Dearly, Departed

  I had to get the Grays out of the hut before he realized that he was looking his ultimate fate dead in the eye. I had to keep him in the moment.

  “Look,” I said, turning to face them. I tried to inject some authority into my voice. “I will take this gentleman here to be my guard. If I’m to do any work for your leader, I’m going to need another pair of legs.”

  The Grays snarled. I figured they’d gotten the gist of my statement and weren’t happy at the idea of being kicked out.

  I stood my ground. “What help can you offer me, hmm? Do you even understand what I am telling you now? I am sorry to insult your intelligence, but really, you’re only going to get in the way. This isn’t the largest laboratory I’ve ever had to work in. Mr. Macumba has his orders. He’ll watch over me.”

  The shorter of the two gave me a skeptical look—a response that impressed me, honestly, as it told me there were still gears grinding about in his head somewhere. He looked at his partner and rolled his shoulders. He seemed to understand. After a moment of unintelligible deliberation, the Grays stepped through the door and began to shuffle away, in the direction of the longhouse.

  When they were gone, I put a hand on Henry’s shoulder. “Mr. Macumba, I shall do everything in my power to help you, if you will help me in turn. I do not plan on remaining here, a helpless prisoner. I am here by my own stupidity, and thus it falls to me to take responsibility for my own escape. My daughter, who lives still, is out there. It will take more than a ramshackle wall of wood and the engineerings of an undead madman to keep me from her.”

  I could see that Henry’s eyes burned with the realization of what must have happened. “Can … can we … you … they said you died … I … I can’t feel …”

  “We are not destined to become monsters, Mr. Macumba,” I said, gripping his shoulder more firmly. “I have been dead for a year now; I left behind others who have been dead far longer than that. And they retain their personalities, their minds. They are good people.”

  The man licked his dry lips. “Then I’m … dead. Like … the others.”

  I nodded. This was always a make-or-break moment. The world seemed to go silent about us, the salt outside the open door glowing bright in the red light of sunset. Henry dropped his eyes and searched his soul.

  He found it, at least for the moment. “I’m … yours.”

  “Good man.” I looked to the boxes. “Somewhere in this mess there must be some water. See if you can find any, and take it with you. Tell Averne that I’ll begin tonight. Keep yourself hydrated. Stay out of the sun. Don’t eat anything, no matter how hungry you might feel. You have no need for food anymore, and your body can do nothing with it. Come back to me once night has truly fallen.”

  Henry nodded, and asked, “And … A-Averne, what do I t-tell him … if he grows angry?”

  I tightened my grip on my newfound crutch. “Tell him what I told the others—that I’m happy to have you watch me, and serve as my assistant, but only on my terms. Or, if you’re feeling lucky … you can tell him that Dearly said he can go to hell.”

  The bastards had cut me open.

  Someone was going to die.

  Die for real.

  I hadn’t noticed it until after breakfast. I suppose being chased and kidnapped by monsters had made me hungry, for I ate more than I planned to. My stomach was still a little wavery. Crumpets and tea were like mother’s milk, exactly what I needed.

  After eating, my attention had turned to the bag. It was an unremarkable canvas satchel, handmade. Inside, I found another note. I wondered at the literacy level of the undead. It appeared to be higher than one would expect.

  Miss Dearly: We’re so glad to have you here! I was so relieved to hear that the mission to rescue you was successful. My name is Dr. Beryl Chase, and I’m still living, just so you know. Please let someone know if you have need of any other clothes or toiletries. I think my shoe size is probably larger than yours, so I threw in some slippers instead.

  —B. Chase

  I dumped the contents of the bag out on the bed. Dr. Chase had provided me with two puff-sleeved dresses of muslin, one with blue stripes and the other covered with pink flowers, as well as a corset, bloomers, stockings, and the aforementioned slippers. In a separate cloth pouch I found little bottles of shampoo and soap and a toothbrush and the like, as well as a tiny brown glass vial of perfumed oil. It smelled of violets and chocolate.

  Yeah, like I needed the zombies to find me any more delicious. That’d be like a cow wearing eau de gravy. Wrinkling my nose, I capped it again.

  I looked at my torn nightgown. I should probably take a shower, if only to make myself feel better. I stood up, my hands drifting automatically to the top button. My fingers were clumsy, bandaged as they were, and the tiny button repeatedly slipped out of my grasp.

  Annoyed, I sat on the edge of the bed and began to unwind the linen bandages. I examined my left palm, once it was unbound. Aside from a long, old scar, a memento from my china doll genocide eight years ago, it was pockmarked with new cuts from where the thorns had dug into my flesh. I curled my hand into a fist and opened it. Nothing serious. Still hurt like the dickens, though.

  It was harder to undo the right set of bandages, with my nondominant hand, but I tugged and worried at them until they finally fell loose. I unwrapped my wrist last, and found, to my surprise, that there was a bit of cotton fluff taped over the side of it. I peeled the surgical tape back to find a short, deep cut—far too clean and deliberate to have come from a thorn. Several neat little stitches held it closed.

  The world stopped for an instant, and I felt my recently eaten breakfast pool in my stomach. What could have cut me there?

  The answer slammed into me, and it was only through sheer resolve that I was not sick again.

  They’d taken my ID chip out.

  Now there was no way anyone could trace my whereabouts.

  “Bram!” I shouted, storming to the door. I started to bang on it, ignoring the searing pain this caused. “Bram!”

  It was five minutes of screaming, slamming myself against the door, and stamping my feet—and a minute of contemplating the cold, horrible idea that I might have to leave the room to find anyone, and maybe this had been their plan all along, and Oh God, Oh God—before I heard Dr. Elpinoy’s nervous voice. “Miss Dearly?”

  I threw myself against the door again. “Bram! I want to talk to … to Captain Griswold, whatever you call him!”

  “Surely, miss, if I can be of any assistance—”

  “I want to talk to Bram! I want to talk to him this instant!” I felt my throat tightening, my voice rising away from my control. The next sound that came out of my mouth amazed me. “Where is he?”

  “Yes, yes, if that’s what you prefer.” Dr. Elpinoy sounded downright scared. “Right away. He’ll be here right away.”

  He disappeared then, and I took to pacing—partially with relief that I wouldn’t have to leave the room after all. He was gone for a minute, five. Another voice appeared at the door, a younger female voice.

  “Miss Dearly, is there anything—”

  Like a child, I hugged my burning hands over my ears. “I won’t talk to anyone but Bram! Get away from me! I want him now!”

  The female voice didn’t answer. I’d never had the chance to experiment before, but it seemed that irrational screaming was enough to make most people scram. Whodathunk?

  Soon I heard heavy footsteps thumping down the hallway. “Miss Dearly?” Bram was at the door. He sounded worried.

  I kicked the door as I let go of my head, ignoring the pain that blossomed in my foot. “What’d you do with my ID chip, Bram?”

  There was silence before he said, “I’m sorry. Does it hurt?”

  “Screw the pain! Where is it?”

  “Coalhouse cut it out while you were still unconscious, in the van.”

  “Bloody hell …”

  “And we … nuked it. To make sure.”

  “Marked.” My face w
as on fire, my limbs shaking. “All of you. I will take all of you out with my own bare hands!”

  There was laughter building in Bram’s voice as he responded. “As cute as I’m sure that would be, your attempt … if we thought the people who might try to trace that chip could make you absolutely, one hundred percent safe, I would carry you to them and hand you over myself.”

  I gingerly rested my fingertips against my forehead, breathing deeply, trying to calm myself down.

  “There are some very bad men out to get you, Miss Dearly.”

  “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “By the way, you have quite the vocabulary, for a princess.” He still sounded amused.

  This statement was random enough to get my attention. “Princess?” I asked, confused.

  “You know, a princess. A New Victorian girl.”

  My lips parted to fire off another question before it clicked. “You’re a Punk.”

  “Born and bred.”

  “Fantastic.”

  “I won’t hold the fact that you’re not a Punk against you, though. We try to get along around here. Dr. Samedi boxes our ears if he overhears intertribal bickering.”

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

  I could hear Bram sitting down on the floor outside again. Something bumped against the door, making it shiver the slightest bit against the locks.

  “Get your feet off the door, peasant,” I said, trying to make myself sound as haughty as possible.

  I could almost hear his grin. “Open the door and make me, princess.”

  I huffed some of my hair out of my eyes and lapsed into silence. That he was a Punk didn’t really change things—the fact that he was a monster was of far more immediate concern.

  “What are you doing?” I asked after a moment.

  “If you’re going to need me, even if it’s just to yell at, I’m going to stay right here.”

  “No. I want to take a shower. I’m not about to if you stay out there.”

  “Excuse me, but—huh? Then there will be two doors between you and me.”

  Some of the blood stayed in my cheeks as I found myself spluttering, “But you’ll know I’m taking a shower!”

  “You just told me you were going to!”

  I flumped onto the floor again, sitting cross-legged, my arms over my chest. “If I ask you a question and give you a lock, will you go away? Look.” I undid one of the locks. “That’s for my summoning you here.”

  He sighed and said, “Sure. Shoot.”

  “Who are these ‘bad people’?”

  Bram was quiet. What he said next seemed completely unrelated to the question. “I’m sorry for going on so long last night.”

  “Going on?”

  “I should have been more … I should have talked less. I didn’t mean to tell you so much in one sitting. I wasn’t kidding about the visual aids … I could do a much better job if you were out here. And geez, Captain Wolfe is going to have my backside for talking to you. But I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  He sounded so apologetic, I almost felt bad. I sat up taller. “Generally, when I ask a question it is because I want information. So you don’t need to feel sorry. You just need to talk.”

  “Okay, then.” I heard him shifting again. “The bad people are mindless, ravenous killing machines that seem to come in three different varieties. There are the lone wolves, seeking prey where they can find it. There are the zombies that seem to have banded loosely together for the purpose of hunting. And then there are those who wear gray uniforms and serve a mysterious leader, whose bases are located who knows where, for reasons completely unknown.”

  “Now, that’s scary,” I said honestly, recalling the uniformed monsters.

  “Exactly.”

  I threw another one of the locks. “And why did they want me?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Guess.”

  “Well, I figure it has to be because you’re immune to the Lazarus.”

  I snorted, even as my heart started to hammer. “How do you know that?”

  “Your father figured it out. You asked me about his bite … Well … he was a carrier. He infected you, at one point. And here you are.”

  The world went dark on the edges of my vision. I lifted my head slowly, to look at the door. For a good ten minutes I forgot how to speak.

  “Excuse me?”

  I knew perfectly well that she had heard me, so I didn’t repeat myself.

  There was the sound of a lock clacking open. “Talk,” she demanded.

  “I wasn’t waiting for a lock. You don’t need to give me one.” I was stalling, because I knew full well that I was overstepping my bounds in explaining everything to her. I’d written the note proposing the stupid game we were now playing in an unthinking moment, when my main concerns were sparing her the shock of finding me outside and, eventually, getting her to move to her father’s quarters.

  “Just do it!”

  I fought the sigh that wanted to rise in my chest. “In biting him, the first host gave your father the Laz. Thing is, it didn’t kill him. Dr. Dearly always told me that he figured it would, given what he’d just witnessed. He put two and two together right away. Sat down and wrote final letters to you and your mother, kept his gun handy. He ended up using it to shoot the ones who did die and wake up.” I paused. I really, really wasn’t sure how much I ought to tell her. Dr. Dearly had become a great friend since we met—he’d taken me into his confidence.

  “I was, what … nine then, when that happened? Eight?”

  “Sounds right, yeah. I don’t know.”

  “He wasn’t home a lot then. He was deployed.” Her voice had taken on a breathy quality. I wondered if she was watching her memories play out just behind her eyes, scouring them for things she hadn’t noticed before.

  Ineffectually licking my lips, I continued. “At first he was ecstatic, figuring that they’d be able to formulate a vaccine or something from his blood. But, turned out he hadn’t fought the sickness and won. It was just … it’s hard to describe. Let’s just say it was making itself at home in his flesh without killing him.” I steepled my fingers together and watched them, rather than the door. “Unfortunately, he was still capable of passing it on. So Protocol D was born.”

  “Protocol D?”

  “ ‘Protocol D,’ ” I began to quote. “ ‘No living person not interested in becoming acquainted with the sensation of his or her own body shutting down shall come into contact with the bodily fluids of Dr. Victor Dearly. This includes, but is not limited to: offering a hand should he cut himself, using his bathroom, or drinking from his I Love New London coffee mug.’ ”

  Nora didn’t respond at first, but then she said, a little stiffly, “Professionally worded, that.”

  “The ones who are well-adjusted ’round here are the smart-asses with an appreciation for gallows humor. Higher-ups not excluded.”

  “Then … that’s why. That’s why we didn’t see him for so long. It seemed like forever before he came home from that tour of duty … not until after he’d saved the PM.”

  “Yeah, he had to go back after that. For his ticker tape parade and all. It’d look odd if he didn’t.”

  “But, I don’t get it. I don’t remember … seeing any monsters, or … or being sick? Or him looking sick. How’d he give it to me? How would he know that he had, if I’m immune? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Holdover King of the World that I am, I took a breath and held it, focusing on the feeling of my lungs expanding with air I couldn’t use. I held off replying for five seconds, ten. I didn’t want to tell her. Why had I started this? I should have just slept in the hall without writing her a word of warning. Let her open the door, see me, and scream. It had been the scream I’d wanted to prevent, but now, looking back, it would have been pretty easy to tolerate. Could have nipped at her ankles for good measure.

  Better yet, I should have just done what Wolfe told me.

  The lack of sound b
ehind the door told me she wasn’t at all certain she wanted to hear the rest of the story, either.

  “Do you remember him being … jumpy, at all?”

  Her continued silence told me I’d hit the nail on the head. It was a minute before she spoke. “I remember … we went out to the park one day after he’d come back. He was looking around at everything so anxiously, as if afraid something was out to get him. My mother had told me, you know, beforehand, ‘Your father hasn’t been home in ever so long, he’s been in the outback, he might have to get used to things again.’ I thought it was that.”

  “Yeah, like that. Miss Dearly, do you remember …” Here goes. “Do you remember when your mother died?”

  “Yes. When I was nine … see, this explains a lot.”

  I sat up a little straighter, alert, wondering if she’d gotten to the right conclusion by herself. She sounded so suddenly animated.

  “I was sent to St. Cyprian’s when I was nine. I did not want to go, and he said it was because my mother said I had such a temper, and my family was moving up in the world and I needed to learn how to be a lady, whether I wanted to or not. It was so unlike him, because up until that point, and even afterward, he encouraged me to be myself. But no, he … he was so adamant about it, and off I went the very same day. Like, literally … whoosh, out the door. I’ve always wondered about it. It was so weird. Probably the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me, till now. It wasn’t until a few days later he told me my mother had taken ill with a fever.”

  “It was to keep you safe,” I said, interrupting her. “You have to believe me, it was to keep you safe. Because …”

  It wasn’t coming out easily. Nora urged me on with a whisper. “What?”

  “It wasn’t a fever. Your mother had gotten the Laz.”

  No reaction.

  “It wasn’t on purpose,” I quickly added. “We didn’t know as much about the disease then as we do now. He knew about it spreading via the bodily fluids, and he took precautions, but somehow … she got it. He did what he could for her, but she succumbed. And …”