by Red Lagoe
John had heard everything from downstairs. He sat on the couch with his rifle at his side and his knife attached to his hip, while his leg throbbed, and heat radiated up his thigh. This Marcus guy was going to be a problem.
Melody climbed down the ladder and Marcus followed. When she reached the floor, she turned to Marcus. "I'm making a trip down to the vet clinic for some antibiotics."
Marcus leaned in close to her, "For him? No. We don't know him."
"You don't know him. I do."
"I'm not letting you risk your life for that guy."
"He risked his for me-"
"So did I!" Marcus yelled. "I almost died trying to get to you, and I find you here with some guy...and a fucking dog. What's that all about?"
John stood up. "The neighborhood was overrun, and Melody was worried you were trapped. She risked her life looking for you."
Marcus had no response.
"I'll go get my own meds," John said.
"Thanks man." Marcus patted him on the shoulder.
John wanted to punch him in his smug face. He pulled away from Marcus and gave him a look of warning.
"I'm going to the vet to get medicine," Melody said. "Not just for you, John. Drugs we might need later down the road, too."
"You're not going," Marcus shook his head.
"Neither of you have a say in this!" she snapped.
John smiled at her tenacity.
"I'll take the boat." Melody looked out the screened porch at the lake and pointed to the edge of the cove. "It's right around that corner. I'll dock beyond there and climb the bank. The clinic is right there."
John sighed, "I'll go with you, Chuck."
"Who the fuck is Chuck?" Marcus's brow furrowed.
"No," she said.
"I'll go with her." Marcus cut in. "You can't even walk, man."
John knew that he was in no condition to travel by foot. With the prosthetic on, it was too painful. He would only slow them down, but he was afraid to send Melody out alone with this guy. Husband or not, Marcus was not to be trusted.
"Can you see the vet clinic from the dock over there?" John asked.
She nodded.
"I'll come with you," John said. "I'll provide cover from the boat." He leaned on the walker, and fixed the rifle strap on his shoulder.
"Or," Marcus interjected, "you wait here, and let us take the gun. You look like you need some rest."
"I'm coming. I'm a better shot," John argued.
Marcus began raiding the cabinets for supplies.
"I haven't been here in years," Marcus said. "As usual, there's not much in the cabinets. What do you guys have in your packs?"
"Not much that's useful," John lied, while Melody shot him a glance over her shoulder.
She was at the kitchen window, bent over the sink, trying to get a better view of whatever was out there.
36
Four’s a Crowd
Kayla's head, filling with fluid, barely sat on top of her neck without wobbling. All of her energy and focus poured into following her map to Barton Road. She prayed Marcus was there. She gripped her tire iron a little tighter within her sweating palm.
There were few infected folks peppered throughout the streets on the outskirts of town near Barton Harbor, but most of the bodies she came across were dead.
As Kayla turned down the road to the harbor, an infected man circled nearby. She readied her weak stance, but the man draped in blood had no interest in attacking her. Clockwise circling, dragging his left foot, unaware she was there.
The infected man’s walk pissed her off—she clenched her jaw and fought the urge to lash out, but it was too strong. Kayla lunged at him, swinging the tire iron at his head in an outburst of rage. He crashed to the ground moaning, the blow threw Kayla off balance, and she fell to her side. After stumbling back to her feet with inexplicable rage, she bashed him in the head again and again, until his skull was unrecognizable.
With a tire iron dripping with blood, she gathered her bag of supplies and moved forward, unremorseful.
The road ahead rocked from side to side as her palm tree flip flops scraped along gravel.
Gravel. She had made it to Barton Road. A closer look revealed that she had dropped her tire iron somewhere along the way. All feeling in her right arm was lost, but her plastic bag of supplies was still with her—wrapped around her left wrist, cutting off circulation.
Scattered infected meandered about the area, uninterested in her. The pain from the bite in her leg radiated up her hips and into her spine. Feverish—sweat dripped into the scratches across her back, stinging the wounds, and she didn't know how much longer she could stay conscious. She had to find that son of a bitch soon.
"Marcus," she could barely say the name aloud at first, but after a couple of attempts, managed to yell, "Marcus!"
Kayla, trembling from the chills running through her body, shuffled forward in her search for the man that tried to kill her.
The road swayed as she called out louder, "Marcus!" The light tunneled into darkness and she collapsed forward onto her face.
Melody darted out the front door.
"M!" Marcus shouted, and ran out after her as Melody approached a girl lying face down on the gravel. She had flaming red hair. He sprinted after Melody.
"Leave her!"
Melody neared the unconscious girl and inspected her from a distance, while three other infected were making their way toward her.
"Don't get near her," Marcus pulled on Melody's arm, shocked that Kayla had survived. "She's infected."
"No. I heard her say something."
"What did she say?" Marcus asked, his heart seemed to slow down. His body calmed itself before having to respond to whatever drama was about to unfold. He was ready to cover up any evidence of what had happened.
"I think," Melody said, "she said, 'help us.'"
Marcus urged Melody to get away from her and get back to the house, while John fired a shot with his 9mm into one of the infected that were closing in on Marcus and Melody. The sound startled them, and Marcus pleaded with Melody to hurry.
She refused. Headstrong woman—always playing the hero.
Melody grabbed Kayla by the hands and hoisted her limp body along the gravel, a foot-length per yank.
John fired again, dropping another infected to the ground.
"Hurry up," he shouted to them, resting his weight on the edge of the walker.
"Damn it, Mel! Leave her. She's gone," Marcus demanded.
Melody's eyes pierced him with contempt. She wasn't giving in no matter what he said, so he gave into his wife, before she decided to push him into one of John's bullets.
He grabbed Kayla's feet and lifted. Together, they carried her back to the house and locked themselves inside.
Marcus paced while Kayla lay unconscious on the screened porch.
"That was really stupid," he said to Melody. "Why are you always like this? Risking everything for puppies and pathetic things? Risking our lives for one of them?"
Melody's eyes drove daggers into him again, but she looked away quickly. He could tell she would have liked to drive a real dagger into his chest.
She tried to relieve Kayla's fever with a wet wash cloth. Marcus knew it was pointless, but he shut up about it and let her do her thing. It must have made her feel important to help people.
Melody inspected the bandage on the back of the girl's leg and when she peeled it back, Marcus could see the arc-shape of a bite wound.
"Infected," Marcus snapped. "I told you!"
"Hey," John cut in, "She was just trying to help a person out."
"We need to get it out of here before it kills us," Marcus said.
He spotted a black chest beneath the couch that Kayla was laying on. It was the chest with gold clasps that his grandfather used to keep old police uniforms in, and Marcus wondered if he had stashed his old gun in there as well.
"It?" Melody said with disgust in her tone. "It's a person! She was just tal
king, calling for help. There might be more people out there too."
Kayla stirred on the couch and moaned, and Marcus turned away with haste to get out of her sight. He couldn't risk going for the black chest and having her wake up to see him.
He would get to the black chest later...when John and Melody weren't looking.
John held his hand near the pistol on his hip, while Melody rummaged through the plastic bag of the girl's belongings.
"What's in there," Marcus asked.
"Not much," she said.
Melody pulled out the realty book and thumbed through the pages to see if the girl had left a note or anything about who she was.
"Nothing," she confirmed and looked at Marcus with some sort of secret in her eyes.
"Mel, we have to get out of here before she becomes one of them. Let's get on the lake. Go to Fort Drummond."
"I'm going to go get those meds now," she said as if she wasn't even listening.
"That wound is not fresh," John said. "I don't think there's anything we can do at this point to save her. Even you said, once they're showing symptoms, it's too late."
"Maybe," she said, "but I have to go get those meds anyway. For you. For whatever we might need them for in the future..."
Melody couldn't bear to take another life today. Even if the girl was Marcus's secret lover. He must have thought she was an idiot not to know.
She couldn't sit around and wait for this girl to turn into a monster. She couldn't plunge her blade into a person's head and be OK with it. Humanity was escaping her with every life she took, and she had to try something else.
"If you insist on going to the vet clinic, then I'll go with you," Marcus said, holding the keys to the pontoon boat. "Let's go. We can't risk bringing her on the boat. Leave her here, we'll come back for her."
John flung his backpack over his shoulder, and he stumbled to the side, barely enough to notice, but Melody saw the imbalance. His body was not handling the skin infection well. Maybe it was due to lack of proper nutrition and dehydration. Whatever it was, Melody knew he was unable to make the trip safely.
"We can't leave her here alone," Melody said, "John, would you be able to take care of her?"
"Are you giving me a bullshit job to do because you think I can't handle-"
"You think I'm pandering to your need to be useful?" Melody said, cutting off John.
"Feels that way."
"For my sanity, please stay with her, just in case."
John wanted to say more, but Melody couldn't tell what it was. He probably wanted to argue about his leg, about Marcus, about going to the clinic for drugs that were obviously just for him. Instead, he handed over his rifle to Melody.
"Come on," Marcus said.
John whispered to Melody, "Is he trustworthy?"
Melody nodded.
"Let's go!" Marcus called from outside the door as Melody and John exchanged words.
"Yes." Melody leaned in. "I trust him for this. Don't worry. Thirty minutes is all it should take."
She grabbed her backpack and turned to leave, but paused in the doorway. Marcus was already halfway down the steps to the dock when Melody ran back to John and placed the Carroll County Realty Guide from the girl's bag in his hands.
"Here's some good reading for the time being. Just in case."
John smiled and took the book.
"It gets really good around page forty-eight."
John shrugged off her attempt at humor and hugged her, squeezing her against his body for a full three seconds, then backed away to sit beside the redheaded girl.
"I'll wait here with her. If she wakes up, I'll take care of her—either way. Stay alert."
John began to feel more lightheaded. His entire body was weak, and the pain in his leg radiated upward. He sat in a wicker chair within reach of the girl's head and watched as Marcus and Melody pulled away on the boat. Harkness sat by his side and whimpered as Melody drifted way.
The boat drove out of sight around the bend, and he was sickened with concern that he'd never see her again. He waited for the boat to reappear from around the point, but exhaustion took over.
All remaining energy seemed to have been spent healing his leg. His eyelids became heavy as he read the certificates and news clippings that were hanging on the cabin walls. Wayne Hill, Police Chief—accolades of Marcus's grandfather were adorning the cottage walls.
John looked toward the black chest beneath the couch. He had noticed Marcus eyeballing it just minutes ago, and wondered what was in it that caught his attention.
Kayla groaned and turned over in her sleep, letting her arm crash to the floor, and John's grip on his knife eased, as he felt himself dozing off beside the sick girl.
37
M & M Back Together Again
As Marcus drove the boat out of sight of the cottage and around the point of the cove, Melody felt a looming sense of danger. She lied to John when she said she could trust Marcus, but she didn't dare risk dragging John into those unknown dangers. Even though he was injured and in the presence of an infected girl on the brink of turning, John would be safer at the cottage. Melody could handle this.
Marcus pulled the boat closer to shore near the small Barton Harbor boat launch. A sailboat remained tied to the dock with its starboard side sinking beneath the surface of the choppy water, with dozens of the infected that had invaded the dock.
Ten of their bodies laid dead on the ground around the boat slip. The infected were dying off, and with each sighting of a lifeless body, Melody was conflicted with feelings of both hope and dread.
The infected heard the boat as it approached, and their aimless wandering shifted—all at once toward the incoming vessel. At least six of them dropped off the dock and into the water. Some sank below the surface and others thrashed face down and drowned. Marcus snagged the rifle and took aim at the infected, but Melody was quick to stop him.
"Don't. It'll attract more." Melody cut the engine and let the boat drift in silence.
"There." She pointed to a wooded area beyond the docks where a pebbled shoreline was exposed. The boat passed the dock, far enough away that the infected lost interest in them. Marcus let it bump gently against the shore, then they made a run for it. Through the pines, up the steep hill to the back of the veterinary hospital—they were unseen.
They climbed onto the dumpster to peek in through the small bathroom window of the vet clinic. Using a rock, they busted the glass and climbed inside to the tiny space that allowed barely enough room for a toilet and a pedestal sink. The air reeked of death and sewage.
The sound of the breaking glass had roused movement on the other side of the bathroom door. Marcus readied the rifle on his shoulder, and aimed at the thumping door with his hands trembling.
Melody steadied her left hand over the doorknob, gripped her knife in her other hand, and looked to Marcus, hoping it wasn't one of the girls she worked with.
The door thumped again. She pulled it open, hiding behind the door as Marcus fired a shot into the chest of the infected girl. The petite, young black-haired girl flung back against the wall, but regained her footing and lunged again. It was Hannah.
"Fuck!" Marcus's face was stricken with panic.
He fired a second shot into her chest, but the girl kept coming at them. Melody jumped out from behind the door with her knife ready, to help Marcus, but she hesitated. Hannah was coming at Melody, drooling and growling, with blood pouring from the bullet holes in her chest, pale skin and blue lips.
She had stayed behind to risk her life for a dying cat.
"You can't save them all," Melody had told Hannah a few days earlier. The memory flashed before her.
"I can try."
Melody remembered her naïve young heart. She remembered her kindness. She remembered the first time she assisted with a euthanasia and the poor girl cried hysterically. Every memory rushed through Melody in that moment of hesitation. She couldn't do it.
"Her head!" she screamed to M
arcus, and she backed against the wall, making room for Marcus to take another shot as Hannah lurked toward him again.
One more shot to her forehead floored her. Her body dropped, and her head cracked against the tiles, while Melody's ears rang from the close range shot.
Hannah, in purple scrubs, with blood seeping from her bullet wounds onto the floor, had a bandage wrapped around her wrist. Beneath it was a feline bite wound. Four small punctures from each canine tooth, surrounded by blackened necrotic skin.
Hannah was a good soul. One more light was taken from Melody's life, and the darkness was winning. She felt helpless. No matter what she did or how hard she fought, life continued to strangle her.
Marcus knelt beside his wife as she stared at the girl's body.
"Come on," he said, tugging gently on her sleeve to get her to stand up.
He still shook from shooting that woman in the head, but he got Melody to her feet and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in close to let her lean on his chest. Melody never cared to talk about her feelings, so it was nice of Marcus to remain quiet and let her process it in her own way.
Melody was exhausted from the day before. She was tired of running. Tired of fighting. For a brief moment she would have liked to have been the one dead on the floor.
Then her mind drifted to John. His leg was bound to become septic if she didn't get him the antibiotics he needed, and that girl with the red hair was likely already dead. Melody leaned into her husband. Her heart screamed in pain, but her eyes remained bone dry.
Marcus backed away and gave her a silent nod, as if to assure her that everything would be alright. It was the same nod he gave her when she moved in to his parents' house as a teenager. They had stood outside of her new bedroom that night and he—without saying a word—let her know that she would be fine.
Perhaps he wasn't perfect. Maybe he had cheated. Maybe he was an asshole...but he was there, trying to be a good person, and that had to count for something.
