by Max Lockwood
“Michael,” he called into the house. “John, are you in there?”
He started searching frantically, not as calm and precise as when he searched in his own home.
“Please be in here,” he whispered to himself, opening and closing closets. “Please be okay.”
He paused when he reached the refrigerator. Attached to the front with a pizza restaurant magnet, next to a Chinese takeout menu, was a picture he vaguely remembered taking.
He had volunteered to go to a community outreach event and cook burgers for families in his neighborhood. It was something the department liked to do to create good rapport with the citizens. The Daniels family attended, likely due to the fact that money was scarce in their household and a free meal was a free meal. He normally hated taking pictures, but the boys looked up to him, so he crouched down and smiled, the kids matching his wide grin.
That was years ago, though. Now those boys were around ten or twelve. Wherever they were.
He sifted through the mail on the kitchen table. The most recent was postmarked about a week ago. He swept a finger along a counter and inspected it for dust. No one had been in there for a few days.
In order to believe that nothing bad had happened to the kids, he needed a little more evidence. He searched for something, anything that would tell him that their mother had sent them away to a relative out of state. Or, at the very least, they were in protective custody.
He found nothing, so he kept searching. He looked in their bedrooms for any written account of what they were going through, or maybe even a packed bag. Then, he searched to make sure there was no hint that something had gone terribly wrong. There were no bodies and there was no blood. It was like they had vanished without a trace, but their mother had returned to the home she once shared with them.
Then, he saw something that made his breath catch in his throat. Michael had approached him one day to show him a baseball card that he had acquired. Alec couldn’t remember who was on the card, but he realized that it was a big deal to the kid. Alec had endured a rough day at work, but seeing Mrs. Daniels’s kids made him feel a little better.
As the years went on, he learned that Michael never went anywhere without it. When a kid at his school stole it from his book bag, he enlisted Alec’s help to get it back. He laughed at how startled that kid was when he showed up at his house to get it back. Alec was professional and kind to the little thief, and he hoped that he had learned a lesson. Mrs. Daniels was horrified that her son had bothered a real police officer with his playground problems, but it was no problem for Alec. It was as if he were getting justice from his own playground bullies. From then on, he always saw that baseball card on Michael, either in his hand or tucked into his pocket. It was his lucky charm.
So, the fact that it was on the ground with no child to be found was striking to Alec. He wanted to drop everything and piece together the mystery of the missing boys. Then he heard the screaming again.
The weight of his responsibility was crushing to Alec. There were just too many innocent people to save and not enough people to help. Alec was just one man—he couldn’t take on more than one case. He couldn’t protect them all.
He tucked his mouth into his hoodie and took a few quick breaths. The heat from his accelerated breathing made his face feel moist and clammy. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on something that would calm him down, at least enough to make him stop hyperventilating. Elaina came to mind, and instead of forcing her out, he focused on her piercing eyes and pink lips. He imagined sitting with her, just talking, nothing more. Finally, he calmed down enough to catch his breath.
There was nothing left for him in that house, but outside, there were two girls who needed his help. He was going to get into his truck, find them, and take them to safety. That he could do.
He marched out of the child’s bedroom, a renewed feeling of confidence in him. He turned the corner and opened the door when he heard quiet rustling behind him. He paused for a moment and expected to turn around and see one of the boys laughing. Maybe it had all been a game of hide and seek, and they had become too eager to properly hide.
The next sound he heard was a loud crack, and then his ears started ringing.
Alec felt a weird, sudden pressure on the crown of his head. His scalp and neck felt warm and wet. He touched a hand to the back of his head and brought it back to examine. Hot, sticky blood covered his fingertips. He slowly wiggled his fingers in front of his eyes, unable to comprehend what was on them. Then, dread struck him.
Before he could understand what had happened to cause the blood and pain, everything went black. He fell, and in his mind, it was like drifting off to sleep. He leaned backward and hit the carpet of his neighbor’s house, floating off into the darkness.
Natalia and Elaina continued to scream and plead for help, but it was no use. Before everything went dark and silent, Alec could have sworn he heard Elaina call his name, and that he called hers, too. Once I wake up, he thought as he lost consciousness, I’ll be with her.
Chapter Eighteen
Elaina’s legs were starting to burn. She wanted to stop running, but every time they stopped, they spotted someone who could be infected. After a while, she wasn’t sure if the people she saw were real or imaginary. The girls just kept running until they found something better.
They had been on the move for about an hour and a half when they finally stopped to rest at a campground. It had started to rain again, so the girls found shelter underneath a weathered picnic shelter. Elaina swished the contents from her last jar of water around her mouth before setting the container outside. It was a futile practice, seeing as they couldn’t stay long enough to collect enough fluids, but every drop counted.
“I don’t know about you,” Natalia said, “but I’m starting to feel really guilty about leaving Alec behind.”
Elaina nervously cracked her knuckles. “I’m sure he’s fine.”
“I’m not. Did you see how many infected were in the area by the time we got out of there? I know he’s a police officer and all, but that’s a lot of people to fight off without backup.”
“You heard the gunshot. I’m sure he’s in his truck right now, driving around town. Maybe he’s even looking for us.”
“Maybe,” the younger girl said, swinging her legs from the bench of the table, just sweeping the ground with the tips of her toes. “Do you think that was his gun that went off?”
“Whose gun would it be if not Alec’s?” Elaina asked, shivering.
“The police aren’t the only ones with guns,” she said darkly. “Those rednecks who took me had them. I’m certain a lot of the infected do too. Everyone does.”
“Except for us,” Elaina added.
“Except for us.”
“Call me crazy,” Natalia said after a few moments of quiet, “but I was starting to like Alec. He’s not a bad guy.”
“No, he’s not,” Elaina mused. “But that’s only because he didn’t know who I was. If he’d paid a little more attention to the wanted posters, it would have been a different story.”
“I’d like to think that even if he did know, he would help you out.”
Elaina scoffed. “Yeah, right. Why do you think that?”
“I don’t know,” she said dreamily. “I think he has a strong sense of justice. Not like he always has to follow the rules. You don’t give him enough credit. I think that if you would have told him what you were up to, he would have helped us.”
Elaina bit her lip. She wasn’t as sure of their companion as Natalia was, but she wondered if there were more to him than just the clean-cut cop she saw. Would he help them?
It didn’t matter now. She didn’t want to spoil Natalia’s hopes that he would rejoin them, but it didn’t look good for him. But if she could boost her spirits by telling her everything would be fine, then it was worth lying to herself.
All of Natalia’s doubts were warranted. He had been outnumbered. It would be one thing to go up against
a group of healthy people. However, there was something about the virus that made adults a lot more violent than any one person could be. It was like taking on a bunch of bodybuilders who had taken too many steroids, if those bodybuilders also contained a lethal dose of poison in their bodies.
And while she would have never admitted it to Natalia, she was sad that she would probably never see him again. Even if he did survive, which would be miraculous, he wouldn’t be able to find them again. They lived in a large city, and there were too many places to hide. It just wasn’t practical for them to search for him, nor was it for him to search for the girls.
If circumstances were different, Elaina wondered if she would have pursued a friendship with Alec. She wasn’t great at meeting or keeping friends, but he seemed different from other friends she’d let drift away.
Her problem with maintaining relationships was that no one seemed to understand that her work would always come first in her life. When she had to decline coffee dates or girls’ night outs because she had a big project to work on or was writing a journal article, it always sounded like an excuse. Eventually, after declining too many invitations, the invitations would cease altogether. One by one, friends turned into acquaintances, who turned into strangers.
Alec seemed like he was a bit of a loner, too. That was one type that could fit into her busy work schedule. It would be nice to have a friend who understood that she had important work to do, and that she’d hang out when she could. That could possibly work with the right kind of friend, but that setup would never be successful for anything more than casual friendship.
Dating was out of the question for Elaina. First, she refused to sacrifice her work or study time for anything else. Secondly, she had yet to meet anyone who changed her mind about the first point. Men could come and go, but her studies could last a lifetime, even beyond that. A really good discovery could change the shape of the future of the planet. A few months of casual dating would change nothing.
Yet, whenever Natalia tried to tease her about Alec taking a liking to her, she couldn’t help but wonder if that were the truth. It shouldn’t have mattered to her whether it was factual or not, but for some strange reason, it did.
Perhaps it was because Elaina knew that the human species was in decline. From a biological standpoint, the fact that the population was plummeting would be a good enough cause to begin having feelings for a member of the opposite sex. At some point, repopulation would have to happen, and it made sense to reproduce with someone whose qualities you admired.
But Elaina wasn’t a bonobo chimp. She was a human being who was very confused by the thoughts and feelings running through her head. She needed to get back to work. That always helped her keep her mind at peace.
“Should we go back and check on him at least?” Natalia asked.
She entertained the idea in her head for a moment. While it would be a nice gesture, by the time they got back to his house, he would certainly be gone. Then, they would have wasted an entire day on a walk that would most likely be dangerous. But if they spent the day looking for a lab, then she’d be one step closer to finding a cure.
“Let’s keep going,” Elaina said, standing up from her damp seat. “We can’t afford to waste any more time. He’ll find us eventually,” she added in response to Natalia’s glum expression.
The girls continued walking through the barren streets with nothing but a faint feeling of hope to guide them.
Chapter Nineteen
Alec could see nothing but blinding light when he opened his eyelids. He couldn’t move his limbs, and his pulse throbbed in his head. He felt nauseated and sweaty. He tried to open his mouth, not sure if he could speak, and tasted the metallic flavor of blood. He tried to form words, but it all came out as one loud groan.
“Oh, sorry,” a male voice said, clicking off his flashlight.
Alec’s eyes adjusted to the change in light and surveyed his surroundings. He was lying on a couch in a home he didn’t recognize. His arms and legs were bound around his body with what looked like neckties. He felt like death, so the fact that he was alive in the mortal world and not experiencing some strange form of purgatory was a wonder to him.
“I thought that when someone has a concussion, you’re supposed to shine a light into their eyes and see if their pupils dilate,” the young man said. “That’s what the trainers did in high school football when someone got hit really hard.”
“Who the hell are you?” Alec hollered at the boy, who looked to be around the same age as Natalia.
The kid jumped, as if he were surprised that the police officer would be upset about being tied up in a strange house. Alec struggled against the bindings, finding the strength returning to his arms and legs.
“My name is Will Domenica,” he answered. He was short, slender, and had big brown eyes with long lashes. He held his hand to Alec’s as if he were trying to formally introduce himself, then he awkwardly dropped it back to his side when he realized that Alec was incapable of that kind of movement in his current condition.
“I guess I should untie those. You can never be too careful nowadays, you know?” he said cheerfully, working at the knots. “You’re not going to hurt me, right?” he added, leaning down close to Alec’s face.
“That’s to be determined,” Alec muttered. The boy was too cheery for the headache he was currently experiencing. It was like a hangover times a million. “But if you’re asking if I’m infected or a criminal, I’m neither,” he said.
“That’s great to hear. I’ve seen too many of both types lately. It’s a crazy world we’re living in.”
“I know. I’m a police officer,” Alec said, rubbing the marks where the restraints touched his flesh. “I’ve seen some crazy shit in the past few weeks.”
“So have I,” Will said. “I try not to think about those things, though. It distracts me from moving forward.”
Alec could see sadness in his eyes, even though he masked it with a toothy smile. Something traumatic had happened to Will, but he knew better than to pry in other people’s private business. Alec hated when people made him talk about things he didn’t want to talk about.
“So,” Alec said, changing the subject, “how were my pupils?”
“What?” Will said, snapping out of a trance. “Oh, I think they’re fine. I’m not exactly sure what they’re supposed to look like, I guess. But you’re awake now—that’s good.”
“About that,” Alec said, “can you tell me anything about how I got here? What happened to me?”
“It’s a long story,” Will muttered, playing with his dark brown hair.
“I’ve got time. I’d really like to know what happened to me.”
Alec reached his hand toward the site of the searing pain, and Will’s eyes opened wide.
“I wouldn’t—” he said quickly, trying to stop Alec from touching his head wound.
But it was too late. Alec felt the crusted blood of his swollen head around the haphazardly placed bandages.
“How did this happen?” Alec asked, feeling panicky. “The last thing I remember, I was walking around Mrs. Daniels’ house, looking for her boys. Then, I woke up here. You were with me for at least some of the time in between. What happened?”
“I—” he stuttered. “I may have hit you in the head with a baseball bat.”
“May have?” Alec growled, lightly touching the tender spot on his skull.
“I’m really sorry about that. I guess you could say that I was a little on edge with everything that was happening.”
“Just start from the beginning,” Alec said, getting irritated.
“Okay, so, I had been hopping from house to house, looking for supplies. I wasn’t breaking into homes where anyone lived or anything. I was very careful to make sure that people were gone and not coming back before collecting the things I needed. Things like food, water, clothes, that sort of stuff.”
“I’m not going to arrest you for theft, if that’s what you’re worri
ed about.”
Will seemed to relax a little.
“Thanks. I appreciate it,” he said softly. “This has all been a bit of a moral dilemma.”
“I know,” Alec said wearily. He had also been thinking about how the line between right and wrong was blurred in times of chaos. Rules that society adhered to for hundreds and thousands of years were suddenly put on the backburner. “Go on.”
“I was in that house you were searching through. But I didn’t know what you were doing. I’d seen sick people in the area, and I was looking for a place to hide out for a while before moving on. So, I tucked myself underneath the table and waited until they left.”
“But then I came in,” Alec said, filling in the blanks.
“Exactly. You were searching around, but I couldn’t get a good look at you. I didn’t know who you were and what you were doing in there. You weren’t taking anything, so I knew you weren’t a thief.”
“So you thought I was infected?”
Will gave him an apologetic look. “It can be hard to tell as it is. It’s harder to tell when you don’t have a good look at someone. I knew that you were seconds from finding me, and I didn’t know what you would do if you did. You started to turn around toward me, so I cracked you over the head with my bat,” he said, pointing to the wooden bat propped up in the corner.
“You could have killed me with that thing,” Alec protested.
“That was my intention,” he replied grimly. “It’s a good thing my swing sucks.”
Alec sighed. He could hardly be mad at the kid. He probably would have done the same thing in that situation. Will was just a scared kid trying to survive the city. His head hurt like hell, but he couldn’t blame him.
“Okay,” Alec said. “So you hit me in the head and I went out like a light. What next?”
“Once you were down, I took a closer look at you and realized that you were still alive and that you weren’t showing signs of infection. I felt so guilty that I dragged you across a few yards to my parents’ house and propped you up on the couch. I tried to stop the bleeding and get you cleaned up, but I’m not really good with blood.”
