by Red Lagoe
Her eyes glassed over as she stared with great fierceness into the sky. John turned his gaze back to the starlight as she lay beside him needing the intimacy of a friend. Her chin quivered as she fought to separate her desire to befriend John with her desire to kiss him. An agonizing attraction to each other lingered between them, but both laid still knowing they could not act on their feelings.
16
The Fog
Overcast clouds had rolled in overnight, draping the town in an oppressive gray shroud, and the morning mist encompassed Melody's body. She woke up with her head nestled into the crook of John's arm and hesitated for a moment before jerking herself away from him.
The morning dew clung to their clothes. As she stood up, stretched, and inhaled the moist air, she was reminded of when she would hike with her grandfather up north. They would leave the cabin at dawn so they could be to the summit for the exquisite sunrise. The mountain fog was peaceful, yet eerie—similar to that morning in Fair Haven.
She could have been living there, in the mountains. Damn stubborn Marcus. He wanted nothing to do with that cabin, but she really couldn't blame him at the time. It was on a dirt ATV trail that was not serviced by Carroll County plow trucks. Though it was thirty minutes from the veterinary practice for sale, the commute in the winter would be a bitch. Melody didn't mind, but it was not for Marcus.
She imagined herself sitting on that back deck, soaking in the view of the lake from between the trees, away from the infected civilization.
Instead, she was struggling to stay alive because Marcus believed his career was more important than hers. As enmity toward Marcus oozed from her heart, Melody mopped it back up with a guilty conscience.
John stood up to stretch and his tee shirt rode up and clung to his abs above his belly button for a moment. He pulled the damp fabric back down and approached Melody to stand by her side on the rooftop of the elementary school, while she tried not to be impressed by his physique.
The dense fog sat upon the dead town as they stared speechless upon the blurry silhouettes of infected below. The dark gray torsos floated across the field with the lower half of their bodies disappearing in the ominous fog.
Candace let out a moan and rolled onto her hands and knees to vomit. Her skimpy denim shorts had ridden up, and tucked in between her butt cheeks, exposing her black lace underwear. She plucked the wedgie out and backed away from her puddle of vomit. Letting out another vile wretch, she covered her dry lips, trying to keep it in.
Candace, with mascara tears streaking down her dehydrated skin, cried.
"I'm so sorry, you guys. I shouldn't have left last night. I don't know what I was thinking!" Genuine sorrow seeped from her as she wailed about being inconsiderate.
Melody despised her for putting them all in danger, and would have liked to throw a punch to Candace's face. Instead she contained her anger, doing her best to understand that Candace still had a lot of growing up to do—and she'd better do it fast.
"We barely knew each other," Candace said about her husband, confiding in Melody while wiping tears from under her eyes.
She knelt down and held Candace's hair away from her face as the girl spilled her heart out, along with the contents of her stomach.
"Me and Gavin only met a few months ago. Even if he makes it back stateside, what're the chances he'll come for me? The girl he hardly knows."
"I don't know," said Melody, unsure if Gavin would ever come for Candace.
Melody empathized with her feelings of uncertainty. Melody thought it was a smart move to marry Marcus, since it seemed like the next logical step in life, but perhaps her early twenties was too young of an age to make that decision.
"Don't assume he's not coming." She paused, trying to think of anything that she could say to give this girl some hope, and the idea popped over her head like a cartoon light bulb. "Was love easy for you guys?"
"What?"
"Did love come easy between you and Gavin?"
"Oh yes. We were connected like you wouldn't believe." She held her hand to her chest as if to clutch her own beating heart.
"Well, then I guess you were doing it right," Melody said.
"What about your husband? Do you think he's out there trying to find you?"
Candace's question was not one Melody wanted to answer. She shrugged.
"I really am sorry," Candace said with tears traversing her cheeks.
"I know. It doesn't matter now. Let's figure out what to do."
She stood up and approached John who looked west, toward the opposite end of town. Fog and trees obscured the view in the direction of Blake Pharmaceuticals, where a scribbling swirl of black smoke was still rising from the explosion the night before.
"The tracks are just beyond that fence," she said, pointing across the open field.
"We can't travel with her like this. Let's make it back to the house for the rifle and our supplies first, then we'll go in a couple of hours when she's feeling better. Can you make it back to the house?"
Candace nodded with confidence.
Melody's eyes fell soft upon John again as he helped Candace to her feet. He picked up his plaid shirt from the roof and held it up for Candace to slip on.
"There's a lot of fog," John said watching dozens of silhouetted bodies scattered in the field. "We should be well obscured from their sight. We can go back the way we came. If we get cornered, we'll take the backyards."
Melody tried to insist again, "I don't expect either of you to come with me to Blake-"
"We're in this together," John interrupted. “We go get our stuff, then go check for your husband, then we all get the hell out of town."
With the thick fog giving them cover, it would be a quick trip back to the house for the rifle and their supply bags. John climbed down the ladder first and touched down on the wet grass. He stood on guard with his knife at his hip, peering through the thick fog as the other two followed.
Melody picked up the baseball bat that she had left at the base of the ladder the night before and the cool wet metal brought her immediate relief. They crept along the brick wall of the school, keeping out of sight of the infected, and moved along the bushes of the landscaping, unseen.
As they neared the edge of the school property at the corner of Mason Drive and the bus loop, Candace stopped.
"Wait," she whispered, covering her mouth and hunching over.
Melody and John ducked down beside the azalea bush watching the infected stumble by on the other side. A loud guttural heave came from Candace, and she flung herself onto the ground to vomit again.
The wretch caught the attention of three infected on the opposite side of the bushes and they all looked toward the noise. The ungodly sound became a beacon to their location.
She and John remained crouched down out of sight as Candace expelled bile onto the grass.
The infected turned their stance toward her, locking their gaze on Candace as she heaved.
John leapt up and grabbed Candace by the arm as the infected stumbled toward them. She was barely to her feet, still hunched over and wiping spit from her lip, as John tugged at her limp arm to pull her to a safer location.
He looked back and Melody stayed right behind them, looking him in the eyes.
She readied her bat near her shoulder as they shuffled through the front yards. More infected joined the pursuit, pouring out of the fog. An immense woman in a bathrobe lurched behind Melody, increasing her pace, but Candace's hungover stupor was too slow.
Melody's throat seemed to swell from the inside as the fear took over, but she turned around to confront the sick robed lady.
Clean up. She hurled her bat at her head. Blood splattered from the woman's mouth and she dropped to the ground. The infected robed woman squirmed, struggling to get back up as they made their way toward the corner of their street.
Candace hunched over again to vomit, while John kept lugging on her arm to move forward. Her gut wretched. Melody grabbed her other arm to
help her along, but Candace's body fell limp, giving up on the escape. Her knees crumpled beneath her, and she cried in broken defeat.
"Get up!" John shouted.
She bent over again with dry heaves as the infected came from all directions, appearing out of the fog less than twenty feet away, one after the other.
"Move!" Melody insisted, yanking harder at her arms, but Candace collapsed and her clammy, cool arms slipped right through Melody's grip as the infected moved in on them.
They were getting too close. A medium-built man with round eyes and a buzz cut loomed right behind her.
Melody swung as hard as she could at the man's head, knocking him to the side, but not to the ground.
John hoisted Candace up over his shoulder and rushed her to the steps of a yellow front porch on Elpis Court. His house was at the end of the cul-de-sac, but they couldn’t make it with the street cluttered with so many infected. Melody became outnumbered.
She swung her bat at one person after another.
"Get inside," he told Candace, dumping her off on the steps of the porch.
She scurried up the porch over large splotches of blood that had dried on the wood and jiggled the handle of the locked door. Candace ducked out of sight on the porch while John and Melody fought off the infected.
On the pavement of the front walkway, Melody kept her back to the porch and allowed the adrenaline to rush through her veins as she swung her bat into one skull after another.
Her hands hurt from the impact, but she kept swinging. Infected were coming out of the fog from everywhere. Their moans and growling were getting louder and attracting others.
Some of the infected fell over before they could get to John and Melody. Others attacked one another, clawing and biting at each other's extremities, but most of them kept a steady pace, closing in.
John managed to plunge his knife into a couple of the infected, but the method of attack was not fast enough. He began to slice his knife through the throats of as many infected as he could manage. Blood spilled from their necks, and he knocked them to the ground, but they squirmed and tried to get back to their feet.
The horde of infected was too numerous to fend off any longer. Melody, feeling faint, focused her attention on her next target and struck against the side of his head with as much force as she could muster.
His body dropped, but it was not enough to keep him down.
Her vision blurred, but she kept fighting. She wondered if this was it—if this was how she would die. Fighting tooth and nail, scratching, clawing, and screaming on her way out.
Too late to consider suicide by then. She wondered how much pain she would experience and hoped her death would be quick, but then she remembered that her father's letter in the orchid envelope remained unread.
She sucked up what might she had left, and plowed her bat into another head, screaming in fury through the blow.
Candace's gut twisted, and she heaved again on the porch. Drenched in more terror than she could have ever imagined, Candace sought an opportunity to get away. The infected in the cul-de-sac had been attracted to the commotion and headed toward the porch.
Candace was certain she could make it back to John's house. Perhaps in her dash to his house, the infected would pull their attention away from John.
She had a chance to be the hero—to get the rifle.
She sprung to her feet and attracted the eyes of several infected. Candace climbed over the railing, off the side of the porch, and ran into the street.
Her bare feet pattered across the pavement and she held her hand over her stomach, trying not to vomit.
"Candace!" John yelled.
She heard him screaming to her, but she was too petrified to stop.
"Come on," she huffed under her breath as she ran down the street, dehydrated and unsteady.
Most of the infected had locked their gaze on her and redirected their paths in her direction. Candace shrieked as they scurried toward her, and her screaming attracted even more.
She stutter-stepped down the street, unsure which way to run to avoid them. The sick had blocked her straight path to John’s house.
She froze. The bodies swarmed her.
Candace was too exhausted and too nauseated to run any longer. The cool pavement pressed into her bare feet and John's plaid shirt caressed her skin as she realized those would be the last good feelings she would have.
She tried not to look at their faces as they charged toward her. Her eyes met with John's for a second through the thickness of the gray fog before the crowd surrounded her, obstructing her from John's sight.
"Candace!" John screamed.
Melody felt a hand on her arm, but quickly realized it was John. He pulled her toward the house and ran up the steps of the yellow porch, leading some of the infected to follow them.
They leapt over the side railing and scrambled along the bushes, confusing their attackers so they could get away. Melody sprinted down the sidewalk of Elpis Court toward Candace, who was already surrounded.
Her horrifying screams echoed off the houses as the infected mauled her. Melody and John stopped twenty feet away from the massacre. They were too late.
Candace's screams became muffled by the pile of bodies on top of her, and there was no way to fight through them all.
John grabbed Melody's wrist and tugged her away from a sick man, about to bite into her arm. She didn't even see him coming.
She stumbled over a body on the ground, nearly crashing to the pavement, but regained her footing and followed close behind John. They dodged the infected as they sprinted around the mass of bodies toward John's house, and leapt up the steps to his porch.
After closing themselves in, he locked the deadbolt behind them. John dashed to the second floor, while Melody barricaded the stairwell with furniture in case of a breech.
The sound of the infected ones' hands slapping against John's door blended with the snarling and moaning in the street, and the reverberation of Candace's screams joined in.
As Melody climbed over the coffee table and the couch to get up the stairs, she heard gunfire from the second floor. John had grabbed his rifle and perched himself into a windowsill, firing shot after shot into the cannibalistic herd below.
Melody stood beside him, cringing as the bodies dropped one by one. Countless infected were piled on top of Candace. Melody couldn't see or hear her anymore from under the mass of grey bodies.
As John took them out, dropping each one on top of the pile, the mountain of bodies began to shift from the movement of the living infected that were squirming underneath. Candace was certain to be one of those bodies beneath, struggling to get out.
Melody held her hands up to her forehead in shock. The sounds of the hands against the front door, the moaning and snarling, pops of the rifle, and Candace's scream played in her head like a song, even after John had stopped firing and Candace had been silenced. Melody's eyes were wide open and bone dry as she stared at the pile of shifting bodies bleeding out onto the pavement of their perfect suburban neighborhood, and her brain echoed with the song of the attack.
Her pulse hammered through her body—within her neck and ears. She focused on the mound of dead outside as her vision pulsed in unison with her heartbeat, and she couldn't tell if they were still moving or if there was something hallucinatory about the vision.
She backed away from the window. Her stomach churned, and she held her hand to her mouth, sickened and lightheaded. The thump-thump of her heart banged with violence through her entire body and her vision narrowed. She staggered backward, trying to maintain consciousness, but the light tunneled into darkness. She focused on simply breathing in and out.
John glanced over his shoulder in time to see Melody backing away from him. He approached her from the side, scooping his arms around her to guide her sinking body to the floor.
She sat with her back against the bed. Her vision faded into blackness, and she fought not to pass out as John hovered over her
.
"Just breathe," he said.
Melody stared down at the carpeting, taking long, deep breaths for several seconds and trying not to pass out. As her pulse began to slow and her vision began to improve, she leaned back to rest her head against the side of John's bed and then heaved up some yellow bile onto the floor.
The night before, she had wished this upon Candace. She wished she had let her fend for herself, and now she hated herself for those thoughts. Melody stared at the ceiling with tears in her eyes and shuddering teeth while John sat beside her, cradling his head in his hands, mourning the loss of the person that he had promised to protect.
17
Out of the Darkness
"I'm scared," Kayla whispered to Marcus in the darkness of the lab.
She was saturated with fear about leaving that morning, but they had eaten the last of their food—a single-serve bag of corn chips—and they needed to venture out if they were going to survive. Kayla knew that even if they still had food, she couldn't bear to spend another minute within that pitch black room. The quarantine camp at the high school was their best bet.
"It'll be OK," he said, soft and reassuring.
He stood up, tugging himself from her grasp, and used the light of his watch to find the cord on the blinds, and pulled them open. While pressing his face against the cool lab window, he looked down the hall toward the office space to see the faint light of day.
"Ready?" he asked. "It's already ten o'clock. We slept well."
"Maybe you did," Kayla whispered, and handed her busted chair leg to him so he could protect her from what was outside the door. "I was up all night listening to Dr. Carter moving around out there. I'm really hungry," she said.
