inn. After ten minutes of strained, polite
post-sermon conversation and a short reflective walk home, I am in the house
for at least the next week. I know I have permission to go to meetings, but
after the debacle that was this morning, I don't know if I want to go for
awhile. Maybe things will cool down.

Aunty and I are
only home a few minutes when the door bell rings. We are cooking lunch together
in the kitchen when the melodious chimes send Aunty scurrying to the front
door, leaving me up to my elbows in flour kneading biscuits.

Within seconds,
she reappears in the kitchen, her face lined with the concern of some new
disaster. She barks, "I have to go, I'll be back."
 

"What's
happened?" I yell after her as she heads out the back door, but the only
response I get is the back door slamming shut.
 

She's gone with
no more explanation.

The curiosity
and suspense eats at me while I wait for her to come back. I'm not allowed to
leave the house without her. I pace back and forth in the foyer staring out the
front windows for any clue of what's happening out there. Is someone sick? They
sometimes call for her when Dr. Markowitz and the two nurses aren't enough. She
has no real medical training, but she's calm and cool under pressure and not
afraid of blood so she's helpful in situations where they need more hands.
Maybe something happened with the zombies?
  

Yes, I'm still
going to call them that.

Some
new development in the Outlet Mall Stalker investigation?
Another attack?

I finish cooking
lunch. And eat. And send up countless prayers. And wait. I wish life was
perfect. I wish that all that rejuvenation and great time with my Bible had
left me with nothing but joy, but I'm only human. I'm already struggling with
renewed feelings of hopelessness. Of being trapped here. Fear about what is
hunting me out there. I was hoping that Harmony would visit me a lot, but after
the cold shoulder in class this morning, I'm not getting my hopes up.
So much for BFFs.

I remember that
Rev.
Depold
said someone would come set up a computer
for me and bring me work to do. It won't be that much different than working in
my little office. It's not like I'm surrounded by people there either. I doubt
anyone will come today though. It's Sunday. Tomorrow is the earliest I can
expect to be back to work in full swing.

I'm settled into
the comfy chair in the Parlor resting my eyes—Aunty speak for catnapping—when
the door bell scares me to death. I jump up and it takes me a second to
remember where I am and what's going on. I hurry to the door and see Harmony
pressing her face against the glass. I unlock and open the door and pull her
inside.

"Do you
know what's going on?" I demand a little frantic, "Where is
Aunty?"

"Ok. Just
don't freak out ok?"

"What! What
is it?"

"They're
back."

"Who is
back?"

"Thomas
and his brother.
And, Ivy, Thomas is hurt."

"Matt? Matt
is back! Is he ok? Oh
my gosh
, he's back! What
happened? Did he get hurt?"
 

"Huh?"
Harmony is looking at me like I'm crazy. "Ivy, Thomas is hurt. Who cares
about his zombie brother?" She pauses and stares hard at me, "I'm
confused. You are worried about him?"

"Is he
hurt!
" I grab her by the arms and shout the question in
her face.

"I don't
know," she answers with quiet anger in her timid voice. "I think I
missed something important."

She starts
backing away from me, I let go of her arms and she rubs at them like I bruised
her.

"Is that
where Aunty is? Did they need her? Thomas must be hurt pretty bad. Of course
that's a big deal," I say to show her I get it and I'm not, despite her
worries, insane. I mean, of course I care about Thomas being hurt. I can
prioritize.

I start again
with forced calmness, "I wonder what could've happened. Do you know?"

"I know
less than I realized," she says with a sour twist in her full lips.
 

"Please
Harmony, I'm sorry. Please?"

"Ugh."
She sighs and starts to spill what she knows. "I know they showed up at
the North Gate
some time
this morning. Matt,"
she enunciates his name with disgust and a glare, "was carrying Thomas and
demanded to be let in. The guards didn't know what to do. Your boyfriend,
"she says with angry sarcasm, "told them to call Ellen and Jose, or
Miss Colleen but they refused. Anthony, the guard that we talked to the other
day, was on duty at the West Gate. I guess he overheard what was happening on
the radio.
 
He came to the North Gate and
escorted them to Jose and Ellen's house. That was right after this morning's
meeting. Thomas is really badly hurt." She takes a gulp of air before
saying, "I think he maybe lost his arm or something. So they rushed him to
the clinic. Jose and Ellen are really upset. Matt," the scornful way she
says his name is getting old, "is being held somewhere until the commotion
settles and they can figure out what to do with him."

"What to do
with him? What do you mean they are holding him?"

"I don't
really know anything else."

"Harmony,
I'm sorry. I just—of course I'm super worried about Thomas. I just, I mean, I
care about Matt a little."
 

She looks at me
with a mixture of confusion and disgust and I know this will change our
friendship. We've never talked about boys, it's not who we are, and now I've
fallen for someone way off limits.

"Do you
know where he is?" I ask. "I promise I'll explain, but I really need
to see him. Please
Harmony,
you must know where they
have him."

"First of
all, you aren't allowed to leave the Inn, remember?"

"Ugh!
What's second of all?" I'm pretty sure Harmony will have to sit on me if
she
  
know's
where Matt is and expects me to sit here and do nothing.

"Second of
all, you aren't going to like where he is. That guy we didn't know, you know
the guard you ticked off? Turns out, he's the new head of security. He's Tim's
older brother."

"Tim
Markowitz?" My turn to look disgusted at the mention of a boy.

"Yeah.
So, I guess he
was leading a group of the Living near Atlanta and the Doctor asked him to come
home. His name is Andrew. He's only been here for like a week and they put him
in charge of all our security. He's keeping Matt at his apartment. He lives in
one of the apartments they made in the old police station."

She's right.
Second of all was worse. I already had "apologize to no-name" on my
recent list of things to do. I can't go barging into his apartment when he
knows I'm supposed to be at the Inn. First of all, because it's not respectful
of the Elders or of no-name—I guess I should call him Andrew now. And secondly,
because that kind of behavior isn't going to get me out of my house-arrest any
sooner. The new head of security already thinks I'm trouble. I'm going to need
to prove I'm not if I ever want out of here.

My thoughts are
running a mile a minute. Matt is back. Will he stay? What if he leaves again
before I'm allowed out of here? I will die if I don't at least get to see him
and say I'm sorry. He's independent, not to mention sneaky. I know he won't
like "being held" anywhere by anyone. He'll probably be out of that
apartment by tonight and back through whatever
hole
he's been using.
Apparently a hole that he couldn't carry a
hurt Thomas through, forcing him to use the gate.

Will his love
for Thomas keep him around? Maybe he'll stay to make sure Thomas is ok. What if
Thomas isn't ok? If Thomas dies, I know for certain I'll never see Matt again.
I sink back down into my napping chair.
Full of worry and
questions.
Maybe God is giving me a second chance with Matt. I will do
better this time. Please, God, let me have another chance to show Matt the
Truth. Harmony is still standing near the door. I look up to see her leaving.
Just like that. Life is so complex all of a sudden.
 

"Harmony,
wait. Please don't leave. I don't want to be here all by myself."

"I guess
you should've thought of that before you got us into trouble."

"You got in
trouble? Oh
my gosh
, I'm so sorry! Forgive me?" I
ask in a small pleading voice.

I feel terrible.
Harmony is practically perfect in every way. I can't think of a time she's ever
been in trouble. She considers my apology while looking down at her feet. She
kicks the toe of her brown boot back and forth along the fringe of the
oriental
rug just inside the door.

Her face is
softer when she meets my eyes again.
"Yeah.
It's
ok. I know you didn't mean to."
 

She lifts her
little matching cross necklace from inside her coat and says, "Best
friends, no worries," with her full lips spread in a smile.

It looks a
little forced, but I'll take it.

"I
gotta
go. I'm not allowed to be out alone for more than an
hour now. I still have to go to the library."

"Oh. I'm
really, really sorry. Can you come back tomorrow? Maybe you could get
permission to study here part of the day?"

"Maybe."

"Well—thanks
for coming. I'm sorry."

"I forgive
you.
Really.
You don't have to say you're sorry again.
It's really ok.
Nothing to do around here anyways.
Right?"
She smiles at me and turns to leave.

"Yeah.
But even
Toccoa
beats house arrest," I say glumly.

"I'll be back,"
she says as I close the door behind her and lock it.
 

I'm alone again.
If Thomas' injuries are that bad, Aunty could be gone all day. Now that I know
Matt is back, and being held right across the street, being trapped in the Inn
feels unbearable. I stare out the front windows at the old police station,
searching each window. Where is he? I have to see him again! My search proves
fruitless, and my heart sinks low. I decide to run up and down the stairs for
some exercise. Exercise gives you endorphins and endorphins make you happy.

The Inn really
is mansion sized, with a front staircase and a back staircase. The front
staircase winds and turns up four different levels, 21 steps in all. It's all
oak with fancy, red carpet running up the middle of the stairs. At the bottom
of the stairs is a beautiful carved oak post with an antique, 3 armed
globe
light built into the top, like something you'd see at
an old train station. At the top of the stairs, a spindled oak banister looks
over the drop at an 8 foot tall arched stained glass window. It's very pretty—I
guess—but I've lived here so long now that all the fancy windows and antique
oak are nothing more than difficult places for me to have to clean and dust.
I've lost most of my appreciation for the house that so awed me as a little
girl.

At the top of
the stairs, the upstairs hall stretches before me with five different doors
leading to five different guest rooms. At the end of the hall, behind the
second door on the left, is another hallway. Just inside this back hall is a
narrow door leading to the back staircase. These stairs aren't as wide as the
front steps and they are plain and un-decorative. Like my room downstairs, they
were probably used by the maid back when the house was built. There are 19 steps
here. I spend 15 minutes running up the front stairs, down the hall and down
the back stairs over and over until my legs
are
burning. I'm in fairly good shape due to having to walk everywhere. But stairs
are harder than just walking and I'm disappointed at how quickly I'm too winded
to keep going. I slump down on my butt on the bottom step and lean against the
wall. I hope the endorphins kick in soon. I really need some happy. I think
I'll go eat another piece of chocolate.