The Zombie Show - Excerpt.1
Mama was really sick. Cole had asked her just an hour ago if he should call 9-1-1, but she’d said no. She was afraid of hospitals for some reason. She’d told him to close the door and he’d been sitting sentry outside her door ever since.
But now he had to go to the bathroom. He knocked on the door and put his ear to it and listened. She was quiet. Must have been asleep again. He crawled to his feet, his leg numb from the butt cheek down.
“Mama, I gotta go to the bathroom,” he leaned into the door and spoke. No answer. He told himself she was sleeping. Cole race-walked to the bathroom, a short distance away from his mother’s bedroom in their tiny ranch house. He closed the door out of habit and stole a glance at his reflection in the mirror. Even he knew a boy his age shouldn’t look this old.
Mama had gotten real sick a while back, so sick she’d almost died. So sick, the doctor told her she’d gotten diabetes. She had to take shots for her sugar and needles had always been hard for mama. Cole promised the doctor he would give her her shots if she wouldn’t. The doctor had told her to be careful, that she could come down with colds a lot easier, that they would be a lot harder to fight off. She would need to test her sugar every day. She’d need to get a flu shot every year. More needles. More doctors. Mama had begun stockpiling her medical supplies in her bedroom.
Cole finished his business and flushed. As he washed his hands, he looked at himself in the mirror again. Mama was a lot moodier than she had been. Had gained a lot of weight. Cole was barely five feet tall and skinny. He couldn’t really force her to do anything she didn’t want to. Once, he’d given her a shot while she was sleeping. Had managed to test her blood sugar and saw she was really high. He used the little booklet the hospital had given her to calculate how much insulin to take, thumped out the little bubbles as the syringe dangled from the little bottle, held upside down and swabbed her shoulder with an alcohol pad before injecting her.
She’d opened her eyes as soon as the needle went in and his heart skipped, thinking she’d awakened. But he steadied his hand, pushed the plunger down, and quickly removed it. Before his brain had told his body to relax, Mama shot up in bed.
“What was that?” she’d screamed, wide awake. “Something bit me!” Cole, in hindsight, wished he’d lied. Mama had changed since the diabetes. She was a lot meaner. A slap here, a biting comment there. But he’d told her, held up his hand and showed her the syringe. She’d tumbled out of bed on top of him, sat up, pinning him there, and as calmly as reading the Sunday paper, plucked the syringe from his hand and began poking him in the chest with it. Over and over and over.
“You see now? You see how that feels?” she’d kept asking him. He hadn’t intended to, but couldn’t help subconsciously counting the pricks into the thin muscle of his pectoral. He’d cried, wailed, but she kept on until she’d poked him thirty-two times.
Cole turned off the water and flick-dried his fingers. His stomach growled as he came out of the bathroom. Mama was sleep, it wasn’t like she needed him right then. Why not a sandwich? He could make two—one for her if she woke up. He could even cut off the crust just the way she liked.
He went into the kitchen and pulled the bread down from the top of the fridge. He had to hop just a little bit to reach. Cole took the meat and the mayo out and laid everything out on the counter. He worked quickly with a knife from the silverware drawer. A healthy smear of mayo on both his slices, very little on one of hers. He plopped two slices of meat on both slices of bread and then covered them. Cole cut his sandwich diagonally and was halfway through cutting Mama’s vertically when a muffled thump came from the bedroom. It sounded like a bowling ball had been thrown against the wall.
