Natalie adds, “Don’t worry. I promise not to bite anyone. Unless those two really piss me off.”
“No noshing the teens, please. With that rough segue in mind, are you hungry? Did you pack any snacks?”
“Only a couple of infant-formula travel packs. I’ll pass.”
The teens rejoin the women, coasting in circles as they stand on their pedals. Josh’s staff juts out of his pack, a flagpole without an emblem.
They say, “We got you” and “Your protection” and “Lots of zombie animals out there” and “We’ll scout the road ahead” and “You’re lucky we’re here” and “We’re experts.” They sound as ebullient and full of bravura as they did before the old man emerged from the car. They drone on in their endless, witless banter. “This is the part in the zombie movie when the heroes team up with randos” and “They fight to survive together” and “Can’t do it alone” and “The first rule of the zombie apocalypse” and “But then the group has a hard time getting along” and “From different walks of life and shit” and “Sometimes they break up” and “Sometimes they don’t” and “Then randos get picked off one by one” and “It always happens” and “The brown guy always goes first” and “Guy, you aren’t brown” and “The fuck I’m not” and “We’ll be all right. We’re the heroes” and “Nah, heroes always die” and “Hey, this might sound crazy but we could give you two a ride. Sit on the handlebars” and “Guy. Let them stand on the rear pegs” and “Right. We’d go slow. Totally safe” and “We used to—”
Natalie says, “You’re right. That sounds crazy. So, what are we going to do?”
After a brief discussion, Ramola and Natalie decide one of the teens should bike the two miles ahead to the clinic and send back someone to pick them up.
Josh says, “Makes sense but ‘don’t split up’ is, like, the number-two rule of the zomb apoc.”
Luis says, “Guy. Don’t. I hate it when characters say ‘zombos’ or ‘walkers’ or something else so writers’ room. Just fucking say ‘zombies.’”
Ramola shouts, “There are no zombies! This is not the apocalypse! You must stop saying that. It’s not helping.”
Josh ignores her and says to Luis, “Shrugs, guy. Shrugs.”
Luis says, “Whatever. So which one of we is going to the clinic?”
The two of them argue. Luis makes a crack about leaving Ramola the staff because she knows how to use it better than Josh. Somehow they achieve a bro-speak consensus ratified with a complicated handshake routine.
Josh says, “Tell me to keep off the moors and stick to the road,” quoting lines from a movie that’s more than twenty years older than he is.
Luis obliges.
Josh pedals down the road flanked by towering pine, birch, and oak trees, the highest branches shivering in the wind, peacocking their greens, reds, and browns. Leaves fall, whirling in invisible eddies, their individual paths balletic, unpredictable, until they land, as they must, and join the autumnal mob usurping the shoulders of the road, massed against stone walls, blanketing the forest floor. Ramola, Natalie, and Luis silently watch until Josh disappears around a bend.
Ramola checks her phone and is unable to connect to the Internet or get through to 911. Her texts to Dr. Awolesi also go unanswered. It appears they are relying on Josh. If it takes him ten to fifteen minutes to bike to the clinic; maybe another five to ten to convince someone to send a vehicle back in their direction; a fiveish-minute drive down the narrow, windy road; another five to ten minutes (estimate includes crossover time spent getting her and Natalie into the vehicle) on the return to the clinic; and then however long to be screened and prepped for the C-section, they are looking at, all told, close to an hour total. If Natalie is indeed infected (the memory of the warmth of Natalie’s skin is a physical one), do they even have an hour? What is she going to do if Natalie succumbs to infection prior to arriving at the clinic? She imagines Natalie with eyes as dead as a cadaver’s, her mouth an animal’s snarl, and saliva running down her chin. Maybe riding on the handlebars isn’t such a ridiculous idea.
As though reading her mind, Natalie says, “Fuck this. I’m not waiting here. Come on, Rams, grab our bags.” She steps out into the road.
Luis says, “Whoa, where you going?”
“Heading toward the clinic. Just in case.”
Ramola and Luis plead with her to stay at the ambulance. Ramola maintains that it isn’t safe to be out walking the road. Luis asks what if they’re walking and she gets attacked by a rabid animal?
There’s time enough before Natalie’s response for Ramola to wonder if she’s going to say it doesn’t matter if an animal bites her, she’s already been exposed. Looking and speaking to Ramola and Ramola only, Natalie says, “We saw what a fucking zoo Norwood Hospital was. What if there are no available emergency vehicles at the clinic or they don’t have any staff available to leave the building or, I don’t know, what if they don’t believe Josh?”
Ramola chimes in to say they should’ve had Josh take a picture of them and the ambulance with his phone to show the clinic.
Natalie says, “Sure, right. Look, all I’m saying is there’s no guarantee Josh will get help. He’ll probably be fine but, sorry, what if something happens to him on the way? What if he doesn’t make it? I’m not waiting around for what-ifs. I’m walking. If he gets an ambulance, which he probably will, then great and it’ll still see us and pick us up as we’re walking down Bay Road. And we’ll be that much closer to the clinic. And we can knock on doors and ask for a ride along the way too. Worst-case scenario, we walk the two miles. I’m not waiting around to be saved.”
Luis says, “Nah,
