Planet of the Dead

by Thomas S. Flowers

  Blinking, more panicked now than confused, Karen nearly shouted, "Kristy, where are mom and dad? Did something happen? Tell me."

  Jonny moved closer, peering past the sisters and into the house. He gestured with a short nod for Karen to follow. He led them both, touching gently on Kristy's shoulder, back inside the house. "Let's get inside. So, the neighbors don't talk, huh?"

  Kristy flinched from his touch. "No! No!" she screamed. "Not in there. I don't want to go back in there." She collapsed on the stoop as Karen came up behind her, shaking and muttering to herself.

  Looking back toward the street, wondering if the neighbors really were watching them, Jonny turned back to the house and started inside. He stopped just a footstep away from the door. His gaze fixed on a body crumbled at the bottom of the steps.

  "Kristy, answer me!" Karen yelled.

  On the stoop, Kristy started laughing manically and shrill. "Dad's dead. I killed him."

  3

  Karen couldn't look away. With all her might, she just couldn't look away. At the foot of the stairs lay her father. Crumbled and broken, legs and neck twisted awkwardly back. If he was alive, he'd never walk again...but he wasn't alive. Not anymore. On the top of his head, where Kristy had gestured in her shrill manic laugh, a sickening looking dent was colored dark blue. No blood, though. Just bruised, as if the front of his skull had been completely mushed. She stared at him, the man whom she had greeted home with a hug when she was just a kid, running into his arms, when he came home from work, the man who impressed upon her the passion of reading, the man who taught her how to drive because mom hated to drive.

  Mom...?

  She finally looked away, glancing back at her sister resting on the floor against the wall by the front door. When they had gone inside, she simply slid down the wall and sat and watched them examine the evidence of her crime, giggling every now and then, her gaze unblinking.

  Back at the stairs, Karen traced the steps all the way to the top where her sister had apparently struck their father. She followed each step to the bottom.

  ...Mom?

  "Kristy?" Karen said, still looking down at her dead father. "Where's Mom?" The air tasted thick with sweat. Nothing made sense. How did this happen?

  Kristy didn't seem to hear her sister. Her gaze fixed on her father at the foot of the stairs. On him, but not on him. Beyond, somewhere, muttering her lament. Sweat making her skin look pale and sickly.

  "Kristy?" Karen turned to face her sister. "Kristy! You fucking tell me now what the hell happened here and where Mom is." Her voice echoed harsh and sharp off the walls. Regardless that her parents' house hadn't changed in over a decade, filled with a lifetime of stuff, with her dad dead on the floor, the place rung with a sort of hollowness.

  Jonny came in from outside, shoving his phone into his pocket, shaking his head. "Can't seem to get a signal. We'll need to use the landline." He glanced down at Kristy and then came to Karen, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You okay?" he whispered.

  His eyes were comforting, but she wanted none of it. Karen shrugged off his hand. She glared down at her sister. "You need to snap out of whatever act this is," she gestured down at her, "and tell me, right now. What happened? Or so help me God, I'll call the police right now and no one in the world will be able to help you, you understand. Tell me what happened. Please, tell me it was an accident."

  Still nothing.

  "Kristy!" Karen shouted, louder, her eyes burning hot and wet.

  Her sister stirred, blinking and looking up at her as if she were seeing Karen for the first time. "Karen...what are you..." her gaze fell to their dead father. "Dad? Dad...he..."

  Karen took a deep breath and exhaled. "He what, Kristy? What happened? You said you killed him, when you came to the door, you said you killed him."

  Kristy blinked, again looking at their father and back to Karen. "Killed him? I...did, I came home--yesterday, from school. No one was home, so I went to my room and took a nap. It had been a long drive and school had been...strange, lots of students getting sick. Teachers too, everyone. I needed to finish my thesis for my Vietnam War in Film class, but I didn't want to get sick, see, that's why I came home. Smart, right? Real smart. When I woke, mom and dad were still gone, or I thought they were."

  Pacing, Karen rubbed her temples. "What are you talking about? Just tell me what happened."

  Kristy licked her lips, they looked dry and cracked. "I didn't know where they were, so I went into dad's office to borrow one of his movies. You know how dad loves war movies. I was going to watch Deer Hunter, you know, the one with Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken where they play soldiers who get captured in Vietnam and are forced to play Russian roulette."

  "Kristy...?"

  "I went in his study to borrow the movie and then I heard a funny sound, like someone was growling, but it was wet and had a sucking sounding. I turned around and it was dad, but something was wrong with him. His eyes...they were filmy and yellow."

  "Yellow?"

  "Like they were jaundiced or something. I was scared and I remember thinking why, why was I scared? It was just dad. It was just dad, but I was scared. I asked him if it was okay if I borrowed the movie. I asked if he was okay. I asked where Mom was...he never answered me. He just stared at me, like he unsure who I was. He looked...confused." Kristy brought her knees tight against her body, shivering now, and sick. Her tank top nearly transparent with sweat.

  "Confused? Was he...are you saying he was drunk? Had the flu? What?" Karen still paced, ignoring Jonny's smirking concern.

  Kristy rubbed her worsening eyes. "I don't know. I don't think he was drunk; that wasn't drunk, what he did, it was more like a rabid animal. I asked him again what was wrong, if he was okay, and then he just ran at me, but it was an awkward run, like his body didn't want to, like his joints were gummed. He was slow and jittery, but he crossed the room quick regardless. He came at me." She looked up at her sister, her red-yellowed eyes tearing up, voicing cracking. "He came at me, Karen. I swear, he came at me, growling and drooling, clawing at me. I didn't know what to do, so I ran. I shoved him away and when he fell he grabbed me. And he...scratched me."

  Karen turned back to look at her father. Frowning. Breathing in the heavy air. "Are you saying dad attacked you? That doesn't make sense."

  "I know it doesn't," Kristy squeaked, her voice still shrill. "But he did and I panicked. It was just a scratch, but it hurt bad. I grabbed that dumb baseball bat he loved so much, the one that's signed by Bill Bethea, the one he would never let any of us touch when we were kids, I took it off the wall, I don't know why...I was scared, I swear Karen, I was scared to death. I took it and warned him to stay away, but he didn't. It was like, he didn't even care I had the bat, he didn't care that someone was touching his prized baseball bat."

  Still looking down at her father, Karen could see in her mind how the rest played out. Their father had chased Kristy out of his office and down the hall to the stairs. She must have turned to face him and he had come at her. She would have swung the bat, crushing the top of his skull, sending him tumbling down the steps. She could see what happened. It just didn't make sense. She glanced between her father and Jonny and back to her father and back to Jonny. "Why?" she whispered.

  Jonny shrugged.

  Kristy started crying. "I'm so sorry, Karen. I am so sorry. I didn't want to, I didn't. He came after me, I didn't want to hurt Daddy. But he was crazy. He wouldn't listen to me. I didn't know what to do." After this, nothing she said was intelligible, just a sobbing, muttering mix of woe and apology.

  Karen couldn't resist any long, her anger and rage melted away by the sight of her baby sister suffering from such an ordeal. She went to her, kneeling and cradling her in her arms. Hugging her, she told her everything was going to be okay, even though she herself wasn't quite sure. She pulled her tighter and then realized how hot her skin was.

  "Kristy, you're burning up! Are you feeling okay?" Karen pulled away, keeping her hands on he
r sister's shoulder. Looking at her; really looking at her.

  Shivering harder now, Kristy blinked, her gaze unfocused again. "I don't think so. I think I'm--" she pushed away from Karen and hitched, retching on the floor, gagging again, but nothing came from her stomach, just putrid smelling bile, until she sat back against the wall again, letting her sister guide her, wiping her mouth, "--sick."

  Walter

  Washington D.C.

  West Wing.

  Walter Friendly already knew what was waiting for him on the other side of the press room door. Even before he had heard the buzz of nervous excitement, anxiety, and worst of all, dissent coming from the eagerly waiting reporters wanting nothing more than to take a giant-sized bite out of his ass. At this point, he wasn't even sure why they were holding a live press briefing. The message could have been sent via phone call or email or Tweet for crying out loud. But it had been pressed upon him by the President's Chief of Staff to send a clear and concise message.

  "Wouldn't that message sound better if it came from the President himself, or Press Secretary Godward?" Friendly had asked.

  "Just read what we gave you."

  "What's going on, Mike?"

  "Walter..."

  "Jesus, is he sick."

  Silence.

  "This is real, isn't it? It's an epidemic?"

  More silence.

  And with that, Walter had his answer.

  He glared at the press room door, feeling that pinch behind his eyes again. Reaching into his blazer coat pocket, Walter pulled out two Meclizine tablets and chewed them. He swallowed hard, wishing he had a glass of water to wash down the sour taste. It was strange standing in the small cramped room by himself. Normally there were aides running memos back and forth and cosmetic ladies readied to give aged politicians a light dusting. There'd be none of that today. The entire West Wing seemed damn near deserted. Countless out sick calls, and countless more unreported.

  Jesus...what is going on?

  In all our years that we've known each other, I've never seen Mike so cold.

  There was more going on.

  More to this he wasn't, or couldn't, say.

  But what exactly that was, Deputy Press Secretary Walter Friendly, just as every other American waking up to hear rumor upon rumor and broadcast upon broadcast stretching from South Korea, through Europe, and the United States of some "Super Flu," had only the media news to go on. And now he was about to go in there and tell them they are all wrong. That rumors that the President was sick was a lie. That the epidemic, not that they were confirming it, was under control. That the CDC has everything under control.

  Did they?

  He hoped so.

  Walter took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. He stepped toward the press room door and stopped. He turned to the door behind him, the one that led to the West Wing offices.

  What was that?

  He angled his head slightly, listening.

  Sounded like a gun report...

  No. No. Look at you, Walt. You're getting yourself all worked up.

  You have a job to do. Just go out there and get it over with.

  He stepped through the press room door in a flood and furry of camera flashes and rolling conversations about the end of the world. Most of those ceased when he came out, but he'd caught enough to gauge that he probably shouldn't take any questions. Unless he was prepared to give them answers. Which he wasn't.

  At the podium, he exhaled, trying to avoid the glare of the spot lights.

  "Good morning," he started. "I have a statement the Executive Office would like to address. There will be no questions taken after the conclusion."

  Eye rolls and smirks among the press corps.

  He rumpled the papers in his hand, already damping with sweat from his fingers, smudging the ink.

  "To answer rumors going around, the President and his administration have been working very closely with CDC and Health service officials and State Governors." Walter cleared his throat. "I'm only going to say this once, so listen up people. There is no epidemic. There is what we understand to be nothing more than a flu, and it is treatable. The Department of Homeland Security will be providing information on where you can go to be treated if you or your loved one is sick. These clinics are being outfitted by the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services, with vaccines. The Secretary of Health and the President urge their fellow Americans not to panic. Help will be provided."

  Walter exhaled and turned to leave. "Thank you," he said, wanting nothing more than to be away from the bright lights and flashes of cameras and dozens of steely- eyed dissenters.

  Shouts from the pit erupted.

  Walter stopped, more out of reflex against the sudden surge of shouting than wanting to answer the barrage of questions being fired at him. He noticed Sarah Evan from Fox News and gestured toward her. At least she ought to have some common sense. Some loyalty for the President and his administration.

  "Yes? Go ahead."

  "Deputy Press Secretary Friendly, Sarah Evan reporting for Fox News. These so-called rumors, as you called them, seem to be more than just rumors. There are reports coming in from across the nation, especially those having to do with looting and riots. What does the President plan to do regarding the reported violence that has occurred near or around these medical stations set up by the CDC?"

  Walter took a step back to the podium. "The rumors I mentioned were about wide spread panic, which is simply not the case. Unfortunately, there are those who are willing to take advantage. As I have been briefed, the President is working closely with Homeland Security and local state officials to control the spread of looting and acts of wanton violence."

  Another body stood up in the crowd of jeering, eager reporters.

  "Deputy Friendly, Joe Peters reporting for NBC World News. According to our sources, this isn't just a national epidemic. Reports are coming in from London and Paris and even far away as Seoul. What are the administration's plans on dealing with our allies?" Joe, a short-squared man dressed in a smart- looking tweed jacket and olive colored slacks, held his pen at the ready, with a somewhat smug grin Walter noted, waiting for him to answer his question.

  Walter glanced around. Dozens of reporters stared at him, waiting. He cleared his throat. "At this time, such reports have not been verified with--"

  "Have not been verified? What are you--"

  "Excuse me, Mr. Peters, perhaps you should let me finish."

  "Is there no comment regarding aiding American allies?"

  "Perhaps at this time it would be best for America to worry about American interests."

  "And just what are American interests, Deputy? And if this is not an epidemic, why is the President unwilling to collaborate with foreign nations to figure out what exactly is causing these global and widespread riots?"

  Walter bit his tongue. This was exactly why he didn't want to field questions. This constant dissent and banter from the news media. "I believe I have answered your question. Next?" He refused to let things end with the likes of Joe Peters.

  "Deputy Friendly, Jason Kelly with CNN." A man in a pinstriped suit stood up in front of Joe Peters, his black hair slicked back. Thick framed glasses precariously teetered on the edge of his nose. "You mentioned a moment ago that the President was working closely with local authorities. Some of these reports or rumors as you called them are reporting that some of these medical centers set up by the CDC and Health Department are being overrun."

  Walter rolled his eyes very obviously. "I'm not hearing a question, Mr. CNN."

  "Is the President considering the use of the National Guard?"

  Walter pushed back from the podium. "What?"

  "Has Martial Law been declared?"

  More clicks and whorls of camera flashes. Yet, oddly silent otherwise.

  "As I said before," Walter started. "There is no epidemic. This has been trumped up by the liberal media and nothing more than--"

  Sneers and grumbling erupted from t
he crowd of reporters.

  Jason Kelly pressed on, "Sir, there has to be more going on, why hasn't the President--"

  "FAKE NEWS!" Deputy Press Secretary Walter Friendly shouted. "That's all you are. Fake news." He could feel the veins on his temple and forehead bulge. There was little doubt his face was beet red. His image on screen wouldn't look good. The President's Chief of Staff would be disappointed. He was blowing it after all. Rule number one was to never give in, never be baited, never overreact. But he couldn't help it. He didn't have all the answers, hell he didn't even have one answer to give. Still, he'd be damned if he was going to let these tabloid junkies have a free run at the candy store and bully him into saying something he or someone else in the administration would have to deny later.

  Camera flashes and smirks and even mocked expressions of shock surrounded him.

  "Sir," Joe continued undeterred, "is there some sort of cover up going on? Is there more the President isn't telling the citizens of the United States? And why haven't we heard from him? According to our sources, his Twitter feed has gone quiet for the past twelve hours. Is it true that the President is sick with whatever this epidemic is? Has the Executive Office been compromised?"

  Get out now, he told himself. End this before things gets out of control.

  Walter turned to leave, head downcast, feeling as if all he'd done was made things worse.

  A wave of shouts and more questions and more flashes followed him to the press room door. Reaching for the handle, he stopped as the door flung open.

  "What is this...? Floyd?" Walter took a step back, staring at Floyd Bennet, one of the secret service agents on the President's detail. His black suit was wrinkled. A white button up underneath his black blazer partially untucked, as if he had gotten into a struggle with someone. His usually perfectly combed and parted brown hair a mess. With reddened yellow eyes, he glared back at Walter.

  "Agent Bennet, is everything okay?" Walter offered, the dozens of dissenting reporters behind him momentarily forgotten.

  The sickly-looking agent stepped toward him.