Love in an Undead Age, A.M. Geever [best contemporary novels txt] 📗
- Author: A.M. Geever
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“She thinks you have a hairline fracture of the tibia, sprained knee and ankle, maybe even some tendon and ligament involvement. She wants you off it for a week at least.”
Miranda snorted. “That’s not going to happen. Where are the others?”
“No idea.”
The rattle of the door interrupted them. Mario twisted around, his ribs registering their pro forma protest, to see Connor coming through the door. The young man’s face lit up when he saw Miranda.
Delilah trotted out to greet him, intercepting Connor at the foot of Miranda’s cot. With a clean face and the benefit of a good night’s sleep, Connor looked like a new man. He also looked very in love with Miranda, which was not going to work so well in light of Mario’s improvisation.
Miranda looked at Connor with something that approached trepidation. “Uh, hey, Connor. The uh,” she hesitated, then plunged ahead, sounding apologetic. “The husband and I were just discussing my prognosis.”
Connor’s head snapped up. He looked at Miranda, then at Mario.
Mario shifted his weight on the squeaky cot. Connor did not look to be in an understanding mood.
Miranda tried again. “My husband Mario was just telling me what the doctor said about my knee and ankle.”
Connor’s posture stiffened. Delilah retreated to Mario’s knees, as if put off by the sudden tension he now emanated.
“We met the Prophet,” Mario added. “He took a shine to Miranda.” The Prophet had mentioned meeting the others. If he had reacted to Seffie like he had Miranda, maybe Connor would fill in the blanks on his own.
Connor gave them both an appraising stare before looking past Mario to the young girl in the cot.
“I need to talk to you,” he said to Mario. He pointed toward the screen on the other side of Miranda’s cot. “Let’s go over there so we don’t disturb anyone.”
Connor stalked to the far side of the room. Miranda reached for Mario’s hand as he stood to follow.
“Don’t be a jerk.”
Mario snorted. What did she think he was going to do, throw a punch?
“What did you do?” Connor demanded as soon as Mario was close.
Mario sighed. He wasn’t in the mood for a pissing contest. Connor clearly was. Mario pulled over the chair that was next to the nearest cot and sat down.
“You’ve met the Prophet?”
“Yes.”
“He asked if Miranda ‘belonged’ to me. The way he was looking at her, there was no way I was going to say she didn’t.”
“How convenient for you.”
All at once, Mario felt tired again, and too old for this shit. “In case you haven’t noticed, Jeremiah’s a little off.”
“I’ve noticed,” Connor answered. “You’re not wasting time using this to worm your way closer to Miranda.”
“He looked at her like she was a marshmallow at a campfire. What the hell was I supposed to say? She’s a free agent, have at it? Where the hell were you, anyway?”
“I was with Doug,” Connor said defensively. “We had a hell of a time tracking Seffie down this morning, but she’s fine. Doug’s really worried.”
“That makes two of us.”
Connor nodded, though he looked annoyed with himself for agreeing with the competition. Apparently he did not have things with Miranda nailed down as tightly as he would like. If he wasn’t so preoccupied, what with the fate of the world riding on their success or failure, Mario might have felt hopeful.
“I’ll go see Doug,” Connor offered after an awkward, silent minute while he seemed to digest where things stood. “He needs to know what’s happened so we’re all on the same page.”
They started back toward Miranda. Connor gave her a smile and a nod, then headed for the door.
“Is he okay?” Miranda asked after the door shut behind him, her lack of a poker face on full display.
“He’ll be fine.” Abruptly, Mario began to feel unwell, chilled and too hot all at once. “I need to lie down.”
“I think you should. You look terrible.”
Mario did not bother answering. He turned away, intent on collapsing back into his cot.
“Mario, where are you going? Use the cot next to me.”
Mario stopped and turned. Miranda’s pained expression shouted, ‘Married, remember?’
Mario crawled into the center cot between Miranda and the still sleeping girl. He pulled the covers over his shoulders. His body felt like it was melting into the bedding beneath him. He was just slipping past drowsiness when he heard a creak. He opened his eyes and turned his head, expecting that the noise was the door and that Bethany had returned. Instead, he saw the girl in the next cot as she sat up and threw back the covers. She remade the bed, her movements practiced and sure. She glanced fleetingly at Mario and beyond him to Miranda, then turned on her heel. She exited the infirmary without a backward glance.
Mario looked over to Miranda, but she had fallen asleep again. Left on his own, he played out scenarios in his mind. Each arrived at the same destination, where Bethany was not paranoid, but right.
Miranda looked over to where Mario sat by the infirmary’s wood-burning stove.
“See, it’s not— Ow!”
Pain stabbed her shin and knee. She shifted her weight off her injured leg and abruptly sat down on the cot.
“I know it kills you to be laid up but—”
“Don’t say it.” Tears—of pain and frustration—prickled the corners of her eyes. Six days of doing nothing and she could still barely stand.
“You’re better than a few days ago,” Mario offered. “Quit with jiggling your splint, it’s going to come loose. You don’t want to get banned from our field trip.”
Miranda tugged at the bandages that held the splint on her leg in place as Delilah sniffed it for something interesting. Miranda sneaked a look at Mario, who had resumed reading one of Bethany’s medical books. His color had improved, and his temperature had come down, but he was not one hundred percent either. His left arm was bound in a sling to immobilize his shoulder, and the fractured ribs still pained him. A fading smile lingered on his lips. She knew he found her impatience amusing.
At the start of the mission, she had resolved to ignore Mario. Now, she was stuck in the infirmary, pretending to be his wife. The rest of the group spent their time going through the motions of figuring out where they fit in New Jerusalem. It did not seem prudent to disabuse the Prophet of his belief that they were anything other than thrilled to join his cult. There had to be a few non-nutjobs who might, when the time was right, help them retrieve their confiscated weapons and slip past the ever-present Prophet’s Guard. They’d never find out who those people might be if all anyone did was hang around the infirmary checking on the invalids.
Miranda still had trouble wrapping her mind around the fact that Mario was one of the good guys. Her bitterness toward him had become so…comfortable. It was a shock to have it short-circuited by Mario’s furious accusation that she thought only of herself. His angry rejection of the narrative that helped her make sense of the last five years left her adrift.
She tried to think about it impartially. Had she been in a bad way after he left? Of course. She drank too much, absolutely. And reckless? Probably, at times. But self-destruct? Father Walter sick with worry? She wanted to reject the idea outright, but she couldn’t.
It was when she had started cutting.
Perhaps there was some truth to what Mario had said. Since the start of the mission, she was furious with him one moment and frantic he might be injured or killed the next, undergirded by a persistent, aching sorrow. She thought she had finished mourning but now wasn’t so sure. Was the sorrow she felt only for the past? Did it even matter? He had made how he felt about her clear. The only future they had was this mission. Which was all she wanted, more than she wanted. Throw in a few awkward visits from Connor under the watchful eye of Doctor Bethany and Miranda was fairly certain this expedition would be the death of her, just not in the manner she had anticipated.
Which left her, perversely, with Mario. He was the only person in the infirmary she could trust, at least as far as the mission went. They cautiously circled one another as they schemed about how to get things back on track. They had even speculated about what the world would be like when there were no more zombies. What would humanity do with a second chance? Miranda leaned toward blowing it again, but Mario was more optimistic. Despite her intention to keep things professional, a subtle familiarity crept into their interactions. But that was muscle memory, she reasoned, not a big deal. Except she usually didn’t notice it happening until she was in the thick of it.
“I see Finn now,” Bethany said, drawing Miranda out of her reverie.
Bethany stood at her workbench by the window, grinding herbs with a mortar and pestle, her motions herky-jerky, which was strange. New Jerusalem’s doctor normally moved with a quiet fluidity, almost floating like a specter, but not today. She had dropped so many things over the course of the afternoon that Miranda had lost count.
Finn opened the door and entered. After greeting Miranda and Mario,
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