Stay Inside

19. Lothryn

Dad had me believe that I would likely never meet another living human. He said he didn't want to get my hopes up. If it happened, he wanted it to be a miraculous and unexpected surprise.

"You cannot make plans for the future on the basis of wishes," he told me. "The truth is harsh, biting, or boring at its best, but it is kinder than the lies we tell ourselves in the long run."

Sometimes when he warned me, his eyes drifted away. It was as if his own wisdom resonated inwards or he was hearing his advice for the first time as he spoke it.

In spite of his words, I had always held on to hope.

I had imagined a number of scenarios where we would encounter other survivors. My favorite involved a caravan of gun-wielding vigilantes who had driven an amazing distance to pick off the remaining zombies and make the city safe again. They would find us and take us back to their utopian fortress that they built in the forest. It would be lush and picturesque like parks I had seen in books. There would be hundreds of people there, including girls and boys my own age. I would have friends and a future. It was the safest and most optimistic of my daydreams.

My most depressing thoughts included my father dying and me living far beyond his age. With no one to protect, I would wander from city to city finding desolation as far as the eye could see. I'd run out of antidotes and fall victim to the airborne virus. In my dying breaths, I would see another survivor scouting through the rubble for a survivor like me. She would comfort me in my final moments before shooting me in the head.

I hadn't anticipated finding Hannah, and certainly not as quickly as I did. But I saw her as my salvation, my reason to live in a world that wanted nothing more than my death.

She read my note. I was unable to tell from her reactions what she thought of me and I couldn't wait for her response. She was very smart. She thought for a long while before starting to write back. Then, I watched her use the dictionary to begin her translation. It took a while, but she kept at it. She ate her cereal and her beans. She left the hot fruit untouched. That was fair. I wasn't a huge fan either, but Dad said I was supposed to eat it to prevent scurvy. I preferred fruits and vegetables when they were fresh, but that was rare.

I began to doze as I watched her work. The flutter of her eyelashes was entrancing. Her face, full of concentration was somehow comforting. A ray of sunlight trickled in from the window to kiss the curve of her cheek.

I hadn't noticed I fell asleep until I was awakened by a sharp tap on my face. I didn't know what hit me. I saw Hannah, still seated against the wall. She gestured with her head to something at my feet. She had folded the paper into an airplane and flown it into me. I picked it up and grinned at her. I interpreted her creativity as a positive omen for what was to come.

I unfolded the paper to find a letter written in Semaj-Kire. Her handwriting was delicate and precise, occasionally with scribbles through parts where she messed up. And while sometimes she put words in the wrong place, it was legible.

"Hello. Free me please," it read. "Hoping I good answer your questions. One, I am not zombie. I am person."

I sighed in relief, not that there was much of a doubt anymore. Still, it was nice to see it in writing. I didn't believe a zombie would have the ability to write anything coherent at all, much less, answer a question.

"Two, I talk language I born to talk. Three, I am not certain what you ask. You killed my friend."

I had to read the last sentence again. I prayed she didn't mean what I thought she meant. I heard the bullet I had fired echo again in my brain. I saw the man fall.

"That man," I said to her. "He wasn't a zombie? He was a survivor, like you?"

She didn't understand, or maybe she did. She stared into me, her eyes unwavering. I saw the man's face in my memories. He wasn't decaying. He was alive and full of fear.

"He was a man," I said.

My face became hot, my eyes filled with tears. I pushed past the denial my mind created to protect me. I was angry. It welled up in my heart and pooled with nausea in my stomach. I ground my teeth. I found, with some surprise, that I directed my anger at my father along with every bit of information he withheld from me.

"You see, if my father had just taken me out into the world with him, I would have known what to look for! I would have known how to identify survivors! I would have known how to distinguish them from the infected!"

Hannah flinched with my every move. I was a killer. I punched the wall. I killed an innocent man. I punched the wall again. I felt the drywall crack beneath the quilt. I sank to my knees, pleading my case to my nervous captive.

"It isn't fair. My mom made him promise, but he didn't have to keep that promise, not this long anyway! I'm a man now. If he hadn't kept me inside, I'd feel like one. I hate being such a child!"

I sank my head to the floor. I didn't want Hannah to hate me. But how could she not? I killed her friend. What if they were more? What if she loved him? I couldn't imagine she would ever love me, or even like me. I had ruined that chance with one careless impulsive moment.

"Hannah, I'm so sorry," I pleaded. "Tell me how to make it right."

I looked up at her. She looked less fearful now. I had made myself as small as possible in front of her.

"I'm so sorry, Hannah."

She held out her hands towards me. With sun rays cascading down her shoulders, she looked like a merciful goddess; or like Andromeda chained on the rocks.

"Lothryn," she said. Somehow hearing her say my name only made me sob harder.

"Lothryn," she repeated. And then she said it, in perfect practiced Semaj-Kire. She was so smart. "Let me go."

I gulped down my misery to look at her. For a moment, I wondered if I had imagined it, if my hopeful brain was lying to me.

"Please," she added. "Let me go, Lothryn."

There was no question. I knew what I had to do.