There was no answer.
She hung up the phone and threw it to the floor. Her shoulders shook as she bawled into her hands.
Liam paced in a circle before he doubled over, hands on his knees, to catch his breath. He removed his red-rimmed glasses and wiped at his face.
Pull it together
, he told himself in his head.
Your fiancé needs you.
He walked over and bent down into a squat to wrap his arms around her. He let her cry into his chest as he stroked her hair.
“We have to go…we have to go to…my parents’…” Christine said in between sobs, her words muffled by his navy blue t-shirt.
Liam continued to pet her hair, squeezing her to him. “We can’t,” he said in a steady voice. “I’m sorry. We can’t.” He held onto Christine as her body jarred violently.
It was the first time his accent didn’t make her swoon. She wanted to punch him. Her best friend was dead. She thought about the last time she saw Allison at work and her eyes burned with tears.
VII.
Christine Moore sat at her desk and watched the minutes tick by on her watch. She held her breath as she waited for the last one to fall away, hoping Mr. Shale didn’t call everyone into the conference room for another emergency meeting. The further the pension fund smuggler’s case progressed, the nuttier her boss was over it. This lead to them working long nights and very little time with Liam. That’s why she planned a special night for him and, so far, the stars had aligned and everything was going as planned. Step one was to leave the office on time.
Only twenty seconds left until six o’clock.
She listened to the sounds of her fellow lawyers and their assistants as they shuffled around the office. She dreaded seeing one of their faces pop up in her doorway to call her away.
Ten seconds left.
Purse in hand, she poised herself to spring up from her chair when the big hand hit the twelve.
Five seconds.
“Oh there you are,” Allison’s voice called as she leaned against Christine’s doorway with her arms folded.
Christine’s shoulders sank as she settled back into her chair. “If you’re here to tell me there’s another meeting I’ll kill you with my bare hands and stuff your body into one of the drawers in my desk.”
Allison gave a girlish laugh. “My fat ass wouldn’t fit.”
“I’ll make you fit,” Christine said with a sober expression.
Allison threw her head back and gave in to full laughter. “You’re dark. I like that.” She walked in and sat down on the edge of the desk. “No, I just came in to say hi and wish you a happy birthday and weekend.”
Christine exhaled a sigh. “In that case,” she said and grabbed her purse again as she jumped up from her leather chair. “I will.” She made for the door, but stopped short and turned on her heel back to Allison. “And you’re not fat.”
Allison let her head fall softly to the side as she looked at Christine with loving eyes.
“You’re just old.”
Allison’s face tightened as she glared. “You can go now, bitch.”
VIII.
Christine sat on the bay window seat and looked out at the darkened, empty parking lot. All the cars, along with their owners, had cleared out before nightfall. The trees blew back and forth in a breeze that didn’t cool, but only pushed the hot air around. She’d been locked in their apartment for thirty-six hours. It felt like weeks as Liam constantly rearranged things from box to box, never settling in one place for too long. Christine hadn’t picked herself up to move or help at all. Allison was gone. Her parents were likely gone, too. She wondered if her sister was alive, wherever she was.
“Can I at least go outside for a quick walk or something?” she yelled, her head craned up so her voice carried to the bathroom where Liam was finding room for all the toilet paper he’d bought.
“No,” was all he said.
“Just for a minute. I can’t breathe in here.”
“No,” he said in the same, quick, solid voice.
Christine sighed and turned to look out the window again. “It’s not like anyone’s even going to be up at four thirty in the morning to attack me. I’ll be really careful. I’ll even take one of those knives you bought if it’d make you feel better.”
“No.”
She wanted to scream. He wasn’t the boss of her. They were a team. She was his fiancée, not his prisoner. The outburst boiled and rose inside her, and then simmered and dissipated until it was entirely gone. She remembered the agonizing screams from Allison she’d heard from the safety of her apartment, the one Liam had stocked with over ten thousand dollars’ worth of supplies for them. Something moved in between the abandoned cars left in the parking lot and caught her eye. She didn’t tell Liam.
A knock on the door made Christine jump. It was loud, like multiple fists were pounding in furry. Liam ran from the bathroom. The banging grew more desperate. Liam and Christine looked at each other with wide eyes, but neither went to open the door. Suddenly, Christine was thankful for all the locks that kept them inside and whatever was outside out.
“Please, open up!” a familiar woman’s voice traveled through the door. “My son needs help! Please, he’s hurt badly. Please, help!”
Christine got up from the window seat and started to walk over to the door. Her path was blocked by Liam before she could extend her hand to start the tedious task of unlocking the deadbolts.
“It’s just Mrs. Ramiren,” Christine said, matter-of-factly with her chin jutted out. “Her son’s hurt.”
Liam didn’t move. His eyes fixated on Christine as he towered over her with his lanky body. She saw her reflection in his glasses. Her eyes were squinted and her brow was furrowed together. Could he really be denying someone help? That wasn’t the Liam she knew.
He stood like a stone statue with his arms extended in both directions to grip either side of the small entryway walls.
“You’re seriously not going to help them?” Christine asked as she moved to get around Liam.
He gripped her upper arms and held her back. She struggled against him, throwing herself around wildly to break free from his grip.
“Let me go!” she yelled. “We have to help them!”
“Yes, please, help us!” Mrs. Ramiren said from the other side of the door. The sound of her rapid pounding fists kept in time with Christine’s racing heartbeat.
Liam gripped her harder and shook her. She stared at the brown and green swirls in his hazel eyes. The water collecting in them gave the allusion that the colors were moving and mixing with each other.
“The only way we’re letting them in is if you’re prepared to put a bullet in that kid’s head!” he yelled, his fingers wrapped completely around her small biceps.
Christine’s shoulders were scrunched up to her neck. She leaned backwards, held upright by Liam’s strength alone. She pursed her lips to fight back the tears. She didn’t want to appear weak. She was a lawyer, dammit. She should have been able to argue her way into making him open the door. But her lips stayed tightly shut while her eyes bore through him.
She wrenched her shoulders free, but didn’t walk away. She matched Liam, stare for stare. The pounding at the door finally subsided as they continued to glare at each other, though it still rang in Christine’s ears.
She tried to calm herself to sit back down on the window seat, but immediately bounced back up. “I babysat Ahmed before. Do you remember that?” She thrust a pointed finger at the closed door.
Liam looked at the floor with his hands on his hips. He didn’t answer.
“And now we’re just supposed to let them die?” Her voice border lined on shrill.
“Yes,” Liam said quietly. He couldn’t raise his eyes to look at her. He hated the way things were. “If we let them in then we’re all dead.” He finally raised his head. “It’s us or them.”
Christine was left to stand alone in the living room as Liam walked into the bedroom. He shut the door behind him.
IX.
“Ralph, you need to go get my mother,” Sally Sherman said as their daughter, Lilly, balanced on her hip in the kitchen.
Ralph Sherman groaned over his cup of coffee at the sound of his name. They’d only been together for two years, but he knew his wife exclusively used it when she was irritated with him. He sipped at the steaming medium roast in his DirecTV mug.
The Northwest Times sat unopened on the counter. The front page was riddled with stories about the outbreak, most claiming the new strand of flu was to blame. He was sick of hearing about it already.
Work had called that morning to tell him not to come in. He couldn’t afford to take an entire day off. His boss assured him he’d get paid for the day, but he knew it was going to come out of his vacation time. When everything blew over there was going to be a shit ton of cable and internet to fix, that was for sure. Maybe he could make up the lost hours with overtime.
“She can’t stay down there all by herself, Ralph!” Sally said, the annoyance turned on in her all at once like a light switch. “You heard the panic in those peoples’ voices last night, the ones begging for help. She needs to be up here with us, at least until this all dies down. Now, go get her.”
Ralph gave another loud groan as he set down his coffee mug. “And you expect me to go out there with sick people running around the building? Doesn’t matter if I get attacked right? People are dying, Sally. I’m not risking our lives to go get your mother from downstairs.”
Sally stared at him as their daughter reached for the hand that held her bottle. She sucked on it, oblivious to the argument going on around her. Sally didn’t say anything. She didn’t even looked surprised, but Ralph knew he’d hurt his wife.
“Just call your mom and tell her to lock her doors and stay inside. When things quiet down and those people stop panicking over nothing, I’ll go and get her, OK?”
Sally sat Lilly down on the couch and let her hold the warm bottle herself. She grabbed her phone from the counter and shut herself in their bedroom. Lilly cooed as she kicked her feet and drank her milk. Ralph looked at her, but his mind was elsewhere. Nearby gun shots brought him back.
Screams echoed outside as everyone ran to their balconies. Ralph and Sally joined, leaning over the railing to peer into the darkness. Multiple bodies shuffled slowly toward one spot in the parking lot, where several more bodies were bent over. The gargled cries told Ralph what it was they hovered over on the ground as their hands ripped back to shove bits of something into their mouths.
He heard Christine Moore yell from the balcony on the other side of the stairway. “Oh, God. Liam…the Goldsteins! Liam!”
Sally Sherman covered her face with her hands and wept, turning to burry herself in Ralph’s arms. He squinted his eyes to see through the darkness. The bodies shambled away from two unmoving lumps on the ground. With the sun breaking the horizon, transforming the sky from a deep, navy blue to a lighter indigo, Ralph finally saw the bloodied, mangled bodies of the Goldsteins.
He continued to stare, not wanting to look but unable to turn his eyes away. That’s when he saw it. Sylvia’s hand moved. Then her arm. Ben’s legs were shifting back and forth as he lay on his back.
“They’re alive!” Christine Moore yelled from her balcony. “Somebody help them!”
The Goldsteins fumbled slowly to their feet. Sylvia’s legs shook as she tried to steady herself on her tall heels. She fell back down to her knees, but relentlessly got up again to try to stand on her wobbly legs.
Ralph gaped. There was no way either of them could be alive. Ben’s throat was torn to shreds. Sylvia’s arm was hanging on by a thread of carnage and her stomach was ripped open. Her entrails dangled down to her knees as she moved in sharp, jagged motions.
Another gunshot rang out from a first floor balcony and Ben Goldstein was blown back, his face unrecognizable as he fell to the pavement. Screams rang out from the building as everyone watched in horror. Another blast and Sylvia’s hanging arm dropped to the ground. Black ooze dripped from the gaping hole in her torso. She let out a sound none of the people watching had ever heard before. It was a shriek mixed with a hissing growl. An echoing bang rang out again and Sylvia was thrown back. She crumpled to the ground next to her husband.
Sally was sobbing hysterically by then. Her body shook as she kept her face tightly pressed to Ralph’s chest. They’d left the patio door open and he heard Lilly wailing from inside the house. He released Sally and ran inside, scooping Lilly up in his arms and holding her head to his shoulder as he bounced on the balls of his feet, shushing her.
“It’s OK, baby, it’s OK,” he said over and over again. “Everything’s OK.”
Sally shut the patio door and collapsed to her knees onto the carpet. She wept into her hands, choking on her sobs as she struggled to breathe.
“Shh,” Ralph hissed through his teeth to Lilly. “Everything’s going to be OK.”