Welcome to the freak show.
2
PAIGE AND I are used to being stared at. I would just ignore it while Paige always smiled at the gawkers from her wheelchair. They almost always smiled back. Paige’s charm was hard to resist.
Once upon a time.
Our mother starts speaking in tongues again. This time she’s looking at me while she chants, as if she’s praying to me. The guttural almost-words coming from her throat dominate the hushed noises of the crowd. Leave it to Mom to add a serious dose of creepiness even in the smoky light of day.
“All right, let’s move out,” says Obi in a strong voice. He’s at least six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a muscular body, but it’s his commanding presence and confidence that set him apart as the leader of the Resistance. Everyone watches and listens as he walks by the various trucks and SUVs, looking like a real military commander in a war zone. “Clear the trucks and head into the building. Stay out of the open sky as much as possible.”
That breaks the mood and people start hopping off the trucks. The people in our truck push and shove each other in their rush to get away from us.
“Drivers,” calls Obi. “When the trucks are cleared, spread out your vehicles and park them within easy reach. Hide them among the dead traffic or somewhere that’s hard to see from above.” He walks through the river of refugees and soldiers, giving purpose and direction to people who would otherwise be lost.
“I don’t want any signs that this area is occupied. Nothing is to be cleared or dumped within a one-mile radius.” Obi pauses when he sees Dee and Dum standing side by side, staring at us.
“Gentlemen,” says Obi. Dee and Dum break out of their trance and look over at Obi. “Please show the new recruits where to go and what to do.”
“Right,” says Dee, giving Obi a little-boy salute with a little-boy smile.
“Newbies!” calls Dum. “Anyone who doesn’t know what they’re supposed to do, follow us.”
“Step right up, folks,” says Dee.
I guess that’s us. I get up stiffly and reach automatically for my sister, but I stop before I touch her as if a part of me believes she’s a dangerous animal. “Come on, Paige.”
I’m not sure what I’ll do if she doesn’t move. But she gets up and follows me. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to seeing her stand on her own legs.
Mom follows too. She doesn’t stop chanting, though. If anything, it’s louder and more fervent than before.
We all step into the flow of newcomers following the twins.
Dum walks backwards, talking to us. “We’re going back to high school where our survival instincts are at their finest.”
“If you get the urge to graffiti the walls or beat up your old math teacher,” says Dee, “do it where the birds can’t see you.”
We walk by the main adobe building. From the street, the school looks deceptively small. Behind the main building, though, there’s a whole campus of modern buildings connected by covered walkways.
“If any of you are injured, take a seat in this fine classroom.” Dee opens up the nearest door and peeks in. It’s a classroom with a life-sized skeleton hanging on a stand. “Bones will keep you company while you wait for the doctor.”
“And if any of you are doctors,” says Dum, “your patients are waiting for you.”
“Is this all of us?” I ask. “We’re the only survivors?”
Dee looks over at Dum. “Are zombie girls allowed to talk?”
“If they’re cute and willing to do zombie-girl mud fights.”
“Duuude. Right on.”
“That’s a disgusting image.” I give them a sideways look but I’m secretly glad they’re not freaked out about me coming back from the dead.
“It’s not like we’d pick the decayed ones, Penryn. Just ones like you, fresh from the dead.”
“Only, with ripped clothes and stuff.”
“And hungry for breeeeasts.”
“He means brains.”
“That’s exactly what I meant.”
“Could you please answer the question?” asks a guy wearing glasses that are completely free of cracks. He doesn’t look like he’s in a joking mood.
“Right,” says Dee getting all serious. “This is our rendezvous point. The others will meet us here.”
We keep walking in the weak sunshine, and the guy with the glasses ends up in the back of the group.
Dum leans over to Dee and whispers loud enough for me to hear, “How much you want to bet that that guy will be the first in line to bet on the zombie-girl fight?”
They exchange grins and wiggle their eyebrows at each other.
October winds seep through my blouse and I can’t help looking up at the overcast sky for a particular angel with bat-shaped wings and a corny sense of humor. I swipe my foot at the overgrown grass and make myself look away.
The class windows are full of posters and notices about college entrance requirements. Another window displays shelves of student art. Clay, wood, and papier mâché figurines of all colors and styles cover every inch of shelf space. Some of them are so good that it makes me sad that these kids won’t be making art again for a long, long time.
As we move through the school, the twins are careful to stay behind my family. I fall back, thinking it’s not a bad idea to have Paige in front where I can keep an eye on her. She walks stiffly as if she’s still not used to her legs. I’m not used to seeing her like this either, and I can’t stop staring at the crude stitches all over her body that make her look like a voodoo doll.
“So that’s your sister?” asks Dee in a quiet voice.
“Yeah.”
“The one you risked your life for?”
“Yeah.”
The twins nod politely in that automatic way that people do when they don’t want to say something insulting.
“Your family any better?” I ask.
Dee and Dum look at each other, assessing.
“Nah,” says Dee.
“Not really,” says Dum at the same time.
OUR NEW home is a history class. The walls are filled with timelines and posters of the story of humanity. Mesopotamia, the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Ottoman Empire, the Ming Dynasty. And the Black Death.
My history teacher said that the Black Death wiped out thirty to sixty percent of Europe’s population. He asked us to imagine what it’d be like to have sixty percent of your world dead. I couldn’t imagine it at the time. It seemed so unreal.
In weird contrast, dominating all of these ancient history posters is a picture of an astronaut on the moon with blue Earth rising behind him. Every time I see our ball of blue and white in space, I think it must be the most beautiful world in the universe.
But that seems unreal now, too.
Outside, more trucks rumble into the parking lot. I walk over to the window as Mom starts pushing desks and chairs to one side. I peek outside to see one of the twins leading the dazed newcomers into the school like the Pied Piper.
Behind me, my little sister says, “Hungry.”
I stiffen and stuff all kinds of ugliness into the vault in my head.
I see a reflection of Paige in the window. In the blurry otherworld of that image, she looks up at Mom like any other kid expecting dinner. But in the warped glass, her head is distorted, magnifying her stitches and lengthening her razor-grafted teeth.
Mom bends down and strokes her baby’s hair. She begins humming her haunting apology song.
3
I SETTLE onto a cot by the corner. Lying with my back against the wall, I can see the entire room by moonlight.
My baby sister lies on a cot against the wall across from me. Paige looks tiny under her blanket beneath the posters of larger-than-life historical figures. Confucius, Florence Nightingale, Gandhi, Helen Keller, the Dalai Lama.