“What did you do?” Katherine asked, horrified.
“I was using them as bait. They were already dead and...”
“They weren't already dead. One of them had these hairs in her hand, where she must have struggled against being tied up.”
“They were dead already!” she nearly shouted.
“Wait, there was blood on the ropes. If they were already dead, there wouldn't be fresh blood on the rope. It's too cold for it to stay liquid for long.” I spoke aloud, as one piece to the puzzle snapped into place.
“But, they were... I mean, you can't know that. I found them stuck in...” she stammered.
“Why did you kill them?” Katherine asked.
“They would have died anyways,” she snarled, “and I wasn't going to let him fall in love with the women.” her voice shrieked at the end as she raised the pistol and leveled it at my head.
Everyone froze, only their eyes moving. From Claire to me, back and forth. Finally Justin moved slowly, his mother’s eyes darting to the side as he reached up and put his small hand across her bicep and pulled her gun arm down slowly, softly. The gun hit the table with a clatter and she buried her head in her arms and started sobbing. Justin slid the pistol towards me and I caught it before it could skitter off the table. I handed it to Frank, my hands shaking so bad, I felt like I was going to drop it.
“Jim isn't falling in love with anybody,” Katherine said softly over top of Claire's sobs. “Were you trying to draw the zombies to us?”
“No, no, I'd never do that. You guys are like family to me and Jim is perfect for Justin, he's a great father and...”
“I'm not a father.” I said, and Claire raised her head to look at me, wiping a stringer of snot off her nose with a shirt sleeve, her hair in disarray. I was going to have been a father, but Janie was gone, the baby with her.
Once the mask was off, I could see how much we all had missed noticing, Justin included. Somewhere, somehow, Claire's mind had snapped. Her eyes were bloodshot, but not from infection, more like little to no sleep. Her eyes had deep dark shadows under them that had nothing to do with makeup, and her exposed skin had a pallor to it that I hadn't noticed before. The conversation she’d had with Sarah that I'd heard on the recording was one little slip of the mask, but she was stark raving mad. She had to be. Claire tried to push the table into Frank and I and bolted upright.
Katherine cursed, drawing her own gun, but Sarah stopped the attempted break away by cold cocking Claire in the side of the face, the lights going out immediately. Claire slumped back into the chair, her upper body leaning on Justin who still looked at us in shock and his mom in horror.
“Did you know?” I asked him.
I thought his head would wobble right off his shoulders as he shook an unmistakable no. Frank abruptly left the room and was back in moments with long, thick zip ties. Claire's eyes had started fluttering, and before she came to, he had both arms secured to the arms of the chair she was sitting in, and both legs were done in the same fashion.
“Claire, Claire! Wake up!” Sarah pushed on her shoulder and pulled her hand back quickly as Claire's teeth snapped shut.
“He's mine! I found him first! I saved him! You don't love him the way I do, he likes me!” She started to sob when Sarah continued to stare at her, her hands out of reach now.
“This isn't good.” Katherine turned to Frank.
“No, it isn't. Justin, if you untie your mom, I'm going to throw you both out of here. Got it?”
“Yes sir,” Justin said, moving away from his mother.
“I want to talk to you three.” Frank said, pointing at Katherine, Sarah and I.
We headed towards the bedroom where Frank and Katherine slept and stood in the doorway.
“She can't stay here.” Frank started.
“We can't make them leave in this weather.” Katherine hissed.
“Who said them? The boy stays. He had nothing to do with this.” Frank was pissed, betraying the stoic face he usually kept.
“Daddy, you can't kick her out and expect Justin to stay here with us,” Sarah said.
“What do you want him to do, take her out back and shoot her?” I demanded, and the girls winced.
“That might be the best thing, actually.” Frank said.
“That's murder.”
“That's what she did. She's looped the loop. Cracked. Crazy. I don't think I can sleep here tonight, knowing she's awake.”
“She's tied up tight.”
“Justin might let her out...”
“The kid is a good kid. You all probably watched her face when Sarah dropped the bomb, but I watched Justin's. The kid was absolutely horrified when he realized what his mother had done.
“What do we do?” Katherine asked.
“I'm thinking of Bobby's cabin. We can drop her there. He's setup almost as good as we are here.”
“What if Bobby is there?” Katherine asked, ignoring Sarah and I completely.
“I got a message from him before we left for the boat. He'd been bitten and...”
“Oh honey, I'm sorry,” Katherine said, putting her hand to her husband’s cheek. “He was your best friend, why didn't you tell me?”
“Didn't have a chance to. Things up here are hard enough to focus on, let alone mourning the loss of a friend.”
“That's cold, Daddy.” Sarah spoke up.
“You're probably right,” he said after a long pause. “But if Jim will loan me the Jeep, I can drop Claire off in the morning.
“I don't mind, but you're going to need one of us to go with you. We can't trust her.”
“No, we can’t. I don't think I want you to go though, Jim, she's fixated on you for some reason.”
I just nodded and the group split up. Sarah and Frank approached the table and Frank explained the exile he had in mind. The screams were long and loud, and she wailed fit to wake the dead. I was worrying about her being overheard in the advancing gloom of night when first one flare went off, then another.
“Shit!” I screamed.
+++++++++++++
Something had set off the tripwires in two different directions. The tripwires were easy to make, with the hardware from under Frank's bed. Basically, a rat trap and striker were positioned and nailed to a tree. The tripwire itself was tied to the trigger, and ran down the length of the tree through a metal eye loop and ran parallel to the ground and tied off at the other end. Once tripped, the rat trap would close, hitting the striker on the flares or snapping a glow stick, giving us an idea when and where it was hit. I was wishing they were claymores at that point.
“Stay here with Claire and Justin.” Frank pointed at me. I just nodded, and the three Andersens put on their winter gear, grabbed their rifles and patted their pockets for clips. They weren't even looking at bows when another flare went off, then a glow stick, sickly green in the gloom.
“I will, be safe.”
“Got your gun?” Sarah asked.
“Always.”
“Good. This is for luck,” Sarah said, leaning in, her lips brushing mine, and then opening as the kiss deepened.
“He's mine!” Claire screamed, breaking the moment.
“Shut her up,” Katherine said, slamming the door open and stomping outside, all Momma bear in a rage.
One by one the Andersens left the cabin on a grim task, one that left me wondering about their safety and, of course, the kiss. I rubbed my lips absentmindedly while Claire continued to shriek. I went to my bag, grabbed a pair of socks and jammed them into her mouth. She'd either have to calm down, or she would choke, and if it weren't for Justin, I wouldn't have cared at that point, chemistry or no.
“You aren't going to hurt my mom, are you?”
“No, but I have a lot of things to do here right now. Follow me if you want to talk,” I told him, heading for the gun safe and getting a vest, mags and the AK I had used. Justin shadowed me.
“What happens now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you k
icking us out?”
“You can stay, kiddo.” I told him, starting to go window to window, loading the magazine and pulling the bolt.
“But my mom...”
“She's snapped, kid.”
“But she's my mom!”
“There's another cabin up the lake, just like this one. We're going to drop her there. If we survive the night,” I said, listening.
“Contact!” I heard Frank shout, then the guns started to go off.
We both rushed to the window in the bunk room to look outside, in the direction the shots had come from. We were so intent on looking that, although I heard the front door open, I figured it was somebody coming back in to give us the all-clear. The crash from the kitchen brought me back to the present and I ran out of the bedroom.
Claire's chair had fallen over, probably due to her struggling to move away from the bloody horror that had wandered into the house. The ball of socks in her mouth kept her screams from being heard, but the cords of muscles on her arms, neck and legs were evident as she struggled to free herself. The dead head was bending down to get a bite when Justin launched himself forward, his arms wrapping around the creature's neck before both of them crashed to the floor. The zombie pulled on another chair leg, probably to right itself, but the heavy oak chair fell between it and the boy, the heavy seat of the chair hitting Justin on the head. He quit struggling, making his mother’s movement even more frantic.
I wasn't going to let this happen, and rage filled my body. The dead head struggled to a kneeling position and used one arm to push the table back before I remembered how my feet worked. I raised the gun but hesitated. I might blow through the undead body and hit Claire or Justin. Instead, I turned the gun around and used the stock like a baseball bat on a down swing, crushing it into the dead flesh against the side of its jaw. I heard a sick sound and it was still, either dead or knocked out. I was hoping for dead.
Gasping for breath, I pulled Claire's chair out of the way and righted it. I stepped over the lifeless form and flung the chair off of Justin's head, kneeling and feeling for a pulse with one hand. He had a strong pulse and I was ready to pick him up when I felt teeth sink into my left wrist through the cloth of my shirt. I screamed and pulled my arm free as the horror tried to break the skin, shaking its head the way a terrier would to kill a rat.
As far as bites go, it was the more psychological aspect that hurt than anything else. I flung myself backwards, hitting the wall and drew the .44, not caring if it went through and hit Claire. I pulled the trigger just as the infected gained its feet once again, and my gun roared, painting Claire and the wall behind it with a red mist, flecked with gray chunks.
“Oh, shit!” I screamed, running to the sink to wash my wrist off, pulling the buttons of my flannel off in my frantic effort.
I pumped water with my right arm, holding my left under the stream and Claire was finally able to spit out the wad of socks.
“Did it break the skin?” she asked, her tone now calm.
“I can't tell, it got me, it got...”
“There are teeth marks, but I don't see any blood, Mom.” Justin reported, looking over my left shoulder.
I almost jumped, I had been so absorbed in washing my wrist that I hadn’t heard the boy come up beside me.
“Good, if it didn't break the skin, there’s a good chance that...” she screamed as another figure loomed into the open door to the front of the cabin.
I scrambled, trying to find the .44, not knowing where had I dropped it. I had just seen it under the table when Justin let out a shout of joy, and a snowman walked into the cabin. “Frank, is everyone OK? You have to hurry, Jim, he was, Jim was....”
“Let me through, let me through, a smaller snowman elbowed her way past the first, the snow falling from her outer clothing to show Katherine's red snowmobile jacket.
Apparently the weather had turned ugly in a short period of time, something that isn’t unusual up by the Great Lakes.
“You were bitten?” Katherine asked me, and I heard Sarah behind her mom, her sharp intake of breath.
“Yeah, but there's no blood. My shirt... I hit it in the head first, must have broke its jaw.” I stammered as the room started to spin and my legs went watery as I hit the floor.
“Mom, he's going into shock!”
“Don't let him hit his head Frank, get him over here to the couch…”
“You make sure my Jim is safe,” a crazed voice shouted over them all.
“I think he just passed out.”
Then things went totally dark, and I didn't wake until the morning.
Chapter 19 – Cipro
December 22nd 2015
I awoke on the couch when somebody was shoving a pill into my mouth and half choking me with water. I sat up coughing, to see Sarah sitting close by, her pistol in her other hand.
“Good to see you’re still with us,” Sarah said, smiling.
“What happened?”
“You passed out. You're such a wuss.” She punched my arm lightly.
That hurt, and I looked down to my wrist. I was black and blue already, in an oval shape, but holding it close to my eyes, I couldn't see any breaks or scratches in the skin.
“What was that you gave me?”
“Cipro, as a precaution. I don't know if I could...”
“Could what?”
“Be the one to put you down. If you changed,” she said, looking over my shoulder towards the kitchen.
I stood and looked back as well, noting the quiet in the cabin and not seeing anybody else nearby.
“Where is everyone?”
“Mom and Dad are taking Claire to Bobby's cabin. They said to watch you, but...”
“Wait, where's Justin?”
“He wanted to ride along to say goodbye.”
I felt relieved and slumped back into the couch, and Sarah sat down, facing me.
“How long have they been gone?”
“An hour, maybe. It snowed heavy for a little while last night, but not for long. There's only a few more inches of snow and your Jeep is pretty good in that.”
“Yeah, especially if you go slowly.”
“Like us?”
“Us?” I asked her dumbly before she pushed me back, her lips meeting mine.
“Wait, Sarah, stop.” I said pushing her back gently, a smile on my face.
“Why?” she asked, tears in her eyes.
“We're on the couch in front of the front door. Your dad catches us and he'll...”
She started giggling, and soon we were laughing, breaking the moment. In a way I was glad, knowing in my heart I wasn't ready, not yet. Too much had happened in too short a time frame. It would be easy to get swept away in everything, and it was the guilt I knew I’d feel afterwards that I wanted to avoid. It's easy to pave your own way to hell with good intentions and following your heart.
“Are you hungry?”
“A little,” I admitted.
“Good, I made you a nice bowl of fish jerky. Come eat.”
I groaned and stood. Sarah's night to cook usually had her breaking open some sort of jerky, or oatmeal, as she rarely liked to cook. That gave me an idea, one I'd had last night and I got some black beans out and put them on the stove to boil, and got some venison steaks out and found a small can of canned bacon. It was a weird sort of thing, wrapped in paper then canned tightly. It tasted OK, if a bit limp. I was hoping that it would add enough fat and flavor to the venison, and the black beans would add enough bulk to give it the heft of the pseudo burgers the chain was known for. If nothing else, it was better than fish jerky...
Sarah watched me for close to an hour, her expression puzzled when I started grinding the meat together, then mixing in the beans that had started to soften. I didn't want them all a mush, but I wanted them firm enough, like the meat, to be able to hold a shape once I added them in.
“Find me some rolls, or buns, would you?” I asked Sarah, who was still staring at me.
“Uh, Mom has bi
scuits…”
“That sounds even better.”
She sat the bowl of biscuits down on the kitchen table and watched as I formed the patties. I considered adding an egg, but having so precious few, decided not to. They lasted forever in the fridge, but I didn't want to have to eat canned eggs for Christmas day, so I left them alone. I lit one burner and put the patties in the warmed cast iron fry pan, flipping them from time to time, using salt, pepper and some seasoned salt lightly. It wasn't long before the smell was making my mouth water, and Sarah was standing at the stove expectantly.
“Ten patties,” she said excitedly.
“Two for each of us,” I reminded her. “Or none. I don't know how these will taste.”
“They look like McDonald’s...”
But we both paused as we heard a noise and turned to look. The Jeep was pulling in, the tires crunching through the packed snow. I hadn't heard them moving the brush, but with tracks in the snow, I wondered if it was even necessary.
“Don't burn mine!” Sarah chided, poking me in the side, then ran to the door.
The poke made me jump. It was one of those fingers in the side jobs, enough to tickle but also a surprise. I knew I was making the right choice by waiting. I had to be, as my mind was still warring with my conscience. Sarah turned and gave me a look as I was pulling the burgers off the stove and onto a waiting plate, the patties giving off a light heady steam.
“Justin's not with them!”
I almost dropped the plate, then put it on the kitchen table and ran to the door.
“Where is he?” I boomed.
“He ran off into the woods. Claire followed him, and we tried to look... but...”
“He made his own choice, Jim,” Frank said.
“Dammit!!!.”
“Yeah. Let's go inside, maybe we can figure something out.”
“Oh wow, what's that smell?” Frank asked Sarah, kicking his boots off.
“It wasn't me, Jim made some burgers...”
“Well, let’s dig in.”
“I want fries.” Katherine said.
“Yes, dear.” Frank answered and we all sat down to try my concoction out.
Flirting With Death: Surviving The Infected Page 11
