by Olivia Marie
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
I nodded in agreement with him, as Marissa and I hurried out of the room. The front door was in sight. We could make it. We had a chance. I felt Jake as he moved up beside me. I glanced up at him, thankful I was with someone I knew, when I heard Marissa scream out in pain as she fell to the floor.
“Marissa!” Jake rushed to her then stopped mid-move. “She’s infected,” he sighed.
I stepped over beside him, seeing the spot on Marissa’s leg where her skin was rotting away like an unseen creature was tearing it away.
“Go, Jake. Go!” the woman cried out as she held to her leg. “You know I’m contagious. Get away from me.”
“I can’t.”
I leaned down, taking Jake by his hand. “We have to. If we stay, we’re sick. No question. Let’s go, Jake.”
I saw the pain in his eyes but knew he would do the smart thing. He got to his feet and looked down at Marissa one last time. “Get into a room. Stay away from the others,” he instructed her as his grip tightened and he pulled me out into the parking lot.
CHAPTER FIVE
Jake
“Oh my god,” I mumbled. Driving away from the hospital and my friends was horrible. Seeing what was in our path outside the door was unbearable.
Not even fully out of the parking lot, the bodies that sprawled across the ground, half gone, rotten and spewing a thick white foam, covered almost all the black top. Most were facing the entrance to the ER and I knew they’d tried to make it inside but couldn’t. I tried not to think of what it would have been like inside if they would have made it. There were hundreds on the ground and at least that many inside. We wouldn’t have made it out of there without ending up like them.
But had we really made it out?
If what we thought was true – that it was airborne – we were already infected, and it was a matter of time before it took us out like it had the rest of the town.
Without knowing how far it had spread already, I wasn’t sure what direction to send us in. I knew we couldn’t stay there though. It wasn’t safe. I also knew it had spread to other places and by now, it could have spread around the world.
The joys of modern transportation. Get there as fast as you can. It was one thing that could destroy us all. By the time they knew it spread as quickly as it had, people who were exposed were on their way to wherever it was they were going, bringing that with them.
I turned to face Cammy as I made a right hand turn out of the parking lot. It was the way out of town and, smart or not, it was where I was heading. There wasn’t anything left for us here. Her family was gone and, even though she didn’t say it, I knew when my grandma sent her to me and didn’t come too, my family had it.
She’d grown up and I was seeing it for the first time. I knew she was scared, but she was fighting it off the best she could; I was proud of her for that.
“Jake,” she screamed, making me jump and jerk the wheel.
“What?”
“Look.”
I turned my head in the direction she pointed and fought back the vomit.
The woman who owned the grocery store, Jane, was laying on top of her dead husband. At first I hadn’t seen her move, but then her head popped up. In her mouth hung what was left of her husband’s eye and a chunk of his flesh. Blood ran down her chin, landing on the ground. Mixing in with the white foam they all excreted, a pink blob of seafoam-looking-mess circled his head. She swallowed it after chewing the eye in half and dove in for more.
Her skin dripped off her arms where the boils had opened. Raw meat and muscle were exposed, but instead of healthy tissue, it was turning a greyish brown. It looked like meat that had been sitting out too long. Not moldy yet, but definitely not safe to eat.
She bent down and grabbed another chunk of her husband. When she came up to tear it off him, I noticed she was eating her own arm. Because that area had been infected and was already opened up and rotting, it didn’t take much for her to break the part she wanted free from the rest of her.
The part I still hadn’t understood was why they couldn’t feel the pain of eating themselves. Did that virus dull the senses to the point they felt nothing? If that was the case, it didn’t make sense to me that they screamed out in pain still at that stage of the disease. It wasn’t until after they stopped the cannibalism that the screaming stopped. The virus still seemed to eat at their bodies making the skin, muscle, and fat look like meat that had done through a grinder. Charred black skin circled around the open wounds spreading as the virus spread.
“Can we go, please?” Cammy begged. I heard her fight back the tears and for a moment, I felt the need to protect her.
“Yes, we can go.”
“Jake, is that going to happen to us? If this is airborne, we already have it, right? How long before it kills us or turns us into that?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure. This happened so fast. Six days ago, we thought there was a spike in a flu bug. Five days ago, a memo was put out by the CDC. It doesn’t sound like they even know what it is or how to stop it. All we can do is keep fighting it and stay away from people who are infected.”
“That seems kinda lame.”
“I know, but it’s all I have right now. Marissa was fine a few hours ago and as far as I know, Matt never had it, and look at them. I’m not sure any of us stand a chance against this thing.”
“We have to.” She said it so soft I wasn’t sure it was meant for me to hear.
Not wanting to draw her attention to it, I kept my mouth shut as I watched a woman dragging herself across a driveway. Half her face had been consumed by the virus and the bone was all that was left. Her nose was nothing more than the empty cavity where the cartilage used to be. Patches of hair were ripped from her skull and in her left hand, she still carried strands of it.
The flesh on her fingers that was holding the long, brown locks of her hair peeled away from the bone like a carrot being used for garnish. Bone was exposed where the flesh and meat had been removed with the boils.
She stopped moving and looked at me. Our eyes locked, and I got ready to floor the car. I wasn’t sure how fast she could move; some seemed slower and others had accelerated speed. What I did know was I wasn’t putting Cammy in danger that she didn’t need to be in.
The woman didn’t move though. Instead, she began to rake her hands over her body tearing at the parts that were infected. She ran her hands over them again and again. Deep thick lines of crimson formed before the pus spilled out. She scraped at it with the hand missing the skin and when she had a nice glob of it, I watched in horror as she ate it. Smiling as it slid down her throat, I turned away when she went in for another handful.
“It smells out here,” Cammy said trying to cover her nose.
“I know. It was starting to get that way at the hospital too. You can try to breathe through your mouth. It might help a little. Hopefully, once we get farther out of town it won’t be so bad.”
“What if it’s worse? What if animals can get it too?”
She didn’t know about the cat, and I hadn’t had time to tell her after she was attacked and then I was. I had to shake my head to clear the sight of the poor thing choking on itself out of my mind.
“There was a cat at the hospital in the room I was in when you got there. He had it and was doing the same things the people are.”
“What about dogs? Can they get it?” As frantic as she sounded at the thought of it, I assumed she was worried about the shepherd she had.
“I don’t know. Until I found the cat, I didn’t know anything outside of us could get it. It has been the only one I have seen, so you know as much as I do.”
She let one stray tear fall before wiping her face, straightening up in the seat, and clearing her throat. She used to do the same thing when kids would pick on her when she was little. Cammy was tough as shit and I loved that about her.
Looking at her from the corner of my eye, I saw how grown up she ha
d become and was sad I never thought of her as more than the kid my nana watched. I was older than her, but only by five years. That was nothing now that we were adults. I felt like I had let her down and I wasn’t sure how to even protect her from this thing I didn’t even understand.
“Look out!” she screamed bringing my attention to what she was pointing at.
There was a body in the middle of the road, and I was lined up and going too fast to avoid it.
Thud.
The car ran over the corpse and dragged it along until it stopped.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
“Yes.” She was shaking but didn’t look hurt.
“Stay here,” I ordered her.
“Don’t go out there, and stop pointing your finger at me.” She swatted my hand to get it out of her face and I waved her off.
“I have to make sure it didn’t do damage to the car. I will be right back.”
“Jake,” I heard her say as I shut the door behind me.
Looking at the front of the car, there was a small dent on the fender from the body being hit and half of it flinging up. Blood splattered the grill and tires, but nothing looked damaged. Making sure my gloves were good, I grabbed on to the legs of the man and started to drag him from under the car. I slipped and fell backwards, landing hard when one of his legs came off in my hand.
I turned to the side and threw up as I let go of the leg. The virus had spread so far into him that parts were falling off at the bone.
I heard a noise behind me and when I looked up, I saw another man moving closer to where we were.
“Please help,” he begged as he limped closer. “Please.”
Even from as far away as he was, I could see the sores covering his body. Parts of his face were missing, leaving holes like swiss cheese, and a tooth flew out with his last call for help. Scrambling to get up, I ran back to the car. Opening the door to cries from Cammy to hurry, I shut and locked the door before putting the old Buick into drive and going.
As a doctor, it was hard to not help the man, but there was nothing I could do but try to save Cammy and myself.
CHAPTER SIX
Cammy
One of the best things about living in a small town was the countryside. It didn’t take long for Jake to leave the main streets, and the people littered on the asphalt, in exchange for more trees, gravel driveways, and less people. Less people meant less bodies. It meant less nightmare fuel. I wasn’t having to see people ripping at their own flesh everywhere I turned. For possibly an hour or so, I had been able to clear my vision of virus-stricken neighbors and random bystanders whose dripping flesh I would never forget.
“This place is just a shithole, Jake. Do you think the CDC or the government has a safe space anywhere? Surely, there’s something, right?”
I could tell by the look on his face he didn’t hold out much hope when it came to what I was asking. Honestly, I hadn’t either, but anything had been worth a shot at the time.
“It looks as if the power is still on,” he commented, sounded intrigued by the information as we passed a farmhouse. An open garage, vacant of any vehicles, still had an overhead light on as if the owners forgot about it in their rush to leave.
“Do you think that place may be abandoned? If it is, maybe we could hole up in there?”
I saw the look of concern on his face. I totally understood it too. Even if the people were gone from the house, if any of them had been infected, the house would be basically contaminated. Still, we hadn’t started sporting the pus riddled sores yet. Jake was constantly checking me for a fever, and neither of us had taken the notion to eat ourselves, so what could it hurt?
“A bit of rest may not be a bad thing. We have the supplies you and Marissa packed. We can slip on two of the hazmat suits.”
I looked at him and shook my head. “You can, Jake. You’re a doctor; you need to be extra careful. Most likely I’m already infected. I don’t see any real point in my suiting up.”
“Don’t say that! You haven’t shown any symptoms. You’re still in the clear for now. Before you go in, you’re putting on that suit.”
I didn’t want to argue with him. I knew in the end he would win. I had said it myself, he’s the doctor. One thing I don’t think he was realizing, though, was the possibility the ones who took whatever vehicles were in that garage and escaped could have left behind family members who were infected. I’d been in that situation. I knew how much it sucked. I also knew the real possibility that there could be a person in there, just waiting to take a bite out of one of us.
Jake pulled the old Buick into the garage. I don’t know what instinct I was running on, but my immediate response was to close the garage door. I saw the curiosity in his face and shrugged. “If infected are out there, and they see the car, they may come here for help,” I told him, then added under my breath, “or a meal.”
“Excellent point.”
“Jake,” I called out making him stop just short of opening the garage door that led into the cute, two-story farmhouse.
“Yeah?”
I pointed to a row of tools on the wall. Whoever the man was who’d lived in the house before all this insanity broke out was a stickler when it came to caring for his tools. Each one was hung neatly on the wall. They were polished, well cared for, and most importantly, for certain ones, they looked sharp.
“You want a weapon?” he questioned me.
Jake was a doctor. His job was, and always had been, taking care of others. He was good at it when I was a kid; he’s even better now. The idea of needing to protect himself, from what in reality was a person looking for relief from this insanity, didn’t sit well with him.
“I think it’s a smart idea. You saw how they were at the hospital. Once they get to a certain point, Jake, there’s nothing we can do except keep them from getting us.”
He looked to the wall of tools, then moved toward it slowly. Being at the home of a farmer, there were several items to choose from. In my mind, I wanted something easy to carry yet deadly enough to get me out of any situation. I grabbed a sickle off the wall, knowing the blade would come in beneficial if attacked. Jake, following my lead, grabbed an oversized ball-peen hammer, testing the weight of it before moving on from the wall toward the door.
“I’ll go first,” he spoke firmly. “We’ll go room to room and check the place over first.”
“Got it.”
“Cammy.”
I waited for him to finish what he was going to say, but he hesitated.
“If something happens to me like what happened with Marissa, you get the hell out of here, got me? If there’s someone in there and they’re infected and…” He paused as if contemplating how to finish the sentence. “Just, don’t wait around on me. If something happens, get yourself safe, understood?”
I nodded my head in answer. There wasn’t any use in arguing or telling him not to worry. I would. Without Jake, I wouldn’t have any idea where to go or what to do. My plan was to keep both of us alive for as long as possible.
Through the door leading from the garage into the kitchen was a small hallway. It held a shoe rack for work boots and a coat rack for when the weather got colder. It was a simple entrance before the room opened into a massive kitchen and dining room area. The table itself looked big enough to host a family of at least twelve. I hoped like hell there weren’t that many people living here.
I watched as Jake began opening cupboard doors. I didn’t understand why he thought that was a good idea, but I knew he’d seen more at the hospital that I had. I’m sure he had a reason. Instead of asking, I simply joined in, helping him make sure each nook and cranny of the kitchen was free of anything dangerous. When it was clear, we moved on to the living room, then the downstairs bathroom. The last room on the bottom level was a large sized office and it too had been clear of any issues, which left only the upstairs.
I stopped at the bottom of the beige carpeted stairs and stared upward. The entire farmhouse w
as so quaint, decorated like my mom would’ve liked before she passed away. It was cozy, not a lot of modern technology running rampant, but it just had to have a fucking upstairs.
Jake came and stood beside me then sighed heavily. He didn’t speak, just in case someone was up there. Instead, he gave me a look and pointed upward. I knew what it meant. It was time. I gripped my sickle, watching him twirl his hammer, and started the ascent.
On each side of the stairs were closed doors. Down the hall from us were two more. My best guess would be a three-bedroom top level with a large bathroom in the center. I couldn’t deny how the doors being closed sent chills down my spine. Did whoever left the house do it to keep their loved ones inside while they made their escape? I supposed it didn’t matter either way. Each room would need to be checked if Jake and I were going to have a chance at grabbing a little rest.
Together, the two of us started with the room on the right. The minute he opened the door my stomach dropped. I felt like I was going to be sick. Blood, pus, even bits of flesh littered the pretty pink carpeting. It even smeared the walls. I didn’t know what had happened in the room, but I could easily imagine. The next room wasn’t any better. Matter and bits of flesh now decorated the room, even hanging from the collection of superhero figurines on the bookshelf. In this room though, the bed was unmade and a dried pool of blood stained the Avenger’s sheet set.
I stood outside the door while Jake checked the master bath. I could see the blood and gore smeared on the mirror, all over the toilet, and even in the shower. The drain itself was clogged with mats of hair and chunks of pus covered skin. I wanted to puke but didn’t have the guts to step to the toilet and do it.
“One last room,” Jake told me. By that time all I could do was nod in answer.
The room at the end of the hallway gave us its own warning before we entered. The doorknob had chunks of flesh dried to it. It was a for sure indication something had happened in the room, but that it could have been days ago. With a shaking hand, Jake reached out, turning the knob and throwing the door open.