SE Hinton owns The Outsiders.

Hell is Other People

Seven-

I heard Marcia before I saw her, and what I heard didn't exactly make me want to go leaping through a wall of flaming brush to get to her. She was singing:

"Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies.

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down…"

I caught a glimpse of her through a low spot in her brush wall. The wind carried the fire for just a second and I could see her perched up in a tree. She bobbed her head back and forth to the rhythm of the nursery rhyme and swung her legs like a little kid in a highchair.

Then she saw me, too, and waved.

"Hey, Ponyboy! Ring around the rosie…"

"Marcia," I shouted. "We gotta go. We know how we're going to do it- how we're going to kill them!"

I saw her eyes widen in excitement, and then she frowned. Her mouth was open, but silent. She reached out and pointed.

I felt an iron-like grip lock onto my shoulder and dig into my skin. I think my heart stopped for a second. I knew what had ahold of me, and I knew that- if one of Them already had me in its grasp- then it was too late. I lurched forward as hard as I could, but I couldn't break free of it. I didn't turn back to look. Instead, I kept my eyes on Marcia. If the only choice I had left was going to be the last thing I saw, then I wanted it to be her and not some hollow-eyed demon.

Marcia jumped down out of her tree and ran towards me.

I shouted, "No! Just run!" at her, but this was Marcia. Of course she didn't listen.

She picked up a big stick and held it in both her hands like a shovel. She never stopped moving as she came at me. I closed my eyes, certain that she was about to put me out of my misery.

When the stick sunk through the eye socket of the zombie behind me, it sounded like someone cracking an egg. Marcia shoved forward and I felt it release its grasp on my shoulder. I stumbled forwards and Marcia grabbed my arm. She pulled me through the low spot in her wall of fire and we tumbled onto the overgrown grass of the country club golf course.

For a minute, we both just lay there heaving. On the other side of the fire, They seemed to have forgotten about me. The one that Marcia had impaled was still up and moving around, the stick still lodged in its eye.

"Marcia, I think I'm bit," I rasped at her.

"I didn't see it," she said, but I had no idea whether or not to believe her. She might just say something because she wanted it to be that way. She seemed like she was in a state of mind to ignore inconvenient logic.

"Marcia, listen to me. We found our friend. He knows how to kill them. Or he knows what makes them tick, and we can trap them that way. Listen to me before I turn so you'll know what to do."

Marcia shook her head.

"You ain't going to. Come on, Ponyboy." She stood up and then yanked me up by the arm. My shoulder hurt something awful, but I didn't yet have the courage to look at it to see if the skin was broken.

Marcia pulled me along back towards the pool house. Under her breath, she was singing, "Ring around the rosie, pocket full of posies…"

I wanted for all the world for her to shut up, and yet singing seemed like such a human thing to do, and I wanted more than anything to remain human. I started to sing with her. The last thing I remembered was the two of us chanting, "we all fall down!" as we fell through the door of the pool house.

I came-to in the dark. It made my stomach tighten up, it scared me so bad. I figured this was what it was like- dark all the time. I wouldn't be able to see or feel anything. Then, I realized that I could feel the cold concrete floor beneath me. My eyes began to adjust to the dimness of the room. I wasn't blind; the sun had gone down. Somewhere nearby, I could hear Marcia singing again, and- as weird as she was- I didn't have any great, uncontrollable urge to rip her throat out.

"Marcia?" I whispered.

She bounced out of the shadows and knelt down next to me.

"Hey, Ponyboy, how're you feeling?"

"Not dead. I have to say I'm a little surprised by that. I was sure I got bit or that it broke the skin somehow."

Marcia giggled. She sat down next to me, legs stretched out in front of her, like a little kid.

"I have a confession to make, Ponyboy," she said.

I didn't like the sound of that at all. I got even more uncomfortable when she began pulling her skirt up to her mid-thigh. In the half-light, they were clearly visible: two bites, one right next to another. The tooth pattern was human- or, previously human. Around them, the skin was reddened in a ring, but the wounds were closed and healing.

Even still, I jerked away.

"Jesus!" I coughed.

Marcia laughed out loud at that.

"I guess I lied to you and Johnny just a little," she said. "The water here- it is contaminated. That's the only way I can figure it. My dad worked with the mayor- city planning or whatever. He never would explain it all to me because he thought that girls didn't need to know that stuff...just supposed to sit home and pop out babies and organize charity balls, but I used to sneak into his den and look at all those plans and maps when he was gone. I loved that stuff. Anyway, it's the water here. Or the water from the hose, anyway. What they used to water the grass. It doesn't go through the treatment plant like the rest of the city. I guess they figured the pool was chlorinated and the drinking water was filtered. The water from that hose, though, is run-off from a creek north of here...there's a gully…"

"It runs through a cemetery," I said.

"Yeah, you know where."

Memorial Park Cemetery was enormous. It sat on a relative incline a few blocks above the country club.

"Does that mean…?"

Marcia nodded. "My best guess is that the water is contaminated from the crematorium. When you drink the water, you ingest dead people's ashes. It must work like a vaccine. Maybe They think you're already dead."

For the first time, I dared sit up and pull my shirt away from my shoulder. The bite wasn't as deep as the ones Marcia had, but I could see the same outline of an upper row of teeth.

"Marcia, this changes everything. We could vaccinate everyone. We'd still have to kill the zombies, but we could fight them off without worrying about getting bit."

She shook her head.

"That's just it, Ponyboy. That's about all the time you'd have. It doesn't last...you have to keep drinking the water. It takes maybe three days, but then I can start to feel it wearing off. I start to get hungry- like crazy hungry, but when I eat berries, I just throw them right back up."

"How much water do you have to drink?"

"Not much. Maybe a coffee cup full."

I leaned back on my elbows and thought about it. I could live like this. It would be just like having any other chronic illness, like being diabetic and needing insulin. Johnny had drank the water, too, so he was protected for the time being.

"So that's why you stay here, huh?" I asked her.

Marcia nodded.

"I wasn't sure I could carry enough, and where else was I going to go? My family's gone. My house got torn apart."

"How long ago did you get bit?"

"Once last week. The other one was real early on, right after I got here. I sort of dragged myself in here, and got ready to die. But then I didn't."

I sighed. If I thought about it too hard, it was revolting. I was drinking the ashes of dead people. I tried to think past the key ingredient and figure out how the water worked: it must be like a vaccine. The thing still bit me- and Marcia too- so our drinking it didn't repel them. It just stopped the transformation from occurring. A thought popped into my head, and I asked Marcia:

"Did you ever try throwing it at any of them?"

Marcia thought that was funny as all-get-out.

"Like does it burn them or something? No, I never did."

"I want to try it," I told her and hopped to my feet.

Marcia seemed delighted to comply. We found an empty glass under the counter where Marcia liked to sleep and filled it at the hose. All the while, my mind was churning up questions, not the least of which was: if the crematorium isn't being used anymore, is the supply of tainted water going to run out?

We crept towards the gate at the entrance of the Country Club. It was dark, but there were a few of Them still milling in circles on the other side. Just like Marcia had said, they appeared to be waiting to be let back in. I stepped up to the gate, reached through and tossed the water on the closest one. Aside from twitching its head, It had no response.

"Crap," I whispered.

Marcia shrugged.

"Well, you don't know until you know."

"Yeah, well, what I know now is that we can't stay here. We got to find something to carry a few day's supplies in and get on out of here, back to my neighborhood."

Marcia frowned. I could tell she was still reluctant to leave.

"Listen," I told her. "I know you're afraid to get too far away from it, but- if my buddies have made it back to the North Side, then they've already put in motion a way to stop all of this. We'll be able to move back and forth as we please before too long."

Something in Marcia's face changed. There was a flash of anger in her eyes.

"Don't tell me to listen like I'm some dumb, little kid, Ponyboy. You think I don't know the score? Sounds like I know it a whole lot better than you. As far as we know, this is the only place that has the right kind of water, and- when everything goes all back to normal and it's sunshine and fairydust- who owns this? Who gets to come through those gates? It sure isn't you or any of your buddies. This is water is the new oil, Ponyboy. We keep control of it, we decide what it's worth, and- if that happens- it's going to stay here on the South Side. And that means you're screwed."

I winced, knowing she was right. It was the most lucid thing I'd heard Marcia say. She knew the score alright. She probably hadn't been aware of it until They came along, but she sure got how it worked now.

"You said your dad would never let you ask questions about his Public Works stuff. Well, your dad's gone now. I'm sorry to say it, but he is. Just like my mom and dad are gone. The only person I see living here is you, Marcia. Are you telling me you're ain't going to share your water once things go back to normal?"

"When things go back to normal, Ponyboy...if they go back to normal, then we're back to being just a couple of kids."

We each took an extra long drink of the water from the hose before we left the Country Club. Marcia had thermos she'd found- she guessed it had once belonged to the grounds crew because it still smelled like coffee- and we filled it with water too. Aside from that, we couldn't find anything to hold water that had a lid or wasn't made of glass.

Before we left, we picked a spot on the horizon where we'd meet if we had to split up to divert the zombies- where Harvard Avenue ran beneath the Expressway. I wish I'd thought of doing that when I was still with Johnny and Curly. Most likely, Johnny would head back to our neighborhood rather than going downtown with Curly. It would be a while before I knew whether or not both or either or them made it.

"Where do we go?" Marcia asked.

"I'm not sure. Downtown's closer, but I don't know what else I'd do there if Curly's already made it. If Curly didn't make it, though, I have to explain the AM frequency thing to Tim. Sure would like to see my brothers though."

"What do you think the odds are that Curly made it?"

I shrugged. That was the million dollar question.