“Okay, as I was the one that came up with the idea, I’ll start with the first question,” he said.
I took the can Charlie offered me, feeling like a queen being waited on as I occupied the whole of the two-seater with my tiny frame.
Interesting concept, drinking beer before lunch, and probably not a good one while playing ‘Truth or Dare,’ but what the heck. I can handle my liquor.
Charlie walked around the couch, handed the second can to Sue, and sat down again.
“You want a glass?” I asked Sue.
“No, it’s okay. I’m happy to drink from the can,” she said, opening it.
“Good, because I wasn’t going to get you one,” I said as I popped mine open.
Sue, quick as a dart, grabbed behind her and threw one of the little cushions at me. I caught it before it hit my can and immediately threw it back at her. She caught it and put it back behind her back before sticking her tongue out to me.
“Okay, serious stuff now, girls. Truth or dare, Kate?” Charlie leaned forward, seated on the edge of his chair.
I had little experience with this game but thought the first questions were normally harmless. “Truth,” I dared him.
“You’re brave, woman,” Sue said.
Charlie built up the tension by being silent before he asked his question. I began thinking Sue was right as Charlie’s stare intensified.
“What’s your favorite color?” he asked.
Phew!
I let go of my breath and relaxed.
“Oh my god, I thought you were going to ask me for my bank card details for a second.” Sue laughed. “The answer’s easy, blue.” It had always been my favorite color, so I didn’t even have to think about it. I turned to Sue to ask her my question, and just before my eyes left Charlie, I saw this peculiar look on his face. I paid no attention to it as I had to think of a question for Sue.
“My turn,” I said, “Truth or dare?”
“Truth,” she said, “but remember I have access to your toothbrush.”
What in heaven’s name could she do to my toothbrush? Forget it, I don’t think I wanna know.
“Okay … Who was your first love?”
“Right,” Sue said, positioning herself on the chair as if she were going to tell her life’s story. “His name was Ben, and he was in my 6th grade—”
Charlie choked on his beer.
“You did it in 6th grade?” he blurted out, spilling beer all over.
“No! Of course not,” Sue said. “I was in love with him. That was the question, wasn’t it?” she asked, turning to me for help. She held the beer can to one of her cheeks to calm down her blush.
“Yes, that was my question, Sue. And you, mister,” I said while pointing at Charlie, “have a dirty mind.”
“That’s what you get when you wake up with a woman on top of you,” he said, focusing on his attempt to wipe up his spilled beer.
The cheeky bugger. He’s still thinking about my legs and bum.
“Smudge!” I threw a couch cushion at him, missing him by a long shot.
At that, Charlie’s face became serious.
“That’s it!” He set his can of beer on the coffee table, stood up, and made straight for me. Maybe I’d gone too far this time. When he reached me, however, he had a huge grin on his face and began to tickle me. “Don’t call me Smudge!” he yelled. “Surrender or die!”
Over my dead body was I going to surrender. Instead, I kept calling him Smudge, again and again. The torment increased. He kept asking me to surrender, alternating his tickling with pillow bashing. I tried to keep saying Smudge, but I could hardly breathe, I was laughing so hard. Charlie was laughing as well.
“Guys, I think you should get a room,” Sue said all of a sudden.
Charlie stopped manhandling me. I shot upright, and we both stared at Sue, tears of laughter still streaking my face.
“Just a thought,” she said and smiled one of those knowing smiles.
Holy moly. She didn’t think that Charlie and I … last night …?
“Don’t worry, I’m not into Smudges,” I managed to say after catching my breath while trying to wipe my face dry.
Charlie turned his head to me and made one more sudden move in my direction. I shrieked, pulling my arms in to protect my vulnerable sides. To my relief, he went to sit in his chair, and I straightened up.
The game continued innocently after Sue’s remark. I chose ‘dare’ every time Charlie asked me a question as I was afraid he would ask me why I wasn’t interested in Smudges, or what it would take to get me interested. I didn’t dare to say ‘truth’ as I found it hard to let him down. Charlie was my friend and a very good one at that. I didn’t want to lose what we had.
Chapter 9
After lunch, we tried to get some sleep again. The six or so hours of last night’s rest were not enough for me, and I soon fell asleep. It wasn’t a pleasant sleep, with very vivid dreams. I dreamed of vampires, of people having convulsions, and of blurry characters chasing me.
When I woke, Sue wasn’t there. I got up and found her in the living room, asleep and drooped over the two-seater. I must have been tossing and turning a lot to make her flee the comfort of the big bed. I heard Charlie snoring in his room, so I went back to the big bedroom and sat on the bed. The headboard had an uncomfortable edge, and I had to prop up the pillows to soften it. When I finally got comfortable, I thought back on what had happened in the past few days.
It was just over a week ago when the three of us sat at our local bar. Charlie had gone to order another round of drinks for us when we heard of the infected problem for the first time. Sue and I were watching the TV news when Charlie returned from the bar, carrying three pints of beer.
“Listen to this,” Sue said to Charlie.
“Give me a hand with these first, my lady, before I drop something. Then I will do your bidding.” We took the beers out of Charlie’s hands, and the three of us turned our attention to the TV screen. The newsreader just ended her sentence with ‘… disturbing images.’ We were shown footage of what was apparently happening in the big cities. We saw people chasing others and what looked like people biting others in the neck. The images were extremely vague and grainy as it was all filmed in the dark.
“New vampire movie coming out?” Charlie asked.
“No! This is for real. This is really happening, my man,” Sue said.
“You’re kidding me,” he replied.
I glanced at him, and it was clear he didn’t believe her.
“It’s true,” I said. “Otherwise they wouldn’t show it on the news now, would they?” I took a big gulp of beer.
The drunk-one has spoken.
Charlie stared at me, then at Sue.
“You’re kidding me,” he repeated.
I could understand his disbelief. The footage had seemed so unreal, like some fantastical imaginary war in some far away country that didn’t affect us. Sue and I both stared at Charlie with big eyes. He finally sat down.
“Wow! That’s spooky. Is it bad?” He looked at the TV again, but the newsreader had moved on to the next topic.
“Only if you get killed apparently,” I said. “If you live, you get to be a vampire and suck blood.”
“Cool,” he grinned, “but I’m sure you mean ‘if you die, you get to be a vampire.’”
“No, that’s not what they said.” I frowned.
“Yeah, that’s not what they said,” Sue agreed.
“But you only get to be a vampire when you get killed by a vampire, not when you don’t get killed by a vampire,” Charlie said.
I thought about it for a moment, comparing what the newsreader had just said and what Charlie was saying. “That’s too confusing,” I concluded.
Both Sue and Charlie laughed.
After we all did a bit of contemplating while sipping our beer, Sue spoke.
“Would you get to live forever, you think?”
“Well, that would be awkward, with the shorta
ge of housing everywhere already,” I quipped.
Sue and Charlie burst out laughing again.
“What?” I said. “It’s true, isn’t it? There’s a housing shortage.”
“You always look at things from a practical point of view, don’t you?” Charlie said as he punched me playfully on my arm.
The conversation drifted to the housing problems our college friends were having in the big cities. That topic seemed so much more important at the time.
The three of us didn’t watch any more news that weekend as we were too busy making and tweaking teaching plans and strategies for the coming week. When I arrived in the staffroom on Monday morning, I was surprised to find it was buzzing with news about vampires, chaos, and death. Mrs. Sloan, the old history teacher, was crying and snottering while others were trying to calm her down. Apparently, she couldn’t contact her daughter, who lived in Portland. Other teachers were standing in little groups, whispering, as if in a conspiracy about something. Charlie wasn’t there as he always went straight to his classroom in the morning. His excuse was that he needed time to set up equipment for the first lesson, but I knew better.
When the headmaster, Mr. Finkle, emerged from his office, everyone became quiet and looked at him, waiting for him to speak guiding words. He was a small man and not particularly handsome. He was more of a weasel, really, and as such his looks didn’t bring him much respect. However, as he stood there with his hands on his hips looking at everyone, he knew that we would all listen to him. He was after all the principal, the boss, the puppeteer holding the strings. From the grin on his face, it was obvious that this was a position he quite liked. His face became more serious, and he spoke with a loud voice, to be heard by all in the staff room.
“I know there’s talk of a grave situation going on in the cities. However, we must think of the children. We shouldn’t worry them with problems of grown-ups.” He looked around the room again. You could hear a pin drop. “Therefore, we will continue teaching as usual and not talk about it at school at all.”
The majority of teachers nodded in agreement, telling each other ‘not to worry the children.’ Mrs. Sloan began another crying session, her morbidly obese frame shuddering with every sob.
My mind was blown. This was such old-fashioned ostrich policy. I could understand not talking about it with the children, but why couldn’t we discuss this amongst ourselves?
I raised my arm to protest, but Sue grabbed it before my hand went past my head and held it down. I yanked my arm out of her grip, frowning at her.
“It’s no use,” she whispered, “nobody will listen.”
I looked around and saw everybody was already leaving the staffroom as if nothing had happened.
“We’ll talk at lunchtime,” Sue said as she, too, left for class.
Over the next few days, news reports of attacks by infected came in from all over the world. It became clear the epidemic was actually worldwide, a true pandemic. New images of these so-called infected remained grainy and dark. The newsreader mentioned the number of victims rising steeply. I thought using the word ‘victims’ very inappropriate. These infected didn’t seem in the least bit disabled, physically or mentally.
When we weren’t teaching, we were glued to the TV screen, hungry for more information. We were informed the infected had their own form of ‘kryptonite’; sunlight. They appeared to be extremely UV-sensitive, and when exposed to sunlight, they would instantly have an epileptic seizure causing muscle spasms. We laughed about this. We envisioned endings of movies where vampires had epileptic seizures instead of disintegrating into piles of dust. I pointed out they would have to clean up whole bodies now, instead of using a brush and dustpan.
On Thursday, the situation came too close to home for me and so much more real; I couldn’t contact my parents anymore. They lived in an outer suburb of Portland. They didn’t pick up the phone, weren’t online, and didn’t answer my text messages. I’d told them to come to my place earlier in the week, but they were adamant it was just a fad and that it would soon be over. Now I was afraid for their safety. I wanted to jump in my car and drive home. Sue and Charlie physically had to stop me, arguing it would be senseless as the army had closed off the roads into and out of the cities in an attempt to contain the situation. I frantically tried to contact my sisters, to find out if they were okay and if they had heard anything from Mom and Dad, but this had no result either. Maxine lived on a naval base which was probably in lock-down. I felt relief at the thought that at least she would be safe. Julie, however, lived in a country town not too far from me, and I worried immensely about her.
Sue also couldn’t get a hold of her family, but driving to Mississippi would be way too dangerous.
Charlie didn’t even know where his aunt lived.
By Friday most communications had stopped. During the week, one TV station after another had ceased to broadcast. Then the radio had gone silent. The internet had still worked, so to speak, but there were no broadcasts, no news flashes. Fewer people had been trying to contact one another. CB radios seemed the only form of communication left. Those giving out locations of safe places had soon stopped communicating, and we could only speculate that the infected had followed their directions.
By this time most of Bullsbrook had been in chaos. There were some people who still pretended nothing was wrong, but most others had been rampaging through the town. Some had tried to fortify their houses and plundered supermarkets for food. Others had taken advantage of the situation, looting as much as they could, as if a large flat screen TV could save them from the infected.
As I sat on the bed, hoping we were safe at the campground, I thought about it all. The world had changed so much in such a short time. It was hard to take in. My vision of having a worry-free, suburban life in an idyllic country town had vanished. People were being hunted, killed even, and the world would never be the same again. My life would never be the same.
Would all the kids from school be okay? Would Mrs. Babcock still be alive? What has happened to my parents and my sisters? Would I ever see any of them again?
Chapter 10
This mortal fear for the welfare of the people I knew gripped my insides, tried to mush them all up into a tight ball. I felt so helpless. I wanted to save them, but there was nothing I could do. Tears ran over my cheeks. Not that I wanted to cry, it just happened. I didn’t make a sound while the tears kept on coming. Unable to stop them, I didn’t make any attempt to dry them either. They wet my T-shirt after they fell from my jawline, but the discomfort on the outside was nothing compared to the discomfort on the inside.
I became aware of Charlie standing in the bedroom doorway. As I turned my head toward him, I was aware he could see my tears, yet I wasn’t ashamed. He just stood there and looked at me with his sorrowful eyes. It was as if we had a connection without speaking, without words, only emotions exchanged between us. A tranquility came over me I never experienced before. His presence soothed me and brought me out of the vortex of my desperate thoughts. I liked it and didn’t want it to end. Afraid to break the spell, I didn’t say or move anything, Charlie didn’t either.
“Come on, let’s make dinner,” he said after a long while.
***
We agreed to keep the same watch-shifts as the night before, and so I was up late again. After a few games of solitaire, I sat on the couch listening to the animals outside. My thoughts haunted me with memories of the past days. It was all so unreal. The first TV announcement in the pub; Mrs. Sloan’s shaking body; Bullsbrook being destroyed by looters; Mrs. Babcock with a baseball bat; the campground owner aiming a shotgun at us. Trying not to go down that rabbit hole again, I thought about the life I’d led so far.
Have I made the most of my life? Should I have chosen another profession? Did I become the person my parents had hoped I’d be?
There were so many questions. Certainly, there were some aspects of my life I wasn’t proud of. The choice of boyfriends I’d had, the oc
casional smoke without my parents knowing, my cheating during one of the tests at college. Sometimes, after a bad day at school, I’d wished I hadn’t become a teacher. Overall though, looking back at some great conversations with the children during my classes, I was sure I’d made the right choice. I hoped I'd achieved what my parents wanted for me. If they were disappointed, they’d certainly never let it show.
All of a sudden, I realized I couldn’t hear any animals outside. No birds, no insects, nothing. Plucked out of my self-absorption, I sat upright.
This isn’t good.
The crack of a gunshot reverberated through the campground.
“Shit,” I said under my breath and jumped up to wake Sue and Charlie. Sue was already clambering out of bed when I opened the door, and Charlie came out of his room as I turned around.
“Did you see anything?” he whispered.
I shook my head. “But I didn’t look either.”
Sue and Charlie got dressed as fast as they could. We were ready to flee. Charlie got out his blowtorch, and I my flashlight.
Sue looked at us with despair. “What should I get?” she whispered.
I scanned the cabin in a hurry and spotted the table lamp with a ceramic base on the little corner table. I unplugged its cord and removed the light bulb to get rid of the lampshade.
“Here, clobber them with this,” I said as I handed the lamp base to Sue. The cord dangled down, but she wound it around the base of the lamp.
I joined Charlie at the window and peeked outside. There wasn't much to see. The lights from the lane were blinding my night vision. Suddenly, we heard lots of screaming down the little street. Fearful, we waited, hoping this was just a single attack. When new screams arose closer and closer, it became obvious the infected were going from cabin to cabin.
“Let’s get out of here!” Charlie said.
He opened the door and shimmied along the wall of the cabin in the opposite direction of the screams. I followed him. Sue was close behind me. We tried to be as quiet as possible. Then the screen-door of our cabin slammed shut. Sue had forgotten it had a spring closer. My head spun toward the noise, and I saw it trap the plug from the lamp as the wire had become half-uncoiled. I nearly screamed as Sue continued to move away from the door. The wire went taut. The lamp slipped from Sue’s hands and shattered on the concrete porch. The three of us froze and stared from the crash site down the row of cabins. Someone stuck their head out of a door and yelled to the people inside, “They’re trying to escape!”
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