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was nothing she did around the ship they couldn’t manage to do without her. They’d be fine, and that was not an insignificant comfort to her.
    Oh, but it was getting hard to think. What was all that commotion before? It sounded like Truman had shouted something, then Will ran out, but now everything was quiet again. She must’ve dozed off and missed whatever it was about. It didn’t matter. They’d do whatever they were going to do.
    Rachel heard some shuffling, then Truman and Lucy talking. They sounded so funny when they did that. Long, drawn out syllables, pauses and wheezes. They couldn’t really vary their tone or inflection, so it sounded like some sort of Medieval chanting by people who had colds. Weird. Must be hard for them. But they tried so hard to talk to each other. Not so much to her and Will—with them, the two dead people still mostly nodded or shook their heads. Of course, Will and Rachel encouraged that by phrasing most things as questions requiring “yes” or “no” answers. It was habit, and it made things easier.
    Well, she guessed it didn’t really matter much anymore. Will could talk to them however he wanted now. Maybe Lucy would warm up to him more than she had to Rachel, and not be so aloof and scary all the time. Or maybe she’d dislike him more and kill him one day. That thought frightened Rachel enough that she almost rallied out of her semi-conscious state, to call to Will and warn him, but she just didn’t have the strength. When he came back down, she’d remind him to be careful around Lucy. Of course, she’d have to be careful Lucy didn’t hear, but she’d try to remember to do that when she found an opportunity.
    What was that other sound? It sounded like music, but not Lucy’s classical stuff. It sounded like pop music. Lucy didn’t have any CDs like that, and although she could be a little snoop—Rachel had caught her going through cabinets and things before—she’d never taken something that belonged to someone else, even assuming she suddenly got a taste for more recent tunes. What were those two up to?
    Rachel almost thought she heard another voice besides theirs, too. She must be losing it, imagining things and drifting off, out of all this pain. As she considered it, she thought this would be a good time to go. She was alone, the hatch to her cabin locked. She could just go, and come back, and when Will opened the hatch, he’d see how she was, but she wouldn’t be quick enough to hurt him. He’d have time to call Lucy and Truman and they could hold her while Will stopped the ship to drop her off somewhere. Rachel even thought how it might be nice to look at Lucy without fear, once she was dead. It looked as though the dead people still felt pain, but she’d never seen them show fear, especially not Lucy; that’d be really nice to be rid of that feeling. Perhaps Lucy would talk to her then, the way she was talking to Truman now. Rachel probably wouldn’t be able to answer her—those two had taken weeks of practice to get good at it—but it’d still be pleasant, peaceful, like having a family. This would be the perfect time to go.
    Rachel wondered if you could will yourself to stop living, and she tried concentrating on her heartbeat or breathing; she imagined them stopping, wanting them to stop with every bit of effort she could muster. But it wasn’t like when she was little and tried holding her breath as long as she could—that felt good even as it hurt, and then it made her feel all dizzy and her friends would shriek with laughter. Now, in her present state, it was just too much effort and she couldn’t be bothered with it. Besides, if you could actually will yourself to die, would that count as suicide? She was still afraid of that, so she stopped herself from thinking of it. It was bad enough, coming back as a zombie. No sense pissing God off worse with some last moment of bad behavior; he might make her a really bad, stupid zombie, one that