I suddenly felt guilty. Like I should have died with them, or instead of them. I was the loser. My brother was the smartest kid I ever knew. My mother and father…
Oh god. It should have been me.
The tear came without permission, and my lip wouldn’t stay still regardless of how hard clenched my jaw. Molly covered her mouth with a hand. Duck took of his hat. Even Dave was looking at me now. Sissy was openly crying. Her expression had melted into one of sympathy and compassion. She had become more of an angel in that moment than ever before. Her appearance made my efforts to hold back any tears a fruitless endeavor. I began to sob freely, no longer caring what the group would think or do.
“I was the loser,” I confessed. “I should have been the one to die.”
“No,” said several of the people in the room.
I showed them my palm and went on, “It’s okay. I know that in the last life, I was worth less than any one of them. But I have resolved to not waste this gift.” I looked into Sissy’s eyes and continued, “I have found something that I didn’t think was possible in this wasted world. And I will be a man that would have made my parent’s proud of their legacy.” I looked into the eyes of the people in the room. They all seemed a little uncomfortable; a little ill at ease. “I’m not asking anyone to share anything they don’t want to, but I refuse to ignore who I was, or the sacrifices that were made for me.”
“Stuart,” said a voice not one of us recognized. It took a moment for my mind to process that it was Dave who had spoken. Molly gasped out loud and stared, visibly stunned by what she had just heard.
“Hello, Stuart,” I replied.
That night as I held Sissy, our warm bodies pressed together and her shuddering breath on my ear, I knew that I had something I was willing to live and die for. She called me Kyle, and whispered her name in my ear. I was in love, and no one was going to keep that from me.
◊◊◊
I trained hard every day. Quickly, I became proficient with the snare Wood had made for me. After my little speech in the lunch room, he and I had spent a lot more time with one another. He still didn’t share his name, but I didn’t ask him to. I told him that I just couldn’t live like that, without a past. He told me he liked his new name, and tried to not think too much of all he had seen and been through. I asked Wood how old he was and he just shrugged. “Does it matter?” he asked. I guessed him to be older than twenty-five but not quite thirty, but who knows? Nothing seems to be what it really is around here.
Peter thought I wasn’t ready for catching real zombies, so Wood made a makeshift head, neck, and shoulders for me. He would bob the hand-held training dummy and I would snag it with the catchpole. The better I got, the trickier he would be. One afternoon, training in the storage room, I began to get frustrated with Wood. Instead of bobbing and weaving as normal, it looked to me like he was just working hard to avoid my snare. He was moving faster than ever, and I couldn’t snag the dummy for all of my best efforts. Finally, my emotions got the best of me.
“Dammit, Wood!” I yelled. “Stop messin’ around. No zombie moves like that!”
“And how the hell would you know?” came the commanding voice from the stairwell. I turned to see Peter descending the last flight. “Wood has snagged dozens of zombies,” he continued, “and last time I checked you haven’t tried to get even one yet. He’s training you to stay alive, not trying to make you feel good.” Days after the lunch room incident and Peter still refused to call me by my name. He had been there of course, standing in the hallway the whole time. He heard it all. The only thing the incident seemed to accomplish with Peter was to make him act sour around me. “You know what a fresh zombie is capable of? What an intact, hungry zombie will do to you? Or do to get to you? Trust me. You aren’t anywhere ready to face a zombie in the open.” He looked up from me and said, “Keep up the good work, Wood.”
Wood nodded in response, but apologized when Peter was gone. “I was just trying to up your game,” he explained. “I didn’t see Peter come down.”
“It’s cool,” I reassured him. “Do they really move like that, though? Really?” I was still feeling a bit skeptical.
“An intact, hungry zombie can do everything we can. They will anticipate, duck, weave, avoid, or just plow through your defense and crash you to the ground. They’re unpredictable, fearless, and completely ruthless. A hungry zombie will carve a hole in a house to get the resident inside, or walk for miles just to help another deady eat you. Every time I encounter one, they do something I’ve never seen before.”
“Do you think they are learning?” I asked, horrified by my own question.
“God, I hope not,” Wood replied, real fear in his voice.
“So what if I can’t snag him with the pole?”
“Ever considered the net?” he suggested.
I took up the zombie net in my left hand, and the catchpole in my right. “Net me, and catch me,” Wood instructed.
It was awkward tossing the net left-handed, but Wood showed me his technique and
