“No, I couldn’t, but I just thought that maybe I would figure it out once I hit the water. Anyway…I didn’t. I remember my head going under and my arms flailing in every which way. I panicked, and I just knew I was going to die. But that’s when I felt a strong set of arms around me and I instantly stopped moving. It was Charles. He brought me to shore and wiped the hair away from my face.” Hattie sighed. “I didn’t even think about being embarrassed. I was just awestruck by him. He kept asking me if I was okay, but I couldn’t answer. He stood there bare-chested and muscly.” She glanced at me and pursed her lips. “Well, needless to say, I was taken by him. Next thing you know, we were married and had a baby.”
The story made me feel warm. I had never seen someone talk that way about another. Sure I had read stories and seen movies, but this was real. “I hope I can find someone like that someday,” I said.
Hattie took another sip of water and grabbed her cards from the table. “Oh, you will, Waverly. You will. You just have to remember that love has nothing to do with money or power or anything you see around you here. Your soul mate might be a poor man, but when you meet him that won’t matter. Your love for each other is all that will matter.”
I took a deep breath and was about to ask her if she had any twos when the phone rang. Hattie started to get up, but I was closer so I told her I would answer it. It rang three times before I picked it up.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Sweetie, you and Hattie need to lock all of the doors in the house and get into the basement, do you understand?” It was my dad.
“What?” I asked. Hattie immediately noticed the look of concern on my face, and she walked near me. I shook my head at her and shrugged. It almost sounded like a joke, but my dad never joked like this. He was always so serious. “What are you talking about? What’s happening? Where are you?”
“I’m in my office,” he said. I could hear loud popping noises in the background. Someone very near him screamed loudly.
“Dad, what’s happening?”
“I don’t have time to explain,” he said. “When you get down to the basement you can turn on the television, I’m sure this has to be on the news.”
“What’s on the news?” I asked.
“Sweetheart, just do as I say! When you get to the basement, call me back.” Then there was a click and we were disconnected.
Hattie stared at me with wide eyes. “Was that your father?”
“He said to lock all the doors and get into the basement. I… I… don’t understand.”
“Not much to understand,” Hattie said, grabbing my hand and squeezing it tightly. “Let’s just do what your father says and I’m sure everything will be all right.”
I felt frantic as we scurried through the house, locking every door to the outside. So many thoughts crossed my mind. I couldn’t help but think that it might have been terrorists, or a crazy storm coming our way, though popping noises and the screaming in the background didn’t sound like a storm.
I went to the front door and opened it, hoping to see a clue as to why my dad would sound so scared. I looked up and down our street only to see a few of the neighbors were closing their garage doors and running from house to house. It was as if the whole world knew something that I didn’t. I jumped when a hand touched my shoulder. I turned and saw Hattie. She looked from me to the street. It seemed as though she was planning to tell me to come inside, but she paused as well.
More of the popping noises echoed in the distance but I didn’t hear any screams this time. To our right, I could see more people running, this time sprinting away from something. I took a step forward. There were three people near the stop sign at the end of our road. Two of them were women, and one was a man. One of the women fell to the ground, perhaps twisting her ankle. The man bent down to help her, but he wasn’t getting up. I stepped out onto the porch even further and I saw that the man wasn’t helping her at all. The woman on the ground screamed out in pain as the man bit her ankle. The woman left standing just turned, crying her eyes out as the man ripped away tendons and flesh from her friend’s leg. I gasped loudly as I took it all in and Hattie’s arms wrapped around me as she saw it unfold.
“Get inside, Waverly,” she said slowly, pulling me away from the porch.
I didn’t protest. When we got inside, I slammed the door shut and locked the doorknob and deadbolt. I rested my back against the door and slid to the ground as hot tears rolled down the side of my face. “What was that? What did he do?” All I could see was a blurry, dark room with a form standing in front of me, shaking my shoulders, almost yelling for me to get to the basement.
Finally, I got up from the ground and Hattie led me to the basement door. There was no lock, but the house was secure, wasn’t it? We ran down the stairs and into the basement living room. With all the windows and a door to the outside, there were several exits down there and Hattie ran to each of them, making sure to lock them. I immediately walked toward the television and turned it on. Every channel displayed different versions of what I had just seen out in the street. The news anchors all seemed as spooked as I was.
“The question I have,” one of the anchors said, “is what are these things? They are people… but they aren’t! They are acting like vicious animals.”
“That’s right, and there have been multiple incidents,” a reporter said. “We had been tallying the reports from throughout the city, but now we’re into the hundreds, and we can clearly see that there is some unknown sickness that has taken over these people. Another thing to note is that we aren’t the only city experiencing this catastrophe. There have also been sightings in Conway, Elkhorn, and even Dawson Springs.”
“What are they saying?” Hattie asked as she walked up behind me.
I didn’t answer as the images of these disgusting people eating others filled the screen. All of them seemed so evil… and almost dead. One of the news stations showed a freeze-frame of one of them to show that his skin had turned an ashy, grey color and that his eyes were almost completely black. But no station offered an explanation.
The ringing phone in my hand made me jump. I cursed, remembering I should have called my dad. “Hello?”
“Sweetie, are you in the basement?”
“Dad, what are those things? Why are they doing that?”
“Are you in the basement?”
“Yes.”
“Is Hattie with you?”
My eyes flit to her. “Yes.”
“Good, put me on speakerphone.”
I pressed the button. “Okay.”
“Hattie,” my dad said.
“I’m here,” she said. “We are both safe and in the basement.”
“Hattie, in the basement sitting room there is a large, black safe, do you know it?”
“Of course,” she said.
“Go there.”
I followed Hattie into the sitting room until she made it to the safe. It was taller than I and could probably fit a person or two in it. I hoped he wasn’t about to ask us to hide in there. “Okay,” she said.
“I want you punch in the code. It’s 0-9-0-2-1-9-8-8.”
Hattie punched in the code on the keypad in the middle of the safe and the sliding lock slipped free allowing Hattie to swing open the heavy door. The first thing I saw was a row of guns — a mix of metal and wood — ready to kill. On the other side was a row of pistols, all shined and polished as though they had never been used before.