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She didn’t seem to notice, but she shifted, angling around me. So I tried again. “Who are you? Can you tell me your name? How did this happen?”
Her gaze had focused on something behind me. When I got in front of her, she looked right through me and kept going like I wasn’t there. I turned to find what had caught her attention.
A man and woman sat wedged together in a secondhand armchair, looking like a Mack truck was about to run them down. The zombie woman shuffled toward them. Now that I was out of the way, she reached toward them, arms rigid and trembling. She moaned—she might have been trying to speak, but she couldn’t shape her mouth right. She was like an infant who desperately wanted something but didn’t have the words to say it. She was an infant in the body of an adult.
And what she wanted was the man in the chair.
A few steps away, her moaning turned into a wail. The woman in the chair screamed and fell over the arm to get away. The man wasn’t that nimble, or he was frozen in place.
The zombie wobbled on her next step, then fell to her knees, but that didn’t stop her reaching. She was close enough to grab his feet. Those clawlike hands clenched on his ankles, and she tried to pull herself forward, dragging herself on the carpet, still moaning.
The man shrieked and kicked at her, yanking his legs away and trying to curl up in the chair.
“Stop it!” I screamed at him, rushing forward to put myself between them.
She was sprawled on the floor now, crying gut-wrenching sobs. I held her shoulders and pulled her back from the chair, laying her on her back. Her arms still reached, but the rest of her body had become limp, out of her control.
“Matt, get a pillow and a blanket.” He ran to the bedroom to get them. That was all I could think—try to make her comfortable. When were those paramedics going to get here?
I looked at the guy in the chair. Like the rest of the people at the party, he was twenty-something. Thin and generically cute, he had shaggy dark hair, a preppy button-up shirt, and gray trousers. I wouldn’t have picked him out of the crowd.
“Who are you?” I said.
“C-Carson.”
He even had a preppy name to go with the ensemble. I glanced at the woman who was with him. Huddled behind the armchair, she was starting to peer out. She had dyed black hair, a tiny nose stud, and a tight dress. More like the kind of crowd Matt hung out with. I wouldn’t have put her and Carson together. Maybe they both thought they were slumming.
“Do you know her?” I asked him, nodding at the zombie woman on the floor.
He shook his head quickly, pressing himself even further back in the chair. He was sweating. Carson was about to lose it.
Matt returned and helped me fit the pillow under her head and spread the blanket over her. He, too, was beginning to see her as someone who was sick—not a monster.
“You’re lying,” I said. “She obviously knows you. Who is she?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know!”
“Matt, who is this guy?”
Matt glanced at him. “Just met him tonight. He’s Trish’s new boyfriend.”
“Trish?” I said to the woman behind the armchair.
“I—I don’t know. At least, I’m not sure. I never met her, but I think…I think she’s his ex-girlfriend. Beth, I think. But Carson, you told me she moved away—”
Carson, staring at the woman on the floor, looked like he was about to have a screaming fit. He was still shaking his head.
I was ready to throttle him. I wanted an explanation. Maybe he didn’t really know. But if he was lying… “Carson!”
He flinched at my shout.
Sirens sounded down the street, coming closer. The paramedics. I hoped they could help her, but the sick feeling in my stomach hadn’t gone away.
“I’ll meet them on the street,” Matt said, running out.
“Beth,” I said to the woman. I caught her hands, managed to pull them down so they were resting on her chest. I murmured at her, and she quieted. Her skin color hadn’t gotten any better. She didn’t feel cold as death, but she felt cool. The salt hadn’t sent her back to any grave, and it hadn’t revived her. I wasn’t sure she could be revived.
A moment later, a couple of uniformed paramedics carrying equipment entered, followed by Matt. The living room should have felt crowded, but apparently as soon as the door cleared, most of the guests had fled. God, what a way to kill a party.
