6
(Next night)
"Where were you when it first happened?"
Jim glanced up at her from the small kitchen table while the plastic lantern in front of them dimmed slowly from inside the oblong container.
"I was out when it happened," he replied.
Before Marlie could ask, he quickly explained that he was unconscious.
"I had...I was delivering a package on my bike and I got hit by a car. Landed on my head, apparently. I was in a coma for...I don't know how long. Months, I guess. When I woke up, I didn't see a soul. There was trash everywhere...everything was all over the place. I didn't see anyone 'til I entered the church. It was as if everyone was dead but they weren't. Their eyes were...they were weird. All of the blood was filling up the whites of their eyes and their pupils had this...weird yellowish color in the middle like a monster or somethin'. That's when I saw Selena and Mark in the town square and they explained what had occurred."
Marlie watched him stop in a mid-sentence and rubbed his eyes.
"I lost my friends, my co-workers, my parents mostly. They were considered lucky, I guess..."
"What made them lucky?" Marlie asked.
"They took too many pills with some glasses of wine. Least they weren't exposed."
She nodded and slowly cupped her chin in her hands.
"I never knew my family," Marlie replied.
Jim looked at her calmly, "No?"
"I was adopted the day I was born. I never knew who my real parents were. My adoptive mother claimed that they didn't want the responsibility of havin' a kid with them so...they had to give me up. I haven't kept in touch with them before and after it happened."
"I'm sorry."
Marlie shrugged and replied, "Don't be. I couldn't really care less about it anyway."
Jim nodded and watched her move her hands up to her forehead.
"You all right?" Jim asked, looking at her with concern.
"Migraines, I think," Marlie answered.
"I know how those feel. Believe me."
He got up and opened to the huge cooler that was placed on the kitchen floor.
"You want anything?" He asked.
Marlie shook her head "no" and started to sigh nervously. He closed the top and walked over to her side, bending down next to her as she was about to sob.
"The memories are back again?"
"Apparently," Marlie replied, wiping a tear from her face, "They never seem to stop. I keep having...nightmares that the group who attacked me will come back and finish me off. Or make me one of the infected."
She watched his blue eyes get glassy with fear as she explained how petrified she had become. He touched her face gently and wiped the rest of the tears away from her face.
"No one will come back to finish you off. I swear it. They won't come," Jim replied softly until she accepted.
(To be continued...)
