I paced randomly around my house. Nerves, I guess, and I certainly had stuff to be nervous about. The criminals who burned down Stan’s house and probably broke into mine now thought I was the one giving them up to the police. I was, sort of, and should have thought about that at the time. I had my reasons.
The main reason was that nothing ever happened in my life, so I never expected anything to happen. At least, nothing had happened since…
I wasn’t sure when Hannah would show up, so I decided to cook. She worked all day and then spent time at the sheriff’s office, so she would probably be hungry. Since she came into my life, I started to keep more food in the house. I prepared a frozen pasta meal for two. That didn’t seem right on its own, so I heated some frozen vegetables to go with it.
Then the real pacing started. By then, my thinking shut off and the pacing ran on autopilot, just enough awareness to avoid the furniture. No telling how much time went by; my brain just wasn’t there.
The pacing and blank staring went on. That was probably the closest I had ever been to zombie life. Was that what they went through? I was never sure what zombies experienced. Were they soulless, mindless bio-machines, or were their souls trapped inside a body outside of their control? Didn’t really matter in the end.
The doorbell rang.
My autopilot shut off abruptly, causing me to almost crash into my desk. It took a moment to realize what happened. Fortunately, the bell rang again and that made things clear.
I rushed to the door and peeked through the security hole. It was Hannah and a deputy.
I opened the door.
The deputy spoke, “She says she is expected?”
“Yes,” I said, “definitely yes. Thank you. Have a good night.”
I grabbed Hannah by the upper arm in as gentle and urgent a manner that I could and attempted to pull her in.
She came in while turning to wave to the deputy. “Thank you,” she said to him as he walked away.
As soon as the door closed, she threw her arms around me, hugged me tight, then kissed me. Just her doing that drove a lot of the tension out of me. “I’m so glad they’re watching you,” she said into my shoulder as the hug resumed.
“Yeah, well, I’m glad you’re safe and that you’re here,” said the smooth talker inside my brain that seemed to say the right thing when she was around.
We stood like that for a moment, just enjoying each other’s presence. It was good.
Finally, I interrupted to say, “I made some supper. Why don’t we eat and you tell me about your visit to the sheriff’s office”
She agreed and we sat around my little dining table.
Her visit was pretty straight forward. Hargrave asked all the expected questions and she gave all the answers she could. He appreciated that she came forward and encouraged her to do so again if she found anything else. She asked if she was in any danger and he told her she probably wasn’t but should be extra vigilant just in case.
I don’t know why I expected something different. Maybe I hoped that her information would be enough to arrest all the bad guys and we could all just go about our business. What she told Hargrave was probably helpful, but these things took time. I had to be patient. Meanwhile, dangerous house-burners knew where my house was.
I told her I would do dishes later. We went to sit on the couch, me sitting first so she could more easily snuggle up against me. My arm found its way around her without me telling it to.
“Are you scared?” she asked.
“Yep,” I said.
“Me too.” She dug in a little deeper in her snuggle. It was pleasant.
“Do you think they’ll try to hurt us?” she asked.
I thought for a moment; I wanted to seem brave and secure but not dishonest. “If they can, it wouldn’t surprise me. They burned down Stan’s house with him in it. I don’t think they are good at planning but they are probably good at lashing out. I just hope they focus on me and leave you alone.”
She gestured in a wide circle, as best she could without pulling away. “You have all these deputies around you. They would have to be pretty stupid to try something with that kind of police presence.”
“I’ve been led to believe they are pretty stupid,” I replied.
“Well, soon the cops will have this wrapped up and you can go back to not being afraid,” she said.
That hit a nerve. It wasn’t just the bad guys that made me afraid.
She could see that there was something going on inside my head. “What is it? Is there something else wrong?”
I wanted to tell her, but I hadn’t even told myself, burying things for so many years. I wasn’t really sure where to start, but then the thought popped into my head and out of my mouth. “I don’t know if you remember, about nine years ago. The cops chased a guy who killed his wife. He flipped his car and died. Those were my parents.”
The expression of shock didn’t pop up on her face. Instead, she seemed to show sadness and sympathy. The little point where her eyebrows didn’t quite meet went up and her eyes looked like they wanted to cry a little. She pulled her lips in. She looked into my eyes and she squeezed me more.
Now that the parent part was out, the rest rushed forward as though a blockage had been removed. “When that happened, I stopped everything. I dropped out of college. I let my guy Rick take care of all my finances. Then, I closed myself off in this house and I haven’t really done anything, that is, until lately.”
I took a couple of deep breaths. It felt like I might cry at any moment with all these emotions forcing their way out of me.
She laid her head against my chest. “What happened lately?”
“That’s, that’s the thing,” I said, “a lot has happened. First there was Stan, then Deputy Hargrave, then Missus Sweigert, then you, just, like, suddenly, there are all these people in my life. The kids, those Rangers, they have me involved in a community project. I never would have done any of that before.”
She pulled away just enough to look me in the eyes. “Do you regret it?”
Then it was my turn to squeeze her tighter. “No, I don’t regret a single part of it. Especially not the part with you.” I kissed her on the top of the head for emphasis.
“If you like it,” she asked, “what about it makes you afraid?”
This was the hard part to explain, even to myself. “I’m not sure, but I think it’s because the change wasn’t me. I only went to Stan’s farm because he called me about these thugs. Then, I went to the sheriff’s office because of the thugs. I met Mary because one of the thugs was breaking into her apartment building. The Ranger kids ran into me at Mary’s. Our first night together was because I had to buy a new lock after one of the thugs broke into my house. All the positive changes in my life are because these stupid, meth-making, house-burning criminals.”
I had to inhale after that; it was a lot to express.
Saying it out loud to someone else really helped it to gel up, become real and cohesive. The pieces hadn’t gotten together before, but there they were now in one big completed jigsaw puzzle. I wasn’t the one who made my life better. During this whole adventure, I passively participated, just floating along, going with the flow, and not doing anything to make active changes.
We sat quietly for a bit. Everything I wanted to say I said. She was processing all of it, probably.
“Why did you make the zombie website?” she asked.
That was a good question. “I don’t know. I guess it just seemed like something to do.”
She followed up with, “Does it have, like, forums and stuff where people can interact with you?”
“Yes, they stay busy, though some have asked that I move it over to more modern social media. Sometimes they just comment on my content. Some will ask questions. Rarely, like with Stan, someone wants help with an alleged zombie problem.”
She shifted to get a little more comfortable again. “I see,” she said, “and has this been your only form of social contact all these years?”
Bullseye! It was hard to admit, especially to myself, but the online people gave me a little comfort without much commitment. I don’t know why that was something I wanted or why it was an issue. I had always been a little weird and a bit of a loner.
“And all this started when your parents died?”
“Maybe, I don’t know. I was kind of a loner before all that.”
She seemed to think for a moment. “If your dad killed your mom, I’m guessing that you didn’t come from a happy home. That could explain a lot. You probably didn’t have good relationships and you don’t know a lot about relationships now. You know, just thinking.”
She wasn’t the first one to suggest this. My high school guidance counselor said pretty much the same thing. And Hannah was right, it did explain a lot.
“Anyway,” she continued. “You’ve made friends recently and have been much more social offline. You got me, and hopefully that counts for something. I’m not sure why you’re scared of this unless it’s just too much change all at once and it’s overwhelming.”
“No, that’s not it,” I said. “It’s just, well, all of this has been motivated or put in motion by the action of those meth guys. What if, you know, when they get locked away, everything just goes back to the way it was?”
This time, she sat up. “Timmy, I want you to listen closely.” She took my hands in hers and looked directly into my eyes. “Those idiots didn’t set up the website Stan visited; that was you. After you went to Stan, you chose to go to the sheriff, not those thugs. You did both of those things because you’re a good man who wants to help others.
“You went to Mary Sweigert’s apartment building for the same reason. You said you called the cops on Johnny what’s-his-name because you were worried about him freezing. You were nice to the Ranger kids because you are a nice guy. You didn’t have to do any of that, but you chose to.” She squeezed my hands harder.
“You were always polite to me at the store, but you said you didn’t like to try to flirt with people who were working because it put them at a disadvantage. That’s somebody being nice and thinking about others. The night when your house got robbed, you didn’t have to have supper with me, but you chose to. You are way more in control of these things than you give yourself credit for.”
My mouth opened to say something, but nothing came out. Her view of events fought with my view of events somewhere in the back of my head. Processing all of that took precedence over saying something stupid.
While my inner fight went on, so did she. “You always had the ability to be part of society and to do good things, but you let it sit for too long. Your website shows that you really wanted to be connected. Now, you have the chance to break the cycle and do more.”
My brain mustered up enough power to ask, “How am I supposed to do that?”
The missing look of surprise finally found her face. It took her a moment to get over my question and to formulate an answer.
“How can you not see it? You are already interacting with people and none of them are going away, except maybe the meth guys. You are an unofficial consultant for the sheriff’s department. Maybe they will need you for more stuff, or maybe even word will get out and other departments will want your help. You are an expert in your field.”
She shook her head in preparation for the next part. “Then there’s Timmy the civic leader. You are trying to set up a zombie walk to raise funds for the playground. You will need to engage with the whole town to pull that off. If it works, you’ll have to lead on every year. You know what that will do for local business if people come from all over and spend money. We might become the Zombie Capital of Iowa, or the midwest even, and it will all be thanks to the works of our resident zombie expert. That’s all you, and no meth thugs can change that.”
She collapsed back onto me, putting me into a tight hug.
My brain was still processing what she said, but the hug made it feel better.
Recent events had painted me into a social corner. No, that wasn’t it. It had pushed me over the edge, like a snowball rolling down a hill. I was accumulating more people as I went, and the sphere of that was going to get bigger and bigger until we hit something.
This kind of frightened me too. My place was in the middle of the snowball, all packed in with no way to get out. Thinking about it gave me a feeling of suffocation, but only a little bit. The arms around me reminded me that it was ok to be surrounded and even a little squeezed, as long as it was by people you wanted there.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said. “Not just here tonight, which has been really good. I mean, I’m glad you’re here in my life. I hope you stay in my life.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Warm comfort filled me and eventually pushed me into sleep.
An alarm of some sort brought me out of it. Hannah was fiddling with her cell phone.
“Sorry,” she said. “My alarm went off to tell me it’s time to get up. I have to be at work at nine this morning.”
That’s when I noticed that natural light filtered in through the curtains. “What time is it?” I asked.
“Seven,” she replied.
It took a moment to process all the new information. First point, I had slept far more deeply than I had for a long time, probably due to the emotional conversation. The second point was that Hannah had stayed all night, the first time that happened. Finally, I thought I was being rude by not being part of her gathering up to leave.
“Can I get you some breakfast or something?” I asked while standing from the couch.
She walked over to put her arms around me. “No, thanks, I’m going to head off.” She smiled a very bright smile that involved her eyes and the rest of her face in complete smile-ness. “Don’t worry, though, I’ll be back. You are now stuck with me no matter what.”
I couldn’t help but smile back.
She kissed me quickly and then turned for the door.
I followed to walk her out. I checked around the doors for any trouble, and then we went down the sidewalk toward her car.
“Do you want me to drop by after work?” she asked. “I get off at six.”
“Sure,” I said. Then something occurred to me. “Give me a call on my cell phone before you head over in case something has come up.”
Based on her expression, she seemed to understand what I was getting at. We were still in danger from thugs and anything could change.
She climbed into her car, got situated, and drove off.
I watched her leave. Then I waved to the deputy parked just up the street and went back inside to figure out what my day had in store.