Survivor Song(40)

“Yeah, okay, Doctor Who. Listen: the driver has been trying to run us down for, like, the last ten minutes.”

“He followed us for more than a mile, swerving all over the road and shit, driving after us on sidewalks. He even followed us through a couple of backyards.”

“The driver’s clearly a zombie.”

“You can’t help a zombie, Doc.”

“A zombie driving the car. Can you believe it?”

“I know, right? This timeline is glitching out.”

“So hard.”

Ramola says, “The driver may very well be infected, but he is not a zombie.” She walks between the teens and as she gets closer to the sedan one of them mumbles, “Same diff.” She crouches, peering inside the window. The driver is an elderly white man with thinning but stubborn wispy tufts of white hair. Foamy saliva bubbles around his mouth. He sways in his seat, shakes his head, and rubs his eyes with the back of his hands. His movements are herky-jerky, frames missing from stop-motion animation. When he sees Ramola, he slaps the window with open hands.

The taller teen says, “I think we have his attention.”

“Tap the window with the staff just in case we don’t.”

“Fucker.”

Ramola backs away from the car, unsure of what to do. When she first climbed out of the ambulance, she had visions of commandeering a damaged-but-not-totaled sedan and driving Natalie and the presumably injured (but hopefully not infected) driver the approximately two miles to the clinic. She can’t think of a way to get the infected man out of the car without endangering everyone, the elderly man included. She is not going to allow the teens to bash and batter him with their weapons. She cannot tell if the teens are too gleeful at the prospect of violence or too clueless to fully appreciate the situation into which they’ve inserted themselves. Likely a combination of both, as the flame of violence is generally fueled by ignorance. Should they instead barricade the old man into the vehicle somehow, particularly if they are forced to start down the road on foot? They would also have to slash the tires to further disable the sedan, making sure he couldn’t drive after them. Perhaps she should check in with Natalie, to see if 911 or Dr. Awolesi has responded.

Ramola briefly explains to the teens that her friend Natalie is pregnant, the baby is due in a matter of days, and they need to get her to the Ames Clinic as soon as possible. Ramola purposefully does not tell them Natalie has been exposed to the virus and is possibly infected. She has never been a skillful liar, including lies of omission. While she thinks it’s doubtful the zombie bros have the wherewithal to detect she isn’t telling them the entire story, the shorter one looks at Ramola, his head slightly cocked, as though he’s picking up on what she isn’t saying. That he might not trust what Ramola is telling them makes her trust him a bit more.

The shorter one says, “Never been to the clinic but we know Five Corners well.”

Ramola asks, “We need a car. Do either of you live close by?”

The taller teen shakes his head. “Our apartment is in Brockton. You could walk to the clinic and back in the time it would take for us to bike back, get a car from a friend, even if we could get one.”

They look too young to have their own apartment, but Ramola files that nagging thought away. “Is there anyone close by in Ames you could call, ask for a ride? Another ambulance might be on the way, but I would prefer not to wait too long.”

The shorter teen smirks. “Nah, sorry, no one we know around here would want to help us, I don’t think.”

“Yeah, we’re not too popular in these parts.”

An odd set of answers that makes Ramola mentally step aside from the manic at-all-costs quest to get Natalie to the clinic and analyze the danger inherent in being alone with two strange and quite possibly unstable young men carrying weapons.

The sedan’s door opens. The dented metal pops and creaks. The old man shouts, “Top off!” and laboriously pulls himself out of the car and onto his feet. He’s dressed in slacks and a beige dress shirt, some buttons in the wrong holes, other buttonholes skipped over.

“Top off! Half done!” He blinks like there’s sand in his eyes. He briefly smiles; the face of someone’s kindly grandfather. His mouth goes slack, gapes open; the face of madness.

The teens laugh, and shout, “Oh yeah!” and “Let’s go!”

The old man does not move quickly, but he is shuffling toward them. His right leg lags behind as he lurches forward, and he reaches for his hip with each shuddering step.

The taller teen says, “Wait, wait, wait!” He tucks his staff under an arm, most of the length of pole trailing behind him. He unhooks one of the clear water bottles from around his neck; a hard plastic polycarbonate bottle athletes and hikers favor. “Let’s have a test.”

“Nah, guy. No fucking around.”

“Look at him. He’s slow.” He unscrews the bottle’s lid. He steps toward the elderly man.

The shorter one backs away a few steps, and his hard look softens.

“Hey, gramps. Have some. Water is the good.”

The shorter teen laughs but laughs too hard. He’s clearly nervous and scared, but he doesn’t want to admit it, and/or (one does not preclude the other) he’s on the verge of losing control.

“Top off! Half done! All gone!” The elderly man’s voice wavers and is full of gravel.