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Mother by Bradd Quinn (Issue 9)

He lay curled on his bed-one hand pinching tightly on his bloody nose, the other ruffled through his hair as he tried to stifle his crying. He waited for the knock on his bedroom door; it would be his mother. He could still hear them arguing downstairs. He wondered if he had hit her too; that was rare, but he did. Their muffled voices carried through the house like a faint orchestra, inducing stomach-churning stress.

It didn’t seem fair to get your face cracked twice in one day; once by Bobby Hilton because he didn’t like you mouthing off to him and then by your father, when you got home, for not hitting Bobby back. They were both so much bigger and stronger than him-it’s easy to do what they do...if you’re them. If you’re half their size, you’re a victim-you can’t escape that. His father told him strength comes from within, then he used his superior “outward” strength to smack him across the nose. He had never hit his brother like that.

The knock on the door came. He stayed silent. She knocked again then came in.

“Are you alright, honey?” she asked in a hushed

“Sure, why not?” he replied sarcastically without looking up.

She crossed the room and sat down on his bed next to him. She handed him a cloth for his nose. He grabbed it and wrapped it in front of his face. She began slowly brushing his hair away from his forehead.

“I’m sorry that happened. I know I promised it wouldn’t happen again...I...”

She paused for a moment. He could hear her fighting back tears, her voice betraying her. “It’s not your fault. It’s never your fault. You know that, mom.”

Her silence continued as she stroked her son’s hair. He slowly turned to look at his mother’s face. “Did he hit you too...again?”

“No. He hasn’t done that in so long. You know this isn’t him.”

“Great. Things are looking up.”

“Stop. You know it’s not always like this. He loves us...”

“It doesn’t matter.”

She stopped stroking his forehead and sat back, staring at him. “No, no...it does matter. If he does this again...I’ll....”

“Call the police?”

“Yes.”

“You won’t.”

“I can’t let him hurt you like this. I love you too much...”

“And you love him just as much.”

She sighed, her eyes wetting again. “It wasn’t like this. Not before your brother...I just get...lost, honey.”

“It’s not that big a deal. I don’t care. As long as he doesn’t touch you. I’ll kill him if he does.”

“Don’t say that. I don’t ever want to hear you say that. He’s my husband and your father. You don’t talk about him like that.” “I’m not gonna let anyone hurt you, mom....ever.”

“You let me worry about myself.” She paused for a moment and looked at his closed bedroom door, listening. “Now what was Bobby Hilton’s problem today? You’ve had problems with him before...”

“He’s just a freakin’ liar. He was saying his uncle is a cop in New York City and that there’s been all these weird people running around acting crazy and biting people. He said his uncle said it’s been happening all over the city in the past few days-but it hasn’t been on the news or anything. He’s just a liar who says all this junk to sound important...so I said so. Then he hit me. The teachers didn’t even do anything.”

“You should just let it roll off your back, honey. Ignore him. What good is it to get all angry about an obvious lie, right?”

He sat up on his bed, still holding the cloth to his nose. “I could have hit him...Bobby, I mean. If I wanted to. He really isn’t that tough. I could have if I really needed to. I don’t know. I wasn’t even scared either....”

“Then just let it go. I know you. You have a fire in you that burns bright when it needs to. Just trust it.”

**

He sat in the old wooden chair, leaning his head against the wood paneling. His father had put that up quite a few years ago. It looked out of date then, and looked more so now. In the past weeks he had toyed with the idea of taking it down, perhaps modernizing things a bit. He was officially the man of the house now, wasn’t he? His head lazily drifted downward, as he fought off sleep. The hardwood flooring needed to be refinished as well. He followed the scrapes and scratches up and down the hallway-much of the wear from decades of abuse, some of it as fresh as yesterday. He wasn’t sure where he would find a power sander now, though. He also wasn’t sure how he would power it. They hadn’t had electricity for nearly three weeks. The mundane continued to muddy his thoughts as his eyes began to close as he drifted off.

A sharp bang from the room behind him jolted him awake. His hands sprang to his face in a defensive posture, shaking with anticipation of an attack that would not come. His heart raced for a moment. It was a welcome sensation after the fear subsided. It seemed to warm him slightly. He pulled his jacket tighter and considered grabbing a blanket from the hall closet. They hadn’t had heat for two weeks now. There had been a public warning put out on the radio about the electric going down, but nothing about the gas. But how would they have warned them? Were “they” even around anymore? As the December snow began to fall, it had quickly become a priority issue.

He stood up and walked down the hall to the kitchen. The house was bathed in utter darkness, but he kept the flashlight in his pocket. No need to waste the batteries on a path he knew with his eyes closed. His hand traced the wall as he ambled into the kitchen and walked toward the cupboard above the sink. They still had water, though he didn’t trust it. He had resorted to boiling it over the living room fireplace, then storing it in Tupperware containers. He wasn’t sure if that would kill every bacteria or virus, but it was the best he could do. No one was entirely sure how the infection was spreading. He reached for the cupboard door and suddenly winced at the pain in his shoulder. It was healing, but slowly. He had probably broken something. Perhaps torn a ligament or something like that. It was when he and his mother had been pushing on the front door, to keep them out. He remembered his motherscreaming as he grunted and dug as deep as he could, but they couldn’t hold them back and the swinging door had sent him sprawling to the hard floor. He thought he had heard a crack when the pain coiled down his arm like a length of barbed wire. He was on his feet in seconds, though, pulled to action by his mother’s continued screams. He dashed to the axe leaning against the wall and gripped it in the hand of his good arm. His other arm hung loosely at his side as a surge of adrenaline coursed through his veins and he brought the heavy weapon over his head and rushed to the first attacker. His eyes barely registered his rotted face, the eyes nearly white for lack of moisture, before he brought the axe down on the man’s neck. The heavy steel cut through the soft, decrepit flesh and bone like it was tissue paper. His head was nearly severed completely as the blade continued down into the chest cavity. Even with his head dangling limply to the side, the man continued to press, grabbing his attacker’s arm and pulling him to his still moving jaws. Their legs intertwined and they fell together in a heap. The boy’s injured arm falling forward to brace his fall and tearing straight into the man’s hollow stomach. He seemed to freeze for that moment, transfixed by the horror he was literally thrust into.

A walking corpse, a human disease, was wrapped around his body. His hand deep within its rotted cavity, the boy’s eyes paralyzed on the snapping jaws on a head that hung loosely on its own shoulder. Still, his mother’s terror continued to fuel him and again brought him back as he pulled his shoulder away from the man’s snapping teeth, yellowed and cracked, a stench not unlike feces leaking from its dry throat. He stood up and pulled his arm from the man’s stomach, then yanked the axe from its chest and brought it down on his skull, the head splitting like rotten fruit. He turned and ran to his mother, who was pinned to wall, the other man lunging at her throat with his mouth while she pushed him away with her palms. His skin was tearing off his face like dusty newsprint, her grip useless without the friction. His mouth came down on her shoulder as the boy stormed into his side, knocking him to the floor. He brought the axe down on its face, brought it up high in the air, and down again on the halved head. He continued throwing down the heavy steal on the still carcass, yelling and grunting, tears pouring from his eyes. The man’s head was mashed to a gruesome pulp, the few fluids still inside its body splattered about the floor and baseboards. His mother finally grabbed him around the waist and pulled him to the wall, where he laid and caught his breath, letting his muscles ache and tears flow. He looked up to see his mother, holding her shoulder as she tried to pull one of the men toward the front door. Blood was soaking through her shirt and around her fingers. It was deep. The bite was deep. The man had bit her. Just like his father was bitten. The infection had come on only a few days later.

His mind raced as sweat began to pour from his scalp. His stomach dropped, fresh tears crept up to his lids. He didn’t know if it was the bite that infected his father. No one really knew anything. It made sense. How else did he get it? It wasn’t a coincidence.

“Mom...mom, your shoulder...” he began.

She looked up at him, her eyes wet but stern. “Don’t.” “It bit you, mom. You’re bleeding. Dad was-” “STOP IT! GODDAMNIT STOP IT!” she cried. She stared at him hard, swaying slightly from exhaustion. So few words had she spoken to him in the past weeks; her anger and sorrow silencing her. Now her voice seemed alien. Cold. “Help me get these things back outside,” she commanded as she turned back to the bloody corpse. She called them “things”. He couldn’t lose her. His mother was his life. His best friend. Before all of this, she was the steady constant in his life. The one who always took his side, who put everything else second to him. She stood up to his father when she had to. She had stood in front of him many times and taken blows for him. She never asked for a thing in return. He was her son, her only son.

He had so much to say, but she would not let him say it. His mind spiraled, trying to think of any and all possible ways to kill the infection. They had one bottle of rubbing alcohol left and some antibiotic ointment in the bathroom. Boiling water, poured over the wound? Burning it? No. No. If she was infected, it was in her now. He was powerless. They both learned that from his father.

He grabbed the other dead man and helped his mother drag them back into the front yard under the large oak. There was no time to bury them, and they couldn’t risk being spotted from across the fields again. Once they saw you, they came. Slowly, methodically, they came. And then you had to kill them-all of them.

They had to stay hidden. They quickly ran back inside and locked the door. The frame was cracked, but his father had built a crude wooden rack to lay a slat of wood in and bar the door from opening. They would have to keep it on all the time now. Couldn’t take anymore chances like that.

**

His mother had thought she could run outside to check the shed without being seen. It hadn’t been quite dark yet, but the light was fading. She had said she would be quick. She wouldn’t listen to her son’s disagreements. He had stood by the open door, waiting for her. Listening. He had strained his eyes to the distant hills, looking for movement in the near twilight. His ears tuned to hear anything other than his mother’s footsteps. Steady footsteps. Healthy footsteps. She had suddenly appeared before him, startling him slightly as his eyes were focused on the distance. She was holding a armful of lamp oil jugs and some candles. Before he could reach to help her, he saw the man come up behind her. He seemed to ease out of the gloom, as if born by it. He was only a few feet behind her, a few feet from the door. He must have heard her coming from the shed. The moment he stepped forward, the boy screamed. His mother dropped the jugs and raced inside. The creature let out a horrid moan. A long, wrenching wail, and he saw the other man move from behind the willow tree on the side of the yard. The man had called to the other...and he had come.

He had wrapped his mother’s shoulder in gauze- the last roll left- and then he had gotten to work on boarding up the windows. Well, finishing the job, anyway. His father had started it. With only one good arm, it had taken him nearly two days. He never stopped, never slept. When the last window on the downstairs was nailed down, he had collapsed to the ground and slept. In the corner of the living room, next to the couch he had slept until his mother had found him. She was overrun by fever at that point. He saw the blood still soaking through her robe on her shoulder. The bite wasn’t healing. He had poured the entire bottle of rubbing alcohol on it, desperation overcoming his earlier rationale. Tears welled up in his eyes as his mother screamed in agony. His stomach turning as he looked at the wound, smelled the growing stench of decay coming from it. It was over now. It wouldn’t be long. He had to walk her back to her bedroom and lay her back onto her sweat soaked sheets. He remembered he had stumbled back into the hall as his world collapsed. He had sunk to the floor and wept until he fell back asleep.

Shaking his head back to the present now, he stared at the particleboard covering the kitchen window. Despite his primal need for sunlight-just a ray would satisfy him at this point-he didn’t dare remove it. Not an inch. It wasn’t simply because he feared they would hear or see and try to pry their way back in again. No, it faced the backyard. His father was buried there, under the oak tree. He had pushed the last of the earth on top of him himself. It must have been four weeks ago now. It was before the electric had gone down. His mother couldn’t help him and he hadn’t wanted her to. He had only the one axe to protect him while he dug and couldn’t concentrate on keeping another person alive, let alone himself while he worked. She hadn’t been speaking to him at that point anyway. Her only son had killed her husband, split his head in two with that very axe. She hadn’t talked to him for nearly a week after that. She just kept scrubbing the floor by the front door, where the blood had stained deep into the wood. He understood her anger, and he often broke down when he replayed the events that now stained in his mind. As he had finished covering his father under mounds of hard, cold dirt, he knew he could never do this again-physically or emotionally. And he wouldn’t do this to her. Never. Not his mother.

The outbreak was well into its second month at that time. His mother and father had decided not to pack up and move to the military reservation set up in Wayne County. His father had always been a gritty, self-reliant model of machismo, and was confident they could protect their home and live off the canned foods and gardens if need be. They lived in the rural farmlands of Upstate New York. Their neighbors were literally miles away for the most part. They were isolated. Safe. He couldn’t fault his father for thinking that, not even now. At the time, the outbreak was still considered a pandemic, but one that would be contained in due time. After all, it was just sick, violent people infected with a virus. Their numbers were growing exponentially, but they seemed so ridiculous, even harmless when the news footage first started rolling in. Staggering through the streets, looking like death itself. Their movements were slow and uncoordinated, they seemed to be delusional and incapable of communicating. Like it was some kind of rabies that made them just as stupid as it did violent. They all saw the footage, and like many, were lulled into a false sense of security as the newscasters, military personnel, and constant parade of political figures repeated that the situation was under control, or would be shortly. Every few days, the reports had gotten worse.

First the pundits began to stop towing the line and claimed the situation was out of control. Only a few days later, the CDC and the federal government came out with their own dire predictions. They admitted that containment had failed virtually nation-wide, only a few remote towns and cities around the country were considered “safe” or untouched by infection. Martial Law was declared across the country, with the National Guard moving in to all major cities. The officials still refused to answer the questions and claims that had been spreading first on the Net, then to editorials in papers, and eventually to the mouths of TV pundits: these infected, these mad, violent people, were dead-dead but moving. Attacking. Even as the government denied the accounts and claims, new footage began to roll in on news networks. Footage of people firing on the sick, but they would not fall, not for long anyway. He remembered seeing one infected getting shot in the chest by a shotgun, almost point blank range.

The cameraman, some guy with a handheld standing next to his buddy, never wavered. The infected man flew back into the street and stayed down...for a few seconds. Then he was twitching, moving...then slowly standing. He began walking toward the camera again, his face slack, mouth open, eyes clouded. A hole in his chest so big you could see through it. There was no heart, no lungs left, just gore and some bone. No one could live through that. But he walked. Before the footage cut out, he heard both men yelling, one of them was crying. Really crying. His mother had walked out of the living room. His dad had shut the TV off and never watched it again after that. But he did-for at least the next few weeks until everything went off the air. Right before that, tons of footage similar to that was being shown almost continuously. It was an infection, but something no one had ever seen. It was hard to believe it when you saw it on TV. At the end, the President himself made an appearance on all the channels, with some of the CDC standing next to him.

It was probably scarier than anything he had seen on TV before that. Neither his father or mother would watch, but he was glued to the screen as a haggard old man who didn’t look like he could lead a group of twenty to a bathroom, was telling the whole country that “all major systems are or have broken down.” He said much of the military had been infected, and they could no longer be counted on to defend or clear cities from infection. He said all forms of communication would likely be going down soon, as would power and all other utilities in time. He didn’t even feign hope. Things were not going to get better, and there was no one left to help. The infection had spread world-wide. There wasn’t even a mention of a treatment or cure or vaccine. He didn’t answer any questions. He remembered his final words were about, “every American digging back to our historical roots”, and becoming, “self-reliant and stead fast” or something. He was basically telling every man, woman, and child in America- in the world-that they needed to band together, get their guns and canned food, and take care of this themselves.

They were on their own.

He often thought about where the President went after that conference-wondered if he was still alive somewhere. The television signals all went down a few days after that; cable and satellite-nothing. Internet slowed to a trickle then went down completely as there was no one to tend the giant infrastructure anymore. People crashed the servers looking for help and information, and there was no one left to fix them. Cell phones became useless for the same reasons. Landline telephones lasted a little longer, but went dead within a week of that last telecast. Oddly, it was radio that lasted the longest. A precious few stations kept broadcasting government public service announcements, possible locations of military strong holds, survival tips. Ham radios became a very brief boon for non-filtered, real-time info. But all too brief, as power began to go out nation-wide. Gas shortly after. That was it. Everyone was alone

He realized he had been leaning against the kitchen counter for some time. He didn’t feel hungry anymore. He grabbed a package of graham crackers from the pantry anyway and walked back down the hallway outside his mother’s room-sitting back down on the old wooden chair again. He had re-checked the inventory this morning. He probably had enough food to last another two weeks. He was guessing, but that’s all anyone was probably doing at this point. He brought a cracker up to his lips before a waft of odor from his mother’s room crept through the doorframe and hit his nose. He nearly vomited from the smell as he put the cracker back down. He would have to hang some more air fresheners up in her room. He thought there might be another package in the basement. He had already filled the room with every scented candle and bag of potpourri his mother had owned. He might have to duck tape the door soon.

Another loud thud against the wall startled him, followed by the sound of the bedsprings creaking. She was awake.

He lay in his bed, eyes half open. His mother’s banging had grown so loud he had to leave the hall. Before, he had thought it was because she was angry. Then he figured it was hunger-he was close on that one. He now knew what it was: she could smell him. Even through all the piles of scented claptrap scattered about her room and floor, she could smell him through the door. Once she got a sniff, she wouldn’t stop banging and struggling. Not until he walked away for a while. She didn’t actually sleep, though he called it that. She just seemed to stop moving if there was nothing to stimulate her. Like she was dead. He had once thought she had died and rushed into her room and to her side. She wasn’t. He nearly found out the hard way.

His eyes continued to close as the house again grew quiet. He used to welcome sleep. Not anymore. Now sleep meant he was vulnerable, meant he couldn’t keep an eye on the house-or his mother. It also meant more nightmares. Almost every time. Seeing his father’s face-his vacant, dead face. He never bothered praying anymore before he closed his eyes. As far as he could see, God was dead. Or there never was a God.

“-GODDAMMIT! GODDAMMIT! Mary, get in here now!” his father screamed as he slammed the front door behind him. His son rounded the corner into the living room as his father pushed the wooden slat into its braces. Blood streamed from his right hand and forearm, puddling on the floor. His father quickly turned and caught his son’s eyes.

“Dammit, get some towels...and stay away from the windows! One of them is out there!” he yelled.

“Oh Jesus, Frank! You’re bleeding!” his mother yelled as she came down the steps.

“Just stay away from the windows!” he barked. “I knew those pieces of crap would make their way out here at some point.”

“What happened, dad? Where-”

“He bit me, dammit! Never saw him coming. Never heard the fucker. I was cutting wood and then he was on me. Bit me twice before I could throw him off. Stay away from the window, dammit!”

The boy stepped back from the side window. He couldn’t see anyone in back. Maybe he left. Or maybe he was walking around the house.

“Here, I have some towels!” said his mother as she came running back down the stairs. She wrapped his arm several times while he held them tight.

“I’ve gotta go back out there. We can’t have him walking around the house, and the axe is still out there.”

“I’ll go, dad”

“The hell you will. I want you sitting on that couch and not moving unless I say so. I don’t need you to-”

His mother let out a sudden scream and pointed to the front window. The man stood there looking in. His eyes were milky white, like moldy fruit. Blood dripped from his mouth and down to his stained shirt-his father’s blood. He didn’t look....he didn’t look real. His body looked so saggy and rotten-like rubber. He was so pale; his skin had no color. His clothing was in tatters. One arm. He only had one arm. Like it had been torn off. Bitten off. The bone protruded out from the shoulder. As if reacting to the scream, it opened its mouth in its own silent wail, then brought its rotted teeth together in a crunching snap. It moved toward the window. “Everyone stay back!” his father yelled as he unbolted the door and ran out onto the front lawn. “Close the door and bolt it! Now!” He froze for a moment, the man turning to meet his father’s gaze. “You sick fuck! Come on!” he yelled and started to back away from the house.

The man, the infected thing, began walking toward him in that slow, sloppy gate. His father backed around the house when he saw it was following. He and his mother watched his father through the windows, running to each one as his father lured the man back to the rear yard, back to the wood pile...and the axe. It was the best weapon they had.

Despite their rural setting and his father’s traditional hard-knocks upbringing in farm country, they did not own a gun. Not a shotgun. Not a pistol. Not anymore. His father had removed them all from the house and from their lives after his little brother had found dad’s Remington and shot himself in the lower leg. The damage was horrific. When a four-year-old shoots off a shotgun at such an angle, the gun flies from his little hands, his body is sent twirling backwards at a violent arc of nearly five feet, and the bottom half of his little leg is sent into the hallway in bits and pieces. They all heard the shot, but the nearest hospital was nearly thirty minutes from where they lived. And his little brother was dead before they even got him to the car; blood loss and shock. And that was that-no more guns and a lot less life in the house. The axe was the best they had, and it was still in the backyard.

“Let me help him, mom! I can run faster than him!” the boy yelled.

“Don’t you move! Don’t you move from this room! Your father will handle this.” She could barely speak those words, not through all the tears choking her.

They ran to the back window and saw his father picking up the axe in front of the woodpile. His arm was dripping blood profusely, the towel wraps discarded. The infected man came into view, slowly dragging itself toward him. They could only see his back from this angle-his shirt torn, that pale, rubber skin showing through. They could see his father yelling something to the man as he lifted the axe over his head. The man didn’t even pause in his uneasy pace. His father’s face turned red. He was yelling something, warning him. The man continued to walk forward, his arm beginning to rise.

His father brought the axe down. It sunk deep into the man’s skull as he crumpled to the ground. His mother gasped and stepped back from the window, pulling her son back with her. His father yanked the axe out and brought it down again, driving it into the man’s back. He pulled it out again and then sunk back against the pile of wood. He stared at the still body before him then he started crying. He had never seen his father cry, not since his brother had died. It had been years. His shoulders shook and his head hung low. He seemed to be mouthing something to himself and he ran his hands through his hair. After a moment, he jumped up, quickly looked around and grabbed the man’s arm, dragging him toward the shed. His father disappeared behind it for a moment, the infected man’s corpse in tow. Then he was sprinting back to the house with the axe in his hand.

As he came back in, his mother met him with more towels and immediately began wrapping his arm tight.

“Go get some rubbing alcohol and some gauze for your father...quickly!” she yelled.

As he ran up the stairs, he looked down at his father sitting on the couch. He looked pale and tired, his eyes staring off and vacant, as his wife worked on him. Deep in shock. The axe dropped from his hand, heavy to the floor. His father looked beaten.

Nearly a week later, he was running back down those stairs. His mother’s screams had again ripped through the quiet house, sending ice through his veins. He paused at the landing, staring into the living room. His stomach gave and he vomited across the front of his shirt.

His father stood in the middle of the room. He had cast off the blankets that they had piled upon him to fight the fever, hoping he would sweat it out. The gauze wrapping hung from his arm, soaked with dried blood and some yellowish liquid. The smell had already permeated the air. His mother screamed again, screamed her husband’s name as she backed away into the hall in front of her son. His father slowly turned to face them, his head lolling slightly to one side, his skin white. His eyes were sunken and milky. They did not blink. His jaw hung slack and he slowly exhaled a groan as he began walking toward them.

“He’s infected, mom! He has it! He’s one of them!” the boy yelled.

“No, no, no...Frank, no, baby....” his mother mumbled, falling to the floor.

He ran to the front door before his father could reach either of them and picked up the axe leaning against the doorframe. He turned to face his father, raising the tool above his head.

“NO! Don’t you touch him! Don’t you touch him!” his mother blurted.

At first, he thought she was yelling at his father as he stumbled toward them. But as he glanced quickly at her eyes, he saw she was speaking to him.

“Don’t you hurt my husband! Don’t you touch him!” she yelled now, standing.

“Mom, we...we can’t help him. There’s nothing we can do...”

She rushed at her son and grabbed at the axe in the air, trying to wrestle it from his grip. The father reached out his hands and took another step toward them both, his mouth opened wide, wider than should have been possible.

“Mom, let go...LET GO!”

His father’s hand grabbed his shirt. The boy kicked at his father’s knee, then his stomach, throwing him off balance. He continued wrestling with his mother’s grip and trying to send his father to the ground, his hand still pulling at his son’s shirt, tearing it at the collar.

“Let go! MOM, LET GO!” he screamed as he slapped her across the face, sending her to the floor. He turned to his father, nearly up to his knees and reaching again for his son. He wanted to bite him. His father wanted to kill him. His own father-

“Not my father. You’re not my father!” as he brought the axe up again.

His mother let out one last yell of defiance as he brought it down on his father’s head, driving it down to his nose. It sounded like a tree being split. His father’s corpse held still for a moment then fell to the floor, a last moan seeming to escape from his dried lips. The boy backed against the wall and ran to his mother, whose eyes were stuck on her dead husbands body, thick black blood pouring from his open skull onto the hardwoods.

“Mom. Mom. We need to-”

“Don’t you touch me,” She slid away from him on the floor, holding an accusing finger at him. “Do not touch....me.” He stood there, frozen in place as his mother crawled to her husband’s corpse and wept quietly while she stroked his back.

**

He opened his eyes slowly. A slit of morning light was peeking through the boarded-up window in his room. He laid there for some time, he didn’t know how long, and lost himself staring at that beautiful orange glow. He tried to simply stay focused on that light-on the wonderful grogginess of sleep. Nothing else existed except the past; to remember and live in the now glorious past.

He could hear his mother’s voice. His brother asking how to fix his toy airplane.

“You have to fit these little pegs into the hole on the wing...see?”

“Yeah.”

“And you can’t shake it so much, Josh. I’ll glue it for you later.”

His mother laughing at that stupid show she always watched on Fridays.

“These jokes are terrible, mom. I don’t even get it. Why do you laugh at this stuff?”

“It’s from a different time, honey. You’re not gonna get most of it. Just like I don’t get that terrible music you listen to.”

“Yeah right, there’s nothing wrong with my music. I have something called good taste.”

“Is that what you call it? I thought maybe you were going deaf. Well that’s a load of my mind.”

He tried to hang on to all of it; to stay in that blurry place-to keep remembering. A sudden moan from his mother’s room proved that fleeting.

He jumped up and listened again. Louder this time-that deep, incessant moaning. His mother had slipped out of her gag. Something must have roused her. He bounced out of his bed, ignoring the ice-cold air and the chill of the hardwood floor on his feet.

The moaning would bring others. He knew that now. That’s partly why he had gagged her in the first place. Her moaning had brought Mr. Williamson’s dead body from over the hill only a week ago, a couple other bodies of those he did not recognize came with him. His farm was nearly three miles away. He must have been roaming the fields when he heard his mother, his own moans answering her in some way no one could understand.

He had to kill all three of them himself, with the axe, after he gagged her. His fourteen-year-old arms were like wet noodles when he was finished. They had hung by his side, useless, as he had fallen to his knees in exhaustion, vomiting profusely. He had laid on the cold grass for nearly an hour before he could walk back inside. If more came, he wouldn’t be able to stop them. He just was not strong enough.

He ran to her door and turned the key still in the lock. With one hard push from his shoulder, the door flung open and he tumbled inside. His feet trampled and cracked hard wax from long-spent candles and dried potpourri. He turned and looked at his mother, tied to the bed, twenty car air-fresheners in their patented tree shape hung from the ceiling over her. Her feet were still held tight by the old leather dog collars, but one of her hands was free from the rope he had used, and she had used that hand to pull the gag from her putrid mouth.

As he entered the room, her head was already cocked toward him, she had smelled his flesh from the hallway. He froze in her white-eyed gaze. Her pale skin had gone a sickly yellow; patches of green and brown where it was literally festering. She had thrown the sheets off, revealing her frail, spindly body. Nearly every bone was pushing its way through her skin, like tattered parchment pulled tightly over rusted steel. The second she saw him, her mouth opened wider than humanly possible, an audible crack as a tendon snapped, a nauseating moan emanated from deep within her throat.

He took two steps toward her and then turned and vomited upon the floor, the vulgar stench matched only by the vision of his mother’s once angelic face now tattered and rotten, the hair strewn about her pillow, her brown teeth nashing as she continued to wail. He wiped his mouth and the tear running down his cheek as he reached for her flailing arm, pinning it against the headboard and wrapping the rope around it again, tighter this time. Her skin split as he tightened the knots around the post. She flailed and arched her back, then strained her entire form to get her dry jaws closer to his flesh. It was as if her entire body had reformed itself for one pure purpose: to reach him-to bite him. He could hear more tendons snap, bones fracture. She moaned and screamed. He saw a dark green lump in her throat that must have been her tongue. He grabbed the rag that had served as her gag and quickly ducked behind the head board and came up behind her, descending the taught rag in front of her face and pulling back hard as it sunk into her mouth and pulled against her jowls. He held her tight as she flailed, quickly tying the knot behind her bald skull. As he pulled his fingers away, dead skin and stands of hair came with it. A dark liquid slowly made its way down his wrists. He wiped them on the drapes and he ran to the window and looked. And waited. Waited to see in any of them had heard her.

He sat there for nearly thirty minutes, he guessed. His mother hadn’t stopped struggling, not once. She never did when he was in the room. He wondered where her energy came from; she hadn’t eaten anything since turning. He had tried to feed her-tried to feed her everything. He knew she was dead, or dead in some sense. She was one of them. Everything that she was seemed to be gone now. She was just an animal; a raving, savage animal that only wanted to feed. But not on the canned food he had brought her. Not on the few scraps of bread or even meat he had left in the ice cooler. She wanted him. His flesh. It was the only thing her white eyes would see, all she would focus on. She wanted to bite his flesh.

He knew all of this, but as time wore on, he stopped seeing it. He refused, now. Save for some momentary lapses, his fives senses that showed what was lying in that bed was no match for the loving memories in his heart. While he would see and smell the rot for a moment, it was quickly replaced by the memory of his mother smiling at him when he got home from school, joking with him during dinner, holding him while he wept when John Davis had poured milk over his head after school. The skin on those rotted hands were still the hands that held his at the grocery store when he was a child and held him close during a thunderstorm.

Killing her now would probably save his life, or at least save it for now. It would keep the others away, get the infection out of his house. Give him a chance. But it was not an option for him. Not now, not ever. He had killed his father, and with him, killed a piece of himself. He could not do that again. He said that to himself, as he stood staring out the window onto the grey, cold landscape. And he repeated it again, with just as much conviction, when he saw the first of the infected start shambling over the hills.

Hours had passed. He counted forty-eight infected outside the house. They had just walked around the property at first, seemingly aimless but still keeping in a constant perimeter of where they last heard his mother’s moan-the moan of their own. Someone had called to them, and they would not leave until they got their prize. Even now, they all tried to answer-their dry, rotted throats bellowing that terrifying sound.

In only the last hour, they must have picked up his scent. Perhaps a slight gust of air that carried through a boarded-up window through a small crack. The boy could only guess, but now the incessant banging had begun. They were weak, but they were many. All of the windows were shattered. The plywood was beginning to buckle. The front door groaned as more walking cadavers pushed against the wood and old metal hinges.

He sat now, at the foot of his mother’s bed. Not entirely used to the rotted stench, but no longer caring. He held the axe across his lap. He didn’t have long now. No one would come for him. He knew he could not keep them out for much longer. He knew he could not fight them all. He had cried with terror at first, running from window to window, pushing back on the plywood that barely held back the growing swarm-his heart beating through his chest. Wanting to cry out for help that would never come. Slowly, though, his terror dissipated. It was not acceptance...but rather numbness. Perhaps this is what many feel when the fight is done, and all there is left to do is wait. Without turning to look at her, he spoke aloud to his mother:

“What do I do? Mom, what do I do?”

He could barely hear his own voice over the moaning and banging outside the house, let alone the thrashing of his mother on the bed. Her hands were working loose from the ropes again, her skin tearing away clear to the tendons and bone.

“I don’t want to leave you. I promise I’m not scared anymore. I’m not. I know I’m going to die. I-I’m just not strong enough to stop them. I just...don’t want to leave you.” He turned slowly to face her, dropping the axe to the floor. He met her white, dry eyes...filled with violent hunger, no hint of recognition. But that is not what he saw. He continued to only see the woman who raised him, who loved him.

“Will they hurt you, mom? I don’t want them to hurt you. But I....I can’t....”

He broke down again, sobbing deeply. Few tears fell as he was badly dehydrated now. His own breath crept out in white plumes in the freezing house. “I can’t protect you. What do I do? How do I-”

He already knew the answer- his only real option. It had been dwelling in his head for weeks now. He knew, even at his youthful age, how it would all play out. Whether he wanted it to or not.

A loud crunch echoed through the house, coming from the living room. They had broken through one of the windows. He could hear the wet flap of bodies falling into house onto the cold, wooden floor. He jumped up and pushed the dresser in front of the door, followed by her small writing desk.

“She’s my mother! Mine! You can’t....she’s mine!” he screamed through the door, then falling to his knees in exhaustion. He was so weak and cold now, but he would not leave his mother. She was his. He was hers. He would not leave without her. Never leave her. Ever.

He stood and walked around the foot of the bed, his footsteps unsteady, kicking the axe out of the way.

“You won’t be alone, mom. I promise. I’ll come with you....”

His throat choked up as he cried invisible tears. His body trembled as he took off his coat and dropped it to the floor. The footsteps were coming down the hall. Their wails were like sirens. Deafening. He rolled up his sleeve bearing is forearm.

“I’ll come with you. I won’t leave you. I promise. We promised.”

He grabbed at her gag and pulled it off her head in one quick movement, her jaws instantly snapping at his hand. Her body arched and cracked toward him.

“Okay. It’s okay...”

He thrust his bare skin in front of her face and closed his eyes as he felt her cracked, rotten teeth close down like a vice. He would not scream. He would be strong. He felt his blood drip down his arm as his mother thrashed her head, tearing the meat from the bone. He pulled his arm away and quickly wrapped it in a sheet, the blood soaking through instantly. He pressed with whatever strength he had left on the wound, his mother’s appetite only wetted, as she swallowed her son’s flesh. He staggered back into the corner as he heard the others banging on the bedroom door. They sounded weak, though. The barricade would hold for a while. Already he felt the burning in his arm carrying up to his shoulder, even as more blood leaked out. He could feel the virus move.

“It’s okay, mom. I’m coming with you. You won’t be alone....”

He put his head down, the violent noises all around him drowning out as his body began to shut down. He closed his eyes and waited. Now he had all the time in the world.

“I love you.”

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