Read Online This Plague of Days Season One (The Zombie Apocalypse Serial) by Robert Chazz Chute - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert Chazz Chute
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morning Jaimie woke early to birds chirping, the blare of radio voices and his next-door neighbor singing louder than usual. Mrs. Marjorie Bendham, intent on her task, seemed to ignore the radio as she turned her flower bed with a hoe. She trilled up and down like she was trying to drown out the radio voices. She had been a soprano when she was young and, though she was very old now, she rarely stopped singing, even when her voice grew so weak and low, she dropped to a whisper.
She and her husband Al spent a lot of time in their backyard by the pool. Mrs. Bendham practiced scales and occasionally an aria. Jaimie did not understand Italian, but he appreciated the clear violets and blues and greens that floated out as she sang. There was something different in her voice today, a sharp yellow quaver Jaimie hadn’t heard before. It seemed everyone’s aura was dominated by yellow, if it wasn’t already infected black. Only Anna’s angry reds — “mean reds” he’d read in one of her high school books — seemed to run on the high energy of an inexhaustible fuel of emotion and gritted teeth.
Jaimie moved to the window and watched the old woman putter among her empty flower beds, disturbing gardens of dirt aimlessly. The best, clear notes sailed out as usual, but the irritating yellow vibrated and hovered, disappearing and returning around the edges of the blue sounds. Her aura was usually a muddied green and a dirty mustard yellow around her hips and knees. When she sang opera, her colors deepened to richer hues. Jaimie could feel the emotions she conveyed with her songs. Mostly, they were laments. The dictionary said a lament is for something lost, but didn’t specify what. If he were a talker, Jaimie would have asked Mrs. Bendham. He wondered what she had lost.
Al Bendham was a quiet man who had worked for the government though he never said how. Jack once asked exactly what his old job had been as they chatted over the fence. He just shrugged and said, “Nothing much.”
The old man was blind, which interested Jaimie since the boy saw more in the auras of others than he felt. Jaimie felt blind in his own way because the motivations of others were so often opaque to him. Despite his vast vocabulary, it seemed people had a secret language within a language. Words had too many hidden meanings and subtle implications.
For instance, at school, his teacher often lectured him about “boundaries” if he stepped too close to another student. However, boundaries were elastic things that seemed to vary by individual and circumstance. Birthday cake was good to share, but he was forbidden from eating another student’s lunch. People, Jaimie decided, were disorganized and ruled by too many variables.
Since Jaimie saw more than he felt, he wondered if Mr. Bendham felt more than he could see. The neighbor spent hours listening to the radio as he vacuumed his pool. Though the radio sat on the ledge behind the screen of his kitchen window, it was turned up loud. As he vacuumed, his great head of shaggy white hair was always cocked slightly toward it. He looked like an old lion at the zoo, pacing and waiting, but with no apparent purpose beyond pacing and waiting.
Sometimes Jaimie spied on Mr. Bendham as he did Mr. Sotherby. He rarely saw Sotherby unless he spotted him mowing his lawn or playing the bouncing game with his flight attendant friends. From Jaimie’s bedroom window, he watched the blind man vacuum the pool. He never seemed in a hurry and the boy found that soothing. The old man frequently cleaned the same spot in the deep end repeatedly, either not knowing when he was done or not caring.
The boy watched the blind man’s aura, which was curiously disorganized at the back of his head. From a medical dictionary, the boy knew there was something faulty in the old man’s occipital lobe — something that betrayed his vision. Jaimie watched and waited for him to pick his nose or dig in his ears. When he
She and her husband Al spent a lot of time in their backyard by the pool. Mrs. Bendham practiced scales and occasionally an aria. Jaimie did not understand Italian, but he appreciated the clear violets and blues and greens that floated out as she sang. There was something different in her voice today, a sharp yellow quaver Jaimie hadn’t heard before. It seemed everyone’s aura was dominated by yellow, if it wasn’t already infected black. Only Anna’s angry reds — “mean reds” he’d read in one of her high school books — seemed to run on the high energy of an inexhaustible fuel of emotion and gritted teeth.
Jaimie moved to the window and watched the old woman putter among her empty flower beds, disturbing gardens of dirt aimlessly. The best, clear notes sailed out as usual, but the irritating yellow vibrated and hovered, disappearing and returning around the edges of the blue sounds. Her aura was usually a muddied green and a dirty mustard yellow around her hips and knees. When she sang opera, her colors deepened to richer hues. Jaimie could feel the emotions she conveyed with her songs. Mostly, they were laments. The dictionary said a lament is for something lost, but didn’t specify what. If he were a talker, Jaimie would have asked Mrs. Bendham. He wondered what she had lost.
Al Bendham was a quiet man who had worked for the government though he never said how. Jack once asked exactly what his old job had been as they chatted over the fence. He just shrugged and said, “Nothing much.”
The old man was blind, which interested Jaimie since the boy saw more in the auras of others than he felt. Jaimie felt blind in his own way because the motivations of others were so often opaque to him. Despite his vast vocabulary, it seemed people had a secret language within a language. Words had too many hidden meanings and subtle implications.
For instance, at school, his teacher often lectured him about “boundaries” if he stepped too close to another student. However, boundaries were elastic things that seemed to vary by individual and circumstance. Birthday cake was good to share, but he was forbidden from eating another student’s lunch. People, Jaimie decided, were disorganized and ruled by too many variables.
Since Jaimie saw more than he felt, he wondered if Mr. Bendham felt more than he could see. The neighbor spent hours listening to the radio as he vacuumed his pool. Though the radio sat on the ledge behind the screen of his kitchen window, it was turned up loud. As he vacuumed, his great head of shaggy white hair was always cocked slightly toward it. He looked like an old lion at the zoo, pacing and waiting, but with no apparent purpose beyond pacing and waiting.
Sometimes Jaimie spied on Mr. Bendham as he did Mr. Sotherby. He rarely saw Sotherby unless he spotted him mowing his lawn or playing the bouncing game with his flight attendant friends. From Jaimie’s bedroom window, he watched the blind man vacuum the pool. He never seemed in a hurry and the boy found that soothing. The old man frequently cleaned the same spot in the deep end repeatedly, either not knowing when he was done or not caring.
The boy watched the blind man’s aura, which was curiously disorganized at the back of his head. From a medical dictionary, the boy knew there was something faulty in the old man’s occipital lobe — something that betrayed his vision. Jaimie watched and waited for him to pick his nose or dig in his ears. When he
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