Julie snaps the visor shut.
The three of us form a clownish sandwich on the bike, Julie clinging precariously to the rear edge and me humping the gas tank, cringing with every jolt in the road. I hear Audrey hissing inside her helmet, occasionally banging it against the back of my head, but Julie’s arms around my waist pin Audrey’s to her sides like a straightjacket. I ride as fast as I can with this awkward cargo, navigating by starlight and memory, and by the time the last glimmer of the sun goes black, we’re there.
Nora is out in the road, pacing and watching the horizon. She runs to meet us as we pull up to the plane, so fixated on Julie that she doesn’t seem to notice our guest.
“Something really terrible better have happened to you,” she says, shaking her head in a flurry of curls, “because if you just snuck away to fuck each other, I swear to God—oh.” She straightens up. “Who’s that?”
We dismount. Julie reattaches the pole to Audrey’s collar.
“Julie. Who the hell is—”
“Nora,” Julie says in a trembling laugh, unable to contain the surreality of it any longer, “it’s . . . this is . . . it’s my mom.”
She pulls the helmet off. Audrey grimaces at Nora, displaying her chipped yellow teeth. Nora stumbles a step back. I have no doubt she recognizes this face, if not from Julie’s old photo then from its uncanny resemblance to Julie herself, its youth bizarrely preserved even as traces of rot creep in at the edges. A specimen of early-forties beauty, pickled in the plague.
“Mom,” Julie says, “this is Nora. She’s the best person I’ve ever met. Please be nice to her.”
“Hi,” Nora whispers almost inaudibly, her face frozen in shock.
Abram climbs down the ladder with his bag of tools. He watches us.
“How?” Nora manages to squeak out.
“We found a . . . facility,” Julie says, and begins leading Audrey toward the plane. “Hundreds of zombies chained up. Looked like some kind of experiment, like a bigger version of what we saw in Abram’s cabin.” She glances at Abram. “Do you know anything about this?”
Abram doesn’t answer.
“What kind of zombies?” Nora says, her curiosity starting to overcome her shock. “Nearlies?”
“We didn’t have time to check the others. But Mom’s . . . well . . .”
Audrey begins to struggle, clutching at her collar and making guttural choking sounds.
“Mostly,” Nora says. “Maybe All.”
Julie says nothing. We pass Abram, who stays where he is, still holding his tongue. When we reach the cargo ramp, he finally releases it.
“Just to make sure I’m understanding you . . .” His tone is level. “. . . you want to bring an adult zombie onboard this airplane. In addition to the two juveniles we’re already carrying. So that’s a total of three flesh-eating corpses sharing this airplane with us. Do I have that right?”
Julie looks at him. “She’s my mother.”
Abram lets out a long, weary sigh. “I’m done.” He takes Sprout’s hand, throws the duffel over his shoulder, and heads toward our bike.
“Hey,” Julie says. “She’s completely locked up, she can’t hurt anyone.”
Abram keeps walking.
“Hey!” She hands Audrey’s pole to me and walks after him. “Where are you going?”
Nora looks at me and rolls her eyes, here we go again, but no, this is not the same argument between the same two people. After what Julie has just experienced, there are no parameters to what might happen here, only desperate, unpredictable momentum, rolling, slipping, falling.
“Abram!”
He stops and turns. He doesn’t look angry, just tired, a worn-out high-school teacher who’s had enough of the hormonal drama, every day a new pregnancy, a new suicide, a new shooting. “I don’t know where we’re going,” he says. “Maybe Pittsburgh. Maybe Austin. All I know is I’m done with crazy people.”
“So you’re going to cross a deadly wasteland on a motorcycle when you have a private jet sitting here waiting for you? Who’s the crazy one?”
He chuckles and resumes walking, shaking his head. “Not worth it.”
“God damn it, Abram, we need you! You can’t just leave us stranded here!”
“You have the bikes; do your revolution by motorcycle. It worked for Che Guevara.”
Julie stops and stares at his back as he approaches the bike. “You just don’t care, do you?” She sounds genuinely amazed. “About anything.”
He starts tying his duffel onto the bike. “And what should I care about?”
“People? The world you’re living in? The future you’re helping create?”