Westport

by James Bierce

  "Jake...?

  The fact that he knows his name means nothing to Jake. After all, the man has already seen his wallet.

  "I know you're in here... There's nothing to be afraid of, I'm not going to hurt you." the man continues. "Listen, I'm gonna leave your door unlocked, come find me when you're ready..."

  With the flashlight still in his hand, more useful as a weapon than anything else right now, Jake comes out from behind the door and enters the room again — and sees a man only slightly older than himself standing next to the open door, wearing a white coat and green scrub pants.

  "Glad to see you've joined the land of the living." the man says with a warm smile on his face.

  "I assume you're a doctor...?"

  "A nurse, the only one on duty I'm afraid. My name is Mike Garrett, but you can just call me Mike."

  "Are there any other doctors or nurses?"

  "Nope, its just you and me."

  "What about Beth, my wife?"

  "Why don't you sit down and rest, you've had a rough go of it..."

  Jake clenches his flashlight more tightly in his hands, answering back with more assertion in his voice, bordering on hostility. "Where is my wife?"

  "She left the hospital with another man the day after you were injured. There were too many of the sick for me to get to her."

  "How long ago was that?"

  "Four days ago. I'm really sorry for all of this, I really am."

  The room starts to spin again as Jake processes everything, causing him to lose his balance and stumble just a bit. Mike steps forward and grabs his arm, helping him get back onto the bed.

  "You really should stay in bed another day or two. You had a pretty good concussion."

  "I appreciate the concern, but I have to get back to my wife. I can't leave her alone out there."

  "I already told you, she left with another man. Besides, the streets still aren't safe, even after the fires wiped most of them out."

  Jake closes his eyes and takes a minute to gather his thoughts. "Am I the only person you've come across?"

  "The only person not infected, yes."

  "Then you should come with me, get the hell out of this shit-hole."

  Mike looks out the window at the wreckage that used to be a city, then turns around and faces Jake again. "I can't leave. Believe it or not, this shit-hole is still my home, and if there's any chance at all that people actually survived the past couple of months, this will be the place they'll come to for help."

  Jake nods, thinking that the man is an idiot, but at least an idiot that means well.

  "Were you ever exposed to the illness?" Mike asks.

  "From the looks of everything, I can't help but think we all were."

  "Yeah, maybe so."

  Jake eases off of the bed again, then walks to the dresser and starts changing back into his old clothes. "Can I ask you a question?"

  "Sure."

  "Do you know what the first symptoms are?"

  "Early on we thought they were just similar to the flu or cold, but then we discovered a second type."

  "And what are its symptoms?"

  "Insanity, delusions, paranoia, just to name a few. I'm pretty sure those are the ones still walking around." He notices a strange look on Jake's face, as if his mind is somewhere else. "Are you okay?"

  Jake snaps out of it, then finishes putting his clothes and backpack on. "I'm just worried about my wife, that's all." He walks to the doorway, then turns around and shakes the Mike's hand. "Is there any chance I can get my gun and radio back?"

  "Sure, no problem. The radio is broken though. It must've happened when you were attacked."

  After taking a secured emergency stairway down to the ground floor, Jake manages to sneak his way past the few people still left in the main lobby and out onto the street in front of the hospital. Smoke is still billowing up from a few of the buildings in the area, but for the most part the only obstacles Jake faces as he makes his way down the hill are the sinkholes scattered across the paved roadways.

  The only place he can think of to find Beth is the barber shop where they hid Sean's cache of weapons. When he finally gets to the waterfront and enters the barber shop, he knows instantly that she isn't there. Sitting on the counter, in plain sight, is a piece of paper with his name on it. It tells him that Beth and Larry are both safe, and that they're making their way to a cabin near Cohasset with another group of survivors. Below that is a map detailing exactly where the cabin is located.

  Jake sits down on the floor, feeling a sense of dizziness and confusion come over him once again. This time was a bit different though, he could feel his mind beginning to slip away from him — and a deep, boiling rage that he was struggling to keep under the surface. He hadn't felt right since they'd reached Grays Harbor, but he told himself that it was only the severe stress that they'd all been living under that was to blame. With his hands shaking slightly, he raises the letter up into the air, and then takes a lighter out of his pocket and ignites a corner of it. He watches as the map vanishes, knowing that Beth's life will be safer without him knowing where she is.

  Once the letter has completely burned, and the strange mixture of chaos and numbness in his mind is still somewhat under control, he leaves the barber shop and walks out to the edge of the harbor, watching the sun as it sets over the town of Westport in the distance. Although its partially hidden behind a hazy layer of clouds, the brightness still causes a sharp pain in his eyes — as if he were being stabbed with a handful of needles. Little by little he can feel his sanity slipping away, and his life from before outbreak fading away into the back of his mind. The only thing he can concentrate on is getting to a cabin somewhere near the beach.

  He remembers vividly how to get there, and that its important that he does — but all of the other details have somehow vanished from his mind.

  As he begins walking toward the bridge, his thoughts now singularly focused — the madness begins filling his mind with grotesque images of death and mayhem, and two people that for whatever reason, he feels compelled to kill.