Jake watched Joe and Hank with vacant eyes, his head cocked to the side, and a blank expression upon his translucent face. The pair stood just inside the cold box. Hank pointed his gun at Jake. Joe lifted the garden hoe off his shoulder, while tightening his grip, as the chilly air waft over his body. The dimly lit cold box illuminated a sparse, yellowish tint from the low wattage, incandescent bulb within. Jake grunted and snorted. All color had drained from his face, leaving behind a network of black, veins beneath the skin. His mouth and hands were dripping with blood, and the front of his shirt and pants were saturated in it. Joe noticed a slight blood trail from the doorway of the cold box to Jake.
Jake expelled a guttural growl, before rushing them. Without hesitation, Hank fired his weapon. The bullet penetrated through Jake’s cheek, blood spattering onto the cartons behind him, as his body fell backward. The men remained still, waiting to see if he would rise. Hank stepped forward, nudging Jake’s leg with his foot
. His body remained motionless.
“
Mary!” Hank yelled turning toward the door. “Mary!”
Joe walked out of the cold box first, turning back to Hank,
“Mary may be infected.”
“
Don't say that Joe. That’s my wife you’re talking about. She's fine,” he gruffly said, tightening his expression.
“
I'm just saying, I don't think that was Jake's blood all over him,” Joe said quietly.
Without responding, Hank moved around the outside of the cold box looking for his wife. Sighing, he circled back to Joe, who still gripped the hoe as though it were fashioned of gold.
A shadow crossed the room. Catching a glimpse of the silhouette, both men, turned toward the front of the garage. At first all Joe could see were the rays of light shining in from the small windows in the top of the garage door. Caught in the beams of light were Hank’s truck in the middle of the garage and the supply boxes along the wall. Joe’s eyes slowly adjusted to the contrast in light. A silhouette between the back of the truck and the garage door could barely be seen. It moved toward them, shuffling along slowly. Hank's gun hung loosely in his hand, while Joe's grip his weapon tightened. Mary shambled into the light holding her neck. Blood streamed through her fingertips and dripped down the front of her dress.
“
Hank,” her raspy voice whispered, as she reached out, before collapsing to the ground.
Rushing to her side, Hank tried to touch her, but hesitated. On his knees, dropping the gun to the floor, he cradled her face in his hands.
“Mary, no,” he cried.
Joe looked down at the motionless woman on the cold, concrete floor, a pool of blood forming beneath her shoulders.
She was gone. Mere minutes, if not seconds ago, she had emerged from the kitchen, untouched by this disease, as the news anchor called it. If only we had fixed the TV sooner.
Then his mind took an abrupt turn.
“
Hank, she’s going to wake up,” Joe said.
Hank wept over his wife’s lifeless body. His eyes were nearly shut as the tears dribbled from his eyes onto the face of his wife. Now bawling uncontrollably, as his entire body quaked in sync with his sobs.
“Hank, I am sorry. But you need to get back,” Joe said.
“
What?” Hank looked up at Joe with anger, waiting for an answer.
“
You heard the news broadcast. She is going to wake up… as one of them. She's infected,” Joe reasoned.
Joe’s heart pained as his eyes fell to Mary, then to the anguish upon Hank’s face. The strong, confident savior that had rescued him and Kate last night had been reduced to a bawling, broken man. A few tears snuck their way from Joe’s tear ducts to his eyes, teetering on his bottom lids. Holding his eyes open for as long as he could, he blinked, driving the salty liquid down his cheeks. As he wicked away the tears, he knew what fate had in store for this woman. No longer would she be the lively lady who welcomed strangers into her shop for safety, or the woman who cooked the tasty smelling breakfast that still steamed in the kitchen. Mary was gone. Soon in her place a monster would surface disguised as the woman they knew. Joe had no words to comfort Hank. This was something Hank would have to work through himself. Personal experience had taught Joe that when man loses a wife, there is a choice to be made, to stand up or to fall—and that choice belongs to each man alone.
“I know,” Hank said sobbing, turning his head back to look at her. “I just…”
Mary’s eyes opened, revealing blackened
scleras. She lunged forward chomping her teeth closed, just inches from Hank's face. Her tongue and gums had already changed color to a tar-like black. She growled in a throaty, inhumanly tone. Hank pushed her away, pinning her down by the wrists. She continued biting at his hands and face, nearly connecting with almost every attempt. Joe, dropping the hoe, picked up the gun, aiming it at Mary's head.
“
Hank, I won't shoot her unless tell me to,” Joe stressed.
Joe, having lost his wife two years, four months and eight days ago, knew what the death of a wife can do to a man. He tried to put himself in Hank’s shoes right now.
If I pull the trigger before Hank is ready to let go of her, he will surely kill me for it, I know I would. It’s his choice, if he is willing to risk being bitten by her, then it’s up to him. I will let him make the choice, and then I will make my mine to protect my daughter from any threat to her safety.
“
Mary… Mary are you in there, anywhere?” Hank’s voice cracked.
Snapping at his arms, she then lunged at his
face again, narrowly missing it. Hank swung out of the way just in time.
“
Hank!” Joe shouted.
“I love you b
abe,” Hank said as he looked at Mary with sorrow, his eyes darting back and forth across her face.
“Hank!”
Joe yelled after Mary’s teeth nearly connected with Hank’s hand.
“Do it Joe,” Hank said, slightly nodding, utterly breathless, “She's not my wife anymore.
”
Joe fired the round into
her skull. The crack of the gunshot echoed through the garage, making it sound as if the shot had ripped a hole in time itself. Then silence.
Roxy sat in the middle of Mattie’s truck with Dave on her right, and Mattie driving. Her dogs were tucked in the back of the truck, safely contained by a camper shell. Her mind reeled about the news broadcast they’d watched at Mattie’s before setting out to Lynn’s place. To hear that this insanity was sweeping through the entire town of Port Steward, shook her very foundation. After calling this little town her home for her entire life, it now seemed as if it was on the brink of ruin. The news anchor had said that officials were setting up a city-wide preliminary quarantine. She didn’t exactly know what that entailed, but she imagined traffic would be backed up at the bottleneck. The only way in or out of town by land, was on the interstate, through the bottleneck. They were probably setting up some sort of examination area to determine who had been infected before letting anyone leave. The whole situation still seemed unreal to her.
How in the world could something like this happen?
“This is her street. It’s ‘bout eight houses down,” Mattie said, focusing on the road ahead.
The streets to Lynn’s house had been relatively quiet. There had only been a few infected along the way, some had even charged toward the truck, but none connected.
Mattie pointed to a brown house at the end of the street with a rusty, wrought iron fence around it. The gate
had been left open, as Mattie pulled into the driveway. All three exited the truck, as Mattie lifted the bench seat up, in the cab, and stowed two bags beneath the seat. Mattie pulled out a revolver and tucked into his waistband, then slung the remaining bag over his shoulder, and hurried over to the gate to close it.
“I’ll leave the ladies in the back for now, so we can check in with Lynn first,” Roxy said, pulling off her brown blouse and opening the back of the camper shell. Stuffing her shirt in her duffle bag, near the tailgate, she rubbed her pooches’ heads before closing the back and twisting the handle to the locked position.
The heat of the summer day had already begun to seize the morning, even at this early hour. Although the official start of fall should begin next week, it seemed that Mother Nature hadn’t received the memo. It had been a lengthy, dry and unusually scorching summer so far and it seemed as if the breezy, fall weather would never arrive.
Roxy examined Mattie’s pale yellow truck, it was
an oldie, but it made it. There were primer patches in various spots and old dents and scratches that were being swallowed in rust. The faded brown camper shell didn’t match the truck in any way, although Roxy thought that they were probably manufactured around the same era. The ladies pressed their noses against the glass pop out window on the side of the camper shell.
This area wasn’t the best of neighborhoods. There were no sidewalks,
only dusty gravel and weeds with ensnared candy wrappers and trash on the sides of the road. The houses on this street were aged and in poor condition. The house across the street had a broken window with large shards still stuck in its frame and a board covering it from the inside. Graffiti had been scrawled along all the mailboxes down the road. Roxy spotted a man ahead, about two and a half blocks down, in the street. By the way he shuffled his feet, he had to be infected.
“Yeah, the
dogs’ll be fine back there for a minute. We’ll just be here for a sec, and then we’ll be on our way. Wonder why they left the gate open?” Mattie said impatiently.
Mattie
approached Roxy and Dave and began walking up the breezeway with them.
Suddenly, a Hispanic man came running at them from the backyard gate at the far side of the house.
“Run!” he yelled sprinting across the front lawn toward the driveway.
Following closely behind h
im were two other men. These were no ordinary men chasing him, they had the infection. Mattie reached for his gun as the Hispanic man approached. The man pushed past Roxy, grasping her shoulder and pulling her toward the infected, as he gained more momentum. Frantically, Roxy turned to escape the two closing in. Her boots caused her to lose her footing on the slick grass, and to sink to a knee. She pushed off the ground with her hands to gain traction, as the infected man out front buried his teeth into her shoulder. He immediately released and pulled away. He let the glob of Roxy’s flesh fall from his mouth onto the grass and began screeching at a deafening pitch. Roxy shrieked in pain as a gunshot rang out, then another. Both infected were dead on the ground, but Mattie still had his gun aimed.
The Hispanic man, that had just crossed the lawn
, circled back and ran up to the porch of the house, joining a woman near the front door. They looked on at Roxy and Mattie.
Roxy fell back to her knees on the lawn, holding her left shoulder with her right hand. Her shoulder burned with an intensity that she’d never encountered before. Sensing beads of sweat instantly materializing on her face and arms, she instantly felt breathless. As tears streamed down her face, she looked up at Dave and Mattie, with grieving eyes.
Her grief was for her family that she knew that she would never see again. Mattie would shoot her on this lawn, before she became like the ones that bit her.
“Please Dave, promise you’ll find Kate and make sure her and my dad make it through this, and get the ladies to them?” She sobbed, eyeing Mattie’s gun, aimed her way.
She thought of her options. There were none. She knew that Mattie wanted nothing to do with anyone who had been bitten, he made that clear last night. Could she blame him? She wanted nothing to do with anyone who had a bite. She had no vehicle in which to leave, no way of contacting anyone. Now, she was infected. Before long she would die and become one of them, one of the…
not quite dead
. Not living, but not at peace. Even if she could somehow make it out of here, where would she go? To find her dad and Kate, to risk them becoming infected at her hand? Never.
“I will,” Dave whispered. His face contorted as his eyes told the real story of his heartache.
“Go ahead Mattie. Just do it,” she bawled in frustration.
Roxy held her wound tightly, feeling the warm steady flow of blood trickle through her fingertips. Sobbing and sniffling uncontrollably, it felt as if all of the oxygen and been sucked out of her lungs. Believing that her entire world was crashing down all around her, she realized that her life would be extinguished—
in only seconds. Everything she wanted to do with her life, all her plans, things she’d left unfinished, words she’d left unsaid, didn’t matter anymore. She would be gone soon—just like her mother. While the pain of losing her mother had been tremendous, the planet continued to rotate, the sun and moon still made their appearances, and life went on without her mom. And now it would go on without her
Mattie stood heavy footed, aiming the gun at Roxy’s face. Furrowing his brow, looking fiercely at her, he exhaled heavily, squeezing his eyes shut. Ever since this shit started with the weirdoes, Mattie couldn’t wait to do his part in exterminating the infected vermin. While he hadn’t even hesitated at taking down the two th
at had bolted out from the backyard, hot on Edgar’s heels, this couldn’t compare. He felt fond of Roxy.
She’s a nice young lady and I’m glad that she and Dave broke into my shop. Having them stay over and keep me company was a breath of fresh air last night.
She doesn’t deserve this…How can I just shoot this girl?
After pausing for a moment and shaking his head, his eyes focused back on her.
I have to, she’s gonna turn into one of them.
With his finger on the trigger, he began to squeeze, when Dave stepped in front of the gun.
“Dave! What the heck
? I was pulling the trigger. Outta the way,” Mattie released his squeeze, without moving the gun.
“Mattie, you can’t kill her,” Dave’s voice
remained low and monotone.
“What’d you mean? You know
what’s gonna happen. Even she understands,” Mattie said urgently.
“Listen, if you kill her now, you are going to have to live with the fact that you killed an injured girl. If we wait until after she turns, then you’d be killing a monster. Wouldn’t that be easier to live with?” Dave asked.
“Yeah, it would be easier to live with—so long as she hasn’t already bitten me or somebody else. Cause then it ain’t anything I’d be livin’ with for long,” Mattie said impatiently.
“
Then let me do it. I can take her into the garage or something and wait for her to turn. Once she does, I’ll finish her off myself, just the two of us across the room from each other. That way the risk is minimal. I can’t let it go down like this, not while she’s still…her,” Dave shook his head.
Mattie thought about Dave’s words.
He was right. It was different with the two on the lawn; there was no wasted time because they were already monsters
.
Roxy is still herself right now. If we’re careful ‘bout it, we can wait and do what needs to be done at the right time.
With a heavy sigh, Mattie lowered the gun and returned it to his waistband. He nodded his head and started walking toward the front door of the house. Dave helped Roxy up, and they followed Mattie closely. On the front porch, his sister Lynn and her real-winner-of-a-fiancé Edgar, eyed them carefully as they approached.
Furious, Mattie shot a hostile stare at Edgar as he approached the porch. He walked up to them and without warning, punched the Edgar in the cheek, just under the eye.
“What is wrong with y
ou? You coward! I saw what you did Edgar. You had plenty of room to get by us. You shoved her toward them to give you more time to escape. It’s you, I should be shooting!” Mattie pulled out his gun and aimed it at Edgar, who curled up on the ground, holding his jaw.
Mattie’s fa
ce and throat felt on fire, as animosity pulsed through his veins. His self-control hung on by a thread and that thread had begun to fray.
“No!” Lynn cried, throwing herself over Edgar.
“Mattie, I no mean to push her,” Edgar spoke in broken English and beer saturated breath. “I try to get away.”
Mattie gritted his teeth beneath his tightly closed lips. He exhaled exhaustedly, shaking his head in disbelief. He made a fist with his left hand and tapped it on his chin.
This piece of dirt’s not worth it
. Surrendering his rage, he put the gun in his pocket.
“Stay away from me Edgar, or I swear to God, I’ll put a bullet in your eye,” Mattie looked furiously at Lynn, shaking his head. “Dave, get the ladies and Roxy’s duffle. They’re coming in with Roxy.”