Naomi
Almost is a tricky word. It hides a lot of potential, good and bad.
I almost didn't answer the first call when it came through and if I'd missed it, things would have been real different. If I had missed any of the calls I almost ignored, things would have been real different. I was knee deep in research for my next article but when I checked the number the call was coming from, I saw it was Marianne's assistant. And you can't ignore a call from Marianne's assistant, especially when she's your boss. Stories move fast, you can't predict the news cycle, that was the main thing I'd learned working under her.
"New assignment for you, Naomi," said Hugh. Hugh never bothered with the pleasantries of 'hello' or 'goodbye' or 'how are you'. I liked Hugh.
I sat back among the mountains of research piled up beside me. "What is it?"
"There's some reports of an illness at Washington Hospital Center, and-" Hugh said.
"That's a health story," I cut him off, frustrated that he'd pulled me out of my work just to tell me something irrelevant to me. I stood up and walked out of my home office and into the kitchen to get myself another coffee.
"Yeah, and...?"
"Yeah, and that's Gary's area," I said. "He's health correspondent."
"Gary can't cover it."
"Why not?"
"He's called in sick."
"How ironic," I rolled my eyes, wondering what kind of man-flu he'd pretended to come down with this time.
"I know," Hugh said. "Hazard of the job I guess. But we need you on this."
"It that bad?"
"Not sure. Seems to be. Marianne wants to get it covered. Looks like she's anticipating it being front page for a week or so."
"Shit." I said. That did sound serious. And Marianne was rarely wrong about which stories were going to grab the national headlines. "Any deaths?"
"None confirmed but a whole wing of the hospital is on lock down and the CDC are being particularly cagey."
The more secretive the CDC were about something, the more serious it was. Preventing national panic was the reason they often gave for their silence but that was only part of it. Another part was saving their own skin until they knew exactly what they were dealing with and a had a cure for it all ready to distribute.
"Under quarantine?"
"Looks that way. There are similar reports from other parts of the country too but nobody will confirm anything. See if you can get them to."
"On it."
I hung up without saying goodbye. I knew Hugh would appreciate that.
My feet were cold on the wooden panels in my hallway and the tiles of the kitchen floor. There was underfloor heating somewhere but I never remembered to switch it on and honestly, I wasn't sure I even knew how to. It was a new apartment and so different from anywhere else I'd ever lived that it was a big adjustment. It felt too big for just Mia and I. It echoed in a way that made it feel like there was someone else there sometimes. In my most absent-minded and distracted moments, I'd turn to say something to them and then remember it was just me. I'd never felt too small for somewhere before, or like a part of me was missing.
I placed a mug under the coffee machine. It was a fancy one, with a touch screen where you could make all kinds of choices. I got it because Mia liked the hot chocolate options but it was as much of a treat for me as it was for her. It was nice to be able to afford things but I still often felt guilty about spending on just me. I selected a few extra shots of coffee and caramel than normal. I could tell it was going to be one of those days where a gallon of extra caffeine and sugar were needed. While it started whirring and filling up my cup, I got my phone out and called Gary. I mostly wanted to suss out of he'd even started working on this story and how long it might take him to get over his man-flu or hangover or whatever lame excuse was keeping him away from work so he could take it back and I could keep working on something I actually cared about.
I wasn't really expecting him to answer and for a while after he picked up, I wasn't sure if he actually had. It was like when someone sits on their phone and accidentally calls you. I could just hear the faint sound of other people talking, some deep breathing and something beeping not too far away.
"Gary?" I said, on the off chance that he'd hear and look at his phone.
"Yeah?" He sounded shit. Really, properly ill. His voice was weak. I felt bad for having thought he might be faking.
"It's Naomi," I said. He didn't respond. "From work… Marianne's assigned me your health piece… on this new disease."
"Stay away," he whispered. It was so quiet that I thought he might have been talking away from the phone, to someone in the room with him.
"Gary…"
"Don't visit anyone," he said. "Don't interview them, don't come near the hospital."
My stomach dropped like I'd missed a step on a ladder.
"Gary, where are you?"
"Hospital," he said.
"Hugh said it was on lockdown."
"I snuck in," he said. He interrupted himself with a bout of severe coughing. "Wanted to interview someone who was sick…"
"And you got sick too?"
"Yup."
There was a painful finality in the way he said it.
"Well, I guess hospital is the best place to get sick," I said in a way that was meant to cheer him up.
He started to laugh. And that lead to another few minutes of horrible coughing. "People don't get better from this."
"You've seen them die from it?"
"Yeah. Kind of," he said.
"How can you kind of die from it?"
He paused for a moment. "It's like they're dead… and then they're not anymore."
"What?"
"I can't explain it."
I wondered if the sickness he had came with any hallucinations. I should've checked how lucid he was before I started noting down everything he was saying.
"This disease," I said. "Is it like swine flu? Ebola?"
"It's more like a flu," he said. "Burning fever, coughing, all that fun stuff. They get a bit delirious too. Towards the end."
"God," I sighed. It sounded like he'd seen too many people 'towards the end'. "Do you mind me asking all this?"
"Not at all," he said. "If I'm going to be stuck in here I might as well be your source."
"Thanks. They letting you keep your phone?"
"They're too busy to care," he said.
"Okay," I said. "So how's it spread? Contact or airborne?"
"Contact," he said. I felt a little relieved. Contact sounded easier to keep yourself safe from. At that time, of course, I was imagining handshakes and hugs with someone who'd sneezed. He must have known that would be where my mind went because he followed up with. "I was bitten."
"Bitten?" I repeated, thinking I must have heard wrong. "What does that mean?"
"It means exactly what you think it does," he said. It sounded like he'd clenched his teeth in frustration but it could have been pain. "I'll send you the details. Everything I've got. If things go bad-"
"They're not going to," I said.
"If they do," he said. "You gotta get this out to everyone. People need to know what they're up against."
This must be part of the delirium. Maybe he was closer to the end than I thought.
"I'll send whatever you give me to the Post," I promised.
"No, not just the Post," he said, urgently. "You need to get this to everyone. All of the outlets you can contact."
That was definitely a offence serious enough to get me fired.
"Okay," I said unsure if he was playing some kind of prank, hallucinating from fever or deadly serious. He'd studied disease and outbreaks as part of his job training. Did that make him an authority on this or just a paranoid weirdo? "Send me what you got."
"Will do," he sounded relieved. "And, Naomi?"
"Yeah?"
"Get yourself and everyone you love out of the City."
He hung up. The hairs on my arms stood on end. I called around other hospitals to try and get someone to talk to me but they all clammed up. Some of them got mad at me for wasting their time. Some of them didn't even answer.
Gary's email came through. It started out with great detailed descriptions of the quarantined ward of the hospital, lists of people's symptoms. Interviews with families of people waiting to heard news. And then it got weird.
Real weird.
Stories of patients dying and coming back to life. Trying to bite uninfected people. Biting Gary. Infecting him. The only way of stopping the patient had been when another one had stabbed them in the head with a scalpel.
It had to be a hallucination. Vivid and violent.
But it couldn't be real.
When my phone rang again, I thought it might be him calling to retract some of it because his fever had broken and he'd stopped hallucinating. I'd tried calling him back to clarify on what he'd written but I hadn't managed to get through. I hoped it was because he was receiving treatment or maybe that they'd found his phone and managed to take it off him. Anything, as long as he was still alive.
"Yes! Hello!" I said, picking up halfway through the second ring.
"Naomi?" whoever it was sounded surprised that I'd answered so fast. It was a woman, so definitely not Gary. I thought it might be someone connected to him though, or someone from one of the many hospitals I'd put a call into.
"Speaking," I said, in an attempt to try and claw back any of the professionalism I'd just lost.
"It's Mrs Jones," she said. "I'm a friend of your Momma's. Used to look after you when you was little."
"I remember," I said. It was weird how many people who thought that just because I'd moved I'd forgotten all of them. "How you doing?"
"I'm good, thanks," she said. "Your Momma ain't so great though. I think she's come down with something."
"What kinda something?"
"She's feverish," Mrs Jones said. "I think she's hallucinating sometimes… I've been trying to get her to a hospital but she's refusing."
It sounded like withdrawal.
Or something worse.
Gary's email lurked in the back of my mind.
"Can you stay with her?"
"As long as I can but I gotta look after some of the kids round here. You know how it is."
Mrs Jones did a lot of babysitting.
"Mia and I will be on the next flight out," I said. "Stay with her as long as possible."
"Will do. Thank you."
"Thank you for taking care of her," I said.
I didn't pack much. I called ahead to Mia's school and she was ready and waiting for me when I drove by to pick her up. Her eyes were wide and she looked a little pale. I hadn't given much information over the phone but they'd clearly passed some of it on.
"Is Momma okay?" she asked.
"She'll be fine," I lied. But I was lying to myself too so it wasn't that bad of me to lie to her too.
We must have, unknowingly, got one of the last flights out of Washington that day. Planes were grounded not long after that. At the airport I'd grabbed a bunch of hand sanitizer. I kept making Mia put it on every time she touched anything. I freaked out about us breathing in the recycled air in the airplane cabin. Who knews how many germs we were breathing in? I kept telling myself that Gary had said it wasn't airborne. But Gary had also said a lot of nonsensical things about people being dead and then not dead. He hardly felt like a reliable source.
I tried not to show my anxieties in front of Mia but she must have guessed. She was real quiet the whole way there. She kept glancing at me. Like she knew I knew something she didn't.
We took a cab from the airport to Momma's. It was expensive, we usually took the bus. But this was an emergency and I wanted to limit the time we spent with the general population as much as possible. Everyone who so much as sniffed too loudly suddenly looked infected to me.
The place was dark when we got there. Mrs Jones weren't there anymore. I unlocked the door, flicked a switch on the wall and nothing happened. Momma had clearly forgotten to pay her electricity bill. Or maybe she was dead already. I couldn't hear anything. Mia stuck so close to me you wouldn't have been able to get a hair in the space between us.
"Momma?" I meant to call it but it came out real quiet. I hoped I didn't sound as scared as Mia looked.
"My girls…" came a familiar, drowsy voice from the darkness. "So nice to see you…"
"Momma," I sighed with relief. Knowing she was here and still alive gave me a bit of hope and courage enough to walk in there. I opened up the kitchen drawer and took out a box of matches. I struck one and let the gentle organge glow fill the room, I could just make out the shape of our Momma lying in bed. I use the next one to find the box of candles we kept around for moments like these; power cuts or when Momma hadn't paid a bill. Mia helped me put them all around the house. It looked kinda warm and cozy when we were done, if you didn't think about it too much.
I went in to Momma's room, kept the lighting minimal in there in case it hurt her eyes.
"How you doing, Momma?" I asked. I could smell stale vomit somewhere.
"Okay," she whispered. Her breathing was labored and raspy, like she needed to cough. "Will you help me… move to the couch?"
"Of course," I said. She wrapped a blanket around herself a leaned on me as we walked from her room to the couch at the other end of the trailer. Mia stayed well out of her way without me telling her too. She watched us with wide eyes.
I set Momma down. She was pale and shivering even though I could see the sweat on her brown and she was boiling hot.
"Mia," she smiled at my little sister, who looked even more little in the shadows from the candlelight. "You got so big. How old are you now?"
The fact that she couldn't remember made me suspicious that this was drug-related and nothing to do with the mysterious sickness Gary had been reporting on.
"She's eleven," I reminded her, forgetting myself that neither might be to blame and she might actually have just been a crap Mom.
"Eleven," she nodded. I think she smiled but it was hard to tell in the half-dark.
"You comfortable, Momma?" I asked.
"Yeah," she whispered. And then she opened her eyes really wide and tried to sit up, like she'd just remembered something extremely important. "He bit me."
My blood ran cold. I tried to tell myself she was having some kind of feverish hallucination. But it was weird it was the same one Gary had.
"What do you mean he bit you?" I asked, getting real close to her. I spoke as quietly as I could, still not wanting Mia to hear too much or know what was going on. I thought if I kept her ignorant for long enough, I'd be able to shelter her from it all. Even with all I knew up to this point, I still thought there was a chance that things would go back to normal. I still thought they'd be able to keep things contained to the hospital.
"Bit me, Naomi," she said, a little annoyed I wasn't listening. "With his teeth."
"Who bit you?" I asked.
"This guy," she shifted around, trying to get comfortable on the pillows I'd put underneath her although it was obvious that the man discomfort she was feeling was from her illness.
"What did this guy look like?"
"He was downtown." Her hand shook when she wiped it across her sweaty forehead. "He looked... I thought he were dead."
"What were you doing downtown?" I asked. Downtown was where she used to get her drug, so maybe this was withdrawal after all.
"So many questions…you never trusted me…"
It took a lot for me not to yell at her. All I could think about were the many other times we'd both been in this exact position; her sick on the sofa, me taking care of her. The older that I got and the more I thought about moments like this, the madder it made me. Mia was older than I'd been many of those times and I'd never relied on her to take care of me when I was sick, even if it was just a cold. She was too young for that kind of responsibility. But Momma had made me do it since I was younger than she was now.
I looked at her, thinking about all of this had reminded me that she was here. She hadn't said a word since we got here. She looked so small and scared.
So young.
Way too young to be dealing with something like this.
"Mia. Go to Mrs Jones," I said. "She'll look after you for a little bit. Take a bag."
"But I want to stay with Momma," she said and she looked even more scared. I knew that fear. Fearing that if you left or looked away for a moment, she'd up and die on you. It was way too big a fear for such a small kid.
"Mia," I said, trying to keep my cool. "Go. Now."
"Why?" she said but she was on her feet.
"Do as you are told," I said. "I gotta look after Momma. I'll come and get you when she gets better. If it's contagious, I don't want you to get sick too."
"I don't want you to get sick, either," she said. Her bottom lip started to tremble, her eyes filled with tears.
"I won't," I said. "I will come get you, okay?"
She nodded and then ran to the door. She picked up her back and my old satchel and ran out of the door without saying anything else.
"Momma…" I turned back to her. All of my anger had disappeared now that I'd seen Mia's fear, remembered that she was the most important part of all of this. If our Momma didn't survive, that would be okay. But I had to keep Mia alive.
"I weren't doing anything wrong. I promise," Momma said. I'd heard that before and up until now it had always been a lie.
"Where'd you get bit?" I asked, realizing from Gary's description that a bite would be easy to find.
She moved the blanket from her legs and pulled up her top a little. On her hip there was a bite mark. It looked bad, deep. It had started to turn purple. I tried not to react or to let any of the horror I was feeling show on my face. "Okay," I said. "I'm just gonna clean the wound."
I got out some of the old medical supplies and tried to clean it as much as I could. I knew it wouldn't actually do anything but it was nice just to have something to do and it made Momma feel better, like there was anything that could be done to help her now. Enough of what Gary had said was true, that reality was starting to sink in. She relaxed enough to fall asleep. I moved as quietly as I could to pick up my things. I read through all of the notes from Gary. There was nothing that could help me and he hadn't replied since I'd last emailed him. I copied everything into an email and sent it to every contact I had in the news. I moved the most important information to the top:
Disease makes people rabid.
Bites get you infected.
Stay out of the cities.
I pressed send and prayed that all of the major news outlets would be able to get information out to everyone in time.
I knew there'd be mass panic. Maybe even riots. But that was better than just waiting for the disease to ravage the entire planet.
I hoped I wasn't too late.
Momma drifted in and out of consciousness for a few hours. It started to get dark outside. Someone was burning something somewhere close by so I got up and closed the window I'd opened in an attempt to keep her fever down. I tried to use the hotspot on my phone to stay online and stay connected, to see if Gary's message got out there but at some point it all went down.
I changed the sheets on Momma's bed so that they wouldn't smell of old sick any more. When I came out of her bedroom, I realized I couldn't hear her breathing. I didn't know how long that had been the case, I'd been so distracted by the internet going down I hadn't checked on her. She'd been so quiet. I'd thought she was asleep. But maybe it was more permanent than that.
I listened.
Nothing by my own shallow breaths and the crackle of a few dozen candles.
She lay still. Real still.
"Momma?"
Nothing.
I felt five years old. Like this was the first time I'd found her overdosed. I stepped in to the bathroom for a minute, splashed my face with cold water. I told myself to get a grip. I knew I had to check on her. I could do this. Nobody else was coming to deal with this situation. I was on my own, like always.
I opened the bathroom door.
"Momma!" I gasped. She was on her feet. Her shadow loomed towards me in the candle light. She wasn't walking right, like her legs were stiff from having lain down for so long. She knocked into the table in front of the couch. "Watch out!"
Too late. She sent one of the candles tumbling to the ground. She didn't even flinch. Didn't look at it. Flames spread from the candle to the magazines I'd piled on the floor for her to read if she got better. Her foot dragged right through it. The bottom of her pajamas caught fire.
Flames reflected in her glassy eyes. Looking at me but not seeing. Her breath rattled in and out like a whisper she couldn't make. Her mouth moved but she didn't say anything.
No denying it now.
She was one of them.
I grabbed a knife from the kitchen counter and backed away from her. I knew that wasn't really my Momma anymore but I kept calling for her anyway. If she was ever going to show some maternal instinct, now would be the perfect time.
Her arms reached out for me.
Her jaw snapped open and shut.
Three more candles cascaded to the ground in a river of flame that soon became a sea.
She knocked into the table enough times to push it out of the way and then she moved fast, gaining on me. I stumbled backwards. I felt my heart drop and then I was on my back, staring at the ceiling of my Momma's room. I wondered what the hell I'd slipped on and felt a dull pain in the back of my head. The knife had was out of my hand.
I heard her terrible breathing. Getting louder. Thudding footsteps on the kitchen floor. I struggled to sit up and then I felt her grab me. Cold, dead fingers clawed at my skin. The room was filling with smoke. Behind her, the whole kitchen was nothing but orange flame and black smoke. If I wasn't quick enough, the fire would hit the gas pipe. The whole place might explode. My route to the main door was already blocked. I was going to have to climb out Momma's window.
If she ever let me go.
I tried to push her off but she was too strong, her whole dead weight holding me down.
I looked for where I'd dropped my knife.
I thought I heard someone outside shout my name. It sounded like Daryl.
I held her back with one hand and reached for the knife.
Aim for the head.
My fingertips brushed it, it was almost within my grasp. Almost.
Daryl
Things weren't going so great. They never seemed to be and even Merle had stopped saying they were about to pick up. We'd wound up back at our dad's old place. We hadn't been there since he'd died. Years of dust and cobwebs had built up around the place. It was weird to be there but also the most welcoming it had ever been now that it didn't have our old man lurking around.
I don't think either of us were much looking forward to having to move back here.
We'd run out of money and run out of choices. We were always running out of money but this time was worse than usual so Dad's old place was the only place we had left. We hadn't even known that he'd owned it until after the funeral when some dumbass in a suit had come knocking, seeing if we wanted to sell the place. We couldn't believe our dad had managed to pay it off but figured it must've been when Ma was still around and he'd had his shit together more. Certainly explained why he could drink the day away and we never got evicted.
We started clearing shit out. The place was a goddamn tip. If anyone had broken in and tried to ransack it, we wouldn't have known. I don't think anything was missing but if it were, we wouldn't have noticed that either. There was booze stashed everywhere, having outlast the drunk asshole who bought it. Merle cracked it open to keep us going. It was a slow process. We both just wanted to set fire to everything in there but then we'd really be out of roofs to sleep under.
Nate Jones came round to see Merle. He'd been the closest thing to a friend that he'd had around here but only in so much that they'd occasionally hang out when Merle weren't in juvie or off doing some dodgy shit someplace else. He said he wanted to help us clear shit out but he and Merle mostly just sat on their asses and drank some of our old dad's old-ass beer.
"You hear Old Miss Payton's ill?" he said. My ears pricked up.
"No," Merle said, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. "What's she got?"
Nate shrugged, "Some kind of fever. She's half delirious."
"She still on the wagon?" Merle asked. "Sounds like withdrawal."
"Dunno," Nate shrugged. It sounded likely. Wouldn't have been the first time that Miss Payton had come off drugs and been really ill. First time I'd heard of it since her daughter hadn't been round to take care of her, though. I think they moved on to talking and laughing about some other bullshit but it all just faded to background noise.
"You still got Naomi's number?" I asked. Merle stopped whatever he'd been about to say and frowned at me.
"Yeah. Why?"
"I should call her," I said. My heart was racing at the thought of contacting her again. "If her Momma's sick, she should know."
There was a slight silence. Merle and Nate glanced at each other.
"She's already here," Merle said.
"You sure?" I asked, although I didn't know why he'd bother lying about it.
"Saw her earlier. Sorry I didn't say," he said and then he shrugged. "Didn't think you'd wanna know."
"Oh," I said, trying to sound like I didn't care but the disappointment crushed something in my chest. "Yeah. Cool."
"You could go visit if you wanted. Sure she'd be happy for the company."
"Nah."
I'd regret that pretty quick. Things might've gone different if I'd swallowed my pride and just gone over there.
It felt weird to know that she so close but to find out from someone else. Used to be that Naomi didn't so much as breathe without me knowing about it. I remembered lying on the top bunk, hearing it under me while we both drifted off to sleep. I didn't sleep as good any more.
I blamed being back in that damn house. It was full of dust and ghosts.
His ghost in the dark shadow of his chair or the doorway where he'd take off that belt or under the table where all of his smashed whiskey bottles wound up.
Her ghost was in any of the light places... Not that she was dead yet but I could feel her presence like she was. Maybe it was just knowing she was near and not being able to speak to her.
Mere chucked a dusty magazine at me. I sneezed.
"Asshole," I said, throwing it away again.
"Well help us gut this place," Merle said, even though he weren't doing anything either. "Quit staring off at nothing."
"You wanna read these?" Nate asked, gesturing to the pile of magazines our dad had collected over the years. They were either full of coupons or dirty pictures.
"Hell no," I said. "Burn 'em."
"They ain't high-brow enough for him," Merle explained.
"Really?"
"Yeah, he reads the Post," Merle said, making his accent all post like I was some kind of fancy pants for reading the news. I felt myself go a bit red though, I didn't know he'd seen my copies.
"Like… the Washington Post?" Nate asked, obviously confused.
"Yeah," I admitted.
"You know we aint living in Washington, right?" he asked while Merle laughed like a damn hyena.
"Yes."
I wished he'd drop it.
"Why?" he asked.
"Why do you care?"
"I don't," Nate shrugged. "Must be hard to get it down here is all."
It was. I had to have it posted down special and it was always days behind what it would be if I lived there. I didn't mind, though. I weren't reading it to be up to date.
"I like the crossword," I said. Merle cackled. Nate looked like he weren't sure how to respond to that so opted for silence. Which was the smart choice.
We got off our asses and started cleaning again. Nate actually helped this time. Merle put the TV on as a little bit of background noise. I went in to our dad's closet and pulled out all of his musty old clothes. I started piling them up a good distance from the door, then I poured some whiskey on it and set the whole thing ablaze, pretending it was the man himself. Merle and I had our shit packed by the door, ready to move in when we'd cleared enough space.
When I came back in, Merle and Nate were back in front of the TV, more beers in hand.
"Now who's being lazy?" I grumbled. Merle sushed me.
"There's summat going on," Nate said, pointing at the screen. I went to stand in front of it.
Some news reporter was standing in a fancy suit outside Atlanta General Hospital, reporting on some kind of virus that had left the hospital so busy they were urging anyone with non-urgent appointments to stay home and reschedule them.
"Sounds like a whole lotta nothing to me," I said with a shrug.
"You never know, bro," Merle said. "Could be contagious."
"Looks like sitting on your ass is contagious," I retorted, staring pointedly at both of them. They sighed and stood up. We shut the windows because the smoke from the burning clothes outside was getting in. It took us hours to get all of the dust and cobwebs and shit outta there. There also weren't that much Merle and I wanted to keep. It was starting to get dark by the time we were close to finishing. Merle declared that was enough for the day and we sat down to order a pizza. Phone lines weren't working anymore but we just assumed they were busy until we turned the TV back on.
"A new sickness has shut down Atlanta General Hospital," said the news reporter. "Parts of the city are on lockdown and under quarantine. Authorities have asked people to remain in their homes."
"The fuck…?" Merle leaned forwards, turned up the volume on the TV.
The picture cut to an aerial shot of gridlocked traffic trying to head out of Atlanta.
"We have unconfirmed reports of similar scenes in other cities across America," the voice-over said. "The CDC is urging people not to panic-"
"Course they fucking are," Merle yelled at the screen. "Want us all docile like lambs to the slaughter."
"I'm sure it ain't that bad," Nate said.
Merle rolled his eyes. "They ain't gonna tell the likes of us that we're in danger. Bet they didn't advise the President to stay at home, bet he's in some cozy bunker somewhere. Probably already has a vaccine for whatever kinda swine-flu, bird-flu shit this is."
Images of the streets showed a crowd of people running. It was hard to see what they were running from. Others walked but they walked weird. Like maybe they were sick or injured.
"Symptoms of the virus include a fever, dizziness, fatigue, delirium, chills, nausea, loss of consciousness, dehydration, coughing up blood, internal hemorrhaging, organ failure and eventually death."
I remember thinking I'd never heard a list of symptoms so long. I never actually thought about what it would be like to see people you know go through it. I remember the reporter saying something unconfirmed about getting infected people through the head. It felt far away, confined to the city. Until Nate turned to us and said, "Kinda sounds like what Old Miss Payton's got."
Naomi.
My heart flipped over. I gripped the arm rests on the side of my chair. I saw Merle glance at me nervously.
"You sure she's here?" I asked him. He looked like he wanted to lie to me but thought better of it.
"Yeah," he said. I stood up.
"My Momma's looking after the little one," Nate said. "Millie?"
"Mia," I corrected him. Merle started to say something else but I weren't listening, I was already on my feet and heading for the door. I grabbed my hunting stuff, my crossbow. If Naomi's Momma was one of those… things on the TV, I didn't want her to have to be the one who killed her.
I smelt smoke the minute the doors opened. Outside, everything was chaos. People ran, screaming. Some of them might have been bit, I saw the blood. Saw their fear. It was so much worse than it had sounded from inside our old house.
"Daryl!" Merle hollered. "Come back here."
I broke into a run, partly to get away from him but mostly because I was close enough to see that the smoke was coming from Naomi's Momma's place.
When I got there, flames were pressed against the window. Bright orange against the tar black smoke.
"Naomi!" It felt like her name ripped itself from my throat, like I'd only be able to breathe right again if I said it enough times that she answered.
Flames rose higher. There were so many people screaming and yelling that I couldn't hear if she was yelling back from inside.
Maybe because there's nothing to hear.
No. She's gotta be alive.
She gotta.
A really dumb part of me thought I'd feel something if she were dead. Like she was a part of me and I'd somehow know if that part of me were ripped from this Earth.
The fire was tearing through the end nearest to me, too thick to see whether or not it had reached the back of the house. But I could see it were blocking the door. I reached the handle and managed to grab it.
It was boiling hot. A searing pain flashed across my hand. The fire must have been right up against it.
The windows.
Smash all of the windows.
Get. In. There.
Hands grabbed my arm.
Merle.
Pulling me back.
I twisted against him, trying to pull myself free.
"Stop it, man! Stop it!" It was the first time in his life that Merle sounded like he was begging.
I screamed her name again. Nate was trying to hold me back too. I struggled. My feet dragged through the dirt, leaving track marks like a car. I managed to get my hands on the front of Nate's shirt. I shoved.
Hard.
He stumbled backwards. I remember him looking me dead in the eye, seemed surprised that I'd managed to dislodge him.
Then there was an explosion so strong and so close that I didn't even hear it. I just felt it throw me back, heat on my face worse than before. My ears rang. Couldn't hear anything but a high-pitched noise that came from deep inside my brain. The kitchen side of Naomi's had been blown wide open. The flames had got Nate. He was still moving but his flesh was almost gone. He might have been screaming, I wouldn't know.
I stared at the hole in the side of her house that was filled with flame. I knew I was yelling for her but I couldn't hear that either. I could just feel it, tearing from my heart and soul right up through my guts and out into the open air. I willed her to come through the gaps in the flames. I wanted to leap through it myself.
My feet scrambled against the dirt. I tried to get up but Merle's arms were already around my shoulders. I tried to kick but I was kicking at nothing.
When I close my eyes I can still see that gap in the flames, can still see the as yet untouched part of Naomi's house. I can still feel that pull deep in my chest that willed her to run outta the smoke or let me run in there. I tried to pull Merle's arm from round my neck, dug my fingernails right into his skin.
The ringing in my ears faded until all I could hear was things falling in flame and Merle saying. "We gotta go," over and over as he pulled me back.
He pulled me away from the house, away from the charred and burning body of Nate. Away from Naomi, if there was still a Naomi to be pulled away from. I fought him every step.
Until I heard a crash from far behind us that was probably the roof caving in, killing anyone that was inside. When hope left me, the fight did too. Merle weren't expecting it. I hit the ground. Hard.
Felt like someone had sliced me open, left my heart and guts and all my insides exposed to be eaten by wild animals. That might have been better.
The sky looked clear. I could see the stars. I wondered if there really was a heaven and how the hell I could get there. Bring her back.
Merle leaned over me. Even he looked sad.
"C'mon, man," he still sounded like he was begging. "Just a bit further."
I got to my feet, followed him as he ran. Everything was a blur of dark and trees.
We sat down in the forest, outside of the chaos of the trailer park. I could see our hill with our log. Looking at it made the whole world spin. Merle's face swam into view in front of it.
"We gotta go," he said. God knows how many times he'd said that to me today.
"I can't, man," I said. Felt like the truest thing I'd ever said. I knew he was right, that the danger in the campsite and all of those half dead and dying people would spread out in to the forest when they were done tearing the trailer park apart. If I'd had any of my wits about me when it had happened, I'd have suggested moving to higher ground first 'cause that was always safer. But I didn't. I just sat there and thought about how being torn apart by one of those things would be better than staying here and feeling like this.
Merle caught his breath and pulled me to my feet again, "Look, I know you been holding a torch for her all these years. But you gotta let her go, man. She's gone."
Everything blurred.
No. I don't remember if I said it or just felt it, right down to my bones.
I looked away from him. He didn't get it. I'd held more than a torch for her. It weren't just some damn crush. She had found me when we were kids and I'd been nothing. Nobody. Just some kid that would've disappeared without anyone looking. Would've ended up in jail like his brother. Never would've thought there was any good in him because nobody ever said there was. Then she came along and she saw some kinda spark in me, something good, and she helped it grow into an inferno. She could see through all of my anger and my rage and my bullshit.
Dixon boys loved in anger and fists and blood.
Naomi's love burned with a fierce, un-tamable light.
Now she was gone. The world was darker. And I had nowhere to put all that fire.