Chapter 18: They Walk Among Us, Part 1

Pranthi read the paper spread across her legs in the hospital bed. The Journal put Pranthi's pictures on the front page. Her photos weren't just in the local news, but went across the globe. The first reaction to the story had been compassion and horror. The second had been to blame the news people. Neither the pilot nor the videographer admitted to seeing people falling off the buildings until it was too late to stop it. Who'd expect a helicopter flying overhead to turn rational people into mythical lemmings? Pranthi wouldn't have believed it if the urge to run and jump hadn't invaded her too. What she remembered of Jack's attempt at flight wasn't horror but envy. There, but for a pair of crippled legs, went her.

The third reaction to the disaster was to quarantine the entire city. All the roofers had fungus in their system. The rest of the world didn't want to deal with whatever was going on here.

She threw the newspaper away delighting in the way it scattered through her hospital room. The nurse clucked as she picked up the mess. No extra cookie with supper tonight.

Pranthi pulled out her tablet and researched zombies in nature, but gave up reading the articles after the first couple. She didn't like the idea that something could take over her body and mind. The roofers followed the desire of a fungus which had invaded their systems. Most of the quotes from surviving roofers from her building and the next one involved something about hearing the voice and waiting for the gods. Like Jack said before he died. She resisted the urge to throw her tablet after the newspaper.

Turned out all that treatment didn't kill the fungus, just helped her to survive with it. The woman in the coffee shop had talked about ants and fungus and zombies.

The editor from the Journal cooked up the idea of a special edition on the zombie fungus. Denise wanted her to take the pictures to go with the feature. The research department could deal with the nightmares. Pranthi had enough already. She emailed Denise to turn down the offer.

Tears ran down her face, but the tissues were too far away for her to reach them. She dropped the tablet on her legs and let them come. She'd liked Jack. He'd been fun to work with on those skateboard shoots. Now he was gone, like her brother was gone, like Pranthi wished she was.

"Knock, knock," a voice from the hall called.

"Come in," Pranthi said. A moment later someone placed a tissue in her hand so she wiped her eyes. Constable Dan stood beside her bed with a strange look on his face.

"I thought you had forgotten me," Pranthi said. The look disappeared and Dan shook his head.

"Didn't forget you," he said. "I followed up on the lead you gave me, which meant a raid on a house. That went completely sideways, killing some officers and leaving me," he thumped his leg, "short a leg. I wanted to stay on, but with only one good leg, I couldn't be front line, so they put me in Victim Services. So here I am."

"I'm a victim, now?"

"Aren't we all?" Dan said. "We're trying to help as many of the survivors of the roofing craze as we find. There have been a lot of suicides among the people who didn't fall from the buildings. Like the people up there wanted to die."

"We were offering ourselves to the gods," Pranthi said. "It doesn't make sense, but that is the best way I can explain it. We were supposed to be up there."

"I've heard that a lot," Dan said. "The roofers weren't a big part of the population, but they tended to be people who were lonely or outsiders."

"Aren't we all?" Pranthi said. Dan left soon after, leaving a card on her table for her to call if she needed to talk more.

***

Pranthi fought with the buggy holding her groceries. The only reason she didn't bring her camera on shopping trips was she feared dropping it in the battle to get her food home. Frank told her to get the groceries delivered, but then she'd never leave her apartment. Every time she went out she'd think about Jack and go back home. For the first time since Pranthi had bought her first camera, the lure of taking pictures wasn't enough to get her past the pain. Strange that emotional pain defeated her, not the agony in her legs.

So she wrestled with the buggy, wishing she had the nerve to curse like Jack at the recalcitrant object. The battle with the groceries kept her from seeing the man until he was almost on top of her.

His eyes fixed on hers while blood dripped from his mouth. Behind him a woman lay in a red puddle on the sidewalk. Like the zombie at the park, this man walked faster than she could, especially with the buggy. She pushed the thing at him. He bumped into it and instead of pushing it out of his way he bounced it forward with each step.

A gap opened in the traffic beside her. Cars rushed up to fill it, but it gave her a chance. Pranthi stepped out onto the road and hobbled as fast as she could manage across the two lanes to the center line. Cars honked at her as they passed, their horns dopplering from high to low. Fingers waved from open windows.

Nothing she hadn't seen before.

Cars flew past on either side, clearing her by inches. Pranthi held her breath and froze. The man untangled himself from the buggy and stepped out on the road. The car that should have hit him switched into the middle lane cutting off the truck beside it. That truck swerved and headed directly at Pranthi.