His bottom lip pulls under, he bites the inside of his cheek. His eyes well again, the redness returning to his face.
“Out of nowhere that girl was attacking them. Just thirty seconds earlier she was a helpless mess, and now she was, she was...”
He trails again, his chest quivering. He wipes his face and snorts.
“The guy who brought her out of the car was on the ground, and she was on top of him, biting and clawing his face. One of the other people that was helping hit her in head. He hit her again and again, until she collapsed. She laid on the ground for maybe three or four seconds before she popped right back up, then rushed that guy. It stopped me in my tracks. The others there were yelling at him to stop, but, no one knew what was going on.
“He turned to them to say something and that little girl jumped on him. They pulled her off and tried to hold her back, but she wouldn’t stop. She kept kicking at them until they let her go. She jumped at a woman, caught her as she tried to run. The little girl knocked her down and started hitting her in the head, just clubbing her, over and over. Then, like a fucking bad horror movie or something, another person crawled out of the top car. He was screaming and gurgling. He jumped at the few people still standing near the wreck. He tackled one, and...”
His throat catches him, stopping up his words, his strength to continue failing him. Kylie’s mouth drops, her cheeks glisten the same as his. A long pause hangs between them. Markus sighs. A defeated gush of air exiting his body. He continues.
“I didn’t understand what was happening, I-I still don’t, not really. I headed back to the car, and some guy grabbed me from behind. He ripped my shirt trying to pull me to him. I grabbed him and shoved him over the median, then ran to the car. I was lucky I was in the far right lane, it was easy to speed out of there. It’s chaos out there right now, people are going crazy everywhere. On my way out of the city the violence slowed down a lot, but, it’s coming here. We can’t stay. We have to leave, we have to.”
Her face stretches out, her hand covers her mouth as the realization sets in. She whimpers at the thought of what this means for them and for their child. Her chest convulses as she tries to speak, to comfort her husband, to quell her own concerns, but she is able to mutter only two words.
“Oh, God!”
CHAPTER THREE
The morose hand moves up and down, up and down. Each time with more flesh and blood dripping between its decayed digits. There is a palm covering the little girl's mouth. Her eyes are fixed on her mother. The girl knows not to scream. The caretaker does not wince, she does not squirm, but she holds her hand tightly over her youngest daughter’s mouth.
There is so much blood. It’s spilling from her mother’s stomach, coating the ground, and smothering her tiny hand. It feels sticky and gross. She doesn’t scream, but she does cry. Her tears stream down her rigid face as she lay still next to her mother. The diseased doesn’t seem aware of her presence, at least not yet. The attention of the monster is fully held by the insides of the little girl's squirming mother. Suddenly, a light shines into the tent.
“Mom?!”
It’s not so much a question as it is a cry of disbelief, a refusal to accept the situation at hand. The little girl breaks her gaze from her mother to see her older sister standing at the entrance of their tent. Her older sister's face is stretched wide, riddled with fear. She screams, piercing and full of anguish.
The diseased turns its attention to the entrance, to her sister. It howls a wicked gurgle of evil. Her sister leaps forward and smashes the flashlight against the head of the blood soaked beast. The instrument bounces off the head of the monster and falls to the ground. The screams from the beast halt, its hands stretch out to the older sister. The panic stricken woman quickly grabs the shirt of the infected and pulls it to her. Her knife wedges under its jaw before its head can angle down to her arms. It slumps back against the side of their tent. The older sister drops to her knees next to their mother.
“Please, no, please, no, no, no.” her sister pleads with her mother, with God, with anyone who will listen.
Her body shakes violently as she kneels over their mother. Her hands frantically move about in the air, unsure of where she should touch or apply pressure. Their mother’s lips move but nothing comes, only short bursts of gasping. The little girl lays frozen, her mother’s hand still over her mouth.
Her sister’s sobs have reached a level of fits and her words are no longer discernible. Their mother’s gasps begin to form a letter.
“R...r...run, run, run....” she trails off into a struggle of wheezes, her hand loosens.
“No, no, no. M...mom...mom...” the distraught sister begs.
Her sister’s sobs have turned to hyperventilating as she herself struggles to allow air through. The light from her sister’s flashlight shines past the little girl, and against the wall of the tent behind her. It’s not as bright as it should be, something is breaking the light. The little girl slowly turns her head away from her sister to see hands running along their tent, pressing against
