Wasteland

Hold On 'Till May

The silky hotel sheets entangled my sweaty legs and restricted my movement. My eyes fluttered open. I sat bolt upright. “Merida!” I gasped and attempted to untangle myself. My heart pounded against my ribs.

“Hey, there. It’s okay...” Two cool hands pressed into my shoulders and slowly forced me back down to the mattress. I resisted. I saw a flash of crimson out of the corner of my eye. My heart stopped with a thud. “Merida...?”

“Yes.” Her soft face swam into view. I caught at one of her hands and held it in my own.

“What..? I don’t— I don’t understand...” I sputtered, staring up at her with wide eyes. “You’re dead. Am I dead, too?”

“No.” I let myself be pushed back down. She took her other hand and caressed my face. I clutched at her.

A gruff voice cleared like a tumble of boulders. I looked up, a humongous man with greying hair stood in front of us. He looked like a mountain. He’s was frikin’ terrifying. “Who...?”

“That’s my dad, Fergus. And that is one of my brothers. You’ve see one, you’ve seen em’ all.” She said, pointing to the doorway where a boy, maybe ten, peeked in and stared at us. He had scorching red hair to match the rest of the family and fire-cracker face.

“How’re you?” The large man Fergus, asked with a little smile. I turned my attention to him. My mind still swam, muddled and bewildered.

“Great...But what’s going on? I saw the zombies eating you. And your mother...?” I trailed off.

“We’ve found the cure, Vic.” Merida gripped my shoulder harder and  smiled dazzlingly down at me, the first time I’ve ever seen her look carefree and truly happy.

“What?!” I tried to sit up again, but she wouldn’t let me.

“It’s my blood, actually. I’m immune to the infection. Remember when I got bit by a zombie, but nothing happened? I’ll bet you anything that that zombie reverted back into a human.” She said in a burst. I stared non-plussed at her explanation. She gave a happy sigh. “My blood makes the zombies turn back into humans. They have to get my blood into their systems somehow, whether it be by ingestion or inter-vernal infusion.”

“Um...” I nodded, my mind still reeling. “Okay. But there are hundreds of zombies. You don’t have enough to turn them all. And how so you know this for sure?”

“My mom attacked me. You remember that. But then she stopped all of the sudden. And she began to reform. It looks rather painful and I had to explain what was happening before the reinforcements killed her. But we tried it with other zombies and the same thing happened! It’s me! I’m the cure!” She paused to take a quick breath before diving back in. “My father and I have devised a plan to get my blood to all the zombies. We’re going to put it forward to the UN. We need to round up all the zombies, put them together, and then we’ll treat them wih my blood. It’ll start as maybe spraying them until they’re safe enough to approach and give injections to. I still don’t know how it will work, but there is an answer. And my blood will be diluted, of course.  But with modern technology we can make each drop stronger. Then we will need some serious therapy for everyone involved...” She paused. “Nobody will ever be the same. The world is in shambles. But we can still fix it.”

“Yeah.” I concentrated on the feel of her calloused fingers lightly twisting my hair. WE weren’t the same either, but I hoped that would stay unfixed.

...

It had been weeks since we came to the hotel. The stab wound to my thigh, and all my other various injuries, were finally healing. The zombie healing was going well, discounting a few causalities. Merida and I shared happy words, but we were more like dogs trying to bury bones of emotions. Merida seemed to be lighter these days as well, but she never lost the haunted look in her eyes or her brisk words. And I could not stop thinking.

We sat on the flat roof of the hotel, and we stared up at the twinkling stars. I fiddled with her fingers in my lap. A cold brezze swirled on our cheeks, making them flush. “Merida?”

“Yeah?”

“I know that this whole deal is good. I mean, everyone is going to get healed... but, do you still feel guilty?”

“What do you mean?” She turned her face from me, so I knew that she knew what I meant, but I continued on anyways.

“Well, it’s only that we’ve killed so many people. And it isn’t like they were irreverisble monsters. We could have saved them...”

“Vic...” She shook her head.

“No. I just feel like I have this slick of blood on my hands, and no matter how many times I try to wash it off, it just covers every inch of my skin. Those were innocent people that we killed. They had families, lives, futures.”

“We did what we had to.” Her words her short. Curt. Sharp.

“But…” I dropped her fingers and stared down at my bandaged leg. I took a breath before saying, “The worst part is that, in the end I think I started to enjoy it. The killing, I mean.” I bit my tongue and looked down at my feet. My fingers left hers. I felt the familiar horror at myself. My mind clamored to make up excuses for this statement. But there was none. I was a murderer. And I couldn’t unseat the self-loathing that I’d accumulated. And I hated myself for it.

“Like I said, we do what we have to. It was them or us. And if having to resort to killing meant our survival, then we’d do it. We have to adapt to our surroundings. We’re only animals, if you think about. So, yeah, we killed. It’s horrible, but we can’t change it.”

I was silent for a moment. “You still don’t feel guilty, or torn up over what we did, though? Maybe we had to do it, but that doesn’t change the fact that we did do it.”

“Vic, don’t be stupid. This whole fucking thing is my fault. It’s my fault that you had to kill people and that you feel guilty. It’s my fault that hundreds of people died who didn’t have to and were forced into this stupid fucking ordeal. So hell yeah I feel guilty. I feel more than guilt… I’m never going to stop hating myself over it. My whole curing zombies makes me feel a little better, but how much will that actually change? Huh? The destruction I made far outweighs the healing I’m going to do. We are the people that this apocalypse shit has made us, and we can’t go back. We’re broken. I think we’ll be broken forever.” She broke off suddenly on a raw note. My chest hurt at the thought of her being so miserable.

“But at least not everything’s lost.” I said. “We’re still alive and we have time to heal.” She smiled half-heartedly gave me a peck on the cheek. My words felt futile even to my own ears, but they were the truth.

“It still feels hopeless. How are we supposed to do that? Heal?” She sighed.

I stared up at the sky. The past hung on my shoulders, set in stone and immovable. Yet the future stretched out in front us, unstable and nebulous. We’d hopefully heal, but there was no set path from here.

“Just... hold on, I guess.” I whispered. Merida closed her eyes and nestled her head onto my shoulder. I closed my eyes to the cold dark sky and felt the warmth emanating from her.