Chapter 2:
I’m up and out of the house early. I tell Mom a little lie about needing to stop off to buy a notebook for one of my classes. She says her usual stuff about how I should have already done it. She says something else, but I’m on my way out the door, and I miss most of it.
I pull into Ryan’s apartment complex. As always, he’s waiting for me by the mailboxes in the center of the complex. Damn! He’s cute. I often wonder if we would have been more than friends, if he weren’t gay, but that’s part of who he is. Maybe, if he were straight, we wouldn’t even be friends. Jaime is my boyfriend, and I love him, but Jaime and I aren’t friends as Ryan and I are. To Jaime, guys are friends and girls are girlfriends and lovers. He’s fighting hard to upgrade my status from girlfriend to lover, and I’m afraid it’s a battle he’ll win. During each battle for my virginity, my defenses get a little weaker. It’s not that I plan to wait until I’m married to have sex, as my mother would want, but I would like to wait until I’m out of high school. Jaime is putting a lot of pressure on me, though, and I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hold out.
“If we’re not doing it, and I go off to college, I can’t make any promises. A boy has needs.”
Well, a girl has needs, too, but I learned long ago how to satisfy them, and I’m sure Jaime learned at an even earlier age. I talk to Ryan about sex and about the differences between boys and girls, and I don’t think boys and girls are as different as Jaime seems to think. I get turned on just like he does.
It’s not like Jaime and I don’t do other things when it comes to sex, and I can’t say why I’m so reluctant to go all the way. Janelle is on the pill, and she is having sex with Mike. I see nothing wrong with it. I’m just not ready for it; that’s all.
I stop, and, and Ryan crawls in on the passenger side.”
He smiles: “Hey.”
“Hey,” I say.
“We’re driving by there aren’t we?”
“I came early, and I said I would, didn’t I?” I say.
He nods: “Yeah, but I was afraid you’d chicken out. You sure didn’t want to last night?”
I shrug: “I think it’s a waste of time. What do you expect to see?”
He lifts his hands and gives me a palms-up shrug: “I don’t know. Did you see anything on the news about it this morning?”
“I didn’t watch the news. Watching the news isn’t part of my morning routine.”
“It’s not usually part of mine either,” he says, “ but, I did watch the news this morning, and there was nothing on it about the murder.”
“So, it was yesterday’s news. Maybe, they had other news to report.”
“They didn’t have anything bigger than that to report.”
“It was just a murder. Murders happen all the time.”
“It wasn’t just a murder. It was a zombie attack.”
I flare up at that. “I wish you’d quit saying that. There’s no such thing as zombies. It was just some crazy guy. Maybe, it was a lovers spat.”
As soon as I say it, I’m wishing I could take it back. That’s my mother talking not me. At least, he doesn’t seem to take offense that I implied they might be homosexuals. I’m glad he doesn’t.
“Having a fight with your lover doesn’t make you want to eat his face. You might want to kill him, but you don’t want to eat his face.”
“What’s all this crap about eating faces?” I ask. “What makes you think they’re eating their faces? That’s what Shawn always says, but I’ve never heard anything about eating faces on the news.”
“It’s on the deep web, on the Darknet. There is an underground website reporting on it.”
“So, just because it’s on the Web, it’s the truth? Do you believe everything you see on the Internet?” We’re out of his apartment complex driving toward Tigard. I glance over him for his answer.
“No, I don’t believe everything I see on the internet, but the government keeps taking down any sites on the regular Web that talk about it. Why would they do that, if they weren’t trying to cover something up, if what they were saying on the sites wasn’t true?”
I shrug: “Because, they’re spreading lies.”
“There are plenty of lies spread on the Internet they don’t take down. Why just take these down?”
“What makes you think the government is taking the sites down?”
He rolls his eyes: “Who else would have the resources to keep taking down the sites? Who else would have a reason to take them down?”
“Maybe, they’re breaking some law. They took down that file sharing site.”
“The only thing they’re trying to share is the truth,” he says. “That’s what the government is afraid of, the truth.”
“And, just what is the truth?” I ask.
“That it’s happening all over, much more than the government is letting on; that they don’t know how to stop it. Maybe, they don’t even know what’s causing it.”
“But, you do, I suppose. It’s a virus turning people into zombies, and they’re going around eating people? Is that what they’re saying on the website? I suppose they’re all playing the same stupid video game.” He gives me his exasperated look, his lips pursed and his brows furrowed. I’ve seen it before. “Okay, they call them zombies, and they say something is causing it. They don’t know whether it’s a virus or what, but people don’t just wake up one day, go next door, and kill and eat their neighbor. Something is causing it. If it’s not a virus, what is it, and why is the government trying to keep the wraps on it?”
I can tell he’s serious about this: “Do you really think it’s happened to hundreds of people?”
He shrugs: “I think it’s happening all over. I think that, more likely, it’s happened to thousands of people. I think they’re covering it up because they don’t know how to stop it.”
He’s frightening me. I didn’t want to go drive by the murder scene before. Now, I really don’t: “If you think it’s a virus, why do you want to drive by there? Why would you want to get close to the place?”
“I don’t think we’ll get close to the place,” he says. “I’ll bet we can’t get within five blocks of the place.”
I look at him: “Huh?”
“I’ll bet the cops, Homeland Security, the National Guard, or someone has the place blocked off and we can’t get within blocks of it.”
We’ll know soon. I’m just turning onto the freeway. We’ll be there in less than ten minutes
Before we get to the Tigard turnoff, we know something is wrong. Traffic in the exit lane is stacked up for miles. “We’ll never make it to school, if we wait in this line,” I say.
“Maybe, school no longer matters,” he says.
I turn my head toward him: “What do you mean?”
“If this keeps up, there might not be any school by this time next year.”
“You can’t be serious,” I say. “It can’t be that bad.”
He lets out a long sigh and looks at me. Our eyes meet: “Look, I don’t know how bad it’s going to get, but I think it’s going to be bad. From what I’ve seen on the Web, martial law has been declared in some towns, and no news is coming out of them. Even the underground net can’t get any information out of them. What do you think this traffic is all about? Pacific Highway is a main thoroughfare, and I’ll bet they have it closed off. Those apartments aren’t on it, but they’re only a block off of it. I’ll bet every street around them for blocks is closed off. Let’s check it out, okay? It won’t hurt either of us to miss a little school.”
“Why didn’t you ever say anything to me about it before?”
“Would you have believed me?”
“I don’t know.”
“If I had told you a bunch of zombies were going around killing people, would you have believed me?”
I didn’t have any difficulty answering that: “No.”
“See. Besides, I was hoping they were wrong. I didn’t think they were, but I was hoping they were. When it happened here, I knew everything they were saying on the Web was true.”
“Maybe, this was just some crazy guy, a copycat killing or something.”
“One way to find out,” he says, pointing at the line of cars in front of us, “is to stay in this line and see what’s at the end of it. If we can’t get close to those apartments, we’ll know something’s up. They wouldn’t block them off for a simple killing, would they?”
I agree, so I shake my head.
It takes us almost a half hour to get onto 217 to Tigard and Beaverton. With morning rush traffic, and whatever impediment that lies ahead, traffic is practically at a standstill. We sit, move a few car lengths, and then sit some more. Finally, we crest a hill and can see the Tigard turnoff in the distance. A police car sits astride the turnoff, red and blue lights flashing. It isn’t allowing anyone to take the turnoff. I give Ryan a questioning look.
“Go past it. Take the first turnoff you can. We’ll come back on the side streets.”
“We’re - we’re already late for school.”
I’m not worried about school. It’s what might be happening in Tigard that worries me. I didn’t believe Ryan’s and Shawn’s stories about zombies and viruses – at least, I didn’t think I believed them – but something is happening. As Ryan said, they wouldn’t block off access to that apartment complex for a simple murder, but it looks as if they are blocking access to all of Tigard. I don’t want to go anywhere close to Tigard.
Upon hearing my response, Ryan says: “Fuck school. I want to see what’s going on.”
“We really need to go to school, Ryan.”
He looks at me. “Are you scared?”
“Hell, yes, I’m scared. What if it is a virus? We might catch it.”
He raises an eyebrow: “So it doesn’t sound so stupid, now?”
“Yes – no; I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. All I know is that I want to go to school.”
“Okay, drop me off at the next exit. I’ll walk back to check it out.”
“I’m not dropping you off. I don’t want something to happen to you.”
“Then just see how close you can get us to there. I’m betting, even coming in from a side street, we’ll get turned back long before we get close to the apartments."
“Why do you want to go, then? What do you expect to see?”
“I want to see who’s there, who’s manning the perimeter.”
“You saw them,” I say. “The cops have the exit blocked off.”
“Yeah, the cops are manning the outer perimeter, but who’s manning the inner perimeter?”
We are coming up on an exit, even though traffic is still moving at a crawl. I will need to turn around or find another way to school anyway. If I keep going, I’ll end up in Beaverton. I pull into the exit lane. I glance at Ryan. He looks back, one eyebrow raised. He typically does that when he’s about to ask a question. He asks, “Are you dropping me off, or are you driving us toward Tigard?”
“I’m not dropping you off. I should drive us both to school.”
“But, you’re not, are you?”
“No. I know you. Even if I took you to school, you’d just come back, even if you had to walk all the way.”
He laughs, more of a snort than a laugh: “You know me too well.”
We take the exit off the freeway and turn right, heading toward the apartments where the murder happened.
"Take this one," Ryan says, when we come to a side street.
I turn off onto the street, even though every nerve fiber I have is screaming for me to turn around and go to school. I don’t know why I’m afraid. I still don’t believe this zombie crap. Maybe, I can understand Shawn believing it: he’s an eight-year-old; but I can’t understand Ryan believing in zombies. He’s more than twice Shawn’s age.
We drive several blocks without seeing anything unusual; then we come to a roadblock. It's not manned by the police. Two soldiers, rifles slinged across their chests, stand in front of a Humvee blocking the road. One holds out his hand, palm out toward us. He has netting covering his face. It's attached to his helmet and hangs down to his shoulders.