The large man pushed free from the cooler and slowly got to his feet, throwing Wendy’s hair to the side. Yokes mixed with the blood coming out of his stomach and oozed to the floor in slow moving globs. Paul drew his Beretta and stared down the sights, taking a moment to get a good look at what they were up against. To say it was incredulous was an understatement. Could a bad batch of flu-shots really have done this to so many people? It was probably as likely as alien involvement and, at this point, nothing was off the table. Looking at this poor bastard now – with his blood-stained apron and peeling skin – anything was possible. He was clearly dead, but that didn’t stop him from sneering. Paul’s index finger hugged the trigger, thin eyes watching the man watch him back. It was like the butcher was daring him to pull the trigger, defying Paul with his very existence.
The butcher growled, barring bloody teeth nestled in blackened gums, and charged.
Paul inhaled a steadying breath, aiming at the man’s pissed off face. “Fuck you, asshole.”
Sophia screamed like hell, delaying Paul’s shot. He pivoted around to see a tall pharmacist in a shredded lab coat sink his teeth into Sophia’s shoulder. She threw her head back and screamed again, firing two shots into the ceiling. That’s when things went into slow motion. He yelled out her name and ran to her side, an invisible rug slipping out beneath his feet. Inches turned into miles, seconds into hours. He was nearly to Sophia’s rescue when the butcher tackled him into an end cap of hot chocolate and mini-marshmallows. Paul crashed to the floor, bags of marshmallows raining down on him as the butcher seized his ankle and pulled. Paul stretched for the gun he’d dropped in the collision but it was just out of reach. The heavyset man got to his knees and yanked, pulling Paul’s leg to his mouth. Paul kicked him in the face with his free foot. The butcher gave him a bloody grin and opened his mouth wider than humanely possible. But there was nothing human about this. Dan blew the thing’s head off with a round of buckshot, sending the butcher rolling sideways. Sophia squirmed under the pharmacist’s death grip with a loud scream. Paul reached his gun and took aim from his stomach, shooting the thin man in the leg from the floor. The pharmacist stumbled and loosened his grip. Paul raised his aim and fired, sending the tall man back flopping onto a table of cookies and cupcakes, bringing the colorful display crashing to the floor.
“Come on!” Paul yelled, taking Sophia in his arms and rushing her toward the front doors with her pink gun hanging loosely in her hand. “Back to the car!”
Wendy hesitated and then began pushing the cart, trying to keep up with Paul and Sophia with Dan providing cover and one wheel spinning uselessly in the air. A piece of pointy glass slit Paul’s forearm as they dashed out the shattered front door. He didn’t notice and gently eased Sophia into the back seat, blood soaking both of their new coats.
Dan popped the trunk and hurriedly helped Wendy dump the cart’s contents inside.
“The fuck are you doing?” Paul screamed at them from the backseat.
Sophia pulled her hand from her shoulder, eyes widening at all the blood.
“No, no, no!” Paul punched the cage with his fist, instantly regretting his panic.
Terror filled the glassy eyes staring back at him.
He struggled for composure. “You’re going to be fine,” he told her, chest palpitating with uneven breaths.
Dan slammed the trunk shut and hopped in behind the wheel as Wendy jumped into the passenger seat. He turned the key and punched the throaty engine, leaving swerving skid marks and white smoke behind.
“I’ll be alright!” Sophia insisted, her voice cracking. “It’s just a scratch.”
Wendy opened a first-aid kit and poured some peroxide onto some gauze before slipping it through the cage to Paul.
“Let’s get your coat off,” he said, carefully helping her peel back the red pleather jacket.
Paul’s stomach fell when he saw the bite mark with his own two eyes. He stared at the clear imprint of the pharmacist’s full set of teeth, the car spinning around him. Sophia shrieked through gritted teeth when the peroxide found the wound. They hadn’t seen anyone escape with just a bite yet, and had no way of knowing if it was infectious or not. Paul put pressure on the wound, slowing the bleeding and brushing his hand against his gun.
Just to make sure it was still there.
Chapter Nineteen
The farmhouse was nowhere near as old and drafty as the one in Iowa and wasn’t a farmhouse at all. This was a house in the country with The Jacobsen’s printed across a blue doormat out front. Inside, it smelled like candles and potpourri. Beneath a vaulted ceiling and fancy chandelier, a mint-colored sectional sat positioned to enjoy the fireplace, giant flat screen, and French doors leading to the covered pool out back. Paul laid his wife on the couch, soaking it with her blood. He sat down next to her and carefully peeled back the blood-soaked bandage. “Here, let’s change that,” he said, fighting a grimace when he saw the ring of teeth marks.
“I’m going to be okay, right baby?” she asked, hanging onto his leg like he might get up and leave her forever.
Sweat ran down his temples. He tried on a smile that didn’t fit. His heart thrashed against his ribcage. “Of course you are, hot-stuff. We sterilized it real good.”
“Why won’t it stop bleeding?”
“It will. We just have to keep some pressure on it.” He poured more peroxide onto the circular wound and Sophia set her jaw and squeezed his leg with a death grip. “Just try to hold still for me, okay?”
She nodded and let her eyes fall shut, exhaling like she just set down a heavy piece of furniture.
Paul held the fresh bandage against her shoulder and took a moment to survey their new surroundings filled with someone else’s stuff. His eyes locked on the French doors. Outside, darkness had settled in. Inside, Wendy stood behind him with a fist covering her mouth and panic brimming in her eyes.
Chapter Twenty
DAY TEN
Daylight slithered into the living room, slowly pulling back the curtain on the grim reality staring Paul in the face. He sat up in an orange armchair, heart sinking when he saw her in the morning light. He hadn’t slept a wink all night – at least he didn’t think he had – waiting for this very moment right here. A little time and daylight would tell him loads. Throughout the night, Sophia mumbled unintelligible things in her sleep while a vision of the pharmacist danced with the gruesome memories already living inside Paul’s head, spinning this way and that, one would lead and the other would follow. Raindrops beat against the roof and thunder rattled the windows. Paul pushed himself out of the chair and it felt like he was wading through warm tar as he crossed the room.
He sat down next to her and mopped sweat from her ashen forehead with a clean kitchen towel. At his touch, her dark eyelids cracked open. Shallow breaths made a raspy sound in her throat and this didn’t look fucking good. This wasn’t what Paul had been praying for all night long and he cursed inside his head. Shit!
“How are you feeling, babycakes?” he whispered, giving her some water.
She took a tiny sip and sighed. “Better.”
“You look better,” he lied right back.
She laughed and coughed up some pink fluid. Paul’s gut twisted into breathless knots and it took everything he had to keep his poker face from breaking like his heart. Sophia settled back into the sweat-stained pillow and took his hand, her skin cold and clammy. He bent over and kissed her on the forehead, uncaring if he got it or not. If she had it, he wanted it. She drew in a deep breath that Paul tricked himself into thinking sounded better. When she spoke, her words were low and distant. “You remember when you crank-called your mom that one morning, pretending to be a coworker named Mike?”
He smiled thinly, caressing her cheek. “Everyone has a coworker named Mike.”
Her brave smile melted his heart.
“She bought it too, like she recognized him,” she continued, filling her lungs with another wet sounding breath. “And then you tol
d her she looked nice that day and asked her out on a date.” Sophia laughed and coughed into her hand.
Paul’s gaze narrowed, catching her trying to hide the blood on her hand beneath the blanket. “Yeah, and the real Mike ended up getting fired for sexual harassment.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“No, but that would’ve been better radio.”
She closed her eyes, smiling faintly. “She was so mad.”
Paul brushed sweaty hair from her forehead, panic settling in. He was no doctor but this wasn’t good. She was burning up.
Her eyes opened again and found his worried gaze hovering above. “There you are.”
“I’m right here.” Their eyes met, a silent understanding passing between them. He stroked her cheek. “I’ll always be right here.”
She smiled and let her heavy eyelids drop. “Your mom and I are going to be just fine.”
Paul felt the hair on his arms go up. “What’s that?” he whispered.
Looking through slits, she pointed to the French doors. “She’s standing right there.”
He turned.
A shadow moved outside, spiking his adrenaline.
Paul rushed across the room and drew his gun, whipping the door back and letting in the rain. A bird took flight and water rippled across the pool cover. He looked around the deck and let out a deep breath, shutting and locking the door. “Now you’ve got me seeing things.”
When Sophia didn’t respond, he turned to find her asleep again. She looked so frail and Paul couldn’t stop his thoughts from running away with him. The infection was spreading throughout her body. He could see it in the purple veins set against her sickly skin. Suddenly, he felt someone watching him and turned to see Dan standing in the kitchen archway with a grave look seared into his face and a Glock clipped to his belt. Dan looked from Sophia to Paul before turning to rejoin Wendy in the massive kitchen.
☠
“I told you I’m not going anywhere!”
Paul jerked awake in the armchair across the room, nearly falling to the hardwood floor.
“I can’t find my purse!”
He sprang from the chair and rushed to Sophia’s side, stumbling over his shoes on the way.
“Just wait!”
“Hey, hey, hey,” he said, pushing wet hair from her face.
She shuddered beneath his touch, sweating like hell even though she was cold as ice. “No!”
“Sophia,” he said, shaking her arm.
“Paul!”
He shook harder, heart stampeding like a herd of wild horses. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed since this morning but she looked worse.
Thinner.
Smaller.
She stirred a little, incoherently babbling words in a rash of run-on sentences, eyes rapidly moving beneath her closed lids. Then she stilled. Her wet breaths stopped and Paul’s hope plummeted off a cliff.
He shook her with both hands. “Sophia?”
No response.
“Sophia!”
This couldn’t be happening! Without her he couldn’t go on. Wouldn’t go on.
She sucked in a loud breath and opened her eyes, a faint smile pulling at her dried lips when she found him sitting next to her. “Where am I?”
“You’re safe, baby,” he told her, catching a whiff of something unpleasant. They’d tried helping her to the bathroom but she screamed as if she were made of glass. “Here, drink this.”
She sipped the bottled water and started choking.
“Go easy.”
She pushed it away. “I had a dream we were getting on a train and I couldn’t find my purse. Then you were gone too.”
He smiled and it was the hardest thing he ever had to do in his entire life. “You’re not going anywhere without me, or your purse.”
She smiled back, gums darkening around her teeth. “Good.”
“Are you feeling any better?”
A soft nod was all she could muster before shutting her eyes and falling back into a deep slumber as calm as a morning lake. Tears fell from Paul’s eyes onto the blanket he pulled up to her chin. He could still fix this. There was still time. After awhile, he quietly traipsed back to his chair and watched her sleep, thunder booming inside his head. He could fix this.
Chapter Twenty-One
Wendy fed Sophia tomato soup heated up on the camping stove they’d taken from the previous house. Sophia hadn’t kept a thing down since the attack and, whether she liked it or not, it was time to try again. Paul and Dan watched as Wendy slipped the spoon through Sophia’s partially opened lips and pulled it out clean. Paul listened to her swallow, insides tightening. She licked her lips and opened her mouth for more, lifting his spirits until she leaned over and threw up in a bucket Dan found out in the garage. Paul released the breath he’d been holding, lowering his broad shoulders.
She couldn’t keep anything down.
His mind raced.
Here’s the writing.
Here’s the wall.
“Come on, try a little more for me,” Wendy urged, bringing up another spoonful.
Sophia pressed her lips together and shook her head. “I can’t,” she panted, groaning as another bolt of pain shot through her.
“It’s okay,” Paul said softly. “Take a break and try to get some more rest.”
Wendy gave her a warm smile. “I brought in some books in case you feel like reading something,” she said, patting a small stack on the coffee table.
Sophia nodded and grabbed Wendy’s wrist. “I want you to have my gun,” she said weakly, as if she were asking Wendy to take care of her only child after she died.
Paul’s heart wrenched with sorrow. He opened his mouth to protest such a ridiculous notion but Wendy beat him to it.
“You just hang on to that cute little gun, girly, because you’re going to need it in no time.”
Sophia tightened her grip, dissolving Wendy’s comforting smile. “I need you to take that gun and have my husband’s back. Dan too.”
Wendy glanced at the pink gun and holster lying next to the books. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.
“Promise me,” Sophia whispered.
Wendy patted her hand. “I promise, sweetie.”
Paul rubbed his face and paced the room. This wasn’t happening. At this rate, none of them stood a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving this plague and he could give three shits. It was over already.
Game.
Set.
Match.
He tried imagining a life without her and doubled over in pain as she fell back to sleep. White spots speckled his vision like old film. It would be hard enough in the old world, but this? He felt a hand on his back.
“You okay, man?”
Paul slowly straightened up, avoiding Dan’s worried gaze. “I’m fine.”
Wendy rose from the couch and gave Paul a look he couldn’t read before taking the soup bowl back out into the kitchen with its granite countertops and useless stainless steel appliances. Dan hesitated before solemnly falling in line. Paul stared at his wife through blurry eyes, wondering how he could he have missed that damn pharmacist in the grocery store. Once again, it was his fault. The funniest part was, for a minute there, he actually believed they stood a chance. He laughed at the audacity of it. “Sonofabitch,” he whispered, swatting a tear away with his hand.
“Baby?” Sophia murmured.
“I’m right here,” he said, taking Wendy’s spot on the couch and grasping Sophia’s bony yellow hand. She was no longer sweating but she had a nose bleed that would not fucking stop.
“Do I look that bad?”
“You look great.”
“Get me a mirror then.”
“You’re going to be back on your feet in no time but you need to eat something.”
“I’m not hungry.”
He cleaned her face with a wet towel. “You have to keep trying.”
“Paul, I’m really scared.”
“Don’t b
e,” he told her, fighting the tears building behind his eyes. He wouldn’t let her see him cry if it killed him. “I’m right here and we’re in no hurry. It’s just a scratch.”
“I don’t want to die.”
“Listen to me, you are not going to die,” he said, stroking her matted hair. “You are going to be boogie-boarding on the beach very soon. You just need another day or two of rest.” He glanced at the hand running through her long locks and tried not to scream when he saw all of the loose hair sticking to his fingers. He slid his hand to the couch and leaned on it so she couldn’t see. If she knew she was losing her hair…
“I can’t wait to go swimming.”
The weakness in her voice tugged at Paul’s heart, threatening to destroy his confident façade. But he needed to be strong for her and bit his tongue until the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. The pain would keep him grounded, at least for another minute or two until he could go into the garage and fall to his knees and cry in private. Rebecca flashed through his mind and guilt ripped him from belly to sternum.
“Get some rest and we’ll try some more food later, okay?”
She nodded, taking comfort in his words, and drifted back off to sleep again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
ONE DAY BEFORE OUTBREAK
The bar music was blaring and Paul couldn’t stop thinking about the night before. He could still feel Rebecca’s lips on his, her warm hand in his lap. Sophia would be home tomorrow from the Twin Cities and he was certain he would never be able to look her in the eyes again. There was only one way to do that and that was through the truth. He would tell her everything. But first he would test the waters on Dan. He tipped his beer back, spacing out on a basketball game on TV. If Dan thought it was a bad idea, which he would, Paul didn’t think he could hide last night for long. Didn’t think he could live with himself, let alone with Sophia. She didn’t deserve that.
A Little More Dead Page 11