Chapter 4
“Fucking zombies?” I’m yelling. Psychotic. Who cares? Zombies. It’s zombies this time. Not a single killer with a menagerie of weapons and an obsession with eyeballs. Not a supernatural gothic villain with a horde of narc ravens. Nope.
Zombies.
Why? How?
I’d just give up, lie down, and die if I weren’t so scared that this could be the last time. There’s no guarantee that the day will keep repeating. I don’t know the rules. There are no fucking rules. I’m in a time loop. At a wedding. There are zombies. Nothing makes sense.
I need to accept that this is happening, swallow the horse pill of reality even if I don’t understand the how or why, but God, I swear the only thing more addictive than hope is denial.
“Run!” Luke grabs Cassie, Cassie grabs me, and I reach for Evan. He pulls away from me to stay with Wyatt, who is still fighting off the deer.
“Help!” I scream. “We need help!”
But everyone’s scattering, taking off toward the reception hall.
I turn back to Cassie and Luke. “Go get the van. Hurry! Go!”
They bolt.
The caterer staggers toward us, his legs wide, arms out. Classic monster stance. He’s not a slow zombie, but he’s not a particularly fast one.
“I don’t get it,” I mutter to myself. “I don’t understand the…the escalation.”
“What? Move,” Evan says, shoving me aside so he can grab a chair and help Wyatt. “If you’re not going to help, get out of the way.”
“I…” Help how? I’m frozen. I’m useless. The deer screeches, rears back on its hind legs. Its eyes seep this pale, yellowy-green pus. Wyatt loses his footing and falls.
Evan drops the chair as the deer comes down on Wyatt. Hooves to head.
The caterer is attracted to the chaos. He’s coming. He’s close.
I can’t do this again. I don’t want to run, to abandon my friends. I also don’t want to stick around and survive long enough to watch them all die anyway, then meet my own bitter end. If I hold my ground now, what then? I don’t know how to fight, how to save them. By sacrificing myself?
Is it cowardice to leave? Or cowardice to stay?
There’s a hand on the back of my neck.
It’s Ravi.
Tanya’s behind him, and Vicky.
“Get to your car,” he says. “Take them. I’ll stay here.”
“No. You’ll die.”
The caterer groans, and froth pours from his mouth, his nostrils. The deer treads backward, head lolling, yellow eyes vacant.
It’s too late for Wyatt. His face is a giant bruise, covered in gobs of fizzy saliva. His limbs spasm.
“Evan,” Ravi says, his voice low. Calm and steady. “Evan, we need to leave.”
“Wyatt,” Ev says. “Wy, get up. Please.”
“Willa. Go,” Ravi says.
“You go.” I get my car key out of my bag and toss it to Tanya.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” Vicky says, attempting to tear the key out of Tanya’s hands. “Come on!”
Tanya stares at me, her beautiful face startlingly blank. She’s in shock. She points to the woods. “The…the…out there…there…I…Is it—”
“Fuck this,” Vicky says. She’s got the key, and she takes off. She runs as fast as she can in her heels, which isn’t very fast.
Maybe it’s the flash of movement, or the way her bright blond hair catches the rays of the setting sun, or maybe it’s because of the path she chooses to take, cutting across the lawn toward the cocktail area instead of making for the parking lot or reception hall. The deer pursues her.
It catches up quickly, charging her with its head down.
The antlers hit her in the back, penetrate the skin. They get stuck inside. She goes limp, falls forward, takes the deer with her.
Tanya turns to the side and gets sick. The sound of it, the smell of her vomit makes me gag.
Suddenly, I’m dizzy, and my eyes refuse to focus.
I’m still shifting between the grim understanding that this is happening and complete denial.
It’s like it’s already a memory, the scene around me muddled, smeared in Vaseline.
“No!” Evan tries to pull Wyatt back, away from the caterer, who’s now crawling toward us on all fours, gnawing at the air.
Ravi moves to help.
BEEP BEEP.
The van. It speeds down the path. Luke veers to avoid the deer and Vicky, still tangled together, writhing around in the grass, staining it red.
Vicky can’t get away; the antlers are in too deep.
Her blood-chilling screams are temporarily drowned out by the growl of the van’s engine, the squeal of its tires. Luke slams on the brakes.
“Hurry the fuck up!” Cassie shouts out the window, as the side door whirs open. “In!”
The van is already stuffed with other guests.
Tanya wipes her mouth and takes a wary step forward.
“Careful,” she says, pointing again. The zombie caterer is on his feet, shoulders jerking, lurching toward the van.
“Hold on,” Luke says, reaching down to the gearshift. The engine roars.
I cover my face with my hands, so I don’t see it. But I hear it. Luke hitting the guy. Only Luke’s not going fast enough to do the damage required. I uncover my eyes. The zombie rolls back but rapidly recoups. He snaps his jaw, waves his arms high and loose, like he’s made of rubber.
I always thought of zombies as being stiff. Not this one.
Luke throws the van in reverse.
“Get in!” Cassie shrieks.
“Go,” Ravi says. Maybe to me. Maybe to Tanya. Maybe to both of us.
“But…” She remains dazed, looking around with her hands clapped to her heart. “I can’t…I need to…Sorry. I’m sorry. Ravi—”
“I’m right behind you. Right behind,” he says. “Please, Tanya. Go!”
She doesn’t listen to him. She turns and sprints toward the woods.
She might be beautiful, but she’s not very bright. I wish I could take some satisfaction in this.
“Tanya! Tanya!” he calls after her. He’s about to follow when Evan says his name, grabs him by the ankle.
“Help. Ravi. Willa. Please,” Evan says, kneeling over Wyatt.
Ravi and I exchange a look. We both know there’s no hope for Wyatt, and I know there’s no hope that Evan will leave him.
Wyatt’s chin wags. He coughs, and his spit fizzes. Stinks of rot.
“Shut the door!” someone in the van shouts. “Shut the goddamn door!”
“Ev,” Ravi says. “Evan, it’s time to go. I’m sorry. I’m sorry but we need to leave. Now.”
“Wyatt. Wy, wake up. Wyatt?” He shakes him. “I love you. You have to be okay. I love you. I…”
Wyatt sits up. He groans—his voice is tainted, wrong. His eyes have gone yellow.
“Wyatt?”
It’s not him. It’s not him anymore, but Evan can’t accept it. He leans in close to the thing that was once his husband. Too close.
Wyatt grabs Evan’s head, his giant hands squeezing.
Evan’s scream is cut short by Wyatt’s mouth on his. It almost looks like a kiss, but it isn’t a kiss. There’s an eruption of blood.
He’s eating his face. Literally eating his face.
Luke lays on the horn. “No! Stop!”
“Willa! Ravi! Get the fuck in the fucking van!” Cassie’s voice breaks. “Please! Now!”
The deer has finally managed to free itself from Vicky. Its antlers are broken and bloody as it rams the side of the van.
The zombie caterer is at the front, slithering up onto the hood.
“Close the door!” Ravi shouts. “There’s no time. Go! Just go. We’ll be fine.”
He looks to the woods, searching for Tanya, but she’s already vanished into the trees. He mutters something under his breath, then turns back to me. “We’re running. Now!”
We make toward the parking lot, frantic and fast but somehow in sync.
“Track star,” I say.
“Walk the mile,” he says. We used to tease each other, because he’s a former varsity athlete / valedictorian and I was willing to sacrifice my GPA to protest gym. We used to speculate—would we have harbored secret crushes in high school? Dated? Been mortal enemies?
“Um,” he says, slowing down. “You gave your key to Tanya.”
“Right.”
“Then Vicky…”
“Yeah.”
“So your key is…”
“Back there.”
The sound of the van reversing up the hill pulls our attention. It’s being chased by the deer, the caterer. Vicky. Wyatt. Evan.
That’s the thing about zombies. They multiply.
“We need to move,” Ravi says, yanking me toward the path. “They’re too close to the reception hall for us to make it inside. You’re staying in one of the cabins?”
“You think we just hide?”
“You have a better idea?” There’s an edge, a tone, a condescension that’s all too familiar, that sets me off. I hate it when he talks down to me.
I grit my teeth. “What if we keep running?”
“Run where?” he says, as we pass the first cabin.
“I don’t know. Down to the road. Just keep running. Don’t look back. Get as far away from here as possible.”
“No. We don’t know what’s out there,” he says. “Which cabin?”
“Here,” I say, getting my key card out of my bag. We run up the porch steps and I open the door. Close it behind us. Listen to the lock click.
Yeah, why not? Hiding in a cabin worked out so great the last two times.
“All right,” he says. “I’m calling the police.”
“Go for it.” I move through the cabin drawing the curtains closed as quickly as possible, hoping that none of the undead have followed us or spotted motion through the windows. I turn off lights. I catch snippets of Ravi on the phone with the cops trying to explain what’s happening.
“No…maybe…Yes, they’re violent. Four people and a deer…
Yes, I’m sure…I think it’s rabies. A virus.
It spreads…Very. Very contagious…Yes…We’re hiding in one of the cabins now…
I think most people are in the reception hall…
I don’t know…I don’t know…Yes…All right…
Thank you.” He hangs up, sets his phone down on the coffee table, and collapses into the armchair.
I push the couch against the front door, then turn off the lights in the living room.
“You think they’ll try to get in?” he asks.
“Seems like they’re attracted to movement. Sound. I don’t know how smart they are. They’re zombies.”
“Willa.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Don’t understand what? The concept of zombies?” Again, with that tone.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Enlighten me, then.”
Even amid all this horror and carnage, here we are falling back into the same shitty dynamic that ended us. I kick off my heels. “You’re so angry with me.”
“This isn’t…” He huffs. “This isn’t about that.”
“You won’t even look at me.”
“I’m looking at you right now.”
“Yeah, because I’m standing right here, but you wouldn’t last time. Or the time before that. And you scoffed when I introduced you to Danny as my friend.”
His mouth falls open. “What?”
“This is the third time I’m living today, Ravi. I’ve lived it twice before. And both times, you gave me the cold shoulder. And I died. Both times. Dead and dead.” Why hold back? Either I die, gone for good, or I die and get a do-over. What risk is there in being honest, in laying it all out?
He takes off his jacket and mops the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “Are you feeling okay? Did you…”
He leans forward in the chair, narrowing his eyes at me.
“I didn’t get infected, if that’s what you’re asking,” I tell him. “Not yet.”
“What are you saying? You’re not making any sense.”
“None of this makes sense.” I put my back to the wall and slide down to the floor.
“There are zombies. There are fucking ghouls with evil ravens and slasher psychopaths. And today. Today over and over and over again. And you. You, Ravi. Every time. Just walking around. Out there. Right in front of me. I see you. But you won’t see me. Did you ever?”
“Stop.”
“You hold it against me, you blame me. And yeah, the timing was awful, and yeah, maybe I should have said something sooner, but I just, I didn’t know how. It’s like today. I wanted to find a way to save it, I did, but, but why does it all fall on me?”
He’s quiet.
“It’s fine if you think I’m crazy,” I say, hugging my knees to my chest. “I might be. I might have lost my mind. Broken my brain.”
He drops from the chair to the floor so he can be closer to me, so he can look me in the eye. “What do you want from me, Willa? Do you even know?”
“I…I want…”
He laughs. “That’s what I thought.”
“I don’t want you to resent me. It’s not fair. It wasn’t working and you know it. I made the hard decision, and now I’m the one being punished.”
“No one’s punishing you.”
“What would you have had me do? Just keep going through the motions? Our hearts weren’t in it anymore.”
He shifts closer. I can taste his breath, a faint hint of his favorite spearmint gum. “Don’t speak for me. You checked out. You gave up. You weren’t willing to compromise—”
“I built my entire life around you! It wasn’t enough. You know what, you want to blame me? Make me the bad guy, play the hero, fine. Let the narrative be that I left you at the altar. Whatever you need to tell yourself to live with it.”
As he trips over his response, something compels me to reach out and touch him, push his hair out of his face. I can still map every freckle, but the way he’s looking at me, there’s no recognition. It’s like we’ve never even met.
I fell in love and surrendered to its current, and it took me someplace else, and I opened my eyes one day not knowing where I was or who I was or how I got there.
And it terrified me. It still terrifies me.
Am I doomed to repeat the same patterns of behavior?
Delude myself into thinking that love will save me, only to end up right back where I am now, staring into a void, waiting for it to say my name?