by Jorja Kish
Alice shuddered and whimpered, wiping the tears from her eyes as she tried to calm down. She took several deep breaths when Mackenzie nodded before turning back and suturing a nasty tear in the poor boy’s shoulder.
“Go on, Alice, tell me more.”
“I was in the kitchen putting together meatloaf, because today is meatloaf day and Phil and Alec love meatloaf…,” The older woman’s voice faded away, her expression lost in the morning.
She visibly jumped and cleared her voice, before continuing, “I heard yelling outside and I wondered what the hell was going on. I just made it to the back door when I saw Alec. He was covered in so much blood before collapsing on the porch.”
Sarah dragged a chair from the sitting area and gently pulled Alice down to sit. The woman’s body was shaking so much Sarah feared Alice was going to collapse.
“It’s okay, Alice. Mackenzie’s got the magic touch, she’ll save your boy,” Sarah said, sharing a quick hug.
Alice jerked at Sarah’s soft touch and gave a wan smile, before she turned back to Mackenzie. She watched the doctor carefully and thoroughly stitch together the horrible bite marks on her son. She choked down the swell in her chest and continued.
“He was burning up and sweating so bad that I didn’t think I would be able to get him in the truck. He was unconscious this entire time and I was frantic, but I knew he needed medical attention. I think I broke every speed limit and traffic law to get my boy here.”
There was a pause in Alice’s explanation.
Mackenzie snipped the last of the suture string and leaned back, allowing Milly to finish up and bandage the unconscious boy. Mackenzie removed her gloves and gently felt the Alec’s forehead with the back of her hand and winced. The boy was burning up even more now than when he first entered the clinic.
She stood and rushed toward the hall, opened a cabinet with her keys and rummaged through the medications. She grabbed a few bottles and syringes before locking up and rushing back to the reception area.
Alice was now standing by her son, tenderly curling his wild hair behind his ears. She bent down and lightly kissed his burning forehead and wiped her tears away as she straightened. Sarah took a step closer, wrapped her arm around Alice, and gave the woman a quick hug.
“See, Mackenzie fixed him up real good, Alice. Your boy is going to be just fine.” Sarah gave another sweet hug, before placing a soft kiss on the woman’s weathered cheek.
Mackenzie seized another pair of gloves and slipped them on as she grabbed the glass bottles and prepared the syringes of the antibiotics, anti-inflammatory, muscle relaxants, and a mild painkiller.
Normally she would have used an IV drip, but felt it necessary to give the boy dose as quickly as possible. She placed the syringes on a metal tray and carried the medication toward the unconscious Alec. She caught Alice’s worried eyes and smiled with sincerity.
“I know it looks like it’s a lot, Alice, but I just want to be extra careful and give Alec what he needs right away. An IV drip would give everything, too, but it would take time. I just want to nip any infection in the bud and make him as comfortable as possible. He won’t even feel the needles.”
“It won’t hurt him?”
Mackenzie shook her head, “Nope, he won’t feel a thing. These will make him feel better. I promise.”
Alice chewed her lip as she stared at Alec’s motionless body. She lightly traced the back of her hand down her son’s smooth, pale cheek and nodded her head solemnly.
“Okay, give him what he needs.”
Her pale brown eyes watched Mackenzie take the first needle and wipe the skin in his right arm with a sterile swab before gently poking the sharp tip into the pale arm. Alice’s eyes flew to her son’s sleeping features to check for any discomfort.
There was nothing, not even a twinge from the tiny prick of the needle, causing her to relax and smile with relief.
Mackenzie, when she was done, stood back and released a loud sigh of relief. She shrugged her shoulders with an apologetic grin and stripped off another pair of gloves. She tossed the pair in a yellow biohazard bin, along with the syringe, and walked to the back of the clinic to wash her hands with antiseptic soap.
She felt a body next to her and turned to look at Milly, who was also washing her hands. The two women were quiet.
“Those marks on Alec’s body look like bite marks, but not from any animals I know.” Milly rinsed and repeated washing her hands in the sink.
Mackenzie paused in soaping her hands a second time and stared at the swirl of water and soap drain down the sink. Unease glinted in her eyes, catching Milly’s worried blue-eyed gaze, before looking over her shoulder at the front of the clinic.
She leaned slightly closer to Milly. “Those bites aren’t from an animal, Milly. Those are human teeth marks. Alec was attacked by someone and judging by where the wounds were inflicted…” Mackenzie frowned and shook her head, unable to comprehend what it meant as she finished washing her hands.
“What?” Milly urged, swallowing a lump in her throat as she watched her friend’s features pale.
“I think”—Mackenzie wet her dry lips—“I think whoever did this was trying to eat Alec.”
Chapter 6
“Spring Valley Police Station, how may I help you today?”
“Sherry, this is Dr. Mackenzie Chambers. I need to speak with Sheriff Tillman immediately.” The clicking of her keyboard was the only sound in her office.
“I’m sorry Mackenzie, but the sheriff isn’t in today. He left earlier and said he wasn’t feeling too well. Actually, the only deputy on duty is Clemens. I haven’t heard from Deputies Barker or Monroe. They had an early shift scheduled. I tried to call them at home but didn’t get an answer.”
Mackenzie frowned as she listened to Sherry, her eyes scanning the computer monitor as she scrolled down the webpage she was searching.
“I need to speak with Deputy Clemens, then.”
There was a pause on the other line.
“Sherry?”
“Sorry, doc, she left ten minutes ago when there was call for some type of ruckus at the old McGuire place.”
The blood in Mackenzie’s veins ran cold. Oh, shit!
Her fingers froze on the keyboard, before she stood and rushed to her office door and peered out. There was no activity at the front, only the low, murmured voices of Milly and Sarah Miller. Alice sat with her son in one of the empty exam rooms at the back of the clinic to give them privacy.
Mackenzie quietly closed her door and rushed back to her desk. She snatched up the landline phone and punched off the speakerphone.
“Did you say the McGuire place, Sherry?”
“Uh, yes?” the younger woman replied hesitantly.
“Shit, I mean, I have Alec McCormick here with serious bite wounds covering his body. I just finished stitching him up. His mother, Alice, said that he and Lenny Pascal were going fishing near the McGuire farm this morning. You need to contact Deputy Clemens and tell her something more than a ruckus is happening at that farm. Sherry, she needs to know that Alec’s wounds are not from an animal. They were human bite marks.”
Another cold wash slithered across her skin.
She shivered and wondered if it was the same tendrils that flooded her system when she realized earlier that a sick individual attacked and took chunks out of Alec McCormick. Sweat beaded her forehead as her throat constricted with the unease she was suddenly feeling.
Something was wrong. Something terrible was happening in Spring Valley.
“Wh-what did you say, Mackenzie?” Disbelief echoed in Sherry’s voice. “Human bite marks?”
“Call Clemens, Sherry. She needs to know what she’s getting into,” Mackenzie snapped, then sighed. “Please, hurry.”
“Okay, right, I’m doing it right now. Hold on.”
Mackenzie briefly closed her eyes and squeezed them shut. Come on, come on, she thought. The soft pounding in her head and the tension in her neck was the tell-tale
sign of a nasty headache brewing. She listened to the roll of a chair clattering over vinyl and a series of clicks before a hiss of static reverberated over the phone line.
Sherry Ferrell’s voice, slightly muffled, talked into the CB radio, loud enough for Mackenzie to listen to the conversation.
“Officer Clemens, this is dispatch, come in.” There was a pause, before she tried again. The hiss of static filled the room.
The radio clicked and the hiss disappeared when the no-nonsense tone of Deputy Clemens came over the line.
“Dispatch, this is Clemens. I’m about five minutes from the McGuire farm on Calamity road.”
“Beth, I mean, Deputy Clemens, I have Dr. Chambers on the phone. She told me that Alec McCormick was at the farm earlier and he came home bitten. She stated that the wounds weren’t from an animal.”
“Okay, if not an animal, then what?”
“Alec had human bite marks covering his body,” Sherry rushed out. In her tone it was evident she didn’t want to voice the creepiness of the boy’s attack aloud.
Even Mackenzie took a quick look around her empty office and clenched the phone tighter to her ear. She chewed her thumbnail and strained to hear what was going on. The urge to race out of her office and snatch Shayane from school made her heart pound harder.
“Let me get this straight,” Clemens’s voice boomed over the line and caused Sherry to gasp from the sudden noise. “Dr. Chambers believes that the McCormick boy was attacked by a person?”
“That’s what she stated, deputy.”
The tone of disbelief was clear in Beth Clemens’s voice. Mackenzie winced and prayed that the woman didn’t think she was crazy. Her heart thudded in her chest and her hands were slick with sweat. An unknown pang in her gut urged Mackenzie to shout in to the phone.
An urgency bordering on panic had her yelling at Sherry.
“Hold on, Beth, I think I hear doc on the other line.”
“Wait! She’s not there—” There was a heated curse from the deputy.
The squeal of brakes from the cruiser had the officer pulling over at the side of the dirt road as she waited.
“Doc?” Sherry hesitantly called over the phone.
“Sherry, something is going on that I don’t understand. Call it woman’s intuition, but tell—no, demand that Officer Clemens is needed back here. That-that I need her here to file a report, and—”
The phone line went dead.
“Hello? Shit!” Mackenzie growled and shook the phone before tapping the button on the cradle of the landline.
There still wasn’t a dial tone.
She slammed the phone down and chewed her thumbnail. “What the hell is going on?”
Without a second thought, she jumped to her feet and rushed to her office door. The door flung open and banged loudly against the wall. She heard Milly’s exasperated voice in the front room before she stomped into the reception area.
“Hello, hey Beatrice, are you still there? Hello?” Milly turned, wide-eyed, and rapidly blinked at her boss. “The phone’s dead. What is going on?”
She glanced at Sarah’s pale features, before turning toward her boss.
“The hell if I know.” Mackenzie ran fingers through her shoulder-length auburn-mahogany hair. She turned on her foot, marched to the front door, and opened it.
Bright sunshine filtered through the entrance as she stepped out on to the sidewalk. Her eyes squinted from the brightness of the sun as she scanned the slow ebb and flow of the main street.
For a midmorning on a Monday in late June, there should have been more people bustling around. She saw Sandy Marsdale and Gerty Sinclair chat with their latest additions tucked away in the latest strollers they had to buy for their grandchildren. Several other friendly faces, all women, strolled along the picturesque shop fronts. At least there should be more men walking the sidewalks. The street was surprisingly sparse with not a man in sight.
“Where are the men?” she mumbled under her breath, inexplicable fear filling her bones.
A shiver tingled down Mackenzie’s back and the skin over her arms prickled with cold. She absently rubbed her arms, but it didn’t stop the panic that made her heart jump with fear.
Worry furrowed her brow, while she bit her lower lip. Shadows crossed paths with hers, making her wince. She felt Milly and Sarah step closer, as if they needed the extra body heat.
“What is going on?” Milly hushed voice carried across the sidewalk.
Mackenzie’s eyes scanned the cheerful storefronts and eclectic shops that lined the normally boisterous main street. Despite the sunshine and seasonal weather, a coldness lurked in every shadow, waiting.
“I don’t see any men, not one walking, even lingering to talk. It’s like they disappeared.” Dread gushed into her veins. “We need to get back inside now.”
Mackenzie guided the two women with firm touches on their backs. She couldn’t stop the tremble in her legs. The door of the clinic opened, as Milly and Sarah stepped through. Mackenzie took one last look at the picture-perfect town she called home and, knew without a doubt, the gates of hell were about to be opened.
She had to get to Shayane.
Chapter 7
Fourteen hours later
There was heaviness in the air that made the darkness menacing. The fine hairs on Mackenzie’s arms quivered as she leaned forward from her hiding spot and concentrated at an area in the wood line. Sweat covered her exposed limbs and the filth on her arms made her skin itch. Her eyes slowly scanned the area, devoid of sound and movement. Mackenzie raised her finger to her mouth for silence.
She waited, feeling the paralyzing tendrils of dread seep into her bones. Something was about on happen, again.
When she woke up this morning, eager for a dinner date with her neighbour, she would have never guessed the horror that was waiting for her, for every woman in Spring Valley. The blur of the day’s events streamed through her head as she glanced away from the trees and turned toward the huddled women behind her.
Fear gnawed at her insides when she saw Milly cradling her toddler Henry tightly in her mud-smeared arms. Between the two of them, they were barely keeping it together.
She couldn’t believe they were still coherent after the devastation of Fergus attacking them. Mackenzie watched the violent tremble in the boy’s quivering lip. It was only a matter of time before he collapsed under the strain. “We have to keep as quiet as we can. I think they’re in the woods.” Her lips barely moved, whispering almost as silent as the wind.
A quick glance at Henry made her skin chill. She saw the wild terror leaking from the small boy. They didn’t have much time to find better shelter. When Henry finally unravelled, they were all going to die.
Mackenzie stared into his pale blue eyes, hating the uncontrollable fear that clenched her insides. She couldn’t let him make a sound. Lord, what was she going to do to a little boy? Her stomach churned, refusing to think of harming the sweet child.
He whimpered, causing everyone to gasp quietly, before Milly placed her hand over his mouth. Milly’s action was the catalyst that forced the three year old to struggle in his mother’s arms.
Several arms tried to subdue the boy, but it was only a matter of time before he cried out and gave their position away.
Mackenzie snapped her eyes back to where she scanned the stagnant forest edge. Oh god, she thought. Those things are going to find us.
A humid, pungent breeze flapped the coniferous leaves and made the pine needles clack together as if they were bony fingers tapping on a stone surface. The darkness ahead felt even more foreboding and lethal.
The expansion of unblinking eyes glowed from the darkness. It made the bile in her throat bubble to the surface. She choked the bitterness down and made her decision.
Tears streaked down her cheeks before she wiped them away. She took the chance to look away and turn back to face the small group of women and children. They were all that was left of Spring Valley.
Her blue eyes found her daughter’s frightened gaze and locked on to the one person who made her want to be brave and strong.
Mackenzie’s entire body trembled, flushing hot and cold. The anguish she felt made her heart lurch. She mouthed the words, “I love you.” and put every ounce of love that she had for her daughter in that one intense look. Her eyes threatened to tear when Shayane frowned and violently shook her head in denial. “Mum, no don’t,” she whimpered.
Before her daughter could stop her, Mackenzie jumped to her feet and sprinted into the open playground while screaming at the top of her lungs as she ran. She headed straight toward the pack of the Infected that hunted them.
“I must be crazy,” she panted, fear burned her insides, but she didn’t stop barrelling to the centre of the open playground when the forest erupted into the animalistic grunts and wet, choking whines of the hungry.
The putrid bodies of the infected that were once the men of the town of Spring Valley prowled out into the open, gathering in a cluster, waiting for the moment to attack. Their misshapen, gaping mouths filled with jagged, shredded teeth snapped open and closed as they stepped out as a unit and into the open field.
One lone male stood away from the pack. His tattered, blood-soaked clothes whipped from the wind, exposing hanging chunks of muscle and exposed bone from his earlier wounds. It was obvious he had tried to fight back, but in the end, he succumbed to the insidious infection.
Matted, dark shoulder-length hair and a chiselled jawline. That was familiar.
Mackenzie cried out when she recognised Armand Zimmerman’s once-handsome looks. One half of his face was torn and jagged clumps of skin and bone quivered when he moved, while the other side was free of the horror that destroyed his life.
Mackenzie choked back a sob of repulsion. “Oh Armand, no.” She shook her head in despair. To her dying day, which she hoped wasn’t this day, she’d never forget the terror that unfolded in her hometown.
The breeze carried their decayed stench and forced Mackenzie to backpedal and raise her filthy sleeve to cover her nose and mouth. She gagged from the awful smell and choked back the vomit that came up her throat. Her eyes watered and rapidly blinked back the wetness.
