Bracing his hand against the wall, Taj shook away his troubling thoughts of what was or what might be and focused on finding his father, and perhaps preparing for the worst.
He took a deep breath, exhaled, and pushed through the men's restroom.
2
"Father?"
Taj slowly opened the bathroom door. The bulbs above flickered, as if at any moment the power could go out in the building. He listened, hoping for a reply. The only one, a wet smacking sound, like a soaked towel wrapped tight into a ball and thrown against the wall, over and over.
Smack.
Smack.
Smack.
The sound echoed with a sense of urgency. Heavy, almost. Forceful.
"Father?" Taj called again, stepping fully into the bathroom. At first, he didn't see him, in the corner of the room, in front of one of the stalls, his back turned to him.
"Are you--okay?" he asked meekly, inching closer. He could see him moving, as if in prayer, swaying forward and backwards.
Taj froze, his hand covering his mouth.
In front of him, over and over, his father thudded his head against the wall, pulling back crimson strings of blood, and then hammering again and again.
"What are...please...stop," Taj began to weep. His eyes burning, giving in to the events of not just right now, but throughout the entire night and day.
Suddenly, his father stopped. He stood rigid, struggling maybe to decide what to do.
"Come, father. I'll take you home. That sounds nice, doesn't it. Home? You can get some sleep. And later, you'll wake up, right? You'll be better, right? Right?" Taj wept, hitching and heaving, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt.
Jittering, Taj's father turned. Yellowish-red drool seeped down in long strands, soaking into his already sweat soaked shirt. The bandage on his neck gone, revealing a dark purplish swollen wound. He glared over at his son with yellow-white clouded eyes. He growled low and started for him, his footsteps slow and uncoordinated.
Taj stepped back. "Father...please. Can you hear me? Stop, just--"
Lunging out, Taj's father grasped with clawed hands for his son's throat. Mouth wide and wanting. Pulling and pulling, fighting to take a bite.
"Stop!" Taj braced his hands out, keeping his father back.
Snapping at the air, inches from Taj's neck, his father bucked, pulling him closer with that same hungered expression the junkie had. The same as that little girl.
He wants...he's trying to bite me...he wants to--
"Taj!"
Taj risked a glance behind him. At the door, Jonny pushed through, now rushing to him. There was blood on his clothes, ruining what had been a handsome polo.
The little girl, perhaps... Taj wondered briefly.
Taj shoved his father just as Jonny came up and kicked out hard, knocking Taj's father in the stomach, forcing him to stumble backwards, falling onto the tile floor.
Standing side by side, they watched in silent horror as the older white- eyed, yellowish-red pus drooling man awkwardly got to his feet.
Backing away, Taj pressed himself hard against the wall, shaking his head. God, he wanted to scream. Wanted to wake up from this nightmare.
Jonny opened a six-inch pocket knife and started carefully for Taj's father.
In response, the old man growled and shuffled forward, seemingly annoyed of being denied his meal.
"Shit!" Jonny posed his arm to bring the knife down on Taj's father's head.
From the wall, Taj shouted, "No!"
Jonny hesitated.
Taj's father lunged again, falling onto Jonny. Snapping with his teeth. Pulling as much as he was pushing. Acting with a sense of desperation for the flesh akin to an addict.
Jonny fought to keep the man at bay. His knife slipped from his hand, clanking on the tile. "Taj," he grunted. "Help me."
Still pressed against wall, Taj breathed hard. Frozen and trembling. Eyes wide, unblinking.
Trying to keep Taj's father away from him, Jonny arched his back too far. His feet slipped and both he and the old man fell to the floor.
"Jonny!" Taj yelled, pushing off the wall to finally help.
Jonny looked dazed, blinked wildly. Moving slow.
"Move, Jonny." Taj came to him, but it was too late. His father crawled over and lashed down with his teeth, sinking into Jonny's neck and tearing away red flesh.
"No!" Taj drabbed the back of his father's shirt and heaved him off.
Refusing to give up his meal so easily, the old man took another chunk of meat before Taj could pull him away.
Taj glared at his father as he slid and then quickly squirmed back to his knees, working his way to his feet. He glanced down at the knife on the floor and snatched it in his fist. Behind him, on the floor, Jonny was gurgling something he couldn't understand.
His father stared, transfixed. Drooling pus and blood.
"Don't," Taj warned.
As if he didn't understand or didn't care, the old man came forward again.
Taj brought the knife up, plunging it into his father's eye. Grinding his teeth, he pushed hard, forcing them both to the floor. Panting, wanting to scream again, he sat up, glaring down at his hands and the knife still lodged. His father spasmed and then lay still.
Standing, Taj turned away and went to Jonny.
Jonny, sprawled on the floor, stared up at the ceiling with fixed glass eyes, the only sign of movement, the frothing blood pooling out from his open neck.
Taj stood there, shaking. He looked down at his father, and back at Jonny, and then at his own blood-soaked clothes.
And then he finally screamed.
Karen
Part 1
Webster,
Texas.
Karen watched as Taj searched frantically around for where his father might have gone, turning his chair over, standing on the tip of his toes, searching the many desperate diseased and terrified faces. Her hand went to her mouth, the other hugging across her abdomen. Goosebumps pricked her cold flesh; oh, how she wished she had worn something different. Had she known...but, how could she? The madness of this day, of her own dead father crumpled at the foot of the stairs in the house she'd grown up in. Her sister, wounded or sick or both, she didn't know, she couldn't help, she couldn't fix this or her; not that she ever could. Had she known, she'd worn something warm, something that could have shielded her from the horrible darkness of this day.
"Father!" Taj started shouting. He climbed the empty chair his father had occupied, gazing out over what remained of the crowd, all standing back, watching that horrible scene with the little girl consuming her obese dad.
"Maybe he went to the bathroom?" she suggested, more out of panic than realization. The little girl was enough to send her over the edge, she couldn't handle someone else losing control.
Breathe, Karen.
Just breathe.
"Bathroom? Yeah. Bathroom." Taj started off, shoving onlookers staring and doing nothing about that little girl and the unspeakable things she was doing.
Is that poor girl insane? Are we, standing here, allowing it?
Impulsively, she glanced through the crowd, catching her eye on that red dress as it swished and swayed on the rotund man. When she looked back, Taj was nearly to the restroom, having knocked an elderly man to the floor.
God, what are we doing here?
What are we doing to ourselves?
"Taj," she called, "we have to stick together!"
He seemed to hear her, she thought he had turned and looked over at her. But then, he was gone, through the bathroom door.
"Jonny, we have to stick together, we have--" Karen turned back to where her sister was, expecting to see Jonny standing there, but he wasn't. He'd inched forward, staring over at the check in counter, at that little girl in the red dress. "Jonny?" she said, coming to him, not wanting to look where he was looking.
"This isn't right," Jonny said, looking over at the horrible scene. "Everyone is just--watching, just sta
nding there while she..."
Karen glared at him. "What are you--"
"I need to do something. No one else will. This needs to stop."
"Yes, but, why you? We need to stick together. Taj just--"
"Stay here, with Kristy. Okay?" He wasn't looking at her, he was looking at the little girl, fumbling in his pocket for something she couldn't see.
"Jonny?" she balked.
He turned and looked down at her. "It's fine." He gave her a weak smile.
"Fine? Jonny, no--"
"Stay with Kristy, I'll be right back." And he was off, moving through the crowd, working to get to the little girl at an angle.
Jesus, he's going to get himself killed, she thought.
Stepping back, Karen knelt to check on her sister.
"Kristy? Can you hear me?" She touched her sister's face, pulling back.
She's burning up. What is this, an infection? What if...
People were shouting behind her in hushed gasps of shock.
Karen stood and turned to look to where Jonny was. He was by the check in station, both hands out before him as if to ward off some wild animal, and that's exactly how that little girl was, a wild thing, a beast, feral. The little girl in the red dress had stopped that insidious act she had occupied herself with and was now standing, glaring, drooling that yellowish-red pus, hunched as if readied to pounce.
Jonny was saying something to the girl, but Karen couldn't hear, she could hardly see with the massing crowd of hopeless onlookers.
Something glittered in his hand, caught in the light. Is that...his pocket knife? she wondered.
Again, another rush of murmured horror as the little girl lunged toward Jonny.
Jonny caught her, pivoting, and threw the girl on the floor.
Growling, clearly upset or annoyed, the little girl got to her feet, jittering, jerking her way towards him again, as if she didn't have full control over her muscle movement.
"Don't," Jonny shouted. "We can find you help, just listen--"
The little girl didn't listen, or couldn't, didn't want to; whatever the case, she quickened her awkward pace and lunged at Jonny again.
Up against the check in desk, he had no room to maneuver.
The knife glimmered again in the light.
They both fell to the floor.
"Jonny!" Karen yelled, wanting to run to him, not wanting to leave her sister.
Again, more muffled gasps of shock.
Jonny was standing, his shirt and half his face covered in wet crimson.
What just...oh God, did he...?
Jonny stared at the people staring at him. "Why didn't you help? Why didn't any of you assholes help?" he shouted at them.
Karen bit her lip. She turned away and fell into the chair beside her sister. Eyes shut, she breathed deep and exhaled slowly.
More people were talking up front now.
Karen glanced up from her chair. She caught a glimmer of a white lab coat between the bodies of the onlookers. Is that...? It is, that's the doctor, it must be.
She stood, dancing on her tippy toes, trying to get a look at whoever this doctor was and if they were going to help; if they were going to help her sister.
The white coat belonged to a woman with long sandy hair kept in a tight ponytail. She was kneeling from body to body by the check in desk, from the little girl, to the girl's father, and now she hovered over the guard. Jonny knelt near her. Talking, or so Karen guessed, only being able to see the motion of their lips.
Come on, Jonny. Get the doctor to see Kristy. Come on--wait...why is he coming back? Maybe we're going to take Kristy to one of the examination rooms.
Jonny didn't have to fight through the crowd. They parted as if he was Moses and they the Red Sea. Looking at him as if he was as diseased as they were, or perhaps worse. As he passed, they started to drift way, as far as the space of the waiting room would allow. Most were making their way to the white lab coat, wanting to know if they'd be seen soon.
"Jonny, was that the doctor--" Karen started.
"We need to go," he said, moving towards Kristy, as if to lift her up and carry her out.
Karen stared at him. "Go? Go where? Another clinic?"
Jonny shook his head, not making eye contact.
"Jonny? Then where? Kristy needs a doctor. Her fever is getting worse."
He said nothing, looking at the floor, his expression caught between sorrow and fear.
"Jonny, what about the doctor?" Karen pressed, nearly shouting.
He jumped at her, catching her wrists in his hands. He leaned in close to her, whispering hotly. "Don't you get it? There are no doctors, there is no help, no inoculation, no vaccine that will help her," he glanced quickly around, "or any of these sick bastards. There's nothing here for us. We have to go, while we still can. Do you understand?"
Karen flinched in his grasp. "Jonny, you're hurting me."
He gazed down at her wrists in his tightly clamped hands. He licked his lips, guilt now registering on his face. "I'm sorry," he released her. "I'm sorry, I..."
She rubbed her wrists. "What the hell is going on?"
Jonny looked at her again with that sheep dog look and then glanced over to where the doctor still knelt, by the dead guard. He nodded toward her, speaking low. "She's all that's here. And even that is pointless. There is no medicine the CDC had promised. God, the fucking doctor doesn't even know what's going on. All she knows is...all she knows is that whatever this is, it works fast, transmitted through the bloodstream, from a bite or wound. Not airborne, though. But even that's her best guess."
Realization slowly dawned on her. Karen gazed over what remained of the sick and wounded, those who did not flee. "My God." She looked at Jonny. "She hasn't said anything to these people?" she whispered.
He shook his head, glancing around, seeing if anyone had heard them.
Karen rubbed her mouth, eyes wide as saucers. "Jonny, when they find out there's no help..."
He came to her, reaching out.
She flinched from his touch.
Pretending not to be hurt, Jonny whispered to her, "That's why we need to leave, now."
Karen was nodded, reflexively, and then she shook her head. "Wait. No."
Jonny frowned, mouth agape. "No? Karen, we don't want to be here when these assholes find out there's no help coming."
"Taj," she said.
"Taj? What about him?" Jonny looked around, apparently surprised to see he wasn't standing nearby.
"He went after his father, in the bathroom. You need to get him."
"Karen, we need to look--"
"Don't you dare, not after what happened with..."
"She was rabid. I tried to--"
"He helped us, Jonny. When no one else was willing to, he gave us a seat for Kristy. We can't start turning our backs on people; we can't start looking out for just ourselves. We do that, we might as well park it right here and--"
"Okay, okay. Message received. I'll go get Taj. See if he's alright, let him know what the situation is. Good enough?" He reached out again and touched her shoulder. This time she didn't flinch.
Karen smiled at him. "That's my solider. Hurry, though. That doctor is starting to get crowded." She glanced at the check in station.
Jonny followed her gaze. "Yeah, you be ready to go, okay?" And he was off, jogging over to the restrooms. Karen watched him as he made it to the bathroom, turn to look at her, mouthing something that looked like "see you soon," and then disappeared inside.
Turning back to her sister, Karen knelt beside her, rubbing her arms. "Everything is going to be okay..." she said to Kristy, watching the sick crowd the doctor. A few started shouting, demanding to know when they were going to be seen. The doctor, for want or fear, refused to answer, still hovering over the fallen guard as if she could save him.
More and more demanded answers.
More and more slowly moved toward the doctor in the white lab coat.
She refused all of them, tending i
nside to the dead guard.
More yelled.
Karen stood. Wanting to do something, but too terrified to leave her baby sister's side.
Screaming from the bathroom, piercing and sharp to the bone. The growing murmuring pleas in the waiting room ceased. Silence fell over them, like an uncomfortable winter blanket. Heavy and restricting.
All gazed over toward the restroom.
Karen inched forward and stopped.
The door busted open.
"Jonny?" Karen whispered.
Taj ran out into the waiting room, tripping over himself. His clothes, his skin, was soaked and glimmering wet and crimson. Spotting Karen staring at him, he jumped back up, staggering quickly toward the exit.
"Taj," Karen called after him, "Taj, where's Jonny? What happened?"
Stepping through the opening sliding doors, he stopped and turned. His eyes were wet and streaming down his bloodied face. "I'm sorry," he said, "I'm so very sorry." And then he was gone.
"Taj..." Karen whispered, her gaze shifting back and forth from the exit back over to the restroom.
The exit door shut. Standing, hesitating, Karen waited to see if Taj was coming back. She prayed, but when she glanced back to the bathroom, something heavy pressed down on her heart.
"Jonny?"
Polk
Part 3
Shoreacres,
Texas.
She sat on the foyer floor, knees tucked into her chest, back against the base of the stairs, her gaze locked on the lumpy table cloth covered remains of Karen's mom. Polk rocked, back and forth, her thoughts a hot rush of what ifs and what's going to happens. The surfer dude had talked of conspiracies, of a virus, of dead people getting up and walking...and eating...people. How much of it was true? Some of it had to be, case in point, the dead woman covered on the dining room floor. Was this even real? It sure felt real, but it also felt like something out of a horror movie. Given her ghoulish obsession, she ought to feel right at home...but seeing it in real life wasn't the same as on TV. The same reason she'd never seen any of those new war movies, the one of the EOD guys or the one about Abu Ghraib, she didn't need to see what she experienced in real life on the big screen. Living the horrors tarnished the enjoyment of being entertained by them.
Planet of the Dead Page 12
