Light Amidst the Darkness

Chapter Three: JW

Jackson Webster

"Cameron," I say. "What's that?"

"Mmm?"

Cameron lies across my chest, her hair splayed across my shoulders. She opens her eyes from a doze. "What's what, Jack?"

"Listen."

We both lie still as we hear it again: a cacophony of moans, not unlike an eerie song.

"It sounds like..." Cameron doesn't finish her thought. She looks at me. Her eyes are wide, and fear is etched all over her face, which is quickly paling.

"It sounds like it's coming from downtown," I say slowly. "And it sounds like that's zombies. Like...from TV."

"My parents," she says, pushing off from my chest and running to the phone. I get up slowly. My own family is in Hawaii, where they've already set up a safe zone. No one is allowed to fly there unless they have specific clearance denied to the general public--to protect them from overpopulation. So, my family is safe. It's me they're worried about--and it's Cameron's parents I should be worried about. I remember asking her father for his blessing only a month ago, before cases of zombies started appearing all over the place. No one in the family has admitted it, nor Cameron or even I, but we all know that the wedding's off because of what's going on. I can see it in Cameron's face sometimes--a sad, sagging look, her mouth drooping, as she looks at the television and watches reports of zombies. In those moments I always make sure to hug her, and, a few times, she's cried--but I haven't worked up anything that's near enough to ask her if the wedding's really off.

Cameron is a lot stronger than she seems from the outside. From the outside, she seems slightly, but not extremely, special. Good-hearted and intelligent, but quick to snap and slow to display affection. But once you get to know her, she's so much better. She has a backbone of steel. She's sassy and tough and I've rarely seen her cry. But she also laughs easily, and is funny. I've never seen someone who seems so split between two personalities--one tough and serious, the other light-hearted and playful.

And now she looks deranged as she waits for her mother to pick up the phone. A third personality I've never been exposed to.

She waits for a tense minute, and then looks up at me. "Voicemail," she whispers, her face paper-white. In all my life, I've never seen someone look so terrified.

I get up cautiously and close the distance between us. She buries her head into my chest. "Please," she sobs, "call them. They have to pick up. They know how important it is to pick up."

I take the phone from her shaking fingers and wrap my arm around her waist, pulling her with me to the couch. She lies on top of me as I call her father's number and put the phone on speaker.

One ring, two rings, three rings.

Cameron squeezes her eyes shut.

Four rings.

"Please," I hear her whisper. "Please, God, please."

Fifth ring, then voicemail.

Cameron's breathing is punctured by her silent but violent weeping.