Immunity

12

I've never been to a funeral before.

Even when the disease hit, and people outside our immediate family were dropping like flies, my sister and I never attended a real funeral.

I can remember my parents arguing after my Aunt Sue had died. I didn't understand much about the disease at that time, but what I did know was that a 'crazy man' attacked her when she was walking to the supermarket. Apparently he tore her arm off, then went to work on her organs. She died from the trauma, not because she became infected and got a bullet through her head. I guess that was a positive thing in a way.

I remember my Mum crying a lot in the days following the news, breaking down in the middle of simple tasks like serving breakfast. Some days she would just lay in bed, so my sister and I would go into the kitchen and prepare things like mayonnaise and biscuit sandwiches for ourselves.

Dad would come home from work later, and look at the mess in the kitchen and put on a grim frown, then disappear into their bedroom. He would hold Mum while she cried, and Zaylin and I would play quietly in the living room and pretend not to hear.

A couple days later the arguing started.

The funeral was soon and Mum wanted us all to go. My sister and I sat on the stairs giving each other anxious glances as their voices raised and as the TV loudly babbled about a strange new disease that scientists were trying to cure. The lights in the kitchen cast my parents dancing shadows over the wall.

"My sister would have wanted the girls to say goodbye!" My Mum yelled, her voice wobbly and on the edge of tears, or maybe she had already cried, and this was the aftermath.

"Keep in mind that she's mangled, Emily," My dad said quietly, like that would soften the blows of his words. "This wasn't a peaceful death for her. Do you really think she would want the girls to remember her for that?"

We heard a glass shatter and the shards fall to the tiles, followed by Mum's sobs, ones that we're old, wasted, and tearless.

"Why did this have to happen?" She let out, her face falling into her hands.

Zaylin and I raced up the stairs to our rooms after that, pulling the doors closed just as our mother started to wail again.

The next day we farewelled Mum and Dad as they pulled out of the driveway solemnly. They both looked tired and weary, and they asked our baby-sitter to keep the doors locked until they got home.

After that day, we started to be more cautious. We only went out when we really had too. The reporters on the TV started to repeat the same thing everyday, People dying. People dying. People dying, until it was turned off. Mum started carrying a gun in her handbag. Dad started keeping a golf club by the front door.

Now here I am with a gun in my hand, not knowing if I am the one that fired those shots, or if someone else did.

Jax's screaming erupts into my ears. "No!"

We all watch him hurriedly stumble over the bodies, tripping over limbs and grueling torsos and heads to get to his brother.

I don't know what was holding us in our spots and stopping us from reaching forward to pull Jax back. Maybe it was the shock of what was taking place, that rumbled through our insides, scrambling our brains and freezing us in time, or maybe it was overwhelming pity and grief. There was no point stepping between Jax and Ace's crumpled shell. Everyone knew it wasn't going to limit Jax's gut wrenching agony.

So we watch silently. We watch Jax crawl towards the quiet dog that looked twisted and somehow nonexistent. I stare at the bodies like I stare at statues. Quietly acknowledging, but never uttering words.