Velveteen Page 5

  dead

  ready to stop running.

  I struggled to lift the blankets off my body, to get up and out of bed. I fought the terrible weariness in my bones, the fire in my muscles, the tears pouring from my eyes.

  For you, Ben Nicholas.

  I tried to push away the roar inside my head.

  I needed more time.

  I made sure to find a very slow one. Not much older than me. I didn’t want her to bite me too much. It hurt real bad at first, and I might’ve screamed when it happened, but then it stopped feeling like anything at all.

  Pretty soon, I wasn’t sick no more.

  This time, when the door to my room opens, I’m ready for

  mama?

  the light.

  I try to speak, but my tongue and lips don’t work. But it doesn’t matter, because she’s not Mama. It’s not her heartbeat I hear; it’s not her smell. This one is sick with that old disease I remember from before.

  Just like the other heartbeat and the other smell, the last time the window broke. He was sick, too, but one thing he wasn’t was Daddy.

  Does that mean it’s not yet time? The door is open, so—

  first things first

  I reach out to

  cure her

  touch the girl’s arm, to ask her if she’s seen my Mama.

  please

  But her scream startles me, wakens

  hunger

  something deep down inside of me that I haven’t felt in

  forever

  so long, and I’m not expecting it when she pulls her arm away and disappears back into the hallway. The memory of

  blood

  sadness fills me, but all I can seem to feel is

  hunger

  hollow.

  I stare at the open door. It doesn’t close. It must be time to

  bite

  find Ben Nicholas.

  Behind the shed.

  And then

  cure

  No!

  First things first.

  My swing set chatters at me when I pass it, and the moonlight shines down like everywhere and everything are nothing but a faded photograph. Everything looks so much older than the last time I saw it. The dead grass is up to my knees, my waist, brushing the insides of my thighs and the tops of my arms.

  I don’t feel it.

  I don’t smell it.

  I can’t even

  taste

  smell myself anymore.

  I notice that the window in the shed is broken. It wasn’t before I died and was cured. The door is broken and hanging open on one hinge.

  Daddy should fix that.

  The darkness and spiders inside don’t scare me no more.

  Mister Sam’s house is dark and the fence Ben Nicholas dug under leans over into our yard. I can see the frame of the chicken coop, bleached white in the moonlight, the wire overgrown with dead ivy.

  champion laying hens

  Their bones scattered and moss-covered. No feathers left.

  Not Real. Nobody loved them enough to be Real. Certainly not Mister Sam. He just left them behind and forgot about them.

  How long have I been waiting?

  forever

  Standing?

  hungry

  All the houses around me are dark, all except mine. There’s a light inside mine and

  food

  the rancid sick smell of the living. They need light to see by, but I don’t. Not anymore. I see with my skin, hear with my skin, taste.

  first things first, cassie

  I have to dig through the old leaves and branches before I find him, my bunny, Ben Nicholas. He is no longer white, but all brown now, like he was dipped in chocolate and not washed off. And he is nothing but skin

  meat

  and bones.

  Hungry

  “‘By the time you are Real,’” Daddy reads, “‘most of your hair has been loved off and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.’”

  I look up, expecting to see him, but he’s not there. It’s just a memory on a breeze, a memory of a book he once read.

  Oh, my Ben Nicholas. You are very, very shabby. Yes, you are.

  I pull him gently from the sticky ground where he has been sleeping all this time. His hair has been worn off, and his eyes have dropped out, but at least his joints aren’t loose. And he’s a little

  Hungry!

  flat.

  Ben Nicholas. My Ben Nicholas. You need to be cleaned off.

  His fur doesn’t taste anything like chocolate. It tastes like nothing at all.

  HUNGRY!!

  The shout inside my head jerks me to my feet. I look blindly up again at the house and turn toward it.

  First things first, Cassie!

  I’m only half finished. I hug Ben Nicholas close to me and tell him, “Shh.” His feet poke stiffly out to the side, but he’s very light and very quiet. He’s a good rabbit.

  Soon I’ll fill this aching urge growing inside of me. But first things first, as Daddy always used to say. First things first.

  I push the gnawing feeling back down into the dark hole where it must have slept all this time, hiding.

  Beneath Ben Nicholas’s bed is a board. Beneath the board, a hollow in the ground.

  Mama and Daddy will be so proud.

  My unfeeling fingers find what they’re looking for.

  Stop crying, Mama. Please stop crying.

  I reach in. Deep, deep into the midnight hole.

  hair loved off

  Right where I left him, the night I was cured.

  loose in the joints

  Ah, yes. His old clothes

  very shabby

  worn nearly to nothing. But he is here. He’s Real.

  eyes dropped out

  My dear, sweet little brother Remy. I’m sorry I hated you when you were just beginning.

  That’s okay, my dear. You didn’t know. But now it’s finally time, time to heal.

  Everyone was sick in those days, sick and dying. But soon we’ll all be better.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I received my first request to tell Cassie’s story literally within hours of publishing the GAMELAND series episode in which she makes a fleeting appearance. It would be the first of many such appeals. As her creator, the connection I’ve felt with Cassie since first meeting her in Sunder the Hollow Ones has been both deep and personal. Nevertheless, for a character whose entire contribution to the nearly half-million-word series occupies just eight of those words — a single gesture — her impact on readers continually impresses me.

  To me, nothing is more compelling than a tale of sadness and strife told from the unique perspective of a young child. How might tragic events be differently depicted when seen through the prism of adolescent preoccupation and naiveté? Given the exact same set of circumstances, which are the forces that propel youngsters to make their fateful decisions, and how are they different from those which impel adults? This distinction is what I have tried to highlight in Velveteen.

  Cassie’s ideation of a world in which the recently monstrous are now considered mundane reflects her limited perspective and experience. The relatively new “technology” of Reanimates (zombies) as civil servants harbors an inherently destructive potential, to which her parents are sensitive, but which Cassie is only marginally aware. But like the pre-rabid dog which will inevitably turn on its owner — or perhaps more aptly, a machine with the capability to be misused as an instrument of our annihilation — all it takes is one mistake or individual with an agenda to unleash that potential. Even as her parents’ fears become reality, the consequences remain primarily in the background for Cassie as she struggles to deal with her own issues using a belief system apropos to her age.

  Despite her overprotective mother’s attempts to shield Cassie from the harsh world (admittedly for her own selfish reasons), the tragic irony is that she and Cassie’s father unwittingly create an equally immediate and harmful environm
ent in their own home through their squabbling. Velveteen tells the story of what happens when these two destructive forces begin to collide.

  Velveteen is a standalone novelette, but the story is very much a part of the dystopic world of GAMELAND. If you haven’t already read the series’ first season, you can get a sense of it in the included short excerpt where Jessie encounters Cassie shortly after entering Gameland.

  I have also included brief excerpts of two upcoming novels from the same world: Jessie’s Game, a continuation of the GAMELAND saga (due out fall 2013), and A Dark and Sure Descent, a bridge between the original series and Velveteen. Descent tells the story of the Long Island outbreak and the role which Cassie’s parents, as animal researchers at the controversial Laroda Island animal research laboratory, play in it (due out winter 2013).

  For those interested in the vampire rabbit story referenced in Velveteen, the title is Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery,” by Deborah and James Howe.

  To be notified of upcoming releases such as these, please make sure to subscribe to the Tanpepper Tidings, my ~monthly newsletter. Opting in and out is easy, and your contact information is never shared or sold:

  https://tinyletter.com/SWTanpepper

  E • X • C • E • R • P • T • S

  FROM THE WORLD OF GAMELAND

  Sunder the Hollow Ones

  Episode 4, Season 1

  (available in digital and print)

  As I make my way down the hallway, my eyes wander over the framed photographs hanging on the wall. It looks like a young couple used to live here, mid-twenties, their daughter of about five years old. She’s blond, pretty, wearing a white dress with a crimson sash around her waist and a crimson bow in her hair. She’s standing beside a metal swing set, her arms wrapped around an undeniably overfed white rabbit, which seems not to mind that its bottom half is dangling completely unsupported. It’s even got that same happy smile the girl is wearing.

  The pictures sadden me. Here is a family ripped from their home by the outbreak. I wonder where they ended up. I guess the girl would be about my age now, seventeen or eighteen.

  Out of curiosity, I wander around the corner and toward the unlit back of the house and strain my eyes to see if the swing set in the picture is out there. The faintest glow leaks from the hallway and out through the sliding glass door and onto the grass. And there it is, the ghostly metal skeleton, a pair of swings, a slide, all stained brown by rust and covered in vines. In the darkness with the breeze blowing the grass, the image wavers and for a brief moment the little girl is out there, sitting on one of the swings, the rabbit on her lap, and suddenly I’m so very homesick.

  I allow myself to sink into the image. The faint strands of an old forgotten lullaby come to me, a song sung by a mother, and I find myself humming along and feeling her fingers on my cheek, pulling my hair back and holding me close.

  But I can’t even be sure if these are memories or wishes. I blink them bitterly away, and the scene outside shifts again. There is no girl out in that ruination of a yard, no child sitting upon that swing and humming along with her mother. Both of them are gone to who knows where.

  There is only darkness and unkempt grass and imaginary ghosts.

  I turn away from the window and make my way through the room into a second hallway. The doors for the bedrooms are all open. Only one stands closed, the bathroom. There won’t be any water in the toilet, but if I’m lucky there’ll be paper, a luxury.

  I grasp the knob and turn it and push open the door. A vanity twinkles in the gloom. Everything else is swathed in darkness as deep and mournful as a broken promise. I take a step in, feeling for the light switch, find it, flick it. The room remains dark.

  […]

  And that’s when the fingers touch my arm.

  A Dark and Sure Descent

  A Long Island outbreak novel

  (coming winter 2013)

  The drive from the Laroda Island Animal Research Center to their house during off-commute hours normally took between eighty and ninety minutes, but on this day, which had gone steadily downhill from the moment she awoke till Veronica called to tell her that Cassie was vomiting — this one day when Lyssa desperately regretted ever getting out of bed at all — she knew she’d be lucky to make it home in under three hours.

  The traffic reporter on WAXQ had mentioned some sort of multi-agency police activity west of Medford, which was still a good half hour away. No word on whether Interstate 495 was impacted, though. Traffic on this stretch of 25 was still moving swiftly, but that didn’t mean much. Being so near the northeastern tip of the island, there were few who had business on this remote stretch of land. It’s precisely why she and Ramon had opened the lab where they had.

  She tried to picture the main highway, to determine if she should try an alternate route. She knew what Ramon would say: Go around.

  He was decisive by nature and had little patience for obstacles, no matter their cause, no matter the severity (or lack thereof) of consequence. Better safe than sorry, he’d say. A stitch in time saves nine.

  He was a walking encyclopedia of idioms.

  Expect the worst; hope for the best.

  If he were with her now, he’d almost certainly suggest she take Northville south to Memorial Highway. Lyssa considered it for a moment, wavered. Although she was nowhere near as resolute in her mind as Ramon was, she was usually quick to assess her options and choose a safe path. Lately, though, she’d become tentative, unsure of herself. She’d grown to abhor changes to her routine, and even the slightest mishap often turned into the greatest distraction.

  Before she could make a decision about the detour, she had missed the turnoff.

  She grunted unhappily as she flew past the exit.

  In the passenger seat beside her, the phantom Ramon sulked.

  Well, there were other detours she could take. And if worse came to worse, she’d take side streets. Getting home quickly was what she needed to focus on.

  She supposed it was fortuitous that they’d decided not to carpool today, though she knew it was just so much rationalizing. They hadn’t decided, Ramon had decided after she’d mentioned going to check on Drew, who hadn’t answered her phone calls. Carpooling today would probably have ended in one of them throwing the other out the door, no matter if the car was moving or not.

  He’d been so short-tempered, ever since moving back in. Other hyphenated phrases came to her mind, just as descriptive: easily-provoked, thick-skulled, bull-headed. Other than the usual reasons, she couldn’t really understand why he was acting this way, and so the thought crossed her mind (more than once lately, in fact) that he might be having an affair. Instinctively, she dismissed the possibility as so much paranoia. Ramon wasn’t the cheating kind.

  She sighed and flipped on her signal for the I-495 exchange. Traffic was still moving smoothly. Maybe the police activity near Medford had already cleared.

  Before the pregnancy, they’d talked about buying a house closer to the research lab — somewhere in the nicer part of Yaphank, or possibly as far east as Manorville, despite its proximity to the Marine base at Riverhead — but she’d had a rough third trimester and the birth had been fraught with complications, so that everything had been put on hold. Poor Little Remy had pulled through the first night, but he never saw a second sunrise.

  Now, two months later, it seemed their whole lives were being held in suspended animation: the new house, work, their marriage, the family. Even time itself seemed to have stopped. Lyssa just couldn’t seem to get past the pain of losing their son. And Ramon couldn’t seem to get past the idea that he’d have to properly mourn sooner or later.

  She’d been the one to suggest the trial separation, a month after coming home from the hospital. This, after an especially bad fight had left poor Cassie terrorized, huddled and shivering in her bed with that rabbit of hers and the dog, which never left her side. How Ramon could possibly think the animals might help Lyssa get past the trauma was beyond comp
rehension. She needed time and patience in order to heal, not more things to take care of.

  The fact that Ramon hadn’t argued with her about leaving, had gone right out and gotten an apartment in Medford the very next day, had hurt her even more than she’d been willing to admit. And while she tortured herself thinking about how he’d benefited from the shortened commute, she secretly knew he also suffered deeply. The distance prevented Cassie from staying with him overnight during the week. She knew he missed his daughter something terrible, and that offered a little guilty relief.

  Lyssa had emotional problems, she knew it. Problems which would probably require professional help at some point. Rame had let it be known that he had serious concerns about her wellbeing, about her ability to cope after Remy’s death and her seeming unwillingness to fix their marriage. Hell, so did she. But she hadn’t expected the depth of his doubt. When she had suggested after only three weeks apart that they try patching things up again, the look on his face had said it all.

  Still, in the end, he had come back. “It’s just as well,” he told them, as Cassie helped carry his bags back inside the house. “That place was making me claustrophobic.”

  According to Cass, the apartment was small and stuffy, without air conditioning or the reliability of solar power. Ever since Long Island had become the testing ground for the towers for the experimental Stream network, it seemed like there were power outages at least once a week.

  But it didn’t stop him from ending the lease on the apartment.

  She guided the car along the inside curve of the interchange and had barely begun to accelerate onto the interstate when traffic came to a sudden standstill. She slammed on the brakes, cursing when her purse thumped to the floor in front of the passenger seat. It and her phone were out of reach.

  She was about to lean over and grab it so she could call Veronica to tell her about the delay, when the first Army truck barreled past on the shoulder, probably from the Omegaman base at Riverhead. Hanging out of the back were at least a dozen soldiers equipped in full gear, rifles propped between their knees. The looks on their faces told her they weren’t heading out to just another training exercise. They had the look of men about to head into combat.