thrown on her bathroom floor and cracked her
head on the sink. She bled to death, mainly because my mother was mad at
her at the time and didn't come visit. Her funeral was a cacophony of
wailing women and somberly crying men who shook each other's hands as if they
didn't live right next to each other. She had been a hero of the
Outbreak, the priest said over the coffin. We were all diminished for her
light having gone out of the world.
Contrast that with my friend
Hap Johnson's sister's funeral. She had died in Quarantine. It was
impossible to tell if she had been a Beast or simply the victim of one, as the
bodies of the Quarantine dead were burned within the hour of death, to prevent
any potential airborne infection , though no such thing had ever been
reported . There were dry eyes
on every face except her mother's. The priest muttered something about
God and a lamb, but everyone could te l l his heart really wasn't in it. I wanted to ask my mother why but I
refused to hazard a question, and James was at college, so I asked my
dad. I was ten years old at the time, so I knew about Beasts and the
Bitten already, but it seemed to me that a death was a death, and people should
be equally sad at either.
"That's a very
interesting point you raise, slick," he drawled as he tinkered under the
hood of our '04 Civic. He frowned as he nearly cut the spark plug wires
absently, forgetting it was his own car he was working on. "Why is
the death of a fifty year old woman more traumatic than the death of a teenager?
You know, it used to be the other way around. You'd mourn for all that
lost potential...but now, secretly? People are glad."
I can't say I ever understood
what he was saying until that basketball game.
Our team, the Wild Dogs, were
winning pretty easily. The coach had his third string guys in there and
they still managed to dominate. The third string happened to include
Dave, my athletic roommate, so for his sake I cheered all the harder.
Even Ben got in the spirit, calling "shoot it, shoot it!" when Dave
had the ball. He saw us and waved .
The game was fun. Our
middle school games didn't come with nearly this much ceremony and spectacle,
and the energy of the crowd was exhilarating. I even saw Conyers, flanked
as he always was by two burly guards, smiling and clapping against his
leg. In that moment even I was mad at Remi. Who would want to spoil
this?
Ben nudged my leg.
"Panthers, #25."
I looked. He was slow,
dragging terribly, barely making it up and down the court in time to run back.
"Why don't they pull him?"
"He's their best
player." Ben shook his head. "No, no, no, no...."
I looked back at #25. He
was standing on the half-court line now, merely leaning one way and the other
as the teams ran past. But now even the coaches stopped calling advice to
him and just stared, stupefied.
Conyers's voice rang out with
all the immediacy of an air raid siren. "Clear the court!"
Pandemonium. Players
scattered to the far sides of the court cage, the ball bouncing away,
forgotten. A karaoke timekeeper with no more words to cue. #25 just
stood there, perfectly still. Then he began to growl.
The students in the bleachers screamed, clawing at their cage doors,
crawling over themselves to try to escape what they knew could be an impending
doom. No one knew how strong these cages really were. The players
on the court were begging the guards on the other side to open the doors, to
let them out before it was too late, but the guards stood still as tin
soldiers, their eyes fixed on #25.
Why didn't they fire? I
gripped Ben's shoulder, tight, as I searched for Dave in the crowd.
I should have known the
answer. A Beast got loose once at a minimall two counties over. I
remember watching the news footage as a kid on our wood-paneled tube TV and
thinking it was some sort of horror movie I wasn't supposed to be seeing.
James was with me then, just
head on the sink. She bled to death, mainly because my mother was mad at
her at the time and didn't come visit. Her funeral was a cacophony of
wailing women and somberly crying men who shook each other's hands as if they
didn't live right next to each other. She had been a hero of the
Outbreak, the priest said over the coffin. We were all diminished for her
light having gone out of the world.
Contrast that with my friend
Hap Johnson's sister's funeral. She had died in Quarantine. It was
impossible to tell if she had been a Beast or simply the victim of one, as the
bodies of the Quarantine dead were burned within the hour of death, to prevent
any potential airborne infection , though no such thing had ever been
reported . There were dry eyes
on every face except her mother's. The priest muttered something about
God and a lamb, but everyone could te l l his heart really wasn't in it. I wanted to ask my mother why but I
refused to hazard a question, and James was at college, so I asked my
dad. I was ten years old at the time, so I knew about Beasts and the
Bitten already, but it seemed to me that a death was a death, and people should
be equally sad at either.
"That's a very
interesting point you raise, slick," he drawled as he tinkered under the
hood of our '04 Civic. He frowned as he nearly cut the spark plug wires
absently, forgetting it was his own car he was working on. "Why is
the death of a fifty year old woman more traumatic than the death of a teenager?
You know, it used to be the other way around. You'd mourn for all that
lost potential...but now, secretly? People are glad."
I can't say I ever understood
what he was saying until that basketball game.
Our team, the Wild Dogs, were
winning pretty easily. The coach had his third string guys in there and
they still managed to dominate. The third string happened to include
Dave, my athletic roommate, so for his sake I cheered all the harder.
Even Ben got in the spirit, calling "shoot it, shoot it!" when Dave
had the ball. He saw us and waved .
The game was fun. Our
middle school games didn't come with nearly this much ceremony and spectacle,
and the energy of the crowd was exhilarating. I even saw Conyers, flanked
as he always was by two burly guards, smiling and clapping against his
leg. In that moment even I was mad at Remi. Who would want to spoil
this?
Ben nudged my leg.
"Panthers, #25."
I looked. He was slow,
dragging terribly, barely making it up and down the court in time to run back.
"Why don't they pull him?"
"He's their best
player." Ben shook his head. "No, no, no, no...."
I looked back at #25. He
was standing on the half-court line now, merely leaning one way and the other
as the teams ran past. But now even the coaches stopped calling advice to
him and just stared, stupefied.
Conyers's voice rang out with
all the immediacy of an air raid siren. "Clear the court!"
Pandemonium. Players
scattered to the far sides of the court cage, the ball bouncing away,
forgotten. A karaoke timekeeper with no more words to cue. #25 just
stood there, perfectly still. Then he began to growl.
The students in the bleachers screamed, clawing at their cage doors,
crawling over themselves to try to escape what they knew could be an impending
doom. No one knew how strong these cages really were. The players
on the court were begging the guards on the other side to open the doors, to
let them out before it was too late, but the guards stood still as tin
soldiers, their eyes fixed on #25.
Why didn't they fire? I
gripped Ben's shoulder, tight, as I searched for Dave in the crowd.
I should have known the
answer. A Beast got loose once at a minimall two counties over. I
remember watching the news footage as a kid on our wood-paneled tube TV and
thinking it was some sort of horror movie I wasn't supposed to be seeing.
James was with me then, just
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