Affliction

Chapter 1

The screen of the tester shone red. I tossed the water bottle on the porch step of the house to the side. What a waste.

I wiped sweat away from my forehead. There's no way that burning ball of gas hasn't gotten any hotter since 2035, when this whole thing started. Two years, and it seems to get worse each day. But maybe that's just because I'm from Alaska and happened to get stuck in this wretched place.

I grabbed my knife out of my boot and stepped onto the wooden floorboard, directly in front of the rundown house. The walls were a faded cyan color. I reached my gloved hand to the doorknob before turning it. I opened the door hesitantly, making sure an infected wasn't on the other side, waiting to attack.

Nothing. I stepped inside, closing the door behind me so nothing followed me. I looked around. Dust fell all around me, disturbed by my presence. I hoped that meant I was alone in this house. At the least, I wouldn't find an active one. I walked through the house, looking for food mainly. I adjusted the cloth wrapped around my nose and mouth, still paranoid about the idea of breathing the stuff in.

I walked into what was once a kitchen before the stove was ripped apart and the blood was neatly applied to the countertops. I reached up to the cabinets that had no blood on it and looked through each one. I grabbed a few cans of beans and slipped them into my bag. At least with the cans, I don't have to test them. I opened the fridge, instantly regretting it. Inside was the rotting and bloodied carcass of a golden retriever, jaw ripped open. The smell wafted into my face, sending a wave of nausea washing over me. I couldn't help but gag as I closed the fridge door. Looks tasty. I stepped out of the kitchen, not risking touching the blood, which was just about everywhere, and went, instead, into a hallway with three other rooms and stairs on the opposite end.

I leaned my head toward the closest door, not hearing anything on the other side. I opened the door and stepped inside. It was a child's bedroom, presumably a young boy. There was a torn teddy bear on the bed and a toy train on the floor, knocked over with the plastic broken apart, like it was smashed. The closet door was slightly ajar. I first walked to the nightstand next to the bed. I opened the drawer and saw a resealable bag of jolly ranchers. I reached into my pocket, grabbing the food tester and pulling it out.

The food tester had a small screen and a needle. I opened the bag and pressed the needle into the bunch of jolly ranchers and waited. The screen stayed gray, yet was lit up to indicate power. It made a few clicks before making a long beep. The screen shone green. I put the tester back into my pocket and closed the jolly rancher bag. I stuffed it into my backpack and moved on to the closet in the room. I opened it, gripping my knife.

My throat clenched tightly. Against the corner was a young boy curled up, a baby in his arms. Both were long deceased. The boy seemed to have been gone for a few weeks, dried blood covered his forehead. But the baby seemed to have been gone a lot less time than him. I tried to push away the thought that the baby lived in the dead boy's arms longer than him. And they were obviously hiding from something.

I turned away, taking a deep breath, washing the image away from my memory, much like all the other fucked up shit I find when I scavenge. I left the little boy's room, feeling a slight guilt from taking the candy. He probably snuck it into his room and ate it at night while playing on his games. No. Stop thinking of them.

I closed the door behind me and went to the next room. I put my head against the door. I didn't hear anything. I opened the door and looked inside. There was a man. I could explain him in many ways but I guess the best way to describe him is that he looked like a dad. But he looked off. He was facing a pictureframe on the wall. I could just faintly hear him speaking. It sounded like he was cold, the way he said it. Like he was shivering, yet he wasn't. He mumbled quick and stuttered. His words were breathy and forced. But he said the same thing over and over. "Where are they? Where are they?"