Story Two: O Sister, Where Art Thou?

A girl was screaming as she ran through the abandoned football field. Lurching after her were zombies wearing the tattered remains of jerseys. The girl dared a glance back. It was a fatal mistake: she tripped and toppled to her hands and knees. Her pursuers continued to lurch forward, eager for the meal. They drew closer, closer…

There was a knock at the door. Evan jumped, quickly pausing and minimizing the window. Now his computer showed a research paper just in time for his mother to poke her head in.

"Evan, you know the rules: lights out before midnight."

"Sorry, I was just finishing this research paper." He gestured to the screen. "I'll be done in a few minutes." He saw her falter a little, then she smiled and shook her head.

"No, you take your time. I'm just glad to see you're studying hard." She backed away and shut the door behind her. Evan made sure she was gone before pulling up the video again.

His mom was easy to figure out. All she really wanted was for both of her children to be the best. Liv pleased her by being insanely overachieving; Evan couldn't quite muster up that level, but he could fake it well. As long as his mom thought he was working hard, she would leave him alone.

Evan went back to watching Zombie High. Liv liked to call shows like this "mind popcorn": it wasn't good for you or filled you in any way, but you couldn't stop once you had a taste. He wondered what she was doing right now. Definitely not binging on Zombie High, even if she was the one to pull him into the show in the first place.

He only stopped watching when his eyes got too heavy to stay open. He yawned, collapsing onto the bed without even taking off his glasses. His mom would think he worked himself to exhaustion.

It felt like only a few minutes passed when he felt someone shaking him. "Evan? Evan, wake up!" He groaned, trying to grab a pillow to pull it over his face. "Evan, I'm not kidding. Get up right now." There was something in his mother's voice that pulled him out of his need for more sleep. Evan sat up once he managed to focus on her face. He hadn't seen his mother look that panicked since the time he was in the hospital.

"Mom, what's wrong?"

"It's all over the news… No one's heard from her since last night. Her phone's going straight to voicemail."

"Mom, what are you talking about?"

"Your sister! No one can get a hold of her, and they're saying a lot of people died…" Evan was sure he was still half-asleep, because some of what his mother said didn't make any sense to him. He rubbed his face where his glasses left an imprint and followed her out into the hall.

The television on and turned to the news wasn't a strange sight, but his mother was giving it way more focus than usual. Evan stifled a yawn and tried to concentrate on the story. The reporter was saying how a college boat party got out of control to the point of dead bodies. Medical examiners were still working through them all. There was no official number on those dead or injured.

"This says a lot of people were hurt, Mom," he pointed out. "Liv's probably just busy at work. You know she'd have her phone off."

"No, Evan. Liv was at the party."

"Um… Are you sure?" As far as he knew, Liv did not go to parties. Even when she was in college she managed to find the one serious-minded sorority.

"Yes!" His mother wrung her hands, panic written all over her face. "Major called and told me!"

Something cold slipped down into Evan's stomach and he turned back to the television. The camera was helpfully giving a shot of the bodies lined up on the shore, but they were all not-so-helpfully in bags. Liv could be in any one of them and they wouldn't know… His sister could be dead. When was the last time he spoke to her? Was it yesterday or a few days ago? He couldn't remember. Evan felt something in his throat threatening to choke him. It didn't seem possible. No, it couldn't be possible. Liv was driven to the point of mania. There was no way she would let anything get in the way of her ambitions. She was his big sister… She wasn't allowed to be gone.

"Well…" Evan swallowed around the thing in his throat. He tried to focus on logic and facts, as that was sure to calm his mother down. Both of them, really. "They'd have to call us if they found her, Mom."

"What do you mean, if they found her?" she asked wildly. "You don't think she's at the bottom of the ocean, do you? Or her face is so burnt they can't identify her?" She watched way too many crime dramas. Evan shook his head helplessly.

Wanting anything else to focus on, he started gathering stuff together for breakfast. His mom usually paid someone else to cook or went out to a restaurant, but measuring ingredients and mixing them together was calming for Evan. It gave him something to control. And it was a connection to Liv: she was the one who encouraged him to learn. He quickly shoved the worry thoughts of her brought on and concentrated on cooking the pancakes evenly on both sides.

He dragged his mother away from the television. "I called the hospital and told them to let me know the minute they check her in," she told him. "Major's going to call me if he hears from her first. He feels so terrible. It was his idea that she go to the party in the first place."

"She'll be okay, Mom," Evan assured her, pushing a plate of grapefruit slices her way. "Maybe she left the party early and her phone died."

"Maybe." There was a glimmer of hope as she entertained this possibility. A glimmer that died as quickly as it came. "But Peyton says she hasn't heard from Liv, either. Why wouldn't she have come home?"

Evan didn't have an answer for her. It felt like the world was out of balance. Liv going to parties and suddenly dropping off the face of the earth, worrying her loved ones… None of it was like her at all. The wrongness of this whole situation made him uneasy.

The two of them finished their meal in silence with only the television as company. By now the news had moved on to other things, which to Evan seemed pretty unbelievable. How could any story be as important as the boat party? Eventually he got up and turned it off. His mother was clutching her cell phone tightly in both hands. He hovered behind her chair for a moment, then started cleaning up their dishes and running them through the washer. She barely noticed, so focused was she on waiting for phone calls.

Evan left her there and went back to his room. He slid his earbuds back on and clicked into Zombie High. He needed something mindless and stupid to drown out his worry. In a weird way, watching the zombies comforted him. It was taking him out of the reality of Liv's absence for a few more minutes.