This Isn't the Zombie Apocalypse

32. Third Time's the Charm

It felt weird, suddenly being aware that I didn't breathe unless I thought about it, that what I ate and drank for sustenance wasn't nearly enough to keep anyone alive, that all those odd death-defying moments weren't death-defying after all.

It felt weird, suddenly being aware that I was dead. That I had been for a long time. Over a year, in fact. That all that running hadn't really kept me from Death.

I made a choking sound—though maybe not; I could never be quite sure, could I?—and Calvin squeezed the driver's wheel. His eyes flicked over to me, but maybe it was more in panic than sympathy. He'd been acting twitchy since he figured out I was dead. I couldn't possibly imagine why. "What?" he snapped.

"I used to think of myself as a zombie. Turns out, it's not that far from the truth." A sad thought. Or maybe it was more ironic. Either way, it proved my life was a big joke.

Calvin forced out a thin chuckle. "I was always more of a ghost man myself," he tried to joke. Then he tried to smile. Unless they were supposed to make me feel worse, neither attempt worked very well. If making me feel worse was the goal though, they worked brilliantly.

I grimaced in return and then banged my head against the window to help release my teenage angst. That didn't work either, and I had to stop in fear of accidently slipping through the glass like Casper or something equally ridiculous. I groaned, wondered how I groaned if there wasn't any air in my lungs to push out, and then groaned again.

Calvin glanced over, as if worried I was about to attempt meaningless suicide by jumping out the door. He kept beating his fingers against the wheel and nodding to himself. There was something going through Calvin's mind, and I wasn't sure if it was awful or genius.

Calvin pointedly stared out the front windshield as he said, "We're almost there."

It occurred to me that apathy and depression could possibly happen to ghosts and that was why there weren't more haunting the general population. Realizing one was dead definitely sucked the Life out of everything. Then again, Ana wasn't dead yet, but she had acted like Death had already gotten its claws around her.

I gritted my teeth and remembered my original mission. "Okay."

Calvin hesitated, breathed out deeply. "If... if something happens to me—"

"You'll be fine," I said. "Okay? Okay." I crossed my arms and scowled (not pouted) and, yeah, maybe it was a tad childish, but I was dead and therefore no one else was allowed to be dead. It was all very logical.

Although he didn't directly look at me, I could tell Calvin was giving me the stink eye. It wasn't nearly effective as the Look. He huffed. "Cal, be reasonable here. This man has a gun. He might kill someone. If I can't get us out of here, you have to—"

"I don't drive."

His eyes turned into slits, and I was worried Calvin wouldn't be able to see the road anymore. "You tried before. When we were still at the hospital, you were about to drive off. You were very adamant about going off to save Ana."

I rolled my eyes and sunk deeper into my seat. "I tried to drive off to save her. I don't think I would have managed to get out of the parking lot, if I even managed that much." I remembered the trembling hands and black spots in my vision. Yeah, I wouldn't have managed to get far. "Why do you think I never drove? Because I'm lazy? No. I just don't drive."

"But you can," Calvin pointed out.

"But I don't," I shot back.

Calvin fumed for a while, obviously put off that whatever he had in mind had been ruined, but his silence wasn't all that awkward. It was better than when all he thought about was the fact that he was chauffeuring a dead kid. Of course, the silence couldn't last for long, because Calvin had to go and ask, "Is that how you died?"

I spluttered. "No!" I paused, thinking about grinding metal and shattered glass and blaring alarms, and then about drunken neighbors and a gun shot and bleeding out. "It's none of your business, anyway."

After a while, Calvin said, softly, gently, "Okay," and then, "We're almost there, anyway. I just wanted to make sure you had a plan, is all."

I gritted out, "We'll be fine. You'll be fine."

Calvin nodded, just the smallest dip of his chin, like he didn't quite believe.

oOo

We pulled up in front of yet another ruin of a building—it was as if we were attracted to them.

I couldn't manage to call it a home, but it matched the whole apocalyptic theme of the neighborhood. With its collapsed roof, cracked windows, and splintered door, it fit right in with the other houses, where entire buildings would be debris, scattered and used for its spare parts; down the road, a car had been smashed, its air bag still deployed, and its wheel stolen. The only off thing was the cut lawn and the four dirt pits, that, upon further inspection, resembled graves—which, upon even further inspection, turned out to definitely be graves.

A furl of dread crawled up my spine. "Hey, Calvin," I whispered, eyes still locked on the cracked door. I swore I saw a flicker of a shadow pass behind it.

Calvin hm'ed.

"How'd you know where to go?" I asked.

His fingers tapped an erratic rhythm against the steering wheel. "Turns out, all doctors meet every year in a secret place up in Oregon."

I finally turned around. "You're pulling my leg."

Chuckling nervously, Calvin nodded his head. "Yeah. Yeah, I am. But I did know this one lady, Dr. O'Connor. She was the best. People from all over would try to go and see her. Anyway, she was a psychiatrist, but she mostly specialized in individuals with PTSD—and mostly women, but sometimes she did others. Soldiers, sometimes—especially if they faced the same issues that the women she generally worked with did."

"So, this guy...," I started, "... you know him?"

"I met him before, even came to his house." He gestured to the desolate building. At my questioning look, he said, "Jonah needed to see a doctor, and Kaitlyn thought he might be more comfortable around someone she could personally recommend, even if I am a man. But that was a long time ago. I'd heard that recently he was doing much better." He pursed his lips and nodded slowly. "I guess desperate times really do call for desperate measures."

"Jonah..." I murmured. "Jonah." It felt awkward in my mouth, sounded odd to my ears. "Is that his name? Jonah?"

Again, Calvin hm'ed.

"Do you think...?" I paused. "Do you think he did this because—?"

Calvin shook his head. "No, he did it because people are dying left, right, and center, and—well, knowing him, something happened to his family, and he's trying to fix it." Calvin looked at me, his lips pressed together in a thin line. "Do you understand?"

I nodded, and we were silent for a few beats. "Why didn't you say anything?" I asked. Because, really, this would have been helpful a long time ago.

"I wasn't certain," Calvin began, slow, his eyes darting around to something behind me; then they stopped, locked onto whatever he wanted to find, and he finished, "but I am now."

And when I looked back at the three graves, Calvin pointed at the littlest one. On one of the sides, small, insignificant, something was sticking straight up.

There, stuck in the mud, was a purple pen.