Page 121 of Doomsdate

“Argh, you mean my glasses?!” Everett rolls onto his back, clutching his upper left pec where I zapped him on the highest setting, whimpering.

“Maisie, Maisie, come in, this is Gemma.” The radio sings to life. “Please report, Maisie, do you read me?”

Chicken hisses again toward the radio console and the high-pitched whine it’s emitting. My head whips back between Everett, mewling on his back, and Chicken, who just leaped upon the radio control board, bucking like a pissed-off bronco. It was the radio she was hissing at.

My mouth forms a small O.

I gingerly raise the phone flashlight again into Everett’s cage and see that he is, indeed, still human. Albeit a very pathetic one. “I’m so sorry!”

“It’s—fine,” Everett grits out. “Very glad to—see—you—observing the rules.”

I scramble over to the radio and press the talk button. “Gemma! This is Maisie, Everett is still human! I repeat, he’s still human!”

“Holy hell, that’s wonderful news!” Gemma cries out over the air. “By my calculations, it’s been ten hours and forty-two minutes since the bite!”

“He should’ve turned by now…” I twist to face Everett. My heart swells painfully in my chest at his wide, fearful eyes, too scared to hope but unable to stop himself. “Is that what you’re saying, Gemma?”

“That’s what I’m saying.” The same timid hope trembles through Gemma’s voice. “I don’t understand why, but he should’ve turned hours ago. Think, Maisie—was there anything about the bite that was different? Anything about Gramps that may have interfered with successful transmission?”

“I—don’t know! I—” I run my fingers through my hair, thinking hard. I cleaned Everett’s wound last night in a blur of agony while he was unconscious. Was there anything weird? “The—wound. It was very neat, actually. A clean cut, I mean.”

“What do you mean, a clean cut?” Everett asks. He runs his hand over the bandaged wound on his arm and winces.

“Did it look like teeth marks? Crescent-shaped indentations? Was there a tear of flesh?” Gemma’s speaking so fast, it’s hard to parse out one question from the next.

“I don’t remember! It just—it looked like a sharp line, I think. I used butterfly closures to keep it closed, just like before…”

“Here, look at it now.” Everett pulls at the surgical tape holding his bandage in place until the layers of gauze come loose. He gently peels them back.

And there it is—the straight, red line across the meatiest part of his forearm.

“Huh,” he murmurs. “How would a zombie’s mouth make a cut like that?”

“Is it possible that it wasn’t his teeth that made the incision?” Gemma asks. “Gramps was old, correct? Did he wear…I don’t know, dentures or something?”

My eyes bug wide. “He wore a plate! He wore a dental plate! His upper teeth are all fake and connected by a wire bridge across his palate. He complained about it constantly!”

I get right up close to the cage to look at Everett’s cut again. A neat, straight line, maybe an inch and a half long. No chunks of flesh missing. No jagged tears. “I don’t think his teeth actually touched you.”

I jump back on the radio’s mic. “Gemma, I think Gramps’s partial plate made the incision, not his actual teeth. But does that really change anything? Wouldn’t there be saliva on his partial?”

“Probably, but that’s assuming saliva is the viral vector. Some viruses live exclusively in biofilms on the teeth.”

“Biofilms?” Everett asks helplessly as he smooths his bandage back into place. “What are you saying?”

“Plaque, dingbat. Buildup. Gross shit that accumulates on your teeth when you haven’t brushed since, oh, the start of the zombie pandemic because you’re DEAD!”

Everett stares at the radio half-lidded, his mouth in a flat line. “Well, the loving concern for my well-being is officially over.”

“Oh, cry me a river, you utter zombie failure,” Gemma says, her voice high-pitched and gleeful. “Can’t even die and un-die right.”

“Can you not—” Everett begins, but Gemma’s transmission cuts over top.

“BRB, gonna go break the news to Mom and Dad that their only son will never live and die up to his full zombie potential. Toodles!”

Everett throws his head back and groans, but it’s a nice, normal, human groan, full of relief and release and glorious, terrifying hope.

“Should I…unlock your cage now?” I ask, staring at him. My palms begin to sweat.