Dead and Beloved
Authors: Jamie McHenry
DEAD AND BELOVED
By Jamie McHenry
Kindle
Edition
Copyright 2014 © Jamie McHenry
Kindle
Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to
Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
For the living . . .
Chapter Eleven: Glass Birthday
Chapter Fourteen: Shadow Church
Chapter Nineteen: The last Week of my Life
It's all going to end one day. People will stop screaming when they see my face, no one will be afraid to touch me, and the world will stop feeling so cold. Until then, I'd like to live a normal life, or at least one that everyone I've ever cared about wasn't already dead. But for someone like me, someone so close to the end, normal will never happen. It bites.
How's a guy supposed to focus in class with all that on his mind?
So I wander the halls, trying not to infect anyone on the way to Biology. At least no one fainted in front of me yet today. That makes slipping into my seat remarkably simple.
“Ryan, you're dripping blood on the desk.” Mr. Heaps glares at me from the front of the room and yanks the yellow bio-hazard kit from the wall. “Go see the nurse.”
Not so simple after all. “Yeah,” I mutter, wiping my neck to verify the claim. My fingers come back bloody. “I see it.” I grab my bag and announce my annoyance with a loud sigh before ducking toward the door as the tardy bell rings.
Viewmont is a decent school. I say that because it's the only high school I've known; I've got nothing to compare it with. It took several lawsuits and a dozen acts of Congress, but they accept me here now—sort of. The drawback, I am discovering, is that public education for someone like me comes with a price. Today's incident means more detention.
“Ryan, again?” Nurse Jennings groans her dismay and holds open the door to let me into her office. “How many times this week?”
“Two.” I accept the sterile cloth she hands me and wipe the blood from my neck. “I don't do it on purpose.”
She closes the door behind me before keying information into a tablet—my information. “I know,” she tells me. “No one blames you.”
I shake my head to disagree. I know better, despite the kindness she shares. Everyone blames me, and Nurse Jennings understands why. She understands better than anyone. When my best friend Andre died from the Virus, she lost a son.
She completes her entry before slapping on a pair of latex gloves. “Thankfully, it doesn't look worse,” she tells me, probing the gash in my neck with her fingers. “Does it hurt?”
It always hurts. I'm used to it now. “No,” I lie. “Not more than normal.”
After an antiseptic cleanse, a few painful wipes, and a thick coating of Second Skin provided by the CDC, Nurse Jennings removes her gloves and announces her satisfaction. “There you go, Ryan. You're all set. How did I do today?”
I check the clock. “Seventeen minutes. You're getting slower.” Then I grin to reveal my tease.
“Well, you're falling apart.” She smiles back, but there's truth in her words. Two weeks ago, some gauze and a bandage got me back to class. Now it almost feels like surgery every time I'm sent here.
“Seventeen minutes of relief for an hour of torture,” I say, grimacing. “Thank you.”
“Well I'm sorry about that. There's nothing I can do about detention. Hey, not so fast.” She waves a warning finger at me. “You know the rest.”
She's right. It's a familiar routine to me by now. With a heavy sigh, I take off my shirt. It's cold in the nurse's office, although everyplace feels cold to me. I do my best to hold still while she performs the rest of her required exam. Pulse, breathing, dilation, and blood pressure. She even checks my temperature.
“Still one ten.” she announces. “And one forty heart rate.” This makes her frown. She logs the information into her tablet and nods, indicating that I can put my shirt on again. “Don't come back so soon next time.”
She means it as a wish. Nurse Jennings and I can talk that way. She is the only one I'm comfortable with discussing my condition. While I straighten myself, she seals the bio container where she had disposed the bloody cloths and gloves. Before I leave, she tears the sheet from the examination table and opens the door to the furnace. Not every school has one in the nurse's office, but mine does. I hear the familiar roar of gaseous flames behind me as I head down the hall to return to class.
“It's about time,” Mr. Heaps tells me as I resume my seat. “What took you so long? The log says you left the nurse's office ten minutes ago.”
“I stopped at the restroom,” I answer.
It's a lie, but I don't want to make things complicated. I'm already going to detention today. I look around the room. Everyone seems fixated on my neck. I touch it out of habit and then drop my hand for their sakes. No need to make them more nervous. The mitosis diagram projected onto the screen at the front of the class is effective enough.
Two more hours of dutiful classroom attention, lunch by myself, a special menu ordered by the state, and then the bells ring freedom—though not for me. I drag myself to the detention room and announce my presence to Mr. Montrose. I choose a desk at the side of the room and turn on my school tablet. One hour. I set the timer and start the countdown.
~ O ~
One hour and seven minutes later, I'm riding the shuttle back home. The driver doesn't talk to me, though I couldn't hear him if he did; the plastic barrier keeps us safely apart. I'd listen to some music, but it's a fast ride home. Everyone pulls aside for hospital shuttles these days. So I pass the minutes staring at the scratches in the seats, claw marks from desperate riders before me. We arrive at the front entrance and three nurses escort me inside.
“Had an exciting day, did we, Ryan?” asks one.
I nod. There's no use trying to hide anything; the moment Nurse Jennings entered my data back at school, all my medical onlookers were notified of my vitals. After check in at the front desk, the nurses lead me into the tiny chamber next door. Though a metal sign on the wall says Examination, I call it the Scream Room.
Having earned its name a thousand times, the Scream Room welcomes every patient brought to this hospital. Our vitals are checked—and then double-checked—for any sign that we might be getting worse. Then we're poked with needles and scrubbed from head to toe with hard bristled brushes. Second Skin is applied anyplace where blood appears before yet another examination to determine if we're safe to stay. My first few weeks here, I believed that death could be a comfortable alternative to the punishment inflicted in this room. Now I grit my teeth and count the seconds until the scrubbing ends.
After my cleansing, I'm taken upstairs to room three forty one, my home. There's an old broken bed with a sunken mattress, a wardrobe and mirror, punching dummy, and a small tile bathroom through the door on the right. The particle board shelf at the corner near the window serves as a desk. I go there first and flip on my computer. Fifty-seven minutes to go. Media and entertainment apps are blocked on my school tablet, but the computer in my room gives me unlimited digital access to the rest of the world. I activate a playlist and fill the room with the noise I have been longing for all day. Fifty-six minutes to go. In less than an hour I'll get to talk to Jessica. So much time until then.
I toss my backpack onto my bed and throw off my shirt. Then I slide in front of the dummy and begin my therapy.
I have never known the need to fight anyone. Bigger friends always took care of that for me before my world turned. Doctors tell me that controlled fighting is one way to combat the effects of the Virus. It keeps me manageable, they say, burning the excess adrenaline and limiting my urges. Okay. So I fight the dummy in the room. A hundred kicks and another hundred punches, then I look at the screen. Fifty-three minutes to go. Still so much time.
The music motivates me and, for a while, I forget about counting. I focus on the Virus and reflect about life. I think about the day, about school, about my future, and about my past. While I strike the motionless bundle of hard foam in the middle of my hospital room, I battle the condition that's defining me to the world. There's no cure, and it will eventually kill me, but for the moment I can fight it. I strike harder and pretend I'm winning.
The alarm on my computer sounds, interrupting my focus. Five minutes to go. I grab a towel from the corner of my wardrobe, but there's nothing to wipe dry. I'm not even winded. I drape the towel over my shoulders and stare at the screen. A beep announces Jessica's entrance into the chat session.
“Hi, Ryan.” Her words are all I've seen of her, and they're beautiful. She's a goddess in pixels.
I quickly respond. “You're right on time.”
We chat about the day, I don't mention detention, and she fills me in about the gossip of her friends. I've never met them. I've never met Jessica. It's calming to hear about friends, though. Jessica tells me that she changed her fingernail design. It's violet with little white flowers on the tips. She takes care to describe it in detail and I make sure to ask how many petals.
This is my favorite moment of the day; my favorite moment of any day. It's my chance to believe that life can be normal for someone like me. We chat for almost an hour, and the words are perfect until Jessica asks the question I have always known would come, the one I have feared.
“Ryan—” Her sentence ends abruptly as if she's debating what to type. Then the words return in slow, melancholy letters. “Are you a zombie?”
I'm stunned at first, but not surprised. Jessica is smart. Though I've never told her my last name, it was only a matter of time until she'd figure out exactly who I was. Now she's done that. There's no use hiding anymore.
I type three letters an
d send the truth to her. “Yes.”
Forty-three minutes. That was the longest we'd ever talked. I try staying up late, recalling tonight's chat with Jessica over and over in my mind, but in my condition, sleep isn't only a necessity; like the punching dummy, it's supposed to keep the Virus from taking over—from killing me. By the third repeat of the conversation in my head, the powerful prescriptions that force me into a deep rest creep over me and allow the darkness to take over.
When I wake the next morning, it's already seven thirty. I've missed breakfast at the cafeteria and have to rush to get ready. There's only one shuttle to school, and the driver won't wait for me.
“You're late,” the nurse in the lobby announces as she takes my vitals. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I'm fine,” tell her. I slap my bag over my shoulder once my arm is free and run to the shuttle. It's the truth. Despite sleeping in, I feel better this morning than I have in a long while. I have more energy and my thoughts seem clearer.
Thinking about Jessica helps the ride to school pass quicker than normal. I'm already planning what to tell her next and anticipating what new questions she'll have for me tonight. My thoughts keep me occupied and help me ignore everyone when I arrive, but I’m also dawdling in the halls. I slip into English seconds before the bell rings. I've cut it too close. I don't want detention today.
Miss Reeves is my favorite teacher and she's the most understanding about my situation. While the rest of the faculty seems intent on forcing me out of school, she shows a genuine desire to help me succeed. As she directs the class to find today's reading assignment on our tablets, she hands me a large white envelope.
“What's this?” I ask, though I have a suspicion; Miss Reeves has been helping me file college applications.
She doesn't answer, but a wide smile reveals that it's what I've been waiting for. The block letter S in the corner confirms it. Stanford. I start tearing open the seal, but a buzz from my tablet warns me that I've fallen behind the class. I glance at the screen, testing my resolve to ignore it and check out the contents of the envelope instead, but a second buzz sends stares my direction than I want to deal with at the moment.
“Grendel,” Miss Reeves announces, firming her voice for those who haven't downloaded our books yet. “The quiz will be on Tuesday.”
When the district mandated tablets a few years ago, we all thought we'd be loading great apps and games in class. Not so. The tablet system allows teachers to keep watch on everyone's work. If we're not reading, no progress will show on our views. If we log into an assignment, we can't leave until it's done. No games and no decent apps—only words, some art programs, and a strictly filtered web. Tablets save paper and money, they say. I say they’re annoying when college information is sitting on my desk, testing my patience. I try my best to stay focused on the assignment through the rest of class, but my mind alternates between thoughts of Jessica and the logo on the envelope in front of me. School won't end fast enough today.
“Ryan Moon?” The woman at the door calling my name isn't a teacher. She's not wearing a long skirt or the mandatory sweater in school colors. Dr. Stone is a counselor, assigned to me by the district.
I nod politely and log out of my tablet. Miss Reeves notes something onto hers as I leave the room to follow Dr. Stone. I don't bother to look back at everyone; I know they are watching.
~ O ~
“Hmm.” Dr. Stone studies something on a screen before looking up at me from behind her desk. “Two tardies this week. What's bothering you?”
Apparently, something has to be bothering me to make me late for class, unlike the other kids who are late because their locker jams or something. I don't tell her, but I actually
want
to get to class. Stanford would be a great opportunity for me and I don't need an excuse for them to deny me admission.
“Nothing,” I tell her, though I know she'll pry anyway. Doctors insist on digging.
As expected, she leans forward and presses her fingertips together. “I'm trying to help you through this,” she says, smiling in an obvious attempt to look pleasant. If her eyes started glowing green, I wouldn't be surprised. “You need to be honest with me. We'll get through this. Together.”
I hate doctors. They killed my family. They killed my best friend. And they haven't healed me yet. Aside from ordering tests and poking lasting holes into my flesh with thousands of needles, all they've managed to do is give a name to my condition so that the rest of the world will let me live. The Breytazine Virus. What a stupid name. It sounds like a breakfast supplement. Like most people, I prefer to call it the Virus.
For a brief moment, I think about mentioning Jessica, but decide that's a bad move. The idea of a zombie going to a public high school is shocking enough to everyone. I don't need to add our friendship to the long list of reasons why someone like me doesn't belong here.
“I bled on the desk,” I tell Dr. Stone. She knows anyway so I'm not divulging any secrets. Everything about me is shared: every breath, every pulse, and every blood test. Everything.
“Twice?”
I nod.
“What else happened?”
Does she know? I study her face for a moment, searching for that sly hint of a smile that would reveal she knows more than she's telling me. There's nothing in her countenance. She's fishing.
“I'm excited for school to end,” I say, giving her something to analyze.
“And what are your plans when you graduate?”
And there's the smile. She knows about Stanford.
“College.”
The room starts to shrink. Dr. Stone keys a few notes, stares, nods, and then waits for me to speak again. I don't say anything else. There's nothing more to tell her today.
“You are lucky to be here,” she finally says to me. “Do you know that? Survivors of your condition are stuck in hospital beds, or worse.”
Condition. She's holding back. It's against the law to call me a zombie; one of the recent changes to the discrimination act to allow people like me equal life benefits. She knows if I tell my assigned lawyer, he'll file a protest and she'll lose her job. The district can't afford more attention and press.
I smile back at her, acknowledging that I know that she knows we're talking about the same thing: I'm welcome to go to school, but only because it's the best way to keep me under control. Through my efforts for normalcy, I've become a pet to society. My name is an example of tolerance, a symbol of hope that the rest of the human race might avoid the apocalypse they've read about for centuries.
“Is that all today, Dr. Stone?” I ask. The room is warming. I wipe my forehead with my sleeve.
She dismisses me before turning off the camera that's been recording our session.
~ O ~
When I return to class, Miss Reeves is gone, which means everyone is texting or talking. I think about taking out my phone but decide better of it. Breaking one of Miss Reeves’ rules, even one as petty as no phones during class, makes me feel guilty. Besides, who would I message anyway? The thought of Jessica makes me smile and I think about her while mindlessly listening to the chatter. I wish I had her number.
~ O ~
Lunch is the same every day; I don't get a selection. Another part of my settlement with the state to let me attend public school. The
woman at the counter hands me my plate and then rushes away to wash her hands. My meal consists of a dozen pills and two slabs of high protein meat infused with chemicals to keep my organs from overheating. No one can stand to watch me eat; some run away screaming; some yell at me, pronouncing their anger that I'm not a vegetarian; a few students accept dares and try to watch before losing whatever meal they had stomached earlier. I ignore them and devour the meat in loud, violent chomps. I'm not trying to be gross, but my urges around meat are too strong, and I'm too hungry to worry about how I look. I need to eat. I need to feel calm.
I spend every minute at lunch today thinking about Jessica. It's as if someone has unlocked all the windows and has let the wind come in. She's refreshing to me, and now that she knows what I am, I feel like I'm alive again. I'm occupied with imagining her, thinking about what she must look like; her hair, her
face, what color shirt she might be wearing today. I imagine that it's blue, her favorite color, and think that it could match her eyes.
A janitor wearing a face shield and thick rubber gloves comes to collect my empty plate and I realize that it's almost time for Economics. I thank the man and rush to class.
~ O ~
“Are you prepared, Mister Moon?” Miss Batcher asks me, loud enough to quiet the room.
I'm not. In my haste, I forgot to stop by my locker and grab my backpack. My tablet, something she insists everyone bring each period, is inside. I slip to my seat and shake my head, hoping she'll let me off the hook, but the day doesn't seem to be going the way I'd like it to.
“Mister Moon, if you are not prepared for my class, then you must leave. You may return when you're ready to participate.”
I don't say anything, nod, and walk toward the door.
“And this will be a tardy.”
“Miss Ba—”
“You know the rules, Mister Moon. You agreed to them when you agreed to join us at this institution.”
Institution is right. “I just left my bag in my locker,” I say, stopping at the doorway. “It's right around the corner and down the hall. I was here on time, I just—I don't have it. This has nothing to do with being a—” I stop as everyone in the room seems to be staring, anticipating my next word.
But I can't say it. Someone would use it against me; someone would add that to the list of reasons why I shouldn't be allowed here. My forehead burns and anger stabs my chest like a searing knife. Miss Batcher knows which buttons upset me and she's pushing them well.
“Mister Moon.”
“I'll get my bag and be right back,” I tell her. I leave class and run down the hall to my locker. When I return, I glance at the clock on the wall and take out my tablet.
Two minutes past one. Two minutes that cost me another hour after school. Stupid teacher.
~ O ~
“Back for more, eh?” Mister Montrose flashes a satisfied grin as he keys my attendance.
I'm not alone in detention today, which is normal for the end of the week. Most students who earn detention get courtesy relief, argued by their parents. Sports practices, club meetings, family gatherings, and transportation problems are all suitable excuses accepted for a reprieve. As long as students complete their assignments prior to the end of the week, and pay a fine, it doesn't count against their grades. But not for me. I'm not like them; I don't have parents to petition on my behalf.
All I have is a lawyer who I'm certain doesn't know I'm in here today.
The only good thing about detention, I've decided, is getting my homework done early. Stanford won't wait for me. There are too many great students, normal students, who have applied as well. I don’t have a complete transcript, but Miss Reeves told me that there might be a chance to get on a waiting list. I need to finish high school strong, though. I start reading the assignment from English.
When the hour ends, the room clears out like the lunchroom after chili. I'm following the others when my name is called.
“I'd like to speak with you,” Mr. Montrose says without looking up.
“I need to go,” I tell him. “My shuttle won't wait. The driver doesn't—”
“They know you're in here,” he tells me,
pointing to his tablet. “I updated your schedule.”
“But he
doesn't
wait.” I lean toward the door. “I need to hurry.”
“You think Stanford will let you leave as you please?” he asks.
I curse under my breath. The whole world knows everything about me. “No, sir, I don't. It's just that—”
“Your driver will wait,” he insists as he steps closer to me. It's the closest I've ever been to him. He smells like cheap cologne and coffee. “Unless he has some
other
privileged student waiting for him across town.” He twists his words enough to make me warm. Mr. Montrose knows we're being watched. All detention rooms have cameras and he's calculating his words to avoid an inquiry.
“No, sir,” I tell him. I take a deep breath to control my frustration.
“I think you should consider another school.” Mr. Montrose folds his arms and lowers his eyebrows. “Have you thought about the U? Or a community college? A local school might accommodate you better.”
I nod my head. “Yes, I have. I've considered all my options.”
“So why Stanford?”
I don't know what his angle is, so I hide my reasoning. “It's a combination of everything,” I say. “Academics, experience, scholarships.”
“You've been offered a scholarship?”
“Not yet.” As I speak, I regret my words. I've said more than I intended.