Ophelia Read online

  The flashlight was too far away. There were too many silhouettes of shelves between us.

  I was on my own.

  My phone had a flashlight, but that meant that I would also lose a hand to holding it. I couldn’t see any other option, probably because there weren’t any.

  The light was easy enough to turn on and hold in front on me while I ran, but the change in scenery brought out an inhuman scream from the depths of Granny's throat. It sent physical chills down my entire body.

  What wasn't easy, was swallowing my fear back down, but it had to be done. I whipped around the corner of a shelf, which gave me the advantage of time as Toothless corrected her course to follow me.

  I was ready.

  The white part of her eyes were red, but the color of her irises remained the same. Her gums were bleeding now, and the look in her eyes was enough to scare a Navy Seal.

  With her arms by her sides, face illuminated by the phone’s flashlight, gums leading the way, she charged blindly towards me. A rational human would have at least hesitated from charging at someone waving around a very large knife, but she just plowed ahead.

  I’d never stabbed anything before. I could barely cut the tops off my strawberries properly. Once, I tried to slice up an orange to put in my water to be fancy, but couldn’t do that right. I had an orange juice mess and an owie on my thumb.

  But I did it. I shoved the knife right into her face, above her left eye. I released the handle and scrambled back as far as I could before this orange-red stuff and blood started oozing out of the wound. I checked my hand and clothes and shoes with the light to make sure none had gotten on me. It hadn’t.

  It… didn't, right? Right?

  Crack

  Toothless was, hopefully, dead, or at least unable to ever move again. Blood— thick, dark, gross, and hot— was oozing out by the pint along with a lighter, red-orange jelly-like substance. And it was So. Freaking. Gross.

  I turned away and hurled up what little I still had in my system.

  Gross.

  Gross. Gross. Gross.

  I just killed someone. I took their life away to protect mine.

  Mom came around the corner, gun drawn over the hand carrying the flashlight. Her eyes were wild, and she was breathing as hard as I was.

  This had to have been her worse fear.

  I puked again.

  And mine.

  She motioned me to the next aisle with a head tilt. There, she checked me over with her light, in silence. I could see the gears turning in her mind. She would not stand close to me. She would not touch me. Her face looked weird in the dim lighting, and I realized that it was shiny with wet tears. Her face was hard, like a statue, except for her lips and chin, which quivered.

  “Do you think I got it?” I whispered, afraid to say anything any louder. I was crying now too.

  “You didn't get anything on you… and it's too early to tell…”

  We didn't know how it spread. How could we know? Especially this early.

  She dug around in a garbage bag until she came up with a pair of gloves and hand sanitizer. After I put them both on, we finished looting the place and brought all of the bags by the back door. While moving the supplies, I found a scarf on the clearance rack, and tied it around my mouth to form a mask.

  I hoped it helped. God, I hoped it helped.

  We decided to leave the knife in Toothless, since it had a fine coating of the jelly stuff on it, and we had no clue what the jelly stuff was. An odd substance coming out of someone in the Apocalypse?

  Probably bad!

  Waiting for my mother to bring the car around was the worst. The worst of the worst. Being all alone with my thoughts and guarding all of this stuff with no weapon was… well, the worst.

  I was alone for a total of twelve seconds when I heard that awful, inhuman shrieking, and glass shattering in the next building over. In the distance, I heard more calls answer the first one. My heart pounded in my chest. It hurt, and was overall concerning, but not as concerning as how close the sound of glass shattering was to me.

  I waited inside the building until Mom knocked on the door. I opened it, and for a split second, an intense pain went through my chest, as I thought, What if this wasn’t Mom?

  But that was irrational anxiety talking, because who else would be knocking at the back of a drugstore before sunrise, exactly when my mother said that she would be doing that exact thing?

  Yeah, it was my mom.

  The distant shrieks started becoming not-so-distant. More glass shattered in the neighboring building. My heart pounded even more, and I hoped, for a second, that Mom had grabbed some pills that helped with anxiety.

  Crack!

  For once, the sound wasn't in my head. There were five of them— no, four of them and some dude in workout clothes. He was one of those fitness guys, decked out in jogging gear. I’d seen him before. Once a week, his route took him past our house, and the only reason I even had this useless information stored in the back of my brain was because he was usually shirtless during that time.

  The four others pounced on him, clawing and screeching. That sound I heard was them slamming his body into the wall. He saw us, and spent the last moment of his life reaching out for us, before his body collapsed under the weight of those… those things tackling him to the ground… and literally ripping him limb from limb… and then some.

  It all happened so fast, that the most I could do for him was hope that he was delivered a quick death.

  Mom and I each grabbed a bag and booked it to the car before any version of that guy’s fate was bestowed upon us. There were easily half a dozen more bags we’d dragged to the doors, but being here for any longer wasn't a risk we were willing to take.

  The ride home was awful, too. It was absolute silence except for the occasional sniffle. And I didn't dare touch my face, even though I had a new set of gloves and sanitizer coating. So I just let the snot and tears fall.

  Which felt really, really, really gross.

  Chapter 5: Crinkle

  “Mom, stop.” I begged, on my knees.

  But she didn't stop, and I didn't try anything other than pleading to stop her.

  Deep down, and I mean deep, deep down, I knew that this was actually a smart move. For the best.

  “It's for your own good, Ophelia.”

  It made sense. It was what they did in the movies.

  I still hated it.

  “Mom, please. Mom. Mom, I'm scared.”

  That was an understatement.

  “I'm sorry, O but I have to.”

  She sealed the last piece of plastic with stolen duct tape, and the wall was complete.

  They were sealed in.

  And I was sealed out.

  Quarantined.

  When we drove back from looting, I was a wreck, but thankful that we had a garage that connected to the house. It made for top notch secrecy and I don't think I could've handled being outside again.

  Vi and Lucky assisted with getting the supplies to the basement, with gloves of course, and right after that Mom took some plastic sheeting and duct tape and quarantined me in the first section of the basement. Of course, she gave me some supplies, and a weapon, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to be with my family.

  Think of the greater good, O. Just a couple days, and you'd be okay, because you’re not infected.

  At least I could still see and talk to them.

  If we could find anything to talk about.

  My wristwatch told me that it was just after six. People would start to get up and leave for their everyday lives that they didn't know were about to be completely and utterly destroyed. They had no idea what they would find out there. They would have the same thoughts I did about the power and the phones, and not even think twice about it.

  Or, who knows, maybe they would. Maybe more people would have a chance at this then my pessimistic mind thought.

  Wow. 6:00 am. Twenty-four hours ago, I was one of those people getting r
eady for whatever their day would bring. I was mentally preparing myself for the stupidity I would encounter at school and work. I’d almost pulled an all-nighter, only getting around a four hour nap. Now that sucked. I guess the apocalypse makes some things, like sleep, seem irrelevant. Whether it was the adrenaline, the sense of urgency, or that whole you-could-die-at-any-moment thing. Whatever it was, now that I was home, it was gone.

  My nerves were shot and sleep was calling my name.

  I looked around at what I had to make some sort of a bed. We only had one air mattress, and that was in the other section being occupied by the twins, who were staring at me with tears in their eyes and on their faces. I was in the first section of the basement, which had a thin layer of cheap carpet, and was where we put the stuff that we didn’t want in our rooms. What we no longer wanted to look at, and the things we told Mom that we were totally going to throw out, but end up being hidden down here (sorry Mom). The first section was also the side that had the stairs going up to the first floor. If anyone or anything were to break in, or come looking for us, then I would be the most screwed. The screwiest.

  Now that made me chuckle.

  All the crap that we'd hoarded for all these years came in handy as I stacked the boxes in a mighty wall of cardboard. The wall was in an “L” shape, flipped and rotated ninety degrees clockwise while looking at the stairs, so that when I laid down, I could see into the next room. Then, I hid my stuff behind the part of the “L” that couldn’t be seen from both the stairs, and the doorway to the next room. It looked like paranoia was starting to get the best of me, but, maybe that was a good thing. Paranoia equaled safety.

  I hope.

  A broken chair made up a piece of the wall, so I was able to lie down on some old blankets covering a lumpy bed of old clothes and look at Lucky, who was lying down and looking at me while Mom explained… I don't know how much she was explaining to them. She was talking softly, and too far away to hear through the plastic sheeting.

  I’d find out later.

  The twins perked up at something Mom said, and then helped her dive into the trash bags we got from the drugstore. There were three all together. They began sorting and counting while I fell asleep to the crinkle of the bags.

  Chapter 6: Poof

  The screams woke me up.

  The screams kept me awake.

  And the screaming was preventing me from sleeping. Like, at all.

  Mom decided to lift the quarantine on the fifth day— I think it was more for her sake more than mine.

  I’d never welcomed hugs as much as I did at that moment.

  Now the mighty wall of cardboard was blocking us in at the bottom of the stairs, and also blocking out the rest of the world. The only indication that the world had gone to shit was the smell of, well, shit. The back corner of the first room was our bathroom.

  And the screams.

  The screams of the people that thought that they were safe and then found themselves brutally attacked by the infected.

  And the roaring screams of the infected themselves, of course.

  We covered the windows to block out light, and were too scared to unblock them and check out what was going on. We had so many questions, like how did the infection work? Were we dealing with The Walking Dead or 28 Days Later? Did they eat the living? Was it airborne? In the water? Through bodily fluids? Touch?

  But the risk of answering those questions vastly outweighed the reward.

  We didn't know. We wanted to, but, for now, we were okay with not knowing. We wanted to be together and tough out the first couple days. Those first days turned into a week. The days passed by quickly after I was finally allowed to have contact with my family.

  Days one through four were bad when it came to the screams and shrieks, but then it started to die down. Whoever was left, had gotten smart. They waited this out as long as they could, but for a family who was unprepared, resources probably went fast. Around day eight and nine, the screams had picked up again. Those days were the worst. They had the most infected and healthy running around, both groups on the hunt for food.

  I guessed a week was all some people could take cooped up in their homes. Food would probably run low around that time, too. I guess if you weren't prepared, going out would’ve made the most sense. The screams of those people were still going strong, right up until today— day eleven.

  It was really gross to think about.

  At least the four of us were together.

  Lucky really stepped up with taking care of his twin. He was eleven going on twenty-five, and no longer the little brat who picked on Vi at every opportunity. He was kind, caring, and understanding. He made sure that she didn't eat too much or too little while Mom and I poured over maps, calculated and recalculated variables and supplies, and planned.

  But, honestly, I didn’t think that Vi needed anyone to take care of her. I think she let Lucky fuss over her because as the “older” brother, that was what he thought he needed to do. If he didn’t, then this whole thing probably would’ve driven him insane.

  Mom and I had been figuring out a plan. Well, that technically wasn’t true, because she had a plan. She’d had a plan for this for years, and I was just now hearing about it. She told me our best chance was to head west, to Washington. She had a friend there who was just as paranoid, or smart, as she was, maybe even more so. It sounded like a long shot, but also, our best one.

  When you were presented with something crazy, crazier was just what you had to be.

  So, yeah. Let's go west. I'd always wanted to see the ocean. I’d even applied to a bunch of colleges out there.

  But what I didn't want, was to hear something moving upstairs. Inside the house.

  Without words, the four of us were moving. The twins rushed to hide behind the furnace and its jungle of metal, and Mom and I were on our feet, drawing weapons. She had a handgun, and I was given a rifle, despite my protests. The knife I’d abandoned was the scariest one we had and the only one big enough to do some real damage without having to be nose to nose with the other guy. I looked at the gun in my hand and made a face. It wasn’t nearly as cool as that knife.

  What also wasn't cool, was that the intruder wasted no time heading for our neck of the woods, or, the stairs to the basement.

  Piccolo.

  Whoever it was started hastily pushing aside the boxes, and the mighty cardboard wall fell. They didn't sound like a crazy— their movements had too much purpose. The person tripped, and the, apparently, guy cursed, crushing a box of who knows what.

  The last time I checked, swearing was not a part of the infected’s vocabulary.

  Mom took the opportunity and darted out with me following as close as I could, paying too much attention not to step on her heels.

  Because how awkward would that be. Not to mention unprofessional. Hey, Mr. Guy Who's Probably Trying to Kill Us… mind waiting just a sec so my mommy can adjust her shoe? Thanks!

  But the name of the guy was not Mr. Guy Who's Probably Trying To Kill Us. It was Kevin. Kevin Latcher, the twins’ old soccer coach from years ago, when they were about eight or so.

  Kevin was a skinny guy, but had the stamina to chase, and be chased, by a screaming horde of eight-year-olds. Huh. Look at that. Children's soccer coach: training for the Apocalypse.

  I got scared, because even though we had numbers, he had strength. And the last time I checked, he was friend— not foe.

  He knew, vaguely, what we had. This was back in Mom’s pretentious phase, when all she wanted to do was compare “The End” ideas and strategies. She talked to anyone and everyone about it. Eventually, she got smart, and stopped talking about it so much, but this blast from the past showed us just how much her words stuck with and impacted others.

  “What are you doing here, Kevin.” Mom asked.

  I think we all knew what he was doing here, in our house, in our basement, in the middle of the Apocalypse.

  “I have kids, Juliet.” He, like my mother, used
her first name not as a sign of closeness and friendship, but as an insult. A sign of disrespect.

  I was mentally preparing myself for a throw down, even though these two never disliked each other. Kevin volunteered as a soccer coach, and Mom was in charge of the game snack schedule. These two could both be relied on by others, and both were passionately dedicated to their children.

  Which was why I knew this could only end badly. Horribly. Painfully. Two parents who would go to the ends of the earth and back for their children.

  “So do I, Kevin.”

  Kevin was like, in his early thirties, and had three kids. At least he did when the twins were younger. Who knew where he was at now? But for someone with a car full of kids, he looked just a bit (or two) older than I was, with ginger hair, slightly crooked nose, and freckles from his healthy hairline to his ankles, which were showing as he struggled to get out of our strategically placed death trap. Or, rather, a box of the Astor children’s old dolls.

  “Yeah, yeah you do… but the thing is Juliet— mine are hungry.” His words were sharp and angry for a lanky guy who looked over a decade younger than he actually was, and was struggling to stand up. Like, stand back people, we got a real badass on our hands here. I bet there was even a skull tattoo under that pastel polo.

  He managed to stand, and just like that, there was a gun in his hand. Like, it just popped up there! Poof!

  His hands were shaking like leaves, and I was still trying to piece together just where exactly the gun had come from when everything got just a bit slower.

  A gunshot, from inside the house, fired from just a few feet away from me. It was so much louder than that one day at the shooting range. Like, ten times louder. And— also unlike that one day that Mom had dragged me to the shooting range— blood splattered delicately across my face, like Kevin's freckles.

  Crack

  I stumbled over to the bathroom corner and hurled the cup of dry cereal I ate for my last meal. It didn't taste like honey. Not even close.