by Lukens, Mark
“Stay down!” Ray yelled at the man.
“Dad!” Mike screamed. “Hit him again!”
Ray glanced at Kim on the bed. She was still holding her throat and moaning, but at least she was still conscious.
The intruder was back on his feet, and even though he was a little unsteady, it seemed like his vision was clearing. He smiled; it was a wicked smile rimmed in blood. The blood from his head wound was flowing more freely, soaking the shoulder and sleeve of his dark shirt, making the shirt look shiny in the bright morning light.
“Dad!” Mike screamed again.
Ray didn’t turn around to look, but his son sounded closer.
“Stay away, Mike!”
“Hit him again, Dad!” There was panic in Mike’s voice.
Kim was still fighting for breath, but at least she was coughing, getting air into her lungs.
The intruder charged.
Ray didn’t have a choice—he swung the golf club. The man didn’t even try to defend himself. The club connected in nearly the same spot on the man’s head as before. He was down again, and this time he wasn’t moving.
Was he dead?
Ray didn’t know for sure.
Mike ran up to Ray. He was crying.
“It’s okay, Mike,” Ray said. He dropped the golf club onto the carpeted floor. The bloodstained head of the club bounced off of the carpet a little, leaving a few splotches of bright red blood behind.
Vanessa ran up to Ray, hugging him.
Ray looked at Kim. She was sitting up, her eyes wide with shock as she massaged her throat.
“Kim . . .”
“I’m okay,” she told him. Her voice was a little raspy.
“I didn’t . . . I didn’t have a choice,” Ray said. He looked down at the intruder, who was still motionless, his eyes half-open, blood staining the carpet all around his head.
“I didn’t have a choice,” Ray said again. “He was coming at me . . .”
Kim nodded. She understood.
If I would’ve been back here a few minutes earlier, Ray thought. If I hadn’t stayed for that cup of coffee with Helen . . .
And then an even more terrible thought occurred to him: What if he had stayed a little longer at Helen’s house? What if he would have finished his cup of coffee and listened to her rambling a few minutes longer?
The kids ran over to Kim, both of them hugging her, both of them crying. She hugged them back.
Ray looked back down at the man. “I didn’t have a choice,” he whispered.
CHAPTER 17
Twenty minutes later Ray, Kim, Mike and Vanessa were all in the kitchen. Kim got a juice box for Vanessa and a Coke for Mike. She took another can of Coke, which was surprisingly still pretty cold, and held it gently against her throat. It still hurt, but she didn’t think there was any kind of permanent damage, but she was sure it would be sore for a while.
Mike and Vanessa sat at the kitchen table. They were both quiet, both in shock after seeing their mother attacked and their father kill the intruder with a golf club.
The kitchen was gloomy with all of the blinds and curtains drawn. Ray found a bucket and was collecting some cleaning supplies: rags, garbage bags, bleach in a spray bottle, disinfectant, a small scrub brush, dishwashing gloves, plastic wrap. He searched the cabinet underneath the sink where Kim kept most of those things. He was panning the flashlight beam around, checking to see if he had missed anything.
She had volunteered to help him with the cleaning tasks, but he’d told her to rest.
“Mom,” Vanessa said. “Can I have some cookies?”
Kim didn’t answer right away. She’d been trying to save the dry and canned food for as long as she could. She didn’t know how long the food was going to last, but how could she deny her daughter a treat after what she’d just seen upstairs?
“Just a few,” Kim said in a whispered, raspy voice. She took out the pack of cookies and put three on the plate for each of them.
Vanessa took a bite of the chocolate chip cookie, but Mike wasn’t touching his. Kim didn’t say anything; she didn’t feel like talking any more than she had to at the moment. She stood there wondering how long the food was going to last. How long could they ration out the food they had? How long were the power and phones going to be out? How long was all of this going to go on?
What if it didn’t end? What if it went on and on? How were they going to eat? They didn’t have any cash on them, and even if they did, the stores were probably cleaned out by now. And there would be no delivery trucks coming.
She felt panic building up inside of her. She had never considered the possibility of starving, or of scrounging for food. Begging for it. Would she steal to feed her family? Would she hurt someone for food and water? She tried to push those thoughts away.
Ray had already hammered a few large nails into the damaged kitchen door to keep it closed. He’d left the heads of the nails sticking out far enough so he could get them back out if they needed to leave. It wasn’t a permanent solution for the broken door, but it would have to do for now while he cleaned up the mess upstairs.
She glanced at the busted panes of glass in the door, the blood on the jagged pieces in the frame where the intruder had reached in to unlock the door. She remembered the man’s face so close to hers, his eyes so wild, like an animal’s. He was like a wild dog attacking her, no mercy in those glassy eyes of his, nothing but rage. His breath had smelled like warm roadkill.
Ray walked over to her with his bucket in his hand. “I’m going upstairs to . . .”
She just nodded.
He hesitated for a moment, staring at her like he was going to say something else. But then he walked away.
She wanted to tell him that she loved him, but she didn’t. Maybe he didn’t want to hear that from her right now. Maybe never again. She tried not to think about the fact that a few days ago their marriage had been pretty much over, Ray agreeing to leave for a while.
The kids watched Ray leave the kitchen. They seemed suddenly frightened because he wasn’t going to be there with them. They knew what he was doing; they knew he was going upstairs to clean up the mess on the bedroom floor . . . the dead man. How was she supposed to shield them from that? How was she supposed to keep them safe from the horrors outside their doors now?
She felt a little light-headed. It was just from the attack. And from the stress. She was worrying too much, but she couldn’t stop.
A scary thought came to her. What if Ray left with the kids? What if he left her alone now? She was sure that some part of him hated her for what she’d done, and she could understand that, but she couldn’t be alone; she couldn’t be away from her kids.
But she also knew that Ray felt guilty for not being there when that ripper had broken into their house and attacked her. Maybe that meant that he still cared about her somewhere deep down inside, still loved her even after the terrible thing she’d done. Could he ever find a way to forgive her?
She wasn’t sure if he could. But she knew that they needed to stay together right now. Somehow she needed to convince Ray of that.
*
Ray carried his bucket of cleaning supplies upstairs to their bedroom. He went inside and closed the door. He really wasn’t sure exactly what to do—he’d never cleaned up after a homicide before.
He set the bucket down on the carpet and then slipped the yellow dishwashing gloves on. He wasn’t sure exactly what was wrong with this guy, but there was a good chance he was infected with some kind of disease. And now his blood was soaked into the carpet.
The man lay in a crumpled-up, almost fetal position on one side, exactly how Ray had left him. The golf club (murder weapon) was on the floor not too far away from him.
The first thing Ray did was take a plastic Wal-Mart bag out from his supplies. He lifted the man’s head up so he could slip the bag over his head, cringing at the thought of this. But it had to be done. The blood had stopped seeping out of the man’s head wound, but there wa
s still so much of it all over the carpet. It must be under the carpet now, soaking into the wood floor underneath, into the sub-floor.
“Okay,” Ray told himself, trying to psyche himself up to do this.
He had it planned out. He was going to wrap the man’s head up in the plastic bag and then wind the plastic wrap around his head and neck. Then he could pull a garbage bag down over the top half of the man’s body. Maybe wrap some duct tape around the bag to keep it in place.
Shit, he’d forgotten the duct tape.
There was probably some tape downstairs in the garage.
He sat back down on the floor, the gloves still on his hands. He stared at the dead man. He didn’t feel like going back downstairs and getting the tape. He didn’t feel like cleaning this up. It felt like all of the energy had drained out of him suddenly.
You’re just in shock, that’s all. You need to clean this up. In a day or two this guy’s going to start stinking.
And where was he supposed to put this guy when he had him wrapped up in plastic and tape? Drag him downstairs? Put him in one of the trashcans? Stick him in the guestroom closet? Bury him in the backyard?
Ray felt like crying, and he never felt like crying. This felt so hopeless . . . everything felt so hopeless right now.
A noise from outside caught his attention as he sat there for a moment. It sounded like vehicles were parked outside in the street with their engines running, but these engines sounded loud and powerful, like trucks.
He got to his feet and went to the side window to look outside—it was the same window he’d looked out this morning before the sun had come up. He kept to the side of the window so he wouldn’t be seen as he pulled the curtains back just a little.
There were two military vehicles parked right in front of Helen’s house; they looked like Humvees, both painted tan with dark stripes, giving them a camouflage look. A moment later four soldiers with rubber gloves and gas masks left Helen’s house, two of them dragging the small woman with them. Even from the window Ray could hear her pleading with them, crying and begging as they forced her into the Humvee. There was blood on her face and staining the front of her shirt. Had they beaten her?
They were taking Helen away. Why?
It was because of the meeting they’d had this morning. Someone must have told the soldiers about her little get-together, possibly telling them that she wanted to fight back, like she was some kind of revolutionist.
They were going to question her, make her talk. They were going to beat her some more. Hurt her some more. And Ray knew it wouldn’t be long before she mentioned his name and where he lived.
He looked back at the dead body in the middle of his bedroom.
Would the soldiers believe that he had killed the man in self-defense? Would they even give him a chance to explain?
His balls felt like they had shrunk, trying to crawl up inside of his body. He felt suddenly sick to his stomach.
But one thing was very clear now—they needed to leave.
CHAPTER 18
Kim put the can of Coke she’d been holding up to her throat back into the fridge. She thought about drinking it—she was thirsty—but she thought it might hurt a little too much to swallow right now, especially the fizzy soda.
She opened the freezer and saw that they had a little bit of ice cream left. She took it out, got a spoon, and then took a bite. It was still mostly frozen and it felt good on her throat.
Ray rushed into the kitchen. Before he even said anything, she knew something was very wrong.
“I need to talk to you in the living room,” he told her.
“What’s wrong?” Mike asked, his hands around his can of Coke even though Kim didn’t even think he’d drunk any of it yet. He’d just been holding it, like it was something from the normal world that comforted him.
“Nothing,” Ray said. “You two stay here for a minute.”
Kim followed Ray into the trashed living room, both of them going to the other end, far enough away from the kitchen so their two little eavesdroppers couldn’t hear them.
Ray was scared; she couldn’t remember ever seeing her husband like this. She’d seen him angry plenty of times before, especially when he found out she’d cheated on him. She’d seen him disappointed and sad about the possibility of a divorce. She’d even seen him scared of not being able to see his kids as much as he wanted to after the divorce. But that fear was nothing like this; it was nothing like the look in his eyes right now.
“Come upstairs with me,” he whispered to her.
“I don’t want to go up there.”
“Just for a minute.”
She glanced back at the archway to the kitchen. She almost expected to see Mike peeking around the edge of the opening, spying on them. But maybe both of them had actually listened for once and remained at the table. She looked back at Ray. “I don’t want to leave them down here alone.”
Ray seemed to understand that, especially after what they’d just gone through in the last hour. He nodded, but he was still adamant. “They’ll be okay for a few minutes.”
“What is it?” she asked.
He seemed to be almost shaking with fear now.
“I don’t want to see that man again,” she said.
“It’s not that,” he whispered, his eyes darting beyond her to the archway. “It’s something else.”
“What?”
“I don’t know if they’re still outside.”
Kim’s heart skipped a beat, her body tensing. She automatically pictured more attackers outside their home, a whole pack of men like the one who had just tried to kill her. She imagined the rippers prowling out there, trying to get inside. “Who?” she whispered.
“Next door. At Helen’s house. I just saw soldiers taking her away.”
Kim felt like the whole world had just tilted for a moment, knocking her off-balance. She felt a sudden and urgent need to hold on to something. For just a few seconds she was scared she might actually fall over. “What?” she whispered, the word coming out as a hoarse croak.
“The soldiers were dragging her out of her house,” Ray continued in a low voice. “Helen was kicking and screaming, but they threw her into a Humvee. She looked like she’d been beaten. Her face was bloody.”
Kim glanced at the stairs for just a moment, but she still wasn’t ready to go up there. “Why did they take her? Where’d they take her to?”
“I don’t know where they’re taking her, but I think someone told the soldiers about our little meeting this morning. A guy there, I can’t remember his name, he said there are soldiers guarding the entrance to our neighborhood.”
“Wait. What?” Ray was talking so fast now. All of this was going too fast.
“I know. I haven’t had time to tell you what happened at the meeting. This guy, his name was Donny, he said he drove around last night and early this morning. He said he saw the soldiers setting up at the entrance to some of the neighborhoods around here, and in front of our subdivision. He said we’re being quarantined.”
“Quarantined for what? For that virus? You said that might just be a rumor at work or fake news.”
“I don’t know. Some of the people were talking about it yesterday when we were all outside at work, waiting for the doors to open . . .” He let his words trail off.
She waited for him to finish.
“Like I told you before, it was Doug. I don’t know what to believe with him.”
“So you think someone at Helen’s neighborhood meeting told the soldiers what you guys were talking about?”
Ray shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. Helen was talking about fighting back. Saying things like the government didn’t have the right to keep us in our homes.”
Kim just stared at her husband—she knew there was more.
“They were all kind of suspicious of me.”
“Why?”
“They knew I worked for the government. For the CDC.”
Kim just sighed.
&
nbsp; “I think they’re going to be coming for us next. I think we need to leave.”
Kim’s breath was trapped in her throat for a second. “Leave? We can’t just . . . we can’t just leave. Didn’t you just say that there are soldiers guarding the entrance to our place?”
“I know, but they’re going to come after us soon. I know it. And I’m not going to have much of an explanation for the dead guy upstairs.”
“We can’t just leave,” Kim said again, feeling numb. She wasn’t ready for this.
“Don’t you see? Martial law has been declared. They’re starting to round people up.” He grabbed her arms; it was a gentle grasp even though there was panic in his eyes. “Listen,” he said in a low voice. “I need you to pack a bag for the kids. Don’t let them pack their own bags—they’ll want to take everything. And we need a bag for us. Take only absolute necessities, just a few changes of clothes, an extra pair of shoes for all of us. Sneakers or hiking boots, something comfortable but durable.”
“Ray.”
“We need to get some bathroom stuff together. Soap. Toothpaste. Toothbrushes.”
Ray,” she snapped at him. “There’s a curfew. We can’t just drive around. Martial law, remember?”
“They’re taking people, Kim. They’re going to make Helen talk. They’re going to round up any other people that were there at her house.”
“Maybe they just want to ask her some questions. That’s all.”
“You didn’t see the way they were dragging her out of her house. You didn’t see the blood on her face. That’s why I wanted you to come up there with me. I wanted you to see them before they left.” He glanced towards the front door like he expected a knock at any second.
This was crazy. Ray was acting crazy, but he seemed dead-set on leaving. She couldn’t take the chance that he might leave on his own, or worse, snatch the kids and leave without her.
“Where are we going to go?” she asked, still trying to slow things down.
