town rumor

“I, I, I,” stammered Mary-Anne. She looked like a proverbial deer in the headlights.

Katrina’s fear morphed into rage. “I asked you, what the HELL are you doing?” Chris remained halfway up the stairs. Katrina’s anger was so unstable, he didn’t want to get in the way.

Mary-anne straightened and brushed her jeans off. “Well, I saw someone sneaking in the gate and well, I’m just glad it’s you and not some burglar.”

Katrina straightened her hunched back and uncurled her fists enough to seem about as less hostile as a dog ready to playfully beat a rabbit to death. “Why didn’t you try the front door?”

“well, I did. It’s locked.”

Chris started down the stairs, “uh, sorry, that was my fault. Habit I suppose.”

Katrina looked at him, processing some information. She turned back to Mary-anne, “Why did you have to break the window?”

“Sorry, I’ll replace it. I just, “ she looked at Chris and back to Katrina. “I have something that I guess you should know. In private.”

“Well, if it has anything to do with the infection, Chris can know too. He is writing that article after all.”

“Right.” She walked towards the sofa behind chairs and sat, curled into the corner as if that was her normal spot. Katrina followed her and sat in her mother’s chair leaning over the arm to the sofa. Chris stood guard behind the couch. “well, ever since we got back there’s been things going on.”

“What kind of things?” Chris heard himself ask.

Mary-anne glanced at him and continued talking to Katrina. “People are going missing. And not being found.”

“Who?” Katrina asked.

“Well, the butcher’s son. He goes hunting in the woods. He went hunting a couple days ago. Well, you can’t really call it hunting. He goes shooting.” Mary-anne chuckled at herself. “They searched for him, but found nothing.”

“What’s his name?” Chris asked, remembering the young man he saw in the woods, licking the tree.”

“Foster Briant.” Katrina answered. Chris was relieved: Not the same guy.

“So, anyways, they’re still looking for him. But another person has gone missing. I don’t know their name, but it’s some guy who was last seen last night at the bar.” Katrina and Chris cringed at the thought. “There’s more people missing, but no one will give details. The rumor going around is that the infection is getting stronger now that we’re back.”

“That’s absurd, “ Katrina scoffed. “We’ve been treated. We still treat ourselves everyday.”

Mary-anne rolled her eyes, “yeah. I know.”

“So what does this have to do with you breaking and entering into my house?”

“Well, I afraid that one of the two of you was going to murder the other.”

“And you were going to what, apprehend them by yourself?” Chris asked.

“mary-anne glared at him. “No, that’s what the brick was for. Dual purpose.”

Katrina stood up and walked through a door. A couple seconds later she came back with a broom and dust pan. “well, there’s nothing we can do but clean up and get this window covered with plastic until I can get it fixed.”

Mary-anne jumped up and headed towards the door, “well, I’m glad that it’s just you guys and I didn’t have to kick any asses today. I’ll see you later, gotta meet Mary-jo.”

Katrina rolled her eyes and started brushing up the glass. Chris walked over to help. “Where can I find a tarp or plastic bag or something?”

What's in the basement? Chapter 11

....He turned and walked through the hallway into his bedroom.

They all waited for the door to close before anyone moved. Katrina grabbed her bag and headed for a small door just off the living room. She opened it quickly and lightly shut it behind her.

Chris stood staring at the closed door, like a lost puppy left in a stranger's house; unconsciously imagining what was going on downstairs. Mama startled him when she put her had on his forearm. “I’m gonna go now chicken. I’ll see you two later?”

“Oh, I don’t know what time we’ll be home. We have to go over to Mary-Jo’s for dinner tonight. That reminds me: do you want to come? She asked us to ask you.”

“Oh dear me, tell her ‘no, thank you’. I think I’ve enough of the rumor-mill today—- don’t tell her that part.”

Chris chuckled and smiled at Mama. “I won’t.”

Mama winked at him and continued towards the hallway. “Oh, and one more thing: her meat pie has nothing on mine— no matter what she says.”

*****

Katrina entered the basement slowly and quietly. It used to be a place where Emily and her would go to play away from the grown-ups. Emily used to talk about how she would decorate it like her own apartment.
Katrina looked to the left at the familiar shape of Emily sleeping; she would be so disappointed in the way Clint had tacked some ratty bed-sheets to the walls to cover the pink fiberglass insulation. Emily’s legs were tied together and then each was tied to the bottom corners of the bed. The same was of her hands; only the rope was tied strategically to a bar on each side of the bed so she wasn’t restricted to one sleeping position. She was laying in the position she was most fond of: her arms bent up beside her head—it reminded Katrina of when they used to dance around singing YMCA, spelling all the letters out with their arms. Emily’s head was turned to the left as if she was looking out the basement window. She looked almost normal.

Katrina moved even more cautiously towards her, carefully reaching into the small pocket on the front of her purse—never removing her eyes from Emily. Emily’s feet twitched to the right, stopping Katrina half way. She reached further in the pocket, feeling the shape of the needle and then the small bottle of liquid medication.

Once she got close enough to Emily to hear the pattern of her breath, she slowly pulled the utensils out of her bag. She removed the cap off the needle with her teeth and only looked away for enough time to pierce the needle through the lid of tiny bottle, and then again to make sure there were no air bubbles in the needle.

Katrina took another step closer to Emily. She grabbed the rope on Emily’s right arm and slowly slid it down the pole until it was straight. Katrina bunched up any loose rope and held it firmly with her left hand so Emily wouldn’t be able to move it. Emily inhaled deeply and turned her head towards Katrina, opened her eyes and formed her mouth into the shape of a smile. Only, this wasn’t a friendly smile; it was more like an efficient way to make a hissing sound, showing her displeasure at her current situation.

Quickly, Katrina stuck the needle into her upper arm and plunged the stopper until it wouldn’t go any further, all it’s contents emptied into Emily’s arm. Emily thrashed briefly, but Katrina did not waver; in a minute she would be calm.

Katrina disposed of the needle and the glass bottle in the trash beside the bed. She watched Emily for a brief moment, her eyes were closed and she looked peaceful again. Her face looked almost flush and her scar was a little more even with her skin tone. Katrina turned to leave just as Emily turned her head towards Katrina one more time and lightly smiled with her lips pressed together.

Chapter 8: Jerrid's story

...Jerrid thrust a shot in front of each of them. “Drink.”

“Oh, Jerrid. I really don’t want—“

Jerrid downed his shot in one gulp, “You heard me.”

The rest of them took their shots and left the glasses on the table. Chris could feel his stomach bile and Whiskey re-creating the civil war in his belly.

“So,” said Jerrid looking over at the pool table. “I guess you won. Too bad I didn’t see it, so it doesn’t count.”

Chris felt annoyed. “You were too busy crying like a baby behind Katrina. But I’ll happily kick your ass again if you want.” Chris was smiling until Jerrid stepped up to him, their chests almost touching. “--At pool I meant.”

“I thought so.” Jerrid smiled and backed down. “No, it’s not worth my time.”

“So we have a deal then?”

“We’ll see.” Jerrid walked over to grab his drink from beside Gregory.

The haggard waitress that Jerrid called ‘Darlin’’ came over and grabbed her empty drink tray, giving Jerrid a dirty look. “You said you’d bring this right back.”

“Sorry, guess I lied. I wanted to make you come get it.” He winked at her and she smiled back at him and walked away. They all moved to a table in the middle of the room.

“So kid,” Gregory turned to Chris. The bar was almost full now and the music was a lot louder. “Why you writin’ an article about the infection? What kinda things you wanna know?”

“Everything: how it started and what it was like; how people dealt with it; what the town was like living in while it was happening. Just everything.”

“Well, let me tell you: nothing you write will portray what it was like living during that time. It was like living in Hell. Family members were killed, or transformed. You don’t know what it’s like to see a family member chase after you wanting to eat you, or seeing babies and toddlers with blood dripping from their lips after they’ve just fed on their household pet. Could you imagine having to kill your own child, or someone else’s?”

“No, I couldn’t. But neither can the rest of America, and they don’t even know it can happen. That’s why I want to write this article.”

“And how do you think that you can get this article out when the rest of the people that have tried couldn’t?”

“I don’t know that it won’t get killed like the rest, but once I tell my boss about this, he has to publish it. He just has to,” Chris said reassuring himself more than Gregory.

Jerrid turned his chair towards the bar and rested his ankle on his knee while he lit a cigarette. “I don’t think you know what you’ve gotten yourself into kid.”

“You make it sound like there’s still infected people running around out there.”

“There is,” Gregory said.

“What?”

Gregory shook his head as if to erase what he just said, “I mean they’re not all gone yet. Every once and awhile we’ll come across a decomposing body with the eyes sucked out, or a limb that’s been torn off and the flesh chewed all around it. That means there’s still some out there.“

“We got a live one the other week; not from around here—-as far as I could tell--and we thought that he was our last problem. But another body turned up after him. Look, don’t tell anyone. We have it under control and we’re pretty sure there’s only one running around. We’ll get him.” Jerrid inhaled and winked at a different waitress.

Chris’ heart rate rose and Gregory could see it on his face. “Don’t worry kid. No one’s going to get you.”

Katrina leaned over the table, “So, the blood on your shirt today Jerrid, that was—“

“A bird. I told you that.”

“Just checking.” Katrina lit her cigarette.

“So Gregory, how do you guys work your watches? Or how did you? You couldn’t both have stayed up all night and all day.”

“No, we had a lot more watchmen during the peak of the infection; we had recruiting sessions like an army and even practice during the day. But, too many of the watchmen were being killed or getting infected, so we decided that we would take care of the whole thing alone, that way we wouldn’t have any more unnecessary blood on our hands. I would do nights and Jerrid would do days and we’d trade sometimes. Whenever we needed a break, Clint-- Katrina’s uncle—would come help sometimes too.”

“So what made you guys so immortal?”

“Nothing, we’re just that good.” Jerrid said. Everyone laughed.

“Jerrid, can I ask what happened to your neck? Where you got that scar?”

Jerrid tamped out his cigarette and took a long sip of his drink. He didn’t acknowledge the question and Chris didn’t want to ask again. He looked at Katrina for an answer. “He doesn’t tell everyone that story.” Katrina comforted him.

“It’s Okay kid,” Jerrid started, “I was about fourteen and went camping up in Northwest US with my parents and brother. We had been there about three days and there were bear warnings all over. My family had always been avid campers; we knew what kind of precautions we had to take. Plus, we had been in bear country many times. After the third day, we had all gone to bed, my brother woke-up and had to go to the bathroom. My dad got up to take him. Jeff insisted on going deeper into the woods so my dad couldn’t see him. Seconds later he started screaming. It was a scream I had never heard before—and never want to again.
“My mother and I heard it from the tent. She grabbed the shotgun my dad left and we went running towards them. My dad was running towards us with Jeff in his arms. Jeff’s leg had a massive chunk taken out of his thigh. My mother dropped the gun and ran over to him. She was screaming, ‘what happened? What happened?’ My dad had trouble answering. He would repeat himself, ‘A bear. I think it was a bear.’
“Jeff had passed out by then and they laid him on the ground, trying to figure out what to do. My dad yelled at me to get the car. I ran. The truck was parked out on the main road--over a hundred yards away. My dad always left the keys in the ignition, but since this was a new spot, he hid them under the steering wheel; it took me awhile to find them. I drove as close as I could get and when the lights shone on the campground, I could only see blood and flesh strewn around the place. I couldn’t hear my mom or see my brother. When I looked closer, the flashlight was on the ground pointed at my dad who was lying on his back and had his arm stretched out reaching for the shotgun about four feet away. I wondered why he didn’t get up to grab it, but when I got closer I saw my dad’s right leg had been ripped—or chewed--off above the knee. He was obviously in some kind of shock or something. I grabbed the flashlight and that’s when I saw my mother’s body underneath the bear. She was already dead.” Jerrid stopped a moment and took a mouthful of rum and Coke.

“The weird thing was, the bear’s fur was brown but it was patchy; pieces of it missing and the skin showing through was all infected, like mange on a dog--but worse—not as scabbed, more raw. I ran over to grab the gun, as I got closer to my dad, the bear was distracted by the light from my flashlight. My dad screamed at it to leave me alone, it jumped at me anyways. I got the gun cocked and shot him, but on his way down, one of his nails—which was broken and infected—caught my neck.”

“How did you survive when you were so far out in the woods?” Chris asked.

“I got to the truck where he had a VHF and called for help. My dad died in my arms before help got there. I woke-up in a hospital with news reporters and people trying to put me into foster parent programs. They tested the bear for its infections. All tests came back negative for anything and only my neck had a severe infection. I was in the hospital for over a month."

“Did you go to a foster home?”

“A couple, until I was about eighteen, then I ran away and came back here to work for Katrina’s dad.”

Chris nodded. He didn’t know what else to say. Jerrid didn’t seem to care. He turned around in his seat.

“I lost my brother too,” Chris blurted out. Jerrid looked back at him. “He was young. He got hit by a car.”

“Sorry,” Jerrid replied. He lifted his glass to cheers Chris and the others. “To good friends being the best family one can have.” They all clinked their glasses together and gulped down the last drops. Jerrid got up to get another round.

Chapter 6 continued... Talking to the DR.

......Katrina and Chris looked at each other with raised eyebrows. They both laughed.

After only a few moments, Lucy guided the other woman waiting through the door and not long after that Doctor Stevensen shuffled her out.

“It was just a migraine Mrs. Langley, you didn’t have a stroke.”

The woman dropped her head and looked at Chris and Katrina through the corner of her eye as she left the office.

Chris looked back at Doctor Stevensen just as Lucy was pointing at Chris with her pencil. The Doctor was just as tall as Chris, if not taller. He had thin dirty blond hair that hadn’t been done in any certain manner but somewhat disheveled. He looked like a Doctor with his grey slacks, white short-sleeved button-up and red skinny tie. He looked over his glasses at Chris and then at Katrina.

“So you brought this young man to me Katrina?”

“Yes sir.” She wasn’t sure if Dr. Stevensen was in a playful mood or serious. It was hard to tell with him.

He smiled and started walking towards them. Chris and Katrina stood up to shake his hand. He gave Katrina an awkward side-hug like you do with someone you barely know, he grabbed Chris’ hand firmly. “So Lucy says that you want to ask some questions about the infection? No one really asks questions about that.”

“So I hear. I’m trying to write a story on it since no one else has.”

“I see. Where are you from son?”

“New York, but originally from Virginia.”

“Ok, well come on back and lets see if I can’t answer any of your questions.”

They followed the Doctor through the secret door. Lucy watched them all the way.

Once behind the door, there was a short hallway with two doors on each side for the patient rooms. Straight ahead, Chris could see sterile white cupboards that held supplies (a door was open showing boxes of gloves and cotton buds). Beside the storage cupboards was a light green door. it was dingy and old and looked like it could be a janitor's closet. They turned into the first door on the left. It was painted white but had a green tinge from the horrible lighting. The only furniture in the room was a cluttered wood desk pushed into the corner and metal filing cabinet beside it.

Dr. Stevensen motioned for them to take a seat in the chairs available.

Katrina felt a little uneasy being back in that room, remembering what she went through with the medications and shots she got on a regular basis-- before being taken to Colorado. She took a seat in the chair, reminding herself that she was here for Chris, this had nothing to do with her-- really.

“Okay Chris, you have my utmost attention.” He demonstrated this by clasping his long fingers together and leaning on the desk to stare intently into Chris’ face.

“Great.” Chris opened his notebook. He was feeling slightly nervous with sweaty palms; this was going to be his first official interview. “I guess my first question is to determine what happens in the body once it’s contracted the full infection?”

“Of course. The infection—if intrusive enough—attaches to the cells in the body, it starts destroying them and begins to affect the nervous system; the body become tolerant to extreme pain and eventually, when the nerves start dying they can’t feel anything at all. Once it spreads even farther—which it will—it can reach the brain in less than an hour-- or sooner. The brain will start to swell and pockets of fluid will form. This slowly creates madness and the inability to function normally. The heart rate will rise, pumping extra adrenaline through the body.

“Once the infection progresses in killing the cells, it will cause discoloration of the skin until it starts to die, then that’s when flaking and peeling begin. It’s kind of like an extreme case of mercury poisoning with extra side-effects.”

Chris quickly jotted points down as fast as he could, along with a note to stop eating sushi and sashimi. He was receiving the information so fast he wasn’t taking in any of the information; it was like reading a book while listening to the conversation beside you. This helped his nerves.

Katrina knew most of this all ready but it was still morbidly fascinating to her.

Chris finished while Dr. Stevensen waited patiently. “What happens after a person is completely infected, or has been for awhile?”

“They lose most of their sight becoming legally and color blind but their smell increases and they develop some kind of mental radar for the difference between humans and their kind. For some reason, their craving for meat—raw in particular and human— increases and their taste is pretty much demolished. I’m not sure why this craving has become part of their new lifestyle. They also don’t have a sensor to tell them when their full, so this along with the normal human sensibility to not eat raw meat or human flesh is overwhelming to their stomachs, which is what causes them to vomit up blood. But that also has to do with their organs falling apart inside them.”

Chris stared at the doctor and then glanced at Katrina until returning his pen to his journal.

“Is this too overwhelming for you Mr...”

“oh, um, Phyles—that’s my last name but call me Chris, and no, this is just fine. My mouth is just a little dry. Is it possible to get a glass of water?”

“Of course.” Doctor Stevensen picked up the telephone and called Lucy at the front desk. Chris and Katrina could hear the phone ringing on the other side of the wall until Lucy picked up. “Lucy, can you get Christopher a glass of water please. Thank you.”

“Thanks. Please continue.”

Katrina was still patiently listening to the Doctor. Like a puzzle in her mind, she was fitting each of the symptoms with the few infected she had seen and even some of the symptoms with herself.

“They don’t normally go after their own kind, even though it has happened, it’s rare. They can tell if they are near one of their own and they are not attracted to them. They also become affected by the sun; Their eyes become ultra sensitive and a tan to them would be like getting a third degree sun burn. They will go out in the sun, but not if they don't have to.”

“How do you think it started?”

Katrina cleared her throat and shifted in her chair to put her sweater over her shoulders.

“I think it started with an animal. Possibly someone was scratched or bitten and then infected others and from there it would have spread.”

“What’s the first case you saw?”

Doctor Stevensen glanced at Katrina and looked back at Chris. “It was a child at my daughter’s school. The Dawes’ youngest girl.”

Chris remembered that The Dawes were the family that now owned the lumber company Katrina’s family built.

Lucy brought in three waters and set them on the desk. Everyone simultaneously thanked her and she left.

“Her parents brought her to me when she had gotten into a fight with her older sister,Mary-Anne. Without thinking like a normal nineteen year old, Mary-Anne bit her very hard and punctured the skin with three of her teeth while bruising with the rest.”

Katrina shook her head in disbelief and Chris raised his eyebrows. “Bit her? Like…” Chris bit his finger to demonstrate that he understood correctly. The Doctor nodded.

Chris looked at Katrina in disbelief at the actions of a nineteen year old. She just shrugged her shoulders and nodded.

“At this time we didn’t know that Mary-Anne was infected—she didn’t even know. “The child was brought in after the bite mark started to fester and swell up until it split open, forcing puss, blood and plasma out of the wound and through the skin around it. I think I…have…a…” The Doctor got up to dig through the filing cabinet to his left. He returned to the desk with a green folder labeled “Dawes, Jennifer-Dawn”. He flipped it open and wet his thumb with his tongue for traction. After finding the page he exclaimed: “Ah, here.” He spun the picture around so it was right side up to Chris.

Chris almost gagged when he took in the details of the picture—he never did have a strong stomach, which he seemed to only remember now. When he brought himself to look at the picture again, he could see the bite mark perfectly on the arm of the girl; there were only three punctures, which were just as wide as they were long due to the swelling splitting of the wound. The entire site of the bite was bruised and the skin around that was red and shiny. There was indeed greenish pus being excreted from the openings and beads of a clear liquid being pushed out of the skin around the wound through the pores.

“The mother tried to do everything she could to help her heal, but when the child’s pain became unbearable she was brought to me.”

“Do you think I can get a copy of this?” Chris didn’t know exactly what he’d do with it; if he’d put it in his article or not, but he wanted it. Bad.

“Sure. I’ll go make one.” Dr. Stevensen got up and left the room with the picture.

Chris looked at Katrina and she was looking back with her head in one hand as if she was bored.

“Are you serious with all this?” He asked

“What do you mean?”

“That was disgusting.”

“That was nothing!”

“Good lord.” Chris looked towards the ceiling as if delivering the message to God.

The Doctor walked back in and set the copy on the desk in front of Chris. It was in color, which Chris didn’t know if he was appreciative about. Dr. Stevensen sat back down at the desk, slipping the picture back into the folder and closing it.

“Where were we? Oh yes, so we tried to treat her with medications for an extreme case of a staph infection, but as it got worse, That’s when I took the picture and I became unsure of what to do. Around the same time more cases started popping up, and the first person in Forest Hills was murdered.”

“When you say first person?“

“I mean first person ever-- to be murdered.”

Chris nodded and wrote that down.

“Then another was murdered and another. When they were brought to the morgue, assumed to be dead, they transformed and escaped. More infected people came to me scared out of their wits and I wanted to help. We put together a special building for the infected and Jennifer-Dawn was the first one to turn within the building, everyone was doomed after she attacked them. Long story short, that’s when we realized it was contagious and the police stopped hunting for the ‘serial killer’.”

“What did you do?”

“We started quarantining each one that came in for treatment. If or when they turned, they were alone and we—as a town—decided that the best way to treat them was not to feed them.

“That’s starvation Doctor.”

“You’re a smart fellow Christopher. However, when given normal foods, they wouldn’t eat it anyways, so they were essentially killing themselves. When we found that there was no cure, that’s when we decided to let them perish.” The look on the Doctor’s face said that he didn’t like the way he explained that, or the reality of it; his brow was furrowed as he examined his clasped hands.

“Right. Katrina did tell me that they could be killed like normal humans; drowned or whatever—not like actual Zombies that just keep coming back from the dead.”

“I don’t really like that term: ‘Zombie’ I see the resemblance, but I like to call it The Ante Mortem infection or disease.”

Chris could tell that the Doctor made that up himself; not because of Katrina rolling her eyes and yawning, but he knew it was something Latin about ‘before death’ and he didn’t think it was clever. He wrote it down anyways.