Page 45 of Hollow Child

“Isn’t that everyone?” I asked.

“Well, there are visitors who live elsewhere and only come here to trade, and there are citizens who have been here building it up for years,” Castor elaborated. “The refugees are the people like us, who have moved here because we had nowhere safe to live.”

“Oh,” I said, because it made sense even if it sounded strange.

“When do you think you’ll be well enough to move back to your house?” Samara absently toyed with her long hair, and the sunlight caught on the large face of her father’s mechanical watch on her wrist. “Or are you staying in the clinic until the baby is born?”

“Um, I think I’m staying until I give birth,” I said, and it was suddenly hard to talk around the lump in my throat.

I was hit by the realization that I would never actually see the house where Max and our baby would someday live. I would never see the bed our baby sleeps in, or know what the morning sunlight lookslike through our bedroom window.

I would never even see our baby or know the color of their eyes.

“Stella’s really exhausted and needs her rest,” Max said, abruptly it seemed to me, but when I looked to Samara and Castor, they were blurry, and I realized that I was crying.

Max thanked them for the visit because I couldn’t and he ushered them out of the room.

“What do you need from me? What can I do?” he asked when he returned.

“Stay with me and cry with me.” I said, because that was the only thing that I could ask that he could actually give.

He climbed into bed beside me, the two of us clinging to one another, and we cried because this was awful and unfair and impossible.

It was so hard being fifteen and pregnant and dying in a zombie apocalypse.

Ripley and Max hardly left my side, and usually only with the prodding of someone else. Boden had to practically drag the lion out twice a day so she’d go to the bathroom, but otherwise she was nearby.

Serg came to visit, telling me all about the new house and his contributions to the town. He was cooking at the Public Cafeteria, which was where people could get a free meal once a day.

Emberwood really did sound like a nice place to live, and I tried to take comfort in knowing that I was leaving my family somewhere good, where they could thrive. And I tried not to get too jealous and angry, because I wouldn’t get to see it, because I would never get my own chance to thrive here, too.

By the evening on the third day, it was indisputable that I was sick. My head hurt so badly, I threw up if I even looked at a glass of water, and I kept yelling at Max and Jovie, even though I wanted my last hours to be kind. I just couldn’t help myself. I was so angry, and my head hurt so much, and I didn’t want to bechained to a bed anymore.

I refused all visitors at that point, except for Max and Ripley, and that was only because they wouldn’t leave if I tried. Jovie was here, too, because I needed her. She had to be here to take the baby before I died, and she was doing what she could to keep me comfortable until then. As comfortable as I could be while slowly succumbing to a virus without any real pain relief or medicine.

By then, I was too tired and too sick to fight it, and I was sleeping more than I was awake.

I woke up once, when it was dark outside the window, and my room was lit by a string of twinkling white lights. Max and Jovie wanted to make my last coherent moments beautiful, and they did appear magical with my hazy eyes. Jovie’s Mazzy Star record was playing, and it was soothing, almost lulling me off.

There was a buzzing in the back of my head, a gnawing vibration, and I knew that I didn’t have much time left.

“It’s so strange, don’t you think?” I asked, thinking aloud more than speaking to anyone directly, but Max stirred. He was lying beside me in the bed, his arm around me, and he lifted his head to look me in the face.

“What is?” he asked quietly.

“That the baby’s life will begin when mine ends. We won’t really ever live at the same time,” I said.

“No, no, don’t say that,” Max insisted. “You’ll be with me and the baby forever. I am made of you, and I’ll never stop loving you.”

“I love you,” I said, because it was already too hard to talk, too hard to think, too hard to breathe.

I closed my eyes, and the last thing I heard before going dark was the sound of Ripley growling.

27

Remy

Just before midnight, Stella fell unconscious, and Ripley left her side and cowered in the waiting room. Jovie had her assistant Eden go get Boden and Serg, because they wanted to be here for this. Once they all returned, Jovie sent Eden home, because what would happen here tonight didn’t need any more witnesses.

---