On the morning of their fifth day in containment, just before breakfast, they bring back Zed's Z-band.
Well, they bring him a shiny new one, with reinforced casing and double-tight locks. New software too, probably, Eliza muses as she watches them corner her friend like a wild animal. They've brough big shields and protective gear, but it's all nothing. Zed is all bark and no bite – he is in control now, by some unknown miracle. Or maybe he is just spent and defeated, worn down by days and nights of restless activity in his tiny grey cell.
They shock him twice before he'll come to his senses, two pulses of something a little sharper than what the average Z-band is handing out. It's a brave man that grabs his arm ten seconds later (a cowardly man counts the seconds aloud, standing back by the door where he can be the first to escape. Eliza wonders if he would lock it behind him, never mind the five people he would leave behind). The brave one works quickly and efficiently, snapping the Z-band around Zed's wrist and leaping back to safety right on the twelve second marker. It takes five more for the band to turn on and resume its duties.
In twenty seven seconds, Zed comes back, shaking and gasping for air, groping blindly for the frame of the bed to stop himself from falling over. The count stops there. The humans retreat.
"What is – what-?" he asks in Zombietongue, struggling to spit out the most basic of syllables, and stares at the Zombie Patrol officers in alarm. "Where am I?"
Most of them don't understand, of course – why would Zombie Patrol bother to speak Zombietongue? One prods him with the end of a taser that looks more like a cattle prod, and snaps at him to, "Speak English!" The one next to her rolls his eyes, and sets a hand on the long stick in her grasp.
"You are in…Containment," he says in their native tongue, struggling with the shapes of the words and their derogatory word for Zombie Containment, which more accurately translates to prison. "For damaging your Z-band, and for going offline in a human-zoned area. Can you speak English?"
Zed frowns, his face scrunched up in effort. "N-not…me," he manages to spit out, his throat raw and his tongue too still to make the syllables. English is naturally very hard for Zombies, especially back when Z-bands were first invented. That was why they had Zombietongue, and why it requires fewer words to get a point across, and less sounds for a tongue to get confused by. It was easier for the stiff mouths of the first 'humanised' zombies to speak.
It's cruel of them, really, to expect Zed to speak to them in English, a language that is already complicated, when they have left him a full zombie for the better part of a week. It will take hours for the Z-band to make its adjustments, to rewire his brain and teach his body to relax again. It might take days for him to remember what happened, if he ever will. She doesn't know what it's like for someone to spend a few days without a Z-band. She only knows the stories from the outbreak, what it was like for the first zombies to return to humanity after years of being what they were.
Well, humanity. That was offensive – they had never returned to being human, not once they'd been shunned to their side of the wall once and for all. They'd become something new, started working on whatever it is they are today. But…no, she's getting caught up in the technicalities. They are zombies. No one knows enough about their condition to know what Zed will be like in a few hours, days, weeks. No one that should know the answers cares enough to find out in a way that doesn't break the ethics of science, and Zed may have put all their lives in danger, but he doesn't deserve to be a lab rat.
She looks over at Bonzo. He is huddled in a corner, hands over his head, scared that the humans might come for him next. Her heart aches, and she longs to go over there and comfort him, but there's nothing she can do. She slumps back onto her bed and returns to her week-long study of the ceiling, trying not to listen to the stupid humans next door.
ooo
Zed tries.
She listens all day as he struggles against the limitations of his own body, the post-zombie weakness that makes his limps shake and his throat tight, that would be draining all his energy before he could even realise he's tired. She tries to watch him too, for a little while, half-hoping this indomitable will he seems to have found will push him through the worst of it – and then, as the day wears on, she stands at the window and wishes he would realise that if he only stopped and let his body catch up for a minute, he would probably get further faster.
Zed ignores her until she gives up on watching him completely and slumps back on her bed. Even then, she can still hear him occasionally, struggling on and on to form one word, to walk the four steps across his cell without a limp or a drag, or collapsing entirely. He works himself to the bone, for so long that she almost learns to ignore him in kind – except that she can't, because even though she's unexplainably angry at him, she's still worried about him.
When it goes quiet, she gets up and peers through the window. He is face-down on the bed, arms cushioning his head. She's not entirely sure if he's asleep or having some sort of meltdown over his inability to walk and talk, but she can't do anything, just like she couldn't do anything for Bonzo. She sits back down, and waits.
ooo
Somewhere in the middle of day six, a human opens the door and tells her they are taking her home.
"We're going home?" Eliza questions, barely able to believe it.
"Yes," the woman confirms. "Technically, you are classified as minors, and your case has been dropped, so you're free to leave."
Technically, Eliza thinks to herself and almost laughs. "We are minors," she points out as she steps through the door. "Just like every other kid in Seabrook."
"You're zombies," the woman replies, with an expression that says she's not interested in anything Eliza has to say. Eliza feels the urge to throw something down the hall.
"Elizika!"
Bonzo tackles her from the right, hugging her so tight that he almost lifts her off the ground. Laughing, she wriggles around in his grip so that she can hug him back, and buries her face in the front of his coveralls. This is what she's been missing. There's nothing like a Bonzo hug, even when he's just about squeezing the life out of you, and at the end of the worst week of her life, it's just the sort of comfort she needs.
"What…about…me…Bonz-?" Zed struggles to speak somewhere ahead of her, and Bonzo lets go, whipping around to find their other friend, their missing piece. He's still by the door to his cell, swaying uncertainly with a hand pressed against the wall. He doesn't look like himself, even now, but he's smiling, and when Bonzo wraps his arms around him, he doesn't argue.
Eliza is decidedly cooler. She waits with crossed arms while they hug and assure each other that they are safe, they are okay. Bonzo hugs Zed again, and then slings one of his arms around his shoulders and helps him stumble the last few steps between the door and her.
She looks him up and down. It's clear in his face, in the bright spark that has returned to his eyes, that he is hoping she will greet him like she normally would, that she will forgive him and act like he hadn't risked all their lives and everything they've worked for. "You look terrible," is all she says though, in a voice that isn't particularly friendly.
His face drops. "I've been – zombie-" he struggles out, then frowns at the way half his words disappear before he can speak them.
"I know," she says. "Doesn't mean I forgive you."
"Eliza-" he begins, and she's pretty sure that he wants to apologise, but the frustration of it, the regret in his voice, fills up his throat and the words just don't seem to come out, no matter how hard he tries. It's hard to relax, Eliza guesses, when you're coming down from a five-day zombie high and your best friend wants nothing to do with you (she feels kind of bad then, because it occurs to her that there's a distinct possibility he doesn't even remember what he did to anger her – but then her pride gets in the way, and she decides she can't soften now, not when he hasn't admitted he was wrong).
"Elizika," Bonzo says softly, drawing her attention. "Not Zed's fault."
"Isn't it?" she asks, and turns a pointed glare towards Zed. Behind her, the Zombie Patrol officer sighs loudly and pokes her in the shoulder with the blunt end of a baton.
"That's enough," the woman says. "Down the hall, zombies, before I change my mind."
"Elizika," Zed says, one final attempt at gaining her favour. The baton taps her shoulder again, two hard raps against the flat of her shoulder blade.
"Grugze, Zebala," she snaps and then turns and walks away, not caring if Bonzo is actually able to carry him out of the building or not.
She waits alone in the back of a truck for them, staring at the wall opposite her. Fuming. She's angry at Zed, for what he's done, and she's angry at the humans for what they're doing – blaming zombies for something humans are ultimately responsible for, poking and prodding them like bears in a cage. And she's mad at herself, for always going along with whatever stupid idea Zed brings her, for letting herself be convinced that he's going to change things and this time he definitely won't mess it up. For sitting back and waiting around for someone else to do the work again, when she's known all along that protests and rebelling against the system, open demonstrations of their frustrations with the zombie way of life, is the only thing that will make the humans treat them fairly once and for all.
The boys come eventually; Bonzo helps Zed into a seat a safe distance from her, and then sits himself across from her. They sit in silence the whole ride home, except from the odd noise from Zed as he tries to clear his throat and find his voice again. As they reach Zombietown proper, he starts a conversation with Bonzo, his voice getting stronger with every sentence he drags out. Eliza pointedly ignores whatever they are talking about.
It's a relief when the doors are opened and they step out into the weak sunshine of a cloud-ridden afternoon. Eliza stands in the street and stretches, drinking in the sunshine and the slight chill of the breeze that rattles the roof of a nearby house. Just down the street, there is movement at her own house as her mum comes out – she doesn't go much past the front step, wary of the Zombie Containment officers around them, but she is there. She is waiting. Eliza longs to go to her.
"Sweet, Eliza, they have wifi now!"
She turns around to find Zed showing her his Z-band, and the display with all of its new capabilities. His speech is miles better now that he's had some time to warm up into it, and someone to talk to other than himself, and he's walking on his own – though he's got a stiffness to his stride that isn't usually there, and a draggy foot worse than hers ever has been.
The fact that he's speaking to her like this is any old conversation stokes the fire in her gut again. She wants him to be unhappy for a little while longer yet. To actually regret the things he's done and the consequences of them.
But he's her friend, and she shouldn't wish pain upon her friends, so she bites back about her revolution and then walks away before she can say anything she'll regret. She runs to her mum, to be enveloped in her worried arms, and then she lets herself be escorted inside, without a single glance back to let Zed know she cares.
ooo
A/N: Thankyou for reading! Please leave a review if you made it this far. Find me on tumblr zombiedadjokes :)