Infection

Chapter One

Chapter One

Several Months Earlier

26th June, 2033

"Mom!"

"I'm coming, okay?" I shouted as I walked cautiously out of the kitchen and into the living room. The two frankly enormous slices of chocolate cake that I was carrying rather precariously made the journey more nerve-wracking than it should have been. I sighed with relief when I set the plates down on the coffee table, chuckling as one of the portions was snatched up almost immediately.

"If you make yourself sick with that or drop it, you won't get any sympathy from me," I stated as I flopped down next to my daughter on our couch, reaching for my own cake and forking a piece into my mouth. "Mmm, that's good."

"God, where did you find this stuff?" Casey asked as she continued to shovel yet more of the chocolate sponge into her face. "It's heaven!"

I looked down in shock at her already half-finished portion and smiled slightly. "It's homemade. Your Auntie popped around with it while you were at school today."

 "...Can she come back with some more?"

"Maybe. Now, what are we watching?"

Still laughing at her comment, I turned to the T.V, which had just switched from the adverts to the opening credits of my daughter's latest 'favourite program'. It was a cop show and awfully unrealistic, but I humoured her and had agreed to watch at least one episode with her.

Casey was not amused by my question. The thirteen-year-old raised her eyebrows at me, accompanied by a withering look. "You know."

"Yeah, yeah. I was just hoping you'd forget or change your mind. Really, with Dad's job I would've thought you'd realise how bad it is!"

"'Is not..." she grumbled, placing her cleared plate back on the side table before snuggling into my side. My plate joined hers moments later.

I stroked her sleek blonde hair for a few minutes, not really watching the screen that she was oh-so engrossed in. It was only after a little while that my finger caught on something and I pulled my hand away to see what it was.

Chocolate.

"Case, you have food in your hair."

"Huh?!"

"Oh, Jesus - how do you even manage it? You nutcase." I reached over and grabbed a tissue from the conveniently placed box on  the table. Quickly removing the offending cake, I chucked it across the room and into the bin. Or, at least, I attempted to.

Once the pudding was gone from her long locks, Casey relaxed back into her previous position and stayed there for the next half hour. I was quite tired and probably would've fallen asleep if it hadn't been for the nagging feeling slowly migrating to the front of my thoughts. The time was getting nearer and nearer to 9:30pm, and my husband still hadn't returned home.

Alex was on the police force, and he often worked late; sometimes he wouldn't even return home until the next morning if something pressing has arisen. He would usually text to let me know, though, and would ring again later to say goodnight to Case if he had a minute to spare. This time, though, he had done neither. He had told me that he was going out for dinner with some of his friends from work tonight, but he'd said it shouldn't run past 8.

"Mom. Mom! The show finished."

Casey's voice broke through my thoughts and I shook my head slightly before turning to face her. "Has it? Oh, sorry."

I wriggled out from under the teenage girl, standing up and grabbing our plates from earlier. I stacked them one on top of the other and carried them back through into the kitchen, dumping them in the half-full sink.

When I returned, Casey was flicking through the channels. I saw her land on the news and tried to get her to leave it there so I could see if anything had happened, but she disregarded my words and kept going. I closed my eyes in mild frustration and after speaking a few annoyed words to her, I went to go and do the washing up. It didn't take too long and by the time she popped into the kitchen to tell me she was going to get ready for bed, I was sat at the kitchen table and trying to plan a shopping list for the next day.

"Hey, Mom, when Dad getting home?" she asked. "He hasn't rung you or anything..."

I looked up sharply from my barely completed list and up at my daughter before turning to the clock. 10:05pm. Still no Alex.

"I'm not sure, pumpkin. I'm sure he's probably done something like gone drinking with the lads after their meal and forgotten to text. If he contacts me before you go to bed I'll let you know, okay?" I smiled slightly at her, trying to mask my worry. She didn't need to be bothered with how concerned I actually was.

"Okay," she replied, skipping back out of the room. "And don't call me pumpkin!"

I grinned a little at her response, but sighed moments later. A cold feeling had come over me, and I really didn't like the fact that he hadn't notified me of anything going on. Something wasn't right about this. Alex was always reliable, really reliable.

I stayed up quite late that night, waiting to see if my husband would come wandering through the door at god-knows-what time with some lame excuse. He never did this, so I'd let him off if he did.

He didn't come home though.

By the time I was finally sat in bed, alone and reading a book to try and calm my haywire nerves, it was 1am. The book wasn't helping at all, though, so I discarded the idea and dropped the novel onto the floor by my bedside. I leaned over to the other side of the bed and turned off the lamp with a heavy heart and mind - it was usually Alex's job.

Tossing and turning as I tried to pass from reality into dreams, my thoughts started to make up bizarre and horrible ideas about what had happened.

Something really wasn't right.

What I didn't know at the time, however, was that after that one fateful day, nothing would ever be alright again.

Not ever.

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I hope you enjoyed reading the first proper chapter of my story, Infection. Please vote if you liked it (It's what the button is for, after all) and drop me a comment to really tell me what you think!

Also, take a look at the pretty little character banner I made! It's the one for my main character, Sarah, from who's point of view the story is from. She is portrayed by the gorgeous Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

I hope you all have a beautiful, beautiful day!

xofaith