Virus

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

213 Days

13th December 2021

The first thing I noticed when I woke up this morning was the smell. The scent of stale metallic blood made my stomach lurch. I sat up to see that last night’s events unfortunately, were not a dream. The floors were stained red and Christian Knight’s lifeless green eyes, which looked eerily like his brothers’, burned holes into mine. I jumped up from the bed and ran to the bathroom, though my leg screamed in protest, to be violently sick; the constant nausea was definitely my least favourite symptom so far. I stood up to make my way back to the bedroom as I heard the bed creak as a result of Alex’s awakening, but when I saw the bathtub filled with my own blood I threw myself towards the toilet again. I heard Alex’s hurried footsteps approaching me; he pulled my hair away from my face and rub soothing circles on my back while I emptied my stomach’s contents.

I leaned back against him, my breathing was heavy and laboured and the queasiness still hadn’t ceased.
“Why aren’t you puking your guts out?” I breathed, the smell of blood causing me to retch again.
“I’ve been around so many dead bodies and seen so much blood, it might as well be cranberry juice to me.” He shrugged. Once my stomach had settled I asked the million dollar question.
“So, what are we going to do about the body in the bedroom?” I asked, trying to be as casual about the situation as he was.
“We need to go shopping.”

An hour later I was dressed in a black hoodie and had my arm tightly griping Alex’s waist who had invested in a baseball cap, even though he complained it made him look like a teenager. As I hobbled through the crowded shopping centre in Union Square I made sure to keep my head low and away from the security cameras. We bought bin bags, a large duffel bag, bleach and other cleaning products, as well as dumping our bloody clothes. Alex seemed to know exactly what he was doing so either he’s been doing this for a while or he’s been watching too many episodes of CSI. When we returned to the hotel room, I half expected there to be crime scene tape across the door and police men waiting for us but Christian's corpse was the only thing that greeted us. “Okay, I need all of the floor scrubbed and bleached, even if you can’t see any blood.”
“Why?” I asked removing the scrubbing brushes out of the shopping bag. “Because all the blood that has been shed in this room has been infected and I’m not taking any chances, if we don’t clean up properly, the next person who stays here could be infected too.” I nodded in realisation and started in the bathroom, I didn’t have to stomach to clean the room with the body in it.

I began working on the bathtub, washing the blood away and then scrubbing it with bleach, using the chore to distract me from the horrible task I were performing. I realised I had forgotten to use gloves when my hands began to sting; so I walked back to the room but I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw Alex kneeling next to his brother with his hand lying limply in Alex’s, his eyes were crestfallen and full of sorrow. He was whispering something to his dead brother so quietly I had to strain my ears to hear. “My God Christian, why did you have to do this? Why couldn’t you have just left us alone.” He muttered furiously, “Even though you were the most evil person I ever had the misfortune of calling my brother, you were still my brother.” He voice began to tremble; if it was from anger or grief I didn't know so I left him to have some privacy.

Sitting on the edge of the tub I reflected on the events of the last few months and all the feelings and natural responses that I had suppressed came bubbling to the surface and I broke down into tears, unwillingly and though I tried to stop them the sobs escaped my lips. Alex appeared in the doorway his eyes were red rimmed. “You alright sweetheart?” He whispered. I shook my head.
“You just killed your brother to protect me.” I sobbed, “I know Christian deserved it but, he was still your brother Alex, and what about the guard I killed? What if he had a family?” I sobbed; Alex sat next to on the tub and held me while I cried.