by Alex Apostol
The blood rushed to her face and burned her cheeks a hot red. She clenched her jaw shut, her teeth applying so much pressure on each other that they hurt. She ground them together in an attempt to gain control of herself again.
Liam and Zack looked at her in silence. Zack had a spreading smile that took over his face, while Liam’s gaze fell to the floor. He’d really messed up this time. It wasn’t his idea to have Zack come over like he did. He hadn’t even know if Zack was still alive. It was his policy to assume everyone was dead so there’d be no disappointment when he learned the truth. But he certainly shouldn’t have agreed with Zack like he did. He should have been as outraged as Christine clearly was. He knew he would get the full force of her wrath even though Zack was the one who pulled the stupid prank.
“You were faking?” Christine hissed through her teeth.
Zack couldn’t help it as he broke out into laughter. “You should have seen your faces,” he said. “It was—”
Christine punched him so hard that he couldn’t finish his sentence. His dark, wooly beard did nothing to soften the blow. He looked at her hand to see if she was wearing brass knuckles as she shook it wildly through the air. Groans and curses escaped his lips as he rubbed his already swelling jaw.
“God dammit,” he said, bent over. “It was a joke. A test!”
“Well, it wasn’t fucking funny!” Christine yelled at him as she breezed by him. She shut herself in the bedroom again.
Zack straightened himself up and moved his jaw in a slow, circular motion. Liam wanted to smile. Somehow he’d avoided the blame. Instead he simply shrugged his shoulders when Zack eyed him.
“It was barking mad what you just did, scaring her like that,” Liam said loud enough for Christine to hear through the wall. “Life’s been hard enough without us having to think these things are at our doorstep.”
“Kind of the reason I came by, actually,” Zack said as he gave his jaw one last massage before he moved on from the incident. “I think we should do a sweep of the building to see who’s still alive and we should ‘clear out’ the infected ones.” He used air quotes, but the meaning was obvious.
Liam nodded his head. Why hadn’t he thought of it? He had been completely obsessed with cutting themselves off from everything that he didn’t even stop to think that the apartment would be safer if it were free of the infection all together. He didn’t allow himself to think of how they would go about it. His upper lip sweat as he drummed his fingers over his thin lips. He wiped it away with a quick flick. “Ok. Good. Yeah. Let’s clean this place up a bit. Make it safe again.”
Zack’s adrenaline rushed. He clapped his hands together and hopped in place. “Yes! Let’s do this!”
Liam’s eyebrows pulled together as he held his hands out in front of him. “Woah. We can’t charge out of here without a plan.”
Zack stared at him unblinkingly as he rubbed his hands together and shifted his weight between his feet. He leaned forward slightly, as if he were literally hanging on Liam’s next words.
“We’ll think on it and meet back here in the morning, weapons in hand. Got it?”
Zack nodded as a joker grin took over his face, his eyes wrinkled until they were almost completely shut. “Good idea. OK, I’m going to get out of here before Rocky comes out here again. I’ll see you tomorrow at eight.” He opened the door, looked both ways, and then ran next door to his own apartment.
Liam shook his head and chuckled. Zack was insane, but it was just the right level of crazy they needed to make it alive. He walked to the door and started the process of securing themselves in again when he heard the bedroom door open. He stopped and turned.
“You’re not really going to kill them, are you?” Christine asked softly as she held onto the door frame. Her large, blue eyes pleaded with him.
“We have to,” Liam said. “You know what they’re capable of.”
Christine closed her eyes and pictured Sylvia and Ben Goldstein, two people she hadn’t liked very much when they were alive, but no matter how much she detested them she wouldn’t have wished them to die the brutal way they did—ripped apart, eaten alive, and then gunned down. It was inhumane. She didn’t want anyone else to suffer that way. Giving the people who were too far gone some peace was the least they could do.
“I want to come.”
“No,” Liam said quickly. “No way.”
“I want to help,” Christine urged as she stepped out from the bedroom.
“No,” he said again. “I can’t risk you getting infected.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but shut it again. She was the only family he had left. He was all she had as well. “Fine,” she said to the floor. “I’ll stay.”
XIII.
Luke Benson tossed and turned in his bed. The light of morning crept in through the gaps in the blinds. He rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock. It was already eight. He rolled over and closed his eyes again, but he knew if sleep had avoided him all night, then it wasn’t going to come now that it was morning. He huffed and threw the covers off. “Fuck,” he grumbled as he stood up.
The image of Carolyn’s scratched ankle had plagued his thoughts every time he closed his eyes. It kept him up all night wondering how long it took for someone to change once they were infected. How long did Carolyn have until she was trying to eat people like the others? Would she die in her apartment, the one he’d locked her inside of? Would it be his fault? Could he have saved her, helped her in any way? His mind had raced all night with unanswerable questions.
He got out of bed and dragged his feet across the room and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. His brown eyes had puffy, dark bags under them. His stomach wound tightly into knots when he glimpsed his aged and tired face. Carolyn was probably dead because he was too much of a coward to try and help her. He couldn’t look at himself any longer. He turned away and walked to the kitchen.
Luke poured himself a bowl of cereal. The spoon made it to his lips, but his mouth remained closed. All the “what ifs” and “maybes” had piled down on him in a matter of seconds and threatened to crush him to death.
He had to know for sure if Carolyn was still herself or one of those flesh eating monsters. If she was all right, then maybe there was still time to help her, drive her to the hospital, something, anything.
He dropped the spoon into the bowl and rushed out the front door and into the warm, shaded hallway. There was no forgiving summer breeze. The air hung thick with humidity and the rotten, putrid stench of death. Sweat collected on Luke’s forehead and upper lip. He walked to Carolyn’s door and leaned in close.
Silence.
He rested his fingers on the chair he’d wedged under the doorknob. The black metal was warm to the touch. A relaxing sensation ran from his hands, through his stomach, and down to his toes. Maybe everything was OK, he thought. Maybe Carolyn was sleeping, perfectly healthy and fine in her bed. He turned away to go back inside as he shook his head with a smile, but was pulled back immediately. “No more maybes,” he said aloud.
Just as Luke was about to remove the chair, he heard voices carry up from the floor below him. Two guys—one overly excited and the other calm and British—were discussing plans for something. Luke knew it had to be Liam Scott and Zack Kran. Liam was the only British person that lived in the building and Zack was always by his side.
Luke heard a few distinct words travel though the hallways, but most were lost in the distorting echo— something about the building, every apartment, blow to the head, the brain. The last words “don’t get bit” were clear as day.
Luke’s burgeoning curiosity pulled him from Carolyn’s door. He couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like the two men were going to take out the infected people in the building. If that was true then he wouldn’t have to go into Carolyn’s apartment alone. It was possible he wouldn’t have to go in at all. The two of them could do it for him.
He walked down the stairs to the second floor and stopped on the last st
ep. He felt sick at the thought of where his mind had just leapt to. They were talking about killing people down there. That wasn’t something to take lightly, and yet Luke went straight there with relief.
Zack Kran and Liam Scott were standing in the middle of the hallway on the second floor, an equal distance from each of the four doors. Zack was bouncing up and down, a black paintball mask covering his face and a shiny replica sword clenched firmly in both his hands, ready to strike. His elbows and knees had bulky pads strapped to them and his chest was covered with a bullet proof vest. He looked like he was ready for battle.
The sword was made of flawless steel with a wooden hilt and antique brass handle parts. Luke recognized it from when he attended one of Zack’s infamous game nights at the comic book store. It was a Games of Thrones replica, or was it Lord of the Rings? He couldn’t remember exactly, but he knew it was the same one that had been on display behind the cash register, its own set of spotlights shone down proudly upon it.
Liam Scott, on the other hand, appeared his normal self—khakis, a beige and orange striped t-shirt, messy ginger hair, and dark red-rimmed, rectangular glasses. The only thing that seemed out of place was the quiver of arrows on his back and the handcrafted wooden longbow clutched in one of his hands.
Luke shook his head as he looked on at the two men. Those nerds were going to get themselves killed and it made him chuckle to himself. Then, the overpowering urge to watch them open each door and slay the hungry creatures inside, if they could, overcame him. He cleared his throat and the heads of the two men snapped to attention. Their eyes inspected every inch of Luke as he stood awkwardly on the last step, one of his house slippered feet continually kicked at the edge.
“What are you two doing?” he said as another chuckle escaped.
“We’re clearing this place out.” Zack pounded a fist into the wood siding of the exposed hallway wall. He shook his hand to disperse the pain.
“You’re…getting rid of the sick people?” Luke thrust his hands into the pockets of his gray sweatpants, his dark chest muscles flexed tight.
“That’s right,” Liam said, though his face failed to mirror Zack’s enthusiasm. “This infection, or flu, or whatever it is, is taking over the country. There have been reports of it as far as Idaho and Connecticut. We need a safe place to live, to survive in. I don’t know about you, but I’d like that to be our home.”
Luke nodded. “Mind if I tag along?”
Zack and Liam looked at each other, unprepared for anyone else to volunteer to join them. They spoke silently with a quick exchange of a few loaded glances. It was Liam, with his wide hazel eyes and brows turned upward in the center, who spoke first. “Do you have any sort of weapon? Something that will damage the brain like a bat or a long knife?”
Luke fought the urge to let his jaw drop open. Instead, his brown eyes bulged and his stomach gave a revolting lurch upward. Sweat dripped down the side of his round face. “I have a nine iron in my golf bag.”
“That’ll do it!” Zack said with a smile. “Go get it. We’ll wait here for you.” He couldn’t stand still. If he wasn’t pacing around, smacking the walls or his own head, which sat safely under a hard helmet, then he tapped his foot.
Luke returned two minutes later with his golf club.
“Time to nut up or shut up,” Zack said with a maniacal grimace.
Liam’s eyes shifted rapidly. He reached for an arrow from his back. “Maybe we should start up on the top floor and make our way down.” His voice cracked, but no one seemed to notice or they were kind enough to spare him the embarrassment of pointing it out.
Luke looked at Liam and took him in when Liam’s eyes averted to the stairs. The kid was scared. Liam’s fingers trembled as he gripped his arrow. Luke would never admit it to anyone, but he was terrified as well. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to see his daughter, hug her close, and tell her that he loved her one more time. He wanted to kiss his ex-wife and tell her he was sorry for everything. He wanted to keep his insides inside him and not watch some monster eat them as he faded away. He licked his thick lips and pushed the image from his mind. His eyes blinked rapidly.
“Right,” Liam said with an exhale that deflated his puffed out cheeks. “Here we go.”
They climbed the stairs in a single file line, weapons clenched in their sweaty hands, ready for whatever awaited them behind the closed doors of the third floor.
XIV.
Zack Kran and Liam Scott eyed the rope that held the Hansens’ door closed. They walked over to Carolyn Bock’s first.
Luke Benson’s eyes shifted between her door and his. He was the only one who knew there was a chair missing from underneath her doorknob, which was safely placed back under his table in his own apartment. He hadn’t wanted them to know he trapped her in there when she was still human. He wasn’t sure which would make him feel worse; if she was alive and fine and he’d chaired her in for no reason, or if she was a hungry, walking corpse. Neither was good. So, why’d he do it, then?
The three men looked at each other and each gave a nod of encouragement. Without saying a word, Zack pulled the crowbar out from his backpack. He wedged it into the jam and pushed hard three times before the door flung open with a bang.
Zack took a few steps in with Liam at his heels. His sword was raised over his head, ready to be brought down on a dead and vicious Carolyn, should they find one, but she wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen. The group inched forward as they each tuned their ears to listen for any sound of movement.
Zack glanced from Liam to the closed bathroom door and nodded his head. Liam placed a hand on the doorknob and waited for Zack to do the same with the bedroom door. They bobbed their heads three times in sync and threw the doors wide open.
When they both came back out into the living room empty handed, Liam shrugged his shoulders while Zack’s face was riddled with disappointment.
His eyes narrowed. “Where the hell is Luke?” he barked as he spun in a circle.
Liam frowned and scanned the empty apartment. “Must still be outside.”
Zack marched across the room to the open doorway like a bull charging a matador. He was positive Luke ran off on them until he saw his round, sweaty face through the open doorway.
“Onto the next one, then,” Liam said as he followed.
When Zack saw Luke leaned against the wall as he inhaled heavy breaths he whistled and waved him inward to the Hansens’ apartment. He pried the door open with more ease than Carolyn’s.
It was only a split second that everyone froze to take Debbie Hansen in—the deep slashes across her grayish, mottled skin, her sunken, marble eyes that only hinted at life when blood touched her leathery, black tongue. She was the first infected person any of them had seen up close. When the Goldstein’s went down it was in the dark and from across the parking lot. Debbie was no more than fifteen feet away. Her putrescent stench made their eyes sting. Over a gallon of fresh blood was slopped across the carpet, walls, and furniture like Jackson Pollock had just stopped by for an impromptu paint session.
Zack charged in with a warrior cry, his collectible sword raised above his head. Debbie took a few sluggish steps towards him, her arms poised to grab. He jumped and brought the sword down with the weight of his entire body. It cracked the thing’s head open as easily as an egg and sank a few inches down. Zack pulled it free and panted with his sword at his side, thick murky blood dripped down the blade. His eyes were locked on the lifeless body crumpled on the floor, brain matter scattered around the opening of its cranium.
Zack’s body felt electric. His hands shook as he white knuckled the hilt of his sword. The look on the two faces that stared at him didn’t match his own smile. He let out a howling laugh that turned into a whooping yell of victory.
“Holy shit!” he roared. “Holy fucking shit!”
Luke disappeared into the hallway again. Hunched over with his hands on the railing by the stairs, he dry-heaved until it felt like he’d done two
hundred sit-ups. No one came to check on him.
Zack continued to laugh in a frenzy as he tried to get a rise out of Liam. His laughter tapered off with several small coughs when Liam looked up from the blood-spattered ground with heavy eyes, the third floor left in silence. Zack wiped his sword off on a cloth from his bag and gave an accomplished nod, the excitement of the first kill already dying down.
Liam tried to remember the last time he saw Debbie Hansen. At first he thought it was at Christine’s birthday party, but then he remembered he saw her walking to her car in her waitress uniform the morning he went to meet Dr. Hyde at the university…the day it all started.
Although, he couldn’t know for sure that everything had started with his boss, it had for him. He was sure the flu was to blame and the first case of that had been in New York City a couple of weeks ago. It could have started somewhere else in the country, in the world even, and spread so quickly that he only heard about it after the incident with Dr. Hyde and Ronnie.
That one quick thought of Ronald Conrad brought all his regrets rushing back. He should have stopped them. He should have laid his friend to rest.
“Whose place do we have to check on the second floor?” Zack asked, all business and ready to get to it. “’Cause we know mine is clean and yours is clean.” He looked to Liam.
“Uh,” Liam stammered, trying to remember anyone else besides his undead colleague and friend. “There’s the Ramirens and Ralph Sherman and his family.” His voice was slow and distant.
“OK, then,” Zack said as he clapped his hands together once. “Let’s get on with it!”
Luke walked with Liam and Zack to the edge of the stairs and then stopped. He didn’t want to go any further. All he had wanted was to know what happened to Carolyn, and now that she was missing all he wanted to do was curl up in his warm, cozy bed and try to forget what he’d just seen. But Zack wouldn’t allow it.