by Travis Tufo
“Wait, I’m sorry. I don’t handle stress well, and you’re obviously the last person I should take it out on. But you’re the only one here too, so…. Never mind.”
She sighed heavily; he did seem pathetic.“I know, trust me, I know how hard things are right now. Especially with no one really knowing the extent of this thing.” She sat back down. There was a long pause. They both just sat there, soaking in the implications of their conversation.
“Any more questions?” She broke the silence, trying lighten the mood.
“Yeah, actually I do have one more.”
“Shoot.”
“Right before we ran, you said something like I was in a target home or something? Wait, no...you said ‘a house that’s asking to be assaulted.’ What the hell did that mean? That place was deep in the woods.”
Her lips formed an almost evil grin.“You really have no clue again, huh?”
“Oh my word. What is it this time?” he asked, mocking her annoyance with him. This really brought out a smile on her face.
“That house may have been in the woods, yes, but it also had a damn generator running!” She nearly burst into laughter. Eli’s jaw dropped.
“You didn’t think that house just miraculously had power for no reason did you?”
“I…I had no idea.” The entire time Eli had been there at the house he had never noticed the generator running in the yard, or the steady flow of motor noise. She found his ignorance to be hilarious. A few moments of light laughter passed—then something hit Eli.
“Wait...do you know how many people were affected by this sickness?”
“I don’t think anyone does. No one is even sure what it is.”
“Where the hell is the military?”
“Oh they came, and they got sick too. That’s the problem, all these people bunched up to come save the day and all they did was get themselves and those around them infected as well.”
“Why haven’t you been infected?” He asked. She took a moment to analyze the question.
“Because, well, I’m careful. I don’t hesitate to kill those who need to be killed, I don’t get attached to anyone, and I sneak by.”
“Okay, that’s fair, but then why am I not infected?” Eli stood up and pulled his shirt over a little revealing his bite mark. The girl quickly stood to her feet and gripped her rifle.
“No, no! Look! I’m fine,” Eli said, as she pressed her powerful rifle against his forehead.
“You let me take you into my home without telling me you were infected? I should scatter your thoughts across this room.” Her voice was angry but steady. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
“Listen! Look at me, at my eyes, my skin, hell, look at the wound. I am not infected. You would know by now,” Eli said, pleading with her to just look at him. She stood there scrutinizing his features, never once pulling the rifle away, or even taking her finger off the trigger.
“Why bring me all the way out here to kill me now? I am as human now as I was before I got bit, I swear.”
“You’re staying in the room upstairs tonight, locked up,” she said, still pointing the barrel at his head. “And I’ll only let you out if I feel it’s safe enough.”
“That’s fair, hell, that’s perfectly fair.” Eli was bargaining for his life. He quickly grabbed his things, and with a rifle telling him to do so, he marched up the stairs to an empty room. She gave him a pillow and a blanket, and started to leave to get something to barricade the door with.
“Wait a second,” he said, stopping her before she made her way to the stairs.
“What is it?” He could hear that her patience was running low.
“Say I am fine in the morning, what’s the plan from there? Like, what are we going to do?”
“Eli, there is no ‘we.’ If you’re fine in the morning, that’s great, I won’t have to waste a bullet, but if not, I’ll waste you before you wake up.” She wasn’t threatening, she was promising.
Eli took the news hard. “There’s no us? Then what the hell are you going to do?”
“I’ve been meaning to head out for a while, and tomorrow seems as good a day as any to be on my way.”
“Head out? Where are you going?”
“Maine isn’t exactly the best place to live right now, in case you couldn’t tell. I want to look for a place that isn’t infected with this sickness, but if I can’t, I need to get out of Maine for other reasons.”
“What other reasons?” he asked, hoping to find at least one good answer before she left him.
“Have you ever endured a winter here, Eli? It’s brutal and unforgiving. Without power and a good source of heat to last me the whole winter, I don’t think I’d make it.”
“So let’s go find people who weren’t infected! We can go to Canada, like you said—a ton of people went there, right?”
“That’s a terrible idea.”
“Wait, why?”
She closed her eyes like she was explaining life to a nine-year old. “If large groups of people went there, that just means there are going to be more infected running around.”
“Shit! Well, how about Florida? Look, I want to help you, and god knows I need help too.” He was starting to sound desperate.
“Eli, that’s not a good idea either.”
“Why not?” he shouted back at her.
“It’s too far south, closer to the event; I’m sure it got hit pretty hard early on.”
“Damn it! I’ll go anywhere with you. Look, I got this gun now and I can defend myself and you too!”
“Eli!” she yelled, bringing him back to reality. “Don’t do this to me. It’s not fair to put me in this situation; I don’t need to have another person to look after.” She seemed upset, but still very serious. Eli clutched his fists and shut his mouth. He gave a nod, and she went on her way. From the bottom of the stairs he could hear her yelling up to him, “Eli!”
He didn’t respond.
“The name’s Aurora. Aurora Stovah.”
“Jesus, even her name is badass,” Eli whispered. That was the last thing spoken in that house that night. Eli lay in the empty room for a few hours pondering his situation and what he was going to do after Aurora left. His thoughts carried him through the rest of the day and when night came, he thought himself to sleep. Aurora never came back to lock the door. Eli managed to sleep all the way through the night and into the morning without the sounds of infected people banging, and even better, without the threat of a sweaty redneck waking him up with a slap to the face.
WHEN HE WOKE, Eli flew to his feet, wanting to yell out Aurora’s name, but he understood the value of silence in these times, even though he and Aurora had been yelling the night before. He left his room and searched the other three rooms on the upper floor. He found neat beds and clean rooms, but no Aurora. He went down to the second floor, and after a little bit of searching he realized that she really had left.
“I can’t believe you,” Eli said, slamming his fist against the kitchen counter. He was enraged that she had actually left him behind to fend for himself.
“Why would you bring me here just to leave me? Not even a damn note, either.”
HE PULLED UP a seat and looked out the large window in front of him. It was a custom kitchen with marble floors, and granite countertops. Eli was certain it wasn’t her house; she was too young to own a home like this. Down the hill, right at the tree line, Eli could see something moving. He jumped to his feet and pressed his face to the glass. He could make out that it was a person, or at least it had been.
“Is he infected?” His squinted eyes peered out the window. Eli grabbed his revolver and bag and headed towards the front door. Taking a step outside and slamming the door behind him was enough to get the attention of the infected man down the hill.
“Hey you! Yeah, you piece of shit, why don’t you come get some!” Eli was finding a way to relieve some stress. The infected man, who was on the heavier side, turned to Eli and with one grotesque scre
ech began to sprint up the hill. Eli watched as the man stumbled multiple times before finally getting within ten feet or so. Eli raised his .357 and pointed right in between the creature’s cold, bloodshot eyes.
“Say goodbye.” As the last syllable left his tongue, he squeezed the trigger. The powerful handgun erupted and shot a bullet right through the infected man’s face. Gore spewed behind him carried by the bullet’s force. He stayed the same distance away, only now the top of its face was nothing but a large, blood oozing crater. The creature gave another screech with what was left of its mouth. Blood fell from its collapsing head and then it began to charge at a shocked Eli.
“Why the hell aren’t you dead?” Eli was too confused to move. The beast tackled him to the ground. His profusely bleeding face quickly drenched Eli’s upper body in the red liquid.
“Not this shit again!” he screamed.
Before the monster could make a move to take a bite or anything else, Eli quickly rolled it off of him and hurried back to his feet. He re-aimed his gun back at the remaining chunk of the man’s head and fired once more. This bullet must have connected with something special because the man’s head exploded like a firework. Eyes, teeth, brain, and other unnamable parts above the shoulders went everywhere. The whole front porch was caked in mush. But again, much to Eli’s surprise, the beast wasn’t done. Blood fired out of the open hole where the head once stood as the creature struggled to fight back to its feet.
“No. There is no way.” Eli’s face was whitening. He looked at a large fungal growth that burrowed out of the man’s ribcage, exposing the ribs along with it. Without giving it much thought, he lifted his foot high and sent it crashing against the growth. It gave a bone shivering crunch underneath his foot, and the infected man began to jerk around. After a few moments of what looked like seizures the man finally gave up, finally dead for good.
“It’s the tumor things! These people are long dead; now they are being controlled by these weird appendages.” Eli had nailed it. His epiphany was quickly interrupted by the sound of an engine starting far down along a narrow border of trees at the edge of the property. He took it as a threat and readied his gun as he ran down towards the noise. The now dead creature’s body quickly pooled blood all around it, painting the once white porch a dark red. As Eli approached the sound of the car, he could hear a lot of moaning and thuds. After passing through the trees, he made it to the street. There he saw a swarm of at least thirty infected humans surrounding a vehicle. They all crowded around the car throwing their arms and faces into it, breaking bones and scattering blood all over the exterior. They swung their limp arms so hard their bones could be heard shattering and leaving dents in the metal of the car. One of the infected, a girl, threw her face into the windshield, cracking it, and smashing her nose in the process. You could tell these creatures didn’t feel pain, as the girl on the hood of the car threw her broken-nosed face back into the windshield repeatedly until it caved. Blood and tiny bits of shattered glass flew into the car onto whoever was driving it and trying to get away. Eli saw this, and without thinking or hesitation, he fired his handgun into the sky. It was like he’d yelled into a crowd of kids at fat camp that he had cake. Necks snapped around as the infected people turned towards Eli. He gulped, understanding how dumb that was, but he had to try to save whoever was in the car. The horde quickly gave a combined roar and headed towards him. For being dead, these things knew how to move fast. Eli turned back and started running away from them, staying on the street. Some of the speedier ones were beginning to gain on him, but it wasn’t long before the mystery car pulled up beside him, barely slowing down.
“Get in, you damned fool!” a familiar voice yelled out at him. Eli opened the back right side door and hopped in before the infected caught him. They were so persistent that they chased the car until it was out of sight. Eli was catching his breath in the back seat when the driver spoke up.
“You have got to be shitting me,” Aurora said. Eli looked up and a smile brighter than Times Square lit up his face.
“What, not even twenty four hours later and you need me to come save your ass?” Eli said to Aurora as she sped down the road.
“I actually don’t believe this.” She was clearly annoyed.
“Believe it girl! I just saved your ass! Ahhh I knew it!” Eli never felt more triumphant than he did right then. Aurora looked back and matched his smile, until she saw the blood he was covered in.
“Your spiffy little outfit didn’t last too long did it?” He looked down at the blood.
“Hey, you don’t look so good yourself there Miss Awesome.” Aurora looked down and saw a decent amount of blood on her lap, mixed with the bits of glass.
“Touché Eli, touché.”
“So where are we going?” Aurora gave a heavy sigh and shrugged.
“Well, as long as I’m invited, I don’t care.” Eli sat back in his seat.
Chapter Eleven
HOURS PASSED AND they shared some of the food from Eli’s bag. The roads were crowded with abandoned cars; they had to drive around them, even off the road to avoid the snarls. Countless infected could be seen wandering awkwardly, obviously having no place to go.
“So tell me, where’s your family?” Eli asked on top of the countless other questions they had asked along the way. He was trying to keep his eyes open against the strong wind coming in from where the windshield used to be.
“What? What did you say?” Aurora yelled over the roaring wind.
“Slow down!” he yelled. She heard him loud and clear, and slowed down by a good fifteen miles per hour. It seemed to really help lessen the intensity and noise of the air.
“Much better! I uh...I asked where your family is. Did they survive whatever the hell this thing is?” Aurora took a moment to soak in the question, squinting her eyes as if to really think about it. Eli took this as her being uncomfortable with his inquisition.
“Ohh...I didn’t mean to stir up anything bad, I was just curious. Trying to make small talk, you know?”
“No—it’s fine, I guess. I just don’t talk about it much, especially now.” She threw on a sarcastic smirk.
“My mother, luckily I guess, has been dead a long time; way before all this.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I guess?” He was uncertain how to take that.
“No, I think I’d prefer it that way. Now she doesn’t have to see all this bat shit crazy stuff going on, and be in danger from it all as well. But as for my father, I guess I have no idea, really. I haven’t seen him since my mom passed.”
“Ahh. I see. He must have taken it pretty bad huh?”
“Well, he’s the one who murdered her, so I don’t think he took it too hard.” With raised eyebrows, Eli held a blank stare out the window.
“It’s fine. I mean, it really helped me, in a way,” she continued, partly to herself.
“What? I mean, how could that have helped you in any way?”
“He used to abuse me, like, seriously lash out and take full force swings at me. Between ages ten to eighteen you’d think I was a pro boxer with the marks I carried. One day my mom stepped in front of me after a real beating. I was laying on the ground when he started on her. She was like a punching bag, just taking pound after pound. It was horrible to watch him hit her relentlessly like that, and almost worse to watch her take the hits. I struggled my way up, and headed for the kitchen. I grabbed the phone and dialed the cops. When they answered I just screamed bloody murder like I was being stabbed and dropped the phone, letting it hang there for them to hear him beating her and her screaming in the other room.” Eli was looking at her in amazement.
“Where did you go after that?” He was more than interested.
“Well, after I dropped the phone, I looked over to our knife set for a long time, but I pussied out. I regret nothing in my life more than that moment of hesitation. Instead I went out and sat on the porch and waited for the cops. If I knew then what he was going to do Eli, I would have slit his damn
throat. He killed her before they even showed up. I…I just thought he was going to hurt her, like he had me.” Aurora looked to Eli, tears ready to fall. The wind must have held them in her eyes. The emotions in the car were running high.
“Aurora, no. You can’t blame yourself, you….” The next thing they knew, right in the middle of his sentence, they collided with an infected woman.
“Oh shit!” Aurora yelled, slamming on the brakes. The woman was still alive. Her lower half was smashed and mangled into the grill of the vehicle but her upper half was very active as she scratched and clawed, trying to reach them through the windshield. She hissed and snarled at them, blood dripping from her darkened mouth while Aurora tried to handle the vehicle.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh god, oh god.” Eli was franticly trying to get to his revolver, but instead, just fumbled it around in his hands.
“Kill her! Shoot her damn brains out!” Aurora yelled, only adding urgency to the stressful situation as the car was coming to a halt. The infected woman was slowly pulling herself apart, detaching her upper torso away from the lower half. Her flesh was ripping as she pried herself towards them, reaching in through the open windshield. The car was nearly stopped at this point. She was inching toward Eli, almost able to grasp his face, when he finally readied his gun. He aimed it at her; then he noticed her eyes. Instead of the solid white with red veins, like the guy at the pizza place or the young girl at his parents’, hers were solid, blood red. There was no pupil, no iris, no veins. Just a deep crimson orb. During this observation, he noticed other traits as well. She had more tendril-like spores protruding from her flesh, they were everywhere, her shoulders, face, chest, arms, and they were larger than before and looked more developed as well. On top of it all, her skin was starting to develop a thick layer of fungus, a dense growth all over the body. It was a cloudy white with red veins throughout.
