What the fuck was I going to do? What the FUCK was I going to do?
And then I heard it, athump-thumpfrom above that spurred me into motion. My wife, my kids, they could still be here. They could still be fine. They were hiding; they were all upstairs hiding from Layla. They were fine. I knew they were fine.
Racing up the stairs, tripping over my own two feet, I pushed open the first door I passed, Jeffers and Layla’s bedroom. Empty. I kicked open the second door, the upstairs bathroom. Also empty. The third door across the hall, the guest bedroom. Empty too.
And then I stopped just outside the final door, ten-year-old Danielle’s door, and put my hand on the knob, twisting the cool metal, pushing open the door ...
Red hair matted with blood. Blue eyes clouded over with death. Drooling, growling, her bloodied teeth bared, my wife turned away from the closet door she was scoring with her nails and looked toward me.
“Jenny,” I said, my voice cracking. “Oh God, baby, no. No, baby, no—”
My words were cut short as she came barreling into me, but even as stunned as I was, my reflexes were still intact. Dropping the rifle, I grabbed her by her shoulders and swung her around, reversing our places and shoving her into the hallway. As she collapsed in a heap, I kicked the door shut and locked it.
What the fuck did I do now? What in God’s fucking name did I do now? That was my wife! My wife was one of them, the infected. She had the disease there was no cure for, the disease that was eating our country alive.
The sound of tapping brought me up short. At first I thought that Jenny was at the door, clawing, trying to get back inside, but then I realized the sound wasn’t coming from that direction; it was coming from behind me. Turning, I zeroed in on the closet door, mangled and covered in gore.
“No,” I whispered hoarsely, fear causing my breath to freeze in my throat. “No ...”
There were only two people left to find, two very little people. One had hair and eyes just like her mother, and the other wasn’t yet old enough to resemble either of us, but I’d hoped he’d take after me.
Placing my fiercely shaking hand on the curved handle, I turned it and pulled open the door.
The first thing I saw was the blood, so much blood. And in the midst of all that blood was ...
• • •
I shot upright, gasping for air as I grabbed for the gun beneath my pillow. Squinting at the shadows, I carefully surveyed every inch of the room. Nothing. No one. Just me and my incessant fucking nightmares.
But my nightmares were changing. Same place, same people, but I’d never actually entered the house before in my dreams, never saw the face of my wife or said her name.
But I’d said her name to Jeffers. And by saying her name, I’d opened up a whole new can of worms, forcing me to relive the very worst day of my life every time I closed my eyes.
“Eagle?”
I flinched, my arm jerked, and I pulled the trigger in the direction of the noise, realizing too late that I wasn’t alone here anymore. The bullet ejected from the barrel with a pop and went whizzing across the room, ending its journey quickly with a loud thud.
“Shit!” I hissed, jumping upright. I scanned the room again and still found nothing. “Squirrel?”
“Here,” she whispered, and in the moonlight I could see the whites of her eyes peeking at me from around the door frame. “Don’t shoot.”
If I weren’t still reeling from the dream, drenched in sweat and shaking with the kind of cold that’s buried so deep inside you, it’s imbedded in your bones, I would have laughed. Instead I sighed and let myself fall heavily back down on the sweat-soaked mattress.
Autumn appeared in the doorway dressed in one of my T-shirts, so large on her it hung to her knees. Much like a child, she tiptoed across the room and stopped when she reached the bed.
“Bad dreams again?”
I didn’t want to answer her, in fact, I wanted to tell her to mind her own business and take her ass out of my damn room. But I had just shot at her. Guess I could add that to the growing list of things I’d done to her when I was the one supposed to be protecting her. And shit, she’d already been through enough with Liv earlier.
“Yeah,” I muttered, tossing the gun aside. Scrubbing a hand over my eyes, I blinked up at the ceiling. I could still see her face, not the beautiful face of the girl I’d fallen in love with, but the face of the monster she’d become. It was the last image I had of my wife, and one I’d tried so fucking desperately to forget.
That’s the thing about trying to forget, the voice said, its usual mocking tone replaced with an uncharacteristic softness.It’s basically the same as remembering.
“Yeah? Then I’ve been remembering every damn day, every hour, every godforsaken minute since.”
“What?”
I turned my head to find Autumn peering down at me, her forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Nothing,” I muttered. “What do you want?”
