Yin & Yang

Chapter 16: Revelation (Gabe)

"What?" Involuntarily, I jerked the wheel hard to the right.

"Jesus Christ, Gabe eyes on the road!" Lilith screamed. I forced my eyes away from her and I straightened out the car.

"Okay, what the fuck do you mean Cam is alive? How long have you known this? And how is he a zombie? You've got a ton of explaining to do." I was screaming, my heart was racing, I felt hot all over. Suddenly, I couldn't focus on driving.

"I'll explain, I promise," Lilith said. "But can it wait until we get home? I need to feed Cam and I also feel like you won't be able to drive safely while I'm telling you."

"Fine," I growled angrily. Forcing myself to take deep breaths and lower my heart rate, I tried as hard as I could to focus on the road and get us home.

***

"Please don't try to go find Cam," Lilith said to me immediately when we got home. "He's not the person you remember. I don't want you to try to deal with him before I explain things to you. Please just go to your room and I'll come up and talk to you in a few minutes."

Reluctantly, angrily, I did what she said. I flopped down on my bed, thoughts swirling around in my head. How could Cam be alive? I knew I had seen him stop breathing. I was certain of it. And how could he become a zombie? What did that even mean? I'd spent the past five years mourning Cam. The revelation that he might actually be alive was too much to handle.

I heard the door open and Lilith walked in. "Hey." Her voice shook a little. I didn't look at her. I was too upset.

"How is Cam alive?" I was seething.

"Let me start at the beginning," Lilith said. "I was there the night Cam died. I'd followed you into the woods. I watched him collapse. After you ran off, something came over me. I went over, and I touched him, and he woke up." Lilith paused. "You were so convinced he was dead. You'd already told everyone that he was. I couldn't just bring a dead person into our house and say, surprise, he's alive."

"But... I saw him stop breathing." Everything was swirling.

"Well, he's clearly not dead," Lilith responded.

I considered what Lilith had said. Maybe I hadn't actually seen Cam die. After all, I ran off so quickly, I didn't see much. It could have been a stressful situation exaggerated in my twelve-year-old mind.

"But how is he a zombie?"

Lilith hesitated. "Today Cam found me at school. He told me he'd eaten everything in the house, but he was still hungry. His eyes were glowing red, and his skin was turning grey. He... he wanted to bite me, but I wouldn't let him. His condition reminded me of something I've read in one of our old books. It said that zombies with glowing red eyes and grey skin eat people's central nervous system. That's why I was at the hospital."

"That still doesn't explain how he became that way."

"Whatever I did to Cam on that day must have had some consequences. I don't know exactly what I did, but it must have turned Cam into this."

"So it's your fault," I turned over to look at Lilith. Her eyes were cast down at the floor. She looked stressed and sad.

"Yes. I've turned your best friend into a monster. I'm sorry."

With that, Lilith got up and left the room. So many thoughts swirled through my head. It dawned on me that maybe my touch didn't kill people after all. Maybe the reason my death touch didn't work on Lilith was not that she was immune to it, but that it didn't exist. Maybe I'd been wearing gloves for years for no reason.

Maybe I wasn't cursed after all.