Please Remain Calm (7 page)

“I had to.”

“So your parents are dead and your girl’s gone,” he says after a while and I laugh in spite of myself. He looks at me like I’m crazy. “What’s funny about that?”

“It sounds like the most pathetic country song ever,” I say and then even he chuckles.

“You’re right. Sorry.” He gets up, stretching his legs. “Lisa says Ainsley wanted you to read to her earlier. She doesn’t even let us read to her.”

I don’t know what to make of that.

A sudden, distant noise in the woods turns Jess’s head in that direction. We’re still, not even breathing, waiting for it. Something. But there’s nothing, not this time.

“Hi, Ainsley,” I say, when she comes out of the tent with Lisa.

Because I am making a case for myself.

The kid startles at her name, or my saying it. She stares at her mother in wonder, like she needs confirmation she really heard it. This is what I know: Ainsley’s not just quiet. There’s something wrong with her. But I’m not stupid enough to ask after it. We eat a dry breakfast and pack up camp and move. It feels good to keep moving, to be looking for Sloane. It also feels bad to keep moving. The first time we stop for a short break, I find blood staining the heels of my socks, especially the left. Seems useless to bitch about it, so when Jess asks if we’re ready to head out, I say yes.

Keep going, keep looking.

My gait become increasingly uneven the less weight I’m able to put on my left foot and when Jess stops, I think it’s because he notices. But it’s not. He makes a gesture at Lisa and her eyes widen. She pulls Ainsley away, tiptoeing back. I’m about to open my mouth and ask but Jess raises his finger to his lips and then I hear it.

Once you know the sounds of teeth tearing into human flesh, the wet, sloppy noise of skin and organs rolling around an infected’s mouth, of fingers with the kind of hunger driving them enough to make it possible to rip a belly open and pull all its insides out, you don’t forget it. Jess looks at us and raises two fingers. He kneels down slowly and waves me forward. I make my way over and the little I stir the ground under my feet is too loud, too much. But the sounds never stop. I duck down beside Jess and he points. I see them, in the middle of a clearing. Two infected, feasting on a body. They’re older. Adults. A man and woman.

“Shit,” I breathe because I don’t know who they’re eating. Jess throws me a sharp look for talking, but I think a train could blow through here and the dead wouldn’t move for it because they won’t want to leave the table before everything is cleared from their plates.

I watch one yank out … God, intestines. The slick, red strand hangs sloppily from its hand, dragging in the dirt momentarily, and then moves to its mouth and I don’t think the dead feel anything that’s human, but I can only describe what I’m seeing in a human way. The dead man looks satisfied as he brings the guts to his closed lips, painting them red like it’s lipstick because he’s too excited to remember he needs to open up first. That doesn’t last long. Soon he’s chewing on them, gulping them down, and when he’s done, he’ll still be hungry.

Don’t let it be Sloane.

“I gotta see if it’s her,” I whisper.

It can’t be her.

Jess reaches into his waistband for his gun.

I look behind me, to see what Lisa’s doing. Her eyes are fixed on the dead. Ainsley stands beside her, but she’s not looking at any of it. She’s staring at something to her left. My gaze follow hers and I see what she’s seeing.

An old man.

His head is tilted, staring at Ainsley and Lisa with increasing understanding of what they have to offer. His shirt is covered in blood. His eyes are white. He opens his mouth and screams.

“
Shit,
” I say and I scramble to them, forgetting my bloody, torn-up heels. I reach Ainsley at the same time he does, barreling into her as he barrels into me. My body covers hers, keeps her safe, but just because I didn’t want to see a four-year-old get eaten today doesn’t mean I wanted to die for her, either. And then two things happen at once: Lisa starts screaming, pulls Ainsley out from under me, and the old man goes after the only thing left.

Everything fades out. All I can hear is my heart, nothing else, not even the rattling breaths and snarls of the man on top of me. He has that same frenzied response to meat the others did, doesn’t know which part of me he wants first, when there’s so much to choose from. He tears at my clothes, his fingernails digging into me and I push against him with one hand, reaching across the ground for the knife with the other, but I only feel dirt and nothing else. Fuck,
fuck.
I reach for his face and just miss his mouth. Grab him by both sides of the head and try to push him back and he’s so fucking strong for an old fucking dead person. I jam my thumbs in his eyes and I push as hard as I can, but nothing about that is as easy as it looks in the movies. His eyes start to give, start to fill under my fingernails, but it doesn’t hurt him, and if it doesn’t hurt him he’s not going to stop. I bring my legs up, using them to put more space between us and let one hand off his face, reaching out on my opposite side. My fingers curl around a—rock.

It takes everything to heave it against his face. I swear I hear his jawbone crack. He goes sideways and it’s all I need to scramble back from him. He recovers too goddamn fast and grabs my foot, pulling it toward him, and then I can hear everything. The snarling, the screeching, the screaming, my own voice yelling itself hoarse, and the loud
bang
of a gun gone off and I’m hoping it’s in this direction but it’s not. I kick out as hard as I can and my shoe comes off, but that’s what I need to be free. I trip myself to my feet and finally find the knife, glinting against dead leaves. I drive it into the old man’s head and he finally falls like he’s supposed to, and he stays down like he’s supposed to. I stumble back and everything else has gone to hell. Ainsley is cowering behind a tree, and those dead that were feasting before, they’ve been called away from the cold plate for a warm meal. Jess is keeping the woman back as best he can while trying to aim his gun. But the man has overwhelmed Lisa. She’s screaming for help and before I can get to her, the gun goes off, the woman crumples to the ground, the man rips out Lisa’s throat with his teeth, and then she crumples too.

Jess dispatches the man with his gun, another loud
crack
sent through the woods.

“Ainsley, stay where Rhys can see you, but face away from me,” Jess says in a voice that sounds much calmer than his shattered face looks. Ainsley understands. She turns around like she’s done this before. I edge closer to her, curling my socked toes into the cold ground.

Jess moves to his wife, who is on her back, twitching, drowning in her own blood. She brings her hand to her throat, clutches it as if she could stop it and I think that’s the scariest thing I’ve ever seen, her heart still beating hope enough to try to save herself, even like this.

“Goddammit,” Jess says weakly, trying pointlessly to pull her hand from her neck, like there’s something he can do. He knows that’s not what he has to do. He stares at her helplessly and everything that comes out of his mouth next is something he’s going to regret for not being meaningful enough later. “Goddammit, Lisa, what the fuck …
why
…”

He starts to cry, his whole body shaking. Lisa’s eyes are wild and she’s making the kind of sounds I’ll never forget, her voice trying to work its way around the part of her throat that’s been ripped out. Her lips are flecked with her own blood. She’s not going to make it much longer than this and then she’s going to turn. She moves her hand from her throat and all the blood she seemed to be holding back floods out. She grasps Jess’s shirt, twisting it in her fingers, and suddenly, I’m not here anymore, I’m back, a month ago, I’m in a bedroom.
I don’t want to hurt you. My only boy.
Jess moans, bringing me back to this here, this now. My face is wet.

“LisaLisaLisaLisaLisa,” he says, his voice stuffy with tears and snot. “Lisa. Look at me. I love you.”

He shoots her in the head.

***

I get my shoe back on. I keep my distance from Jess. There’s no time for a burial, but the leaving is so goddamn hard without one. I remember standing in my parents’ room before I finally climbed out the window because the dead were at their door and the door was giving way. Even with the mess of blood, their broken faces, I wanted to keep close to them because once you go, you can never go back. Jess kisses Lisa’s coat-covered face and calls Ainsley over. I stay where I am and watch him explain to her what has happened. I can’t make out the words, but his voice is low and soothing, and whatever he says is terrible and simple enough to understand because Ainsley throws herself into her father’s arms and stays there. He gets to his feet, holding her, and makes his way over to me. His eyes are watery.

“I’m really—”

“We have to get as far from this area as we can and find somewhere we can settle in for the night,” he says. “I need you to carry Lisa’s gear.”

“Okay.”

“Check that body, make sure it’s not anybody you know.”

“Right.”

I make my way slowly over to the body the first two infected were eating, the one I worried was Sloane’s. When I get there, my heart is racing, doesn’t think it can take one more tragedy but one more tragedy’s always on the way.

It’s a girl. But it’s not Sloane. It reminds me of Sloane. It’s like when we found her father. The girl’s middle is so eaten out, the upper and lower parts of her body are no longer really attached. I’m so relieved but I try not to show it. I don’t want to make Jess feel bad that I still might have something when he just lost so much. That’s the worst kind of envy. I felt it when Sloane thought Lily was still alive. I didn’t want her to have it because I wanted it so badly for myself.

“Is it her?” Jess asks behind me.

Before I can answer, the girl opens her eyes. I yelp and jump back. This cycle is endless. Her hands stretch out, begging after me. I would stab her in the head if I could trust there was no chance she could pull me toward her. But leaving her like this feels wrong. Before, I got stuck on whether or not they had souls and I don’t think they do. I think that part of her is free. I have to think that part of her is free. But it doesn’t change the fact she was someone, once.

“Leave it,” Jess says. “Let’s go.”

So we leave her reaching and screaming and we walk for hours. Lisa’s pack is heavy but I can’t complain because Jess carries his and he carries Ainsley, rarely setting her down and when he does, it’s not for long. I know it’s not easy on him, the physical weight. He winces and rubs his arms in those rare instances she’s out of them. Ainsley just clings to her father like he’s exactly what he is: the last thing she’s got left.

When night closes in on us, Jess says, “Here,” and we set up. It’s awful. I see the places Lisa filled so effortlessly and they just drive home the fact that Jess is no longer one-half of a well-oiled machine. I prepare the trip wires, but I fuck it up and Jess has to fix them for me. I help him pitch the tent and the things Lisa just knew how to do, he realizes I don’t and it takes twice as long as it did a day ago. I dig the fire pit while he gets water. He takes Ainsley with him and having no one at my back is terrifying. My brain invents noises, imagines eyes on me in the darkness. When Jess returns, we prepare some MREs but he can’t entice Ainsley to eat and I’m not so hungry myself. Jess eats, though, all of it.

“Can’t afford not to,” he says, when he notices me watching him scarf the last of it down. He gets to his feet, dusting off his jeans, and puts Ainsley into the tent. When he comes out, he goes straight into his pack and pulls out a flask. He holds it out to me—the smell of the liquor inside is sharp—but I shake my head. He takes a long pull off it.

“You saved my daughter today.”

“It was nothing.”

“Think that little of yourself?”

“No, I mean …” I trail off. “There are some things I just don’t want to live to see.”

“Yeah.” He nods thoughtfully and just as quickly, his face dissolves. He buries his head in his hands and I don’t know where to look. After a minute he says, “Just go.”

“What?” I’m afraid of what that means.

“Get in the tent, I don’t want … I’ll keep watch.” He shakes his head. “Get in the tent or get the fuck out of here. Your choice.”

I go into the tent. There’s a small solar lantern hanging from the top of it. Ainsley is sitting up in her sleeping bag. She has that book in her hands. She’s chewing on one corner of it. I take up space on the opposite side of the tent and listen to the sound of Jess unscrewing the flask’s cap again. I peel off my socks and stare at my shredded heels. Doesn’t look good but I don’t really feel it. I wonder how Sloane’s doing. I imagine her, out of the river, surviving. Her face. Cutting her way through the darkness, to me. I imagine it over and over again to take the place of everything else I’ve seen today.

After a while, Ainsley crawls up beside me and when I look, she’s holding the picture book out. I can make out the title now.
Molly’s Picnic.
I look at Ainsley. Every part of how she’s holding herself is petulant. She wants this story. It’s a weird as hell feeling, her wanting me to read to her, but after today, how can I deny her? I take the book and open it. On the first page, there’s an inscription.

Andrew. I wonder what he’s doing now. I flip past the title page and it’s all bright colors and cartoon faces. It’s a story about a little girl named Molly who is getting ready for a picnic. Ainsley and I follow her from page to page as she decides what’s going to go into her picnic basket for a perfect day in the park, where all the other little children are playing, just waiting for her to join them. It’s not a fairy tale, but I start it with
once upon a time
anyway.

I wake up to a soft
whump
against my chest. I bolt upright, terrified out of my mind, and a shirt and jeans tumble into my lap. Jess stands in the tent opening, bleary-eyed and puffy-faced—definitely hungover—but relatively awake.