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She’d bathed earlier, in the puddle-stream of a roadside ditch. Funnily enough, the best way to camouflage your humanity was to keep it clean: musty sweat was much more detectable—and apparently desirable—than a fresh soap. And this house had soap. Twelve-packs, with the clearance stickers still attached. A stock-up deal. Irish Spring.
Smells like home, Lillian used to joke. At first, Eileen had thought she meant the grave dirt on her skin.
Everything in this town is pretty well stocked. Hasn’t been ransacked—people here either ran or were turned. Pretty lonely. No survivors.
Except Brandon. (Until.)
The clothes she’s wearing smell like someone else’s personhood. She’d chosen the shirt that looked least loved: a long-sleeved tee in drab grey, pushed far to one side of the closet. The rest of the shirts are bright: warm pink, dandelion yellow, sky blue. There are heavy textbooks on the bed. There’s a snapshot on the dresser of a young man and woman on a Ferris wheel.
As she pulls the grey shirt over her head, she steps on a plastic hanger on the floor. It snaps bleakly under her boot, severing into two pieces that press into the carpet under her weight.
The shirt fits perfectly.
Her old bloodstained clothing, she’d left in the ditch.
She sleeps in an antique shop. No one else would have chosen this place. It’s crowded with breakable merchandise and the building is historic and creaky, the dips in the floorboards cloaked by faded rugs. She lays down in the center of the room. If anyone or anything comes inside, she’ll sense their approach in the vibrations of the floor.
––
Brandon had red hair and enough of a beard that she figured he’d been growing it since before everything happened. In the heat of the moment—her chopping necks and him shooting heads—he had seemed competent enough; when they’d caught their breath and she opened her mouth to speak, he patronized. Speaking, he seemed to think, was his job. And he always did it in the wrong direction. Her patience lasted almost two days.
I can’t hear you, she finally interrupted him, brusque. Your moustache is in the way.
He went into the bathroom then, came out with his upper lip shaved and his arms spread wide. Better?
Maybe. But it didn’t mean she had to listen.
They were in a convenience store that night—his choice—and she argued with him while he barricaded the doors. What if they were surrounded? What then?
She could see his jaw moving up and down as he hefted another bag of rock salt across the back entrance. She had to pull him around so that he would face her. It won’t happen, he said. But if it does, we’ll call for help.
How? Who’s going to come rescue us?
He looked at her with the gravity of someone who’s convinced his experiences have made him a soldier. Everything will be fine, he said. You’re safe.
His hand was on her shoulder, big and warm. She shoved his arm away. She wasn’t the one she was worried about.
––
He was stupid trying to protect her; she was limited by his protection. They were safer apart. He didn’t realize this. So maybe she had the power. And the culpability.
But he translated the radio. And she wasn’t willing to let that go.
He’d asked her, the first time they listened together, if she had family somewhere.
She thought of the poltergeist in Utah, of the mother who was learning to sign because her young daughter could hear but not speak. They said they’d never forget her.
Eileen couldn’t remember their names.
No, she said. Not anymore.
That night in the Gas-N-Sip, he turned the knob slowly and paused to lean his ear down close, squinting. She knew that meant he had found a transmission, but the radio static was drowning it out. She pictured it the way Lillian had described it to her—like trying to communicate in a snowstorm. (Eileen had never been in a snowstorm, but she tried to picture it sometimes, wondered if a whiteout would make her feel terrified or free.)
Brandon stopped turning the knob and looked up at her. He started the information relay, speaking what he heard so that she could pick up what she could from his lips.
She wasn’t sure what she listened for. Maybe just for confirmation that the world went on beyond her pocket of survival, and for the possibility that she could get back to that world. She had a job to do.
Brandon stuttered over a word and stopped talking, face frozen, mouth slack.
Her heart skipped a beat and came back pounding. Did you say monsters?
She leaned closer, held her breath. All Brandon said, eyes on the floor, was, This is insane.
She smacked him on the shoulder so that he looked up. Tell me! she shouted. What’s happening?
He stared blankly. She dropped her hands, reoriented. What’s happening? she said in his language. Monsters? she said with her vocal cords, her mouth.
He held up a finger for silence. She clenched her fists and waited.
When he finally finished listening and told her, he didn’t understand what was happening. She did. There was an insurgence of monsters across the States—monsters killing zombies. Attacking en masse, decimating walkers, ripping off heads with their bare hands. They were taking out hordes at a time.
They were protecting their prey. They were fighting for survival.
The monsters, Eileen laughed. The monsters are going to save us.
––
The zombies found them at the Gas-N-Sip.
Only eight, she said, in lieu of I told you so. Leaving now is our best bet.
Don’t wait for me, she said, when they were at the door, weapons ready. Don’t wait, just run.
He nodded, surprising her. Same for you, he said.
They opened the door.
There were more than eight now. Too many. She’d hacked into a couple of rotting legs and cut off one head before she managed to slip away. She ran and didn’t look back.
––
When he appeared behind her a couple hours later, she had her machete ready. He was already twitchy and listing on his feet. His left forearm was covered in blood, the sleeve torn and the fabric soaked through. He said Eileen and his chest was tensed. It looked like a scream.
When Lillian spoke her name, it had always looked comfortable, relaxed, easy. When anyone else spoke her name, she read a hint of pain in it. They showed more teeth.
Maybe that was how she introduced herself when she used her voice: Eileen, in pain. Pained.
Eileen, Brandon said, on his knees. He said, Please.
She doesn’t know what he said next. She had the luxury of not hearing.
She bent her knees and swung.
––
In front of a stranger’s mirror, in a stranger’s clothes, she forms her name with her tongue. She feels the shape of it in her throat and mouth. Her lips draw back a little: she can see that pain she's seen in others. She doesn't know how long it's been in her.
She signs her name, one letter at a time, like staking a claim to her family. L-E-A-H-Y.
She signs her name, the one Lillian made for her, the one only Lillian knew. It’s the last thing Lillian signed before she gave up on trying to use her hands. Eileen’s hands haven’t traced those movements since she was 16 years old. Once is too much for them. They stop talking.
Eileen’s eyes drift to the photograph on the dresser. The young man on the Ferris wheel has red hair and a mouth like Brandon.
She’d never asked him about his family.
––
She dreams of snow coming down thick and swirling until everything is white, and her hands are white and her arms are white and she doesn’t know where they are. When she looks down she’s in a puddle of blood. The blood is a cloth that ripples to life. She needs to grab her blade but she doesn’t have any hands.
––
When she wakes up her senses pulse electric. She’s gripping her machete, has scanned the entire room for immediate threats before she has time to wonder what woke her up. Early sunlight slants in through the windows. She maintains 360-degree awareness as she creeps to the front of the shop.
There are two Jeeps parked in the Middle of Main Street. Some of the corpses on the ground are freshly horizontal. Three men with heavy guns walk around like they’re looking for something.
She hesitates for an adrenaline-flash moment before she grabs her duffel and dashes outside, waving an arm. Hell, if these are vampires, she’s still got her machete.
One of the men beckons her toward a Jeep, opens the back door for her. She clambers in, clutching her bag on her lap, and breathes in the smell of vinyl and gas. Through the fabric of her duffel, the weight of her golden blade presses against her knee.
There’s someone in the front passenger seat. You with anyone else? the person says. She turns toward Eileen before she asks the question.
No, Eileen replies.
Didn't think so, says the woman. She has thick dark hair and dark sunglasses that cover the most expressive part of her face, but somehow she isn’t hard to read. Her presence is expansive. We’re not monsters, she says, we’re just here to get your ass out of this place. Not that you seem to need a rescue.
Eileen says, I'm looking for a banshee.
A banshee, huh? The woman’s mouth curves into a grin. She takes off her sunglasses, revealing milky white eyes. Well, she says, I might be able to help with that.
The Jeep judders to life.