We Can Be Like They Are [IC]

[Electra]

August nights were muggy and hot at the Claremont Academy, far enough from the river that the breezes didn’t reach, and isolated in its little enclave from the rush of city traffic. They were longer, too, the sun setting earlier and rising a little later with each new day, even as the campus filled once again with its usual school-year complement of superheroes-in-training. It would be a few weeks before things settled down into their normal schedule, but for some people, the day and night cycle just never seemed to quite work out anyway.

It was still dark in the small hours of the morning when Wander slipped into her dorm room, stripped off her mud-encrusted costume and tumbled into bed, too exhausted even to shower. It had been four days since she’d slept more than a twenty-minute catnap, and tonight’s patrol, which included dragging a car full of giggling, drunken teenagers out of a very dirty pond, had pushed her past the limits of her endurance. She hadn’t even waited to see if their car still worked, much less waited for the police to show up. It was time to sleep, even if she knew what she would find there. Despite her foreboding, her eyes closed almost immediately, and she fell into sleep like someone falling off a cliff into dark water.

[Electra]

Nightmares were nothing new for her. She’d had them, explored them, dissected them, used them as a tool to understand her own feelings about what had happened to her world. They weren’t pleasant, but they were something to be endured. Lately, though, things had been different, and very weird. The dream started out as a memory, like they often did. They were out in the desert, down near Baja or maybe even into Nevada, she didn’t remember. Wherever it was, there weren’t many towns, which meant less stalled cars and less zombies, but also fewer supplies and further-apart buildings. Megan was hungry, and they were low on food. The Jeep was hungry too, and the gas can was empty. Erin wasn’t hungry, but she was getting worried. She was stronger and faster than she used to be, but she didn’t think she could carry Megan and all their stuff on foot if they ran out of gas. She was relieved to see the blue signs that marked a rest area, even if they were canted at crazy angles by the wind and, in one case, by a car smashed head-on into the pole.

She took the exit, carefully maneuvering the jeep around the curve, well below her maximum safe speed of fifty miles an hour. Ignoring the stop sign and the long dead lights, she picked her way around a trio of dead cars to the Chevron station. The canopy over the pumps was half-collapsed, but the pumps were still standing, and it didn’t look too dangerous. There was a McDonalds next to it, its broad glass windows steamed with the condensation that said things were baking in there. The smears of dried blood on some of the windows said these diners hadn’t gone from the flu, but it was surprising how many zombies remembered how to use doors instead of smashing glass. Avoiding the restaurant, she headed for the stop-and-shop at the gas station, keeping Megan close beside her as she did a quick sweep of the place. It was totally empty, not even bodies, and didn’t even smell that bad. Erin methodically raided the shelves for canned goods, batteries, bottled water, and her favorite granola bars. “I have to go to the bathroom,†Megan told her, filling her little backpack with her favorite foods.

[Electra]

Erin tossed her a roll of toilet paper and pointed to the skeletal bushes outside the building. “Don’t go too far,†she reminded her sister, “don’t get out of sight.†Even immersed in the dream, the habitual warning made her shudder with pain. “I’m gonna get the gas.†Siphoning gas from the underground tanks was a tricky process that she was still iffy at, and by the time she’d gotten the jeep and their gas can full, Megan was long since done and growing bored.

There wasn’t a lot for a seven year old to look at in the desert, so Megan seemed to be concentrating her attention on the McDonalds. She looked over at it, walked around the pumps, played with the dried and brittle windshield washer stick, and looked again. Finally she told Erin “They have Build-a-Bear toys over there.â€

“That’s nice,†Erin said, screwing the cap back onto the gas can. She wondered if they should make camp here tonight. Towns were risky, but she hated camping in the desert. There were a lot of wild animals around.

[Electra]

“I like Build-A-Bear,†Megan told her. Erin didn’t respond, hefting the can back into the backseat of the Jeep. “It would be small. It wouldn’t take up much room.†When her sister didn’t seem to be getting the message, she started moving in that direction herself. “I want one.â€

Instantly, Erin was there blocking the way. “You can’t go in there,†she told Megan. “It’s… nasty.†She didn’t put words to the picture inside. Both of them had seen enough bloated, rancid, rotting death to not need it spelled out. Not that it was a picture either of them could avoid if they wanted to.

Megan’s chin started to quiver, her eyes welling up. The little girl’s emotions were always fragile, and Erin couldn’t blame her for that. They both had so little to hold onto anymore, and all she wanted was a little hand-sized stuffed toy like the ones they used to get in their Happy Meals back when everything was okay… “All right,†Erin said, “I’ll get you one. But you stay here.†She left Megan waiting by the car and, after a quick lap around the area to make sure nothing was stirring, she took a deep breath, held it, and went inside.

[Electra]

Even without breathing, the stench made Erin’s eyes burn and water. She could read the scene easily enough. They’d been hit early here by zombies, before people knew not to congregate. Employees, patrons, most half-eaten or better, all writhing with maggots and clouds of black flies. She’d break out the windows when she went, Erin decided, and let the wind and weather and animals finally do what needed to be done. This was just horrible. She hopped over the counter, avoiding the skeletonized employee draped over the pass-through, and hoped the box of toys was somewhere easy to find.

As she watched, the scene began to change, in the funny way dreams did, without seeming weird or out of place. The bodies remained, but now it was a Dairy Queen, and she had an empty ice cream cone in her hand. She filled it with twist from the soft serve machine and dipped it clumsily in the chocolate shell, watching with idle fascination as it hardened. There was nothing around her but a clean and empty fast food restaurant by the time she turned and left, heading for the familiar silhouettes waiting for her outside. She’d taken longer than she thought, and she would miss the meeting if she wasn’t careful.

[Electra]

Erin stepped outside and the ice cream was gone, replaced by a long knife she’d once used like an extension of her own hand. It was nighttime, and she was on the streets of a nameless city, surrounded by the rust, ruin and decay of every urban area in her dead world. The Jeep was gone, Megan was gone, she was alone now except for the movements in the shadows a hundred feet away. She raised herself up on the balls of her feet, prepared to charge… and was stopped when the lead figure stepped into the light. It was Dead Head, wearing the rotted leathers he’d been wearing last time she’d seen him, a wide rictus smile on his sloughing face.

“Hey, there y’are, missy!†the zombie said with great good cheer, taking a few steps towards her. His hand detatched and scuttled towards her like a rodent, cold fingers literally walking up her back as she stood paralyzed. “Was startin’ t’get afraid you were gonna miss the big show! ‘S all set up, jes’ fer you. Ever’body’s excited, they’re all just dyin’ to see you…†He stepped aside with a ringmaster’s flourish, and moonbeams fell like a spotlight onto the crowd. It was zombies, of course, the faceless, mindless horde that always seemed just a few steps away in her dreams. They bore down on her in a wave, and suddenly she was freed from her paralysis and fighting for her life once again.

[Electra]

The fight was as natural to her as breathing, something to be done without thought and on instinct… until she realized that the faces of the people she was fighting were familiar. Her family was there, in amongst the zombies, her father, her mother, Megan, mindless now and howling for her blood, but still the people she remembered. Erin stumbled backwards in shock, in denial, unable to attack them, and her mother sank teeth deep into Erin’s arm.

Survival overrode sentiment and Erin fought back, stabbing, slashing, fighting, even as the faces she loved contorted in agony and fear. There were others too, people she cared about. Trevor and Alex, James, the rest of her teammates, zombies all, moaning with the cries of the damned and attempting to drag her down and rip her apart.

“They’re all people!†Dead Head reminded her gleefully from the sidelines. “Ev’ry zombie was a pers’n once, with dreams ‘n hopes, people what loved ‘em. An’ you cut ‘em down wit’out ever even lookin’ in their faces, seein’ what they was. Din’t lookit me, didja? Look now, look now, lookatcha now, huh?â€

[Electra]

Erin was the only one left standing now, her clothing and hair caked with blood, her hands slick and dripping with it. “I had to!†she yelled at the grinning zombie. “It had to be that way, how could I think that way and live with it? They were better off dead!â€

“Why?†came the question, but not from Dead Head. Zombie Trevor lay on the ground, bleeding freely from the gaping wound where his throat used to be. “Why kill us? Why? Why?†The question was taken up by the rest of the unquiet corpses, until the murmurs of “why, why, why†filled the whole world.

“Why didn’t you save us?†Zombie Megan asked, her piping voice cutting clearly through the soft din. Her wounds weren’t those of a slashing fight, but of a long and brutal fall. “Aren’t you a hero? You didn’t save me. You didn’t save anyone. You didn’t even try, did you?â€

[Electra]

The voices picked up the chorus as the zombies began to reassemble themselves. “Try, try, try, try,†they murmured, watching her with reproachful eyes, those who still had them. Zombie Trevor rose and shambled through the group as they fell back, making his way to Zombie Megan, whose legs didn’t seem to be mending. He reached down and scooped her up; she put her arms around his bloody neck and laid her broken skull trustingly against his chest. They both looked at Erin. “Every zombie, corpse,†he reminded her gruffly. “Each of them a person. Forgetting made it easier for you. Heroes don’t do easy. Heroes save the day.â€

He turned and walked away with Megan in his arms, fading back into the shadows. The rest of Young Freedom fell in behind him, barely sparing her scornful glances as they passed. When they were gone, she was truly alone, except for the city, for the world, in which every corpse had been a person, someone’s everything. And she couldn’t forget.

[Electra]

Erin didn’t spring awake like she often did from her nightmares, ready to fight whatever menaced her. Instead she woke slowly, the darkness of the dead city melting into the dimness of her dorm room in the gray pall of predawn. She was curled up like a dead pillbug in the back corner of her bunk, with her back pressed painfully against the beam that supported Alex’s mattress. Alex was stirring restlessly above, and Erin knew that was her fault. She sat up and raked her hands through her hair, dislodging dried mud, and looked at the clock. Two hours of sleep would do for another couple of days, surely. Grabbing a change of clothes and her shower kit, she slipped out of the room before anyone else’s sleep was ruined.