by W. A. R.
“George?” she tried again, deciding to go for another tactic, “Where is Regina, George?” she asked him. Her heart broke for him. He didn’t want to hurt her, she could plainly see that and so, she watched patiently as he studied her, no doubt seeing her own torn, blood and filth covered clothing. She saw the battle that raged in his mind about who she was, and whether or not he should trust her. He lowered his gun only slightly, but it eased Amber’s mind.
“How do you know Regina?” he asked, and Amber realized just how long it had been since the outbreak started. Well, not the exact length, but the fact that it had been months since it began. Amber suddenly felt weary and tired, and curious; she wondered how he had lasted so long, and at what cost. Amber herself had gone out immediately when the outbreak began, when it was broadcasted over the news, alongside a list of the appropriate measures that needed to be done should you encounter an ‘infected being’(as the newscasters had called it). Amber, along with two others, had directly gone and gathered any weapons they could find, some food, and some medicine long enough to ride out the first month or so. She did not achieve all of this without a price however; the price of surging blindly into an overpopulated town hell-bent on hysteria. It had cost her two fractured ribs and a broken nose…while it had cost the older man his life. That, however, was a story within itself, and something she preferred not to think about. She had known she would have to go back out, she and her brother both, and they had both been privy to the possibility of this type of apocalypse happening. Both she and her brother understood some of the scientific aspect of the parasite and it was because of this understanding that they were somewhat prepared mentally, and thus, they and their family survived the initial outbreak. Months later, however, they were treading new and dangerous territory as they ventured further out for what items they did need or would need in the future.
“I know Regina from the school…I know you from the school George.” Amber replied, watching him intently. The sudden stink of death rooted Amber to the floor. The smell was coming from George’s whereabouts. She leaned onto her toes and peeked over at the floor behind George. At least two dead bodies lie in the dim light, the flies buzzing around their bodies as if they belonged in that store instead of six feet under dirt and clay. Amber leaned back and felt herself gaze at the wounded, hysterical man in sadness. She effortlessly took a step around the shelf. “Oh no…”
He tightened his grip on the rifle, squeezing his eyes shut for only an instant before focusing his attention back on her. His hands began to trembled more so, if that were possible. “How do you know my name?!” he yelled at her, his voice catching with emotion. Amber gazed at him sadly.
“I’m going to put my gun up, okay?” Amber asked as she slowly brought the hand that held her gun behind her back and tucked it away in the waistband of her jeans. Then, just as slowly, she brought her hands back around, palms toward him and arms slightly in the air. In the significant amount of time she did this, she noticed that a few Biters had heard him yell, and were looking in through the glass. George never took his eyes from her, and Amber knew that he had not noticed them; he was simply not thinking clearly. She could assume why. “Is that Regina and Bobby behind you?” she asked him, and instantly saw pain flash across his faintly lit features. When he said nothing, she took another step towards him. This time, he did not yell, and he was no longer shaking in fear. “George?” Amber probed, taking yet another step towards him.
“How did you know Bobby?” he asked her, his voice breaking on a silent sob. Amber felt her heart break as she caught the past tense of his existence, while realizing his earlier present tense of Regina. While a bigger part of her was saddened, a small part still held hope for them. He lowered his gun a little more, and Amber watched the pain etched on his face.
“Oh George, I am so sorry.” She said softly, meaning every single word. He kept his green eyes trained on her, never moving a muscle. Glancing at the three Biters that had gathered at one of the windows, she began to explain. “I’m Amber McDermott, Cassandra’s mother from school. You and Regina were her teachers. We have had dinners at your house. Bobby…” she hesitated before continuing, “Bobby was in her class.”
After a moment of studious scrutiny on his end, realization lit upon his face and he immediately relaxed. He charged towards her, covering the few yards that stood between them in only three quick strides. His arms encircled her and his head came to rest on her shoulder. He squeezed around her torso tightly, so tight she almost could not breathe. Amber stood there awkwardly for a moment until she realized he was crying against her shoulder. She wondered how long it had been since he had contact with anyone, and what all they had been through to have reached that point. Sympathy got the best of her and she settled her arms easily across his back, letting him cry. She felt uncomfortable for a moment, uncertain how to react. Human contact with humans outside her family hadn’t happened since the outbreak, but what else could she have done? Aside from her family, George was the first outside person she had seen. She had no idea what had happened to him, or Regina and Bobby. She had no idea what she would do if she lost either of her children; perhaps all sense would leave her reckless and weak as well as it did George.
The sudden hollow, yet sharp sound of fists banging against glass caught their attention. They both turned to the window, which now had about five Biters wanting to get in, clawing at the glass. Amber was okay with it; she had parked her car on the back end of the store, where the loading dock was and walked to the front, avoiding any Biters in the proximity. During the day, they were not as active, and being in south Arkansas, Amber assumed it was because of the heat during the day, and the sweet, cool nights. She turned her attention back to George, who stood away from her now suddenly looking nervous.
“Where is Regina? And Bobby?” Amber asked, stepping past him to grab a few tools. She began stuffing them in her bag as she waited for an answer, although she understood by his body language and response that Bobby was gone. That in itself hurt her beyond reason; Bobby had been a wonderful kid. Regina…well, Amber had always had her reservations about the woman but what could she have said? George was her friend, she had known him for years; she simply never could have hurt him that way.
When she did not get an answer, she glanced up at him, seeing him aim the rifle at the plexi-glass window of Biters. Amber panicked at the sight, her heart jumping into her throat. She slowly lifted her hand, reaching over and gently placing her fingers on the barrel, applying light pressure for him to ease it down. He looked over at her curiously, letting her complete the action and she forced herself to calm down and level her breathing.
“They will just find a way in.” he said plainly, and Amber realized that his common sense seemed to have left him. Tears stained his cheeks amongst the blood and dirt. Amber shook her head as he rested the gun at his side. She knelt down to gather more tools.
“You shoot that glass, you have just rung the dinner bell and gave them an easy way to get it, and sorry George, but I refuse to be dinner.” Amber said before she buckled her now full bag. Glancing at him, she nodded toward a bag of sweet feed. “Grab a couple of those and follow me, then we should talk.” She said, deciding to use his help before discussing details. She reached down and grabbed one, throwing it over her shoulder, adjusting it to be easily maneuvered. She reached her other hand behind her, grabbing her pistol and led the way to the loading dock, stepping over the two bodies on her way, analyzing their appearance on her way past them, and she felt a wave of relief wash over her at realizing they were neither Regina or Bobby. She had not realized how much the thought weighed on her mind, and all in all, she was surprised at how well she was handling not only running into her first real person, but also the whole demise of the human population. If she were honest however, it ate at her and she was angry, bitter. She regretted things that she had had to do in order to survive, or to ease another’s suffering. And in those moments there was one person that stood out
to her and every single time she thought of him, her heart broke a little more.
Turning her attention to the long brick hallway that lay ahead of her, she shuddered, hoping he didn’t catch on to her apprehension at having located another living human being. She needed to shove all thoughts away and focus on the task at hand. At the very least, she knew they had to get out of that store to have a more relaxed conversation. It was weird, she thought, that they should be so awkward with one another; after all, they had once been good friends. She sighed once again; the world was a horrible place. It changed people. They silently moved through the back corridor, the sun filtering in through slits in the ceiling. The silence was deafening, and Amber began to get anxious.
“I parked in the loading dock. We can throw this stuff in the back and ease back in through the back door if we need to. Since you are here, you can hold it open. That is why I came around the front earlier; because it’s locked on the outside.” Amber whispered to him as they reached the door that was beside the rolling door of the loading dock. Slowly, she eased the door open, her pistol held firm in her steely grip. Glancing around the dock, and behind the door she did not see any Biters. The only ones she saw were too far off to cause any trouble. She quickly left the door, leaving George to hold it while she went to her car that sat parked about ten yards away. She opened the trunk and threw in her bag of sweet feed and her bag of tools before turning back towards the back door where George had set down the bags he had carried.
Amber reached for one of the two bags and saw how panicked his eyes were, and how nervousness radiated off of him. His eyes shifted from each Biter to the next. Hauling the bag to her car, she gave another good look around before turning to get the other. She knelt down to get it and paused before standing back up and looking him directly in the eye, knowing she had to help him find his family, but unsure of what to do whenever that had been accomplished. She knew she could not leave him there.
“Where is your family?...because if they are not here and are somewhere else, hopefully somewhere safe, then we should be going there to get them.” Amber told him. Anger and fear flashed across his eyes. Amber wasn’t surprised. There was no telling how long he had been hiding there in the feed store, or what he had been through. She knew he would be scared and confused and completely unsure of how a woman, a lone woman at that, was going to help him. She wasn’t even sure what she could do, but she knew she had to try.
“And take them where?” he spat out in a raised whisper. Amber heaved the bag over her shoulder and carried it to the trunk of her car. Closing it as quietly as she could, she turned back to him, resting her hand on the knife strapped to her thigh.
“We can discuss that later.” Amber said, looking around at the inquiring eyes that were looking at them from about a quarter of a mile away. They had to get out of there before they got any closer and alerted the ones at the front entrance. “But not here, not now. I am leaving before things get out of hand. Either get in the damn car or stay here. Your call.” She stated firmly, turning from him. She opened the driver’s side door, sliding in fluidly. She then closed her door and inserted the key into the ignition, starting the car. Glancing in her rearview mirror, she watched him as he fought with himself about what to do, especially now that she was sure that the Biters had heard her start her engine. His left hand was on the doorknob and she saw him take a small, fidgeting step back inside. Amber swore she could see the sweat on his brow before he grimaced and all but ran to the passenger’s side door of her car. Once he climbed in and placed his gun in the backseat before clicking his seatbelt in place, he sighed a breath of relief. Amber shifted the car into drive and took a right turn after leaving the loading dock. It was then she turned to George, who stared weakly at the road ahead of them.
“Now, this will be the last time I ask you, so I expect an answer. Where are Regina and Bobby?”
Chapter Two
Pseudacteon.
It is a parasite that infects ants mainly, among a few other insects. There are many parasites in the world, some of which are similar to Pseudacteon. Dicrocoelium dendriticum is a similar parasite by way of controlling its host without its host even realizing that anything was wrong. D. dendriticum needs cow feces to spread, meaning that the parasite must be consumed by a cow and be processed through its digestive tract to reproduce, ending and spreading through manure. An innocent ant will come across the parasite while searching for food and the parasite will infect the ant, attacking its brain. The innocent ant does not even realize it has been infected until that first night whenever it is cool and crisp. The D. dendriticum parasite will control the motor movements of the ant, along with any sensory perception, and force the ant to climb to the end of a tall blade of grass, where it will stand on its head, ass end in the air, waiting to be devoured by a cow. For those few lucky ones that survive until sunlight, the parasite will relinquish control and allow the ant to go about its day to day routine until it is nighttime again, when it will resume its position on a blade of grass.
Pseudacteon is similar to this, in the respect of the amount of control that it maintains over its host, as well as the eventual death that is sure to occur to the host once the parasite accomplished what was needed. There are differences between the two, however. During a scientific experiment concerning the effects of Pseudacteon on its host, an ant was put within proximity of this parasite. Once infected, the ant had absolutely no control of itself; every movement and action restricted and decided without consent of the host. The ant strayed a bit far from the colony, seemingly lost. This behavior was followed by the parasite consuming the ant’s brain, leaving nothing there but the parasite itself and the eggs it had laid in the brain cavity. The ant was technically dead by then, when it wondered back to the colony. There, among other ants, the parasite finally relinquished its hold over the ant, allowing it to die while the Pseudacteon’s eggs hatched from the brain cavity where they had been, spreading to other ants in the colony. This parasite had wiped out an entire colony before a week was finished.
The parasite that had attacked the human race was different, yet similar to both of these parasites. Scientists called it Scisorieon, or some unfamiliar name that scientists used to identify things they were truly afraid of but had no control over. When the infection/parasite/complete obliteration of the human species began, Miles Preston had considered himself lucky. The event of an outbreak/apocalypse/complete obliteration of the human species had been thought of. There were television series, movies, and novels about just this scenario; an outbreak occurs, it spreads rapidly through biting and the inability to detach oneself emotionally, and only a few survive the initial outbreak. After that, the ones that did survive were picked off, one by one. In the real world, it had all began slowly, or, well, slowly in the respect that the human race had actually heard about the parasite before it overran everything. A handful of patients were admitted to hospitals with a high fever with no apparent cause for it. The news reports had shown the sweat that soaked their clothes and saturated their skin, their glassy eyes, sallow, lifeless skin. They had lasted all of twenty four hours whenever they died. Within fifteen minutes these patients were reanimated, the dead coming back to life, and their first and only order of business was to infect the living by devouring them. One can assume how it had gone after that.
One scientist that had been interviewed before things got out of control had taken one of the original bodies once it had been “taken care of”. By “taking care of” an infected, reanimated human, they meant that after a shot in the leg, the torso, and the chest, the brain must still be damaged before they die. After watching movies, playing games, you would think that the human race would have thought of the brain first, but you would be wrong. This scientist, Dr. Ruthersford, who had worked for the CDC begged for the first and second bodies of the infected, wishing to run some tests on it to determine what it was exactly that was spreading around. Dr. Ruthersford had gotten his wish before these beings overw
helmed cities and people. Some assumed it was Ebola, among various other diseases that the general public did not fully understand. Ruthersford thought differently. He was familiar with the process of parasites and how and why they functioned; he, at the very least, thought he did. He ran his tests, and saw that there was indeed a parasite in one of the victims’ brains. He assumed that it was spread by a bite, and that the hosts were always hungry for another pound of flesh. Sounds plausible, right? This was all he determined and submitted for review after an interview before everything went haywire. He was killed while opening the front door to his home by the very thing he was studying.
Miles had expected it, all of it. He had known that at some point, everything would come to a horrible end, and that he would still be around to fight the good fight. Every night he would lie on the roof of a house, and stare at the stars, and wonder how it had gotten so bad so quickly. Everything had moved so swiftly that it all seemed to blur together. From the first panicked newscast till the day he arrived at his son’s apartment in Colby, Louisiana to see if he had waited for Miles to come get him. He wasn’t there, and there had been signs of a struggle. Tables and chairs had been knocked over, and blood smeared the walls and floors of both the kitchen and the living room. Miles had seen all of this and realized that one of his two reasons for the very breath he breathed was gone and the second he had let go. And with that realization, he had fallen to his knees in his son’s overturned living room and cried his heart out. After a day and a half of self-pity, wallowing away in his son’s apartment, he swore he would do what he could to find his son’s body and end it. Michael didn’t deserve to be one of those things…and Miles planned to fix that. He had wondered around Michael’s place, going through his belongings, or what was left of his belongings after someone had taken his things, searching for some form of solace in this fresh hell he found himself in. Though he wanted to mourn and grieve until he couldn’t breathe, he knew he couldn’t. He had to be quick, and he made that happen by accepting that he would spend every day for the rest of his life grieving and suffering in his own personal perdition; he would destroy any semblance of the person he was before he lost his son. Miles was a level-headed man, and he knew that he could not go out and shoot every single Biter he came across; he knew he had to move forward, but in the process of moving forward, a part of him would keep searching for that once innocent face. But in the whole of things, however, he forced himself on a daily basis not to think of the loss.