The Darkest Days (Death & Decay Book 0.5) (7 page)

“Sarah!” He knew he shouldn’t call out. Maybe
one of the deranged still roamed the house. But he could no longer
contain the ever-increasing urge to find his family and find them
immediately. His chest felt as though it would explode if he did
not find them. “Sarah!”

In three quick steps, he strode through the
entryway and into the living room. The open floor plan allowed him
to look over the living room, dining room, and kitchen. All were
distressingly devoid of anyone.

A heap on the couch caught his attention. Wads
of red-soaked kitchen towels lay strewn across the stained couch
and floor.

Suddenly, Wyatt couldn’t breathe. There was a
lot of blood. Someone had been hurt, badly. Someone else had tried
to help them.

“Sarah!” His calls became desperate as he lunged
for the hall that led back to the bedroom.

A shadow passed the first doorway on the right.
Ben’s room. A split second behind the shadow, Sarah nudged open the
door.

“Oh, thank God!” His relief was quickly swept
aside as a frightening shriek ripped from her throat.

She lurched out of the bedroom and into the
hallway. The dying evening light that seeped through the windows
revealed her true appearance. Her right shoulder was a ragged mess.
A few of the fingers on her left hand were bloody stumps. Blood
matted her long, mahogany hair into a tangled mess. Her usually
fair skin—what wasn’t smeared with gore—was ashen and chalky.

“No.” The word was barely a whisper. Wyatt could
no longer hold back the tidal wave of despair that had threatened
to drown him for the past seventy-two hours. Tears streamed down
his cheeks as Sarah advanced on him.

She vaulted the final distance between them.
Wyatt stumbled back, unable to make his muscles obey the commands
of his brain. Sarah wrapped her arms around him in a vicious,
viselike hug. At the last second, Wyatt managed to hook his hand
underneath her chin as they collapsed to the floor.

“Sarah, please stop!” He had seen dozens of
others act just this way, and yet he could not do anything other
than beg her.

His wife had never been weak, but now her grip
was crushing. It took every ounce of strength in his weary body
just to hold her back. But his strength was not endless. While his
muscles grew weaker by the second, Sarah only seemed to grow more
agitated.

“Sarah, stop!” A fresh trail of tears trickled
down his cheeks as he wrapped his left hand around her slender
neck. Despite the fact that her air was almost completely cut off,
Sarah struggled as if nothing had changed. Her fingers hooked
around his vest as she tried to pull herself closer to him.

“Honey, please.” Her teeth gnashed just inches
from his face. Empty eyes stared back at him.

Almost against his will, Wyatt brought his gun
up and pressed it to the side of Sarah’s head as he had done to
others so many times in the past few days. With just the slightest
pressure the trigger depressed. Sarah’s head jerked to one side as
a bright red mist showered from the other side.

Suddenly, Sarah stopped thrashing and flopped
against Wyatt’s chest. For a moment, all he could do was lie on the
floor, pinned by Sarah’s weight, as he listened to the ragged
wheeze of his own breathing and the rapid thrum of his heart.

As his heart and breathing began to slow, he
heard a new sound. Irregular and soft. Gently, Wyatt shifted
Sarah’s lifeless form to the floor and stood up. The shuffling came
from down the hall, in the master bedroom.

His mind would not allow him to grasp what might
be behind that door. Tiny fingers wrapped around the edge of the
partially open door. As Ben toddled into the hall, there was no
trill of excited laughter, no clapping, no elated dance that
usually greeted him when he returned home.

Instead, Ben opened his mouth and screeched.
Even in the shadows, Wyatt could see the boy’s face was covered in
blood. His hands were red as though he were wearing mittens. The
blood seeped down from his face to stain the tattered remains of
his small dinosaur shirt. One of Ben’s shoes was missing, giving
him an exaggerated stagger.

Before Ben could move, Wyatt lunged forward,
spun the small child around, and scooped him up in his arms. Ben
screamed and thrashed as he attempted to twist around to face his
father. Wyatt’s strong arms could barely contain the boy.

A scene from the police station sprung unbidden
into Wyatt’s mind. The woman who sat on the floor, her arms wrapped
around the small, deranged girl as she begged for the child’s life.
Just before the girl ripped her throat out.
She is just a
child!

Wyatt squeezed the boy tighter. “I love you,
Ben.” Wyatt nuzzled the back of the boy’s head. “Daddy loves
you.”

After one final, tight squeeze Wyatt released
him, taking a step back as he did. As Ben stumbled to regain his
footing, Wyatt drew his gun with hands that trembled violently. A
growl rumbled in the small child’s throat as he finally balanced
himself.

Before Ben could spin around, Wyatt leveled the
gun and pulled the trigger. For a moment, Ben stood still. Then
suddenly, as though invisible strings had been cut, he crumpled to
the floor.

Wyatt leaned back against the wall, his legs no
longer capable of keeping him upright, and slid down until he found
himself resting on the floor. His eyes remained fixed on the small
body that lay next to his feet.

He couldn’t look away from the tiny hand
extended across the soft, tan carpeting. Those tiny fingers that
had wrapped themselves around his own when Ben wanted him to see
something. Those tiny fingers that had created so many messes.
Those tiny fingers that would reach out to gently stroke his cheek.
Those tiny fingers that would never do anything again.

His head fell to rest on his knees as sobs
racked his body.

Day 5
6:55 pm

Eventually the tears refused to come and the
sobs ceased. He had not wanted them to stop, but they simply
refused to continue. Instead, he lay curled up on the floor as he
desperately tried to keep reality at bay.

Suddenly, he was struck by an intense and
shameful realization. Wyatt leapt to his feet and strode over to
where Sarah lay motionless on the floor. He tenderly picked up her
limp body and carried her to their room.

Delicately, he laid her down of the bed. From
the bathroom, he retrieved a damp washcloth. As he sat down on the
bed, he looked over Sarah’s still form. Blood coated her shoulder,
face, and hands. Her features were almost unrecognizable underneath
the layer of gore.

With patience and care, he set to work and
removed what he could of the carnage. Her shirt was torn and
bloodied. He could do nothing about the raw, open wound in her
shoulder that ran deep enough to expose the bones underneath the
skin and muscle. As one final touch, he rolled Sarah on her side
and extended her arms out in front of her.

Satisfied that he had done what little he could,
Wyatt returned to the hall. He bent down and scooped Ben up in his
arms as he had done so many times in the past. For a moment, as
Wyatt hugged the small body close, he allowed himself to pretend
the boy was simply asleep and he was putting him to bed.

Wyatt reentered the bedroom and placed Ben in
the circle that Sarah’s arms created. With the washcloth in hand
once again, he lightly cleaned the blood from Ben.

When there was nothing more that he could do, he
sat and stared at the peaceful scene he had created. A mother
lovingly embracing her son. Forever.

Tears slipped down his cheeks again, a split
second’s warning before the sobs took him over once again. Careful,
so as not to disturb their peace, Wyatt lay down beside them and
wrapped his arms around his family.

Eventually, he fell asleep. Only for a short
time. When he awoke, as the haze of sleep still muddled his mind,
he had reached out across the bed and expected to find Sarah
burrowed deep in the blankets. It wasn’t until his fingers caressed
her waxy skin that the memory of the last few days, the last few
hours, flooded back.

The world that had been presented to him at the
station seemed like a beautiful dream compared to the waking
nightmare he was now facing.

In that moment, he was forced to face the
reality of the future that now lay before him, and he wanted no
part of it. He sat on the couch in the darkened room, lost in the
thoughts that endlessly swirled through his head. Thoughts of what
was, what could never be, and what was to come. His gun was
clutched tightly in his hand.

For the past two days, the gun had left his hand
for brief moments. He wanted it close by. Not for protection but in
anticipation of the moment when his resolve to do what he desired
most finally manifested. To join his family.

But the courage hadn’t come. Yet.

In the outside world, the world beyond the walls
that he refused to leave, there were no signs that life was
returning to normal. The other houses in the neighborhood remained
ghostly quiet. No cars passed by. No one called to check on
him.

Occasionally, he had peeked out the windows. For
a while he even opened the blinds in the living room. But the idea
that the world continued to turn while his own personal world
crumbled was more than he could bear.

“Officer Ward.” The quiet, crackly voice broke
through the silence of the house and startled him from his
thoughts. Wyatt’s head whipped around as he looked for the
source.

“Officer Ward, are you out there?”

The radio. He couldn’t remember when he had
turned the thing on.

“Officer Ward, this is Olivia Bennett.” The name
was familiar. He struggled through the haze of grief and exhaustion
that clouded his mind.

The mother! The mother he had spoken to when
they were trapped in the sally port. The mother who was struggling
through the legions of deranged across the city to find a safe
haven for her daughter.

A new form of grief gripped his heart as he
grabbed for his duty belt. She had asked for his help, and though
he could not give her physical support he had promised kind words
to keep her spirits up. He had not kept his word.

“I haven’t heard from you since that first time
we spoke, but I wanted to let you know”—the radio began to crackle
and cut out—“Troy is overrun with ferals. I don’t think…”

Wyatt cursed as he uselessly shook the device.
“We met up with some people…”

He wanted nothing more than to slam the
infuriating device into the ground, but if he broke it he would
never hear from her again.

“They’re gone now…It was just Elli and I again.”
A soft sniffle, as if she were crying, punctuated her last
word.

Wyatt was usually a patient man, but the radio
was testing his limits. “The ferals are moving in these large
roving gangs. We ran right into one…”

The transmission was getting more sporadic by
the second. “We were caught.” His heart dropped, something he
thought was no longer possible.

“I don’t want the same to happen to you.”

“Olivia! I’m here. Where are you?” Silence
thickened the air, making it hard for him to breath.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to contact you
again,” she continued, as though she hadn’t heard him. “My radio is
about to die. I hope you’re out there. I hope you’re on your way.”
Her words dissolved into static.

“Olivia!” He called out to her for a while, but
the only thing that ever answered was static. She had sounded so
tired, so hopeless. Panic swelled within him like a massive tidal
wave.

He stood up and looked about the dark and empty
room. Nervous energy coursed through him like an electric
current.

She needed him. He had promised to support her
and he had failed her. He had failed both of them.

What had happened to her? It had been three days
since they had spoken. Through the static he had gained a few
pieces of information.
Troy is overrun with ferals.
Her
progress hadn’t been swift but she had made it to Troy. He still
remembered the directions she had given him to get to the farm. She
was close.

Ferals.
She had to be talking about the
deranged.
Ferals
was not an unfitting title for them. Wyatt
wasn’t sure what they were, but as people they fell only to rise
again with a voracious appetite.

We were caught.
He remembered the
desperation and fear that he had felt trapped in the sally port.
How must she feel? The cries that must keep her awake. The hungry
cries of her daughter. The cries of the deranged, the ferals, for
their flesh.

She needed him.

He could save her.

Sudden frantic movement took hold of his body.
He became a whirlwind of activity. If he was going out into the
world, a world dominated by ferals, if he was going to save her, he
needed to be prepared.

It hadn’t sounded like Olivia and Elli had much
time left. Suddenly, Olivia’s wording struck him.
It was just
Elli and I again.
Was. His stomach knotted at the implications.
Was she alone now?

No.

They were both there. They were both waiting for
him. They needed him.

The thoughts became a mantra as he tore through
the house and gathered supplies. He shoved the things he needed
into a backpack from the entryway closest: food, a few medical
supplies, a couple knives from the kitchen. He donned his Kevlar
vest and snapped his duty belt around his waist once again. The
last thing he needed was a spare change of clothes.

Wyatt pushed open the bedroom door and stopped
in his tracks. All of the energy he had felt just seconds before
drained from his body. The smell of decay filled his nose. Sarah
and Ben lay together on the bed where he had left them. Their skin
was no longer pale and had taken on a greenish hue. Their tender
faces were now round and bloated.