Afterbirth (2 page)

Penny sat on the floor of her double-wide trailer, dreading another night.

With the windows boarded up, the door locked, and the absolute silence of a powerless existence, her home felt like a coffin. The stale air, once fresh with the sweet smell of cookies, stunk of confinement and of the kerosene from a portable heater.

She stared at the reflection of the lantern flame flickering in the black screen of a television that hadn’t been on in months. What started as an epidemic, the zombie virus that affected only Strandville, had become a pandemic with Amy Porter as its hub. Communications shut down and the organized world collapsed. Penny, having survived the outbreak at the Nixon Center, knew more about why than most.

The virus spread faster than whomever tried could stop it. Amy had been found shot, at least that’s what the news reported, though Penny supposed she was dead long before that, infected by her brother, Billy. A pistol was retrieved not a hundred yards from her body along with a makeshift sling. Penny assumed it was Reid attempting to right the wrong of their escape. It brought her no comfort to know that either Billy or Reid might still be out there.

Beth, Penny’s mother, groaned from the sofa. “Where am I?”

Penny dabbed the glistening sweat from her mother’s round face.

Donald, Penny’s father, sat with his wife’s head in his thin lap and stroked her greasy hair. “She’s getting worse.”

“Mom, you’re home. Dad and I are here with you.” Penny could see in her father’s eyes that the long, paranoid nights and her mother’s deterioration had beaten him. “It’s the insulin. Maybe she’s taken too much, or maybe not enough.” With no practicing doctors in Strandville, there was no way to test her blood, hence no way to know how to adjust her diabetes medication.

“She needs to eat something.” Penny handed over a quarter-sleeve of salted crackers from their diminishing food supply. “You, too, Dad.” His baggy overalls, held up only by the straps, hung on him like drapes. There was no body visible beneath them except for the sharp, bony protrusions of his shoulders and hips.

“She needs them worse than I do.” Donald opened the package and positioned Beth’s head so that she could eat without choking.

The loss of sensation in Beth’s legs and feet had been the earliest casualty of her progressive illness. Walking, even with a cane, was impossible. The musty couch had become her home.

Penny held her mother’s shaking hand and tried to smile.

“We can’t keep goin’ like this,” Beth said in a rare, lucid moment. Donald held a cracker to her lips and she turned her face away. “It’s too hot in here to eat.” She pulled her hand back and fanned herself. “I feel so dizzy. I need fresh air.”

“We can’t open the door. Not now,” Donald said.

“Please, Don. The heat is killing me.”

“You know what’s out there,” Penny said, warning him not to comply.

Tears streamed down Beth’s plump cheeks, mingling with the rolling beads of sweat. “Just for a minute, please. I can’t breathe.”

“Mom, no.” Penny remained firm, though it was hard to deny her ailing mother the reprieve.

“Dammit, open the door!”

Donald stood, lifted the slipping strap of his overalls back onto his bony shoulder, and propped Beth up with the pillow. “Only long enough to air it out in here,” he said. “After that, you sweat until morning if you have to.” He limped to the door, holding the leg Beth had been resting on for hours, and undid the lock.

Beth groaned and put her head between her hands.

“We have to be quiet.” Penny dimmed the lantern and walked to the doorway, staring into the void where the world used to be.

Leaves rustled as the fall wind blew the branches toward a starless night sky. Penny closed her eyes and listened to the crickets chirp in the distance, savoring the sign of life.

“It’s still hot in here,” Beth said, her words slightly slurring.

Donald fanned the metal door to move the air. “Maybe we take the boards off of just one of the windows?”

Penny wanted to tell him that after all she’d seen they should have boarded the door, too, but arguing was pointless. Her parents would never, for as long as they both lived, understand what she’d been through inside the Nixon Center.

“We have to close up,” she said.

Beth howled, pleading for them to leave the door open.

“I’m sorry, hon. Penny’s right.” Donald shut the door and Beth screamed louder.

Penny shushed her mother. “You have to keep it down.” Something crashed against the side of the trailer and startled her.

“It’s just the wind,” Donald said. “Probably blew over some junk in the yard.”

A gust caught the front door and the vacuum of changing winds sucked it open, slamming it against the side of the trailer. Penny reached for the knob and a slick, bony hand caught her arm. She screamed and recoiled from the infected man, immediately recognizing him from the crescent-shaped scar on his right cheek as their neighbor, Bill Holston. A rounded ridge of bone protruded from the bite mark near his eye and stuck out against the darkness.

Penny pulled the door, hard, but Bill persisted even after she slammed his arm in it. Behind him, the shuffling footsteps of people she could not see rustled the crisp, fallen leaves.

“Move outta’ the way!” Donald brushed Penny aside and aimed his shotgun directly at Bill’s face. He pulled the trigger and scattered bits of the man’s head. Maura, Bill’s oldest daughter, clamored at the threshold and Donald stepped back to re-load.

Penny kicked the girl and tried to pull the door closed, but it ricocheted off the jamb. “Something’s caught.” A piece of Bill’s shattered skull wedged at the hinge and Penny pried at it, desperate to get it free without the sharp edge cutting her.

Donald held the door as close to shut as it would go, but it only made her task that much harder.

“Dad, you have to let go.”

When he did, Jennifer, Bill’s wife, dragged him into the blackness.

“Dad!” Penny reached for her father’s hand too late.

Jennifer sunk her teeth into his wrinkled neck and his body went limp as he passed out almost immediately from the heavy, arterial blood spray.

Penny cried, praying as she worked at freeing the door. “Please, God. Please.”

Two white beams fractured the darkness, illuminating the infected children shambling across their front lawn. Penny squinted into the light, the glow reflected off of the lenses of a pair of dark-framed glasses.

“Brian!”

Brian Foster raised his ax and cut the head off of Imogene, Bill’s youngest daughter, who was wandering as if she was lost. Blood soaked her princess pajamas and her headless body took a last crooked step before falling.

Penny continued to work at the door, but the more anxious she became, the harder her hands shook and the more impossible it seemed to displace the lodged fragment.

“Close the door,” Foster shouted.

“I can’t.”

Thomas, the Holston’s seven-year-old son, was the last of Bill’s family to fall. Foster took a rounded swing, like he had at Imogene, but there was more heft to Thomas than to his three-year-old sister and the first blow wasn’t enough. Thomas staggered sideways and went back at Foster.

“Brian, watch out!”

Foster lifted the ax over his shoulder and brought it down with an audible whistle that split the young boy’s head in two. Thomas toppled and his body landed next to his sister’s.

Penny surveyed the dead bodies littering her patchy lawn and tried not to look at her father’s as she zigzagged across the lawn and collapsed into Brian’s wiry arms. “What are you doing here?” She buried her face against his narrow chest.

“Keeping you safe,” he said and stroked her hair. “Are you okay?”

She met his hardened gaze, recognizing immediately that he wasn’t the same man who had brought her home seven months ago. He had done and seen things that had changed him.

A curdling scream came from inside the trailer and Penny pulled away from him. “Mom!”

Foster choked up on the ax and ran ahead of Penny. The headlights glinted off the bloody blade as he made his way through the slain.

“Help me!” Beth shouted.

Penny followed Foster into the trailer and covered her mouth with both hands. Her mother’s nightgown was lifted over her face and her father chewed through her fatty belly, snarling and growling from the infection.

“Oh, please, no.” Penny cried.

“Go, get out of here,” Foster insisted. “Get in the Jeep.”

The sight held her frozen.

“Go, now. I don’t want you to see this.”

Her father stood, wobbling and weakened, and lumbered toward them. Foster buried the blade of the ax deep into his forehead. His thinning hair did nothing to mask the extent of the injury, and when Foster twisted the blade, the gap widened. Her father twitched and fell dead at her feet.

Penny’s stare remained fixed and she was unable to walk away. Her whole body shook as she wept.

“For God’s sake, close your eyes,” Foster said.

“Please, don’t.” Her voice was barely a squeak and her eyelids fought closing. Her mother was as good as dead, she knew that, but she asked for her life to be spared anyway.

“I’m sorry.” Foster’s eyes glossed over with tears. “I have to.” He lifted the ax and beheaded her mother with a single, humane chop.

Michael closed the bathroom door, terrified of the effect the grisly scene would have on Adam if he saw what had become of his mother. He pressed his palm to the dried imprint left by Ashley’s hand and swallowed his grief.

Earl and Randy searched outside, giving him precious little time to coax Adam out of hiding. He walked to the guest bedroom and covered the dispatched corpses with blankets.

“Adam, buddy, come on out. Everything’s okay.” Michael tried to sound reassuring. “You don’t have to be scared.” The scratching noise returned. “Adam, is that you, pal?” He opened the closet door. “Adam?” The bright blue monster truck shirt gave away the trembling ball in the corner. “Son, thank God.” Michael reached for Adam’s hand and he retreated, holding his forearm. “Adam, it’s daddy.” Sweat glistened on Adam’s forehead and his face was red with fever. Michael checked to make sure Earl and Randy weren’t around before scooping him up.

Adam started to cry.

“Shhhh. It’s okay.” Michael pulled the blue monster truck shirt off over Adam’s head and lifted the sleeve of the shirt underneath it. “Oh, God.” He inspected the bite mark deep into the muscle of his forearm. “Come on, buddy. Hang in there.” He rushed Adam to the master bathroom sink and washed the wound, but his eyes had already begun to cloud. Michael watched, helplessly, as they rolled back into his head. “No, no. Stay with me.” He tapped Adam’s cheek, desperate for him to regain awareness. “Adam, come on.” He laid the boy on the bathroom floor. Adam’s body shook and his muscles twitched and tightened as a bit of vomit spilled from the corner of his mouth. “Adam, can you hear me?” Michael broke down as his son withered in his arms.

“Any luck?” Randy called up from downstairs.

Michael sniffled and took a deep breath to steady his voice. “No, nothing. I’ll be right down.” The last thing he wanted was for them to find him like this. He looked around the bedroom and his eyes settled on the footlocker he’d traveled with since Boot Camp. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered and locked Adam’s lifeless body inside. He pushed the trunk into the closet, tucked Adam’s monster truck shirt under his own, and hurried to where Earl and Randy waited downstairs.

“No sign of him out back,” Randy said.

Earl moved the curtain covering the front door sidelight. “He could’ve made it to the truck, I suppose.”

Michael nodded. “It’s a long shot, but if he saw what was coming…” He yanked the fire poker from the mouth of the obese female corpse spread across the hallway floor. “We shouldn’t go out there unarmed. There’s an ax out back on the stump.” He handed Earl one of three flashlights from the table by the door. “You take the poker. I’ll grab the ax and meet you out front.” He handed an aluminum bat to Randy. “Adam’s out there, he has to be. I can’t lose him, too.” He headed out the back sliding glass door and prayed he’d convinced them that his boy really was missing.

A quarter-acre of thick woods surrounded his house on three sides. He did a cursory sweep for straggling infected and headed into the forest of leaf-bare trees. He tore his son’s monster truck shirt and planted it on a low branch where it was sure to be seen in the morning.

“Adam!” He called for his son as he rounded the corner of his house.

Earl pulled open the Yukon’s passenger’s side door. “Adam. Son, you in here?”

Randy opened the rear doors and shined the flashlight under the seat. “He’s not here.”

Earl checked the back cargo area. “Not here, either.”

“Adam, come out, buddy. Where are you? God, why is this happening to me?” Michael collapsed on the front porch steps and buried his face in his hands. The ax blade rested between his feet.

Randy set his hand on Michael’s shoulder. “We’ll find him. You know how good kids are at hiding. He’ll get hungry and come out when you least expect it.”

Michael sniffled and nodded.

That’s what he was afraid of.