Chapter 07
A Mother’s Love
The shrill ring of my phone startled me and Daphne bounced in the air when I jumped in surprise. I took one more forlorn look at Alicia and dug into my pocket, chastising myself for forgetting it was there. It took what seemed like forever to get to the phone, and I feared the caller would hang up before I answered. Kat’s number flashed across the screen, a photo of her and her two little girls smiled back at me without a care in the world. Hitting send, I gasped into the phone, “Kat, Kat I’m here. Thank God you’re okay. Where are you?”
Kat sobbed into the phone, “Emma, I need help.” She took a few deep breaths and continued on. “Last night, at the grocery store, someone bit Sara. The store was in chaos. We barely made it out of the car before a guy covered in blood rushed us. I tried to hit him with the car door when he came at us and he fell, but then… then.” A fresh wave of sobs echoed out of the speaker.
“I was turning to get the girls back in the car, he grabbed Sara’s ankle and bit it. I tried to get her to the hospital for a tetanus shot or something, but all the entrances were cordoned off and I couldn’t get through. I went straight home and disinfected it as best I could and didn’t know what else to do. So I gave her some Motrin and put her and Lilly to bed.”
A wave of nausea came over me then. Sara and Lilly shared a room. Sara was bitten, and Lilly was closed in the room with her. Kat caught her breath and went on, but I knew I didn’t want to hear anymore. I knew how this nightmare ended.
“A couple hours later we heard Lilly screaming. We thought she was having a nightmare, but when Sam opened their door Sara was on top of her. She was still tucked under the blankets, and there was blood everywhere. Sara had ripped the skin right off her back and was eating it. She wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing. She was dead, Emma. I swear to God she was dead. And then she just… wasn’t.
“She came at me, but it wasn’t her. I know it wasn’t my baby. She looked dead, and all that blood. I pushed her away from me and right into Sam. They killed him. Ate him alive as I stood there and did nothing to help, but he got back up too.” Kat dissolved into hysterics and I couldn’t make out what she was saying.
“Kat,” I said in a soft soothing tone. “Calm down. Where are you right now?”
“I ran to Sam’s office and locked myself in. I can hear them beating on the door trying to get to me. I’m scared. I moved the desk in front of the door but I don’t think it’ll hold them.”
“Did they bite you, Kat?”
“No, they were focused on Sam.” A muffled cry came through the phone as she spoke the words.
“I’m on my way to your house. Find a way to block the door better and stay away from the windows. It’s not any safer outside. We’ll be there in ten minutes. And, Kat, I’m sorry about your family.” I hung up and looked at Jake. The color had drained from his face and his eyes were wide. I explained to him what Kat had said. “We have to. We can’t let her rot in a room alone and get eaten by her own family.”
I loved Jake more in that moment than I think I had ever before. He didn’t question me, didn’t fight me on it, he just put the car into gear and drove.
The drive to Kat’s was slow going. The rain had worsened and it covered the windshield in a constant sheet that made it near impossible to see more than ten feet in front of us. Gusts of wind strong enough to move the entire car made it even more difficult to navigate the roads. There were bodies, too. The lucky ones littered the streets inert, too mangled to get back up, while the reanimated population of our rural town shambled without direction. They meandered between the abandoned cars, sidewalks, lawns, and through front doors. Every once in a while we passed crowds banging on the doors or windows of a house. This was what disturbed me the most. If I had learned anything it was that these zombies went after the living. Which meant there were people alive in those houses. The question was, for how long?
As the car passed them, they would take interest and start following, only to get distracted and forget about us when they realized we weren’t obtainable. And that was just fine with me. I turned to face Jake and Alicia. Alicia had cried herself to sleep in the back seat, and I decided to give her that little bit of peace.
“Jake,” I said softly, “we need a plan. I know the layout of Kat’s house. Sam’s office is next to the front door. If we can get the window open, we can pull her out without having to go in the house and face her family. Alicia is asleep. If the neighborhood looks clear, I don’t want to wake her. Plus, I don’t know what state of mind she’s in right now, and I don’t want to risk her losing it and getting herself or one of us hurt.”
Jake nodded his head in agreement but didn’t take his eyes off the road. He was dodging zombies like they were mines. Every once in a while, he bumped one and I felt a thump thump as we ran over it. Funny how fast the wincing from that action stopped as it became old hat.
We pulled onto Kat’s street and it looked clear. Her house was buttoned down with hurricane shutters just like ours. “Shit. We’re going to have to remove the shutters over the window in order to get her out. And we’re going to have to do it without attracting any unwanted attention,” I said.
I dialed Kat and waited for her to answer. She picked up on the first ring. “Emma, I can’t take it anymore. Tell me you’re close.”
“We are. We’re outside your house. Hang on just a little longer and we’ll get you out of there.” I relayed our plan to her before hanging up and told her to open the window when we got the shutters off. I dug around the glove compartment for anything I could use for tools but came up empty. “You’ll have to use the crowbar,” I told Jake.
Glancing back at the still-sleeping Alicia, I placed Daphne on the floor and we exited the car. Jake with the crowbar and me with the gun, we crept toward the house, our heads on a constant swivel for threats. The shutters were the same kind as ours—horizontal slats of aluminum overlapping each other from top to bottom and fastened with bolts. Once a shutter was in place, the bolts were tightened.
Jake started to pry the bottom shutter but stopped immediately when the sound of metal on metal echoed around us. “The noise is too loud. It’s going to draw too much attention to us,” he said. I pulled my rain soaked sweatshirt over my head and handed it to him.
“Wrap this around the crowbar. Maybe it’ll muffle the sound a bit.” The noise was still noticeable, but the sound of the storm drowned out the worst of it. The shutters were about a foot high each so we only needed to pull two off the window. I peered inside the house and saw Kat’s face looking back at me. She was a mess. Her eyes were red and puffy, and streaks of dried tears lined her face. She kept looking over her shoulder at the door and made panicked motions at us. I mouthed open the window to her and she started fiddling with the lock.
Jake was working on the second shutter, the last barrier in our way, when the window cracked open and Kat began pushing it up. It stopped after a few inches and wouldn’t budge. The shutter popped free and Jake threw it to the side.
“The window’s jammed,” said Kat. “It won’t budge.”
Jake and I added our efforts to the window to no avail. I pulled on the window with such strain that my nose, which had finally stopped gushing, started to bleed again, and the blood dripped into my mouth.
“Kat, listen to me. The window isn’t going to cooperate. We need to close it and break out the glass for you to get through.” As the last of the words exited my mouth, I heard the sound of a heavy object slide across the wooden floor.