palace of winds

Nighttime. I’m walking to visit some friends at their rented house in a crowded college suburb; the whole neighborhood is being struck with the disease (zombie-ism, I suppose, for lack of a better term). Many of the houses I pass have lit windows, music blaring; a few front doors hang open. People stare from front porches and I’m careful to meet no eyes. When I get to my friends’ place they’re talking about it in hushed tones — they’ve all been exposed, and expect to become zombies by the end of the night. Robin is just coming into the living room, walking stiffly.

“You’re shuffling,” I say, pointing to her dragging right foot.

“I am not!” she shoots back, straightening up with effort, placing her feet more deliberately.

“Yes, you are. You’re definitely shambling.” I look closer, inspecting her face. It’s ashen, her pupils ringed faintly with red. The rest of us exchange glances.

The waiting is terrible. We have mac & cheese out of the tiny kitchen, not knowing what else to do. Hoping for a cure, just waiting for the tanks and the sunlight to roll in. We tolerate Robin’s increasing intensity — the feral edge in her looks, her insistence that she isn’t changing — knowing that we are probably just hours behind her.

The night gets deeper. I leave for a while, driving the neighborhood, and return some time later. Everyone except Robin is gone; she corners me in the kitchen, looking manic, eyes gone all red now. She tells me she’s hungry. I tell her she can’t, to remember herself, but yes she can, she says, and she will. She’s advancing on me and I say yes, of course, only she has to finish baking the cookies first. There’s a pan on the counter, a bowl of dough. I need a cookie, I say, and then of course she can eat me, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

She reaches for the bowl, and while she is looking away I go for the door. On the way I discover my three-year-old nephew is there, standing alone in the dark living room. I feel a jolt; I can’t tell if his eyes are red, his steps disjointed. I hesitate only a split second, then scoop him up and we are out the door.

“I got better,” he whispers in my ear as I stride down the street, his little arms squeezing around me. I look at him, at his huge brown eyes. I believe him, mostly; I have hope that this is something everyone will recover from on their own. But more importantly I find I don’t care. If he’s lying I’m dead, he’s dead, the wide world into which I’m taking him is doomed. But he’s my little nephew and I keep going on down the street out of town.

Over the crest of the hill in front of us, the first faint flush of morning rises.