Turned: A Spine-Chilling Young Adult Apocalyptic Fiction (The Undead Series, Book 1)
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Authors: Kaylee Rae
Turned
Kaylee Rae
Copyright © 2015 by Kaylee Rae. All Right Reserved.
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Prologue. The Beginning of the
End
Undead
Chapter 10. The Shattered Trust
Chapter 12. The Hungry Horrors
End
Undead
I remember that September day like it was yesterday – it was September 10, 2020. It was strangely cold, damp and eerie in Columbus, Georgia, which was typically still quite warm for that time of year. The weather seemed quite fitting to me, as it seemed to mirror the heaviness that loomed over my heart. My dark denim trousers were damp and starting to fray from dragging across the ground, and my socks were moist from the water lapping into my Converses with each step I took. I remember wearing a neon yellow nylon running jacket, one that Ethan had bought me a few years prior to wear during our first marathon together, and his Pittsburgh Pirates ball cap turned backwards. I remember my blonde hair was divided into two pigtails, and I only wore it that way because Ethan loved my hair in pigtails. I tried to wear it like that every once in a while for his sake, even though I felt like a Catholic school girl.
“Yeah ya do!” Ethan would say with a wink whenever I told him that…except for that day, of course. The pigtails didn’t seem to work that day.
The fog was quite heavy that afternoon. It had been raining all day and finally stopped around 4 PM. The streets were hushed except for the sound of water draining into the gutters and birds singing enthusiastically, happy to be set free after a day’s worth of downpour. Ethan and I had been locked up in the quiet all day as well, which was quite a burden considering we had received such devastating news the day before.
I remember Ethan’s eyes transfixed outside of the bedroom window of the quaint one-bedroom house we rented in a small suburban neighborhood since 8 AM that morning, waiting for the rain to break so we could go outside for a walk like we did every day. The only difference with that day’s walk was that Ethan wouldn’t be walking; I was going to push him in his new wheelchair. Well, it wasn’t necessarily new, it was a hand-me-down from another cancer patient who probably died the week before, at least that was what Ethan said. He had to use this one until the insurance approved his own request for a wheelchair.
I remember at that point, Ethan was a tall and very lean man, with jet black hair, tan skin and eyes the color of an emerald stone. That day, he wore a red and black beanie with one of those balls on top of it, the kind that I always enjoyed making fun of – “Why don’t you wear your hairy balls?” I would tease him. I remember him saying, “That joke never gets old for you, does it babe?” It never did.
A red and white Abercrombie hoodie and black sweatpants draped his dreadfully worsening frame; but I still thought he looked hot as ever. I totally dug it when he wore that cozy athletic look, even though that day his real reason for comfortable clothes was that he was too exhausted to put anything else on.
As we strolled through the neighborhood, I looked down at his face as he peered gravely at the scenery before him, as if he was angry at every tree, every flower, and every blade of grass that crossed his gaze. His top teeth bit his full bottom lip, and I wanted so much to stop in my tracks and kiss them, but I knew he was too deep in thought to be interrupted.
He had been diagnosed with chronic leukemia, a form of blood cancer, the day before, and he was set to undergo radiation therapy in four days, so I could only imagine the thoughts and feelings that raced through his head. After all, this form of blood cancer was what stole his dad’s life when Ethan was only five years old. The hospital insisted Ethan stay there until his radiation, but he insisted otherwise. He had an expertise in getting his own way, which is something I fell in love with.
I kept on strolling in silence, waiting eagerly for conversation. After nearly twenty minutes, he reluctantly spoke.
“I want you to know, Retta...” He paused for a few seconds, more silence. I waited anxiously for him to finish his sentence, as he hadn’t talked much since his diagnosis. “I want you to know that no matter what happens next, you will always be the love of my life.”
I smiled and stopped the wheelchair to step around in front of him, bend down and grab his smooth, skinny hands in mine. I peered into his eyes, the eyes that I had fallen in love with nearly seven years ago in our senior year of high school when he came in as the new guy.
We fell for each other almost immediately, as if some kind of cosmic force pulled us together. He had moved to my town, Columbus, GA, from the beaches of California with his divorced mom, after she had landed a new job as the director of a residential architectural company. Since his dad died when he was five and for whatever reason, his extended family didn’t speak to him and his mom, the only other family members he had were his siblings – an older brother and sister. Unfortunately, they were a sore subject, so Ethan and his mom never talked about them. The only thing Ethan ever mentioned about them was that he wished they were real siblings, but he said they never were and never would be. Quite a strange family he had overall, which is why he depended so much on our relationship with each other.
I laid eyes on Ethan the first day of senior year in calculus and a week later, he pulled me aside after class to ask me to go to the school’s football game with him later in the week. We were inseparable ever since, with him asking me to marry him after we graduated from the local state college together. He’d gotten an undergraduate degree in architecture so that he could work with his mother, and I’d gotten a degree in writing with the goal of becoming a bestselling suspense author, which was strange because I hated being scared, but I sure loved writing about it.
I was obsessed with writing psychological thrillers, even though they gave me nightmares more often than not. Ethan would always make fun of me because I had a tendency to jump at every loud noise and when I was immersed in my writing, he’d often sneak up on me or make a loud noise and completely freak me out. It always gave him a good laugh.
“Babe,” I said, as I brushed my thumbs gently back and forth over his hands. “You don’t have to tell me that, but I love it when you do. Please stop worrying. I know it’s hard. Believe me, I know. But we are going to get through this together.”
“Always my voice of hope, aren’t you?” he replied with his half-smile, the one that I thought was the most adorable thing ever.
“Always. Besides, we caught this fairly early babe. There’s a 65% survival rate for leukemia patients who undergo radiation therapy. Plus, Dr. Martin is the best oncologist in the country, and you’re a fighter. There’s no way this is beating you. We have a life to create together, so I won’t let it.”
With my last sentence, Ethan’s eyes, that for a second had a glimmer of hope, turned a dark hunter green. He peered so intensely into my eyes that I wouldn’t have been surprised if his gaze caught fire.
“I need you to promise me something,” he said.
“I’ll promise you anything, baby.” Ethan gripped my hands harder and brought my face closer to his.
“I need you to promise that whatever happens to me in the future, you will stay the strong woman that you are. I want you to promise that if someday I leave this earth, you’ll still be happy and eventually find another man to love. If I die, I don’t want you to be that pitiful widow. Everything I do is for you, Retta, and I want you to be happy. Remember that.”
“Babe,” I said as my eyes started to tear up. “Of course, I promise all of those things…except for falling in love with someone else. That just isn’t possible – you are and always will be the love of my life.” I paused as Ethan scowled at my remark. “But I want you to promise me something.”
“What’s that?”
“I need you to promise that you are going to fight this with everything you have inside of you,” I insisted. “For me, for our life together, for our children that we’re going to have when you beat this.”
Ethan smiled and assured me that he would fight, yet his smile and his words were contradictory to what I could see he was really thinking in his head. I didn’t understand why he didn’t seem to want to fight this with the odds in his favor, but maybe it would just take him a few days to accept what was happening to him…to us.
We strolled along for another hour in silence before it was time to go back to our house and make dinner. I prepared Ethan's favorite, beef stir fry, while he relaxed on the couch. While the dinner was on the stove, I sat at the old country table my grandfather had given me and browsed through wedding magazines.
Our wedding was set for a year from now, and I was hoping Ethan would beat his diagnosis well before then. I was twenty-five, and I wanted to get pregnant within the next two years, but I didn’t want to be pregnant at my wedding so I could look amazing in my wedding dress.
As we sat down for dinner, I talked about all of the plans I had for our wedding with hopes that it would incite his fight against this disease. The décor, the dress, the people, the bridal party, the location and of course, our honeymoon. Though Ethan didn’t seem as excited as I was about the planning, he kept his smile and the conversation going. Though his soul still seemed empty, I imagined it was because of the cancer, so I didn’t prod him.
Ethan hadn’t eaten much of his dinner and that upset me because I wanted him to enjoy it but I tried not to let it bother me. I was an emotional eater, so I chowed down on my food, practically licking my plate clean.
“How about we go out for ice cream?” I asked him after I finally put down my fork. Ethan was still picking at his broccoli. He put down his fork and took a sip of his water.
“Maybe we can go out for a late movie too? I hear there’s a super good action flick out right now, but I can’t remember what it’s called.” I was trying everything in my power to get him to feel happier.
He looked up at me and grinned. “Maxed Out?”
“Yeah, that one!” I replied a little too enthusiastically, and he let out a laugh.
“Retta, you don’t even like those testosterone-packed action movies…and I’m not really in the mood for ice cream.”
“Yeah, but I want to do anything to make you happier right now,” I said with a smile. “And I know how much you love their cotton candy ice cream down the road! It’s their special this week – I checked.”
“You know what I want to do right now?” he answered. “I want to sit down on the couch with you, pour you a glass of your favorite red wine, and cuddle the shit out of you.”
I grinned ear-to-ear. I knew Ethan would love a glass of wine too, but he was scared to compromise his immune system any more than it already was. Since he found out the news, he’d been super strict with his diet. He even sent me to the store for some type of green powdered mix that was supposed to contain a shitload of antioxidants…one scoop of it gave him his entire days’ worth of vegetables.
“How about I pour you a glass of the sparkling grape juice I bought you yesterday?” I teased him.
“Yes, please!” he laughed, getting up from the table to use the bathroom. I grimaced. Nearly every time he urinated, there was blood in his urine. This was one of the major signs that alerted him to the cancer. Although it annoyed him, I kept track of how often there was blood in his urine. I guess I did this because it made me happy when the urine was clean. It was a sign of hope, however false the hope was.
I got up from the table to clear our dishes and heard Ethan moan in the bathroom. He always tried to hide his pain because he knew I hated to watch him suffer. I frowned as I carried the dishes over to the kitchen. Not paying attention to what I was doing, I dropped a glass in the sink too hard, and it shattered all over the stainless steel sink, cutting my hand open. I let out a yelp that sent Ethan out to my side. Blood gushed out of the cut and on to the laminate flooring. Ethan grabbed a blue and white striped towel from the butcher block countertop and wrapped it around my gash.
“Baby, are you okay?” he asked me. He was always so sweet to me and treated me like a princess every single day. That was another one of the big things I loved so much about him – how much he loved me.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I replied. “The stupid glass broke.” Ethan grabbed my forearm and guided me over to the couch in the living room to sit down. He then inspected my wound.
“That’s a nasty cut, babe. Sit here and keep the pressure on the cut. I’m going to go get you some antibiotic cream and Band-Aids to clean you up.”
“You’re the best,” I answered him, as I watched him step up the stairs to go into the master bathroom. He was so much more debilitated on some days than I’d ever expected him to be. It made me feel rather guilty actually because of how much he cared for me despite being very sick himself.
As I waited for him to come back downstairs, I browsed the photos that hung on the living wall of our charming house. There was one particular photo that I always looked at – taken eight years ago when we were sitting on the grass at the park having a picnic with his mother and her new boyfriend. We were so young, healthy and happy. Ethan had pulled me on to his lap to hug me when his mother snapped a picture. It was one of the best memories I had. We had spent the day playing at the park like little kids, tossing the football around, cooking hot dogs on the grill and fishing in the creek. It was the day I learned I was a much better fisherman than Ethan, probably because my dad always took me to the lake when I was younger. Ethan thought it was cute that I was better than him at it.
I moved my gaze to my next favorite photo of us at our senior prom. I had been on my period that day and felt bloated and fat. I couldn’t find a dress that I loved either, and I wasn’t looking very forward to the prom. I told Ethan I didn’t want to go after all, but he showed up at my house with a beautiful lime green dress – my favorite color, a box of Midol, and a chocolate bar. He also brought with him a makeup artist that was friends with his mother to help me do my makeup. I was so impressed with him that I decided to go to the prom after all and had the time of my life. We had so many memories together, I couldn’t imagine living without him.