Summer was almost over. I'd graduated from high school, but had absolutely no clue what I was going to do next. All my normal friends and classmates were heading off to college. Well, almost all of them. The pretty redhead sitting next to me—Lilly Haynes, my girlfriend and the sheriff's daughter—hadn't decided on her career path either. I'm sure her dad thinks it's because of me, but it isn't. Lilly just doesn't know what she wants to do. She's smart enough to do whatever she wants, but I don't think she's ready to leave Osborne. Maybe because after everything that happened, she feels like the town still needs her . . . I don't know. She told me recently that all she cared about was continuing to play in Zombie Rock, the band that she, Rob, Melanie, and I started a few months ago. And thanks to the publicity, mostly due to the awful stuff that had happened with Garret, we'd actually gotten some paid gigs.
"Did your mom say she'd be home for dinner?" Lilly asked, leaning her head against my shoulder.
"No." I sighed loudly. "She's having dinner with Kieran." I liked Kieran, I did, but the whole idea of my mom dating was just weird. I guess because it'd always just been the two of us for the past eighteen years. She'd never dated when I was growing up. Sure, when we'd lived in the city she'd go out with her friends some, but never anything more than that. I'd always assumed that she'd never gotten over my dad. But looking back, it was probably because she just didn't want to be seriously involved with anyone while I was still a kid.
"You should get used to the idea of your mom having a boyfriend," Lilly said. "I doubt Kieran's going anywhere."
"I know." I squeezed her shoulders.
I hadn't told Lilly, but it wasn't just my mom dating that bothered me—I was worried about her. Because Mom and Kieran were like me and Lilly. One Zombie, one uninfected person. In the cities, most of these kinds of relationships went unnoticed, but in Osborne, everyone knew who was a Zombie and who wasn't. That meant everyone knew which couples were "mixed." There was Mom and Kieran, me and Lilly, my Zombie friend Rob and his girlfriend Melanie, and Benjamin and his Zombie girlfriend Megan. To our faces, everyone treated us fine, but we'd all gotten hate mail. I think most of it came from people who'd gone to trial for the killings in shanty town. Still, that didn't make it any easier to stomach.
"What's wrong?" Lilly asked. "You're being quieter than usual."
"Do you ever wish we were a normal couple?" I asked, thinking about the hate mail Mom and I had gotten. Lilly didn't know about it, and I planned to keep it that way. The others had kept quiet also. Lilly's dad knew, but he'd started screening their mail as soon as I'd told him about it. I couldn't protect her from the dirty looks, but I could protect her from the hateful letters.
She sat up, glaring at me. She could be downright scary for someone her size. "Are you saying I'm not normal?"
I smiled and she grinned back, unable to stay serious for long.
"Honestly though," she said, "What's normal? Half a century ago, mixed-race couples weren't considered normal. Then it was same-sex couples that were the freaks. There's always going to be people who say one thing or another isn't normal."
My girlfriend is so freaking smart, I thought. "You're right."
"I know."
And humble too.
Suddenly, the movie we'd been watching cut out. Lilly sat up and I did the same. In our experience, cable programming was never interrupted for anything other than earth-shattering news.
"Ladies and gentlemen," an unseen announcer said, "The President of the United States."
Lilly reached over and took my hand as the President took his place at the podium and began to speak. I was glad he got right down to business, because if he'd launched into some long-winded introductory monologue, I wouldn't have been able to pay attention to the life-changing news he was about to deliver.
"Today," he said, "it gives me great pleasure to announce that, eighteen years after the outbreak of C7X—commonly known as the Red Plague—PolyCorp, a US-based research facility that employs top scientists from all over the world, has finally found a cure."
My heart thudded against my chest, almost painfully, as my brain tried to digest what the President was saying. Surely I must have misunderstood.
On screen, the President paused to allow the press to calm down before continuing. "The FDA has approved the treatment, and human trials have been conducted." He looked behind him, and two people stepped forward. One was an older man with salt-and-pepper hair. The other was a young woman, somewhere between mine and my mom's age. Both looked uncomfortable being in the limelight.
"These are two of our early volunteers that were treated during the trials. They have agreed to come forward today," he said, gesturing toward them. "And tell you about their experience. They'll take a few of your questions momentarily."
The President had to immediately hold up his hands to quiet down two reporters, who were already blurting out questions. Then he continued. "Abigail was infected as a teenager, during the original outbreak, and Larry was bitten five years ago, while leaving a sports bar. They are only a small sampling of the volunteers, who ranged from age seven to ninety-three, with infection lengths of a few weeks up to seventeen years."
As Lilly's fingers tightened around mine, all I could do was wonder if the announcement was real or just a cruel dream. It certainly felt like a dream. Probably because people had been talking about a cure for years. After a while, it was like hearing rumors of promising cures for cancer or the common cold. Everyone hoped, but no one believed.
"Can you believe this?" Lilly whispered.
I shook my head as the President kept talking, saying things like "no adverse side effects" and "distribution centers in major cities." I also heard him say that, while they hoped to have the cure available in places like LA and New York by October, the trickle-down to smaller communities could take a while. He also said that, since they didn't want a rush on cities that were already overloaded with Zombies, they were going to roll it out by voting zones, and an ID would be required. No one would have access to the cure outside of their own district. What that meant for those of us in Osborne is we'd most likely have to wait. Probably until after the New Year, but . . . a cure was coming.
Slowly, it started to sink in.
Lilly was looking at me, barely contained excitement written all over her face. I'm sure she was waiting for me to catch up, but my mind was a jumbled mess. I wasn't entirely sure how to share my excitement, mainly because I was still trying to process everything, so I just leaned over and kissed her.
She kissed me back, and before I knew it, we were in the middle of a full-on make-out session. Not for long though, because first my mom, then her dad burst in to share the good news. I scrambled as far away from Lilly as I could, hoping her dad wouldn't shoot me. Even though we'd been dating all summer, I'd never gotten over that fear. Of course Lilly didn't help matters by sliding down the couch after me, grinning like some sort of deranged lunatic. Then Kieran walked in and also started talking about the President's speech, and how the town needed to get things in order so that, when our turn came, we'd be able to process everything quickly and smoothly.
About that time, Rob came bursting in, and I staggered to my feet and greeted him. While diet and music could keep a Zombie from deteriorating, it did little for our coordination.
"Do you think it's true?" Rob asked, looking at the adults. "Some say it's a trap. They think the government is using the cure as a ploy to round up Zombies and put us all in concentration camps."
I hadn't thought of that.
"That wouldn't make sense," Lilly said, walking over to me. "Think about it. If they wanted to get rid of Zombies, why would they pretend to roll out the cure by district, telling people to stay in their hometowns while inoculation centers are set up? The quickest thing would be to have all of the infected people show up at one or two locations. Then, you take them all out at once. Not to mention the fact that spreading it out would make it impossible for the operation to be kept secret."
"Sounds reasonable," I said. Lilly's explanation made perfect sense to me, and I could tell it had set Rob's mind at ease. Still, I couldn't help being wary. After everything that had happened with Garret and his corrupt Zombie henchmen, I wasn't the most trusting person. And besides, it was the federal government we were talking about.
As it turned out, though, my doubts were unfounded. Seems I could trust the government, at least on this issue, anyway. Within days of the President's announcement, the first clinics opened. Reports started trickling in from LA and New York—the locations of the first inoculation centers—that Zombies were becoming normal again. The treatment worked faster for some and slower for others, based on how badly they'd deteriorated. But the craving for raw meat and brains was said to subside almost immediately.
There were protests, of course. Some people said Zombies didn't need to be cured, that they were fine the way they were. Lots of people didn't like that, myself included. The problem was that most Zombies weren't articulate enough to express their desire to be normal again. So whenever they showed them on TV, it always looked like they were being forced into the clinics. I guess people felt bad for them. But once former Zombies started coming forward and telling everyone how awful the disease had been, the backlash stopped.
Then another group of protesters, even worse than the first, began making headlines—self-righteous assholes professing to be Christians. They were really nothing more than hate-mongering bigots, convinced that the Red Plague was God's judgment against sinful people. By their reasoning, curing it was thwarting God's will. They were so fanatical that a group of them bombed one of the clinics, killing thirty people. A doctor and a few nurses died, but mostly Zombies, including a handful of kids. I'm happy to say those good Christians went to prison, although, not a single one of them seemed the least bit remorseful.
Eventually tensions calmed and, even though it felt like we'd been waiting forever, the cure finally reached Osborne. We all got our doses that same day. There were follow-up visits, of course, to monitor our progress and make sure we weren't regressing, but everything went as expected.
After the first shot, the gnawing hunger—my constant companion for almost a year— vanished. Instead, I found myself craving butter pecan ice cream and pepperoni pizza. As for Mom, she wanted chocolate . . . lots of chocolate. We spent those first few weeks of recovery eating all the things we'd missed. I must have gained at least ten pounds.
The doctor who administered our treatment and did our follow up said we were progressing much faster than anyone he'd heard about. Not just me and Mom, but all of the Zombies in Osborne. In fact, we returned to normal so far ahead of schedule that the government sent in scientists to try and figure out what the deal was.
I told them about the music, and how it had drastically slowed our deterioration, even bringing back those who'd been so far gone they couldn't talk. But they didn't believe me. They insisted the cause was related to the town itself, speculating that before Garret died he'd put something in the water supply. But that theory was thrown out once the tests came back. The only thing our water supply had was an excess of iron. So they hung around trying to find something that would explain how all of us, within a very short time, became indistinguishable from someone who'd never been infected at all. But finally, they gave up. We were all given clean bills of health; no more follow-ups necessary.
So, as we started the New Year, all the residents of Osborne were normal again, for the most part. We'd even managed to get our hands on a shot for Lilly's little Zombie dog, Digger. The infection had been completely eradicated from our town. And for those of us who'd been Zombies when we'd graduated, we saw a life stretching out in front of us that we thought had been lost forever.
Megan enrolled at UCLA, where Benjamin had just finished his first semester. Rob and Melanie decided to stay in Osborne and commute to the nearest community college. It was just a half-hour away, so the drive wasn't too bad. Lilly finally gave in to her dad's nagging and enrolled in some online classes. She could at least get the basic requirements out of the way, while deciding on her major. Of course, it didn't matter to me where she went, or what she wanted to be, because I would have supported her regardless.
First things first, though—I needed a job. Collegejust wasn't my thing, but at least now I could work. I'm sure my enthusiasmwill quickly wear off, but I was super excited the day I was interviewed andhired. The job was at the mines, about thirty miles outside of Osborne. It wasa long drive, but it paid well and the healthcare benefits were great, whichwere things a normal person had to think about. Especially one who was thinkingof proposing to his girlfriend.