Tales of Terror from Survivors (Zombie Apocalypse #3.5) Read online

  “I’ve been up for a couple of hours now,” he said, heading for the door. “And we’ve got a surprise for you.”

  A couple of hours? Did he even sleep?

  Corey set the empty mug down on the counter and followed him to the front door. When he stepped out onto the porch, he froze, his eyes going wide and his heart stopping in his chest. Miranda was out on the front lawn, and with her were almost two dozen other people. He didn’t recognize any of them, but they all smiled at him, and they were all holding tools or building supplies. He swallowed and tried to keep from crying, but he felt his cheeks grow damp and he sniffled, touched by their presence.

  “We’ve been going around the neighborhood telling everyone what we’re doing, and a lot of people were eager to pitch in,” Miranda said, her face lighting up. “Naomi was a part of our community, and we wanna help you honor her. With everyone pitching in, it should be done in no time.”

  Miranda was right. By the time night had fallen, the volunteers had managed to erect a shrine in the center of the community. Corey would have liked for it to have been built by professionals with the proper materials, training, and tools, but for what they had to work with, it was damn near a work of art. Some of the volunteers had spent the day building a sturdy stage out of scrap wood while Jeffrey and Corey worked on the actual shrine.

  A giant metal cross stood center stage, with Naomi’s name etched into the metal in flowing script. Beneath it was a metal case with a front glass panel that held a large piece of white construction paper. Miranda had spent the hours painstakingly writing out Naomi’s entire life story, from her beginning to her journey and to her end. The case slid into an open slot in the wooden stage, sinking in until the glass panel was even with the wood, making it look seamless. The rest of the stage contained two rows of shelves, with dozens of mismatched candles lining them.

  Finally, Lonnie and Demarion arrived with as many framed pictures of Naomi they could find. He told her they’d spent the last hour emptying all of their frames and replacing the pictures with Naomi’s. When Corey objected, Lonnie waved him off, telling him this was more important. Corey, Lonnie, and Demarion placed the framed pictures around the base of the cross, completing the shrine. It wasn’t the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, but the magnificence of it nearly took his breath away. He knew that if Naomi had been there with him, she would have loved it.

  More people gathered as night fell, and Miranda helped him light all of the candles. Everyone fell silent as the last candle was lit, and they stepped back to admire the beautiful sight before them. As Corey looked over the shrine, from the pictures of him, Rodney, and Naomi to the candles and the cross, it all came together perfectly. He had never felt so immensely proud in his life, and knowing that it was all for his sister made his heart swell. Everyone was here to celebrate the most important person in his life, and he had a feeling she was looking down, watching over him.

  Miranda slipped her hand into his and squeezed it tightly, offering him her silent support. Tears fell down his cheeks, but this time he refused to hide them. As the community began to sing to Naomi’s memory, he smiled. This is for you, Naomi. Thank you for this second chance. I promise you I won’t waste it…

  The End.

  After: Miles

  Miles sorted through the papers on the desk in front of him, trying to make sense of what he was looking at. He tried to read the chicken scratch that scrawled across the page, but his eyes could hardly make out half of the words. It was sad that he couldn’t even read his own writing half of the time, and he wondered why Aniyah bothered to let him help out. He had always heard the joke that doctors all had terrible handwriting, but surely hers couldn’t be any worse than his own illegible scribbles?

  He glanced up at the nearby door, wondering how much longer Aniyah’s session was going to run. He felt bad for wanting her to rush through a meeting with a patient just so she could get to him, but he really needed to talk to her. He had been seeing her every chance he could since he’d woken up and come to terms with who he was and what he’d done. His hands clenched into fists, crumpling the papers in his hands as his thoughts went to Reese and the pain he’d caused.

  He was no longer Hannah, a lost girl who had never felt completely right in her own body. Now he was Miles, a lost boy who still didn’t feel completely right in his own body. But now he knew it most likely had little to do with his identity, and everything to do with the fact that he’d been dead and come back. He was different in more ways than just one, and it seemed nobody here could ever let him forget it. He saw their looks, saw women pull their children away from him, and he heard their whispers and sometimes even their laughter.

  Nobody understands me, he thought, trying to flatten out the crumpled papers. He frowned as the words on the page suddenly became more readable. “Of course,” he muttered. “All I needed to do to understand my own writing was mangle the paper.” He rolled his eyes and slid the papers back into the proper folder, getting up from his chair and opening the gray filing cabinet in the corner. He thumbed through the other folders until he found its proper place, and he closed the drawer with a click.

  He sighed, sitting back down in the chair and putting his head in his hands. He really needed to talk to someone, and unfortunately Aniyah seemed to be the only person who understood, let alone who actually cared. Everyone else thought he was a freak twice over and didn’t want anything to do with him. He had no friends in Chicago, and truthfully, his only friend had died back on that farm and been buried beneath a tree, remembered only by the few people that had been there that day.

  His heart twisted painfully at the thought of Daisy and how she had made an effort to be inclusive, going so far as to even ask what pronouns he preferred. There hadn’t even been a second of hesitation, just acceptance. He hadn’t known what to tell her at the time, and the two of them had stayed up all night at one point just talking about it. She had tried her hardest to help him figure things out, and right now more than anything he wished he could let her know he’d finally figured it all out. Maybe she would have been proud of him where others didn’t seem to be.

  Miles waited irritably for Aniyah to finish with her patient. He glanced quickly at the schedule he’d written down for her earlier, noting that she didn’t have another appointment for the day. That meant she’d be more than willing to devote some of her time to his problems. She truly enjoyed listening to Miles talk, and that was one of the things he loved most about her. She thought he was fascinating, but not in a freak or science experiment kind of way. She thought he was a fascinating person with fascinating thoughts that deserved to be heard. He never talked more freely or truthfully than when he was in her exam room.

  It was the only place aside from the home they shared that he didn’t have to worry about being shamed or judged. It had been awkward living with Aniyah at first, but Annette hadn’t been sure where else to put him because of his condition. Nobody wanted to be living with someone that had been dead at one point and come back, especially in the beginning before people knew anything about the process and its effects. Even now most people refused to live with someone that had come back, and they ended up being segregated to one portion of the community, as far away from the others as possible. Miles was one of the only exceptions, and it was only because of Aniyah intervening on his behalf.

  The door opened, interrupting his thoughts. Quickly, he straightened in his chair and began shuffling through a few scattered remaining papers on his desk, trying to look busy as a woman walked over. She paused at the front of his desk and sniffed, a look of disdain crossing her features. This was always the part of his job he hated the most—helping patients schedule their next appointments. He tried to have as little to do with them as he could, but sometimes it was necessary to interact with them.

  And they didn’t like that.

  This particular woman had been seeing Aniyah to help deal with her son’s death at the hands of the undead. Miles knew part
of her need for counseling stemmed from the fact that even though many had returned to life after the cure, her son hadn’t come back to her, leaving her torn between devastation and relief. Miles couldn’t understand how any mother could ever be relieved that her child was no longer with her, but here this woman stood, pained that her child had been taken from her but thankful he hadn’t been returned in a broken state.

  “When would you like your next visit to be?” Miles asked, not looking up from the calendar on his desk. He had learned early on it was best to avoid eye contact with people like her. “We have a few open days. Whatever works best for you,” he said, his voice soft and pleasant.

  Feminine…

  He brushed that thought away, refusing to let himself slide into his dysphoria over something as simple as how his voice sounded while trying to be falsely pleasant to patients. The woman looked away, her eyes focusing on a poster hanging nearby on the wall. Anything to avoid having to look at me…

  “As soon as possible,” the woman said, her voice formal and polite, but as fake sounding as his own.

  “She has an appointment available next week on the tenth. How does four o’clock work for you?” Miles asked, already penciling the woman’s name in. He knew she would never refuse, and he was right.

  “That’s fine,” she said, taking the appointment slip from him, careful not to let their fingers touch. She tucked it into her purse and left the office, leaving Miles alone in the waiting room. It wasn’t much of a waiting room, but it was still one of the more luxurious things about the community. He was impressed by the greenhouses, the food hall, and the doctor’s office—all of which had been built by people desperate to restore some sense of normality to their lives.

  Miles waited for Aniyah to come talk to him, but the door opened again, and he thought for a minute the last patient might have forgotten something. Instead, he found Annette walking towards him, and his stomach tightened. She was the one in charge around the community and she had the respect of everyone here, but Miles refused to let himself like her, no matter how many amazing improvements she had made in the lives of people here. She refused to call him by the name he chose, insisting on calling him Hannah and still using female pronouns. He and Aniyah had both tried to explain to her several times, but she shook it off as either delusion or attention-seeking.

  “I was hoping I’d find you here, Hannah,” she said. She stopped in front of his desk, her brightly painted nails tapping the wood as she stared down at him. Before he could even try to correct her, she carried on, as she usually did. “I was hoping I’d get a chance to speak with you about something important.”

  The other door opened and Aniyah came to join him, putting her hand on his shoulder and giving it a comforting squeeze. “Annette, what can we help you with today?” she asked, her eyes narrowing just a fraction. Miles knew there wasn’t really any hatred between the two of them, probably not even mild dislike, but Aniyah was always a little cooler towards Annette when Miles was involved. He appreciated her firm defense of him. “If you’ve come to make some kind of appointment, I have plenty of openings.”

  Annette smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “No, I’m not here to schedule an appointment. I’m actually here to ask for Hannah’s help. I think she can—”

  “I’ve told you before that Miles answers to male pronouns,” Aniyah said, her voice a sharp warning. “Either respect his decision, or keep your distance. It’s been hard enough on him without people being stubborn and refusing to try and learn. Some people are just born in the wrong bodies, and you need to accept that.”

  “What is there to learn?” Annette said, frowning slightly. “She’s confused. There’s no such thing as being born in the wrong body,” she said dismissively, waving one of her hands. “I could buy her being gay and being confused and perhaps mistaking those feelings for feeling like a boy, but—”

  “I’ve spoken with Miles at great length about his feelings and thoughts, and I assure you he understands himself better than he thinks. He wants to be referred to as he, and he will be so long as he’s in my office. Continue to misgender him and I’ll have to ask you to leave and not come back,” she said firmly.

  Annette’s fingers ceased tapping on the desk, and she stared at Aniyah, her eyes narrowing. “Don’t be preposterous,” she said.

  “I’m dead serious,” Aniyah said, her eyes widening and her nostrils flaring. “Miles has enough things to worry about without people intentionally making things harder. If you refuse to be accepting, you can be judgmental or mocking someplace else, where it won’t affect him.”

  Annette and Aniyah glared at one another, and Miles fidgeted nervously in his seat. He didn’t want two of the most important people in the community to be at each other’s throats all because of him. He was incredibly proud of Aniyah and grateful of her devotion to him, but he was worried she’d get in trouble for speaking so honestly. Annette was in charge and could potentially make her life miserable for this. He decided to intervene before things got carried away.

  “What did you wanna talk about?” he asked.

  Annette dragged her eyes away from Aniyah long enough to look at him. “I’m sure you’ve heard about the most recent attack,” she said. Miles nearly flinched, but Aniyah’s comforting hand on his back calmed him. “With how many attacks we’ve had since opening our gates, it’s no wonder people are becoming frightened and wary of those who have returned from the dead. If this keeps up, soon we’re going to have a problem on our hands.”

  “What kind of problem?” Miles asked, his curiosity getting the better of his dislike for this woman.

  “The kind that leaves people like you dead.” Before Aniyah could argue, Annette hurried on. “There are a lot of people who don’t want you here. They want you and anyone like you outside those gates, and if I don’t find some way to stop this irrational fear before it gets out of hand, we may have a riot on our hands. I personally don’t want to see any of my residents killed or kicked out for reasons they can’t help. People are scared, and scared people will do anything to make themselves feel safe.”

  “And exactly what do you want Miles to do about it?” Aniyah asked, her eyebrow raised. “He’s just a child with no influence.”

  Annette looked at Miles. “I’d like you to give some kind of speech, like a sit down Q and A to give the community a chance to see inside the mind of someone like you. I want you to help ease their fears. When they see that you’re not some ravenous beast, hopefully they’ll be able to keep a more open mind about the others.”

  “Why me, though? There are others here just like me who are better at public speaking.”

  “But you’re the original,” Annette said. “You were the very first one to return, and you’ve had the longest to adjust to your situation. You’re a glimpse at what these others can become if given a little more time and support. Plus, there are others here that could vouch for what you’re saying.”

  Miles sighed. “I doubt any of them want anything to do with me,” he said. “I’m nothing to them but a burden, a monster that caused the death of one of their closest friends. They’d never agree to help me.”

  “Miles, I thought we had moved past this in our sessions,” Aniyah said, moving closer. “The accident was not your fault. It was a basic reaction to the trauma you and you alone had faced. Like a combat veteran that has a bad reaction to fireworks. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “But—”

  “Do you honestly believe Aaron doesn’t understand what you went through? He was in the military for years. I’m sure he’s seen his fair share of PTSD, and he knows it can’t be helped. They were wrong to bring you through such a heavily populated area without knowing how you would react, but it can’t be helped now. What happened that day is in the past, and it’s time for you to move on.”

  “Do you think they moved on?” Miles asked, too tired to feel much of anything. This was an argument they’d had many times, and he was getting sick of
it. Mostly because deep down, he knew Aniyah was right. It wasn’t his fault; it was something that had just happened that couldn’t have been predicted. But he still felt like he should blame himself. It was hard not to when a person you knew lost their life because of your actions, whether you were in control of yourself at the time or not.

  Annette cleared her throat loudly, earning a glare from Aniyah. “It sounds like this conversation might be best saved for a therapy session.” She looked at Miles again, tapping her painted nails on the wooden desk. “I don’t mean to rush your decision, but this is very important and I’d like to get it done sooner rather than later. Every day we wait increases the likelihood that someone is going to get hurt. And I don’t want to see that happen. Not to you or to anyone else.”

  Miles was torn. He really did not like this woman, who pretended to be his friend while constantly refusing to use the name that made him most comfortable. She made him feel like even more of an outcast, like his thoughts and feelings weren’t valid until she thought they were. But she had a point. Things were getting bad, and they weren’t going to get better unless someone intervened. Someone needed to stand up and show everyone that people like him weren’t anything to fear. If she thought he was the best person for the job, then maybe he was.

  “Miles, I think you should do it.”

  He glanced up, his eyes going wide. It was odd to hear Aniyah and Annette agree on anything, especially when it was concerning him. “Really?”

  “It might help you discover a better sense of who you are as a person. Having people ask you all these questions could force you to be more honest with yourself than you’ve been in our sessions. We’ve made a great deal of progress, but there are still some things that we need to improve on. I don’t know for sure if this will help you, but I don’t think it can hurt. As long as you understand that not everyone in the room is going to like you, you’ll be fine.”