Blood Soaked and Invaded - 02 Read online

  “All right, y’all. Quit it, or I’m gonna start gettin’ misty over here.”

  “Shawn, you’re just bitchin’ because crying like a baby isn’t macho,” Charlie said. She gave a dramatic sniffle to punctuate her comment. “We’re just letting out all the feelings that have crawled up our asses.”

  “Come on! It ain’t like I’m not moved by all this, but we did come over here to have Jaya look up his nose. Right?”

  “Well, yeah. We were going to come over to your place and get some coffee before scrounging in your larder, too, but we got sidetracked.”

  “Damn it, Chuck, can’t you mooch off someone else?”

  “Don’t call me ‘Chuck’ or I swear by my pretty pink nipples I’ll nut you.”

  I will digress, and tell you for a fact that Charlie’s nipples are pretty. They’re my favorites, really. Chunhua’s are pretty swanky, too… At least the set she ended up with when the nanotechnology reversed her aging. I try really hard not to think of the other set. Honest.

  “You Americans are so casually violent with your siblings,” Jayashri commented, her head pressed against mine. “The first people that one should be generous with are your family members. You are our family, and I will make us coffee and food after I have examined our Francis’ nose.”

  With a little effort, she extricated herself from my mindless embrace, made the universal “Stay There” gesture to me and went to fetch something in another room. By that point, I’d turned off my face faucet and was sitting on their hardwood floor with the passivity of a man that has been through the emotional wringer. The one thing I can say for being brain damaged in that way is my actions and emotions lined up with a kind of congruency that I never experienced before or since.

  Score one for brain damage.

  Jayashri came back into the room with one of those cute little lighted things that doctors use to look up your nose and in your ears. She checked the battery by shining light on her hand, and looked up at us with some confusion.

  “I seem to have forgotten why I should be looking up his nose.”

  Charlie related the morning’s episode of pink sticky snot, and told her not to worry about my bloodstained clothes. I’d dispatched an interloper and made a mess of myself.

  “Ah. I do not know what it says about me, but I find bloody clothing less of a concern than I did a few days ago,” Jayashri said, cupping my chin in her hand and raising my face up for easier access to my nostrils. I didn’t resist when the cold black plastic went up my nose. “Well, I do see some irritation and one or two small blood clots.” She shifted to my left nostril and commented, “This is about what you would expect to see in any patient who was experiencing sinus inflammation from breathing cold air or a nasty cold… Of course, there would be mucus if it were a rhinovirus.”

  “Ok, but did he blow brains out his nose earlier?” Charlie asked.

  “Without a sample and a microscope, I would not be able to tell you. As odd as it might be to say so, I am going to make the assumption that if his body got rid of it, then it was not something that it needed. Remember, I am much more accustomed to people who are not superhuman. They are not as mobile and functional after traumatic ballistic impacts to their frontal lobes.” She shrugged.

  Her answer mollified Charlie a little, but I could feel her concern from across the room, even if it didn’t make a single lick of sense to me. Jayashri sat back on her haunches, and flicked the light back and forth in front of my eyes, making me wince slightly.

  “On a positive note, his pupils are reactive and symmetrical. Bright light makes him want to close his eyes. I should ask, out of curiosity, did he have a bowel movement yet?”

  “What’s that got to do with a bullet to the head?” Shawn queried, shuffling around in the chair.

  “We doctors joke that voiding your bowels is a sign of life.” She chuckled a little bit, adding, “The irony is it is also a sign of death. If Francis’ body is working, it will be processing bodily waste products. Feces. Urine.”

  “He made a trip to the potty on the way over here,” Charlie squeamishly commented. “I was pretty surprised that he understood toilet paper and flushing. Then he took a pee on the brains of the intruder that we almost had.”

  “Almost had?”

  “I turned around to go get a gun, and when I did, he hightailed it across the street and took the bastard down.”

  “I see. It is good to know that some of his memories remain, along with a few learned behaviors and that his body is making waste products.” Jaya looked thoughtful for a minute, smiled, and said, “Of course, urinating on an opponent is a fair indicator the old Frank we know is in here somewhere!”

  She tapped me on the head, and I gave her a smile.

  “I dunno J. He acts more like a trained monkey than Frank.”

  “Shawn, I received the same update from Omura that everyone else did after they brought my husband home. The nanotechnology will likely repair Frank’s brain over time, and everyone should participate in his recovery by interacting with him often. Charlie is his ‘handler’, and so on.”

  “I know, I know. Seeing my friend like this freaks me out, and I’m wishing for a way to hurry his recovery.”

  There was a female chorus of affirmative noises and a heavy silence. I, of course, added nothing to either of those.

  “I do not wish to add more to your responsibilities than you already have,” Jayashri began, “but I would like to ask a favor of you, Charlie.”

  “Anything, honey!”

  “Shawn, would you take Frank out to the porch for just a few minutes before I start breakfast?” Jayashri stood up and helped me up once she gained her feet. “I would like to speak with Charlie alone for a moment or two.”

  “Oh-kayyyy.” He didn’t sound thrilled, but stood up and took my hand in his oversize paw. “Come on Frank, we need to step outside for a few. Got it? Just a few.”

  I followed him without resistance, mostly because nothing appeared to be threatening and Charlie seemed to be okay with it. I’m fairly sure that if she had expressed anything remotely negative I would have reacted poorly.

  Poorly? Read: mindless violence.

  The two of us stood there in the cool morning air, not interacting very much. Shawn smelled of something acrid and gastrointestinal, which my nose found interesting but my brain couldn’t classify. After some minutes of silence, he started humming a tune.

  “Ok, man, you gotta know that one. Your turn,” he said to me.

  I responded with a blank look. The old me had one of those for every occasion, but the brain damaged me had a limited repertoire of facial expressions.

  “You know. You gotta! Here, listen again!” He hummed it louder, and I had no response to give him, which seemed to frustrate him. “All right, but only `cause it’s you,” he said and broke out into a little song and dance. “I wanna go where fashion sits… C’mon, dude! Your part!”

  I gave him a look of utter and complete lack of comprehension.

  “PUTTIN’ ON THE RITZ!” He hollered it right in my face, as if it was going to make a difference. My inability to respond had the best of me.

  He stepped back, looked deep into my eyes and let out the Sigh of the Criminally Neglected. “I was hoping to get a little Mel Brooks action out of you. ‘Young Frankenstein’ is one of your favorite movies. No dice, huh? Shit.”

  Looking back, neither Shawn nor I got a blip on our internal systems that Chunhua was nearby, much less at the bottom of the porch steps, and it ought to have been something of a clue. Regardless, both of us nearly shat ourselves when we heard her say, “You could have tried the ‘Roll, roll, roll in the hay,” part. Frank likes to roll in the hay!”

  “Chuuuuun,” Shawn tried to stutter, but got locked into the first syllable.

  “Hello, sweetie. You got up very early.”

  I would have raised an eyebrow or two, had I been completely present for a statement like that. As it was, I observed quietly, and sniffed
the air. Shawn smelled a little unsettled. The woman at the bottom of the steps didn’t smell like anything. I doubt, had I been blindfolded and stuffed with earplugs, that I would have known she was there at all.

  “Yeah, well. I felt a little odd and wanted to,” his hesitation spoke volumes, “go see how Frank was doing.”

  “Shawn, I wasn’t born yesterday. We had a very stressful night, repelling the zombies, and then you and I slept together.” She held up her hand with her fingers splayed out. “Based on my years of experience, you getting up before me is an indicator for a number of possibilities. Oh my goodness, I just fucked the hell out of an older woman.” One finger folded down. “I have intense intimacy issues.” Another finger followed the downward progression. “I think that I strayed into a very touchy situation and am embarrassed.” The third finger folded. “I really don’t know what to do now, because I’d like to do it again as frequently as possible. I have to say, older women are amazing in the sack.” She waved her pinkie finger in the air, to add emphasis to her final theory, which was, “Oh my God, she knows that I am a premature ejaculator!”

  I could feel the heat of Shawn’s blush from where I stood, watching the exchange evolve like a tourist watching people haggle in Tunisia.

  “I am not a premature ejaculator!” He probably should not have bellowed that quite as loudly as he did.

  The door behind us opened. Charlie, Jaya and Baj stood there, crowded into the doorway, eyes bugged out and intensely interested in the drama that had begun to unfold in the morning stillness.

  Chunhua’s almond eyes disappeared behind her curved eyelids as she dissolved into giggles. “No. You certainly don’t have that problem!” Still giggling, she ran her hands down her sides with a little wriggle of glee. “Not at all! I just wanted to get your attention so you don’t fill your head full of crap.”

  Charlie said, “I’m going to go back into the kitchen and do SOMETHING because I’m feeling a little odd about this. You guys want to come with me?”

  Bajali and Jaya made little affirmative noises and formed a little conga line behind her as she scooted into the other room. I stood there like the lump that I was.

  “Damn, baby! That was an awful thing to say.”

  “Well, don’t sneak out of bed again. You could have visited the Forbidden City before you left, and I bet you would have found new delights before breakfast, too... Clouds! Rain! Pearls on jade steps! The arching dragon victorious over the subdued monkey!”

  “Um!”

  “We’ll talk about it later. I want to give Frank a hug. Do you think he’ll let me?”

  “I don’t know. Give it a try and see. I’m pretty sure he won’t go all nasty on you.”

  “I don’t even want to know what you mean by that.” Chunhua walked up the steps, and stopped about two feet from me. “Frank, I don’t know if you can understand me, but I hope you remember that I’m your friend and I care about you very much.” She reached out and took my hands in hers. “See? I want to give you a hug because I was very scared and I am so worried about you. Would that be all right with you?”

  I felt the pressure of her emotions, even if I couldn’t wrap my head around the words. All I could do was let her pull me into an embrace, and put my arms around her. She was a stranger, but I could tell that she didn’t mean me any harm and something wordless inside me let me know that I cared for her, too.

  The thing that set me a little on edge, in the animal mode that I seemed to be in at the time, was that she had no scent. Everyone has a unique scent signature, something I’d always thought to be true, but now it’d been proven by the nanomachines inside me. While my brain was being reassembled, those little buggers used pieces of my primitive brain to keep me up and functional, and buried in that cache of grey matter is an olfactory wonderland.

  I didn’t need to see my neighbors to know who they were. All I needed was air to carry their unique perfume to my nose. “Perfume,” might be taking it a little far, because it was more like a stench on a few occasions.

  Shawn + beer + sweaty activity = unspeakable aroma. Trust me on this. No “scratch and sniff” can come close.

  Chunhua let me go, stepped back and looked into my eyes as though she was searching for something, a facial expression that I’ve come to know and be incredibly tired of. She was about to say something, but a far away expression replaced the intense searching of my face. I looked over at Shawn, and his face had assumed similar lines.

  A few moments later, he grimaced. “I fuckin’ do not like that one bit.”

  “Neither do I, but I see the sense in it,” Chunhua commented, “until Bajali can do something about how the nanotechnology spreads. We are just as contagious as anyone that has the zombie virus.”

  “Yeah, but that don’t mean that I don’t hate shit like that.” Shawn’s scent changed, and it wasn’t for the better. “Look, let’s take the boy inside and talk to people who can make better sense out of this bullshit. Okay?”

  Chunhua agreed, and we all went back inside. They led and I followed. I didn’t have terribly much choice.

  Chapter 3

  Bajali had his face buried in his hands, leaning on the table, balanced on the points of his elbows. He smelled like something that was about to die.

  Jayashri stood by the coffee pot, staring off into space. It wasn’t the distant expression that we’ve come to associate with engaging in an internal conversation with one of our own. Her face carried the pole-axed glare of the truly upset. Her scent was full of sharp angst notes.

  Charlie waved Shawn and Chunhua to empty chairs, but pulled me close and wrapped her arms around me. Like a good and responsive bag of bony protoplasm, I wrapped my arms around her in return. The room around us was quiet, deathly so.

  Bajali broke the silence. “I am so terribly sorry. It did not occur to me we would be seen as a threat to public safety. I… damn me… I only wished for the people I love to survive.”

  “Shēng mǐ zhǔ chéng shú fàn,” Chunhua grimly intoned.

  “What does that mean?” Baj looked up at her from across the table.

  “It is an old saying that my grandmother always used when my father did something unfortunate. ‘The rice is already cooked.’”

  “I think there’s a quote in Hillbilly that might be about the same. ‘Shit don’t matter. Y’all are fucked.’ That’s what Charlie’s and my Daddy would say before he hit us with one of his Sunday shoes.”

  “Were it so simple! I would rather be beaten bloody by your father’s shoe than endure this,” Bajali said, venting a noise that was nearly a growl and throwing himself to his feet. “They are quarantining us until I can reprogram the nanos so they will not spread beyond us. A wall! A gulag!”

  “Baj, sit back down, take a deep breath, and I’ll even get you a cup of coffee. Gettin’ your boxers in a twist ain’t gonna do much right now.” Shawn tried to be gentle, or what passes for his version of gentle with an adult. Baj wasn’t having any of it.

  My dear scientist friend started ranting in Hindi and pacing around the kitchen like a Bassett hound on Adderall. I watched him as he walked around Charlie and me like we weren’t even there.

  “Dude.” I turned back to look at Shawn when I heard the tone of his voice. He smelled like frustration on the edge of violence. “Dude, sit the fuck down right now. We don’t have time for anyone to wallow in self-hatred–least of all you. Now sit the fuck back down, and we’ll figure out something like we always have.”

  Bajali closed the distance, and Shawn pushed his chair back and stood up.

  Charlie held her breath. I stared.

  To his immense credit, Shawn held up his empty hands and attempted to defuse the situation.

  “Baj, I know some awful stuff happened while you were gone. I can’t tell you how sorry I am for that. I want to help any way I can. Please, my friend, just take a big, deep breath, and sit back down.”

  Compassion couldn’t touch the pain Bajali was feeling.

&nb
sp; Charlie and Jayashri were struck speechless. I couldn’t speak, even if I wanted to. We knew there was going to be a car wreck any second and none of us could stop it. Seconds later, it was upon us.

  Baj got up in Shawn’s face and shook his finger, recriminating our local giant in a foreign language. Jayashri squeaked in dismay, and tried to say something that might stop the inexorable flow of events. Words failed her.

  “Dude, I’m glad that I don’t know what the fuck you’re sayin’ ‘cause I don’t think I’d like it much. Sit the hell down. Now.” Shawn’s temper got the best of his compassion, and I felt it across the room.

  I broke Charlie’s embrace, got out of the chair and started to move toward the two of them, but I was too slow. Baj drew his hand back into a fist and took a swing at Shawn. There wasn’t a single thing I could do. It was too late.

  His punch didn’t land. Using nanotechnology-fueled timing, Shawn caught Baj’s fist in his hand. The noise was something like a butcher throwing freshly ground hamburger on a cold tile floor. Sharp, crispy noises and a short howl from Baj came on the tail end of the meaty slap.

  “I want you to listen really close to what I’m gonna tell you. I’m gonna let your hand go, and you’re gonna aim your ass at a chair. You’re gonna sit real quiet and concentrate on how it feels to have your nanotech repair the bones in your hand.” Shawn’s menace reverberated around the room, completely unrestrained, despite the controlled tone he used. “You do that, and I’m not gonna mention it again.”

  The kitchen and dining room were utterly silent in the wake of violence, but the tension in the atmosphere was another thing entirely. It was nearly alive, twisting and thrumming, arcing like electrical discharges between every person in the room.

  Bajali sat down, cradling his hand, and some of the charge earthed itself, giving all of us a little more room to breathe.

  “Charlie. Could you take Jaya downstairs and find a steel can in their recycling bin?”

  “What?” She sounded dumbstruck. I bet I would have been.