Ghosts of her old life resided in everything that surrounded her. Not just in the cookbook, but in all the little things in the rooms through which she floated like some sort of spirit—things they had bought together, made together. There had been so much to live for, but in the blink of an eye, that was all gone.
Megan also spent a lot of time thinking about her sister in Pittsburgh. Sandy had three little boys whom Megan adored. They were all younger than six, each cuter than the next. “Aunty Mega” would probably never get to see any of them again. When this mess began, Sandy told Megan that she and Phil were taking the boys down to the cabin in West Virginia and pleaded for Megan and Dalton to join them.
Unfortunately, things had turned bad so quickly that the National Guard clamped down on travel and Dalton nixed the idea of trying to make the six-hour trip in their Jeep. With all the reports of log-jammed highways and roadside attacks, Dalton doubted they could even make it out of town, let alone to the mountains of West Virginia. Nope, they would stay in the house, stock up on necessities, and pray this wasn’t the end of times, like so many of those damn televangelists were shouting about over the airwaves.
But those bastards had been right.
Early on, Dalton planned on going out one last time to collect supplies—food, water, batteries … anything he could get his hands on. Megan remembered CNN blaring in the background that day, saying that it was Day Six of the crisis.
Dalton was going to take the Grand Cherokee, all their cash, and the revolver. His plan was to head to the closest grocery store and pick up whatever would fit in the SUV and return home as fast as he could.
Megan recalled the conversation before he left, when she was in a white-hot panic and pleading with her husband to let her come with him or better yet, for him to not leave at all.
Dalton had gripped her shoulders as he tried to reassure her. “Honey, it’ll be all right. You can’t come with me. You have to stay and-”
“But I don’t even want you to go! Don’t you get it? It’s not safe out there, Dalton. God only knows if the virus is here already. Please! If you have to go, let me go with you.”
Megan had gone on like that for over a minute as Dalton shushed her while shaking his head. He never broke eye contact with her the whole time.
Dalton’s calm began to overpower Megan’s determination, and her hysterics lessened. In a normal situation, if her husband had shushed her, she would have punched him in the chest. Not that her slight frame could pack much of a wallop, but he would definitely have known she wasn’t going to tolerate such a condescending attitude. But this time, it was having the effect he’d hoped for.
“You know as well as I do,” Dalton said as she started to wind down, “there isn’t much you can do for me out there.”
The volume of Dalton’s voice increased as Megan grew agitated again. He glared at his wife. “I’m not taking a chance on something happening to you. And let’s not play bullshit games about who is capable of handling themselves better out there if things get crazy.”
Dalton LeValley stood a smidge over six feet tall and weighed in at a fit one hundred and ninety pounds. He was ex-military, though he’d not seen combat in his two years of active duty. Still, he’d been trained to deal with dangerous situations, while Megan had taken a two-week self-defense course down at the Y. She knew Dalton could deal with trouble and move faster without her tagging along, but the idea of being separated from him, even for an hour, terrified her.
Megan shuddered as she took in a deep breath. Closing her eyes, she tried to shut out all the logic her husband had thrust upon her. The world had gone mad, and she didn’t care that what Dalton said made sense. She also didn’t care if she was being selfish. He didn’t have to go out at all. They had enough food and water for a couple of days, and this whole thing would blow over by then, wouldn’t it?
All that day, the TV showed images of riots. Sure, they were going on in places like New York and Los Angeles, as one would expect, but they were happening in smaller cities and just about everywhere else.
One story on the television had stuck with Megan. A convenience store clerk in Iowa had been hung from a light pole in front of his store because he tried to stop a crowd of looters from ransacking his place of business. Megan remembered the images of shattered plate glass windows and shelves stripped bare. The store looked like a tornado had hit it. But what resonated in her mind were the images of the poor man after he’d been lynched. He’d not just been hung; he’d been stoned as well. His face and body were a mass of bloody bruises and welts. The censors had stopped bothering to cover up such brutality by then, so she got to see it in all its glory.
Megan found it hard to believe that it would ever get that bad in their anonymous little suburb. Certainly, their subdivision was in an uproar, with neighbors panicking and wondering what to do, but the madness of the outside world hadn’t touched down in Milfield yet. Lots of people were leaving the area, and a few teens were trying their hand at vandalism, but the overall perception was that this viral crisis was happening elsewhere and would never reach the local area.
It wasn’t until a camouflaged Humvee drove down their street with a loudspeaker announcing where the nearest Red Cross and National Guard shelters were set up that Megan realized that the worldwide panic being wailed about on television had come to their little corner of the world.
The National Guard wasn’t requiring people to leave their homes. Dalton told Megan that the military didn’t have the resources to waste on homeowners unwilling to evacuate. They were urging everyone to do so, but were too busy cordoning off areas of the city, battling rioters, and trying to maintain the peace to bother with house-to-house searches.
Some of the families in the neighborhood took the Guardsmen up on their offer, piling into their cars and heading to the shelters. Others, like Dalton and Megan, decided to hunker down and wait it out.
Dalton had dismissed the idea of heading to a shelter rather quickly. “Why should we spend the next month crammed into some shitty tin can like sardines, eating lousy food when we can be comfortable here in our own house?”
Megan didn’t argue at the time. But now Dalton was heading out into that mess to do a little grocery shopping, where the possibility of facing looters wasn’t the worst thing he might face.
Dalton shook Megan. It wasn’t violent, but she snapped out of her reverie just the same as if he had slapped her.
“Megan! Please let me go. We both know I have to do this.” He wasn’t pleading with her. It was the last gasp of rational arguing he would do before he got angry. It was easy to read him after five years together, although things had never been even remotely this intense before. Megan knew she didn’t want him angry. Because if something happened and she never saw him again …
Things didn’t seem normal outside their house, but it wasn’t as bad as the horror stories the news had cooked up. If Dalton went out there, then everything would be real. Megan was beginning to understand that for her husband it already was real, and had been from the moment he heard the first hints of trouble in other places on the news. Dalton had accepted this new reality immediately and had boarded up the house and rationed their food and water. He’d even packed the Jeep in case they needed to leave in a hurry.
As Dalton spoke, it dawned on Megan that the only reason he hadn’t proposed this trip a couple of days earlier was because he knew how she would react. He had waited as long as he could before broaching the subject, until he had no choice but to make this trip if they were going to survive inside their barricaded house.
So Megan knew it probably surprised Dalton when she pulled him close, hugging him, and nodded her approval rather than choosing to continue arguing. The tension remained for a moment, but when Dalton’s stiff shoulders relaxed, Megan knew things were okay between them.
Wrapping her hand around the back of Dalton’s neck, she pulled him close to whisper in his ear.
“Please, Dal, be careful. God,
just be safe … I can’t imagine what I would do-”
Megan’s words were cut off as her husband swept her into a big bear hug. Dalton kissed her on the forehead and then pushed her back so they could look each other in the eyes. She had to bend her neck back quite a bit, as she always did to accommodate their difference in height.
“You know I’ll be as careful as possible. No screwing around, just getting what we need and then I’ll head straight home.”
He dropped his arms to his sides, still a bit tense, fearful that Megan was some sort of firecracker whose wick had burned all the way down, but hadn’t exploded. Megan gave Dalton one of the sleepy little smiles she reserved for those times when she had essentially lost an argument. Not that she would admit defeat, but it served to let her husband know that this firecracker was a dud. Megan’s smile didn’t reach her eyes, but it was good enough for Dalton. He pulled her close again and kissed her firmly on the lips before heading to the garage.
“Be back soon,” was all he said before getting into the Jeep and driving away.
Dalton did make it back. He had been through hell, and the Jeep had suffered some serious dents, but both man and vehicle returned in one piece. There was a small gash on his forehead, but no other visible wounds when he stepped out of the SUV.
He described people dying on the streets—some sick, others simply looking insane as they roamed the area.
“People were trying to take the truck, grabbing at the doors. A bunch threw rocks at the police and the National Guard … hell, they were attacking them! Everyone out there is insane, I swear to God. But …” He paused, his face turning pale at the memory. “But it was those sick people, the ones who were infected. They were attacking everyone, ripping and biting them. Christ, there was so much blood. It was a fucking nightmare.”
Dalton hadn’t made it to a store. Two miles down the road from their neighborhood was as far as he got, and that was more than enough. He tried to turn back, but people were running everywhere, blocking his path. After a few minutes of negotiating traffic to a place where he could turn the Jeep around, a bunch of teenagers began throwing rocks and surrounded the vehicle.
When Megan asked for more details, Dalton shook his head, only saying that he had gotten away and was fine. He wouldn’t let Megan touch him as he rattled off his story, peering through the slats he’d nailed over the front door and windows. It was as if he were worried someone had followed him home. When she tried to hug him, he darted away. He was too strung out to stand still for even a moment.
It was when he went to the sink a few minutes later and rolled up his shirt sleeve that Megan saw the bite mark. The wound on his arm looked superficial, but Dalton’s hooded sweatshirt was torn in a couple of places. There were blood spatters on his clothes, and Megan wondered if he were hiding any other wounds from her.
Dalton pulled off his sweatshirt and tossed it into the trashcan. Still agitated after cleaning up at the kitchen sink, he locked himself in the bathroom. Megan tried to leave him alone for a while, certain her husband just needed time to calm down. But when he didn’t come out for ten minutes, she couldn’t wait any longer and banged on the door, demanding that Dalton talk to her.
When he came out, Dalton still didn’t want to be touched. The thrill of seeing him again had been replaced by a growing dread. Dalton was alive, but what he’d seen out there had rattled him to the core. He was supposed to be the cool and rational one, the one who remained calm no matter what. Instead, he looked like some scared kid who’d been frightened nearly to death.
The next few hours were almost as bad for Megan as the time she spent waiting on Dalton to return from his trip outside. She prided herself on knowing her husband fairly well, but even a complete stranger could tell that something was terribly wrong with Dalton LeValley. After any stressful event, Dalton was always the first to make light of it, smile and joke, washing away the stress and forcing himself to forget. That was not the Dalton Megan was seeing here. It was then that she realized he was dealing with something more traumatic than a violent run-in with some teenagers.
Megan had seen the broadcasts and watched the scientists debate over what was causing the virus to be transmitted so easily from victim to victim. There were countless theories, but the one that stood out from all the others was that it was transmitted through the blood—through bites and scratches.
She didn’t want to accept it, but there it was. Megan wept as she tried to deny the truth of the matter. Dalton had been bitten, and he was infected.
Perhaps it was her crying that allowed him to see past his own pain for the first time since his return. He held out a shaky hand to his wife, beckoning her to where he lay on the bed. Megan fought against the urge to recoil as she looked at the wound on his arm. The bite mark had turned black and was surrounded by red, puffy skin. In fact, the skin on Dalton’s entire arm looked discolored and in bad shape. The infection was in his blood for sure.
Megan wanted so desperately to touch Dalton, but what if the infection didn’t just spread through the blood, but by touch as well? As she stood near the edge of the bed, her heart racing, Megan looked into the pleading eyes of her husband and realized she didn’t care.
She took Dalton’s hand in hers and climbed in next to him, feeling the heat radiating off of his body. He felt like a blast furnace as she touched his forehead. It was as if his brain were boiling in his skull. Megan sprang up from the bed, mumbling something about getting him a cold washcloth, and ran to the bathroom.
As Megan doused the cloth in cold water, her hands trembled. When she glanced at the mirror, a ghost stared back at her. There was no blood in her normally olive-toned skin.
“Get a grip, Megan. Keep it together. You have to for Dalton’s sake.” The whispered words were drowned out by the running water, but had the desired effect. Megan was able to resist the urge to break down crying again. Instead, she turned off the water and rubbed away the tears that had already fallen.
She returned to the bedroom, the washcloth cold and wet in her hands. She leaned over the stationary form of her husband and gently laid the cloth on his forehead, wondering if even though it was wet, it might burst into flames from the overpowering heat coming off of Dalton. When he grabbed her wrist, Megan jumped, startled. She yelped before she could cover her mouth with her free hand as she stared into his eyes. The hazel color she had always loved was beginning to cloud over with a milky film.
“Promise me … promise me you won’t let me change …”
It was only a whisper. Megan stared into his dull, weeping eyes, fighting to break free of their hypnotic effect. She wanted to shake her head and turn away, to avoid seeing the ravages of the virus as it changed Dalton, twisting and warping him into some kind of monster. Although it was still her beloved husband lying before her, he was already changing as his body was consumed with poison.
Megan touched his face gently. “Everything is going to be okay, baby,” she said in a surprisingly steady voice. She forced herself to look deeper into Dalton’s eyes. His fetid breath smelled of rot, and it was all she could do not to gag. Instead, Megan smiled weakly at him. She wanted to run to the toilet and throw up, but stood her ground. This was her husband, no matter what was happening, and she had to make sure he knew she was there for him, would stay by his side no matter what.
Dalton attempted to smile. Although he was wheezing and showing all the signs of a terminally ill patient, he seemed to be winning the battle with his fear.
He retained his grip on Megan’s wrist as he spoke again. “I’m going to head down to the basement. Please help me get down there. We have some oversized trash bags I can lie on. If you wrap a towel around the revolver, it will muffle the blast and not draw any attention to the house.”
Megan only heard the first sentence, and then the blood pounding in her ears was just too loud. She’d felt faint before, but nothing like this.
A couple of minutes later—or maybe it was much later—Dalton was sti
ll holding her tight, and all she could remember was screaming “No! No! No!” over and over again while she battered his shoulders with her small fists. Dalton was weak, but still had enough strength to get control of Megan and hold her until she stopped. He waited patiently for her to regain some sense of comprehension before he spoke again.
“God I know this is hard, honey. There is nothing easy about it. I love you. More than you’ll ever know. But I CAN’T change what’s happening to me. Don’t you see? Either I have to do this myself or you have to …” At that, Dalton broke down crying, taking his arms away from Megan as his broad shoulders shook and heaved.
The world was ending right that second. Megan could feel it. There was nothing left. She would pull the trigger and murder her husband, then stick the barrel in her mouth to put an end to this nightmare. She sure as hell couldn’t stay here without him. That wasn’t going to happen.
At that moment, Megan was angry. Angry at herself for letting Dalton leave the house and angry for not letting him go a few days earlier when it might have been safe outside. She was angry with Dalton for coming back infected. She was angry at God, who seemed to be turning his back on them. The world was coming to an end, and God didn’t give a shit.
Dalton’s crying slowed as Megan’s rage grew. He tried to take a deep breath to steady himself, but a coughing jag took him and lasted several minutes. Megan sprang up and ran to get him a towel as Dalton spat up blood, bile, and tissue that had liquified as the virus tore through his system. He gestured for her to stay back, but to toss him the towel.
As the coughing died down, Dalton was able to speak again. “You have to live, Megan. No matter how bad you feel, you need to make it through this.”
The look in Dalton’s eyes told Megan that her husband knew what she’d been thinking. More tears flowed from her eyes as Megan shook her head violently. None of this should be happening. It wasn’t fair.
The Dark Trilogy Page 55