Coming in to Chapter 3.

They continued on driving in silence for a few moments. Both Katrina and Chris felt comfortable with each other not talking; Chris was still processing everything he was being told, getting ready for more information. Katrina was slowly starting to realize that she is actually going back home. After all this time in Colorado, away from her grandmother, trying to deal with the death of her parents on her own; the group counselors in the treatment facility were no help; they hadn’t even been to Forest Hills, or any of the other infected places. She took a deep breath and looked at Chris.
“I suppose you want to know what happened with my cousin then?” Katrina asked. She felt good talking about what happened after all this time.
“Yeah, if you want to talk about it now. Or I mean we could wait a bit if you want to take a break?”
“That’s fine. Now is as good a time as any. Better to know what you’re getting yourself into before we get there.” 'Or maybe what I’m getting myself into when I get back' Katrina was thought.
“When Gregory rushed Emily home he pounded on the door and my aunt answered; my uncle was still at work. Right away my aunt knew what had happened and asked what became of the infected that attacked Emily. Gregory told her that he had taken care of it. Then and there my aunt accepted that she might lose her only daughter to the virus. Even though it had only been like a week since everything started happening, everyone had already accepting things like losing family members.” Katrina could feel her nerves starting to bunch up but she knew she had to push on-- for Chris and for herself. “My aunt begged Gregory not to tell the officials so they wouldn’t take her away or try and do tests on her like they were starting to do on some others. Gregory obliged and Emily stayed under my aunt’s care. When my uncle came home, obviously he went crazy with guilt because he wasn’t there to walk Emily home. My aunt hadn’t called him at work either because she wanted to make him feel guilty. They’re marriage suffered for the remainder of the time. I was evacuated shortly after that.”
“And your cousin?” Chris asked.

“She was in a coma-like state the whole time. She was mentally awake I suppose; she would move every once and awhile, and wake up briefly, but never more than 30 seconds. The scratch on her face became extremely infected no matter what care my aunt took. And that was with the help of Doctor Stevensen. He said that without his medications she probably would have died already. My mom tried to help but she and I were banned from seeing her. My aunt went kinda crazy. Emily would wake up in cold sweats and my aunt would think she was transforming and have my uncle restrain her with ropes. It was like they were expecting something from The Exorcist. But she would just pass out again. It ended up killing my aunt in the end. She took her own life in the Basement with one of my uncle’s guns.”

Katrina stopped and Chris had a feeling that she was done talking for a minute. Katrina put her head back and closed her eyes. He relaxed just a little thought about the road. He realized he hadn’t paid attention to any of the Kentucky scenery. About twenty minutes went by before he remembered the radio was still on and realized he hadn’t heard a single song that played. He looked over at Katrina. She looked so peaceful with her eyes shut and head settled on the window. Chris knew she was sleeping and thought it would be okay if he started to flick through the stations. When he found one that was good enough, he fell into his thoughts: What if it hadn’t been contained? What if it spread all over the United States? How long would it take to contain it then? Would it travel over the seas to other continents? His thoughts shifted to How come something like this, that happened three years ago is only being reported as a plague? Why am I reporting on this now?

Katrina tried to get to sleep but despite the heaviness of the exhaustion weighing on her body, her mind refused to shut down. When Chris started flicking through the stations she pretended to be asleep so he wouldn’t feel awkward if she suddenly opened her eyes. Truth was: as much as she enjoyed talking about this to someone who wasn’t a therapist, she didn’t feel like physically talking anymore and the easiest way was to be asleep—even if she had to pretend. Talking about the past had brought back so many memories-- bad memories, but also good ones of her and her cousin playing in the park or Katrina teaching her how to do her make-up.
Katrina remembered the time she snuck in to see her the last time after her infection. She couldn’t bear to watch her in her sleep: breathing heavily and her teeth grinding through her chapped lips. The scratch on her face was so infected it looked like a gangrenous flesh-eating wound. It hadn’t gotten any worse, but not any better. Emily’s hands were clasped so tight that her nails were digging into her palms leaving little crescent-shaped cuts over her hands. Katrina wanted so badly to care for her, to dress her hands but knew it wouldn’t do any good. She left and didn’t go back. Katrina thought of this moment with a pang of guilt pulsing down her back, stopping only when she thought of something else. Her mind finally fluttered in and out of a light sleep with the radio playing in the background.

3.
As Chris and Katrina got closer to Forest hills the road became un-even and windy. There were gaps between the trees, but so far he could not see any houses or anything that resembled a permanent residence. He contemplated how it was possible to be mentally stable after seeing something so imaginary and fictional. It must have felt like they were in a nightmare he thought. Maybe they are fine now; like a dream they’ve now woken up and everything’s back to normal-- as normal as can be. As the thought formed in his head he didn’t believe any of it.

He looked over at Katrina and she had definitely fallen asleep with her jacket balled up as a pillow against the window. He didn’t want to wake her, but they were almost there and she knew this place better than he did.
He found himself searching the trees for something that resembled a house, farm or building. He caught a glimpse of what he thought was a person walking through the woods behind a fence, but when he looked back through his rearview mirror he saw a dog dart across the road. ‘Just missed being a hood ornamen’t he thought.
“Who was that?” Katrina asked.
“It was just a dog.” Chris replied.
“I must be seeing things.” She reached up and arched her back, palms touching the ceiling behind her. “I thought I saw someone.”
“Hmmm. Must be the sleep talking. Anyways, I’m glad you’re awake. We’re almost there.”
“Great.” Katrina replied with a hint of sarcasm.

They passed a sign that read “Forest hills town center: 0.5 miles”. Like a movie there were bullet holes dotting the I’s and shot through the center of the ‘o’s like a bull’s eye.
I suppose they would have to be a good shot around here. Chris was reassuring himself. As if Katrina was reading his thoughts, she replied: “Those have been there a lot longer than you probably think.”
“Is hunting a normal pastime around here?”
“Yes, but that is new. Only about three years old in fact.”
Chris didn’t have a comment to that. He focused ahead.
“You’re going to take the next turn into the town centre.” Katrina informed him.
“I didn’t even ask where I was dropping you off.” Chris felt somewhat ashamed that this question hadn’t come into his head until now.
“I’m going to my grandmother’s. I’ll give you directions when we get in.”
Katrina motioned to the road turn off and Chris turned right.
“What about your parents? Are they all living in one house?”
Katrina didn’t look at him and instead talked to the window; “Chris, they’re not around anymore. They got infected too. That will be a story for next time.” She motioned again for Chris to turn right.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve come to terms with it now. Well, the best terms I think I’m going to get with it.”

The town centre was a large square traffic circle with a church in the middle. There were four sidewalks leading up to it: one on each face of the building. On the back half of the church there was a cemetery with headstones that had been worn down to little stubs and no visible writing on them. They had become nothing more than a marker of the deceased. The front of the church had a well-manicured lawn. On the opposite sides of the roads surrounding the square, there were stores with huge front windows and worn awnings. There was what looked like apartments with rooftop patios above each store.
The buildings looked old but not worn; they were made of brick and had decorative facades around the entryways. Each entrance was sunken back into the building with window displays lining each side. Chris noticed that despite the old look, they were kept very clean and barely anything—except the awnings—were coming apart. The roads could use a little work, but the sidewalks were in good condition for being a cobblestone material and they are twice as wide as the average New York sidewalk.
Everything radiated out from the church as if the church was the first building in town. It was only about mid-day and there were a few people walking through the streets. But most of the stores looked closed with their blinds shut.
Katrina instructed Chris to a road diagonally across on the far right corner of the church. As he was turning, he looked out his window and noticed a couple ladies walking across the church lawn with their groceries. One, which was much older and frail, stared at Chris before motioning to her companion; leaning in to say something which Chris thought no doubt was about him. Just as he expected, the younger woman turned and watched him drive past.
“I guess this town isn’t booming with tourists these days.” Chris said out loud.
“It never was.” Katrina said. “But, definitely not anymore. My grandmother’s place is just on the corner there—next block down.”
Chris followed Katrina’s finger to the upper floor of a small brick building. The windows were draped with yellow curtains. There were potted flowers along all of the windowsills. Chris could tell the difference between apartments in the building because the ones surrounding Katrina’s grandmother’s had no curtains and the windows that weren’t broken were covered in dust.
He pulled up along the sidewalk and turned off the car.

Chapter 2 cont...

......Katrina looked at Chris, her eyes rhetorically asking if he wanted her to continue.
“Go on.” He confirmed.
“Ok. It was a late night, and a warning hadn’t been heard yet—“
“What warning?” Chris asked.
“I’m getting to that—“
“Sorry.”
She went on; “There would be random cases of people being out walking their dog, or sitting at a park bench and all of a sudden they were…transformed. They went wild attacking whoever or whatever they could. Apparently –-from what I heard-- people would find a random dog skinned, with barely any meat and no eyes, but still attached to the leash. That’s when they knew someone had just transformed. The town decided that we needed a system to alert everyone if there was a known case on the loose. So the church’s bell tower got turned into a warning tower instead; one ring for each case, or a continuous amount for a group of infected.
“Anyways, So the night of my cousin’s infection, there was a guy in the local coffee shop visiting with an old relative that he hadn’t seen in years. The coffee shop was full of people like it usually is. This guy must have had a previous encounter with an infected earlier in the week but didn’t change in 24 hours so continued on with his business. He stood up all of a sudden and—this is where I don’t know most of the story—But long story short: he attacked a bunch of people in the shop and most of them transformed immediately. There was one survivor who escaped without so much as a scratch: the manager. She later went crazy from what Mama said. According to my parents, there was a lot more information that would be good for your little article, but they didn’t tell me. Too young or something.” Katrina glanced back out her window.

Chris was in shock at what he was hearing. These were stories that were told around campfires, not on the way to where he was going to be conducting interviews, or god-willing: sleep. His white knuckles were gripping the steering wheel for dear life and when he glanced in the rear-view mirror, he saw the blood had drained from his head, which would explain partially why his heart was running the half marathon in his chest. He wondered how much worse these interviews were going to get. He would have to pull it together if all this was true and he was about to walk into the aftermath of this devastation.
Without hesitation, Katrina took a deep breath and continued her story:“That same night is when my cousin got infected. Emily was only 16 and super smart. She had gone to the library that night like a lot of nights. She left for home at the same time of the attack. Usually her dad came pick her up, but this night he had to work late. Emily took a back road cutting through alleys and the neighbor’s open yards. There was one guy—or girl—that we think was a victim of the coffee shop. It had transformed already and it was hiding in a corner. As soon as it sensed Emily, whether it was by smell, or sight or some other perception they might have, it jumped on her and started scratching her face and neck. It hadn’t started into her flesh—eating I mean—when a neighbor, and watchman, Gregory had shown up and blew the thing to bits on top of her. Emily was still unconscious when Gregory carried her back to my aunt and uncle’s place. That was very brave of him; she was so beat up she could have transformed in a matter of minutes and attacked him. But he still walked at least three more blocks to her house.”

Chris was unsure how he was supposed to believe any of this. Moreover: how did the government, press, or all of them keep this from reaching the rest of America? Someone must have tried to write a truthful article and some paid-off editor must have killed it.
As scared as he was, his adrenaline was skyrocketing through his body. He was going to be the first person to tell everyone what happened in the little town of Forest Hills. And he would be the one to tell them that all the fictional stories they were hearing as children--about Zombies-- were actually the truth; the world has just been hiding it from them like some conspiracy. Chris swallowed deeply and realized his mouth was extremely dry. “I know we’re probably close now, but do you mind if we stop at a gas station or something? I have to get something to drink.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. I could use something as well. I think I saw a sign for one that should be coming—and there it is. Talk about timing!”
Chris drove on the shoulder until he could pull in. It was a small worn down gas station with the old pumps that had a clear canister on top. Lucky I didn’t need gas he thought.
“Can I get you something?” Chris asked Katrina.
“Just water please.”
“Okay.”

When Chris stepped out of the car the heat took him by surprise. His first breath was a mix of dust, humidity, gas fumes and a hint of oxygen. He sprinted into the building and was greeted with the same mix of air, only this time flavored by a sweet and sour smell he recognized as body odor. He immediately looked to his right where a fan was pushing the smell around the small room. Standing in front of it was an old man, small with no more than three hairs protruding off his head like a bug’s antennae. He stared at Chris, tonguing his splintered toothpick. Chris nodded and continued to look for water. There were no refrigerators in the building but he noticed in a crate on the floor in the corner aside a sleeping—or what Chris assumed was sleeping and not dead—Doberman. He cautiously bent over to grab the waters. The layer of dust on the bottles wasn’t what concerned Chris; it was if the Doberman had used the crate in place of a fire hydrant.
“’He won’t ‘urt ya!” The old man yelled. “’He’s too old to do anythin’. He takes after ‘is old man; He ain’t got no teeth anyways.” The man smiled politely confirming that the dog did take after him.
“Mmm…” That was all Chris could say.
“You gonna buy them waters?”
“Um yeah I was planning on it. Should I buy some antibacterial wipes for the top?” Chris joked, tapping the bottles.
“Nah, we don’ carry those here. Not a lot o’ people come this way.” The old man atried to slick back his four hairs but got a handful of sweat. He looked at his catch then flicked it onto the floor before he grabbed the bottles out of Chris’ hand. He tossed them in a bag and handed it to Chris. “Where ya headed?”
Chris didn’t want to tell him since they were already so close. He must know what happened in Forest Hills and Chris could only assume he didn’t feel amorous towards the small town.
“Umm, just like a few more minutes on the road I think.”
The old man’s voice lowered: “Not Forest ‘ills is it?”
“Yeah, that’s it…I think.” Chris croaked.
“Ugh.” The old man shook his head. “We don’t take nicely to those people. I’m gonna politely ask ya ta leave my store ‘fore I have Jaguar here chase ya out ” He pointed to a very much alive and well Doberman sitting at his feet, the dogs hazel eyes peering into Chris’.
“But I haven’t given you any—“
“GET OUT! An’ tell that girl of yours to put out her goddamn smoke!”
Chris ran out of the store. He did not expect such a hostile reaction. As the screen door slammed behind him, he saw Katrina leaning against the building, smoking.
“What are you doing? You can’t smoke at a gas station!”
“I’m not anywhere near a pump and besides, that’s just a suggestion not a universal rule.” She took another drag before dropping it on the ground and walking towards the car.
Chris shook his head at her and stepped on the fiery cherry. “You know those things will kill you.”
Katrina gave him an evil eye “I think I’m close enough to death.” She stepped into the car leaving Chris feeling guilty about his comment.

When Chris pulled out onto the road, a car passed in front of him. He was sure it was blonde Barbie but couldn’t be sure.
Until now, Chris didn’t notice that AC was neither blowing air nor conditioning it. He pulled off his sweater and noticed Katrina glance over at him, letting her eyes linger a little longer than what would be considered a gestural glance.
“What?” He threw the sweater in the back and handed a bottle of water to her.
“Nothing. Just, the sweater, it made you look…bigger.” She took the bottle from him and twisted off the cap. As she raised the bottle to her mouth, Chris yelped; “Uh, I’d wipe the rim of that off first.”
Katrina wasn’t going to bother asking ‘why’. It would probably end up leading to a pointless conversation.
“Okay.” She covered her hand with her sleeve and polished the bottle mouth.
Chris did the same. “You never know what you can catch these days!” After the words came out of his mouth he became stiff in his seat. Not again he thought. he turned slowly towards Katrina: “I’m sorry, I didn’t mea—“. But Katrina was laughing which made Chris laugh in relief.
Chris wondered if this is what Katrina was like three years ago, before the Forest Hills incident. He was going to enjoy this feeling for a moment before asking what became of her cousin Emily.