Infection |Infected Book 1|

(5) Gone

"No problem, seriously. Anything you need, you let me know." He holds out the clothes for me to take.

"Um, how long was I out?" I ask, clutching the clothes in my hand. "I looked out the window and everything is calm." Aside from dead bodies.

"You slept for close to twenty-four hours. Dad and I got worried, but we figured you were just sleeping off...everything."

"Where did they all go? There were so many of them."

"We don't know, but we aren't going out there to check."

It is then that I notice the ends of my hair. It hangs over my shoulders, reaching halfway down my torso. All of it is red, like someone had taken my hair and dipped it in my loved ones' blood. My face turns clammy, the color draining from it, the scream I had been holding in bubbling to the surface.

"Shower?" Cody asks, distracting me. He eyes me, waiting for a confirmation.

I nod my head, biting the inside of my cheek. I swallow. But the knot will not go down.

~ ~ ~

I wish that I could have stayed in the shower longer as chills sweep up my body. A shower is just what I needed to clear my mind, but my wet hair and my shivering body make me think otherwise.

I dry my hair the best I can with the towel before opening the door to the hallway. A jumble of different voices reach my ears and I follow them down the hall to a staircase I hadn't seen when I first entered the house.

I stop at the head of the steps, my fingers gripping the wooden railing so hard that my knuckles turn white. My mother is crawling up towards me, her hands leaving bloody prints on the wood, her black eyes glaring into mine with nothing but hunger.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

But I can't. I open my mouth, trying to gulp down air that won't come.

My mother crawls closer and closer, her fingers reaching to claw my ankles. My chin trembles, the corner of my eyes stinging with tears. I blink, and she is gone. No blood is left behind, no snarls echoe in the air. She was never even there—just a figment of my imagination. And I will never see her again.

My knees wobble, but I shake my head clear and continue down the stairs. I refuse to look at the steps where I had seen my mother. Instead I look at the pictures that line the walls.

A family—a man, woman, and their son smile at me as I pass in front of them. The boy is Cody. I can tell from the light eyes and the dark hair that matches the woman's. He looks so much like her—his mother. His dad looks the exact same as he does now, except his eyes turn down more and look hopeless.

I reach the bottom of the stairs and follow the trail of voices into a large living room. Varied lengths of brown leather couches span the room with a crimson rug in the middle of the wood floor. An unlit fireplace is embedded in the opposite wall.  The ceiling is high and arched. In another life, I would be obsessed with the interior, but not when everything had gone to hell in a blink.

Several pairs of eyes lock onto me.

I spot Cody instantly as he rises from the longest couch. Everyone else stays seated and silent. I know their eyes are assessing me, judging me and the screams of mine I'm sure they heard yesterday.

Then Cody is at my side, his fingers grazing my elbow. He guides me to sit on the couch next to him, the leather cool against my back through the thin shirt I am wearing.

The eyes are still watching me.

"Everyone," Cody announces. "This is..." He looks to me, a small smile tugging at his lips. "Help me out here."