by Red Lagoe
"Well, I'm sure there's someone more qualified out there than me. Maybe at those quarantine zones. If something like a vaccine is possible, that'd be the place to go."
John stood beside her with his elbow still hovering over the sink. She cut the faucet off and warned him to brace himself before she poured chlorhexidine solution over his elbow.
"The wound still looks clean," she said. "No necrosis yet or anything, so hopefully you're right about no saliva getting in there. The other people out there had some nasty blackening of the skin around their wounds, so you should be good to go."
The top three buttons of Melody's shirt were undone, and the white fabric billowed out, exposing the blue lace edging of her bra. Her eyelashes lifted and her eyes met with his for half a second, catching him stealing a glimpse—perv. She looked back to his wound and closed up her blouse.
Out of the corner of Melody's eye, she absorbed a glance of his chest, entrapped within that gray tee shirt, as it moved with each breath. Melody's lungs became tight as she thought about what it'd be like to kiss him, but she backed away and began packing up her medical bag instead.
8
Burning Flesh
After the sun lowered in the late afternoon sky, the odor of the dead worsened and assaulted Melody's senses. John hauled another body from the cul-de-sac—the little man in the coveralls. Melody went out the back door to grab the HVAC man by the arms and pull him out from under her deck.
It was time to start pulling her own weight. She released a short, insane laugh to herself at the pun, then got serious about what she was doing.
Melody tugged on the dead body, making short bursts of progress across her yard and down the sidewalk. John had already moved the obese man in the street. He walked, carrying a can of gasoline, three houses down to the Nickerson's and disappeared behind their house. It wasn't far and there were no infected in sight, but it felt empowering to be outside of her house with nobody looking over her.
She dragged the body past the green Volvo with the door wide open. It was parked at the neck of the cul-de-sac where it had been for days, with two wheels on the curb. Blood stained the pavement beside it, and Melody tried not to think about the gruesome scene that happened there—the looting teenager that had been attacked.
Melody kept her eyes peeled for any signs of danger, but the street remained calm. Candace peeked out John's window, and Melody nodded a “hello” but Candace whipped the curtains shut. Melody felt sorry for the strange girl, locked up in that house and too petrified to face the light of day without a man on her arm. That was Melody earlier that morning—too fearful to take a step. Maybe the poor girl needed some encouragement. She needed to get out of there and see what she was made of.
She dragged the body down the street to the Nickerson's house. Mrs. Nickerson's roses were still in full bloom, as well as the gold and burgundy mums adorning the ground below the bushes. Her car door was open and Daniel Nickerson's wheelchair was tipped over on the other side of it. Neither of their bodies were anywhere in sight. They had wandered off after being infected. Melody walked to the open gate of the bright white privacy fence and looked into their lush green yard. Mr. Nickerson had mowed his lawn every week, without fail. He was in his yard every day, killing anything that wasn't grass.
The backyard was several days overdue for a mowing, creating a fluffy, luxurious field of plush chlorophyll, spattered with fallen yellow elm leaves atop.
Eighteen bodies were lined up in three rows of six, and John drizzled each one with gasoline.
"You moved that guy all by yourself?" he asked.
"Yeah." Melody shot him a glare. "I'm stronger than I look."
"I guess so," he said looking at the bodies. "I was going to bury them, but-"
"You can't. To reduce the spread of infection, and there's not enough time to bury them all. You have to burn them."
John nodded with an unease in his eyes, caressing the smooth surface of the lighter with his thumb. "You might want to leave now," he said. "This is going to get bad."
She looked him in his eyes and held out her hand to ask, "Do you have more than one lighter?"
Melody accepted a blue lighter from John, and they both went to work lighting the dead. She knelt down over the scrawny man's body, who she had pummeled with the baseball bat earlier that day, and gave him a sincere apology. She couldn't believe this was happening. With a flick of her finger, she lit the gas-soaked, raggedy fabric of his shirt.
The corpses went up in flames, one by one, as they worked their way across the yard. Once all of the infected were burning, they stood for a moment in amazement.
Eighteen human bodies laid neatly upon the vivid green grass, each one engulfed in flames. How simple it was to extinguish an entire life. The flames reflected a glowing orange light that frolicked along the surface of the white privacy fence, and the smell of burning flesh filled the yard.
"It's a strange smell," John said with the back of his hand against his mouth to ward off nausea. "Burning flesh..."
The heat from the flames nearly singed her arm hair, and she inhaled the scent of the burning bodies.
"Surprisingly enough, I know the smell," she said.
He turned to look at Melody, whose gaze locked on the burning piles. She quickly explained with a shrug, "I've done some cauterizing. It's a smell that can't be compared to anything else."
John was looking at her—not directly—but she could tell.
"I'm heading out soon to find Marcus," she told John while the bodies were burning.
"I don't think that's a good idea."
"I don't care what you think," she said, turning away. "I'm going to take a shower and pack a bag, and then I'm out."
"It's going to be dark soon. We should wait until morning. Stay with us tonight. When you're ready to be escorted over, let me know. I'll watch for you from my porch."
Melody nodded, knowing she wasn't going to win an argument with this guy right now. She didn't want this one-legged man slowing her down.
9
Stilettos vs. Sneakers
She went back to her house, with the scent of the burning bodies lingering in her nose, while smoke filled the air over the Nickerson's house. She was reminded of the bonfire after the track meet when she was a teenager.
They talked for hours, sipping on wine coolers (Tyler Marshall couldn't get the beer), and it wasn't long before Marcus gained her trust. Back when everything was good and pure between them.
It wasn’t until they got married that things seemed to fall apart. They barely saw each other for those first few years of marriage—so busy with work and school.
They were living on meager wages, and Marcus's behavior—little by little—shifted. They were both working hard and barely earning enough to pay for their tiny apartment, Melody's student loans, and Marcus's need for nice things. Marcus’s parents were covering his student loans, but Melody refused their financial assistance.
"You get paid salary!" he had yelled one night when she was rushing out the door on an emergency call. "Whether you go or not, you get paid. Don't be stupid!” His words shocked her as she headed out to care for a hit-by-car patient.
"I'm not doing it for the money," she argued, squinting her eyes with disdain, but he simply laughed at her. Marcus would often joke about how she wasn't a real doctor.
Perhaps those past couple of years of bad behavior could be chalked up to the fact that Marcus never had to struggle in life.
Marcus's dad had told Melody, "He doesn't get it. He never had to work for stuff like you and I did. S'pose that's my fault."
So there she was, stuck in a house in Fair Haven with a guy that she wasn’t sure if she loved any more. She would have preferred to have been living in the Crap Shack up north. Gramps had jammed a pipe into the earth to access the underground stream for water but that wasn't exactly considered plumbing. A few miles down the mountainous terrain, was a small town where she had the job of a lifetime waiting for her—her
own veterinary practice. She wanted it more than anything she had ever wanted in life, but, after a long discussion with Marcus, they opted to play it safe and go with the house that actually had electricity.
Melody settled. She put the Crap Shack up for sale—it was the land that was of value—and she took the job at the clinic in Fair Haven, so Marcus could chase his career dreams for the time being.
That's what married people do. They sacrifice for each other. Someday, he would do the same. She knew it. Maybe when life stopped being so hard—when she wasn't running from danger or fighting for her life—she would have the chance to relax on the back deck of that mountain cabin, sipping some tea and enjoying the company of her best friend.
She laughed under her breath and snapped back to reality.
She had started to dislike the person Marcus was becoming, and that feeling scared the hell out of her, because it meant that she might have to leave him. She insisted to herself that she wasn’t afraid of being alone, but part of her knew that wasn’t entirely true. She stuffed those insecurities deep inside and told herself that her fears were about giving up. Quitting was not an option.
Her father's words came back to her—Love is easy, and if it's not, you're doing it wrong. That day before Marcus went to work four days ago, she did it wrong.
She rolled her eyes at her know-it-all husband, called him an asshole, and let him go without even a goodbye kiss. As he pulled out of the driveway, she wondered if she had let him exit to his death, and part of her didn't care, at least not until later. The hateful heart she experienced that morning haunted her memories still, and she wanted nothing more than for him to come home safe.
If love was supposed to be so easy, then why wasn't it? What were they doing wrong? It baffled her. Maybe her dad was wrong. Maybe love is just hard.
Infatuation—on the other hand—comes with the same ease that a sexy, tattooed neighbor can cut off his shirt with a knife. John's body lingered in her thoughts, but she shoved him out before she had a chance to think too much on it.
Marcus could have been trapped out there, needing rescue. The thought of traveling across town terrified her, but she would do it.
However, John was right. With darkness falling, traveling now would be foolish—but she was willing to risk it. The cover of darkness may have been able to play in her favor.
With the gas lines still functioning in town, and the town's water supply still flowing from the water tower, Melody heated some water on the stove to make some coffee. She’d need the caffeine for her trip later. The warmth of the mug in her palms brought her a brief moment of peace as she moved to the window to get another glimpse of John.
A gentle breeze rustled the leaves as he sat on his porch and turned his attention from the street. He gave her a nod with an inviting smile, and she unclenched her pale hand from her mug and raised it to wave back.
The door to John's house opened and the woman, Candace, poked her head out in search for danger. She wiggled out of his house in four inch red stilettos, a form-fitted spandexy tank top, and Daisy Dukes so short that the bottom of her butt cheeks didn't fit in them. She hugged a casserole in her arms.
The clicking of her heels on the deck echoed through the neighborhood. Melody turned her eyes to the street to see if any of the infected were coming, then she perched herself in the bay window, curious about what the idiot in stilettos was doing.
"You're going to get yourself killed wearing shoes like that," John said.
"I couldn't stand it anymore," Candace said with the infectious accent of a southerner.
She pulled her chestnut brown hair into a bunch on top of her head and tied it in a messy bun.
"If I go one more day looking like a homeless person, I'll kill myself, I swear. We won't even need them infected people to do it."
She handed John a pan covered in foil.
"I cooked," she said, and gave him a flirtatious nudge with her shoulder.
"Did you use the last of the pasta and tuna?"
"It's not how we do it down south, but it's all we had," she smiled.
Her lips were freshly coated with a layer of red gloss. She leaned against the porch railing with her back arched.
John set the dish on an end table and leaned back in the Adirondack chair, irritated with the girl. What the hell was the purpose of lip gloss during times like these?
"When I took you next door to pack a bag yesterday, you might'a considered packing something more sensible than those shoes and makeup."
She rolled her eyes and swayed her hips side to side, approaching John to sit on the arm of his chair. Leaning into him, she placed her well-manicured hand against his chest and eased her breasts against him.
John leaned as far back as he could, avoiding Candace as she edged closer, then he slid out of the chair and stood up to keep an eye on the neighborhood. Candace was the kind of sensual woman any man would go for. The things he could have done to her if he wanted to...She gave him all green lights.
"How long ago did you say Gavin left?" he asked her, scratching his head and avoiding getting involved with an Army wife.
John had already suffered through the story of how she met her husband, Gavin. She was a sophomore in college down south. He was in uniform and she was letting him do body-shots from her belly button at a nightclub. She dropped out of college to be with him. They were married after only two months of knowing each other—a typical military couple story, complete with a deployment that ripped them apart.
Her world shook beneath her feet, and she didn't know how to handle it when he deployed only a month after marriage, so she decided to move in with Gavin's parents in Fair Haven. Gavin's parents had left for vacation two weeks earlier, entrusting the darling southerner that Gavin married to take care of their home while they were in the Bahamas. They never returned.
Her eyes began to glass over with shame, and she crossed her arms and looked out toward the street.
John tried to comfort her, "Like I said before...he might be OK. This all happened after they left."
"I know." Her voice trembled with uncertainty.
A creepy animalistic desire deep inside of John wanted to give in to the hot piece of ass that was fawning over him, but he refrained. "Iraq could have been untouched at the time. There were no reports of the virus there. He could be on a carrier by now—safe and sound on a ship."
"Is that lady over there OK?" she asked, sniffling.
"She is. She's running out of food though, so maybe we can share this casserole with her?" John kept his eyes on the street, scanning for infected.
"OK." Candace wiped away a tear that escaped.
Candace’s body was enticing, so John did his best to steer her attention away from himself. She was married to a fellow military man—Army, unfortunately, but still a brother of his, in a way. Not to mention, she was far too young and naïve for his blood. He preferred a challenge.
He held her hand and encouraged her to stay strong for her husband, like he thought nice guys were supposed to do. John eased his gaze back toward Melody's bay window, disappointed that she was no longer there.
10
Uninvited Guest
Melody had watched with amusement as Candace wiggled and giggled in front of John. She wished she had a bowl of popcorn for the entertainment, but mostly wished she could turn up the volume and hear what Candace was saying. Probably something about her nail polish or how she wants the newest issue of some fashion magazine. She huffed out a laugh, thinking of all the dumb things the girl was saying.
When Candace pressed her breasts against John, Melody turned away.
"You guys want to get killed in an outdoor make-out session, don't make me watch," she said to herself.
Melody turned away from the window, to give them some privacy. Soon she could leave under a cloak of darkness. She blockaded her front door with the dining room table and then locked herself in her master bathroom for a shower.
The light of day faded,
and the scattered light from the small bathroom window barely lit the inside of her shower. She allowed the cold water to pour over her body. John invaded her thoughts. She ran her loofa across her skin and smothered her body with lavender suds, thinking about the man next door. She rested her left hand against the smooth white wall of the shower as the water drenched the top of her head and blanketed her face.
She stood for several minutes, simply breathing through the drape of cold water with her eyes closed. While sliding her soapy blue loofa across her body, down her abdomen and along her thigh, she pictured John's sexy smile before her. She imagined pressing her slippery wet body against his, and her chest heaved, craving his attention.
She opened her eyes, only to see her hand pressed against the shower wall. Her wedding band stared back at her, and she hung her head with guilt and came back to reality, rinsing the soap from her body. It was time to get moving. Four days was too long.
The sun had already set, and the smoke from the Nickerson's yard had dissipated. Melody lit a candle in her kitchen and rummaged through her bare cabinets, looking for something to eat before packing a bag.
She could tell she had lost weight by the loose fit of her favorite jeans. Her over-worn gray skull tee shirt soaked in the moisture of her damp hair, and she pulled out a can of garbanzo beans tucked in the far back behind the bottle of vodka, wondering if she could make them taste good.
A knock on the door. She hurried to the front door and peeked out the window to see John with a dish in his hands. A surge of nervousness raced through her veins as she heaved the table out of the way and unlocked the dead bolt.
John stood in her doorway in a blue plaid shirt, unbuttoned, exposing a Black Sabbath tee shirt underneath. In his shorts, his lower limb prosthetic blade—the kind runners use—was fully exposed.
"I'm guessing you don't have much food left." John raised a plate up, waving it before her. "Candace made it. We'd like to share. There's more at my house."
