The Contaminated: Where Were You When The Pandemic Hit?

by Kypers, Ryan

  She shook her head, meeting my eyes with her own, “Not like this. Not when it matters this much,” she said, burying her have into my chest. “They left us, Daryl!” Chelsea said with a muffled voice. I began to feel the moisture from her tears being absorbed into my shirt as her back moved up and down with her cries. “They are not coming back,” she finished.

  I sat there on the couch with my girlfriend’s head wedged into my bony chest immobilized. Numbness spread through my body as she cried out. We were so young and so alone. The absence of any figures to guide us left Chelsea and I in a self-sustaining state. We were now the masters of our own domain.

  On the third day, Chelsea and I watched for some sign of the military convoy from my front porch. We looked. We waited. Nobody came for us. Nobody came to rescue the two lovers who volunteered to stay behind for the betterment of another family because we felt as if we could handle it, and for those three days – we did.

  This was different now. This was real. All of the time that we waited, all of the time that we kept on watching out of the front windows, all of that time was wasted. It was all over now.

  “They’re more numerous now,” Her voice piped up again. “Nearly every time that I glance outside, there’s one of them – the contaminated. What is the purpose of going on? Everything that we knew is far gone by now.”

  I had never heard Chelsea talk this way. She was depressed. The world had become too much for her to handle. The rise of the contaminated was not helping matters either. She was always panicked when I went outside, regardless of what I was doing. She became panicked at the sight of the contaminated and would hide from them even if they were just passing by. I was there. I could protect her. Why did I not speak?

  “Daryl,” she looked up to me, her eyes red from the tears. “Daryl, what can we do? The food won’t last forever and neither of us knows how to hunt.”

  What could we do? This is not something that I could find out on a television show about survival or crisis situations. Survival against a foreign race is not something that teachers taught their students in school. How does one go on with their life when the world is fucked to such a huge extent that the military is even in a panic? How would I be able to surpass even what the government could not? How could I survive?

  “Daryl, help me,” Chelsea begged. Her ragged face was still pretty, still beautiful against her depressing mood, her depressing reality. “Daryl.”

  “We survive,” I said. There was no alternative to what I could say. I cared for Chelsea. Though we had not been dating for a very long time, I had known her for much of my life. We went to school together. We were in the same classes, math, physics, chemistry, U.S. history. Chelsea and I both got into trouble for throwing foam balls across the gymnasium during a pep rally during our junior year of high school. We were friends. We were classmates. We are together now in this pile of death and destruction. We will survive. “We survive,” I repeated.

  She shook her head, the tears stopped but the redness of her face remained, “How? How do we survive in this world?”

  I looked down and kissed her on the forehead, “There is not how, Chelsea. I don’t mean to get cheesy, but now is our time. Do or do not, there is no try. We can do this. We have to do this.”

  Chelsea’s hand brushed against my chest, moving upwards towards my neck then to the back of my head. She gently pulled my face forward into her own, our lips meeting and holding. After what seemed to be the longest and most wonderful kiss of my life, she finally pushed me back, “You are really good at that – this pep talk stuff.”

  I smiled, resting my head against the top of the couch, “Yeah, well I never would have thought it. You saw me during the class debates. I was entirely frozen against the podium.”

  “Oh so that’s your excuse for getting your butt whooped?”

  “I let him win,” I said, looking away as my face became a bit flushed.

  I felt Chelsea’s lips against my cheek, “You are cute when you lie, but still bad at it.” She stood from the couch, “I think I’m going to make something for us to eat.”

  I reached out and lightly grabbed her forearm, “Chelsea, I think there is something else that we should discuss right now.”

  She gave me a puzzled look, her eyebrows raised above her bright eyes, “What do you mean?” She asked as she sat on the footrest facing me. “What else is there?”

  “The contaminated,” I said. The room grew cold with the words, as if they suddenly incited a deep freeze. “We need to discuss what happens if one of us becomes contaminated.”

  Chelsea looked down. She did not cry or whimper. No, she was done with that stuff. Chelsea was thinking of the terrible future that may be waiting for us around any corner. “What do you want to do?” She asked without any hesitation in her voice. This was her turning point. This was the time where Chelsea became the tough and hardened individual that would allow her to survive. This was the Chelsea that would help me live. “What can we do?”

  I took a deep breath, “I do not want to become a contaminated. The thought of me being in a different state such as that makes me worried. I don’t want to be trapped inside of my own body while something else is in control of it.” I looked Chelsea directly in her eyes, my hand brushing a bit of her hair away from her face, “I want you to kill me if I become one of the contaminated.”

  Chelsea’s eyes grew wide, but the redness from moments ago was gone. Only life remained, “I do not want to kill you,” She said. “I will not kill you,” Chelsea said more sternly. “We will not become contaminated. We will survive, remember?”

  I smiled at her. She was pretty good at the pep talks too. “I know what we will do, but in the event that something is able to get in the way of our goals, we do need a plan,” I grabbed her hands and put them in my own. “In the event that we become one of the contaminated, or are bitten, or anything that would lead to us turning into something that we are not, we kill the other,” I said. It was not a question. It was not an option. It was a statement that had to be enforced.

  “How could you expect me to hurt you?” she asked, a look of concern in her eyes. “Why would you expect me to hurt you?”

  I shook my head, “It will not be me, Chels. At that point, I’ll be all but gone. Those things, the contaminated, are dangerous. They will attack you or me without hesitation. I don’t want to be the one that hurts you or anyone else.”

  Chelsea kept her eyes on mine, “Okay then, but it goes both ways. I don’t want to hurt anyone just as much as you do, and if I do become one of the contaminated, or contaminated in general, you better off me.” She squeezed my hands with her final words, the sternness in her voice echoes throughout the living room. “But that will not happen, becoming contaminated that is.”

  “Of course it won’t,” I replied. My hands tightened around her own as I pulled Chelsea in for a kiss. Our lips touched for a few moments, mine a bit drier while hers were nice and moisturized. They parted after a second or six. “This will work,” I said.

  She gave me a half smile, “I know.” Chelsea stood up from the footrest, releasing my hands. “I’m hungry. Let’s make the steaks in the freezer for dinner.”

  I nodded in approval.

  Dinner was nice that night. The steaks were cooked on a stovetop skillet as to not risk any outdoor activity. Chelsea seasoned the steak with a modest amount of salt and pepper, leaving me up to vegetable duty. Fortunately for me, there were still raw baby carrots in the refrigerator. Due to my unnatural hatred towards cooked carrots, I was able to weasel my way out of actually making anything for dinner while enjoying the whole bit.

  We were half way through our meal when I had a bright idea, “Hold here for a minute,” I said to Chelsea. She gave me a confused look as I stood up and left the kitchen table.

  I made my way into the dining room and opened up the bottom cabinet door of the hutch revealing numerous rows of wine bottles. My father had always collected wine bottles since I could remem
ber, being an avid drinker of wine. Since he probably would not be in need of these bottles anymore, I figured that we could help ourselves.

  I returned to the kitchen, hands full of wine and glasses, “Some merlot for the lady?” I said in my best waiter voice.

  She smiled, holding up her wine glass, “Please, but don’t expect a tip.”

  “I would never imagine,” I countered, pouring the dark red liquid into her glass. It filled and bubbled towards the top. I filled my own as well. We continued dinner, sipping on our refreshments while eating away at our fortune.

  A content quiet filled the kitchen as we finished our dinner. I got up and took Chelsea’s plate. I stood above the garbage can and was about to scrape it off when a shout rang out in the twilight. It startled me so bad that I dropped the whole plate into the garbage. Fortunately it was already somewhat full, preventing the plate from breaking.

  “What was that?” Chelsea asked, now on her feet.

  I shook my head, “I don’t know, but it did not sound friendly.”

  “Mary! What’s gotten into you?” I heard a muffled yell from outside.

  “Who’s Mary?” Chelsea asked as we both exited the kitchen to get a better view of what was happening outside the front windows.

  “Mary. Mary. Mary. Mary Givens!” I said in triumph. “The Givens family. They live a few houses down. We really don’t know them too well, only seeing them on rare occasions.”

  “Well why is Mr. Givens in the front yard wrestling with Mary Givens?” She asked.

  I shot my head around the curtain and looked out to the street and over to the Givens’ residence. Mr. Givens, a greying man in his early sixties, was grappling with his wife in his front yard. Mary Givens was about the same age, but her body was larger and hair un-greyed from anti-aging dyes.

  They were pushing against each other, but something was different. Mr. Givens was holding Mary Givens’ two hands at the wrist, preventing her from moving forward. Mary Givens was trying to thrust her head forward, an attempt to bite Mr. Givens.

  “She’s turned,” I said.

  Chelsea looked out of the window then to me then back out the window, “How do you know?”

  “Mary Givens has a bad knee. My father used to talk to the family about the surgery because he may need it one day. There is no possible way that Mary Givens would be able to resist Mr. Givens in any physical confrontation due to that knee,” I said, watching the fight. Mary kept thrusting her head in, snapping at her husband. “That, and she is trying to bite him.”

  Chelsea let out a tisk, “Well I saw that. Did you know that they were staying behind?” she asked.

  I shook my head, “No. I had no idea. As far as I know, we are the only ones on the street who are still around. Do you think that we should go help Mr. Givens?” I asked.

  She nodded, “Yeah, it might be nice to have someone else around.”

  We nodded, closing the curtains and making our way to the door. Suddenly a shriek filled the entire street. My head propped out of the front door window. Three contaminated were walking down the street towards the Givens residence, hissing and gargling all the way.

  “What’s going on?” Chelsea asked, not being able to see out of the high window.

  I reached out my arm and held her back, “We cannot help now.”

  She looked at me, confused, “What do you mean? What happened?”

  “Back to the living room,” I said. Before a second passed, we were peeking out of the front windows once more. Mr. Givens’ shoulder and arms were bloody, his wife clawing at his body. “Mr. Givens is gone.”

  The contaminated that were on the street hastened their pace to a light sprint. They were on Mr. Givens in a matter of seconds, tearing him to pieces. His muffled cries died out faster than I would have expected. “Mary Givens just killed Mr. Givens,” I said.

  “How can you say that? That was a contaminated, not Mary Givens,” Chelsea replied.

  I nodded, pulling her away from the gruesome scene outside the window, “Exactly, Chelsea. That is why we cannot let that happen to us. If you or I turn, we have to put the other out before it is too late. We have to survive.”

  Chelsea nodded, lacing her hand in my own, “We have to survive,” she repeated.

  Chapter 28

  “Daryl, wake up!” I was shaken awake once more. That seemed to be the story of my life in recent days. Did I mention that I hate being woken up? “Daryl!”

  My eyes fluttered open, focusing on a fuzzy figured Chelsea in front of me, “What’s up?” I mumbled as my body began to wake.

  “We’re at our final stop. Columbia, Missouri. Zach pulled over at the gas station here,” She said pointing outside. Zach was moving around his car trying to attach the gas nozzle. He pulled his car to a stop with the gas tank on the opposite side of the car forcing him to stretch the gas tube around the other side of the car while coaxing it forward with a slew of curses.

  I looked into the back seat to see Coal sleeping contently. Her sleek black body was curled up with her tail wrapped around her legs, the end flipping up with some form of unknown glee. “Alright, let’s go play guard dog.”

  “There’s more,” she said before I could open the passenger door. “James is sick. Zach said that he’s been coughing up blood for a while now.”

  “Then why have we stopped? We need to get to Kansas City, now!” I urged.

  She shook her head, “We won’t get there quickly at all without any gas. I was terrified that we were going to run out on the way here, that’s how low the tanks ar. Both Zach and our car had our gas lights on. I thought that we might have to walk the rest of the way.

  “Alright, well let’s get on guard duty before Zach takes matters into his own hands,” I said, grabbing the bat. My head was still pounding, as if it was trying to break out of my skull. My nose was clogged again, not allowing me to breathe easily which was super fun (not). I got out of the car and managed to stretch out the soreness from my muscles as I walked over to Zach.

  “How’s he doing?” I asked, tilting my head towards the passenger seat of Zach’s car where James sat.

  “I’m fine, thanks,” he said, putting the gas nozzle into the car. “James has been having a coughing fit for some time now. He’s been hunched over for most of the ride. Thought he might throw up.” Zach looked over to the gas meter, making sure that the pump was working. “Honestly though, it looks like his mouth is on its period.”

  “That’s wonderful. Thanks for the image,” I said patting him on the shoulder. “Just make sure that you fill the cars with gas, please,” I added, not wanting to sound like an ass.

  I saw Chelsea circling the gas station, looking in all directions for any sign of trouble. There was not much to look at though. It was pretty much wide open for the most part. The highway exit was practically on top of the gas station. Barren trees filled the back of the convenience store which was a glorified hut with windows. The sky looked like it was ready to open up and drown us in its sorrows.

  I began to make my rounds of the gas station when that distinct sound rang off again. I whipped my head around to see Chelsea smashing a contaminated head in, forcing it to the ground where she finished it off.

  “One more,” I heard Zach call, pointing to a contaminated coming out of the mini-mart. My bat struck it down in one quick swoop, splattering its insides all over the chilled pavement.

  Suddenly a roaring came from behind the mart, the same roaring from yesterday. “What is that?” Zach asked, fear thick in his voice.

  “I think that we should get in the cars, now,” I replied, but there was no time.

  A giant heaping shadow leapt over the top of the mini-mart and landed on the pavement, shaking the ground beneath it. It was a contaminated, as the eyes showed, but much, much larger. It stood about twelve feet tall with arms thicker than my waist and legs twice that size. It stood bow legged with sprawling feet, missing three of its toes. For the most part, the huge contaminated was stark naked
with nothing but a paisley bed sheet covering its mid-section like a togs.

  Zach fired off his handgun almost immediately at the contaminated, but that only pissed it off. The monster roared at Zach and began its approach. Zach immediately grabbed a shotgun out of the car and fired while back peddling. There was birdshot pre-loaded into the gun shown by the numerous pebble sized holes in the bed sheet covering. He was moving slowly across the pavement of the gas station, slowly backing into the roadway.

  Each shot fired made the monster flinch, but it did not deter the beast. It raised its arm and allowed that to take the blunt of the shotgun’s force, only being slowed down a small bit.

  The contaminated was right on top of Zach when more gunshots were fired. I turned to see Chelsea shooting its back, unloading the entire clip of her small handgun on the contaminated. Chelsea released the empty magazine and put in a new one. She began to fire off the entire clip again, unloading as fast as she could into the contaminated.

  Unfortunately, the small rounds of the twenty-two did not seem to be doing much to the contaminated’s back. The skin of this beast was thick and calloused. No blood was dripping out of the monster, showing that the small rounds of ammunition were merely itching its back and not causing any major damage.

  “Zach!” I yelled, trying to grab his attention while the contaminated was distracted by Chelsea. “Do you have slugs on you?”

  He reached into his pocket pulling out two shells, “Two shots!” Zach continued to back pedal away from the contaminated. The huge contaminated was practically on top of him now, the arm of the beast thrusting out in a swiping motion but only hitting air.

  “Fuck its knees up!” I yelled as I made my way around the beast. I heard a loud roar and looked over to see the contaminated grabbing a large barrel, why there was a random barrel sitting in the middle of a gas station I’ll never know, but it grabbed it. The monster was lifting it over its head as if the round sheet metal was nothing more than a soup can. I preemptively rolled to my side, avoiding the barrel as it was thrown with enough force to bend it significantly as it crashed into the side of the mini-mart.