Deadline

Sixteen

I woke sprawled buck-ass naked on the guest room bed, surrounded by the furry mounds of sleeping bulldogs. Groaning, I pushed myself up onto my elbows. The door was open about a foot—just enough to explain my unwanted guests. I scrubbed at my face with one hand, trying to wake up enough to start worrying about my clothes. “Guess it’s time to deal with another fucking morning, huh, George?”

Ringing silence answered me. I pulled my hand away from my face and sat all the way up. “George?” Still no answer. “You’re starting to freak me out here, George. What did I do to earn the silent treatment? I’m doing what you asked me to do. I’m actually stepping up to the plate. So could you stop fucking around?”

She didn’t stop fucking around. She was still there—I remember what sane felt like, and this wasn’t it; sane didn’t come with the constant low-grade awareness of George sitting at the back of my head—she just wasn’t talking. I scowled.

“Fine. If you want to play silent treatment, we’ll play silent treatment. See how you like it.” I scooched my butt along the mattress, eventually gettin to the point where my feet hit the floor. Every muscle in my legs ached. I could already tell I was going to be applying Icy-Hot and gulping aspirin like M&Ms all day. I guess that’s what you get when you go and outrun an outbreak.

“And yet somehow better than the alternative,” I muttered.

The mystery of how the door got open was answered by the stack of clothing and crap on the bookshelf just inside. I sent a silent thanks to Maggie’s in-house laundry service—silent because with her computer systems, I was vaguely afraid the program in charge of the laundry service might respond if I thanked it out loud—and began getting dressed. Even the things I’d left in the bathroom were clean, down to the rust on my ancient Swiss army knife. I shook my head. Sometimes it’s possible to be a little too efficient. It was unnerving to think of the house sending out tiny cleaning devices and using them to polish my thumb drive and pocket change to a mirror sheen.

At least nothing was missing. I shoved things into their respective pockets, fastened my belt, and sat down on the bed to put my boots on. That’s when the reality of my position finally filtered through my sleep-addled, George-less brain:

I was the only person in the room. Where the hell was Becks? I looked back at the bed, which didn’t offer any answers. From the way I’d been sprawled when I woke up, there was nothing to prove that anyone else had been in the bed to begin with. That was a little worrisome. If I’d gone even further over the edge and started hallucinating being seduced by random members of staff, the time remaining before I went totally insane was probably pretty low.

With that cheerful thought at the front of my mind, I started trying to get my boots on. The process was complicated by the dogs, who thought attacking the laces was a fantastic game. The main difference between dogs that size and cats seems to be that cats, while crazy, are at least meant to be little, whereas the process of shrinking dogs seems to drive them insane. “At least we have that much in common,” I muttered, and stood, stretching for a final time before walking out of the room. I left the guest room door open. No point in depriving the bulldogs of a nice warm bed.

Alaric was sitting at the kitchen table with his laptop, tapping industriously away. A half a pot of coffee sat in front of him, wafting the delicious smell of hot caffeine toward me as I entered. I stopped to sniff appreciatively. The sound got his attention; he looked up, nodded briefly, and looked back down again. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I said. I grabbed a mug from the counter and poured myself a cup of hot black coffee. Morning is the only time I normally get coffee without complaining from my inner peanut gallery. If George wanted to sulk, maybe I could get a second cup in before going back to Coke.

A pang of guilt followed on the heels of the thought, although it wasn’t enough to stop me from taking a mouthful of throat-searing liquid. I’d rather have George than all the coffee in the world. Still, if focusing on self-caffeination distracted me from the question of her silence, it was worthwhile. Alaric kept typing as I sat down across from him, seeming to ignore me completely. I sipped my coffee. He typed. George didn’t say anything.

This went on for a few minutes before I ct blaed my throat and asked, “So what have I missed? Other than the sunrise and, apparently, breakfast?”

Alaric raised his head. “Maggie took Becks and the Doc into town to go grocery shopping. Something about us eating her out of house and home.”

The image of that particular trio tackling the Weed supermarket was fascinating. I paused for a moment to ponder it. I’ve seen pictures of pre-Rising grocery stores. They were weird, cramped things, with narrow aisles filled with milling consumers—and of course, when the zombies came, they turned into effective little death traps, full of places for the infected to hide. Even the sprinkler systems they used to run over the vegetables worked to spread the outbreak, since all it took was a few drops of blood getting into the water system and, bam, you were literally misting live infection throughout the produce aisle. It didn’t help that people kept freaking out and running for places where they could try to hole up until it was all over—like the nearest warehouse megastore. The body counts at Costco and Wal-Mart were nothing short of stratospheric.

For a few years post-Rising, everyone bought their groceries online. Some people still do that, preferring a small delivery charge to the inherent risks of going out among the rest of the population. Unfortunately for them, not everything lends itself to the online model. Fresh fruit and vegetables, meat—fish and poultry, anyway, those being the meats still sold for eating—and anything with the word “bulk” attached to it are much better bought in person. The rise of the modern grocery store has been a reflection of people’s twin needs to eat and not get eaten. The layout is closer to the old megastores than anything else, but only a certain number of people are allowed in each department at any one time. Groups cycle through according to the store’s floor plan, with air locks and blood testing units between each distinct part of the store. The process takes hours. Grocery shopping is not an activity for the faint of heart.

I paused. “Isn’t Maggie afraid they’ll be spotted?”

“I’m pretty sure her parents own the store.”

“Oh, that’d do it. Has the Doc ever actually been in a grocery store?” I asked. My coffee was starting to cool down. I took a longer swallow, letting comforting bitterness cover the back of my throat. It was weird, drinking coffee without apologizing to George or asking permission before doing it. I took another drink, almost daring her to comment.

She didn’t.

“I don’t think so,” said Alaric. “She turned sort of white when Maggie told her where they were going.”

“God, I hope somebody’s got a camera running.” Or four, or five, or maybe an even dozen. We couldn’t use the footage for anything, but seeing Kelly confronted with an actual fish counter would be comedy gold.

“I’m sure they do,” said Alaric. “They know their jobs.”

“True.” I refilled my mug. “Anything else going on?”

“Not really.”

“Huh. Okay. How are the overnights?”

“Good.”

“Not great?”

“Really good.” Alaric seemed to realize I wasn’t going anywhere. He pushed his laptop to one side and reached for his own mug. “Your report got a ridiculous number of downloads. I mean, really ridiculous. Every time you go anywhere near the field, we see a ratings spike of insane proportions.”

“Yeah, well, every time I go anywhere near the field, I wind up not sleeping for a month, so I guess it evens out in the end. Has the CDC said anything about what happened in Portland?”

“There’s no official statement yet, but Talking Points managed to get an interview with Director Swenson—”

I snorted. Talking Points is a lousy site, and they have a reputation for editing reports to match the requests of the highest bidder. Giving them an exclusive was sort of like buying a commercial slot during prime time: a great use of your money, but a terrible abuse of the truth.

Alaric narrowed his eyes. “Mind if I continue?”

“Sorry.” I waved my mug in his direction. “I’m all ears. No more interruptions, I promise.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Alaric muttered, before continuing: “He repeated the lab accident story and added a cute little ‘maybe if they hadn’t somehow wandered into a secure area, they wouldn’t have been forced to use the emergency access tunnels’ rider, trying to make it look like you and Becks had been negligent, or worse, trespassing.”

“How did we answer that?”

“Mahir uploaded your footage, sans dialogue, of everything from the director leaving you in the conference room to the lights going out. Time stamps visible for the entire thing. If you were someplace you weren’t supposed to be, it was because the director left you there.”

“Remind me to give that man a raise.”

“How about you get the rest of us out of the line of fire, first?” Alaric’s tone was harsh, verging on nasty. I’d never heard him talk to anyone like that before. Not even after the time I broke his nose for suggesting that my ongoing need to talk to George was a sign of mental illness. I know it’s a sign of mental illness; I knew it then, too. I just think the alternative to going crazy is even worse.

I put my mug down, frowning as I studied Alaric. He looked tired, but that wasn’t really a surprise. We all looked tired, and with good reason. “Dude, what’s going on? Did somebody decide to piss in your cereal or something?”

“I’m just not sure you have your priorities straight anymore. That’s all.” Alaric looked at me steadily, lips firming into a thin line. “It’s not like any of us can quit at this point, is it? Not when they’re blowing up buildings to make us stop poking at things.”

“What, and you think that’s my fault?” I waved an arm toward the front door. “I didn’t ask the Dochow up, and they started shooting at us as soon as they had a bead on where she was, remember? You cannot pin that one on me, Alaric. You want to be pissed off at somebody, I recommend her.”

“She brought us a hook into the greatest conspiracy of our generation! You just want it to be about revenge! It’s not all about you, Shaun. It’s never been all about you. You’re not the only one being lied to, and you’re not the only one who’s lost people. I guess I’m just getting tired of you acting that way.”

I blinked. “I… what?”

“You heard me.”

“I never said this wasn’t everybody’s fight.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

I slammed my hand down on the table hard enough to make the coffee slosh over the lip of my mug. Alaric jumped. “Dammit, Alaric, this is not the time to play pissy bitches. What the fuck is bothering you? Did you get trolled on the message boards? Is your revenue share down? Do you not like the guest room you’re in? What?”

“Was there a particular reason Rebecca came down the stairs this morning looking like she hadn’t slept, and ran out of here the second she was given the opportunity to do so?” You could have used the edge on his voice to cut steel. Closing his laptop with one hand, Alaric continued: “You were asleep at the time. That may be why she left so quickly. Avoiding an unpleasant encounter.”

“Oh, crap.” Any relief I might have felt at hearing that I wasn’t going crazier—Becks and I really did have sex—was destroyed by the realization that I’d hurt her in the process. I put a hand over my face, resting my elbow on the table. “Oh, fuck.”

“That was what I assumed you’d been doing.”

“Alaric, man—” I raised my head, looking at him. He was still glaring at me. That was fine. I felt like glaring at myself. “How upset was she?”

“I’m not sure, really. She wasn’t exactly in the mood for handing out details.”

That was one I owed her. Two, if you counted the monumental apology I was going to be making as soon as she got back. “I guess not. Look, Alaric, I never meant for any of that to happen, I swear. I wasn’t trying to get her into bed, and I sure as hell wasn’t trying to hurt her once she was there.”

“I know.” He sighed, deflating somehow as he looked down at the table. “I know she likes you. I’ve known for ages. I just kept hoping she’d see that you weren’t interested. That she had better options available. But it was like she couldn’t see anything but the fact that you were playing hard to get.”

“I wasn’t playing,” I said softly. This sort of thing was easier to handle when George was around. She was always the one who noticed when girls started crushing on me, and she made them go away. One way or another. I’d never tried to deal with this sort of situation on my own before. “I really wasn’t.”

Alaric laughed. It was a short, dry sound, utterly devoid of humor. “The tragedy of all this is that I know. If you’d been playing, she might have gotten over you faster.”

“I’ll apologize.”

“You’d better.” He stood, taking his laptop with him. “We can’t afford to be at each other’s throats right now.”

“No, we can’t,” I said bleakly, and watched as he turned and walked out of the room. Once he was gone I let my head fall to the table, forehead knocking gently against the wood. “Fuck, George. How do I get myself into this shit?”

Leaping before you look, mostly. It’s always been your biggest weakness. Her laugh was superficially similar to Alaric’s, all sharp, hard edges, but there was amusement there, too. The sort of amusement that comes right before the execution. That, and me, anyway.

“Oh, thank God.” I sat up and sagged backward in the chair, closing my eyes. “You scared the crap out of me.”

You needed some time to think.

“Yeah, and look how much good that did me. Now Becks is pissed, which means Maggie’s going to be pissed, too, and Alaric thinks I’m an asshole.”

Well, you sort of are. I told you to be careful with her.

“How was I supposed to know she was going to jump me in the bathroom?”

I love you, but there are times when I really don’t understand the way your brain works. She’s been getting ready to jump you for a while now. All the signs were there.

“Why would I know what the signs were, George? I never had to read them before.”

She sighed. True enough. You shouldn’t have called her by my name, Shaun. This is going to complicate everything.

“I know. Now what am I supposed to do about it?”

She didn’t have an answer for that one.

Maggie’s van pulled up half an hour later. I heard doors slamming in the driveway, and then, like magic, the kitchen was full of women with arms full of groceries, covering every flat surface with brown paper sacks. I was still at the kitchen table, although I’d exchanged my coffee for a can of Coke. The acidic sweetness of it was actually pleasant for once; the fact that I was drinking it meant that George was speaking to me again. That was worth doing a little damage to my tooth enamel.

Becks cast a wounded look in my direction as she dropped her armload of grocery bags onto the stove. Then she fled out the back door, vanishing in the direction of the van. I winced and stood. “Aw, hey, Becks, hang on a second—”

“Freeze,” said Maggie, in an amiable tone.

I froze.

“Kelly, why don’t you g"0em" widtd get Alaric. Tell him we need help unloading the van.” Maggie’s voice stayed pleasant, but there was an edge to it that made arguing with her seem like a seriously bad idea. Kelly nodded and left the room even faster than Becks had. She didn’t even bother putting down her last bag of groceries.

I stayed where I was, watching Maggie cautiously. She put down the bag she was holding and walked over to me, stopping a few feet away as she studied my face. Finally, shaking her head, she sighed.

“How crazy are you, Shaun?”

It was an echo of the question George asked me in the van, after Kelly dropped her little bombshell about the reservoir conditions. There was no possible way for Maggie to have heard Georgia’s side of the conversation, even if she’d been listening in. I flinched all the same, answering without thinking about it: “Pretty damn crazy.” I winced. “Okay, that was maybe not the best answer. Can I try again?”

“It was an honest answer, which is what I needed.” Maggie looked me slowly up and down. “Did you know what you were going to do to Rebecca when you let her take you to bed?”

“God, no. Maggie, I didn’t even know she was… y’know, interested in me. That way.”

“I thought that might be the case.” Maggie sighed. “Have you ever had a girlfriend?”

That was another question without a good answer. I settled for being as honest as I could. “Not as such, no.”

Again that slow look up and down before Maggie said, “I thought that might be the case, too. Will you let me give you some advice?”

“At this point?” I barked a short, bitter laugh. “I’d take advice from the bulldogs if I thought it would help. I didn’t mean to fuck things up with Becks. I mean…” It was my fault because she’d been there, and she’d been willing, and she’d been offering me something I thought I wanted. She came with full disclosure, all her baggage right there on the table. Me, I’d been hiding how far gone I was for so long that I… didn’t. She had no idea what she was getting into. I knew that. And I should have known better.

“Are you blaming her?”

“I’m blaming myself.”

“Good.” Maggie nodded, looking satisfied. “You’re both adults, and it’s none of my business what you do, as long as nobody’s getting hurt. Becks got hurt. Maybe she should have been more careful about weighing the risks, but that doesn’t matter right now. You need to apologize to her. You need to make this right, because if you wait for her to get better on her own, I don’t think you’re going to be able to work together anymore.”

“Yeah, I can do that.” I would even mean it. Becks deserved a hell of a lot better than the way I’d treated her, whether I meant to treat her badly or not.

She deserved a hell of a lot better than me.

“I’m glad.” Maggie stepped forward and hugged me. Her hair smelled lie I was fonilla and strawberries. She held on just long enough that I was starting to get uncomfortable before letting go and turning to start taking groceries out of bags, leaving me blinking dumbly after her. Catching my look, she arched her eyebrows, and said, “Well? What are you waiting for? Get out there and talk to her. Go.”

I went.

The grass was damp, probably from some overnight rainfall, and my boots were wet by the time I’d crossed it to Maggie’s van, which sat in the driveway with doors open and groceries on the front seat. There was nobody there. I turned to look around, unsurprised to see footprints in the wet grass leading away, toward Maggie’s vegetable garden.

I followed the trail all the way around the house and to the edge of the carefully tilled plot of ground that Maggie used for growing vegetables and fresh herbs. A few pre-Rising park benches had been set up inside the garden border, providing a decorative touch of retro chic to the place. Becks was sitting on the bench farthest from where I stood, her back to me. I wasn’t quiet as I approached her, and she didn’t move. I guess she’d been expecting me.

“Hey,” I said, when I was close enough. “You mind if I sit down?”

“Yes, I do mind.” She turned in my direction, tilting her chin up as she looked at me. Her eyes were only a little bloodshot. She’d clearly mastered the Irwin art of crying without making yourself look bad for the cameras. That just made me feel worse. “But I guess we have to do this, so you might as well.” She scooted to the side, waving a hand in invitation.

“Thanks.” I sat, letting my hands rest on my knees. Silence fell between us. She was waiting for me to start, and I had no clue how.

Say you’re sorry, prompted George.

She’d never led me wrong before. “I’m sorry, Becks. I mean, Jesus, I’m so fucking sorry, I don’t think I can even say it. I was stupid, and I was selfish, and I’m sorry.”

Becks took a shaky breath. There was an edge of laughter to her voice when she spoke, like she couldn’t quite believe that we were doing this. “So that’s it? You’re sorry? I knew you had issues, Shaun, and I’m a big girl—I thought I could handle them. I guess I was wrong. I shouldn’t blame you for that.” But I do. The subtext in her words was impossible to miss, even for me.

“Maybe you shouldn’t blame me, but I should still have been smart enough to tell you that it wasn’t a good idea for us to be… intimate like that.”

“You mean we shouldn’t have fucked like bunnies?”

I coughed, partly from surprise, partly to cover the phantom sound of George’s laughter. “Uh, that, too. I just… I guess I wasn’t expecting it and does that sound unbelievably lame, or is it just me?”

Becks frowned, slowly. “You really mean that, don’t you? You really had no idea.”

“No idea of what?”

She stared for a moment before letting her chin drop and saying, “Oh, my God. You really had no idea.”

I was starting to get concerned. Apologizing for something I knew I’d done was one thing—I may not have much experience with girls, but I’m smart enough to know that calling them by somebody else’s name is never a good thing, especially when that somebody else is dead and also technically my sister. Apologizing for something I didn’t know I’d done was a bit more of a problem, if only because I couldn’t be sure I was doing it right. “Uh, Becks, I’m sorry, but you’re kinda losing me here. I’m happy to keep apologizing, but I do need to know what I’m apologizing for.”

This time her laughter was bright and brittle, like broken glass glinting in the sunlight. “I’ve been throwing myself at you for months, Shaun. The flirting, the frilly tops, the requests for hands-on review of my reports—I mean, what the hell did you think I was doing?”

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “I figured you just wanted to make sure your facts were solid before you posted, and all that frilly stuff looked like a girl thing. Sort of like the way you wear your hair.”

“I wasn’t getting any ratings based on what I wore to work,” she said.

I shrugged.

Becks sighed. “Fine. So you wrote all that off. What about the flirting? Did you write that off as ‘a girl thing,’ too?”

If I was telling the truth, I might as well go for the whole truth. I was pretty sure it couldn’t get me into any more trouble than I was already in. “Until you showed up and took my towel away, I really didn’t notice.”

“If Dave weren’t dead, I’d owe him ten bucks.” Becks looked away from me, staring out at the forest past the fence. It looked completely untamed; Maggie’s security precautions were very well concealed. “He said you didn’t get it. I thought you were playing hard to get.”

“That’s what Alaric said, too. I’m really sorry. I never did the whole flirting thing.”

“No, I guess you didn’t, did you?” She slanted a sidelong glance my way, considering me. “You didn’t need to.”

I thought about lying to her. After everything else, there didn’t seem to be any point. “No, I guess I didn’t.”

She nodded, once, mouth twisting in that too-damn-familiar way before she went back to looking at the forest. I hated that look. I’d hated it on every face that I’d ever seen wearing it. The one that said, clearly, “But she’s your sister,” and ignored the part where she was also the only person who’d ever really given a damn what I thought. About anything.

Finally, in a soft, almost contemplative tone, Becks said, “I guess I sort of knew, deep down. Maybe that’s why you were so safe to chase. I didn’t think I’d ever have a chance to catch you.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I settled for what seemed like the safest of my available options. “I’m sorry.”

“I am, too, Shaun. Believe me, I am too. I… I know we can’t exactly go back to the way things were. That’s my fault as much as it is yours, I guess. I just don’t know…”

“How we’re supposed to go on from here?” I ventured. She nodded. I bit back the urge to laugh, mostly because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop again. “Dude, Becks, I’ve been asking myself that question pretty much every day since George died.”

“Have you figured out the answer yet?”

“There isn’t one.” I slumped against the back of the bench, tilting my head back until I couldn’t see anything but sky, going on for what might as well have been forever. “I figure I’ll just keep on going the way I am until something starts making sense.”

“What if nothing ever does?”

“I guess if that happens, I’ll start hoping all the God freaks are right, and there’s some superior intelligence up there treating us all like laboratory rats.”

Fabric rustled against wood as Becks turned to peer at me. I couldn’t see her, but I knew her well enough to know exactly what her expression looked like: confusion mixed with wary suspicion that whatever I said next was going to be so completely off the wall that she couldn’t stand to hear it. Finally, she said, “Why are you going to start looking for God?”

“I didn’t say I was going to start looking. If there’s a God, there are plenty of people who know where he is.” I shrugged, still watching the sky. It was easier than watching Becks. “I just want to know that he’s there, so that I can die knowing there’s going to be someone I can punch in the mouth on the other end.”

Becks laughed. Some of the tension in my shoulders slipped away. I’d done a terrible thing to her, but I didn’t mean to, and the tone of her laughter told me that maybe—despite everything—we could manage to be okay again. She was right; we’d never be exactly the same kind of okay that we were before. But we’d be more okay, and that was better than nothing.

Violence isn’t the only solution, George said. She sounded as relieved as I felt.

“Sometimes it’s the most fun one,” I answered, without thinking about it. Becks stopped laughing. I tensed, looking away from the sky and back to her as I waited for us to start arguing again.

Instead, she just looked at me. Her eyes were hazel. I’d never noticed that before—not really. That made me feel even worse about what we’d done. I should never have slept with her if I couldn’t even remember the color of her eyes. “You’re pretty lucky, you know,” she said.

I blinked at her. “What?”

“Most people, we lose the people that we love, and they’re just gone. We don’t get to have them anymore. But you…” She raised a hand, brushing her fingertips across my forehead. Her skin was cool. “She’s always going to be there for you, isn’t she? As long as you live.”

“I don’t know how to live in a world that doesn’t have her in it,” I said. My voice came out raw with a longing that surprised me. I never start thinking I’m getting over losing her. It still startles me sometimes, when I realize just how damn much I miss her.

“Here’s hoping you never have to.” Becks stood. “We’re okay, Shaun. Or at least, I’m okay, and I’d like you to be okay with me.”

I nodded. “I’d like that.”

“Good. I’ll go tell Maggie that we talked things through.” She hesitated, and then added, “Keep the guest room. I’ll sleep on the couch tonight.” She shoved her hands into her pockets and walked away before I could say anything, footsteps plodding heavily on the damp garden earth. I watched her go, and then sagged back into the bench, closing my eyes.

“When do things get to be simple again, George?” I whispered. “Ever?”

They weren’t simple to begin with, she said.

I didn’t have a comeback for that, and so I just sat in the sunlight in the garden and breathed in the smell of rain-soaked grass, waiting for the world to slow down. Just a little bit. Just long enough to let us rest before the next storm came crashing through. Was that really so much to ask? I just wanted to rest.

Just for a little while.