I love you... I'm so scared.

The one and only chapter.

  It was the realistic equivalent of a zombie that I remember. They reassured me that it couldn't happen to humans, only to the infected ants, which is what I found funny. At first. When the alert came on the news I turned up the volume and listened intensely to every detail, as if it could somehow save my life. It wasn't like the normal "dawn of the dead" zombie film, it was almost exactly like the ants and the fungus you read about in the "weird science facts!" books at the library.
The person infected would start by expressing signs of Pica, a disorder in which you eat non- food items. Most people would report eating dirt, or tree bark; but some were seen trying to eat park benches or snacking on their desks. It would have gone unnoticed if it wasn't as widespread and frantic as hundreds of people crouching on their front lawns eating the grass and soil like it was the new health fad of the month. I remember laughing about it with my mother over morning coffee, saying that if we started eating our cow shit enriched soil we should just take each other out to pasture and shoot us. A few days later my father was found out in the corn crops, eating the stalks, he told us he couldn't control it. Suddenly the joke we had shared three days before became a serious thought we both shared.
A few months passed before the second wave of symptoms came, and this time, more hysteria followed. After a month or two of the pica craze, the infected people started to go blind. Their eyes slowly turned cloudy and blue, like a clouded marble bobbing slowly in a bowl of milk. Their eyes went hallow and seemed to frantically shake around in their socket, desperate for light. Despite the blindness, people seemed to know where they were going, their clouded eyes fixed in front of them, almost in a trance, only snapping out of it for a few hours in the day. I was shaken awake at four AM by my panicked father. He struggled to keep his voice low and clear. His eyes were moving around like a crazed cartoon character and tears streamed out of them like a broken faucet. I quickly sat up and he backed himself into a corner, knocking my lamp over and breaking the bulb, the shock of the sudden loud sound made him jump and start sobbing even harder.
"I need help... I need help.." He said, in between sobs and broken hiccups, rocking back and forth feverishly.
"Let me get mom." I said, throwing my sheets aside and running for the door.
"No! please... I can't make her worry like that." He said, his voice clear and strong, despite the ragged breaths in and out.
I sat with him for hours, describing the country house he raised us in, the fields outside, and his favorite mare out in the stable. The sun was about to rise when he asked me to bring him to the porch, and leave him be. He would sit there for days, only getting up for the bathroom, before the third wave would hit him.
The third and final symptom hit like a brick wall and prompted governments across the globe to come together and take action.
Thousands of people got up out of their beds at 2 AM and climbed the tallest thing they could find and burst, letting their diseased blood touch as many as they could. For my father it was the church tower in the center of town, ten miles away.
A country mile is longer, that much is true when youre following your father in your hastily thrown on riding boots and night dress, screaming at him until your throat is raw. The fixation is unbreakable and at this point, they can only be roused when they reach their destination. While following my father, that was the first time I had really gotten a close view of him since he resolved to live the rest of his days on his porch, letting my mother sip tea and describe the farm with a shaky voice and ragged breaths. I think she described it six times a day, each time she would fabricate a detail. Yesterday an imaginary cat antagonized the family dog, and the day before the sky was full of shooting stars. My father knew it was fake, but he smiled ear to ear, tears streaming down his face, as she described it. Mother forbade us from seeing him, upon his request. He was firm and resolute when he said he didn't want our last memories of him to be in a state of decay.
But now he had no control, and I felt sick. His skin was translucent like wax paper and every vein in his body gleamed in the moonlight, as if it was the only thing keeping him upright. His fingertips were black and his fingernails were hanging on by a fragment of skin. After a few weeks of being blind his appetite disappeared and anything he ate refused to stay down so his clothes were draped over him like flimsy sheets, waiting for any excuse to fly from him, exposing his emaciated, and grotesque body. As I followed him hot tears ran down my face, both from witnessing the state of decay that my once strong father was in, and also from the blisters forming on my feet from the now five mile trek.
The final stage of this disease came once my father reached the top of the belltower. His hands were bleeding profusely and a smile spread across his face once he finally reached the top. Only minutes before he died did he truly realize his own existence. His head jerked around frantically and he whimpered like a dog being kicked.
"Betty?.... Betty?!" He cried, calling once more for his loving wife and mother of his children, who was no doubt calling the police and pacing the floor with my brother on her hip.
I tried to soothe him but all that came out of my mouth was broken sobs and dry, desperate whimpers.
"Betty I love you... Im so scared.." he said between sharp, labored breaths, holding on to the cross that stood over the church like it was the only thing he could do.
The only thing I would tell my mother about his last moments was his declaration of love for her, no matter how many times she pestered me for more information.
In the last moments of his life I felt like I was in a poorly budgeted horror flick. Suddenly he looked to the sky and smiled. At that moment the veins that gleamed in the moonlight burst like overfilled balloons and blood filled the sky like rain. The onlookers that surrounded me were showered in my father's blood, I was showered in every single pancake breakfast. Every single smile, every single affectionate nickname uttered down the hall after me. At that moment I felt everything. And then, all at once: nothing.
My ears started ringing almost immediately, and the sound of screams seemed like whispers to my ears. I remember being shoved to the floor as people ran in fear. what remained of my father slumped over the roof of the church and fell to the floor. I remember hearing something similar to a sack of potatoes hitting the ground with a solid thump, I silently got up, feeling nothing, and walked the ten miles home, ignoring the police and town paramedics that called after me. It was six AM by the time I got home and to my pleasant surprise, the whole house was silent, save for the light snoring of my mother and her baby. Like a cat, I gingerly ran up the stairs and turned on the water, shakily jerking the faucet to the left and sitting under the steaming water. I sat under that water until it ran cold as ice.
The next few days were a blur of police interviews and hospital visits. The government had now taken steps to evacuate the remaining population to a secure, military facility. It was determined by a strange doctor that I would not be able to join my mother and baby brother on the journey to Richmond, Virginia where they would be taken care of until the disease had been eradicated. Not even my father's death could compare to the anguish my mother felt for losing her first born child. The doctor was cold to me, not once calling me by my name, simply by "patient 65121". He wore military fatigues and a stethoscope, looking at only the chart, and not at me. There was a split second before my chart was stamped with a big red "denied" label when my mother jumped on me, desperately grabbing at me before the doctor pulled her away. I was convinced she was trying to find a way to put me back in her body. I couldn't even muster a word before she was dragged away from me, despite the confirmation that I wasn't contagious until I burst open.
Being the kind souls they were, they didn't throw us into a hospital or a prison to live out our days, they simply dropped us at home. Our families were whisked away to wait the six months it would take for the rest of us to die from this disease. A convoy of a thousand trucks made their way to predetermined safe havens around the country, leaving rest of us to die on our own. As long as my blood didn't make contact with anyone directly, no one could be infected. I shuddered at the answers that filled my head when I wondered how they could possibly come to that conclusion.
The last thing they said on the news was "I'm sorry." which seemed cheap to me.
A young army man brought me to my door, holding my arm gently. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the gentle touch before he left me at my door, letting out a sigh and a nod before he ran back to his truck. The house seemed like a picture, as if I couldn't disturb the memory that stayed there. The plates were sitting on the table, still holding saturday mornings pancakes, almost disintegrated in maple syrup and the cups were shattered on the floor, as if someone was ripped from their seat at the very moment someone was taking a sip of water. I must have stared at the kitchen scene for an hour because the dog whined for his evening meal. I opened the door and dumped his entire bag of kibble on the floor, hoping he would find the other six bags in the shed on his own. Without thinking, I knelt down to the scattered kibble and shoved several handfuls down my throat. After a moment of realization I looked up, the sweet dog looked at me with his sweet brown eyes before turning into a giant flash of black as he ran out the door. I hurriedly released dads mare from his store so he could graze the fields for a while, nuzzling it gently before leading it out back.
I walked out to the porch after coming out from my fathers office and sat on the porch swing, taking in the evening sunset. I silently tried to memorize the scene before me. I remembered sitting on the other side of the front door, listening to my mother describe the sunset to my father, I tried to focus on the memory of her words as I stared at the sunset.
I pulled out the few items I took from my dads office and shakily wrote on a crumpled piece of paper. I wanted so desperately for her to return to our farm and live with charlie, leaving the terrible memories of these past few years behind her and living as a family. I left the note tacked to the door and walked barefoot as far as my feet would take me.
I swear I heard a click and bang before the world went black.
*                                     *                                         *
The note would later be read by my mother,
"Mom, I love you.... Im so scared."