They die / we die.
A noise rises from where the skeleton’s throat would be, a crowing sound full of pride and reproach and stiff, rigid righteousness. It says everything it and the rest of the Boneys have to say, their motto and mantra. It says, I rest my case, and That’s the way it is, and Because I said so.
Looking straight into its eye sockets, I let the photos fall to the floor. I rub my fingers against each other as if trying to brush off some dirt.
The skeleton does not react. It just stares at me with that horrible, hollow stare, so utterly motionless it seems to have stopped time. The dark hum in its bones dominates everything, a low sine wave prickling with sour overtones. And then, so abruptly it makes me jump, the creature pivots away and rejoins its comrades. It barks out one last horn blast, and the Boneys descend the escalator. The rest of the Dead disperse, sneaking hungry glances at Julie. M is the last to go. He scowls at me, then lumbers away. Julie and I are alone.
I turn to face her. Now that the situation has settled and the blood on the floor is drying, I’m finally able to contemplate what’s happening here, and somewhere deep in my chest, my heart wheezes. I gesture towards what I assume is the ‘Departures’ sign and give Julie a questioning look, unable to hide the hurt behind it.
Julie looks at the floor. ‘It’s been a few days,’ she mumbles. ‘You said a few days.’
‘Wanted to . . . take you home. Say goodbye.’
‘What difference does it make? I had to leave. I mean, I can’t stay here. You realise that, right?’
Yes. Of course I realise that.
She’s right, and I’m ridiculous.
And yet . . .
But what if . . .
I want to do something impossible. Something astounding and unheard of. I want to scrub the moss off the Space Shuttle and fly Julie to the moon and colonise it, or float a capsized cruise ship to some distant island where no one will protest us, or just harness the magic that brings me into the brains of the Living and use it to bring Julie into mine, because it’s warm in here, it’s quiet and lovely, and in here we aren’t an absurd juxtaposition, we are perfect.
She finally meets my eyes. She looks like a lost child, confused and sad. ‘But thanks for uh . . . saving me. Again.’
With great effort, I pull out of my reverie and give her a smile. ‘Any . . . time.’
She hugs me. It’s tentative at first, a little scared, and yes, a little repulsed, but then she melts into it. She rests her head against my cold neck and embraces me. Unable to believe what’s happening, I put my arms around her and just hold her.
I almost swear I can feel my heart thumping. But it must just be hers, pressed tight against my chest.
We walk back to the 747. Nothing has been resolved, but she’s agreed to postpone her escape. After the messy scene we just caused, it seems prudent to lay low for a bit. I don’t know exactly how much the Boneys will object to the irregularity Julie represents, because this is the first time anyone has challenged them. My case has no precedent.
We enter a connecting hallway suspended over a parking lot, and Julie’s hair dances in the wind whistling through shattered windows. Decorative indoor shrub beds have been overrun with wild daisies. Julie sees them, smiles, picks a handful. I pluck one from her hands and clumsily stick it in her hair. It still has its leaves, and it protrudes awkwardly from the side of her head. But she leaves it in.
‘Do you remember what it was like living with people?’ she asks as we walk. ‘Before you died?’
I wave a hand in the air vaguely.
‘Well, it’s changed. I was ten when my home town got overrun and we came here, so I remember what it used to be like. Things are so different now. Everything’s gotten smaller and more cramped, noisier and colder.’ She pauses at the end of the overpass and looks out the empty windows at a pale sunset. ‘We’re all corralled in the Stadium with nothing to think about but surviving to the end of the day. No one writes, no one reads, no one really even talks.’ She spins the daisies in her hands, sniffs one. ‘We don’t have flowers any more. Just crops.’
I look out of the opposite windows, at the dark side of the sunset. ‘Because of us.’
‘No, not because of you. I mean, yeah, because of you, but not just you. Do you really not remember what it was like before? All the political and social breakdowns? The global flooding? The wars and riots and constant bombings? The world was pretty far gone before you guys even showed up. You were just the final judgement.’
‘But we’re . . . what’s killing you. Now.’
She nods. ‘Sure, zombies are the most obvious threat. The fact that almost everyone who dies comes back and kills two more people . . . yeah, that’s some grim math. But the root problem has to be bigger than that, or maybe smaller, more subtle, and killing a million zombies isn’t going to fix it, because there’s always going to be more.’
Two Dead appear from around a corner and lunge at Julie. I crack their heads together and drop them, wondering if I might have studied martial arts in my old life. I seem to be a lot stronger than my lean frame suggests.
‘My dad doesn’t care about any of that,’ Julie continues as we walk down the loading tunnel and enter the plane. ‘He was an army general back when the government was still going on, so that’s how he thinks. Locate the threat, kill the threat, wait for orders from the big-picture people. But since the big picture is gone and the people who drew it are all dead, what are we supposed to do now? No one knows, so we do nothing. Just salvage supplies, kill zombies, and expand our walls further out into the city. Basically, Dad’s idea of saving humanity is building a really big concrete box, putting everybody in it, and standing at the door with guns until we get old and die.’ She flops across a seat and takes a deep breath, lets it out again. She sounds so tired. ‘I mean, obviously, staying alive is pretty f**king important,’ she says. ‘But there’s got to be something beyond that, right?’