Last Rites (5 page)

She went over all the weapons in the main cabin—the knives and frying pans would be the easiest and quickest, if the attack were sudden. If she had a few moments to prepare, then there’d be the broom and mop handles that could be snapped and plunged into someone’s chest, throat, or eye. That made a lot more blood than just smacking someone with a pan—so much of it, and so hot, sticky, and sweet. And of course—teeth were the best of all, when there was blood flying around. That would be as glorious as she remembered, and she snuggled up closer to Truman as she let such thoughts caress and soothe her.

She wasn’t part of the equation anymore, Rachel figured. Funny to think of that, how they’d go on without her. Even when she’d been well, there was nothing she did around the ship they couldn’t manage to do without her. They’d be fine, and that was not an insignificant comfort to her.

Oh, but it was getting hard to think. What was all that commotion before? It sounded like Truman had shouted something, then Will ran out, but now everything was quiet again. She must’ve dozed off and missed whatever it was about. It didn’t matter. They’d do whatever they were going to do.

Rachel heard some shuffling, then Truman and Lucy talking. They sounded so funny when they did that. Long, drawn out syllables, pauses and wheezes. They couldn’t really vary their tone or inflection, so it sounded like some sort of Medieval chanting by people who had colds. Weird. Must be hard for them. But they tried so hard to talk to each other. Not so much to her and Will—with them, the two dead people still mostly nodded or shook their heads. Of course, Will and Rachel encouraged that by phrasing most things as questions requiring “yes” or “no” answers. It was habit, and it made things easier.

Well, she guessed it didn’t really matter much anymore. Will could talk to them however he wanted now. Maybe Lucy would warm up to him more than she had to Rachel, and not be so aloof and scary all the time. Or maybe she’d dislike him more and kill him one day. That thought frightened Rachel enough that she almost rallied out of her semi-conscious state, to call to Will and warn him, but she just didn’t have the strength. When he came back down, she’d remind him to be careful around Lucy. Of course, she’d have to be careful Lucy didn’t hear, but she’d try to remember to do that when she found an opportunity.

What was that other sound? It sounded like music, but not Lucy’s classical stuff. It sounded like pop music. Lucy didn’t have any CDs like that, and although she could be a little snoop—Rachel had caught her going through cabinets and things before—she’d never taken something that belonged to someone else, even assuming she suddenly got a taste for more recent tunes. What were those two up to?

Rachel almost thought she heard another voice besides theirs, too. She must be losing it, imagining things and drifting off, out of all this pain. As she considered it, she thought this would be a good time to go. She was alone, the hatch to her cabin locked. She could just go, and come back, and when Will opened the hatch, he’d see how she was, but she wouldn’t be quick enough to hurt him. He’d have time to call Lucy and Truman and they could hold her while Will stopped the ship to drop her off somewhere. Rachel even thought how it might be nice to look at Lucy without fear, once she was dead. It looked as though the dead people still felt pain, but she’d never seen them show fear, especially not Lucy; that’d be really nice to be rid of that feeling. Perhaps Lucy would talk to her then, the way she was talking to Truman now. Rachel probably wouldn’t be able to answer her—those two had taken weeks of practice to get good at it—but it’d still be pleasant, peaceful, like having a family. This would be the perfect time to go.

Rachel wondered if you could will yourself to stop living, and she tried concentrating on her heartbeat or breathing; she imagined them stopping, wanting them to stop with every bit of effort she could muster. But it wasn’t like when she was little and tried holding her breath as long as she could—that felt good even as it hurt, and then it made her feel all dizzy and her friends would shriek with laughter. Now, in her present state, it was just too much effort and she couldn’t be bothered with it. Besides, if you could actually will yourself to die, would that count as suicide? She was still afraid of that, so she stopped herself from thinking of it. It was bad enough, coming back as a zombie. No sense pissing God off worse with some last moment of bad behavior; he might make her a really bad, stupid zombie, one that deserves to be shot.

Maybe she was supposed to apologize for all the bad stuff she’d done. Rachel remembered that was how a lot of people used to talk about dying—you had to unburden yourself and feel all this guilt, and then God would make it easy on you, both when you died, and after. Milton and the other people in their city hadn’t talked so much about that, but Rachel felt like trying to cover all her bases right now. She just didn’t have the hang of the guilt thing. Embarrassment, a little shame, but not guilt.

She had felt ashamed around Will for how much she’d slept around before, back when they lived in the city, but she couldn’t really think the sex was bad, in itself. It felt more like stupid and inconsiderate—immature, if anything, and not the kind of thing she’d need to dredge up now. In fact, thinking about it now was making her miss it more and wish she’d done it even more than she had, now that it was going to be gone forever. Worse than that, it even got her thinking about how Will might meet some girl when she was gone, how he’d want to live with her, have sex with her, even have babies with her.

Rachel had never been the jealous type, and knew in the abstract she had no right to be, considering her past, but it still made her seethe inside, to think of dying there in a wet, stinking mess of bodily fluids, then waking up as some zombie idiot just so Will could then bed down with a new girl—probably a taller, skinnier one, too. Guys always liked that, no matter how much they told you that you looked perfect. It made no sense to get worked up and jealous over it, but it convinced Rachel to stop trying to force herself to feel guilty, as it was only backfiring. No, better to think good thoughts, about being friends with Lucy, wanting Will to be safe, and wandering off to sit under a tree somewhere, all gentle and peaceful. Maybe God would like that. She didn’t seem to have a lot else to offer him right now.

Okay, so much for the guilt. But Rachel still felt like you were supposed to say something to God at that final moment. She’d decided against asking for death, as that seemed too much like suicide. She had to be careful to ask for anything, in fact, like Will being kept safe, as it slid too easily into selfish thoughts of not wanting him to be with someone else. Telling God she loved him? She remembered that was another popular sentiment, way back when, but that was even harder for her to conceive of than guilt. No sense going out with a lie as your last thought. That couldn’t lead to anything good. Hell, people often sniffed out lies and usually got really mad about them: Rachel figured God would certainly be able to uncover any final deceit, and would be even madder when he found out. Oh, this whole dying thing was too hard when it happened slowly. Too much time to think and worry.

All right. It was getting nearly impossible to concentrate. Just think of good stuff and thank God for it. How hard could that be, for just a minute? “Thanks,” Rachel said, trying not to focus too much on the sex parts, though now that she wasn’t making such an effort to feel bad about it, the sex seemed to fit much better into the pleasant jumble of memories. “It’s been good. I’m ready now. Ready. Ready.”

Rachel kept repeating the word as she drifted further from consciousness, finally finding herself in another dream, where she heard the refrain, “It’s ready!”

Turning toward the voice, she saw it was her mother. In the dream, Rachel was fully grown, but her mother was still a young woman, like when she’d last seen her a dozen years ago. All of it, of course, made perfect sense in the context of the dream. They were in their old house—a comfortable ranch in a nice neighborhood. Rachel’s mom was trying to hand her a small, plastic bowl of peas and carrots. “Dinner’s ready, honey,” she said again.

Rachel took the bowl and looked at the contents: especially tiny peas, mixed with perfect little cubes of carrots; the real kind, the kind you only got from a store. Again, it made perfect sense in the dream world, and Rachel’s question also fit in: “These look good. They had them at the store?”

“Of course,” her mother answered. “Canned this time instead of frozen.”

Rachel nodded, somehow knowing that in the dream-world, the dead walked, but people could still shop at stores for some reason. She imagined her mother running through the supermarket parking lot, pushing a shopping cart as the slow, clumsy dead chased her; imagined her cheerfully loading her purchases into their van before climbing inside and backing over a couple walking corpses on the way out of the parking lot.

Rachel also knew that in the dreamscape she had a younger brother. This fact did register as somewhat confusing, because her only sibling had been an older brother. But she took the bowl of vegetables over to the toddler anyway. She probably had both a younger and an older brother - she just hadn’t thought of them both before now. The younger one was a smiling, blonde-haired boy wearing overalls, and he sat in a booster seat at the table, fork in hand. She remembered he liked peas and carrots and was glad to see him enjoying them.

Rachel heard keys rattling and turned back toward her mother. “Honey, I have to go out again,” her mother said. She was jangling her car keys in one hand as she handed another bowl of peas and carrots to Rachel.

“Oh,” Rachel said as she took the bowl. “Can’t you stay?”

“No, I have to go. Watch your brother while I’m gone. When you two are done, you can come join me.”

“Okay, Mom.”

Eating her food, Rachel stood with her back to her little brother, facing the door through which her mother had left. The vegetables tasted exceptionally buttery and sweet, the little cubes and spheres transitioning to a smooth, warm paste. There was no way of telling how long she stood there, just chewing, with no thought in her mind, only the simple, comforting sensations in her mouth.

The ship wasn’t moving forward, though it still rocked side to side. A while ago, Will had told them he could see lights and they should stay below, then he had closed the hatch. Now Truman could hear voices and footsteps from above. There really were people. Maybe Rachel would be taken care of. That much made Truman feel good.

Lucy was having a tougher time of it. She’d pulled him as far away from the hatch as possible and had pushed him to the floor. They’d huddled there since, Lucy clutching a cast-iron frying pan with one hand and Truman’s arm with the other.

“They’ll come,” she whispered now as they sat waiting. “They’ll hurt us. It’s not fair.”

“It’ll be all right,” was all Truman could think to say. Her suspicion was contagious and he increasingly didn’t believe his own reassurances.

“You remember your promise. You do what I say.”

“Yes.”

“First thing. If they come in—we don’t talk. Play dumb, Truman. They like that. Makes them feel good. Makes them feel smart and in charge. They like being in charge. Always. So don’t talk. Pretend you don’t know what they’re saying. Grunt. Growl. You understand?”

It made sense. It was awful, but it made sense when she explained it. She was so smart in her own way.

“Yes. You’re right,” he agreed.

“Okay. That’s all we can do, I guess.” The “S” sound at the end trailed off for a second like steam from a broken valve. They’d have to practice that more, as it didn’t sound nice. If they lived to have the chance to talk more.

The voices on deck continued, like they were discussing something back and forth. Their tone wasn’t exactly angry, but they definitely seemed to have some disagreement. Truman only made out one voice other than Will’s, but it sounded as though several people were moving around outside. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, and some of the time the rain and thunder drowned out the conversation completely.

Lucy gripped his arm tighter and turned her head toward him. He looked into her one good eye.

“I love you,” she said. “May not have another chance to say that.”

She’d said it a few times before, but was still shy about it most of the time. It made her more desirable—a fact Truman thought she was quite well aware of. But now she came right out and said it, and that made Truman much more frightened, that she’d think these might be their last moments together. It was one thing if he were scared—lots of things scared him. But Lucy wasn’t like that. Maybe the situation was worse than he thought.

“I love you too. Don’t be scared.”

“I’m only scared for you. I r—r—r—” Being unable to pronounce something didn’t seem to make her angry this time. She relaxed her grip on his arm and took a deep breath. “I respect you. Not them. I like them, sometimes, but I don’t respect them. They don’t deserve it.”

Truman shook his head slowly. “They can’t help it. They’re like animals or children. It’s not their fault.”

Lucy nodded and turned back to face the hatch. “Maybe.”

The hatch opened. Lucy was up faster than Truman, pulling him to his feet. “Now,” she whispered. “Remember.”

Will came down the first two steps. He was soaked from the rain, and he shook his head to get his hair off his face. He looked around for a second before spotting them in the back. He turned to speak to the people on deck.