Woodbend, South Carolina had always been too small a town for Lucille Jensen. She's been stuck there her whole life, surrounded by gun-toting rednecks with unnecessarily loud trucks that had the most ridiculous looking lift kits on them. For Lucille, this town was a living nightmare. There was one of everything; one grocery store, one church, one gas station, one movie theater, et cetera. The town was founded sometime in the 1700's, and had been owned and occupied by the same families since then. It was the kind of town where everybody knew everybody, so if one person did anything, then everyone knew about it in a matter of minutes. Most of the residents of Woodbend were elderly people, and everyone knows how they like to gossip about anything and everyone.
Every time Lucile went anywhere, there were people that she knew on every street corner. It was a five minute drive to the grocery store from her house, and she'd see Mr. Eskew sweeping the sidewalk in front of his barber shop. She'd see Mr. and Mrs. Patterson changing the letters on the sign of their church to another bible verse. She'd see the Ellis twins outside playing with a ball while their dad sits on the porch, smoking a cigarette shirtless. Then, Lucille would finally get to the store and see plenty of other familiar faces, all of which would greet her by name and ask about various parts of her life, loading their gossip cannons with more ammunition. She was aware of this, however, and tried to be as vague as possible with her answers. Especially when Mrs. Bannister was around.
Delores Bannister was a "cranky old bitch," as Lucille tended to call her. She had lived to the ripe old age of ninety-one ... and she was still alive and kicking. Her face was dried out and wrinkled because of all the cigarettes she'd been smoking over the years, and her voice was deep and scratchy to match. She was the kind of woman to complain about literally anything. She'd order sweet tea at a restaurant, and it wouldn't be sweet enough. She'd buy a new car, the seats weren't squishy enough. She'd watch TV, the news stations wouldn't cover her favorite topics enough. Nothing was ever enough for that woman, and Lucille hated her for it. She'd briefly worked as a waitress at the one diner that Woodbend has, and she'd tell anyone that that was the worse experience of her life. Mostly because of Mrs. Bannister. Every time she'd come in for a meal, there was always something wrong. Her burger wasn't thick enough, her fries didn't have enough salt on them, or maybe her water had one less ice cube in it than she'd like. Either way, Lucille hated this woman with a passion. She'd always call her "Lucy," which she also hated.
In her mind, "Lucy" had always sounded dainty and feminine, which she absolutely was not, by any means. She had always been a tomboy growing up. As a kid, she'd usually go after the Hot Wheels and plastic dinosaurs rather than the Barbies and baby dolls. When she got older, it was the same story. She'd much rather play outside catching frogs in the mud than ... do whatever it is most "normal" girls do. Her dad, John, had been a firefighter Lucille's whole life, and that's exactly what she wanted to be when she got older. Most of her "friends" from school, if you could even call them that, had dreams of becoming fashion designers or "influencers" on social media. Not Lucille. She wanted to follow exactly in her dad's footsteps. After leaving her job as a waitress, she tried out for firefighting, but was turned down multiple times, due to the fire department being owned and operated by sexist old men.
"If it was up to me," her dad had said after her having been rejected for the fourth time "I'd have letcha join the first time you ever tried out. You're strong, and you can run fast. You'd be perfect for the job." Like everyone else in her family, he had a very strong southern accent, something Lucille had somehow never picked up.
"It's not that I'm not strong, it's that I'm..." Her voice trailed off as she tried to find yet another reason to accuse them of being sexist.
Her mom's voice chimed in after a second. "That you're five foot two with a cute, high pitched voice?" She chuckled at her own little joke, which Lucille didn't find very funny. Martha, her mother, had always been kind of a smartass. Always making jokes and poking fun at Lucille, something her dad did often as well. They both had the tendency to make jokes to diffuse situations that called for any kind of emotion, simply because they didn't know how to handle them.
Lucille rolled her eyes. "Yeah. That." She smiled and walked upstairs to her bedroom. Just glancing in there, someone would've guessed it was a teenage boy's room. The walls were painted black, and there were posters of sci-fi movies and heavy metal bands everywhere. Her bed had gray sheets on it, and her dresser wasn't able to shut properly, due to having t-shirts and jeans crammed into the drawers over the years. There was usually a part of a shirt or a pant leg hanging out of one of the drawers. On top of her slightly broken dresser was a small TV, which she never really used that much, because the one in the living room was bigger. She'd usually be in there watching a Marvel movie, or John Wick, but the past few days had been the same exact thing: coverage of the virus that had been going around.
That's all Lucille ever saw here lately. How many people had been infected, how many people had died, which celebrities were tested positive for it. She was, at the same time, sick of hearing about it, and also a little concerned as well. There were all these documentaries coming out called "Understanding the Red Virus" or something of a similar name. Lucille and her parents had tried to watch one of them before, but the scientists kept using all these big words that no one in the Jensen family could understand. What they could understand, however, was that it was an airborne virus, and a nasty one at that. If anyone had gotten infected, they started off with a raging fever that no amount of acetaminophen or ibuprofen could bring down. Once the fever incapacitated them, they started getting hungry all the time. Not like a "oh, I could go for a snack" hungry, but more along the lines of "I ate everything at a buffet, so I'm going to a second one" kind of hungry. They could eat their entire body weight, and still feel like they were starving to death. Among other symptoms, there were difficulty breathing, dizziness, nausea, and vomiting up blood, which was apparently a very common one, but that only seemed to happen right before someone passed away. Once that happened, they knew it was over.
Lucille had been in her room reading her favorite book about werewolves when her dad's voice thundered from downstairs, summoning her to the living room. She sighed as she closed her book and got off the bed, making her way downstairs. Her parents were standing in the living room, watching the TV above the fireplace very intensely. "What's up?" she asked them.
Without looking away from the TV, her dad pointed to it and asked "You seein' this shit? People are losin' their damn minds." When he said this, his thick black handlebar mustache moved in a strange way, like it usually did whenever he talked.
Stepping closer to hear better, the local news channel was showing the anchor sitting at her desk, looking very worried as she talked into the camera. When Lucille stepped close enough to hear, she understood perfectly well why the anchor looked so scared. "...not go outside. The president has declared a state of emergency, and issued a nationwide 'stay-at-home' order for all states, effective immediately, urging citizens to stay in their homes. He asks that you do not go outside for anything, even essentials. Officials say lockdown shouldn't last more than a few days, so please—" The news anchor was interrupted as the power of their house went out. Everyone jumped as the TV and the lights all went dark. Thankfully, it was daytime outside, so no flashlights were needed.
"Dammit," her dad said. "I'm going to check the breakers, see if I can reset 'em."
Lucille looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Didn't the news just say not to go outside, though?"
He laughed at her question and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, 'cause I'mma get murdered in my own backyard." He chuckled to himself, putting on his old, worn out Nikes.
Lucille walked over to him, concerned. "If they're saying its a national emergency, at least be—"
"Dammit, Lucille. Do you want the power back on, or not?" He had always had a short temper, something he had never been able to get under control.
She jumped at his sudden outburst. He usually said stuff like that, but it always managed to come out of nowhere and surprise her. She felt a lump in her throat as she struggled to keep her eyes from watering. John had looked at her for a second before saying "That's what I fuckin' thought, talkin' to me like that" and proceeding to unlock the back door. When he opened the door, Lucille noticed her neighbor, Darryl, standing perfectly still in his yard, staring at something across the street. Keeping the door open, he stepped outside onto the freshly rained on grass and walked over to the breaker box, struggling to open it up. This only seemed to make him mad, as he started to violently shake the door of it, hoping that brute force alone would get it open. All that seemed to do was make a series of very loud, metallic bangs, all of which rang in Lucille's head. Aside from the newly formed headache, she noticed Darryl looking over at him, watching him shake this box like a madman. "Can't get the damn thing open, Martha! It's stuck again!" he yelled out.
She let out a scoff and yelled back "well what do you expect me to do about it?!"
"HELP ME WITH THIS FUCKIN' THING, 'STEAD OF STANDIN' THERE WATCHIN' ME!"
She sighed and shook her head, giving Lucille a look that said "I'll be right back" and walked out the door.
Staying inside, Lucille was keeping an eye on Darryl, wondering why he was just staring over at their house. She could hear her parents outside talking, but couldn't make out what they were saying. After a few minutes of struggling, there was a loud metallic BANG as her dad exclaimed in joy. Martha walked back in the door covered in a thin layer of sweat as she came in and plopped down on the couch. Lucille saw Darryl move when the bang happened, and he started running towards the house frantically. "Hey mom, Darryl's on his way over, but he's running..."
Martha turned and put her arm over the back of the couch, looking out the window along with Lucille. They watched him run into their yard, but had to do a double take when he finally got to their chain link fence that surrounded their backyard. Darryl had ran smack into the fence and was roaring and snarling, trying to reach over. Getting up from the couch, they could both see that his eyes were completely white and his shirt had a very large splatter of blood on it.
At the sound of Darryl hitting the fence, John jumped and stood up, saying "Jesus Christ, you scared the shit out of—" His voice trailed off at the sight of his next door neighbor and long time friend. He had known Darryl for years, ever since he had bought the house next to thiers. He wasn't usually one to pull pranks, so this behavior was quite strange for him. Amidst all the growling, John managed to say "What the hell are you doing? You think you're a zombie or somethin'?" Darryl kept snarling and reaching for him over the fence, not even realizing he was being talked to. John gave a strange look as he started walking over to him. "Darryl?" he asked. The second he had gotten close enough, Darryl lurched forward just enough to grab onto John's arm, taking a large chunk out of his deltoid muscle. Screaming in pain, John held onto his arm, pouring blood all over the grass.
Simultaneously, Martha and Lucille both screamed at the top of their lungs. Martha ran to her husband's aid as Lucille remembered that her dad always kept a fireman's axe hanging in the hallway beside her parent's room. It was a gift from the fire department for John being with them for ten years. A sharp, shiny, brand new axe. Skipping every other step, Lucille bounded up the stairs and ran down the hallway. She reached for the axe, but before she even touched it, she heard her mom scream as loud as she could. Heart pumping as fast as it could go, she pulled the axe display hard enough that the entire thing was ripped off of the wall, taking some of the flower wallpaper with it. She slammed the display on the ground, shattering the glass and leaving the axe lying at her feet. She picked it up and ran back downstairs, headed for the door. When she got there, she stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of her mother lying on her back in the yard, her dad hunched over her. She called out "MOM?!" causing her dad's head to snap up and look at her. He was covered in blood, and his eyes had turned completely white, much like Darryl's. He stood up facing Lucille and held his arms out wide, roaring like some kind of animal she'd see in a nature documentary. Face filled with rage, he started sprinting towards her. She screamed and instinctively held the axe up, ready to swing at the perfect moment. He got right inside the door, snarling as she swung at him. Her attack landed with a wet crack as the axe blade was buried halfway into the side of her dad's head. He fell to the ground, ripping the handle from Lucille's hands.
In shock, her legs gave out as she started sobbing uncontrollably. She had just murdered her own father. Her whole body was shaking and she felt weak. Her stomach turned over as her throat filled with bile. Not even bothering to stop herself, she let it all go, retching and splattering it all onto the kitchen floor. Through the tears, she saw something moving out of the corner of her eye. She had almost forgotten about her mother...