Gutted, I gasp at Zachary. "You can't believe that," I insist.

"I do," He draws in air and I hear a wheeze like the sound of a balloon slowly deflating. "I'm dying Janice."

The room seems to blink out of existence and back in. Everything feels slow, but heavy. "You won't, I mean, not really."

"No, I will, but I'll come back," he promised. "But I won't be me, Jan."

I feel warm tears slide down to my chin. "You will--"

"I won't. I won't remember you," he looks away, to his drawings. "I won't remember any of this. I won't be me, I'll be someone--I'll be something else. Not Zachary."

"No." I shake my head. "No. I mean, maybe for a little while, but you'll get better when they make a cure..."

"They're not working on a cure, Jan."

I see his eyes, pleading. I watch his lips tremble. He's afraid and he's sad.

"What do you mean?" I hear people talk when they don't know I can hear them. I know where we go. I know what happens to the brain--"

"What--what do you mean? Who said that?"

"They kill the things we become because they know things they aren't telling anyone. The body is dead. You can't come back from dead, Jan."

"No, but it's not really dead!"

I feel Salem tugging at my arm and hear the commotion outside in the hall, but I can't focus. The only thing that matters right now is getting Zachary to understand what I'm trying to explain.

"If we keep you from rotting, keep you fed--"

"What are you talking about?" he asks.

"Jan, we have to go," Salem says urgently.

"If you eat, you'll be okay until they can fix you," I insist.

A scream follows my sentence like punctuation. Slicing through the thick hospital air. Breaking the boarders of my one-track mind.

Salem ran to the door, like a bullet, straight into action as I froze. I feel numb. Zachary's refusal to leave and now this.

"We did this all for you. Don't you see? You matter!"

I look back at him and he looks terrible.

"There's some dead ones on the loose out there, overpowered the workers," Salem explains.

My heart is thumping in my ears.

"We don't have time Zachary, we have to go," I pleaded. I hear the click of the door, "Salem, no!"

"I fear he's going to rush into danger, but he doesn't. He just pokes his head out and says, "in here hurry!"

A woman, disheveled, runs inside. She's wearing scrubs, the bottom part a scrub skirt which used to be white. It's spattered in shades of reds and brown. Her hair is half up and half falling in random places as if she'd been fighting.

"Malory...she...she..." the woman stammers.

Salem shuts the door back. "How do we get out of here?"

"We can't," she cries. "We can't get out!"

My breath is caught in my throat. It's too tight. I tug at the neck of the gown they gave me.

"Window," Zachary gasps, pointing at a book shelf.

"Yes!" the woman shouts in triumph. "We hid it from the patients, in case someone wanted to escape—er—leave."

Cut the crap, lady, we know what you've been doing here, but right now we just need out, I think. But I don't say it because the sounds out in the hall keep my voice from working. They're getting closer. An alarm rings out, louder than thunder.

Salem is shoving on the books shelf, the woman on the other side. It's so big, it isn't budging. No way would any of the sick patients be able to move that, even if it wasn't packed full with big books.

But a dead one might, if it had enough wits about it to notice a window behind, or if it remembered.

Gunshots ring out somewhere inside, making me jump into action. If the people with guns catch us, they'll never let us go.

"Come on Za—" but Zachary isn't there, not sitting in the chair anyway. He's standing beside me, looking at me with his teeth bared.