The Rabid: Rise (21 page)

29

“Tim, she’s been bitten, you know that right?”

I look down at Bethany and brush a bloody strand of hair from in front of her eyes. She rolls her head over and manages a weak smile, snuggling deeper into my chest. I can’t see the bite mark. Just the blood. I’m not ready to see it. “Yeah, I know.” I shake, twice. Deep sobs. Broken. Completely fucking broken.

“...
she’s..she’s bitten?” the gunner behind us asks nervously. “We gotta put her down. She can’t be in here with us!”

I’d be on top of him right now, beating him mercilessly
, if I didn’t have my sister in my arms.

“What’s your name?” Katia asks the man, her voice calm and cool, her eyes on the road, her face dotted with the blood
of her enemies.

“Sonny...they call me Sonny.”

Katia nods. “Alright then, Sonny, here’s the deal. Open your mouth again and I’ll gut you. Sound fair?”

His response is a c
hoke of disbelief.

“I’ll take that as agreement. Now, if you’re uncomfortable with the current situation
, I’ll slow down just enough for you to jump out without breaking your legs. Otherwise, sit back there and shut your fucking mouth.”

We slip and slide through time. The scenery around me is a blur. If Katia or the asshole in the backseat talk
, I don’t hear them. It’s all a tide of emotion for me. Rising. Never falling. Higher in my chest now. Threatening to suffocate me.

Bethany’s voice breaks the spell
. “It hurts.”

I l
ook down at her. She grimaces. Hands clamped at her side. The area with the biggest concentration of blood. Somewhere beneath all that. Beneath the sopping fabric. Teeth marks. The harbingers of her doom. The purveyors of my broken heart.

I sniff and gently lay my hands across hers. “It’s nothing. We got this.”

She fishes a hand from beneath mine and lays it against my face. A weak smile pulling at her mouth. “Tim,” she coughs, blood speckling her chin, “always trying to save me. Always trying to play the hero.”

The build-up of tears behind my eyelids breaks loose and slides down across her hand. “
That’s what big brothers do.  I guess I didn’t try hard enough, huh?”

“They broke the mold with you. You’re the best big brother I could have ever asked for. You know this wasn’t your fault. You know that, right?”

“That...” a sob breaks through
, “doesn’t...that doesn’t make it any...easier.” I pull her to me and just hold her there.

My face buried in her hair.

Her arms clasped weakly around my neck.

If I could somehow stop time
, freeze everything, I’d pause the tape right here.

The bumps in the road
come and go. We move out of the cities and into the countryside. Broken buildings are replaced with broken landscapes, abandoned barns and fence lines in need of patching. This place had seen a different sort of apocalypse. One that ran through long before the dead started walking. The Rabid are much more scarce out here. Along with supplies and shelter.

At some
point, Katia pulls the vehicle off to the side of the road. We bump to a stop and we sit there for a while. Silent. Except for my muffled sobbing and Bethany’s ragged breathing.

“Tim.” Katia gently nudges one of my arms with two fingers. It takes a couple
times, but eventually she gets my attention.

I look up. Her face appears like some blurry water color
, left out on the back porch to dry. No discernible features. Just a hint of blue sky. A hint of human. 

“Tim, it’s time.”

I shake my head. The painting starts to dry. I can see her face now. Like a mirror. Reflecting my pain. There is something else there as well, something I don’t recognize in myself at the moment; strength and resolve. It does nothing to alleviate the weight in my chest. The pounding in my head. I look down at Bethany. Her eyes are still cracked. Her gaze is foggier now. Her skin waxen. She can still see me. Through all that haze, she can still find the shoreline. She smiles.

“Hold the fort.” Katia says to the man in the backseat before grabbing the keys
and leaping out. It doesn’t take her long to reach my side of the vehicle. She opens the door gently and extends her arms. “Here, give her to me so you can get out.”

I relent. Moving slowly. Delicately. Bethany barely stirs as she’s passed from me to Katia. Her head droops and comes to rest against Katia’s shoulder, her legs swinging limply over her forearm.

There isn’t much time left. There never is. Not here. Not in this place.

I come down carefully on the
packed earth. My knees are wobbly. I can’t breathe. Everything around me is seizing in and out as if under some giant terrestrial microscope.

Katia gently places Bethany back into my arms.
“Where do you want to...” Katia doesn’t finish the sentence. She doesn’t need to. I know the score. I understand the decision I’m making.

The sun is gone. Hiding behind a c
loud somewhere. Reverent to our plight. We’re surrounded by open fields and broken barbed wire. Bales of hay have come apart, their ashes scattered across oceans of knee high grass. In the distance, there is a single tree rising against the brown and gray.

“There,” I say, my eyes pointing the
way, my voice barely rising above the unfettered wind galloping across the plane.

Katia leads us d
own a small embankment. She holds back a few lines of barbed wire and kicks aside a fallen post. I step lightly, carrying the sagging body of my beloved sister towards the shadow of the distant tree.

Katia comes up beside me. Peeking across my arms. Checking Bethany’s condition. “We need to move just a little faster
, Tim. I know it’s...”

“Okay.” I increase my pace. I don’t need to check her condition. I can feel the life leaving her body. The burden in my arms
is slowly increasing.

We approach the foot of the tree. It rises above us like some dark tower. One final tragic stop on our noble quest.
Its branches welcome us. Falling in at our backs. Wrapping us in shadow. Allowing us this moment of agonizing solitude.

I squeeze Bethany against my chest
, one last time, crying into her beautiful black hair as I kiss her cheek and slowly set her back against the thick layer of smooth bark.

I remember the purple streak in her bangs. I remember her desperately begging Momma
for that touch of color.

“
All the other kids are doing it
,”
she’d whined.

I remember Momma’s objection. The fight. The crying. The pouting. Momma
finally relenting and helping her color it in the bathroom sink. How they’d laughed when it came out neon the first go around and how Bethany had pranced around the house, posing in all the mirrors, when they’d finally gotten it right.

I remember.

My sister.

Momma.

Momma and Bethany. My ladies. My rocks.

What the hell am I supposed to do now?

Bethany’s eyes flutter open. She finds me. She tries to reach for my face, but I stop her, lowering her hand down into her lap and lacing my fingers through hers.

She’s sweating
, but her hands are like ice.

It’s close now.

“Tim...” she squeaks, blood flowing over her bottom lip and coating her chin.

Katia moves
quickly to clean it up with her shirt sleeve, trying to protect me.

I bite my lip and manage a shaky response. “Yes, I’m here
, sis, I’m right here.”

“I’m scared
...really scared...”

“Me...me too...” I whimper.

Be strong, goddamnit! You’re supposed to be strong!

Her head falls. She startles and catches herself. “Tim...do you think...do you...think...there is anything after?”
Small little diamonds form at the corners of her eyes.

“After what, sis?”

“After we die…”

I squeeze her hand harder. I scoot around
and sit next to her. I take her hand into my lap and set her face down against my shoulder. I kiss the top of her head and watch the brown field before us bow beneath the wind. Leaves rustle overhead. Acorns or berries or something else small and hard falls from overhead and bounces against the earth nearby.

“Want to know what I think?”

“What?” She’s somewhere between consciousness and a dream. Soon she’ll be beyond my reach. Beyond my bullshit words.

“I think...it’ll be like before.
Our little yellow house. That old broken down chicken coop. The woods and the adventures. Cool summer mornings. Me dancing and you at the dial. Momma and Daddy taking us to the park and letting us walk the rocks over the creek. Ice cream after and a movie in the evening. That’s what’s waiting for you.”

She looks up to meet my eyes.  Her head tremoring with the effort. “You promise?”

“Cross my heart.” I draw an
X
across my chest. “I’ll be there to meet you.”

“That
sounds nice.”

“I love you, Bethany.” The tears drip from my eyes and splash against her face.

She doesn’t seem to mind.
“I love you too…Tim.” Her head falls, and she lets out a long and labored breath.

I look to Katia
. “I can’t,” I blubber. “I...can’t! Oh God...please...please help me!” I wrap both arms around my sister’s head. Clutching her desperately to my chest, like a child holding a puppy. Reckless and in love. As if somehow, by refusing to let her go, I can stop it. I can stop what’s about to come. I can stop the machines that are taking her from me.

I feel the hand on my elbow. Soft but insistent. “Tim, I’ll do it
, but, you have to walk away. Okay? You’ve got to let her go. It’s time. Do you understand?”

I don’t let her go. I allow Katia to unravel my arms and I fall away. She takes the gun from my waistband as I turn over and start crawling in the dust towards the edge of the shadows. I
reach the grass and stumble to my feet. I don’t know where I’m going. Everything washes together. I can’t see. I can’t smell. I can’t hear. The wind guides me. Pulling me across the field.

The shot isn’t loud. It’s a whisper. But, it drops me to my knees.

I puke and fall to my side.

Convulsing.

All I know is my affliction.

It drapes over me like a blanket
and everything goes black.

***

Katia tries to make me drink, again. I push the water away and set my head back against the tire of the Humvee, my legs stretched out on the side of the road.

God, I wish I could die.

If losing my sister hasn’t given me the balls to stick a gun in my mouth, then nothing will.

I could ask Katia to shoot me.

She won’t. She’s more liable to slap me and tell me to get my shit together. I don’t need to hear that. Not now.

Katia speaks softly.
“It’s never going to be okay. But, it’ll dull. I’ve been where you’re at right now. It’ll dull and you’ll use it, I promise you.”

Promises. Christ, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about promises, don’t make them.

I’ll protect you. I’ll never let anything happen to you.

I couldn’t protect a bucket of sand in the middle of
a drought.

Fuck promises. Fuck this. Fuck it.

Maybe if I lie here long enough some back country Rabid will come along and tear my guts out.

Relief. Release. Sweet release.

“Tim, talk to me. We can’t just sit here. I know you’re hurting, but you’ve got to talk.”

I shrug. “What do you want me to say? My sister is
out there, dead by a goddamn tree with a bullet in her face. My Ma got ripped apart by fucking monsters. I’ve got nothing. No one. You hate me...”

“I don’t though...I don’t hate you. Tim, I love you, I never stopped loving you.” She cups one of my hand
s between hers.

“You said...”

“Tim, I say a lot of shit when I’m mad. You fucked up. We’ve all fucked up. Yeah, it’s going to take me a little bit of time to come to terms with what happened, but you’ve got me. I know it’s not the same, but please, don’t give up. Not now.”

I return her smile. It’s weak. I’ve got to force it a little. But it’s something. Something bright in all this brown and gray. “I’ve never really been one for giving up.”

“Good, so, what’s our next move?” She sits down beside me and stretches her legs out.

The other guy in our crew
, Sonny, is pacing the fence line in front of us, looking for Rabid. Jittery as hell. Looking back to see if we’re ready to move yet. He hasn’t opened his mouth again; Katia tends to have that effect on people.