Zombified 1: The Bitten

  Chapter Six

  Miranda

  MIRANDA SAT IN her sparse living room, pouring over the careful notes she had taken over the past week and writing occasional corrections or additions in the margins.

  Luke had returned every single night since their meeting on Day 3 of her impromptu study. He still had not been able to form words, but his periods of lucidity seemed to be getting longer. Some of the items she brought did not get as strong of a response from him as others.

  So as she waited for the sky to darken and the light of her lamp to guide him out of the forest, she studied her notes for a pattern, any clue as to what was happening in his brain.

  Luke's stronger reactions seemed to be based on whatever sense he was using in relation to an item. Sounds and visuals-like his favorite songs and photos of people he knew-drew mixed responses. Much like the volunteers in Miranda and her father's first study, the closer Luke's personal tie with something, the more clarity he seemed to regain.

  Pictures of his old acquaintances got little reaction, but seeing Miranda quieted his involuntary yowls and twitches. Sometimes, he even seemed to be trying to form words, though he could not manage more than monosyllables like "mm" or "ihh."

  Scents by far elicited the most powerful reactions from him.

  The night before, Miranda had brought out a bottle of the perfume he had most liked when they had first started dating. At the faintest whiff, Luke straightened his back into a nearly normal stance. Though his mouth had grimaced at the effort, he almost stood as tall as she once knew him.

  His eyes had focused on her with a longing she had forgotten, and then flooded with tears. Miranda had lost track of how long they had stood like that, the humming electric wires between them, as tears poured down Luke's grimacing face.

  Afterwards, when she had finally fallen asleep that night, she was still weeping uncontrollably.

  A quick knock on the door wrenched Miranda's attention up from her notes, and by the time she stood up, her parents were already walking in the door. Jumping up, she stood in front of the side table drawer and threw her notebook into it. Too late, she realized her window was still open, through which Luke would show up at any minute.

  "Hi, Em!" Her father grinned as he stepped inside, followed by her mother.

  "Sorry to barge in," her mother said, tugging off a gray cardigan, "but your father said you weren't feeling well today, and we didn't see you at dinner..." Pausing inside the entryway, Miranda's mother studied her with one raised eyebrow. Thin and refined, Linda Miller was an imposing woman to stare down. "Is everything all right?"

  Pulling together a tight smile, Miranda took a step away from the side table, where her hand had been subconsciously trying to hide the drawer. "Yeah, Mom, I'm fine. I just didn't get much sleep last night. Um, sorry about dinner."

  "Well, when you didn't call, we started getting worried. You haven't quite been yourself lately."

  Gently lifting her mother's cardigan from her arms, Miranda's father hung it on the coat hook. "Well, Linda, she did just have that... encounter. Give her some leeway."

  Her mother brushed her fingertips across her father's elbow. "Yes, Donnie, I know." She turned to Miranda again. "Still, we haven't seen you in a while outside of work, and-Miranda, why are you standing like that?"

  Eyebrows raised, Miranda glanced down at herself. Without noticing, she had moved directly in front of the window and crossed her arms like she was guarding something outside. "Like what?"

  Fixing her in the one-eyebrow scrutiny again, her mother strode up to the window and peered over her shoulder. "Like you're trying to hide something. Did you see one of them outside again?"

  "Mother, please!" She tried to block the view, but Miranda was a slight wisp in comparison with her mother-even in her growing age, Linda could easily see over her daughter's head.

  Her father approached the window as well, and the two surrounded and peered over her. "There is someone out there," he said. "Another Taken, in this same spot?"

  Stepping back, her father glanced down at Miranda's fiercely blushing face. She hated that her face always betrayed her at every emotion, even her frustration. Her father's gaze softened. "Is it Luke again?"

  Miranda turned her face to the floor as both her parents stared at her, but she knew there was no use trying to lie to either of them. She bobbed her head in a tiny nod.

  Her parents looked at each other in silent communication, and Miranda could read them as well as they could read her. She knew they were both balancing their scientific curiosity with their concern over her if they brought up more painful memories.

  She also knew they had both realized, as she did, that it could not be an accident that the same supposedly mindless Taken had come to this place-a supposedly random spot in the Sanctuary by a generic house-more than once.

  "I-I think he remembers me," Miranda answered them before they could draw up the courage to ask.

  "Oh, honey." Her mother brushed back a frizzed strand of hair, stroking her cheek. "I know how much you want to think that, and I wish it could be true too, but we know there's just no coming back from-"

  "No!" Torquing her head away from her mother's hand, Miranda met her pity with ferocity. "He does remember me! I'm not imagining it. Look." She pulled her notebook from the drawer and handed it to them.

  Skimming through a couple of pages, her father's face smoothed into an unreadable blank. He raised his eyes to her. "You're recreating our study."

  Her mother shook her head, the corners of her lips creasing. "That was ended for a reason." As much as Linda supported her husband and daughter, Dr. Linda Miller, Chief of Staff had been the final say in shutting down their failed study. "Any kind of reaction that looked like memory recovery was random or coincidental at best-"

  "But there must be more to it than that! Maybe we just didn't set up the experiment right the first time."

  "Miranda." Letting her father take the notebook, her mother softly touched Miranda's shoulder. "I realize how personal this is for you, and that's partly why I had to cancel Donnie's and your study. You can't think clearly when the issue is so close-there's too much bias."

  Miranda sighed and leaned her head back, wanting to look out the window but staring at the ceiling instead. She could almost feel Luke standing out there, watching them through the window, his mind a quagmire battleground in which he wandered confused and terrified.

  "What if there isn't enough bias?" She aimed the question partly at her mother, and partly to herself. "Maybe that was the problem with our original study. Maybe showing them items one at a time in an impersonal, sterile lab isn't enough. What if they need actual contact with someone they know, someone they-love?"

  Her mother pursed her lips. "Honey, I don't-"

  "No, wait, Linda. She might be on to something." Having studied Miranda's notes during their conversation, her father held up a page. "These observations match the patterns we were starting to see with some of our volunteers. But we were too afraid of contamination at that time, before we knew the disease was only transmitted through biting. We never let any family or friends visit. Maybe we were missing some kind of human touch."

  With a sigh, Miranda's mother quickly skimmed the page. "Need I remind you two of the beginning of the outbreak? When people were allowed to keep their Taken relatives in their houses, because they seemed to remember better? And what happened with that?"

  Her father twisted one edge of his mouth. "Well, maybe it takes a combination of factors. Those incidents were hardly in a controlled environment, anyway. Just because we haven't gotten the solution exactly right yet doesn't mean the entire idea is wrong."

  A heavy pause settled over them as Miranda and her father watched her mother's reaction. Her forehead smoothed and wrinkled in degrees as she struggled through her own internal debate.

  Miranda met her father's eyes, and tilted his head in an almost imperceptible nod.

  "Mom, I know Luke is still
in there. There have been moments when I've seen it. And as long as there's a chance-any chance at all-that I can bring him back, I'm going to continue what I'm doing. With our without your approval."

  Filling her lungs with an enormous, slow breath, her mother slumped her shoulders. "All right, do what you will. Apparently it's not enough for me to warn you that it's illegal to try to contact a Taken in a Sanctuary. But this will not affect your work in the lab, and this will all stay absolutely secret. All of our reputations could be ruined if this turns out to be another failure."

  Nodding, Miranda tried to smile but swallowed an unexpected sob instead. Stern expression suddenly smoothed, her mother wrapped her arms around Miranda and softly smoothed a cowlick on the back of her head.

  Whispering into her hair, she said, "Just between you and me, I hope you're right."