Chapter 8: Cut Scenes

Six months ago (still)

I believe that children are the future.
Not all children, I mean. Most are probably just the seeds of future uselessness. I know a lot of people who most probably seemed full of potential when they were kids and now look at them.
One child. Steve. He is the future. I don't know his last name. The news reports weren't giving it out. Steve the frozen kid, dead and then not dead. Steve, just, Steve. I mean, who knows Typhoid Mary's last name, right?
The video they showed on CNN of the press conference shows the doctor, Doctor Rayvic Prosser. In the background, Steve, huddled in a heavy sweater, between his two loving parents, both of them hugging him tightly. His hair is dark, but is eyes are darker. They have a look, like he doesn't know what is going on, like he doesn't know where he is, who he is. The parents hug him harder and it looks like they're holding him down. Dr. Prosser talks and talks, but says nothing. He uses the word “miracle” a lot. It practically becomes a drinking game. Everytime Prosser says miracle, you drink. Everytime the parents smile, you drink. Everytime Steve looks like a lunatic off his meds, you drink. By the time the fifteen minute press conference is over, you're dead from alcohol poisoning.
I had to get out of the house.
I sat on campus, enjoying unseasonably warm March weather. The Mills was buzzing with activity as the student body emerged from the frost and ice of winter into the new life of not-quite-spring.
The Mills is what the students of Blakefield Mills University call the school. Blakefield, Indiana used to be big mill area. Like saw mills. From the pamphlet:
“Blakefield Mills University is nestled in the autumn foliage and rocky creeks of Blakefield, Indiana in the southern half of the state. At turn of the century, the town had been a milling town with a small, local school. As the mill grew, the town grew with it, and the school to accommodate it. At the end of World War Two, the school became a college, home to hundreds of returning G.I.'s and eventually became a well-respected liberal arts college with a leading ROTC program. Today, the Mill creeks winds through campus, past the Old Mill Building once the hub of industry in Blakefield, now one of the many administrative buildings.”
Blakefield Mills University. BMU. Bowel Movement University, the locals call it. “Turds float on the Mill creek.”
It takes a long time, as a townie, to think of it as The Mills and not by one of the other, more colorful nicknames.
I planned to go someplace else for college, everybody who lives in town does. People come from all over the country, the world, to go to school here. When you've lived in the shadow of BMU your whole life, the outside world beckons.
The dead, frozen boy. I tried not to think.
I sat on a bench watching several young men trying to kick the ice off of the two-story tall Mill wheel. As the weather warmed, it was one of the last places that defrosted and every year at least one student got arrested climbing on it and one student fell off and didn't finish the semester. I watched the frat guys swarming on it and tried to figure out which was which. “Go Archers!”
Yeah, I thought, go Archers!
“Think he'll fall?” Elise hovered just above me.
“I really hope so,” I said, forcing a smile.
“I haven't heard from you in a little while,” she said, sitting down on the bench next to me.
“Yeah.”
She nodded her head, pursed her lips. She looked so beautiful in the moment, that I wanted nothing more than to kiss her.
“What the fuck, Dave?”
She wasn't in a kissing mood, though.
“There's just a lot going on,” I lied.
“I thought there was something going on with us.”
“Yeah.”
“I'm not going to sit here and try to decode your bullshit, okay. I'm going to get up and walk away and chalk you up to experience. Okay?” She stood up.
I stared at my feet.
“This is me walking away.” She turned.
“That stuff you were talking about. That night.”
“Yeah, That Night.” She sat back down, brushed the hair out of her eyes, unconsciously revealing her scar. Did I scare you off? Didn't you see the news? That kid?”
That frozen, dead kid.
I shook my head. “It isn't that. I mean, it is that, but not like you think.”
“Look, Dave, I don't know what you want to say, and I won't know until you do.”
“I think, I know, that the world is going to end. The dead aren't going to stay dead and they are going to kill us.”
“That's what I said.”
“I think so, too. I know it. I've been getting ready for it. I mean, I'm almost looking forward to it, I've been preparing so long. Sounds crazy, I know. I felt lost since my parents died and this has given me a sense of purpose. Does that sound too fucked up, too crazy?”
“Yup.”
I laughed.
“What's the problem, then? This suddenly-not-dead kid should prove to you that you're right. I think the same thing you think. I've been preparing, too.”
“You make me wish it wasn't going to happen,” I said. “I want to be with you.”
“What's the problem, then?”
“You'll die.”
Elise hugged me. “What makes you think that I'll be the one who's dying? You can't shoot for shit.”
We both laughed.
“Will you marry me?”
Elise grinned. “No fucking way.”
“Until zombies do us part?”
“You're serious?”
I nodded.
“You are insane.”
“Is that a 'yes'?”
Elise stared at me for a few moments. “Of course it is.
I took her hand and stood up. “C'mon.”
She almost stumbled as I pulled her to her feet. “Where are we going?”
“Court house.”
“Holy shit!” somebody down by the Mill Creek was screaming. “He fell, call 911!”
I turned to look, but all I could see was blood on the ice. People were hurrying down the hill toward the water.
I turned away.
We were married that afternoon. I watch Elise sign her maiden name on the license. Elise Mallon.
Typhoid Mary's last name.
On our wedding night, as Elise, my wife, slept, I sat at the computer checking my e-mail in the dark.
One e-mail from Ben. No message, just a link. This is how he snuck “Two girls, one cup” on me. I clicked on the link. Bare bones website, nothing but a video. “Fuck,” I said. It was the Steve press conference. I yawned into my fist.
The video fast-forwarded to the end and then didn't end.
Steve still looked crazed, but his mother let him go, turned to Dr. Prosser, shook his hand, gestured toward the boy. Her face is pure motherly love.
Until Steve sunk his teeth into her neck.
Blood sprays the camera.
The father gets to his feet, grabs the kid by the back of his neck.
The mother clutches her neck, arterial spray gushing.
The boy still latched on.
The father punching him in the head as hard as he can.
Dr. Prosser heading to the camera, clawing at it, the blood smearing.
The video ends.
I leaned back in my desk chair and realized that my mouth was hanging open. I tried to shut it, but found that I was unable. I turned around and looked at Elise, asleep in my too-small bed. My wife. She should see this. I took a deep breath and logged off the internet. I got up and crawled into my bed, next to my wife and went to sleep.