Blood Red

by Jason Bovberg

  Rachel punches the gas and jolts the Honda forward. She catches sight of her father’s Acura and has a brief moment of indecision—should she switch cars for his roomier one? But she’s seriously disturbed by what she has seen. The motorcyclist with his askew eye and jittery skin was one thing, but this terrible reanimation is quite another. In a matter of minutes, that janitor inside her father’s building swiftly evolved from involuntary trembling to seemingly conscious—and monstrous—life. She can’t spare the time to make the switch. She has to get the three of them back to relative safety.

  The hospital.

  Where hundreds of these bodies are now gathered.

  She doesn’t even want to entertain that thought. Fear has torn a dark hole in Rachel’s center.

  “Jesus!” Jenny gasps. “It keeps getting worse! I mean, what the fuck!”

  Rachel considers that. “You’re right.”

  “What’s happening to them? Are they coming back to life, or what?”

  “I think the question is what are they becoming.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t think they’re human anymore.”

  Jenny digests that for a stunned moment. “What does that mean, though?” she practically screams. “Don’t say that, I mean don’t even say that! That’s ridiculous! They’re obviously human! Don’t just say that to scare me!”

  “Calm down. I don’t pretend to actually know what’s going on here.”

  Jenny takes a deep breath, trying to settle herself down. Her movements are nervous, jittery. “Hey, I can be freaked out, okay?”

  Rachel recognizes Jenny’s attempt at lightening the mood, but she can hear the edge in her voice. She decides to remain quiet.

  She exits the nearly empty parking lot and swings back onto College, heading north. From this perspective, she can see the orange of a lingering fire in Old Town. Apparently, the lone cop was right. The FedEx jet ignited a fire that’s still probably swallowing portions of the downtown area. She hopes he managed to coordinate some kind of firefighting effort and contain the worst of it. More disturbing now is the deeper, flickering throb of light that’s coming from the west, flashing intermittently along the entire line of the Rockies. It seems brighter than before.

  She continues north, silent.

  The night is deathly still and ominous. Rachel feels a kind of jittery dread as she passes each vehicle, half expecting the doors to start opening and reanimated corpses to emerge, battering the Honda with their lifeless limbs. That’s the stuff of dark fantasy, and she can’t take such thoughts seriously. She smirks them away. But she still avoids looking too closely, avoids peering into the interiors to discern what kind of life has returned to all these bodies. She just wants to get her dad to the hospital and get him well. She’s hobbled by the hundreds of haphazardly wrecked vehicles, and curses now and then that she has to slow her progress because of tight fits.

  “Do you think he’s okay?” Jenny asks quietly, evenly.

  “I think he’s just knocked out,” Rachel replies. She has to believe that.

  “You’re so lucky,” Jenny says again, very quietly.

  Rachel looks over at Jenny, who is now bent over, leaning against the passenger window. “What do you mean? I don’t think anyone is lucky today.”

  “You’re alive,” says Jenny, turning to look at her with something resembling anger. “Your father is alive.”

  Rachel opens her mouth, tries to craft a response. She maneuvers around a crashed vehicle and then speeds north along an undisturbed section of the street.

  “Look, Jenny, I know you lost your—”

  “Never mind, I know, really, I’m sorry, it’s just…hard, and I don’t know what’s happening.” Jenny’s face melts into despondent tears. “It’s crazy! This can’t be happening, right? It’s like something out of a fucking movie. I mean, what the fuck is going on out there? What’s happening to everyone?! It doesn’t make any sense!”

  “I wish I knew.”

  The Honda’s headlights reveal another multiple-car collision, and Rachel swerves left in a long arc to avoid it. She tries peering into the windows at the vague glows but doesn’t notice movement from this distance. After she passes the wreckage, she glances back at her father, sees that he’s still unconscious but breathing evenly.

  She’s considering what Jenny said.

  Rachel and her father have apparently survived. From everything she’s seen, she estimates that better than ninety percent of the population has been afflicted by this thing. Probably more like ninety-five percent. Does her and her father’s survival suggest that their immunity has some genetic component? Rachel thinks of Susanna, wonders why she was affected, and she also thinks of her mother, wonders whether she might have been spared.

  “My mother died of cancer,” she says, more to herself than to Jenny. “It was a tumor in her brain. It was so fast.”

  Jenny is quiet for a moment, then, “I’m sorry, I—I didn’t know that.”

  “I mean, it was really like, one day she was fine, and always there, and driving me everywhere for school stuff and tennis and whatever, and then she was having headaches, and suddenly she was wasting away and her hair was falling out. She was gone in a couple of months.”

  “Damn.”

  Rachel looks over at Jenny. “I didn’t mean to bring all that up, just that cancer is what got her.”

  “Okay.”

  “What if—what if it’s the cancer ‘gene,’ or whatever, that this thing is targeting?”

  Jenny frowns over at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, I’m babbling.” She slows to twist her way through some wreckage, keeping an eye on the dark interiors of the vehicles. “Who knows? It could be that a quirk of DNA, a genetic quirk that leaves people vulnerable to any assorted cancers, also left people vulnerable to this … whatever it is.”

  “As good an answer as any, I guess,” Jenny says.

  The memories of Rachel’s mother are hard to shake. And why is it always the images of her later, in bed, cheeks sunken, hair gone, wan smile playing on her lips, that come to her first? For two years, Rachel has tried to banish those memories from her mindscape and replace them with the more vibrant images from even two months earlier. But those earlier recollections remain elusive, maddeningly washed out.

  She wonders again whether her mother would have survived this thing. She can’t help but surmise that she would not have. And even if her mom might have had the luck or genetic disposition to avoid this red affliction, Rachel finds a tiny amount of comfort in the notion that her cancer did her the quick favor of preventing her from experiencing this bleak new reality.

  “Hey, Rachel,” Jenny says, startling Rachel from her introspection. “You remember that time when we were little? That field trip up to Horsetooth?”

  Rachel frowns, trying to bring up the recollection. She remembers that she and Jenny were in the same third-grade class but that Jenny left for another school in fourth grade, and they never reconnected again until last year at college. Her recollection of Jenny as an eight-year-old is spotty at best.

  “Your mom was one of the chaperones.”

  Rachel has no memory of this. “She was?”

  “I remember it because she drove. You don’t remember that? I was in the back seat with you.”

  “Maybe … vaguely.”

  “It’s probably my only memory of your mom. She was very kind. I remember I got my shoes muddy, and I was crying about it. I was high maintenance even then!” She laughs softly. “Your mom was very patient. She helped me clean them in the restroom. She held my hand. It sounds silly, but that meant a lot. She seemed like…like she was a natural mother. To anyone.”

  Rachel feels that she’s been given a snapshot of her mother that she’s never seen before. She glances over at Jenny, reaches over and takes her hand.

  “It’s not silly at all.”

  The car is filled with silence for long moments as Rac
hel veers around more crashed vehicles. There’s a large accumulation of them in front of the Barnes & Noble. And then they’re approaching the major intersection of College and Horsetooth. Cars and trucks rest against medians and light poles and each other. It was a haunting sight coming south, and it’s even more disturbing now, as the night deepens even further into the wee hours. The dashboard clock reads 11:22. Fleetingly, she wonders how two hours have passed since they left the hospital.

  Rachel glances into the rear seat again to find that her father hasn’t moved an inch. She can tell by the way his chest moves that he’s still breathing evenly. She thinks he’ll be okay, but she wishes he would wake up and discover that she had found him. She thinks he would be proud of her.

  Jenny catches her glance.

  “Rachel, I’m really glad we found your dad.”

  “I know, and really, I couldn’t have done it without your help. I just hope that injury isn’t anything serious.”

  “It’s not.” She’s twisted around in her seat, her chin on her forearm, watching him. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Your folks might be fine, you know,” Rachel says, doubting herself. “I mean, there’s no reason to think this thing is that big, right? They’re probably trying to get ahold of you right now. And as soon as the power comes back, the cell phones will work, and you’ll find thirty messages waiting for you.”

  Jenny doesn’t respond for a moment. “I think they’re gone,” she says softly.

  “Oh, come on, no need to be so pessimistic.”

  “There’s every reason to be pessimistic,” Jenny says, lifting her chin. “Look around you! It’s a miracle we’re here. Explosions everywhere, planes falling out of the sky …”

  Rachel knows she’s right. She doesn’t know what to say.

  “They’re two thousand miles away and probably slumped over in a taxi right now, like any one of these—these things.” Her voice is thick with emotion.

  Even in the face of this unprecedented nightmare, Rachel can’t imagine being so fatalistic. She also can’t imagine the horror of not knowing the fate of two parents so far distant, like being told your mother and father have been involved in a horrific car accident somewhere far away, but nobody knows whether they were thrown free, unscathed, or perished in blunt metal trauma.

  Rachel continues to maneuver through the destruction. Her mind still reels with the events of the past two hours, so it takes her a while to take new notice of the movement off to her left, on the mountainous horizon. When she sees it, she squints in that direction, trying to make sense of it.

  “Look at that,” she says.

  What was before an intermittent red glow is now a ribbon of shimmering light in the western sky, not unlike the photos of the northern lights that Rachel has seen. It’s a surprising bit of beauty, a dark rainbow of glowing luminescence. It’s mostly reds and purples, indigo and flame, and there’s a pulse to it, a throbbing. Rachel tries to convince herself that it’s yet another explosion or fire in the distance, but there’s something atmospheric about it, something bigger. This is something she’s never seen before, and despite its beauty, it fills her with still more dread.

  Jenny remains silent, staring at it miserably.

  Rachel approaches Prospect, readying for the turn that will take them east toward the hospital. In her peripheral vision, she catches sight of red movement.

  “Wait, wait,” Rachel breathes, slowing the Honda to a crawl. “There’s something—”

  “What?”

  Rachel carefully maneuvers around the hulking shape of a crashed SUV. A single, barely discernible glow radiates from the interior. The Honda slows, and it becomes clear that the dot of illumination is moving rhythmically. Rachel comes to a full stop, staring into the SUV, which has bumped gently into the median and stalled, just before making the left turn onto College. Rachel rolls down her window.

  “Rachel, what?” Jenny repeats.

  “I think—I think I know that car.”

  “It’s moving—that thing inside is moving.”

  “I do know it,” Rachel says. “That’s Hailey, this girl I know from high school. I remember when she got this truck. For her eighteenth birthday. I remember thinking what a spoiled bitch she was for getting it.” She’s trying to make out Hailey’s face. “Not a very nice thing to think about a friend, huh? I wonder where she was going …”

  Rachel puts the Honda in Park, grabs her flashlight, and quietly opens her door.

  “Rachel! Are you insane? Don’t!”

  “Don’t worry.” She steps out into the darkness.

  “What?! Get your ass back in here! We have to—we have to get your dad to the hospital!”

  Rachel ducks back in and glares at her friend. “Just a second—I have to see something.”

  “Oh for—”

  There’s a bumping sound coming from the SUV. Rachel steps closer, and she can make out the shadowy figure of her old friend Hailey in the driver’s seat. Her upper body is twisting back and forth in the seat, the head bumping the closed window. The red illumination is leaking from her open mouth and nostrils, but it’s also present beneath the skin of the entire lower half of Hailey’s face, which nevertheless remains in deep shadow. Rachel feels compelled to get closer and really see her friend’s face.

  She comes within three feet of the window and stares in, her heart thudding.

  “Hailey,” she whispers.

  The rhythmic bumping continues.

  “Rachel!” Jenny cries. “Jesus Christ!”

  “Shut up!”

  Rachel directs her flashlight at the ground and thumbs it on. A circle of bright light appears at her feet. She takes another step toward the SUV, watching Hailey. The young woman is still twisting in her seat, trying to use the left side of her forehead to smash the window open. In the darkness, Rachel can’t make out much of the girl’s features, just the glowing crimson beneath them. She gradually brings the light up between herself and the window, and only then is Rachel consciously aware of what she’s doing.

  She needs to see if this thing that was once Hailey is going to recognize her at all. Because if there’s even a spark of recognition …

  “Rachel …” Jenny is whining.

  When the light from the flashlight illuminates Hailey’s head, Rachel is now sure that this is her friend. Her dark hair is pulled back into an uncharacteristic ponytail, but the face is definitely Hailey’s. The left side of the forehead is enflamed from the repeated thudding against the window. Even as Rachel brings the light higher, the body’s twisting and bumping continues. Hailey almost appears to be trying to bend herself backward, arching her back as she twists, only stopping because the window is in her way.

  Hailey’s eyes are open but flat, like the others. There’s no real awareness there. They’re the eyes of a corpse.

  Rachel watches her friend with sick fascination. She brings up the flashlight fully, shining it in Hailey’s face, and Hailey abruptly stops her movement.

  “Hailey!” Rachel calls, raising her voice to be heard through the window.

  Hailey’s head snaps toward her, and Rachel staggers backward. Her friend’s mouth opens in a jagged slit, and a low gasp escapes it. Hailey stares at Rachel for a long moment, then knocks her head against the window again, hard. Then she’s thrashing, her torso bulging forward, up out of her seat, again as if trying to bend over backward.

  “—back here! Get back here! Get—” Jenny is screaming.

  Rachel lets her flashlight drop to her thigh, and Hailey is reduced to a strobing red throb, her skull and teeth vaguely underlit by the impossible luminescence.

  Rachel’s hip makes jarring contact with the Honda, and she finally looks away from the horror that Hailey has become. She takes hold of her door with her good hand, but before she ducks back into the car, she stops.

  She hears screaming. Someone in the distance is screaming, perhaps more than one person.

  “Do you hear that?” she asks the night.
<
br />   “Rachel, get in here, just get in here!”

  She falls into her seat, dropping the flashlight next to Jenny, and pulls forward. She senses Jenny staring daggers at her. She ignores the look, squeaks past a pack of cars, and picks up speed.

  The interior of the Honda remains silent as they make the left turn onto Prospect, toward the hospital. Along Prospect, they catch sight of two people running south from between houses, seeming lost, and one older woman races toward them. Rachel pauses and rolls her window down to help. The woman clips the Honda’s bumper and reels for a moment, coming to a stop.

  “What’s happening?” Rachel asks her.

  “My daughter—” she manages.

  There’s something wrong with her voice. Rachel grabs her flashlight and thumbs it on, directs it at the woman, who reacts with surprise, trying to shield her face. Too late. It’s clear that portions of her face are pale and mottled. Her mouth is twisted in an unnatural way.

  “No!” the woman screeches. “I have to go, I have to go home!”

  She spins away and continues running, a look of confused fear on her face. Rachel and Jenny exchange a look, then Rachel urges the car forward. She takes a final look at her dad behind her, anxious now that she’s so close to help.

  When Rachel sees the hospital in the distance, she impatiently punches the gas. She’s already imagining helping her father through the front doors and finding help. However, as she draws closer to the hospital, she sees that something is wrong. Three or four people are staggering out of the parking lot, seeming to hang onto each other, and they’re staring back at the hospital entrance warily.

  Chapter 10

  Rachel pulls into the hospital parking lot, sees the big, dark EMERGENCY sign above the glass double doors, and sees three more people—in the midst of a scattered group of perhaps seven survivors—walk hurriedly out of the hospital, seeming stunned.