“Then you can stay here, guy. Keep playing pretend zombie hunter.” Natalie heads down the road, straddling the double yellow lines, listing from side to side like a ship in a choppy sea, her right hand under her belly.
Ramola isn’t sure if this is the best idea. But how can she be sure? How can anyone be sure given unprecedented, impossible circumstances? Natalie’s desperation—now manifested by her willingness to march two miles despite obvious pain and distress—plus the notion of moving closer to their destination, even incrementally, sends Ramola into the ambulance cab to quickly consolidate their two overnight bags. After transferring a few of her items, Ramola slings Natalie’s bag over her shoulder and jogs to catch up to her friend.
Natalie says, “Okay, Luis. Talk to me. Take my mind off how much walking sucks. Where are you from?”
“I live in Brockton with Josh.”
“What are you doing out here? Aren’t you guys getting a little bit old to be playing Stranger Things?”
Luis chuckles, pedals ahead, and circles a loop around the women. “We grew up in this area. On the other side, the west side of Borderland State Park. With everything ending, we thought it would be, I don’t know, fitting to come back.”
Ramola says, “Everything isn’t ending. Civilization is more resilient than people think.”
Natalie adds, “For better or worse.”
Luis says, “When we were younger, we would ride into Borderland—we had a special spot—and hang out and make plans about what we’d do in case of a zombie apocalypse. So here it is and here we are.” He pauses, as though honoring the memory with reverie and regret. “Turns out it’s probably not a good place to be.”
Ramola says, “We’ll get through this. We will.”
Natalie snorts a short laugh. “Luis, how many zombies have you seen so far?”
“Not many. We’ve put down a couple of cats—”
Natalie laughs. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to laugh. It’s terrible. Poor Mittens and Mr. Bigglesworth.” She says the latter name in her faux British accent.
Luis says, “White foam, walking like drunks, the whole bit, but they charged us. The second one got its head stuck in the spokes of Josh’s rear tire. We had no choice.”
“You two are indeed heroes. Sorry, I’m being a jerk. Any non-feline zombies?”
“A raccoon, a skunk, and two coyotes.”
“Did you put them down too?”
“Nah, they were mostly dead, barely moving, so we just rode away.”
“Any people zombies?”
There’s a pause, and then Luis talks slowly, like a sputtering engine afraid to commit to the internal combustion. “In Brockton. He was an uncle of someone we used to be friends with, but I, um . . . it was terrible and I don’t want to talk about it. And that old guy driving the car was number two. A zombie driving a car. I still can’t believe it.” He laughs, though to Ramola’s ears, it sounds forced, fake.
His responses to Natalie’s questions came off as natural and genuine until this answer about a former friend’s uncle. Ramola flashes to her previous we-killed-a-guy-before conversation with Luis. She studies the now nervously smiling boy, one who isn’t that much older than some of her pediatric patients. Children and teens (and, of course, adults too) lie, especially when put under tremendous stress. At her job she’s become quite proficient at sussing out hidden or obscured truths from her young patients and their parents. Ramola concludes Luis was lying earlier or is lying now, but not both. Reflecting on what Luis and Josh said and now Luis not wanting to talk about this former friend’s uncle, she can’t shake the nagging insistence the two teens spoke as though they’d killed a man prior to the outbreak. Ramola wonders if she should attempt to come up with a reason for Luis to join Josh and leave them be.
Natalie says, “We’ve seen a whole bunch of people zombies. We even had one shooting a gun at us.”
“Get the fuck outta here. Seriously?” Luis laughs and claps his hands together once, rides without holding the handlebars. “This timeline, man. It’s so messed up.” He pulls up his bike next to Natalie, on her left. His feet drip off of the pedals and spill onto the street. He rolls himself forward with little languid push-offs.
With her raconteur’s verve and flair, Natalie recounts their harrowing hospital escape. She does not embellish or exaggerate while omitting their having received vaccinations. Ramola smirks at her brief but curiously strong pang of jealousy that she is not the intended audience of Natalie’s spirited retelling.
Luis, utterly charmed and rapt, laughs and spews exclamations of disbelief. Ramola notes he doesn’t ask why they were at the hospital. He likely assumes impending birth is reason enough.
Ramola checks for texts and keeps an eye on the road, which elongates ahead of them as though they’ve made zero progress. “Natalie, let me know if you need a break.”
“I’m okay.” She doesn’t sound okay. Her voice has gone from froggy to desert-wanderer. Her pace is slowing and more labored, favoring her left leg.
Luis says, “So the guy was probably not a zombie before he picked up the gun, right? Or was he? Like the old guy in the car. Was he a zombie before he got into the car? Or was he driving along somewhere and then he turned while he was driving? I don’t get it.”
Ramola says, “You don’t get it because they’re not zombies. Both of you need to stop discussing the victims as such. They’re people infected with a virus that interferes with communication between brain cells, shutting down inhibitions, causing extreme aggression, confusion, terrible hallucinations.”
Natalie says, “I read about some rabies patients, when they get toward the end, they experience moments of lucidity. Almost like a remission, and they’re who they were again, but only for a short time. Maybe that’s what happened with the car guy. He was gone, but then he came back to himself, and he tried to drive somewhere for help, and went away again, lost in his own malfunctioning brain.
