The Darkest Winter

by Lindsey Pogue

  “You just need some rest.” She needed more than that given the gauntness of her face.

  “I am exhausted,” she admitted. “I could use a couple hours to sleep.”

  I glanced at the old woman in the chair opposite us, her eyes were closed and her mouth was open. Her chest rising and falling with each shallow breath. I wasn’t sure why she hadn’t left, maybe she had no place to go, or maybe she was too sick. “You’ve done what you can for these people. You should take a break.”

  She nodded, as if she only needed someone to give her permission. “I only live a few blocks down the street.”

  “Good.”

  She rose shakily to her feet and looked down at me. “I can’t promise your wife and child will get the attention they deserve,” she explained, voice level this time. She wiped her brow with a shaking hand. She was ailing before my eyes, and I took a slight step away from her.

  “It’s not clinic policy—in fact, it’s against the law—but if it were me, I would consider taking my family elsewhere so that they‘re looked after properly and their bodies are cared for.”

  Dread rose in my throat. I swallowed thickly. I imagined holding my dead wife in my arms. I imagined the weight of a tiny lifeless baby in my hands. “Are you telling me to take my wife’s body with me?” I clarified. “To take them out of this clinic to—god knows where?”

  She coughed again, this time I felt the air shift between us. I knew the nurse was right. This wasn’t just an outbreak, it was the plague and if she didn’t get the attention she needed, she wouldn’t have much time left. None of us would. My sore muscles and swollen throat were proof it was already too late for me, anyway. A wave of calm washed over me at the thought. If I didn’t make it through the virus, I wouldn’t have to live without Hannah or Molly.

  “I’m saying,” she said, clearing her throat again. “Do what you want, no one will stop you.”

  The nurse grabbed a jug of water from behind the desk and chugged it. She wiped her mouth with the back of her arm, too tired to care much about anything, and then disappeared through a hallway in the back.

  I peered around at the waiting room. The nurse was right, Hannah deserved better than this. I couldn’t stay here and I wouldn’t leave without her, uncertain what would happen to her body or if I’d ever see her again.

  Wheeling an abandoned stretcher from the hallway into the room where my wife and child lay, I pushed it up beside the operating table. I pushed thoughts of insanity aside as I tried to validate what I was doing, taking a dead body from the hospital—two bodies. Instead, I stared down at Hannah’s beautiful face, remembering her smile and the sound of her throaty laugh, and committed it to memory.

  Clenching my jaw, I gathered her body into my arms and placed her on the gurney. It was impossible to ignore the blood staining the white sheets, so I grabbed a clean one from the cupboard and draped it over her.

  When she was on the gurney, I pulled the sheet up higher, covering her shoulders and strapped her body in. My vision blurred and the significance of what was happening poked holes in the failing armor I grasped onto. I needed to do this. I needed to get out of here.

  Rallying what remained of my nerve, I turned to the incubator. It was a shoebox housing a newborn corpse swaddled in linen, and knowing it would break the very last pieces of my heart, I reached in and gathered Molly into my arms. I drew her to my chest, holding her for the first time.

  Fearing I would regret not seeing her at least once, I peeled the layers around Molly’s face back, even if it was only to say goodbye. My hands shook and my lung constricted as I peered down at her. Her eyes were closed, her nose tiny, and her cheeks chubby. She couldn’t have been over four or five pounds, but she was perfect—tiny—but perfect. Our little miracle.

  Lifting her closer, I kissed her tiny forehead. “Goodbye, little one,” I barely choked out. Then I placed her in the crook of her mother’s arm, wishing I could join them.

  #

  “10-33, we have a 51-50 at The Gardens. Are you still in the area?”

  Sitting in the truck outside my house, I listened to the dispatcher’s voice over the radio. She requested one unit after the other and no one responded. It was nearly eight AM and the sky would be dark for another couple hours still. I glanced around at the quiet street. The snow had let up though.

  “Unit 33, come in. Over.”

  I turned the engine off and stared at the lights illuminating the living room and kitchen windows, as if Hannah were inside, waiting for me. I tried to ignore her outline in the reclined seat beside me, the only reminder I needed that she was dead and never coming back.

  Rage incensed me one moment with a determination to hunt the motherfucker down who did this and make him feel the same agony I was feeling, slowly and without an end in sight. Then, grief would envelop me all over again as it continued to dawn on me that Hannah was gone forever and my heart was beyond broken.

  Hands shaking with rage, and vision blurred with tears, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Ross. I’d never heard back from him, I didn’t even know if he was okay anymore. If he was, he wouldn’t be for very long.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and told myself to prepare for the worst, so I was glad when it went straight to voicemail. I tried their parents next, my fingers pulling up their number without thinking much more about it. It needed to be done. It was that simple. The phone went straight to the operator. “We’re sorry, your call cannot go through. Please try your call again later.” I didn’t have the capacity to care what that implied.

  “All units,” the dispatcher said, but I tuned her out and forced myself to open the door. Hannah deserved more than this, she needed to be at peace and if the world was falling to shit, I should be the one to do it.

  Body stiff and my mind not nearly numb enough, I got out of the truck, welcoming the seven-degree winds that accused me. Trudging to the other side of the truck, I braced myself to take Hannah and the baby in my arms once again. Her body felt heavier, and my legs less steady. My strength sucked from me with each step toward the house.

  I stood outside my front door, staring at the handle. The last time I carried her through this door we’d just bought the house and had spent our last ten dollars cash on burgers at Bud’s in celebration. I closed my eyes. I could almost smell the scent of her amber perfume mingling with French fries.

  I wouldn’t walk into an empty house this time. There would be blood, probably signs of the struggle. And there would be evidence and clues. As rage resurfaced again, a small, minuscule part of me bloomed with optimism and retribution.

  But standing in the door, uncertain I could handle what was inside, a wave of nausea rolled through me. I wasn’t sure I could take it, but Hannah grew heavier in my arms by the second and with no other option, I turned the unlocked handle and stepped inside. Fleetingly, I wondered if I would ever know which neighbor tried to save her, since I hadn’t thought to ask.

  I bit my lip and peered around the living room. It was thrashed, but the flat screen was still there, so was the computer on the desk. My cop mind inventoried everything as I walked over to the couch and laid Hannah’s body down, my muscles feeling an instant reprieve. I unfolded her favorite snuggle blanket from the back of the couch and placed it over her. [LP9]The scanner went off, and amidst my numb mind, I heard 51-50 and DOA, and that’s when I realized. I headed down the hallway, straight for the bedroom. My gun locker was shot open, and my 12-gauge and .22 were gone. A few bullets were strewn on the ground, but the boxes of ammo were missing. Whoever broke into my house was willing to leave a pregnant woman for dead just to have them.

  I kicked the locker with a roar and pounded on the wall so hard my fist went through it; the pain replacing the hurt for a single second. I cursed. I kicked. I cried. It was someone who knew I was a cop and would have guns unless they were ransacking homes blindly in search of them.

  Knowing it had to be a neighbor or someone we knew, I stomped back down the hall, so clos
e to the edge I could feel myself teetering between recklessness and all-out rage. I would find the person who did this, but I wouldn’t kill them. I would do something much, much worse. But when I saw the bloody skid marks in the kitchen and a lifeless male form, I froze.

  A tuft of red hair tumbled across the titled floor in the wake of my footsteps, and I eyed the man’s knotted, shoulder length hair and torn long-sleeve shirt. I kicked him onto his back, his blue eyes open and glazed over, his cheeks lined with dried blood and fingernail marks. It was a man that lived a few houses down, who owned a tree service I’d inquired about a few years back.

  The images came fast and hard. Hannah’s surprise in seeing him, her fear and inevitable pleas as she covered her belly, and her determination to protect our child to her dying breath. Alone, with no husband to protect her, she’d given him hell and took him down with her. Insurmountable pride and regret filled every inch of me. Then came anguish.

  I kicked the murderer’s body, shouting and cursing him until I couldn’t balance anymore and fell against the side of the fridge. Tremors shimmied up my leg and rattled the retribution loose. Hannah killed him and in doing so she took the revenge holding me together. I couldn’t punish him because he was already dead. Impending recklessness and despair circled me, like vultures waiting to feast.

  I’d done so good because of her, I’d become the man she saw in me the first day we met. But I wasn’t here to save her, and I wasn’t strong enough to be who she wanted without her.

  I stepped through the blood and reached for the handle of tequila in the cupboard above the fridge.

  I couldn’t get the cap off fast enough before I brought the bottle to my lips, heavy and full as it was. I took one swig after another, desperate to numb the pain, until I had to stop to catch my breath.

  The bottle hung at my side, heart pounding in my chest and the familiar warmth of liquid oblivion coursing through me. A small voice somewhere told me I should call Ross. But he was probably dead, or sick somewhere. I should probably try to find him.

  But when I looked over my shoulder at the body on my couch, I knew I couldn’t leave her, not again and not like that. I flicked on the porch light and stared out at the backyard, covered in snow. The only thing visible aside from the fence was the Spruce where she’d asked me to hang a swing. “It will be perfect in the spring and summer. I can rock her back and forth by the garden.”

  The scanner continued to click and buzz incessantly.

  I took another slug from the bottle. Then another. I drank until my throat was raw and it felt like I’d burned the sickness stewing inside me away. Then I turned back to the couch where Hannah laid. Did I bury her in the frozen ground or sit with her until I drank myself to death? Ross wasn’t around to ask; I was alone.

  When the scanner went off again, I set the tequila down and pulled the radio from the wall, smashing it over the back of the dining room chair, shutting it off permanently.

  Taking another swig from the bottle, I let the tears fill my eyes until I could no longer see. I had a long night ahead of me, followed by an excruciating forever[LP10].

  December 10

  Chapter 9

  Elle

  December 10

  When I stirred from the fathoms of dreamless sleep, my body ached. I felt like a furnace at my core, my veins like tunnels eroding with fire. Then, the floor creaked somewhere in the house. The slow churning of thoughts sharpened and my eyes flew wide open.

  Predawn filtered through the window, and I blinked my eyes to focus. I took a moment to remember anything beyond the ache in my abdomen, tender from retching; my throat was raw. But despite all of that, my body felt renewed, alive in a way it never had before.

  The pale blue promise of morning crested over the treetops, breaking up the dark shadows outside my window. It must’ve been nine or ten, if the sun was rising—unless it was sunset. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been out, but I recalled the bar and shots of whiskey.

  I sat up, my head throbbing a little, and peered around my old bedroom. That was not how I’d seen the night playing out. I wasn’t even sure what day it was. It felt like I’d been asleep for ages, and yet my body felt like it was only a matter of hours since I’d been retching my insides out.

  The floor creaked again, somewhere in the living room and louder than before.

  Dr. John’s face flashed to mind but I push it away.

  A shoe scuff, loud and heavy. Another creak.

  Trembling and weak, I held my breath and climbed as quietly from bed as I could. I braced myself for whoever might appear in my doorway. What were the chances it was a random robbery, and they didn’t know I was here? I thought of the faces at the bar, of the men who might have followed me home, but no one stood out in my blurry mind.

  The door to the garage squeaked open I scoured the morning shadows for my phone. My heart sank when I saw my pants on the floor in the hallway, discarded in the craze of my fever. My phone was in my back pocket. I always shoved it in there.

  I stopped at the doorway. I could hear the intruder rifling through the garage, looking for something. They were loud and careless, like they thought the house was empty.

  Eyes wide, I peeked around the door frame. My pants were only a few feet away. If I didn’t grab my phone now, I might not get another chance. Exhaling, I crawled out into the hallway and as I was about to scurry back to my room; he stepped back into the house. A tall man with broad shoulders. Morning cast him in blue morning shadows.

  He stopped in the kitchen, facing directly toward me, and I didn’t dare move. All it would take was a shuffle of movement and he would know I was there, and the shadows wouldn’t hide me anymore. He growled and knocked an empty water pitcher off the table and it smashed to the ground.

  “Where is it!” he roared. As if something suddenly occurred to him, he turned fully toward the hallway and stopped mid-step.

  “You!” he shouted. It was Thomas, the neighbor, only he was a menacing version who’s eyes rounded, and he seethed when he spat my name. “Where did you hide it? I need it—now!”

  I ran back into my room and slammed the door.

  Thomas’s footsteps were heavy and quick behind me, and without a chair to bolster beneath the doorknob and the dresser on the other side of the room, I scrambled to find a solution. I pulled my phone from the back of my pants and yanked the metal curtain rod off the wall just as he barreled through the door.

  “Get away from me!” I shouted, ramming him in the chest with the spherical finial on the end.

  He stumbled back, but then kept coming. “Give him his medical bag you little bitch,” he ground out.

  “It’s in his bedroom!” I told him. It was a lie. I didn’t know where it was or if he even had one, anyway.

  “You’re lying—”

  I hit him with the rod again, but it was like he couldn’t feel it, each blow only knocking him off balance for a millionth of a second before he was lunging at me again.

  I hit him again, desperate to hurt him enough to get by. I rammed him with the rod again and grabbed the lamp off the side table and threw it at him. Thomas stumbled back, onto my bed and I ran past him. Then I felt it, something hard slammed into the back of my head and I fell to the ground. Everything swirled. Everything ached.

  I could barely see Thomas in front of me as he turned me over. His hot breath pressed against my face and his mouth was wide and as he shouted, but I couldn’t make out the words. My head lulled back, and I almost lost consciousness when my body burned, so intense I thought I might implode. His hands were around my throat, and I gasped for air. I was choking—he was choking me. His grip was ironclad, crunching windpipe. He was killing me.

  I tried to kick against him; I tried to fight back. The heat was alive inside of me and as he smashed my head on the hardwood floor, any final grasp I had on uncertainty slipped away, and I let the intensity subdued inside me go. I had not gone through three years of therapy to come back and die in this godforsak
en house.

  Rage coiled through me, and I lunged for Thomas’ throat, every muscles in my body coursing with strength. I clutched his neck in my hands, barely able to stop myself. I was a forge of red-hot hatred, and tears stung my eyes. Fire burned in the tips of my fingers, and my body shook with a fury unlike any I’d ever felt. “Screw . . . you,” I choked out, half in shock as I felt the power inside me surge stronger.

  Thomas let go of my neck and hit at my hands as I squeezed tighter. The fire inside me stirred, alive and blossoming in the depths of me, and I felt it leave my body with a final squeeze before Thomas’s eyes widened and bulged. His face reddened and his tongue fell from his mouth as he let out a final, silent scream.

  As he gurgled his last breath, I shut my eyes, muscles deflated and every ounce of energy spent as the last of the fire flowed from my fingers. Then, I curled into a ball and cried.

  #

  I peeled my eyes open to the brightness of day and stared up at the taupe ceiling. My head was pounding but my body felt . . . lighter. The heaviness was gone, so was the heat.

  Jolting upright, I saw the dead man wilted beside me. Thomas’ eyes were still open, his mouth was agape. There were burn marks the shape of fingers around his neck, and I clasped my hands over my mouth and scurried backward until I was against the wall.

  He was dead.

  I killed him. I’d never killed anyone before, and even if he would’ve killed me, I had ended a human life. It was lunacy—impossible.

  I killed him, and my fingerprints seared around his neck to prove it.

  I stared down at my hands. They were just hands with fingers, like they’d always been, and they were unscathed. But I remembered the feel of his flesh in my grasp, his skin melting against my touch.

  I glanced from the burns on his neck, remembering the fire that burned within me, and turned to the side and retched.