Two days later, they moved. Henry had told her they might have to go far, and Viv had attempted to prepare herself for that, had tried to convince herself that she would not be afraid, yet when they finally went out there, she could feel the panic cripplingin her chest. He had set a course and she followed at his heels as they headed for what must be their destination. More than a few times they had to stop and hide so that zombies would not see them, and each time Viv could feel her heart beating loudly in her chest. She closed her eyes and tried to will it to quiet down, but it did not listen. She was relieved when they could once again be on the way.
She followed all of Henry's directions carefully as he was used to being out here more so than she. Only rarely had Viv been allowed to accompany him on a supply run; mostly he ordered her to stay put in their home of the moment, and though she knew it was because he wanted to keep her safe, still she sometimes thought it was also because out here she was nothing but a nuisance. Henry knew how to move and be quiet all the while whereas she felt as if every step she took, however much she wanted it to be soft, resounded so much it made her suck back her breath.
She remembered the first time they had run for their lives, to get away from the city and the undead spreading with every bite. Their aunt Iris had been with them then and for a while, until they had lost her in a grocery store where a clerk had appeared from behind the counter. Viv recalled how his skin had hung loose and his chin had been draping over his mouth that was slowly coming apart at the sides. His shirt had been ripped at the chest and a dried, dark substance was forming a strange pattern on the white cotton. Henry later suggested that someone had shot the man, maybe for the supplies his shop was holding. Viv had not understood it then, why someone would murder for a tin of food, but she had later learned how valuable non-perishableswere, now, in this world.
The sun was slowly lowering in the sky. Henry glanced up at it frequently, Viv saw. He was nervous, which in turn made the panic in her chest bite harder. But she did not want him to notice, and so she kept quiet, afraid her voice would betray her anyway. They were close to a city by now, a small one from the looks of it, and she spotted what might have been someone's summer house before the world ended. It was hidden behind a line of trees and she could not see it well. Hesitantly, Viv pulled at her brother's sleeve.
He turned to face her.
"What is it, Vivian?"
She pointed. His gaze went in that direction and a smile formed on his face.
"That might do it, actually," he mumbled. "Come on, let's go check it out. Have you got your spear?"
Without a sound she held up the long broomstick from which Henry had removed the bristles and instead stuck a knife to it with almost an entire roll of duct tape. He wielded a baseball bat himself, but had told her she would be better off with something pointier, as she did not have the strength to take out a zombie with nothing but wood. The choice of broomstick was so that she need not get too close to the undead to kill them.
"Good. Just follow me, then."
"Okay." One word, at least, she could manage without shaking too badly.
As they neared the house, Viv could tell that it was bigger than she thought, though not as big as some of the ones they had stayed in before. It had two stories and a broken window, but it looked peaceful. Yet Henry still moved very carefully and so she followed his lead as he went in a circle around the place. There were no sounds in the air except the brush beneath their feet and the tree tops that danced lightly in the wind, and there was no one in sight. She caught a glimpse of a squirrel and found a smile forming upon her face at the sight. It had been so long since she had seen a living animal!
Henry stopped at the backdoor and signaled for Viv to stay put. She clutched at her home-made spear nervously and waited as he pushed at the door and found it unlocked. She glanced into the parts of the room that she could see behind his body and thought it seemed empty. Her assumption was confirmed as Henry nodded for her to come along and stepped inside.
They searched the rest of the house and found no one, neither living nor dead. The lock on the door was broken, but the rooms upstairs had locks on them too, so they barred the backdoor and the broken window, then placed their things in a small room that smelled strange and musty and so unoccupied that Viv thought it must be a guest room. The other bedroom up here was bigger and a sense of an old perfume still lingered in the air. She did not like it in there, and it seemed neither did Henry. There was something wrong with living somewhere that seemed to bear a trace of its former owners even after this much time had passed.
While they ate a cold dinner, Henry tried the radio again, but it was silent like it had been the day before and for a moment Viv was afraid that she had imagined everything from two days ago, that it had all been a dream, a way to escape from the haunting white noise. But then Henry sighed.
"I guess they must be broadcasting during a specific time frame …" he mumbled.
Viv's heart skipped a beat in relief. It was not a dream after all.
"Maybe," she replied, then hesitated, unsure of what else to say. She knew nothing about radio and broadcasting. So instead she kept quiet and took another spoonful of red beans.
"Well, we'll stay here," Henry decided. "Then we can try again tomorrow. The way they talked, it sounded like a regular thing, right? So we should be able to find it again. I remember the frequency they used."
"That makes me happy," she told him. He smiled and reached over and hugged her.
"Yeah, kitten," he said. "It makes me happy too."
That night, she dreamt of people. They were talking and laughing and singing. She wanted to join them … but something was in the way. She tried to fight her way through it, but it was wet and sticky like a spider's net and she could not get anywhere. Then she realized that it was red and the smell hit her, the horrible smell of blood. And she screamed and she screamed, then remembered that she ought not to, yet now she could not stop, and in the distance she could hear someone moaning, getting closer …
She woke up bathed in sweat, shaking. The horrible dream was still clear in her mind and the longer it was stuck there, the closer she got to tears, until she could no longer hold them back and they began to flow. She pushed her head firmly into the pillow and tried to stifle her sobs so that at least she would not wake up Henry, but when she felt the familiar arm sneak around her anyway, part of her felt more relief than shame, and when he pulled her close and stroked her hair, she felt better, if only a little.
By morning, the nightmare was forgotten, with the sun high in the sky and the beautiful forest around the house. Viv felt that strange sort of happiness that was the closest thing she got to how she used to feel before everything had ended, and she even found it in her to hum a little song as she did the laundry. They could not carry much with them, and so they had to wash it quite often, after a couple of days' use. She remembered back when it was unthinkable to even put on the same shirt two days in a row. That time was long gone, and she was not sure whether she missed it. What she did miss, however, were the opportunities to dress up nicely, to spend a long time staring at herself in the mirror while she tried on one dress after the other and her mother smiled and sometimes helped her decide.
The last time she had done that was three weeks before the outbreak. Viv had celebrated her thirteenth birthday then.
She thought again of the mp3 player in her bag. The device in itself had not been part of the gifts; it was far older than that, but some of the songs on it were from CDs she had received. She wished she could listen to them just once more.
As if some fairy godmother had fulfilled her wish, suddenly the sound of music reached her from behind the bed where Henry was sitting.
"I know you're glad I called, now you can have it all …"
She did not know the song that played, not really, but she vaguely remembered having heard it at a friend's place, and she remembered something about it being by a foreign artist, though the text was definitely in English.
"When we're together you know how it should be, when you're drunk …"
She swayed along to the beat and wished she knew the text, because all of a sudden she found herself with an almost unstoppable urge to sing … So instead she kept humming along, sometimes stopping to find the right rhythm.
"Maybe we should go and spend some time alone,
Baby, you're so beautiful …
When I'm drunk … When I'm druuuunk, yeah!"
A small musical break, then what must be the refrain,
"When I'm drunk in the morning, I'm calling you,
You might be lonely, lonely.
When I'm drunk in the morning …"
She liked this song, though the text was not flattering, and she wished she knew the title. As the tones faded out, Viv forgot about the clothes entirely and sat down next to Henry to listen to the voices she knew would be coming.
"Really?" It was the British guy first. "You can't see it? Not at all?"
"No," the American replied. "I'm really not with you there. I don't think he could be the type to drunk call a girl. I'm sticking with my first suggestion and I'm not changing it."
She wondered who they were talking about.
"Alright then." The British guy. "Now that we're at the subject, have you ever drunk called someone?"
"Seriously?" She could almost hear the raised eyebrows. "You're asking me that?"
"Yeah, I want to know."
"Well, if I have – and that's an 'if' there, people, not a yes – that will be a story for another time. Because we have got something new for you listeners today! We've got Dr. Myers with us in the studio and she is going to tell us all about how to stay healthy during the zombie apocalypse."
"Obviously avoid being bitten."
"Obviously, but apart from that, here are some tips on what to do when you can't find soap, sanitizer, or anything that looks even remotely like clean sheets. And it's all right after this song …"
Another melody started playing and Viv smiled as she recognized the song. She glanced at Henry, he met her gaze, and they sang along quietly as the first line of text sounded,
"I met you once, I loved you twice, that's the way this tale begins …"
Over the next couple of days, Henry and Viv figured out that the radio show was broadcast for a couple of hours each day, just around what they supposed must be noon, but they did not have a clock to check it by. Viv enjoyed those hours. She often sat leaned against her brother as the two radio hosts talked and joked and played their songs, and for a little while she could forget that life was not normal anymore, and she liked that.
The hosts' names were Jack and Eugene, she noted. Jack was the British guy and Eugene was the American, who was actually Canadian (she never could tell the difference anyway). They had named their broadcasting station "Radio Abel" after the settlement in which they were living. Viv liked the idea of a settlement, and Henry liked it even more; so much so that he began brooding over the map they had brought with them in an attempt to locate this "Abel Township" of which the radio hosts talked, but the location of which they never explicitly gave, though they at one point did mention that there was a red light shining like a beacon during the night. She liked the idea of that too. She hoped she might one day see it.
And there were many other people at Abel too. Their faces were strangers to her, yet she soon learned to recognize certain names and even, sometimes, voices. There was Sam, a friend of the hosts', whom they described as a good guy and even sometimes teased. Dr. Myers, an actual alive doctor! Janine, of whom Viv was a little scared, because she sounded so harsh, even if what she talked about were practical things such as how to protect your home from the undead.
Then there were the Runners, people who went out to search for things that the settlement might need. She supposed they must be something like Henry, brave and fast and smart and selfless, enough so that they would risk their lives out there, among the zombies. Henry, she decided, would make the best Runner of them all, should the two of them succeed in finding their way to Abel Township. And she really hoped they would, now. Although Viv liked being with her brother, she suddenly understood his search for people even back when the radio had given them nothing but white noise. It was a search for safety more than anything besides, and a search for the companionship of others who had lived through this hell. A search for people who understood.
They had stayed at the new house for almost three weeks when Viv's world ended. Again.
Everything started out as ordinarily as a day could be when dead people were walking around in the remnants of what used to be a normal society. Viv was preparing for lunch. Henry had been out there hunting for supplies for a while now, and although she did not know whether or not he would be back to eat with her, she still took out enough corn and beans for him as well, although she did not open the cans meant for him. Instead, she simply stacked them in a neat pile before she leaned back against the bed and took out the old copy of Redwall which she had discovered in the living room downstairs. This book she enjoyed more than she had Oliver Twist, because at least the language was easy to understand and the plot less sad. She wondered whether it would be considered cheating to pretend for a little while that she herself lived in this happy world of which Brian Jacques wrote? She hoped not. She did not want to cheat, even if she did have a wish of getting away from reality, if only for a few hours.
She heard the door open downstairs. Like always, she hesitated, heart beating faster in her chest. It must be Henry, right?
Right?
The steps that climbed the stairs seemed somehow heavier than his. Viv stiffened. Should she hide, she wondered? She had never had the unfortunate experience of anyone but Henry stepping through the door and so, she was unprepared and uncertain, and before she had reached a decision, her brother stepped in.
Except there was something wrong. She could tell instantly. Horribly wrong.
Viv put the book down and got up slowly. His curly hair was tangled, even more so than usual, and there was a streak of red across his forehead. His glasses were askew, and in his eyes was a sorrow so deep that she found herself struck with a panic that almost knocked out the air from her chest, yet she stayed still, very still, as he stepped forward. She had, of course, noticed the tear in his shirt right away, right at his shoulder, deep and red, but she tried to convince herself that it was not real, that she was imagining it, because it could not be real, it could not be. No. Not him. Not Henry. Not her brother. No.
She did not want to look at him, yet at the same time found herself unable to look away. And his eyes found hers again and she could feel the lump in her throat even before he spoke.
"I'm sorry, Vivian," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."
She wanted to say something, but the words would not leave her throat.
"One of them got me. I was trying to get a window open and I didn't hear … I'm sorry."
"It's okay," she heard someone far away whisper in a voice that she recognized as her own. "It's just a scratch. We can clean it. We can … we can bandage it, and it'll be fine …"
"Vivian." He went over to her now, crunched down right in front of her and put his hands on her arms and she could see the horrible reality that was the wound on his shoulder, the wound that was ugly and bleeding and shaped like teeth … No. Not teeth. It could not be teeth. It could not! She trembled and tried to turn away, would not look at it, but his grip was firm and strong and she could not escape it, could not escape his words either, "It's a bite. You know what happens with a bite."
"No …" This time, her denial was an audible whisper and not just in her head. "No, no, no, it's not a bite, it's not, it just looks like one and it's not, it's not, it's not!"
"Yes. It is." He did not sound angry at her for being a child about it, she thought meekly. "And you have to face it, as I have. It's a bite, and we don't have a lot of time. So now you have to listen to me, and carefully at that. Because there is something I need you to do for me, okay, Viv? Something important."
Viv did not want to do anything but lie down and cry. But his voice held her locked there even more so than did his hands, and although she could feel the entirety of her body shaking now, shaking badly, so much so that it made her eyes water (because it had to be the shaking that did that; she must not be weak in front of him, not now), she stayed still and listened.
"Okay. Good." He must have sensed that he had her attention now, took a deep breath, and continued, "I need you to pack our stuff, as much of it as you can carry. I'll help you as best I can. Will you do that for me, Vivian?"
She nodded uncertainly.
"Good. That's my girl. Okay." He seemed relieved, she noted. How could he be? How dare he be, when things were like this? When he was like this? How dare he? "We'll do that now. And when we're done, I need you to do one more thing for me: I need you to take that bag, and then I need you to run and get as far away from me as possible."
It took a moment for his words to hit her through the odd daze in which she found herself to stop the panic from taking over her chest, her body. But when she understood what he was telling her, she flared up.
"No!" Her voice was almost nothing but a shriek, yet she barely noticed.
"Yes, Viv, you have to."
"No! I won't! You can't make me!"
"Vivian, there's no choice in this." Still his voice was firm and calm, too calm for this, too calm for her to handle. "I need you to stay alive. You have to run. Don't you see?"
"No, no, I'm not leaving you, no, please, Henry, don't make me, don't, I don't want to!" The tears were streaming now – she could not hold them back – leaving trails of salty water down her cheeks, because Henry was demanding her to do the impossible, was telling her to go, to be alone.
She sobbed. He took her in his arms, held her tight, her head on the shoulder that was unhurt, and she wanted to pretend that both of his shoulders looked like that, to keep denying, but he would not let her, it seemed, because he spoke again, his voice soft, so soft, so familiar, and her protests died in her throat, overcome by the sobbing that she could not seem to control, by the shaking that had taken over her body.
"I'm sorry, kitten," he whispered as he rocked her gently, back and forth, back and forth, as if she was still a babe, "I'm really, really sorry. But you have to make it on your own now. I know you can do it."
"No," she told his shoulder, "I can't, I can't, I'm not strong, oh, Henry …"
"Yes, you are, Vivian. So much stronger than you think. You always were." He held her out in front of him again so he could look at her and she could see salty water running down his cheeks too now, but still he smiled at her, and she nearly choked in her tears again. "Remember what we talked about, kitten? How we were going to find Abel Township? I told you we were going south, right?"
She nodded again, afraid of her own voice now, of the shrill of it.
"That's what you need to do. Take the map with you. Go to the area we marked. If I'm right, that's where it is. You'll find it, Vivian, I know you will. But you have to be brave. Can you do that for me, little sister?"
"I …" She sobbed again. "I don't know. If I can. Without you. Be brave."
"You're a big girl, Viv." His voice broke too, now. "You'll be brave, see. I believe in you. Okay? You can do this."
Viv was not sure he was right. But before she could protest again, he held her tight in his arms, and she cried, and he cried, and they stayed like that for a long time. When at last he let go, she clung to him for a while longer. Because part of her knew that this would be the last time she would ever get to really hug him, and she could not bear for the moment to be over. She felt his arms around her one more time, those safe, strong arms. Then he gently loosened her grip.
They packed in silence. Viv did not like the silence. Not this time. But she did not know what to say to break it, because no words any of them knew could make it comfortable. Not this time. Not ever again.
When at last the rucksack was packed, Henry had gone pale and sweaty and slightly unsteady. He tried to hide it from her, but she could tell, she was no fool. He was sickening, like their dad had, and their mom, and her friend Caroline from school. They had all sickened, and then they had died. She did not want Henry to die, yet she knew it was not in her power to stop it. Never had she believed less in any gods than in that moment. A god would never let anyone die like this and leave her on her own.
Her brother put a hand on her shoulder and sent her a brave smile. There was something behind it, something that she sensed in his eyes too, something that made her want to comfort him, to tell him, with certainty this time, that everything was going to be okay, although she knew she would be lying, like they always did in hospital movies. Instead, she hugged him again, for the very last time.
"I love you, Henry," she told him in a whisper, though she had meant for it to be louder. "Thank you for being my brother."
There was a lump in his throat as he stroked her hair, for the very last time.
"I love you too, Vivian. My little kitten. Live, for me, okay?"
"I promise," she told him, unsure of whether she could keep it.
She saw the gun they had found months ago lay on the bedside table as she walked out the door. The gun with the power to kill you so you stayed dead.
Viv had reached the edge of the forest when she heard the shot ring through the strange silence of the day and the tears hit her again. But she closed her eyes and her ears for everything but the road in front of her and kept walking. Henry had told her to be brave, and so she must, at least, try to be.
She did not know how far she had walked before her courage deserted her and she slid down against the wall of some house she did not recognize. Inside, it felt as if all of her intestines were wriggling together, pain shooting through them, through her entire body, until she felt as if she could scream and never stop screaming, yet none of it reached the part of her that was outside. She simply sat there and stared out into the sun that seemed to be mocking her, for how could it be shining on such a day as this? She felt as if she would never again like anything, and especially not the sun.
She remembered something from a night long ago, just after they had lost Aunt Iris. They were sleeping on the floor of an old tool shed. She had been crying then, too, she recalled, but Henry had held her and stroked her hair until she had calmed. There had been silence in the darkness of the place for a long time, and he must have thought her asleep.
"I promise to keep you safe for as long as I can," he had mumbled then, still stroking her hair. "I'm afraid that's all I can give you, kitten."
He had not known that she had only pretended not to hear. And his words scared her, because they spoke of the idea that one day he might not be there anymore, and then she would have to be all alone in this world, and she was not sure she could be.
Now, it seemed, she would have to.