by Jason Deyo
The fire chief rolled over and began to crawl away, obviously still dazed. Keith wanted to help him, but all he could think about was what he’d heard on the radio. The three figures got to the young man and began to bite him with abandon. He screamed with each bite. The fire chief got to one knee and stood up, starting to head in the direction of his home when the soccer player saw him. He stopped attacking his current victim and turned his attention to Keith’s neighbor. He ran with incredible speed and jumped onto his back, biting into his neck. The teenager shook his head from side to side, ripping flesh. Keith immediately thought of the radio’s description of pouncing like an animal.
Keith closed the window and ran back to his wife. He now knew he had to pull her away from their son. “Em.,” He knelt over her. “It’s time to close the door. Just for a little bit until we see what happens.”
She was about to protest, but then stood up and hugged him. “I am so sorry. I know you are only doing what you feel is right, but I can’t leave him. I love him. He’s my boy.” Tears flowed from her eyes like water from a faucet, and Keith could not help but start crying as well. They nuzzled their faces into each other’s shoulders.
“We’re not going to leave him. I love him. I love you. I’m just so confused. I wish I had the answers, but I don’t. Until we know what to do, we have to close the door. We’re not saying good bye, but I just saw some awful things outside and I don’t want anything like that to happen in here.” Keith stated controlling his emotions. He lifted his head from her shoulder. His vision was distorted from the tears welling in his eyes, but he could see something that wasn’t there seconds before. A figure was now sitting on his son’s bed. Keith blinked to clear his eyes and was shocked by what he saw.
Jimmy was sitting up in bed and was now looking at the two of them. His mouth was slightly open as if he was breathing through it, and his dull grey eyes fixed on Keith’s. Keith saw Jimmy’s chest rise as he took a breath, and a loud screech filled the small room and blankets went soaring into the air. Jimmy flew from the bed and ran toward his parents.
Keith pushed his wife out the door before she could fully see what was happening. He pushed on her back and closed the door behind him. Jimmy pounded on the door, shaking the weak frame.
“Jimmy!” Amelia yelled with excitement. “He’s all right!”
“NO!” Keith hollered. “That’s not our Jimmy.”
Amelia tried to fight past Keith, but she was no match for Keith’s strength. “I need to see my baby.” She fought to get past him. “He’s better now.”
“No, Em. That is not our Jimmy anymore.” He held her back easily as she fought and wailed. “Em, stop!” He yelled at her, but she did not hear him. Keith knew he had to do something to prevent her from opening the door. He pushed her into the master bedroom and to the front window. “I need you to look.” He held her by the window. “I want you to see what’s outside.”
She could hear the same noises outside that she heard in her home. The screeching echoed the noise her son was making. Screams of pain and fear could be heard in between the screeching. The commotion was too much for her to deny what was happening outside.
Keith didn’t know what to expect when he slowly pulled back the shade for his wife. The screams of pain and fear were louder than the shrill screech of the creatures who had attacked the fire chief just moments ago. Scores of people were outside running in different directions. Screams came from the houses next door and across the street, but with Jimmy screaming in the next room it was hard to tell what was actually happening.
Keith saw the person who crashed into the fire chief’s car lying in front of his house. He must have fought until he finally lost. The beast had torn large chunks of flesh from his body. The man’s face was no longer recognizable, but Keith knew it was him from his bloodstained plain white T-shirt and denim jeans. The fire chief was lying in the street next to a car; only his legs were visible on the curb. The beasts did their damage and moved on. Both of the men were dead.
Men and women ran through the streets and converged on a single house directly across from them. The owner of the house must have opened the door to see what was happening and the horde of angry people attacked. Keith didn’t know what to call these people, but he did know they weren’t people anymore. They resembled wild animals. Some were so badly injured he didn’t understand how they were even moving.
The horde beat on the door. They ripped the screen door from the hinges and the sheet metal folded in on itself. The main wooden door cracked loudly and started caving in slowly, eventually breaking from the hinges under the weight of the horde. Once the door caved in the people in the house began to scream in fear. Once the horde entered the residence, the people inside began to scream in pain. Keith knew the neighbors’ fate was the same as the fire chief and the angry young man.
“Can we do anything for them?” Amelia asked in between sobs. “I mean, we can’t just watch.”
“My job now is to keep you safe. I can’t do that if I’m out there protecting other people.” He looked toward his son’s room. “I don’t think we are going to be safe here though,” Keith said.
“I’m not leaving our son.” She began to run back to Jimmy’s room and felt a firm tug on her arm.
“No!” He forced her back to him. “Our son has become the same as those things down there breaking into that house. Listen to them. They sound just like our son does. Anyone who has been exposed to the virus is changing. He’s not our son any more, Em.”
“Jimmy…Those things are not like my Jimmy.” She was so confused. As a mother, she needed to hold her son and comfort him, but she also knew something was very wrong. Her son had never beat on the door in that manner and she had never heard him make such an evil noise. The noise was demonic and inhuman.
Keith took her by the arm. “Come downstairs with me. We should probably watch the news and find out what’s going on. New information is probably being shared as they get it and we need to know what to expect. I’ll make some coffee, and we can see what it’s like out there and just play this thing out.”
She hesitantly agreed. The creature trapped inside their child’s room pounded on the door and screeched, knowing that its victims were on the other side of the wooden barrier. Keith positioned himself between Amelia and the door as they walked past it and down the stairs.
They turned on the television and the emergency broadcast system was on. They usually never watched the news channels. They were always filled with death, hate, and bad news; today every station was broadcasting the news. They couldn’t escape it if they tried. Every channel showed aerial views of the congested highways and fires littering the cities. Keith helped his wife to her spot on the brown suede sofa. She normally would have propped her right arm on the armrest and sat back with her feet up on the coffee table in the middle of the small living room, but now she sat on the edge of the seat, watching the images on the screen. The television flashed images of scenes, but she was unable to process what she was seeing. She was unable to make out the voices through the television speakers because all she could hear was the pounding from the room directly above her. The pictures continued to flash, but her attention began to drift elsewhere.
Her eyes followed the edge of the television, to the edge of the TV stand and then to a series of pictures that lined the top of the entertainment center. The pictures showed a time line of her husband Keith and Jimmy. Wide smiles and bright eyes reminded her of happier times. The most recent photo was from last year when they went on a fishing trip after Jimmy’s seventh birthday.
Keith came back to the living room with two cups of coffee. To his surprise, Amelia was no longer sitting where he had left her. Hearing the pounding from Jimmy’s room, he tossed the coffee cups onto the table, spilling coffee, and then ran upstairs. Amelia was standing at the door with one hand resting on the doorknob and one pressed against the door above her head. She felt her son beating on the door and tried to feel him closer
to her. “Amelia!” Keith screamed.
He ran up behind her and pulled her away from the door. “Damn it, Em. That thing in there is not our son. He’s no longer our little boy.” Keith forced her to look at him. “The creature in that room will hurt you.” Keith needed to be stern. He didn’t want to and it hurt his heart to have to say the things he was saying, but he couldn’t just stand by if Amelia was about to set their son free. “It is one of them now.” He pointed to the front window. “And you’ve seen it. That thing in there will try to kill you.” He hugged her. “It’s not our Jimmy anymore, Em.”
Amelia noticed something about Keith that was different. She had seen him this way before, but never in a moment that he wasn’t on his way to go hunting. A brown leather holster containing his black pistol swung under his left arm and his large hunting knife—the one he called his Ka-bar—hung from his right. She noticed the new apparel and looked quizzically at it.
Seeing her reaction he had to respond. “Just in case.”
“In case what?” Amelia questioned.
“In case those things try to get in. I’m bringing up supplies from the basement. Ammo, food, batteries, lights. The things we’ll need when we lose power.” He grabbed her hand and started guiding her back down the stairs.
“When are we going to lose power?” she asked as they traveled down the steps.
“The employees at the power plant probably aren’t sticking around. They have families just like us. More than likely they left as soon as shit started to get crazy. If Bob had a big job for me to finish and this started spreading the airways, I sure as hell wouldn’t stick around,” referring to his supervisor at the quarry. “I don’t know how long we have, but I imagine the power will eventually go sometime tonight or tomorrow morning. Unless a power line goes down or a transformer blows sooner from someone hitting it with a car or something.”
Keith led her back to the couch and sat on the coffee table across from her. She did not look at him, instead looking down between her brand new Nike running shoes, staring at the coffee stain on her light blue carpet. Jimmy continued to pound on the door and screech with excitement. “Look at me,” he said, forcing her eyes to meet his. “We cannot allow him to continue to make those noises. He is going to bring the rest of them to our door.”
Her eyes were red from crying. She nodded in understanding. Keith picked her legs up and moved them to the side of the couch. “This is a lot to take in one day. I know I can’t do this without you and I want you to rest.” He helped her lay her head down on the arm of the couch and scooted her down a little so she could stretch out.
Amelia lay with her right arm tucked under her head and watched the images on the television screen. She did not focus on any one image, but just absorbed the shapes of the flashing pictures. The colors of the screen bounced off her clear skin.
Keith stood up and kissed her on the forehead. “I don’t want you to move from here. I’m going into the basement to get some things and will be right back.” She did not answer, but Keith left her side anyway. He ran to and from the basement, bringing up hunting and camping supplies. After a few minutes the living room table was covered with equipment. He moved fast, knowing exactly what he wanted to retrieve. He stopped to check on Amelia in between each trip, ensuring she was still resting on the couch.
He picked up the long bird barrel twelve-gauge shotgun and began loading it with home defense rounds. He loaded six rounds and placed the gun on the coffee table. Amelia was used to guns and grew up with them most of her life. She lived in Georgia ever since she was a young child and her entire family hunted. Being the youngest daughter with two older brothers she never had an opportunity to play with dolls, so she did many of the things her father and brothers did. She got a twenty-gauge shotgun for her thirteenth birthday and brought home many rabbits for the family with that gun.
The twelve gauge sitting on the coffee table looked and operated exactly the same as her old twenty gauge. Keith placed this gun in front of her because he knew she was very comfortable with this weapon. “This is just if something bad starts to happen,” Keith said as he walked away to gather more items. He continued putting a plethora of equipment on the coffee table and began covering the two end tables on both sides of the couch.
Candles, matches, flashlights, large and small lanterns, and some batteries now crowded the black shotgun. Keith grabbed blankets and pillows for himself and Amelia from upstairs. Satisfied that everything was where he wanted it, he sat on the brown suede loveseat under the front window.
They sat and watched as the news continued to rerun clips of events from earlier in the day. Keith started to focus on his wife. Her eyes were fixed on the television, but he knew she was not watching it. Her eyes were glazed over and she seemed to look right through the screen.
It was getting late and Keith knew the television might cast shadows on the windows. He leaned on the loveseat under the front window and peered through the curtains to see if the front was still teeming with diseased people. As he pulled the side back, a figure moved past the window. He quickly let go and moved toward his wife.
He put his arm around her and pulled her toward him. “We should turn the TV off.” He said quietly, not sure how she was going to react to the suggestion. They watched little television, but it stayed on most of the day. The TV mostly acted as background noise, so this statement was out of the ordinary. “I love you.” Keith whispered to her, not expecting a response.
Amelia continued to stare at the box, not paying attention to it or him. He lit two candles on the coffee table and turned off the lamp on the end table. He indicated he wanted to sit where her head was propped and she moved down. Keith propped his feet up on the coffee table and leaned back. Amelia laid her head on his lap and she stretched her legs on the couch, the same way she had on many previous occasions. Once she was comfortable, Keith fumbled with the remote and turned off the television.
As soon as the TV shut down, Jimmy’s screeching and pounding on the door became intolerable. The television offered a welcome distraction from what his son was going through. Now that Keith was satisfied with his preparations he had little to distract him. He desperately tried to think of different things he could do to prepare, but he had everything ready. He looked at the equipment and lanterns on the coffee table and tried to think of the one thing he might have missed.
Keith knew he wasn’t missing anything and didn’t need to do any additional prepping. But every time he stopped preparing, thoughts of his son leaked into his mind. Not thoughts of his newly undead son, but thoughts of them, as a family, having fun and living life, laughing and playing in the woods. Memories of coaching Jimmy’s little league soccer team and of the first time he scored on the opposing team. All the times they went fishing and Keith spent the entire day baiting hooks and pulling small sunfish off of Amelia’s and Jimmy’s lines. The first time Jimmy caught his first catfish—the biggest catfish either one of them had ever seen—Jimmy was almost pulled into the water. The moment he knew he would never love anything more than holding his son for the very first time and realizing he was now, Daddy.
His eyes welled and then tears began to slowly run down his face. He tried to fight his emotions and when a tear fell onto Amelia’s head. She crawled higher onto his lap and wrapped her arms around his midsection and hugged him. He pulled her up and squeezed her tight. Keith could no longer hold back and began to sob.
Chapter 3
The agreement
Although Jimmy’s relentless pounding eventually ceased, neither one of them slept that night. The screeching had changed into a low and quiet growl, and the assault on the door had changed to pacing back and forth in his room. Jimmy’s bedroom was directly over the dining room and his son’s footsteps could be heard through the ceiling.
At the first signs of morning Keith rose with the sun. He gently tried to lift Amelia’s head off his lap, but she sat up as soon as he began to stir. Keith wanted to see what the roads
looked like now that the sun had risen.
To his surprise, from the downstairs window it looked like any other day. No one was outside. No crazed people or anyone rummaging through the streets.
“What are we going to do?” Amelia asked, breaking the monotony of Jimmy pacing the floor and startling Keith,
Turning to face her, Keith put his finger to his lips and spoke in a whisper. “Not sure. If we plan on making it here for any amount of time, eventually we are going to have to get more supplies.”
“How much time do we have?” Amelia asked in the same hushed tone.
Keith noticed she was more animated this morning and that made him happy. Last night before they turned off the television and the lights, she was becoming very distant and disheartened. She gulped the water Keith had brought to her the night before.
“A couple days, weeks even, since it’s just us. If we plan on staying here we are going to have to stock up with as much as we can find.” He sat on the loveseat under the front window. “You know we don’t have to stay here.”
“Where would we go?”
Keith’s uncle Tim lived an hour from them. His uncle lived on many acres surrounded by flat land and lined by thick woods. His uncle’s house would be the best place to be during a time such as this. The only problem was that Amelia hated Tim with a passion. Tim did not filter the words that came out of his mouth. He would make inappropriate comments about a woman’s weight or remark on a dress or gown someone was wearing. No matter whether you were his wife, sister, or coworker, Tim had the uncanny ability to make everyone around him feel very uncomfortable.
