Afterbirth (30 page)

The stained glass windows of St. Margaret’s cathedral sparkled. The day was the first warm one in over two weeks. The sun burned at John’s back and his muscles ached from digging. He wiped his face on his sleeve and wished for a breeze.

“You sure you don’t want help?” Zach asked.

John looked up at him, clean-shaven and wearing fresh clothes, and shook his head. “This is mine to do.”

Allison squinted and shielded her eyes from the sun. Zach moved her into the shade, though she hadn’t asked. He was doing his best to make up to her for the things they’d all agreed were done out of love.

“I’m okay.” Allison smiled.

He kissed her forehead and sighed.

Dark circles had formed around his eyes and John wondered if he’d slept at all.

Scott laid out a blanket for Miranda and she sat down with Amelie, who was, as usual, fast asleep. He sat down beside her and stroked her auburn hair, whispering something in her ear. He looked genuinely happy. Outside of those who knew better, no one would suspect he wasn’t Amelie’s father.

She had been the one miracle to come out of all of this death.

John set the shovel outside of the hole and climbed out.

Frank worried that he’d never be buried with his family. Returning him back to their plot was the least John could do. He regretted not parting on better terms with him.

“Are we ready?” Scott let go of Miranda’s hand and stood.

“I think so,” John said.

Frank’s body lay wrapped inside a thick quilt on a soft bed of uncut grass. Scott and Zach lifted the blanket by either end, shuffled over to the hole, and gently lowered him inside.

“I guess we should say a prayer or something.”

Zach was clearly not a man of God and just as John was about to speak, Scott interrupted.

“I’d like to start it,” he said and spoke The Shepherd’s Psalm. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”

The world had become that valley.

John joined him, reflecting on the words as they spoke them in unison. “Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over. Surely goodness and loving kindness shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

“Amen.”

The group remained silent, and then John scattered the first few shovels of dirt on Frank’s interred remains. Each made their peace, silently, and the group disbanded.

Zach wheeled Allison toward the parking lot, talking about what came next.

Scott stayed behind and offered help one last time.

John, again, declined, and continued to fill the hole.

Amelie started to fuss and Miranda positioned herself to feed her.

John worked up the courage to ask the question that had been on his mind since they left the center. “Michael said Amelie had saved two lives,” he said. “Allison is one, but who is the other?” He kept his voice low so Miranda wouldn’t hear. Scott tightened his lips together and didn’t immediately answer. “It was Reid, wasn’t it? The gun shots in the hallway, you saw him there and you let him go.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I could have you figured wrong, but you don’t strike me as the type to assassinate two uninfected men. And the syringe at Nixon’s bedside. There’s no way that needle belonged to him. He couldn’t have shot himself up with his hands tied like that. Someone with an agenda put him there and it looked a lot like torture. Like something Max Reid would do.” Scott drew a deep breath and sighed, neither confirming nor denying his suspicions. “You don’t want to scare her,” John said, smiling at Miranda when she looked up at him.

“She’s had a hard time. We all have, but she deserves to feel safe for at least a while.”

“Do you ever think you’ll go back?”

“Home?” Scott asked.

“To the center, to finish things off and maybe get some peace of mind. You don’t worry that there are people alive who know the truth about Amelie? People would kill for the cure,” he said.

Scott nodded. “They already have.”

Michael flexed his hands, which had become stiff from nearly an hour of constant vibration. He closed his tired eyes and enjoyed the silence of the center’s basement before resuming his task. He picked up the bone saw, repositioned Joe’s corpse so that his leg bent over the end of the counter, and continued breaking him down into manageable pieces. He wrapped the chunk of leg in a red bag and deposited it into the large chest freezer.

So much had happened and Michael stood at the precipice of change, deciding his new path with each step. He shuffled the packaging to make room and laid Adam’s tiny body inside. He couldn’t stand the idea of burying his son alone, or letting him decompose, so he settled on preserving him until he made up his mind about going back home.

He closed the lid, entered the immaculate hallway, and breathed in the smell of cleaner. He’d worked through the night to get rid of the carnage, to dispose of things that were of no use, and preserve the things that were.

A cure meant something, more than Nixon knew.

There were pockets of survivors, and if Michael could stop the viral spread, they could take civilization back.

Starting over was a chance for change.

God knew the world needed it.

He sat down at a microscope in the lab he’d claimed as his own and examined the specimens he’d taken from Amelie. The process of manufacturing a synthetic version would be challenging, maybe impossible, and there was something missing. The cure worked to stop infection as long as the host hadn’t yet been turned. He wanted more than that. He needed it to work hours afterward to make sure no one ever experienced the loss he had.

The thought of what that might mean, of how far he’d go to accomplish his end, brought him to the blurred line of morality Nixon had crossed.

Amelie held the key. That was the one truth in all of this, and he considered that he might need her again.

The elevator chimed and Michael went to the doorway. He leaned against the jamb and shook his head.

“Place looks good, Doc.” Reid smirked pushing a gurney toward him. The imperfectly round wheels thumped against the white tile and Nixon, still in four-point restraints, fought to get free. He bit at the leather strap holding his right hand securely to the railing near his head and kicked his legs, which were stretched so taut that they barely moved.

Michael adjusted his clean, white lab coat and took a vial and syringe from his pocket.

Reid leaned against the gurney. “What do you want me to do with him?”

Michael drew up a dose of sedative and injected it into Nixon. “Take him to the cell down the hall and repair the padlock. We have enough diesel fuel to keep the generators running another week or so, but you can’t be too careful.”  Nixon’s white eyes rolled open and there was a brief spark of awareness. Michael patted his shoulder far enough away not to get bit. “Settle him in and when he wakes back up, throw him a snack. I’ve left plenty in the freezer.”

Belinda Frisch’s fiction has appeared in Shroud Magazine, Dabblestone Horror, and Tales of the Zombie War. She is an honorable mention winner in the Writer’s Digest 76
th
Annual Writing Competition and her novel,
Cure
is the runner-up in the General Fiction category of the 2012 Halloween Book Festival. She is the Author of
Cure
,
Afterbirth
,
Fatal Reaction
, and
Better Left Buried
.

Find out more at: http://belindaf.blogspot.com/

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Afterbirth
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