Fair Haven

by Red Lagoe

  "Is that Henry's walker?" Marcus asked as they hurried to the back, "You're my neighbor, aren't you?"

  He scurried alongside John to the back of the cottage where they waited in silence for the infected to go by.

  The mass of infected were uninterested in John and Marcus and followed the creeping vehicle instead.

  John's chest tightened as he entered the cottage with Marcus. He closed the door to the screen porch and checked outside to be sure the infected had not followed them, while Marcus moved toward the kitchen.

  Melody had heard the front door slam after John got up, so she went to the kitchen window in time to see the scattered group of infected stagger down the road toward a blue car. The back screen door creaked open and a familiar voice came through asking John, "Why are you in my house?"

  Melody's heart dropped to her gut with the sound of that voice.

  "Marcus?" she said.

  There he was, standing in the same room with her. The man she had given up on. The man she nearly cheated on. He made it to her. So many questions whizzed through her head as they stood separated by a mere seven feet.

  "Melody?" Marcus opened his arms up, smiled and tucked her into a snug embrace. "I'm so glad I found you."

  Her heart raced and her head spun at the surreal moment. She hugged her husband and squeezed her eyes shut tight, thinking when she opened them, she'd be back on the couch with John with the cool lake breeze misting their skin. But when she opened her eyes, Marcus was still there, pressing his body against her, while she looked over his shoulder at John standing in the doorway.

  34

  Infected

  Kayla Hartford had been backed against a brick wall and surrounded by infected as she watched Marcus run for his life. She slunk down the wall, accepting her fate, as the horde of infected toppled the fence and came at her.

  Her life flashed before her eyes. Until this moment she believed it to be a figure of speech, but—in an instant—she saw it all. Her dad teaching her to ride her bike. Mom sprinkling white flour onto a cookie sheet. Playing rummy with her brother on their bellies in the den. Her prom dance beneath the glitter of the ballroom lights. All of it was revealed to her in an epic one-second flash.

  On the ground, with her heart wailing, she screamed in terror, looking away from the infected and awaiting her demise. But as she turned her head to look away, she saw that the crashed fence was pressed against the wall, creating a tunnel.

  A way out. She could reach the opening with her hand.

  She threw herself to the ground as their hands fell upon her body, and she crawled beneath the fallen fence, squealing as sickly hands grabbed at her legs and pawed at her body.

  She scampered on her belly along the pavement under the chain link as the horde piled on top, darkening her path. Bits of gravel stuck to her forearms and knees.

  The metal pressed against her back and the top of her head, pinning her down, but she stayed close to the wall and managed to squeeze through. They snarled through the fence, grabbing and biting, pulling her hair and scratching her back.

  She screamed out in excruciating pain, but continued to crawl out to the other side, where she got to her feet and ran.

  Blood dripped down her back and legs, as she followed the fence as fast as her sock-footed, injured feet could move. The horde of infected were not far behind.

  She had to keep moving forward, away from the infected, even if she backtracked in the wrong direction. There was nowhere else to go. She kept a steady pace, but was slowed by the nauseating pain over her entire body. Afraid to stop and inspect her body for wounds, she kept going.

  She wanted her mom and dad. She wanted Marcus to be a good man. Her teeth chattered and her eyes welled with tears, blurring the world around her. When she was far enough ahead of the infected, she slipped back through the fence at one of the gates and went into the woods.

  Kayla lay down on the wet muddy earth beneath the tree canopy. The cool mud on her body relieved the pain on her back for a moment. She closed her eyes, staring above as the sunlight decided whether or not it would stick around. Her body was limp and in more anguish than she'd ever experienced. She wished she had let the infected kill her. A few minutes of pain would have been better than the horror she experienced now.

  "I can't do this anymore," she cried in a sputtering whisper.

  The camp was nearby, back in the other direction—where Marcus had fled. Fucking, Marcus. She would kill him if she found him there.

  Rage filled her heart and she drove herself back to her feet. If she fought a little longer, and a little harder, she could soon have sanctuary at the quarantine camp.

  She moved slowly, lurching through the woods, wanting to collapse with every step. Her scraped feet were numb compared to the throbbing pain on the back of her legs. Her back wounds stung, and her shirt clung to her skin by her own dried blood. She was starving, dehydrated, and ready to die, but her mind zoned out, and before long, she approached the high school.

  Hope prevailed and her heart lightened as she saw the goal posts of the football field through the tops of the trees ahead. The agony lifted for a moment as the gentle push of angels seemed to propel her closer to the school. The clouds above parted, allowing sunlight to spill before her feet and the gloom lifted. Her god spoke to her, telling her it would be alright, but the sound of moaning ahead stopped her.

  Muddled voices slurred and groaned. She inched forward to the bend in the tracks, staying hidden within the trees as the gated fence near the school came into view. It held back hundreds of them. The quarantine zone was overrun with the infected.

  Kayla backed away, out of sight around the bend, and collapsed to the ground in defeat. The sun had been swallowed by the fast incoming clouds. Rain began to fall upon her, and she curled into herself, as all of the other lost lives roamed about in the fenced enclosure.

  She gave up. She let the rain drip onto her body while she lay in the mud with a lifeless stare. All hope of survival seeped out of her wounds and into the muddy ground.

  The moaning around her intensified, and the shuffling of feet in the woods nearby was terrifying enough to drive her back to her feet. The thought of being torn apart and eaten alive was far worse than moving on. She needed shelter.

  She left the tracks and walked down the street in front of the school. The basketball court and playground were empty. The homes appeared to be uninhabited. Kayla could have stopped at any of the houses, but instead she kept moving forward in a mindless shuffle. She snapped back to consciousness and wasn't sure where she was. She had walked all the way down the street to Macky's Quick Mart at the entrance to Barton Harbor.

  With a few infected wandering nearby, she decided to take cover in the convenience store. She made it to the front door and gave a tug on the handle. It opened. The bell jingled and she stepped into the store.

  "Hello?"

  The store was silent and had been looted. Most of the shelves were ransacked. The cigarette shelves were empty with the exception of a small pile of some packs of Camels. The safe behind the counter was busted open. Her eye twitched and her hands trembled as she stumbled around the convenience store, looking for a way to block the door from being pulled open, but she could not think of a way.

  An infected woman in bloodied scrubs approached the door from outside and smacked into the glass. She backed up and walked into the door again. Kayla hid behind the counter and sat on the floor out of sight. Scraped up and bleeding, she hugged her knees and rocked her body, wondering what to do. On the floor to her right was a single-serve bag of cheesy puffs that she tore into, devouring in less than a minute. The infected woman outside had given up and moved on, so Kayla got to her feet to find something to drink. She chugged a warm vitamin water, but as it splashed into her belly, she felt sick to her stomach.

  Dizziness took over, but she pushed through it and found some hydrogen peroxide on the shelves. She pulled off her blouse, poured some down her back, cringing in pain,
and listening to it foam and sizzle. Her calves were worse. She changed into a "Barton Harbor" tee shirt from the shelf, then doused the fabric of another shirt with more peroxide and began to clean the dried blood from her legs. On her ankle, a distinct bite mark.

  Kayla hurried to the bathroom to vomit. Her hands were becoming clammy and her vision tunneled. She sat against the bathroom wall and closed her eyes, knowing she was about to die.

  An hour later, she awoke even more sick than before. She vomited again and looked to her leg to see black necrotic tissue already surrounding her bite wound. Angry that God didn't take her in her sleep, she cried out loud, "Why?"

  She sobbed, but the guttural retches made her vomit more.

  "Is this punishment?" she asked, looking to the drop leaf ceiling of the convenience store.

  Her head was foggy, and there was a slight pull in her head to the right—like a brick took up the right half of her brain. She focused on walking a straight path through the store but kept stumbling to the side.

  Kayla sat back down on the floor and rested her head against the shelves. She didn't want to die in Macky's Quick Mart. Who would?

  She wasn't ready for it all to end yet. She had plans and dreams. She was going to do a work-study in Brazil. She hadn't been to New York, London, or Paris. She still had so much to do—like fall in love. She hadn't found real love yet. How stupid of her to fall for Marcus. That son of a bitch.

  She clenched her jaw and ground her teeth at the thought of him. In a fit of anger, Kayla banged her head against the shelves, and a tire iron fell into her lap. She laughed in hysteria and looked to the ceiling.

  "What am I supposed to do with this?"

  She looked at the poster ad of a man in the sunglasses to her right.

  "You kinda look like him, you know."

  The man in the ad smiled back at her behind his mysterious shades.

  "Maybe I'm immune." She told him. "Maybe the world needs my immunity."

  Speaking became difficult and her breathing more labored.

  "What?" She scowled at the man in the ad, then threw the tire iron at his head. The metal bounced off the floor and landed beneath a rack of maps.

  "Barton Harbor," she read the sign above the maps out loud, remembering Marcus's story about riding his bike on Barton Rd.

  She stood up, but her heavy head pulled her body to the right. It took all of her focus to get to the display and pull out a map. She ran her finger down the column of tiny letters to find the barely visible words coming in and out of focus.

  Barton Rd, 5.G.

  She found the tiny road on the map. It was not far from where she was. A wave of relief and vengeance swept over her. She picked up the tire iron and gripped it in her clammy palm. She was certain she would find Marcus there.

  Before leaving, she ditched her corpse-crew-socks that she picked up the day before, and slid on a pair of palm tree flip flops. She packed a plastic bag with whatever her wandering hands found: chips, aspirin, the Carroll County Realty Guide, and cigarettes—even though she didn't smoke.

  "Barton Road," she whispered.

  Sweating and green, she flung open the door. Before she stepped foot outside, a blue car sped by faster than she could focus on it. The smear of blue seemed to stretch for miles, but it faded as she approached. Kayla knew she was hallucinating now. She focused her energy on her map, gripped a tire iron in her hand, and prepared herself for a taste of revenge. The cheap rubber flip flops scuffed across the cement as she lumbered along, determined to find Marcus.

  35

  The Reunion

  The rain was letting up after the cold front pushed through town, bringing cooler air and sending leaves twirling through the breeze. When Marcus had found that the high school was overrun, he got the hell out of there as quickly as he could. As he sprinted across the field toward the parking lot, the infected inside the fence had been roused.

  A crowd of the sick and dying souls gathered along the edge of the fence, following him, reaching and pawing.

  They fought—clawing, biting, and wailing—in a brawl that put pressure on the fence. The joints creaked between the panels of chain link fencing. The rickety, rusted joint snapped under pressure and the fence opened up, spilling a deluge of the infected into the soccer fields, free to roam Fair Haven.

  Marcus must have checked at least thirty cars before he found one with a set of keys inside. He had peeled out of there and watched the crowd of infected shrink in his rear view mirror. He sped down the street, passed Mackey's, and headed straight to the lake house. Despite what he had told Kayla, he knew his parents’ boat was still docked when the outbreak began. But he wasn’t expecting company.

  The tiny round window in the lake cottage loft let in a beam of light. Specks of dust drifted through the air in a serene dance, until Marcus walked through it, sending the dust spiraling out of control. He sat down beside Melody on the twin bed in the loft, while John sat on the couch in the living space below, wrapping his swollen stump.

  Marcus's return confused Melody. Questions flooded her mind of his intentions and his integrity.

  "Where have you been?" she asked.

  "Where have you been? I'm looking all over for you, and you're shacked up with some guy."

  The accusation provoked her, but she clenched her jaw and explained, "I waited. You never came-”

  "So you decided to run off with this guy?" Marcus gestured toward the ladder that led to John.

  "John's our neighbor," Melody snapped. "He was helping me."

  She knew John could hear them talking, and she was embarrassed by Marcus's belligerence. She leaned back to take a breath, wondering why she bothered to argue with him. She reached into her pocket and presented Marcus's wedding band to him.

  "You were at the lab?" he asked. "When?"

  "Yesterday, but you weren't there." Melody held the ring out for him to take it. "Where w-"

  "Thank you," he interrupted with a display of heartfelt sincerity. "I thought this was gone forever. I was attacked by one of them in the office and had to lose the coat."

  His story rolled off his tongue with ease. "I stayed there, M... It was Dr. Carter and I. We stayed and were working on figuring this out."

  "You left me," she said with a voice that seemed to retract into a dark cave.

  "Mel," Marcus said, "We were trapped. The building was overrun and I couldn't get back to you. But you know what?"

  Melody remained quiet.

  "I knew you would be fine. You're a fighter."

  "I'm tired of fighting," she whispered, tired of fighting for her life and for her marriage.

  Marcus put his hand on her leg. “Me too. Most of the sick people in the building had found their way out, so it wasn't safe to leave until yesterday. We must have just missed each other. I'm sorry I left you. But this vaccine was so important.”

  "And?"

  "Well obviously I don't have a fucking vaccine," he snapped, and then bit his tongue to control his temper.

  "We heard on the radio that there's a safe zone—a compound at Fort Drummond working on a vaccine."

  Marcus raised his eyebrows, “Fort Drummond? Military morons are doing vaccine development there? We're all as good as dead. Hope they have some real scientists there.”

  "If you think about it. It shouldn't be too hard. People were making vaccines in the 1800's. And since it seems to be like a lyssavirus, they should be able to come up with a vaccine for that easily enough, right?"

  "A lyssavirus?" Marcus asked, "You mean like rabies?"

  He chuckled, then crossed his arms. "I know you're a good vet, but this isn't rabies."

  Melody's nostrils flared as her anger grew. "I know it's not rabies-"

  "Remember that time you thought you had ringworm?" He smiled.

  His condescending remark brought the conversation to a halt. He had always been that way. Marcus had always held himself on a pedestal, while snickering at Melody's insignificance, and she despised him for it.


  She regretted waiting for him at the house. She regretted risking lives to try to save him. Most of all, she regretted ever marrying him.

  Marcus placed his hand on top of Melody's.

  "After I lost power, I went to the quarantine zone to find you. I thought you would be there. I was scared to death that I lost you."

  Marcus moved in closer and put his arm around her waist.

  His touch felt toxic. She was stiff and emotionless, reluctant to believe any word he said. Marcus slid his hand along her waist and drifted lower toward her buttocks, when Melody spied a long red hair on his shirt. She backed away from him, pulled the hair from the fabric and stood up.

  "Damn bitch," he said releasing a sigh. "Had a real close call."

  Marcus stood up beside her and looked at the hair.

  "Some redhead infected chick got her hands on me." Marcus told a harrowing tale of his encounter in the lab with the redhead that made him leave his white coat behind, but his words were muffled by Melody's distrust.

  She remained silent. It was the same bright red hair that had clung to his bloody white coat at the lab. He could be telling the truth, but she was too suspicious.

  Marcus moved in for a kiss. He placed his hands on her waist and glided in closer. She allowed her husband's warm, dry lips to press against hers, but the kiss was emotionless. She realized she didn't love him anymore, and as he hunched his body to suckle on her neck, shame pumped through her veins.

  Marcus slid his hand to the top of her pants and popped the button open, but she backed away.

  "What are you doing?" she whispered, fastening her jeans.

  "I figured-"

  "John's right downstairs."

  "So what?" he laughed. "You and he didn't..." His face became serious as he looked over the edge of the balcony at John, who stared back up at him from the couch.

  Melody shook her head and squinted her eyes at Marcus. Her chest heaved with anger at the accusation of infidelity.