“How you came to be doesn’t say anything about who you’re going to be. In my book, you can’t even compare the two of you. And besides, he doesn’t have everything,” she says in a defiant tone. “He doesn’t have me.”
Jess stands up and holds out her hands for me. I grab hold and she helps lift me back to my feet. She offers me a slight nod and walks away.
Because of the strength behind her words, I leave the room. I refuse to acknowledge the dead bodies of my closest family members and stare pointedly away from the recent destruction, breathing in through my mouth.
I don’t see where Jess went so I go outside to find my brother. He’s digging in the garden behind the cabin. The calm lake is the complete opposite of the emotional turmoil I’m feeling. I walk up to Dominic. When he notices I’m watching him, he glares at me.
“Nice to see you are functional again, Joe. Cry enough?” Dominic laughs at his joke. “Come make yourself useful and dig for me. At least try to be helpful. I have been doing this since you had your breakdown. Hopefully, you can manage a few minutes.”
I crawl down into the sizable hole and after a couple minutes of silence, I ask him, “How are you doing?”
“I am not as weak as you. I can handle myself,” Dominic says. He’s lying down on the ground enjoying the sun on his face. “In the long run, this will be good for me. Think about it, now I do not have to worry about Mother anymore. She just was not meant for this life, kind of like you. And she will not be sticking up for you anymore. Our whole lives she has been protecting her poor, average son and spending her energy celebrating mediocrity. She never got to appreciate the excellence of the son she already had.”
I pause digging in disbelief. “How can you say that right now? Our grandparents and mother are…” I exhale air as the pain punches me in the gut. “They’re dead.” Tears threaten again at this admission.
“There is nothing we can do to change what happened, Joe. We need to look forward and understand what is going on.” He looks around hopelessly at all of the nature that surrounds us. “I wish I had a laboratory to run some tests on their bodies.”
The disgust at this enthusiasm temporarily overshadows my haunting pain. “For once, don’t let your logic overrule your emotion,” I beg.
His eyebrows furrow in confusion. “I am being rational and not letting emotion cloud my judgment, unlike you.” I shake my head and continue digging the mass grave. Dominic takes a long gulp of water and continues. “Plus, Jess saw how truly pathetic you are. Her attention will cease to focus on you and will find its way to the genetically pure. How could she not be drawn to me? I am the complete opposite of the pathetic excuse for a man that you are. You are weak, unintelligent, just pitiful… ”
I’ve never laid a hand on my brother. I’ve always taken every blow, both physical and verbal, my brother has ever given me. I always thought that was my fate—that it was my punishment for simply existing and causing my family to suffer and put up with an Unplanned.
I don’t know if it’s the death of my mother, Jess’s confidence in me, or some combination of everything. No matter the reasons, I don’t have anything left to lose. I no longer accept this as my reality.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I drop the shovel and crawl out of the hole. I interrupt his seemingly infinite list of all my faults.
“Well, you’re a little shit,” I say. I punch my brother in the nose and hear a satisfying crunch as it breaks. “I’d be better off without you. I’m so much more than you think I am.” I stand up to get my full height.
His hands fumble at his nose in an attempt to stop the bleeding. His eyes widen in disbelief. I stand up and spot Jess in the trees, expressionless.
I walk back toward the house and when I glance back over at my brother, there is complete hatred in his eyes. This is far from being over, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. I opened Pandora’s Box and I need to accept the consequences of it. For the first time in my life, I stood up for myself.
I go back inside to the kitchen and exhale in disgust at the smell. It looks as if someone has tried to clean up but hasn’t been completely successful. The bodies have been moved, but there are still signs of death with blood smeared across the walls.
Fresh pain threatens to break me again. I turn and walk out the front door. I take a deep breath of the fresher air and try to calm my emotions. With nothing else to do, I walk over to our vehicle and grab our remaining packets of food. I sit down and lean back against one of the tires. My head drops and I stare at my hands. What am I supposed to do now?
Footsteps gradually get louder and closer to me. I reluctantly raise my head and am surprised to see Jess instead of Dominic. She looks at me with an expression that I don’t understand. Wordlessly, she takes one of the smaller packets of food from the bag and sits down next to me.
We eat our meals in a comfortable silence. The sun continues to lower and with it, the slight chill of the spring breeze reaches us.
Once she’s done eating, Jess says, “I moved the bodies outside. We should bury them in the morning. It will help provide some closure.”
“I was helping Dominic dig the hole before. . .” I trail off. I’m still in slight shock that I actually hit my brother.
She interrupts my thoughts by saying, “Last I saw of him, he was still digging. You might want to give him a little time to cool off. He looked pretty upset.”
“I was thinking about looking through the basement. My grandparents have a lot of old pictures and various items from our childhood. I’d like to look at them again,” I say.
“That’ll be good for you,” she says, “I’m going to go explore before it gets too dark.”
I nod, even though she isn’t looking at me. “Be careful.”
“Of course,” she replies. Despite the recent horrors, being with her gives me a little hope and makes me think that maybe, just maybe, things will be okay.
She walks out, away from the boathouse and lake. I slowly make my way to the front door. The vision of our last entrance into the cabin echoes through my mind and I’m almost surprised when I step inside and my mother isn’t ahead of us. The smell has diminished but still hints at the recent death that the cabin held witness to.
I walk through the living room to the stairs for their basement. I turn on the light switch. Dust covers almost every surface down here. I scan the room and walk toward the boxes in the back corner.
I open the first one and look through all of the items. Some are more interesting than others. I quickly lose track of time, entranced by the memorabilia of my youth. Down here with all of our memories, my mother and grandparents are still alive. I fiercely hold onto that belief. They can still be with me.
I find an old picture of my mother holding me when I was probably a year old. I’m asleep in her arms and she looks at me with a small smile on her mouth. I carefully place a finger on the picture in a desperate attempt to connect.
A sneeze erupts from the other side of the room and I jump. I look up to find Jess watching me from the bottom of the stairs. She’s recently showered and changed into clean clothes. She must have found my mother’s old room. Her wet hair is darkening her pale shirt.
“How long have you been there?” I’m a little self-conscious.
Instead of answering, she walks up and holds out her hand. I give her the photograph. While she examines the photograph, I sneak a glance at her. With the water weighing it down, her hair is longer, cascading down her back. Clean of the dirt smudges, her freckles stand out a lot more. Her sharp features furrow as she looks at the image.
She very quietly says, “This is a precious picture. You’re very lucky to have it.” She hands it back to me and her fingers linger. “I came down to talk about our plans, but you looked so peaceful I couldn’t disrupt you.”
“I still can’t believe everything that has happened.” I shake my head at all that has changed in the last day.
She laughs humorously but I can tell s
omething is troubling her. Before I can question her, she walks out of the room. She’s back at the bottom of the basement stairs and pauses for a moment, looks back at me, then goes up the stairs.
After she leaves, I continue to go through the boxes in search of anything meaningful. It comforts me that the memories are at least still alive with me.
I start looking through another box when there’s a sharp pain in my head and everything goes black. As I fade into unconsciousness, I hear my brother’s voice declaring, “If you do not need me anymore, then I am gone.”
Chapter Nine
“Elliot…Elliot…wake up…” I can’t tell who the voice belongs to. It seems so far away and my eyelids are unbelievably heavy. I just want to escape back to the darkness.
“Elliot, it’s time. Focus. It’s me, Jess.” Of course. How could I forget her voice? Very slowly, I creak open my eyes. Concern sketches across her face. Quickly, relief flashes through and she smiles faintly.
“What happened?” I frown in confusion as my head pounds.
“After I left earlier, I went outside for a walk. When I got back, I came down here and found you like this. It looks like Dominic came down and got some revenge for the little stunt you pulled earlier.”
I blink to try and see clearer. Her face blurs in and out of focus. I close my eyes again. “Where is he?” I ask.
“He must have left. His backpack is gone, along with most of the food and the vehicle.” She pauses briefly. “He also buried the bodies.”
There’s a fresh stab of pain at the mention of their deaths. I take a deep breath and lick my lips.
“He went back,” I say, opening my eyes again. “After all of the trouble he took to get us out of there, he went back to Potentia.” I shake my head in disbelief. The motion causes physical pain in my head.
“The vehicle is only programmed for that journey?” Jess asks in understanding. I confirm her speculation and she raises her eyebrows in thought.
I try to sit up but get very dizzy the moment I move. She places her hands on my chest to keep me down and I let her. I reach behind my head and discover that the hair is crusty with blood. It surrounds a large bump. I touch it to test if it hurts. It does.
I moan and Jess takes my hand away from my injury and holds it in her lap. She lets me drift back into sleep.
I wake up with a severe headache. I’ve been moved back to a bed. There is no sunlight coming through the windows so it must be the middle of the night. Very quiet, light snoring comes from next to me. With a jolt, I turn to see Jess is in the bed with me. Careful not to wake her, I shift.
When she’s sleeping, her defenses are down and she looks younger. She can’t be much older than I am. She looks so much more relaxed. Watching her now, it’s very easy to forget all that has recently happened.
I lay there for a while wondering about her life and how she came to be the way she is. Where is she from? She mentioned she had a brother, but what happened to him? Why was she wandering the streets alone? With questions about her past on my mind, I fall back into an uneasy sleep full of worry for the future.
I wake up again before Jess. I have vague memories of her waking me up a couple times in the night, but they’re unclear. I manage to crawl my way out of the bed without disrupting her sleep. I find some medicine in the bathroom for my headache. After I take it, I go into the kitchen and worry about the diminishing amount of food. Dominic took a good deal of supplies when he left. The food that’s left won’t last us more than a couple days.
When I turn around from the pantry, my mother stands in the corner. I gasp, then realize it’s just a coat stand. I take a deep breath to let my heart slow down. The next person I see isn’t of my imagination, but Jess. She sits down at the table. We eat our breakfast without talking.
Once we both finish our meal, I rub my hands together and tentatively ask, “So…How did you sleep last night?”
She gives me a sharp look and answers the question I was really asking. “I didn’t want to leave you alone. You’re not supposed to let someone who has a concussion sleep for too long. I didn’t want to have to change rooms constantly so I just stayed in there,” she says and shrugs. She makes it seem like it’s no big deal.
“I thought you were waking me up throughout the night,” I say.
Jess smiles a little. “You were a bit groggy, that’s for sure.”
My hand travels back to my head to carefully examine it. There is still a bump, but it’s smaller than it was the day before. It’s still very tender.
I look out the large windows surrounding the table to enjoy the landscape. My best times growing up were always here in the cabin with my grandparents and Chris and Andrew across the small lake. Whether it be the quiet, relaxing fishing or even the silly games we used to all play, the lake has always been a source of happiness for me.
Now those memories are no longer a possible future. My mother and both of my grandparents are gone. As much as I want to deny it happened, they’re dead. I need to face it. I push down a fresh pulse of worry as I don’t know the fate of my two best friends.
“I’m ready to talk about what happened, Jess,” I say. She looks confused. “I want to know what’s going on. What exactly happened with my mother and grandparents?”
She nods. “I’m not sure exactly what’s going on. I’ll share what I know.” She pauses to collect her thoughts. “I have no idea what started it or why, but there is some affliction that appears to eliminate entirely who the person was and replace it with something that’s violent and only focused on attacking people. It seems to spread through biting. I don’t know what about the bite is the actual factor in the next person changing, but I would assume it has something to do with the bodily fluids.”
“That’s disgusting,” I say.
“Like I said, I’m not entirely sure, but these are just my guesses,” Jess says again. “Think about what I did right after your mother was attacked.”
It isn’t something I want to dwell on, but I concentrate because I understand the importance of learning more about these things. This might be our new world.
I respond, “You stabbed my grandmother in the head.” I pause for a moment. “But then you did it to my mother, too. Why did you do that?”
“I don’t know if it’s through the blood, saliva, or something else, but when a person is bitten by someone that’s infected they turn into one of them. The only way I know how to stop them is by stabbing them in the head. I learned the hard way about how to kill them.”
I can tell she’s lost in thought, but I need answers. “If that’s true, how come my grandparents weren’t my grandparents? We haven’t seen anybody else around. How did the infection find its way here? This place is pretty isolated.”
She grabs onto one of my hands and says, “While you were helping Dominic with the graves, I examined their bodies. I think your grandfather had been gone longer, based on the look of him.”
“The look of him? What do you mean?”
She shifts uncomfortably. “His skin was greyer and more saggy if that makes any sense. You remember how bad it smelled when we walked in here, right?”
I crinkle my nose at the memory. It was awful.
I nod and she continues, “My guess would be that when someone is bitten and transforms, their body starts to decay. That’s why he looked worse off and it smelled so bad. But your grandfather did have a bite mark on his lower left leg. Your grandmother had a bite mark on her right arm. I can’t give you answers to how they got bitten, but I know they were. I’m really sorry, Elliot. That’s really all I know. Or think I know.” She gives my hand a reassuring squeeze and stands to clean up after both of us.
I follow her back into the kitchen and she continues. “We’ve been locking up the house, but I don’t know how secure that can be. I’ve been basing our safety off of an assumption we would wake up if they tried to get inside.”
At this thought, I consider how safe the house is and how much I’m wil
ling to risk on this theory. My eyes drift to the large, vulnerable window by the table. Beyond it, the sight of the lake sparks an idea.
“Jess, would you like to go fishing with me?”
Clearly startled, she looks up at me with frightened eyes. “Fishing? As in going on a boat in the middle of the water?”
I suppress my amusement. “Fish can actually taste pretty good and the water is relaxing. It’ll be fun.” When she continues to stare at me in reluctance, I say, “My grandfather taught me how to do it.”
“Don’t you think we should focus on more important things?”
“Having food is important. Plus, we don’t need to decide right now if the house is secure,” I say. What I don’t tell her is how much I want to escape from the cabin and my thoughts. The idea of mindlessly fishing is very attractive.
Jess looks out the window and contemplates the lake. “I’ll go just to make sure if you fall in, I get to see it,” she says.
“Besides, maybe my friends and their younger sister will still be here. Andrew and Chris are about my age. Whenever we would come to visit I would spend a lot of time with them.”
“What if they’ve changed into those things, too? You should prepare yourself for that possibility.” She analyzes my expression.
“What if they haven’t?” I say after a moment’s pause.
I move our dishes over to the sink. I motion for her to follow me as I make my way toward the garage. Fishing was my special bond with my grandfather. It was one of the few things I was better at than Dominic.
The warm rays of the sun hit my skin when we step outside. It’s such a beautiful day. The spring was always my mother’s favorite time of the year. This is the type of day she would have really enjoyed. She’ll never again get to enjoy such a day. I shake my head to dispel the thought.
I pause in confusion when we walk into the garage. My grandfather’s small boat is missing, along with some of his supplies. I turn a baffled expression to Jess.
Specious Page 7