by Lukens, Mark
“What about the kids?” Ray asked.
“I want to see them.”
He nodded, wiping at his eyes. He didn’t want his kids to see that he’d been crying. “Of course.”
“But I can’t,” she said, her eyes wide again, her emotions switching from one to another with lightning speed. “You can’t let them in here. They won’t want to leave me. And I can’t have them around me in case something bad happens.”
She didn’t need to explain what “something bad” was supposed to mean.
“Tell them I’m sick. Real sick. Then . . . after I’m gone . . . you can tell them that I passed away in my sleep.” There were tears pooling in her eyes. “Please protect them, Ray.”
Ray struggled to hold back more tears. He nodded.
“You need to hurry. I’m . . . I’m hungry. I’m craving meat. Raw meat. And . . . and blood.”
He wanted Kim to see Mike and Vanessa one last time, but he had to agree that it wasn’t a good idea to bring them in right now. What if “something bad” happened? Did he want Mike and Vanessa to see that? Did he want them to see their father beating their mother with a golf club because she was trying to attack them? And what if she was contagious right now? Of course, that didn’t matter anymore. They’d all been around each other for the last few days, all of them crammed together in this little condo overnight. If Kim was contagious then he surely had it, and so did the kids and Emma.
“The pills,” Kim said. “Please ask Emma. If not, then we’ll think of something else. But we need to hurry.”
Ray couldn’t imagine what that something else might be, and he didn’t want to think about it. “You just wait right here. Don’t get out of bed.”
Kim just watched him as he left the room. He hurried down the hall to the living room. Even before he got to the living room, he could hear Mike and Vanessa talking. Emma was in the living room with them. They were all snacking on some dry cereal.
“Dad!” Vanessa squealed.
“Sorry,” Emma said. “We were trying to be quiet. Trying not to wake you.”
“That’s okay,” Ray said with a smile, but that smile felt false. He felt like a bad actor trying to pull off a role and the whole audience knew he was failing. He looked at Emma. “Kim’s real sick. She’s going to stay in bed for a little while.” He hoped she understood what he meant.
“I want to see Mom,” Vanessa said.
“Not right now,” Ray told Vanessa. “We need to let her rest.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Mike asked, already suspicious.
“She’s just not feeling well.” Ray forced that smile-thing back on his face again. “She’ll be fine in a few hours. She’s just got a headache. That’s all.”
But Mike didn’t look so sure about that.
“We should bring her some 7-Up,” Vanessa said. “Mom likes 7-Up when she’s sick. And chicken noodle soup.”
“I’ll get it for her,” Ray said. “You two just stay here and finish your breakfast. Okay?” He looked at Emma, his throat choking up, barely able to speak. “Do you have some aspirins I could get for Kim?”
Emma was already standing up before Ray had the words out of his mouth.
CHAPTER 26
Ray got a bottle of 7-Up from the pantry that was stocked with food. Of course Emma had 7-Up, like she knew Kim would want one, like she knew Vanessa would want one for her mother because she wasn’t feeling well. Did that mean that Emma would have the pills Kim wanted?
Ray told Emma what he needed in a whisper, trying to keep it together, trying not to cry.
“Up in the cabinet above the stove,” she whispered back. “They’re in a big metal cup.”
Ray opened the cabinet and found a prescription pill bottle inside the metal cup, just like she said. He read the label, which was printed with words on one side and brail on the other. The prescription was made out to Emma Steele.
“They’re sleeping aids,” she told him. She didn’t add that the pills would do the trick—she didn’t need to.
“Vanessa!” Mike yelled from the living room. “You’re not supposed to bother her.”
Ray’s heart jumped and he shoved the bottle of pills down into his front pants pocket.
“Ow!” Mike yelled. “Stop!”
Ray was in the living room in a flash. He saw Mike and Vanessa at the entrance to the hallway; Mike was trying to keep Vanessa from going down the hall. “What’s going on?” he yelled. “We’re supposed to be quiet. Mom’s sick.” He could imagine Kim bursting out of the bedroom, the door slamming open. He could imagine her running down the hall in an insane rage, her mouth wide open in hunger, a growl in her throat.
“I was trying to stop her,” Mike said. “But she hit me in the face.”
Ray looked at his daughter. She was about to cry. “Is that true?”
She nodded. “I . . . I don’t know why I did it. I just . . . I just want to see Mom.”
“I know,” Ray said. “But we need to let her rest. You two go back and finish your breakfast.” He turned around and saw Emma standing at the edge of the kitchen. He looked back at his kids. “Not another peep, okay?”
They both nodded. They looked scared.
“I just want to give her some 7-Up,” Ray said in a softer voice, lifting the bottle in his hand like it was proof. The bottle of pills in his front pants pocket felt conspicuous. “I . . . I just need to sit with her for a while. Try to make her feel better.” He barely got the last of the words out, his throat nearly locking up. His heart was still beating hard from his dash into the living room, his fear that his seven-year-old daughter was attacking his son.
His kids nodded again. Emma was still at the edge of the kitchen. Ray didn’t know what else to say, and even if he had, he didn’t trust his voice not to crack with emotion right now. He hurried down the hall to the bedroom.
Kim wasn’t in bed. She was at the corner again, crouched there with her arms around her knees, rocking back and forth, just like he’d found her when he’d woken up a little earlier. She was whispering again, speaking the words quickly, but mixing them up. He could hear those words more clearly now.
He closed and locked the bedroom door. He approached cautiously, not sure if she had completely turned now.
“Kim?”
She kept whispering and rocking back and forth.
He touched her on the shoulder, his body tense—he was ready to jump back if she attacked him. He didn’t even have anything to protect himself with.
A weapon to protect himself from his wife? God, what was he thinking?
Kim turned around with wild eyes, her mouth wide in a grin that wasn’t exactly a smile.
“Kim,” Ray said a little more sharply.
Her eyes seemed to clear. She seemed to notice that she’d been drooling. She wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand. Once again, she seemed to be confused about why she was crouching in the corner. “I . . . I keep hearing this song in my mind,” she whispered. “But . . . but the words aren’t making any sense.”
“I know,” Ray said. “You’re not feeling well. But I’ve got some . . . some medicine that will make you feel a little better.” His stomach clenched, and for just a moment he thought he might have to rush out to the bathroom in the hall and vomit into the toilet.
Kim just stared at him like she was trying her hardest to understand what he was saying, like she was processing each word, trying to piece them together into the sentences and decipher their meaning.
He offered his hand, a gesture that she seemed to understand. She took his proffered hand and stood up. She didn’t seem weak or shaky, if anything, she seemed stronger and more limber. But she allowed him to guide her back to the bed.
“It’s happening,” she whispered, but there were no tears now. The change was so sudden—faster than Ray thought it would be.
Ray nodded. “I know.”
“The kids,” she whispered.
“They’re okay. I told them that you’re
not feeling well. I told them not to come into the room.”
“Then they know?”
“I don’t think Vanessa does,” Ray said, and he thought of Vanessa hitting her brother. Mike and Vanessa had had their arguments before, like all kids, but he couldn’t remember Vanessa actually striking her brother in the face before. And Mike hadn’t hit her back, almost like he’d been too shocked by his sister’s sudden violence to react. “I think Mike knows.”
Kim just nodded.
Ray pulled out the bottle of pills from his pants pocket, the pills rattling around inside—a death rattle, he thought. “Here,” he said, his word just a croak. He cleared his throat. “You . . . you just take as many as you can. They’ll put you to sleep.”
Or maybe she would get sick and pass out, Ray thought. Maybe she would puke in her sleep, choking to death. Maybe she would go into seizures, foaming at the mouth. Or maybe she would scream from intense stomach cramps before she died. He had no way of knowing for sure.
He opened the bottle for her and handed her a pill.
She took the pill and swallowed it with a little bit of 7-Up.
“Vanessa thought the 7-Up would make you feel better,” Ray said. And then he couldn’t help it; he burst into tears.
His wife laid a hand on his muscular forearm, but she still wasn’t showing much emotion. “We don’t know how these pills are going to work,” she said, being the rational one of them now when he couldn’t be. “Get something to tie my legs and hands.”
Ray wiped at his eyes. He should’ve thought of that, but his mind was muddy right now. He stood up and went to the closet. There were some extra sheets and pillows on top of the closet. He unfolded a bedsheet and tore it up into strips. He came back to the bed and tied his wife’s ankles together. “Too tight?” he asked.
She shook her head no, already taking another pill and chasing it with a swig of 7-Up. She’d taken four so far.
Ray nodded. He had the other strip of bedsheet in his hands. “I’ll wait to tie your hands until you take some more.”
Kim nodded and took two more pills, swallowing them down with barely any soda now. “Thank you for doing this.”
Thank you? She was thanking him for ending her life. But wouldn’t he want the same thing if he was in her situation? He knew he would. He couldn’t die thinking that he would be any kind of a threat to his family, and he had to understand that Kim felt the same way. Mike and Vanessa had always been her world, and this was the last way she had to protect them from the horrors outside their door now.
Kim was already looking sleepy, her eyes glazing over a bit. But Ray wanted her to keep going. He didn’t know exactly how this would work, but he wanted her to have enough of the pills in her so she could overdose. Maybe she should mix the pills with alcohol—he’d heard of that kind of combo killing people before. He wondered if Emma had any alcohol, but then he was sure she wouldn’t. Why would a blind woman have alcohol in her house? He almost laughed at the absurdity of it, picturing a blind woman getting drunk by herself and stumbling around. He had to bite down on his fingers to keep from laughing.
Ray sat on the bed right beside Kim with the length of torn bedsheet still in his hands.
“I want you to go to Craig’s house,” Kim said in a moment of clarity. She spoke quickly, rushing her words like she wasn’t sure how long she would be cognizant enough to express herself. “I want you to go there and try to find the answers he was talking to you about. If there’s a cure there, then I want you to get my babies there. Can you do that for me?”
Ray just nodded.
“Take Mike and Vanessa somewhere safe,” she said, her voice softer now, almost a whisper. “Protect them, Ray.”
“I will,” he promised.
She took a few more pills and closed her eyes.
CHAPTER 27
Ray waited on the bed until Kim stopped breathing.
He had tied her hands together after she had passed out in case the pills didn’t work, in case her eyes popped open, bulging with a murderous rage. But it hadn’t happened, she hadn’t woken back up, and she had never completely turned. She had closed her eyes and just passed out. Her breathing was regular for a little while, and then a little later it was shallow, almost raspy. And then it seemed like she stopped breathing for ten or twelve seconds, and then she took another breath. Eventually, she just stopped breathing. At least she hadn’t suffered.
There were still some pills left in the bottle; it was almost half full. Would that be enough for the rest of them?
Ray cried for a while. He sobbed, burying his face in a pillow. He cried so hard it felt like his body was convulsing. After he was done crying, he was thirsty. The 7-Up was gone, but he was afraid to get another bottle of water, afraid of his children seeing him like this.
How were they supposed to see him? He was going to have to tell them the truth eventually, even though he was fairly certain Mike knew what was happening.
He sat on the floor across the room for a while, his back up against the wall. He had untied Kim and wrapped her body in the bedsheet, using more strips of the other bedsheet to tie around her body. She was now just a shrouded corpse in the middle of the bed.
Why keep going?
He didn’t want to do anything but sit here on the floor for a while. The world had turned to shit, and he felt like giving up. He probably had the same virus Kim had. And the kids were probably infected, too. And Emma. They were probably all going to die in the next day or two, holed up in this condo with those animals out there finishing off any uninfected people that they found.
Uninfected. He thought of what he’d told Kim earlier, that there was never a one hundred percent infection rate with any virus or plague. He wasn’t sure if that was true, but he’d heard that even the most virulent strains of the Ebola virus spared at least ten percent. If this plague was that bad, then at least five or ten percent might survive. Even one percent of the population would still be a lot of people. There were roughly three hundred and fifty million people in the United States. A one percent survival rate would still leave millions unaffected.
God, he couldn’t believe he was thinking about immunity from the virus, giving himself some kind of hope while his wife’s dead body rested on the bed. But if he didn’t think of some kind of possibility of survival, then he was afraid he was going to go crazy.
What kind of virus was out there? Some kind of natural mutation? Or had it been engineered by terrorists, a bioweapon of some kind? Maybe it was something that had gotten loose from the CDC, his own employer (former employer). If it was some kind of genetically altered virus, then the kill rate could be higher than ninety percent—that was something he needed to consider. The kill rate could be ninety-five percent. Or even ninety-nine point nine percent.
But what kind of virus was it? He was definitely no expert; he was just a number cruncher, but he knew a little bit about diseases just from reports and articles he’d read over the years. It didn’t seem like some kind of influenza to him; there were no flu-like symptoms that he’d seen. Kim hadn’t even had a fever; she hadn’t even been warm to the touch. So far, the only effect he’d seen of the disease was that it turned human beings into raging animals.
Rabies? Rabies was a virus, but it wasn’t airborne. Of course it could’ve been genetically altered to be airborne. But why? It seemed like an unlikely virus to use as a weapon. Rabies almost always killed its host after a few weeks. And even though the rippers seemed to be rabid, they didn’t exhibit the other classic signs of rabies like fear of water and foaming at the mouth.
Maybe it was something completely new. Some new kind of virus either made by man or made by Mother Nature; a natural cleansing of humans who had gotten out of control on this planet.
He looked back at Kim’s body again.
Protect them, she had told him. How was he supposed to do that? She’d told him to take them to Craig’s house, to where the answers were. She thought there might be a cure there, an
d he hadn’t argued with her, wanting her last thoughts to be comforting and full of hope. But at least Craig’s house would be a lot safer than Emma’s condo. Craig lived out in the country, far outside of the cities around Washington D.C. His house was surrounded by a fence, built on a few acres of land in a posh rural neighborhood.
And there might be answers there. He couldn’t help thinking about what Craig had been trying to say on the cell phone a few days ago before the service went out. Craig had told Ray to get to his house. He’d said he’d left something there for him. He’d said something about answers. He’d also said something about roses. And Avalon. Could there be clues to some kind of cure at Craig’s house? Ray dared to believe that Craig might even have some kind of a vaccine or antidote.
But no, Craig hadn’t said anything about a cure or an antidote or vaccine. But then again, the phone call had been breaking up. Maybe there was a lot more that Craig wanted to say, but the phones had gone out before he could say it.
Emma knew something about Avalon. She said that the word had just come to her, that she’d seen it in her dreams, but she didn’t know what it meant. Was she telling the whole truth, or was she holding something back? Was she doling out just so much information to him to keep leading him somewhere?
Paranoia crept through his mind like its own disease. Did Emma know more than she was saying? She had known that Kim was sick; she’d been so sure of it. Could she sense who else was sick? Would he even want to know?
He stood up and his head swam for just a moment. He paced across the room, trying to clear his mind a little. His thoughts were getting strange.
God, was he showing the same symptoms Kim had?
A tingly feeling of fear danced across his skin like some kind of static electricity, a panic wanting to build up and erupt inside of him. But he didn’t have anywhere to run to. He needed to calm down and try to think of things as rationally as he could, even if it was difficult right now.
