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Nightmares are usually these frightening, impossible, crazy things your mind comes up with; scenarios that make no sense and yet fill you with dread; images that fade away once you open your eyes. To Sue however, the true nightmares are memories.
And oh, she’s got plenty of them. More than she can handle.
She dreams of her sweet, gentle boy lying in a coffin, his face white and ghastly, expression troubled even in death. Dark, deep lines on the undersides of his wrists; lines that edge themselves into her sight and haunt her even in waking hours. Kieren is gone, and the gaping space he left behind is an infinite black hole that’s somehow still stretching wide by the day. At times, Sue wonders if it’s going to swallow her up eventually. If she’s going to be lost to the abyss and never find her way back to the light.
She tries to keep going. She’s still got family members to take care of, after all.
But the dreams come.
She dreams of her baby girl sobbing uncontrollably in her arms, her tears soaking Sue’s blouse. Then a switch is turned, and her daughter is this white-hot ball of rage, an electric lightning waiting to strike—a presence that raises goosebumps on Sue’s skin whenever she walks by with her guns and batons and that hard expression that’s got no place on such a young face. In her dreams, Sue sometimes sees Jem as she should be: a cheeky young girl with a sun-bright smile who laughs with her friends while talking about crushes and grumps about schoolwork. These visions of her make Sue’s heart throb even more than the memories. She aches because she knows this girl is lost forever.
She dreams of her husband, the way he was before… well. Before. Chatty and bright, funny in an unfunny way, loving, caring—so so caring. Sue has always loved his big heart. It was Steve’s care for a distraught stranger that brought them together in the first place, it was his gentle smile that made her want to hang on long enough to heal. Seeing utter hopelessness in his eyes, being denied his words and comfort is… too damn painful to bear in the waking world. And yet, the memories of what was when she dreams is somehow worse.
Most nights, Sue jerks awake to find tears streaming down her face, painfully aware of how achingly far Steve’s arms are from her. Her now mute of a husband lies curled up on his side of the bed. Sue would reach out and embrace him if she was not so afraid.
Most nights, she just stares at the ceiling and weeps until the sun comes up.
Is she going to lose her daughter as well?
Jem should be in school, worrying about missed homework and difficult tests. Not fighting murderous creatures who barely resemble humans anymore. No help is coming, though—the government prioritizes big cities—and the HVF needs everyone who is willing. Sue understands that. She does. She herself can’t help with that, but she does what she can by patching up the injured, help with ration distribution and look after the young.
Still, what she wants the most is to gather up the remaining members of her broken little family and keep them close, as close as possible, hide with them in the basement and hope her love is enough to help them survive the apocalypse.
Some days, her anger with Kieren is so sharp Sue can taste the bitter poison of it at the back of her throat. Sometimes, she thinks she hates him.
Kieren didn’t care about their feelings. He didn’t trust them. He just removed himself from their lives and didn’t care that he was going to break them all by doing so.
Sue is alone with a depressed husband who lost the ability to smile and a girl-turned-hunter who’s out there gunning down monsters to make herself feel again.
A mother is supposed to be the glue that helps the family unit stick together, but all Sue’s got are broken pieces floating in a puddle of her own misery.
It’s all Kieren’s fault, and Sue can’t temper her anger.
She’s always crippled by guilt, after.
What kind of mother can hate their child? A child who needed help and was denied it? A child who thought killing himself was the only solution? A child who was suffering, and her mother didn’t see?
Sue chokes on unshed tears and wishes she was sleeping again, back with the nightmares. Anything is better than this guilt-ridden wakefulness.
She can’t help but wonder if her son is out there, too.
She hopes he’s not. She’s seen a few of those dead creatures. The sight repulsed him.
Kieren’s cold-white face surrounded by black satin was heart-breaking enough. She’s got no idea what she’d do if she were to face what was his darling boy… his once gentle features twisted into a crazed snarl, his skin gritty and disgusting, torn clothes splattered with filth and gore.
He’d be killed on sight, wouldn’t he? If he’s… If he’s back, then he’s out there with the other mindless beasts. Murdering innocent people. Feasting on them. He is no longer her boy, not really.
Please let him not be here, Sue prays. Her faith is weakening with every passing day, but still, she prays. Let Kieren rest where he is in the afterlife.
Or, if he’s out there… I hope we’ll never know. I hope they’ll never identify him. I hope I don’t have to rewrite my last image of him with a monster in my mind.
If he’s out there, let us never find him.
She’s thinking about pills again.
Steve seems a bit more alert, his eyes a bit too knowing. He still doesn’t speak much, but he watches Sue throughout the day and holds her hand as they fall asleep.
Thoughts of pills and what-ifs follow Sue into her dreams.
“I saw Kier. He’s back.”
Sue stares at Jem. She understands every word, but together, they make no sense.
Then they suddenly do and she just—she can’t. No. No.
No.
“What do—How—Where?” Steve breathes next to her.
Jem doesn’t meet their eyes. “In the store. He was—But he’s been locked away. Ready to be transported, on government orders. He’s not dead.” She visibly gulps. “I mean. Not dead-dead.”
Sue’s tongue is stuck to the roof of her mouth. Her fingertips are ice-cold.
“Well, that’s—That’s good, innit? I mean, they’ve been saying scientists are working on a… a cure, right? He might be… In any way, he should be in safe han—um.” Steve trembles against Sue. It’s subtle, but she can tell. She reaches out and takes his hand, even though she feels just as shaken. (Can they hold each other up? Please, God.) “He’s…”
He is.
Sue doesn’t know how to feel.
Is a cure really happening?
If yes—will Kieren be like he once was? Can they restart everything? Were they really given a second chance?
(She wants that to be the case. So bad. She wants him home, in her arms, so she can press kisses to his cheeks and tell him how much she loves him. How sorry she is for not seeing. How she’d wished to turn back the clogs of time.)
Or is he going to remain a beast? A creature of death and gore, waiting to be put down like a rabid dog?
Fuckin’ rotters, the people of Roarton keep hissing like a nest of snakes.
Every single hiss is the crack of a whip on her skin.
Time passes.
News break that a cure has been found. The government is going to start the rehabilitation of all undead patients. (Patients. The people of Roarton abhor that word. Sue isn’t sure how she feels about it.)
Jem is still closed off, far too adult for a teenager (and yet not adult enough, still a child; Sue can see) but she’s no longer in daily danger. The gun still hangs from her belt and she spends her days with the other HVF members, but she’s no longer putting her life on the line every day.
Steve, too, has a new bounce in his step. He’s no longer stone-faced, eerie like a ghost. He even smiles and cracks silly jokes, sometimes.
None of them ever go near Kieren’s room.
Sue doesn’t want to let herself hope.
(But she does.)
In the months leading up to Kieren’s release, Sue doesn’t miss a single news report. She reads every paper she can get her hands on. She picks up pamphlets about zom—PDS sufferers and tries to make herself ready. She tries to understand.
She can’t help it: she is scared of those white, beady eyes, of the blue veins running across grey-white skin. One of the pamphlets details a study on PDS sufferers who were revived after having died of horrible injuries, and care instructions for their family members. There are photos of a man who’s missing a third of his abdomen. A little child whose bones have deteriorated. A woman who cannot support her forever broken neck.
Kieren won’t have this issue. His injuries are small. Not like… these people’s.
(Dark, deep lines on the undersides of his wrists. Lines that haunt Sue even in the waking and sleeping hours.)
Sue puts away the pamphlet and starts for the kitchen. Time to get started on dinner, anyway.
Seeing Kieren again—her boy, her darling little boy, exactly as she remembers and yet so very different, his eyes the wrong shade of brown, looking so worried, so scared, so far away—breaks her.
The nightmares return.
Sue dreams of zombies and coffins and gunshots and white eyes.
Above all, she dreams of her son drifting away. Again. This time, for good.
She won’t let him.
“I’ll tell you how you change it. This time, you live. You don’t leave. You stay.”
Her heart breaks for Janet and Rick—oh god, Rick, poor innocent Rick—but damn if she’s going to let Kieren meet the same fate. No. Sue’s had enough. This time, she’s going to be here. This time, she’s going to see and listen and help.
“You want me to stay?” Kieren sobs, disbelief breaking his voice even further. “When I’m like this?”
“Yes!” How can he even ask this? “My god, Kieren, I’d love you with all my heart if you came back as a… a… goldfish!”
Sue’s going to hang on and not let go. Not this time.
Never again.
She asks Jem to show her how to use the Internet properly. She knows the very basics, but really, Sue’s never had to use computers at work, and it’s been years since she last sat in front of one.
Her daughter is not the most patient teacher, but she humours Sue. It’s nice to see her smile genuinely these days, to see her out of the military clothes. Watching her distance herself from Kieren and be outright hostile towards him was heart-breaking, so the siblings’ newfound closeness is a balm to Sue’s motherly soul.
“I’m thinking of going back to school,” Jem tells her one evening. “Resitting my GCSE’s. The world’s not gonna stop just because we had a zombie apocalypse, after all, yeah? So I thought…”
“That’s a fantastic idea,” Sue says. “I mean it. You’re so smart; it’d be a pity to let that go to waste.”
“Dunno about that. Just. It’s better than just hanging around, waiting for something to happen.”
Sue reaches out and briefly caresses Jem’s arm. She doesn’t pull away like she’s done in the past. She considers that a win.
There are many online forums for PDF sufferers and their caregivers. On proper care. On relationship advice. On random daily things. Sue reads and reads and reads. She doesn’t quite dare to comment anywhere—she doesn’t feel like she’s got anything of use to add—but she reads.
And learns.
-
My little girl was just three when I died. She’s a teenager now. I missed out on almost all of her childhood, and with the way I am now… How can I get close to her? I don’t want to force my presence on her; I’m practically a stranger. And a monster. But I’d like to be a part of her life. Anyone in similar shoes? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
-
My BF and I were sixteen when I died in a car accident. He’s an adult now, and has long moved on—understandably. I met up with him a few months ago, and I still have feelings for him, but I understand that’s never going to go anywhere.
But I don’t know. I’m going to be in this sixteen-year-old body forever. (And let’s not get into what kind of body this is, exactly.) Several years have passed since the Rising; I feel older. I am older, mentally. But people my (mental) age won’t look at me twice, and I don’t feel comfortable thinking about teens that way. What should I do? Should I just not consider anyone outside of fellow PDS people?
-
My wife is a PDS sufferer. It’s been seven years since I lost her, and I cannot be happier that she’s back. But she—she wants me to move on. Not because she doesn’t love me anymore, she says, but because she “knows” her body would revolt me and because she doesn’t want to watch me grow old when she can’t do the same. I don’t care about any of that, but I don’t know how to make her believe me. Any advice?
-
My family members can barely look me in the eye. They say they’re glad I’m back, but I can see they find my appearance disgusting. I feel more comfortable without the mousse and contacts at home, but whenever I go to them like I am, they just… look away.
I’m scared of confronting them about it. I’m scared they’d send me away.
If my family can’t accept me as I am, who will?
-
Sue brings her hand to her mouth and nibbles on her thumbnail.
Does Kieren… feel the same way this last person does? She and Steve don’t exactly demand that he wear the cover-up mousse and contacts, but… it’s undeniable that they feel more comfortable when he does. He’s sitting with them at every meal, pretending for their sake, because they asked.
Sue just wanted some normalcy back. But was that… unfair of her?
Kieren doesn’t like himself, either. It’s subtle, but Sue’s learnt to be more observant. She sees how Kieren flinches away from his own reflection. She’s seen that his mirror is all covered up.
Jem doesn’t seem bothered, though. She’s seen the worst of the worst—she’s fought the rabid creatures while Sue and Steve just helped from the background—and yet she’s the only one who doesn’t flinch when Kieren happens to appear in his natural state.
Sue leans back in her chair and thinks.
Things can’t go smoothly for long, can they? Fate’s not kind like that.
Still, they persevere.
Sue didn’t get to know Amy well at all, but she must have been a wonderful girl to have torn such a wound into Kieren. It’s clear as day that they adored each other.
Her boy is grieving again, and Sue worries. She watches him constantly, watching out for signs of—
But looks like things have improved already: Kieren is not lost to grief. Not like he was with Rick.
And he’s not alone. That young man—Simon—is still with him. Constantly by his side. Watching him, like Sue does.
He’s clearly smitten.
Sue’s heart aches with something that’s finally not pain.
Sue jolts awake from another nightmare. (Kieren, dirty and twisted and snarling, a lone ghoul roaming the dark; Jem, the gun ripped from her hands, screaming as the undead corner her in a lonely alleyway.) She lies unmoving for a while, but when it becomes clear that she won’t be able to fall back asleep, she quietly gets out of bed. Steve snorts in his sleep but doesn’t wake.
It’s pitch-black outside, but through the open bedroom door, she can see light coming up from downstairs. She puts on a nightgown and follows it.
She finds Jem sitting in the living room by the reading lamp, sipping from a mug in her hands. At Sue’s approach, she freezes.
“Sweetheart? Why are you up so late?”
Jem shrugs. “Couldn’t sleep.”
She scoots over when Sue walks to the sofa and sits down beside her. Sue studies her daughter from the corner of her eyes. Did she have a nightmare, too? Her hair is down, her fringe a bit matted; her face is pale; her eyes slightly red.
Is it better if she asks? Or if she doesn’t?
“I had a nightmare,” Sue says in the end. “I get them often, but… It hasn’t been this bad in a while.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah, but. Still.” Jem hesitates. “You wanna… talk about it?”
Sue blinks. Jem would want to…? “No, I don’t think so. But thanks for asking. It’s in the past; my mind just doesn’t always get the memo.”
“No kidding.” Jem takes a sip again, then glances at Sue. “There’s still some chocolate milk left if you want some. I made a bit too much. I put it in the fridge, but I could reheat some for you.”
Chocolate milk. It’s as good as an admission. Ever since they were little kids, Sue’s always made chocolate milk for Jem and Kieren if they woke up from nightmares in the middle of the night and couldn’t fall back asleep.
Love floods her chest at this obvious sign of Jem’s care. She’s had such a rough few years, and she likes to present herself as this wild, tough person… but she’s still just as caring. Maybe even more so, after all she’s gone through. After they all did.
“You know, I think I’d like some, yes.”
Returning to school hasn’t been easy on Jem. Sue doesn’t know the details, but she can guess that Kieren’s state and her past with the HVF must be a part of it. She’s so proud of her for not giving up though, for not turning back. And for sticking by Kieren no matter what.
In some ways, she’s been there for Kieren more than Sue and Steve have. Isn’t that just devastating?
How many mistakes does Sue have to commit before she finally learns how to be a good mother?
(Let it not be too late.)
“Kier’s coming home tomorrow, right?” Jem asks while handing Sue a new mug. It’s warm against Sue’s palm, and smells delicious. “You think he’d want some, too?”
“Yeah, they said they’ll be home before lunch.” It’s still so strange, letting her son sleep somewhere else—in the company of another; his boyfriend… but Sue’s gotta come to terms with the fact that despite him looking like an eighteen-year-old, Kieren is no longer her little boy. He might look young forever, but he’s grown. She’s going to have to let him go at some point. And hope that he’ll feel safe coming back. “I think he’d like that.”
“It’s so strange. One day, Kier’s going to look younger than any children I may have. How messed up is that?”
Ah. Looks like Jem’s thoughts were heading the same direction as Sue’s.
“The world is so messed up.”
“Yeah,” Sue agrees with a nod. “But… I’ll take it. Gladly. I know it’s disrespectful toward those who’ve lost so much in the past few years, and I’ll forever regret some of the things that’ve happened… but I’m content with where we are right now. And I couldn’t be happier that he’s back. In whatever form. For however long.”
Jem sits back down beside her. Closer than they were sitting before. “Even if you keep having nightmares about everything?”
“Yeah.” Sue closes her eyes and smiles around her mug as she takes a sip. “As long as I only have nightmares when I’m asleep, I’ll be fine.”