by Elle Klass
“Dad,” I said as I stepped towards him. He reached his arms out and my instinct was to rush towards him but my mom put her arm in my way.
“His pulse is strengthening, his breathing is normal, and his temperature is getting warmer. It’s almost normal at 89.7 degrees F, but he… he bit Sarah,” she said, cringing.
“What?” My eyes narrowed. “She seems fine.”
“She is. In fact, the bite is showing signs of healing.”
I looked at my father who continued to make gargling sounds with his arms outstretched. His cheeks had color in them again and his eyes weren’t glazed anymore.
“I knew something was going on. You’ve been hiding a zombie on the ship!” hollered Jack from behind us. He stood in the doorway, holding the curtain back. “I thought it was odd all the excuses you made to cover up your father never joining us.”
My mom, the voice of panicked reason said, “No Jack, stop,” as he walked towards the bed with one hand behind his back. “His pulse is almost normal and look he has color in his cheeks again. I think he’s going to be fine.”
“I’ll judge that for myself,” snarled Jack as he approached my father who stared at him with wide, unglazed blue eyes as Jack pulled a knife from behind his back and shoved it at my father.
My father’s gargling became desperate as his eyes shifted toward the knife shining in Jack’s hand.
I gasped and screamed, “No, not my father!”
He poked the end of the knife at the sock in my father’s mouth and flung it across the room.
“Stop Jack!” pleaded my father. Hearing his voice was music. If he was alert, talking normally, with near-normal vital signs, he was healed. Somehow his body had fought off the disease.
Jack staggered backwards in surprise as I lunged for my father, wrapping my arms around him. “Daddy, you’re OK!”
“Yes, sweetheart.” His eyes scanned my body, sucking in my appearance. No doubt I was covered in splotches of blood and hadn’t yet changed my ripped shirt that dropped forward exposing my sides and back. “Now what’s going on here?”
The entire crew entered the tiny bedroom. Everyone was so close I heard their hearts beat and felt breath on my neck. They stared at us with quizzical expressions. I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the group of people who stared back at us, mouths agape. Heather spoke up then, hands on her curvy hips, “I’d like to know too.”
My mom spoke up and told the story, starting with how she woke up and he was lying in bed cold beside her, to how he woke up when the meds ran out, bit Sarah and that’s when they stuffed the sock in his mouth.
My father looked the most surprised. “I’ve been tied up in your pantyhose? That’s kinky.” He waggled his eyebrows at my mom. “For how many days and where are we?”
“Eleven days,” Sarah stated matter-of-factly.
Then my mom with her rusty geography and ignoring his man comment, chimed, “Close as we can figure, that’s Spain ahead of us and the Rock of Gibraltar to the southeast. We saw a large military ship moving through the channel and followed it with the binoculars until we couldn’t see it any longer. It was definitely headed on a southwest trail towards the US.”
I knew we were in Spain, but didn’t realize that we were so close to Italy.
Heather cleared her throat. “You’re all Americans, why are you here?”
Bryce spoke up, his back against the wall, “We’re on our way to Naples, Italy to collect my mom and sister.”
“And what if they’re zombies? Within twenty-four hours everyone in Spain was dead apart from me and maybe there are others, but I didn’t see any,” said Heather, narrowing her eyes toward Bryce.
“We don’t know, but we’ve come this far. We’ll figure it out and, if they’re alive, they are coming home with us. And why aren’t we sick, and how did my dad’s immune system fight off the virus, and how was he infected in the first place?” I spat, the questions rolling from my brain to tongue.
“Norfolk. It’s gotta be from Norfolk, Virginia. That’s near west from here,” announced Jack, running his hand over his shiny bald head.
My dad’s eyes shifted to Jack then everyone else. “Can someone untie me?”
Everyone’s eyes were pasted on me. My mother and I were beside him and quickly untied him. He immediately stretched his arms and legs. I stood up from the edge of the bed and offered him my hand. He stood, unsteady at first, one arm around my neck while I clutched that hand. After a few steps he was steadier as we walked through the crowd. Everyone moved aside and I brought my dad into the kitchen.
“Are you hungry?” I asked, as if life was normal and my dad hadn’t just woken up from some kind of zombie coma, and I hadn’t just gone off on everyone.
“Eggs sound good, and toast, but after you’ve showered. You’re a mess,” he answered, his voice weak, taking a seat at the table as I grabbed the ingredients.
I smiled sheepishly then gathered fresh clothes. The group had followed us into the main cabin, including Cat who jumped onto Sarah’s lap as she fell backwards onto the sofa.
After my shower, Mom joined me in the kitchen and we prepped food. Heather asked where the dishes were and set the table. Bryce and Jack went upstairs and set the boat on course for Naples.
Everyone ate a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, coffee, and orange juice. Sarah cleaned the dishes and Heather looked less physically intimidating in one of my mom’s smocks. Her long legs still showed but her curves weren’t quite so obvious. She was at least six inches taller than my mom and a bit thinner. My mom had a full figure, but not so full she wore large woman sizes, just enough she had wide hips and a complete chest with a round cheery face and a short bobbed haircut. I looked at myself and wondered when I’d sprout. My face was more oval, like my dad`s, and I wore my straight, light brown hair that was sun-bleached long.
I sat at the table next to Sarah as she rolled up her sleeve and unwrapped the bandage. Grabbing the end of the bandage from her hand, I finished peeling it back and dabbed antiseptic onto it. The blood was dried and it was obviously healing. “I’m sorry, Sarah,” I stated, staring at the tooth marks buried into her skin.
“No harm done. It’ll heal. He didn’t know what he was doing,” she said, meeting my gaze and, as if she read my mind, followed up with, “I feel fine.”
I nodded as I dabbed on more antibacterial cream, smoothing it in so the wound was swathed in it completely.
Heather took a seat next to us. “Let me take a look,” she said. “Odd, he bit you and you’re fine. Was his mouth clean when he bit you?”
“I guess. We’d been feeding him water through a tube and he may have had pill residue in his mouth and saliva,” answered Sarah.
Heather sucked in her upper lip. “So it doesn’t transmit through saliva, maybe other bodily fluids.”
Sarah and I stared at her. She smiled. “I’m a doctor in the UK and was in Spain for a holiday.”
“Not much of a holiday,” Sarah followed up with, her brown eyes sparkling.
Heather chuckled. “No, suppose not. Well, we’re still alive.” She clucked her tongue. “When the plague hit your area, did you notice anything odd?”
Sarah and I shrugged. “Not really, everything was pretty normal for Florida.” Then I remembered my conversation with Bryce right after we found each other. “Since we had a warm winter, the mosquito population was high.”
“Nasty, disease carriers, could be. Did you notice any bugs, black and attached?” Heather said, coupling her fingers together and moving them in and out as if to emphasize the together part.
“With little red-heads?” asked Sarah slowly.
“Yes, they fly around everywhere, make quite a nuisance, all stuck together.” Heather wrinkled her nose in disgust.
I followed up with, “Lovebugs. But I didn’t know they were in Spain or in Britain. They’re nasty bugs that are rumored to have been made at a college in Florida to eat mosquitoes and control the population. According
to Bryce, whose father is an environmental scientist, they really came from Central and South America to the Southeast US.”
“Hmm… There was a mad dash of them before everyone changed. I can’t help but blame the little creatures for this plague,” Heather said, then stood and left us.
We sat quiet for a second, perplexed. My brain attempted to process how lovebugs made it across the ocean.
Sarah finally broke the silence and my thoughts when she said, “I’m kinda glad you found Heather. It’s nice to know there are other people alive in the world. Do you think we’ll find Bryce’s family?”
“I hope so and I hope they’re OK.” I picked up the first aid materials when Heather rejoined us.
“Take these every six hours. They’re an antiviral.” Heather dropped two small pills from one of the medicine bottles I grabbed in Spain.
“How do you know it’s viral?” I asked.
“I don’t, but as fast as the disease spread it’s the only thing that makes sense. You see, viruses are tiny fragments of DNA and they’re pretty smart. If one cell won’t let them in they’ll find another and another until the body has an overwhelming amount of infected cells. They are also tiny and easily spread through air, water, and touch. My bet is this disease is airborne and that’s how it made from one continent to the next with such speed,” Heather stated in a doctor voice.
“Then why aren’t we sick?” Sarah asked, logically, resting her mended arm on the table.
“We’re immune. I need to gather medical data from everyone onboard this vessel to determine that one commonality.” She smiled at Sarah. “I’m glad you found me too. Now, do you have a notepad I could use?”
“Yeah,” I said, jumping up and running into the room I shared with my parents. I came back with the notepad Mom and Sarah used to keep track of my dad’s vitals and medication.
Heather flipped it open and read through the data. “Very clever. Whose idea was this?”
I smiled sheepishly. “Mine.”
Heather nodded then asked our names and jotted them down on clean pages. “Might as well start with you two.”
For the next thirty minutes she asked us all types of questions from medications we’d taken to allergies to any surgeries. My mind was spinning by the time she was through and went on to the next person on the boat.
After dinner, I took a seat at the helm next to Bryce, gazing at his chestnut hair and long, thin body. We’d be nearing Naples by nightfall. At that moment a star streaked the sky and I made a wish.
“Did you see that?” he asked, acknowledging my presence.
“Yup,” and I wished for your family to be somewhere safe, alive, and easy to find, I thought.
He propped his feet up on the dash to the side of the wheel and tucked an arm behind my back as our eyes glanced toward the darkening sky.
Chapter Thirteen
Morning came too early and butterflies swirled in my gut. The day we’d traveled so far for; finding Bryce’s family with no cell phone or any way of communication. Jack coasted the boat into a port filled with ships and boats of various sizes. Tall buildings in various colors, mostly stucco or concrete in construction, towered above the shore, looking as though they would tumble into the sea. My dad took the helm and Bryce and Jack jumped off the boat, weapons at the ready as they tied the Earnest Earl and loaded the tank full with gas. It went smooth and not a zombie or living thing in sight.
I wondered if the virus, well I only assumed it was a virus because that’s what made sense to Heather and me, killed everything except cats, monkeys and fish, remembering the one I squished the day after the storm.
Once the tanks were filled I hopped off the boat. Bryce smiled at me. “Glad you’re joining us, Zombie Girl,” he said in a quiet, almost anxious voice. I imagined this was the day of reckoning for him. The day we traveled across the Atlantic for – to find his family.
My dad took the boat away from the dock and they anchored it far enough into the sea that zombies couldn’t reach them. No one figured they swam, especially after how we’d seen them react to water in Spain. His body was still weak from his sickness, but his color was back and he walked and acted human. Hour by hour, he looked and acted more like himself. A couple days of food and rest and he’d be healthy again.
We carefully marched on the docks leading to the solid Earth. Staying quiet, we kept our weapons at the ready. Glancing toward the sky I realized how eerie it truly was, not a single bird or bug flew or swarmed over head. The message it sent was contradictory; the sun was bright as it beat on our heads, yet the dead silence was spooky like a horror movie -- except it was my life. It was completely silent and had been silent for days. The only other life we’d seen was the darn monkeys. Did the virus kill everything?
We followed Bryce, who halted once we reached the parking lot. There were a few cars which meant a few deaders somewhere. “It’ll be easier and safer if we can jack a car,” he said.
“We don’t have keys. Does anyone know how to hotwire?” asked Jack, holding the rifle over his shoulder.
We looked towards each other, everyone’s eye shifting from one to another.
“I can figure it out. It’s just a couple wires.” Bryce neared a little gray car. He held his hand against the window and peered inside. It was empty, so he tried the door. It was locked. We split up and peered into other cars trying the doors. I lifted the handle on a little white car and felt something squishy beneath my finger. I snatched my hand back and eyed my finger. A black bug in the shape of a V hung against my middle finger. I flicked it and it fell to the ground, a tiny red dot head caught my eye. I studied it further and determined it was a lovebug, but how did it get here?
Running to the front of the car, I knelt down and checked the grill. The nasty bugs always stuck to grills and destroyed paint when they splattered against it. They were a huge nuisance every spring and fall. To my dismay, but not surprise, several more lovebugs were smashed against the grill. Disgusting!
I lifted up and blew out a breath then moved onto the next vehicle and studied the grill, then moved around the car, keeping my eyes on the hood and side of the car, then the door handle – more lovebugs. When my eyes shifted to the window, two glassy brown eyes stared into oblivion somewhere beyond me. My breath caught with surprise and I took a step backwards.
“Jack found one, c’mon.” I turned and saw Bryce heading past me. The zombie continued to stare blankly and it brought its hands to the window and pawed. I stumbled after Bryce, following him to the car.
So far, so good. We’d been quiet enough not to attract unwanted, dead, stinky company. The one in the car didn’t seem to notice us. Bryce saddled himself under the dash, his legs stretched outside the car as we stood guard. The area stayed clear and deadly silent until we heard the sound of the motor roar. We piled in the little car and Bryce took off just as the drip drag shuffle of zombies came for us. Still too far away and not walking too fast, we didn’t fear them or stop.
“You know where you’re going?” asked Jack.
“A little. I’ve been here several times,” Bryce said as he whipped the little car to the right onto what I assumed was the Italian equivalent of a freeway. Bryce dodged cars stopped in the middle of the road. A zombie or two or three pawed at the glass windows in their cars as we swept past them. We followed it for quite some time, passing clusters of tall, colorful buildings. It felt as though we were heading straight into the heart of the city. He took an exit and made a right onto a road filled with old buildings jutting from the ground. My heart thumped inside my chest as I thought of what a cluster the area was and how many deaders must be close by.
Soon the area became less populated, as if we were now on the outskirts of Naples. Instead of colorful buildings that looked glued together and close enough to have a discussion with a neighbor through any window, they had space and small yards.
Bryce made another turn. “Oh crap!” said Jack as Bryce slammed on the brakes. I jolted forward, t
hen slammed backwards into the seat. In front of us was a car wreck blocking the road, and several zombies milling about. Bryce reversed the car back to the other road and sped on ahead. The zombies followed us, but as we sped away, I could no longer see them. That hoard wouldn’t catch us in time as they stiff-walked, rigor setting into their joints.
He made the next turn. The road clear, he sped over it, made a right then another left back onto the zombie-blocked road. When they heard the car they turned around. Not agile, they moved one leg at a time, teetering like broken ballerinas until they faced us then walked towards us, but the car was simply too fast.
We followed this road for a while before he turned onto another road and parked in front of a white two story house with a red concrete-looking roof, many flowering shrubs surrounding it. “This is it,” he said, but the lack of confidence in his voice alerted me. Something wasn’t right.
“You’re sure?” I asked. Jack peered at him as we both waited for his response.
“Yes.” It was a reluctant response and I guessed his apprehension hinged on what we’d find inside -- his family safe and healthy, or the alternative.
“Then what’s wrong?” I questioned, leaning forward and resting my hands between the front seats.
Bryce shook his head. “It’s nothing. I… am just used to this street being busy -- people walking, gardening, kids playing. It’s empty.”
I nodded. It was eerily quiet and vacant. We exited the car and walked towards the house, unsure what we’d find inside. The door was locked.
“There’s a back door,” said Bryce as he followed a path around the house toward a gate, his shovel propped high and ready. We took careful footsteps to not make any noise and alert any deaders that might be hanging around. The stench of death was in the air, so they weren’t far. I hoped they were stuck inside their homes.
Bryce tried the back door, it was locked too. He shrugged and turned towards us as we stood behind him. “Anyone know how to pick a lock?”
A bang thudded against the window behind Bryce. My eyes shot towards it and were glued to the dead lady planted against it. A huge chunk of flesh from her cheek was missing, exposing her teeth and tongue. Dried blood covered most of the rest of her face.