Deadline

  “Are you blaming her?”

  “I’m blaming myself.”

  “Good.” Maggie nodded, looking satisfied. “You’re both adults, and it’s none of my business what you do, as long as nobody’s getting hurt. Becks got hurt. Maybe she should have been more careful about weighing the risks, but that doesn’t matter right now. You need to apologize to her. You need to make this right, because if you wait for her to get better on her own, I don’t think you’re going to be able to work together anymore.”

  “Yeah, I can do that.” I would even mean it. Becks deserved a hell of a lot better than the way I’d treated her, whether I meant to treat her badly or not.

  She deserved a hell of a lot better than me.

  “I’m glad.” Maggie stepped forward and hugged me. Her hair smelled lie I was fonilla and strawberries. She held on just long enough that I was starting to get uncomfortable before letting go and turning to start taking groceries out of bags, leaving me blinking dumbly after her. Catching my look, she arched her eyebrows, and said, “Well? What are you waiting for? Get out there and talk to her. Go.”

  I went.

  The grass was damp, probably from some overnight rainfall, and my boots were wet by the time I’d crossed it to Maggie’s van, which sat in the driveway with doors open and groceries on the front seat. There was nobody there. I turned to look around, unsurprised to see footprints in the wet grass leading away, toward Maggie’s vegetable garden.

  I followed the trail all the way around the house and to the edge of the carefully tilled plot of ground that Maggie used for growing vegetables and fresh herbs. A few pre-Rising park benches had been set up inside the garden border, providing a decorative touch of retro chic to the place. Becks was sitting on the bench farthest from where I stood, her back to me. I wasn’t quiet as I approached her, and she didn’t move. I guess she’d been expecting me.

  “Hey,” I said, when I was close enough. “You mind if I sit down?”

  “Yes, I do mind.” She turned in my direction, tilting her chin up as she looked at me. Her eyes were only a little bloodshot. She’d clearly mastered the Irwin art of crying without making yourself look bad for the cameras. That just made me feel worse. “But I guess we have to do this, so you might as well.” She scooted to the side, waving a hand in invitation.

  “Thanks.” I sat, letting my hands rest on my knees. Silence fell between us. She was waiting for me to start, and I had no clue how.

  Say you’re sorry, prompted George.

  She’d never led me wrong before. “I’m sorry, Becks. I mean, Jesus, I’m so fucking sorry, I don’t think I can even say it. I was stupid, and I was selfish, and I’m sorry.”

  Becks took a shaky breath. There was an edge of laughter to her voice when she spoke, like she couldn’t quite believe that we were doing this. “So that’s it? You’re sorry? I knew you had issues, Shaun, and I’m a big girl—I thought I could handle them. I guess I was wrong. I shouldn’t blame you for that.” But I do. The subtext in her words was impossible to miss, even for me.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t blame me, but I should still have been smart enough to tell you that it wasn’t a good idea for us to be… intimate like that.”

  “You mean we shouldn’t have fucked like bunnies?”

  I coughed, partly from surprise, partly to cover the phantom sound of George’s laughter. “Uh, that, too. I just… I guess I wasn’t expecting it and does that sound unbelievably lame, or is it just me?”

  Becks frowned, slowly. “You really mean that, don’t you? You really had no idea.”

  “No idea of what?”

  She stared for a moment before letting her chin drop and saying, “Oh, my God. You really had no idea.”

  I was starting to get concerned. Apologizing for something I knew I’d done was one thing—I may not have much experience with girls, but I’m smart enough to know that calling them by somebody else’s name is never a good thing, especially when that somebody else is dead and also technically my sister. Apologizing for something I didn’t know I’d done was a bit more of a problem, if only because I couldn’t be sure I was doing it right. “Uh, Becks, I’m sorry, but you’re kinda losing me here. I’m happy to keep apologizing, but I do need to know what I’m apologizing for.”

  This time her laughter was bright and brittle, like broken glass glinting in the sunlight. “I’ve been throwing myself at you for months, Shaun. The flirting, the frilly tops, the requests for hands-on review of my reports—I mean, what the hell did you think I was doing?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “I figured you just wanted to make sure your facts were solid before you posted, and all that frilly stuff looked like a girl thing. Sort of like the way you wear your hair.”

  “I wasn’t getting any ratings based on what I wore to work,” she said.

  I shrugged.

  Becks sighed. “Fine. So you wrote all that off. What about the flirting? Did you write that off as ‘a girl thing,’ too?”

  If I was telling the truth, I might as well go for the whole truth. I was pretty sure it couldn’t get me into any more trouble than I was already in. “Until you showed up and took my towel away, I really didn’t notice.”

  “If Dave weren’t dead, I’d owe him ten bucks.” Becks looked away from me, staring out at the forest past the fence. It looked completely untamed; Maggie’s security precautions were very well concealed. “He said you didn’t get it. I thought you were playing hard to get.”

  “That’s what Alaric said, too. I’m really sorry. I never did the whole flirting thing.”

  “No, I guess you didn’t, did you?” She slanted a sidelong glance my way, considering me. “You didn’t need to.”

  I thought about lying to her. After everything else, there didn’t seem to be any point. “No, I guess I didn’t.”

  She nodded, once, mouth twisting in that too-damn-familiar way before she went back to looking at the forest. I hated that look. I’d hated it on every face that I’d ever seen wearing it. The one that said, clearly, “But she’s your sister,” and ignored the part where she was also the only person who’d ever really given a damn what I thought. About anything.

  Finally, in a soft, almost contemplative tone, Becks said, “I guess I sort of knew, deep down. Maybe that’s why you were so safe to chase. I didn’t think I’d ever have a chance to catch you.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I settled for what seemed like the safest of my available options. “I’m sorry.”

  “I am, too, Shaun. Believe me, I am too. I… I know we can’t exactly go back to the way things were. That’s my fault as much as it is yours, I guess. I just don’t know…”

  “How we’re supposed to go on from here?” I ventured. She nodded. I bit back the urge to laugh, mostly because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop again. “Dude, Becks, I’ve been asking myself that question pretty much every day since George died.”

  “Have you figured out the answer yet?”

  “There isn’t one.” I slumped against the back of the bench, tilting my head back until I couldn’t see anything but sky, going on for what might as well have been forever. “I figure I’ll just keep on going the way I am until something starts making sense.”

  “What if nothing ever does?”

  “I guess if that happens, I’ll start hoping all the God freaks are right, and there’s some superior intelligence up there treating us all like laboratory rats.”

  Fabric rustled against wood as Becks turned to peer at me. I couldn’t see her, but I knew her well enough to know exactly what her expression looked like: confusion mixed with wary suspicion that whatever I said next was going to be so completely off the wall that she couldn’t stand to hear it. Finally, she said, “Why are you going to start looking for God?”

  “I didn’t say I was going to start looking. If there’s a God, there are plenty of people who know where he is.” I shrugged, still watching the sky. It was easier than watching Becks. “I
just want to know that he’s there, so that I can die knowing there’s going to be someone I can punch in the mouth on the other end.”

  Becks laughed. Some of the tension in my shoulders slipped away. I’d done a terrible thing to her, but I didn’t mean to, and the tone of her laughter told me that maybe—despite everything—we could manage to be okay again. She was right; we’d never be exactly the same kind of okay that we were before. But we’d be more okay, and that was better than nothing.

  Violence isn’t the only solution, George said. She sounded as relieved as I felt.

  “Sometimes it’s the most fun one,” I answered, without thinking about it. Becks stopped laughing. I tensed, looking away from the sky and back to her as I waited for us to start arguing again.

  Instead, she just looked at me. Her eyes were hazel. I’d never noticed that before—not really. That made me feel even worse about what we’d done. I should never have slept with her if I couldn’t even remember the color of her eyes. “You’re pretty lucky, you know,” she said.

  I blinked at her. “What?”

  “Most people, we lose the people that we love, and they’re just gone. We don’t get to have them anymore. But you…” She raised a hand, brushing her fingertips across my forehead. Her skin was cool. “She’s always going to be there for you, isn’t she? As long as you live.”

  “I don’t know how to live in a world that doesn’t have her in it,” I said. My voice came out raw with a longing that surprised me. I never start thinking I’m getting over losing her. It still startles me sometimes, when I realize just how damn much I miss her.

  “Here’s hoping you never have to.” Becks stood. “We’re okay, Shaun. Or at least, I’m okay, and I’d like you to be okay with me.”

  I nodded. “I’d like that.”

  “Good. I’ll go tell Maggie that we talked things through.” She hesitated, and then added, “Keep the guest room. I’ll sleep on the couch tonight.” She shoved her hands into her pockets and walked away before I could say anything, footsteps plodding heavily on the damp garden earth. I watched her go, and then sagged back into the bench, closing my eyes.

  “When do things get to be simple again, George?” I whispered. “Ever?”

  They weren’t simple to begin with, she said.

  I didn’t have a comeback for that, and so I just sat in the sunlight in the garden and breathed in the smell of rain-soaked grass, waiting for the world to slow down. Just a little bit. Just long enough to let us rest before the next storm came crashing through. Was that really so much to ask? I just wanted to rest.

  Just for a little while.

  Things it is not polite to discuss at the dinner table: politics, religion, and the walking dead.

  Things we wind up discussing at the dinner table every single night: politics, religion, and the walking dead. Along with small-caliber versus large-caliber weapons for field use, personal security gear, Maggie’s garden, our ratings, and vehicle maintenance. It’s very claustrophobic and intense, with everyone on top of everybody else pretty much all the time. There’s no real privacy, and there’s so much security on the house that getting out is almost as big a production as getting in. It’s like a fucked-up combination of prison and summer camp.

  Is it weird that this is what I always dreamed the news would be like? Because, God, maybe I’m fucked in the head or something, but this is the most fun I’ve ever had. I want someone to remind me I said that when it all turns around and bites us in the ass.

  —From Charming Not Sincere, the blog of Rebecca Atherton, May 9, 2041. Unpublished.

  Check it out, folks! I can add “survived an unplanned zombie encounter while visiting the CDC to discuss the outbreak in Oakland” to my résumé! Not to brag or anything, but why don’t you all download my reports, and then go fill out your Golden Steve-o nominations for the year? I’ll be your best friend…

  —From Charming Not Sincere, the blog of Rebecca Atherton, May 9, 2041

  Seventeen

  Five days ticked by with little fanfare. Becks and I went shooting in the woods outside of town, clearing out a mixed mob of zombie humans and cows. Once the disease takes over, species isn’t an issue anymore. Maggie spent a lot of time writing poetry, weeding her garden, and avoiding Kelly, who took over the dining room table with Dr. Abbey’s research and kept muttering things none of the rest of us could understand. Alaric hung out with her, listening, taking notes, and nodding a lot. It was almost unnerving, in a geeky sort of way.

  Those five days may have been the last good time for us. Maybe the universe had been listening when I made my wish out in the garden; I don’t know. I just know that I asked for time to rest, and somehow, miraculously, I actually got it. Nothing exploded. There were no outbreaks and no emergencies, nothing to pull us away from the difficult task of turning ourselves back into a team. The hours turned into days, and the days blended together, distinguished from each other only by the activity in the forums and the reports we were posting.

  Kelly continued her series of guest articles under the Barbara Tinney byline. It wasn’t exactly a runaway hit, but it was popular—surprisingly so. I always forget how much people like getting excuses for their crazy. The profits Kelly’s column brought in went directly to Maggie, where they could help pay for our room and board. She snorted and waved it off like it was no big thing. She also took the money. It made me feel a little bit less guilty about the way we were intruding.

  Becks moved into the study, saying that the air mattress was better for her back than the couch was for mine. That meant I could move to the guest room, which was a relief, since I wasn’t really sleeping in the living room. And I needed my sleep. I went to bed every night with my head stuffed full of science, and woke up every morning ready to cram in some more. I needed to understand the research Dr. Abbey had given us. More important, I needed to understand the research Mahir was hopefully sweet-talking some British professor into doing. If I was going to march everyone off to get themselves killed on my behalf, I was by God going to be certain I knew what they were dying for. It was the only promise I could make that I felt reasonably sure of being able to keep.

  When I wasn’t studying, I was making calls. My little team of reporters might not have much in the way of manpower, but we had connections, and it was time to exploit them. Rick’s ascent from Newsie to vice president of the United States isn’t a normal career path for either a journalist or a politician, but hey, it’s worked out pretty well for him. I started calling his office, once a day at first, then twice a day, until it became clear that he wasn’t going to call me back. That wasn’t like him. Not even a little bit. And that worried me.

  The days rolled on. Alaric started a series on the rise of digital profiling and its applications in the medical field. Becks took a trip up into Washington, looking for zombies she could harass on camera; she came back with powder burns, bruises, and twice as many articles about her adventures. Reading the first one made my throat get tight with half a dozen emotions it was hard to put into words. That used to be me running into the woods to play tag with zombie deer and gathering “no shit, there I was” stories from truckers who remembered the roads during the Rising. That used to be all I wanted in the world. Everything changed when George died. Sometimes I read the articles that Becks posts and I wonder whether the man I used to be would even recognize the one I’m becoming. I don’t think he’d like the new me very much.

  I know I don’t.

  I told Mahir and Maggie about the silence from Rick’s office, and they agreed that it was best if we kept it between us, at least for now. Everyone was freaked out enough without adding that little wrinkle to the mix. Maggie’s Fictionals didn’t help; at some point, she’d given at least half of them the all-clear. They went back to dropping in without warning, appearing on the doorstep and in the kitchen like they’d been there all along. Most of them brought pizza, or cookies, or samosas. I’d never met two-thirds of them before, even though they were all techn
ically part of the site staff. They walked on eggshells around everyone but Maggie, and we started using their visits as excuses for equipment repair and trips into Weed for more groceries. Once their grindhouse parties got started, they could go for hours, watching crappy pre-Rising horror movies and eating gallons of popcorn. I didn’t realize how antisocial I was becoming until the Fictionals started to descend, and all I could think of was how quickly I could get away.

  The bug at the Portland CDC yielded nothing useful; either they’d managed to find and destroy it, or it hadn’t survived the decontamination process. One more possible information source down the drain. The worms Alaric activated back in Oakland were doing a little bit better. They kept finding old research papers and short-lived projects buried in the bowels of one server or another. We added them to the data we already had, and kept on working.

  Mahir had a few local scientists who were willing to at least discuss the situation with him; he didn’t tell us their names, and I didn’t press. There were some things I was better off not knowing until I had to. It seemed to be going well, at least in the beginning, but after the second day, he stopped calling or e-mailing. His reports still went up on time, and he still did his time on the forums—from the outside, everything looked fine—but he wasn’t keeping up normal contact.

  Don’t push him, said George. I listened, more out of habit than because I agreed with her. She was usually right about when I needed to wait and when it was okay to barrel on ahead. I just wasn’t sure how much longer my patience could last.