Chapter 3
Jane was seated at a kitchen table. She could see Charles boiling some tea for her. He was using a little camp stove. She was still nervous and confused about everything that had happened over the past few days. She was also exhausted. But, at least, she was starting to calm down. It couldn't be said that she was feeling good yet. Just better.
Charles poured the hot water into a cup and brought it to her. He sat it down on the table.
"I hope you like camomile," he said.
"I do. Thanks."
Jane looked down at the tea. She could see wisps of steam curling up from the liquid. She wanted to take a drink of it right away. She was so thirsty. But she knew that she had to wait. She didn't want to burn her mouth. Of course, she could have simply asked Charles for some colder water to pour into it. Unfortunately, the thought didn't occur to her.
She looked back at Charles. He had sat directly across from her. He seemed like a nice enough man. Gentle. Calm.
"So, what happened?" she asked. It was one of the thoughts that was foremost on her mind. She hoped that he had an answer.
"You mean with all of the people?"
Jane nodded her head.
"I don't know," he admitted. He shrugged his shoulders.
Jane couldn't hide her disappointment. She wanted…no
,
neede
d
… to know what had happened to everyone. What had happened to her husband and daughter? What had made them change? What had caused them to try to kill her?
"I'm sorry that I can't tell you much more," he added. "It all happened so suddenly. And since then, I haven't heard anything. The TVs have been off and the radios don't work. Like you, I thought that I might have been the last person alive."
"Those creatures. You have to know something about them."
Charles shook his head. "Not really. All I know is that one minute I'm sitting down to lunch with my wife and the next she's trying to kill me." Charles's voice broke off. Jane could see tears forming in his eyes. She put out her hand and rested it on his arm.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to bring up this stuff. It's just…well…"
"I know. It's all so strange. Whoever could've imagined such a thing?"
This time, Jane shook her head. She didn't know.
"My husband attacked me too," she mentioned after a moment. "I hid in the closet while he killed my daughter. She had also changed into one of them."
Jane stopped speaking and looked back at her tea. She couldn't believe that she had just said that. She didn't like admitting what had happened in her house. She felt responsible, that there might have been something she could have done to stop it. But the words had come out of her mouth and he hadn't been able to stop them.
Without hesitation, Charles spoke. "It wasn't your fault. There was nothing you could have done about it. Whatever happened was beyond our control. You have to believe that."
"I know," Jane said. Except she didn't really. Not at the moment. She usually shifted between two thoughts - thinking that she could have done something, knowing that she couldn't hav
e.
They battled within her.
"There was nothing we could have done," Charles repeated. "I had to hide in my bedroom. My wife kept hitting and hitting the door. I couldn't have helped her. I couldn't have even gotten to her without her attacking me."
"But…"
"But nothing. We did what we had to do."
Jane felt a bit better about her decision to hide in the closet, though the guilt didn't disappear. She wasn't sure that it ever would.
She thought about Charles's wife. "What happened to her after you went in your bedroom?" she asked.
"My wife? I don't know. She was banging on the door, then she just stopped and ran away. I haven't seen her since. Her name was Fiona."
Hearing his wife's name made the events more real. These were real people out there who had turned into thes
e
things
.
Real families, real loves ones.
"I saw something on the TV," Jane said. "Before my family changed."
"We were watching something too. About all of the fighting in the cities. It looked pretty bad."
"They didn't know what it was?"
"No, I don't believe that they did."
"It just doesn't seem real," Jane said. She tightly grasped the rim of her cup. "What could have done it? What changed them?"
"I don't know," Charles said again. "I've thought a lot about it. It could have been a virus of some sort. Or maybe rabies."
"Rabies? From animals?"
"Or a form of it. Like I said, I really don't know."
Jane thought about his ideas. They seemed plausible enough. But, in the end, it didn't seem like anything they were going to figure out for sure.
"Why didn'
t
w
e
change?" she asked next.
"Us?"
"Yes. Why didn't this…whatever it was…affect us?"
Charles shrugged his shoulders once more. "I've thought a lot about that too, but I haven't been able to come up with an answer. I probably never will. It might just be one of those things."
Just one of those thing
s
.
"What about God?" Jane asked.
The question surprised her. Although she had been married in a church and had occasionally gone to mass, she hadn't been a very religious person. It seemed as possible an answer as any.
"God?"
"Do you think he did it?"
"I don't see why. Why would He want to change a bunch of people into...into...thes
e
creature
s
?"
Jane didn't know. None of it made very much sense. Yet there had to be some type of explanation. Some reason why her family had changed and she hadn't.
Some kind of punishment for their sins?
She didn't think of herself as a bad person, so that might have been one reason why she survived. But that didn't explain why her daughter would have turned. Surely she was innocent. And all of the other children she had seen in the park. And Harold. They couldn't have deserved this. Even her husband had been a good man, or so she had thought.
She took a sip of her camomile tea. It was still a little hot, but she needed something to take her mind off of thinking all of these things. She breathed heavily as she did so. Then she put her cup down.
"I guess we'll never know," she said.
"I guess," Charles agreed.
They both stopped talking. This was far too serious a conversation at the moment. It was also too soon to get into this type of thing. She had just met the man, just come into his home.
Luckily, another thought occurred to her.
"How did you know that I was out there?" she asked.
Charles looked glad to change the subject too.
"I look out the window all of the time," he explained. "Sometimes I'm just curious what's out there. Most of the time I'm looking for any sign of my wife."
"I'm sorry," Jane said. She hadn't wanted to bring her up again.
"It's okay," Charles told her, not dwelling on it. "Anyway, I noticed you out there this morning. I hadn't seen you before and I didn't think that you were one of them. I also didn't think you were hurt. Or killed."
Jane had to stifle a laugh. It seemed so strange that she was sitting here talking about the fact that she hadn't been killed. As though that had been a possibility. Which it had been. She covered it by taking another sip of her tea.
"So I went out to check," Charles added. "And here we are."
"Well, thank you," Jane said. She didn't know what else she could say. She was happy to be here. No longer outside. No longer alone.
Both sat in silence for a few minutes. The past few days had been overwhelming for them. They had experienced so much. It was a lot to take in.
"Maybe you should get some rest," Charles said. "There's a bedroom upstairs that you can have. It was my daughter's. She didn't actually live here anymore. She lived with her family down South. But Fiona liked to keep it prepared, anyway. Kind of like a guest room."
That sounded like a good idea to Jane. She had been walking for days, sleeping out in the forest. She was tired. A fresh bed sounded nice.
And it sounded safe.
"Thank you," Jane said. "I think I'll do that." She stood up.
"It's up the stairs, last door on your right. I'll stay down here to do a little reading. You can call me if you need me."
"Thanks, again," she said. She started to leave.
"Wait," Charles said. "You didn't tell me your name."
"Jane." she replied.
"It's nice to meet you, Jane."
"It's nice to meet you too."
Chapter 4
Shelly walked into the kitchen. Adam had said that he was going to make her breakfast. She looked at the table. There was some dry cereal, a few pieces of fruit and two bottles of water.
"This is it?" she asked, jokingly.
Adam shook his head and tried to look annoyed. There was a lot of food to be had, but he couldn't make any of the stuff that had to be cooked. The stove didn't work.
"Just sit down and eat it."
Shelly laughed as she sat down.
"And, no, that's not the only thing," Adam added.
He placed a wrapped cupcake in front of the her as he sat down across from her. The corners of Shelly's mouth lifted.
"Where did you find this?" she asked. She picked up the cupcake.
"It was at the top of the cupboard." Adam pointed to where he had found it. "Someone must have kept it up there for special occasions."
Shelly laughed again. "They'd keep a cupcake for a special occasion?"
"Of course! This isn't just any cupcake. This is a double chocolate, cream-filled cupcake. That's pretty special."
Shelly continued to laugh.
"All right," she said. "But i
s
thi
s
a special occasion?"
"We're celebrating our survival!"
He regretted it at soon as he said it. He needed to keep reminding himself that Shelly was a fairly young girl. Sure, at times she seemed mature for her age, but that didn't make it right to say the things that he did. Especially to talk about their survival, after her parents hadn't.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"It's okay. I know you were only joking. But maybe we should find something else to celebrate."
"How about we celebrate finding this house?"
"I like that," Shelly said. Then she went quiet.
"What is it?"
"It's just…well…I know that you said we shouldn't, but I really wish that we could stay here a little longer."
Adam was confused. He thought that he had told her his plan. It took him a moment to remember that she had been asleep. She wouldn't have heard.
"Oh," he said. "About that, I was actually thinking that we could stay one more day."
Shelly's eyes lit up. "Are you serious?"
"Yeah, I'm serious. I thought about it last night. That's when I told you about it."
"I don't remember you saying anything."
"You were sleeping. Sorry."
Shelly didn't care what the reason was. And he didn't need to apologize. She was excited to be staying another day. It gave her a sense of comfort in her turned upside-down world.
"We can dress up again," she said. "Or maybe we'll find some board games. I love board games!"
"Sounds good," Adam agreed. "But I also need some time to think about things."
"Like what?"
"I'm not sure. That's one of the main reasons I think we should stay here. I want to make sure that I go over everything. We need to have a better plan. It's not going to be easy to keep walking out of the city. And it's going to be slow. If there weren't so many cars blocking the road, we could drive out of here. But..."
"We could take bikes," Shelly interrupted.
Adam's eyes opened wide. He slapped his hands heavily down on the table.
"See," he said. "That's what I'm talking about! What a great idea! Bikes!"
Shelly smiled, happy that she had offered that suggestion. She was proud as well.
"I didn't see any around here, though," Adam said, scratching his chin. They had checked around the whole house yesterday. There weren't any bikes.
"What about the other houses?" Shelly offered.
"I don't know. I don't like the idea of walking into any of these houses. We don't know what's in any of them. There could be thos
e
thing
s
in them. It just seems a little risky."
Shelly agreed. She didn't like the sound of going into all of these houses, either. It was scary enough going into this one. Who knew if they'd even find what they were looking for?
"We could find a bike shop," Shelly said next.
Adam slapped his hand back down on the table. "You see, that's what I'm talking about! We can find a bike shop. I'm sure there's one around here somewhere. There has to be. What a great idea! You're so smart."
Shelly smiled again. She loved the compliment. It sounded so nice coming from this man who she was quickly beginning to admire and care for.
"Thank you," she said.
"No," Adam said. "Than
k
yo
u
."
Shelly felt as though she were going to burst with pride. She lowered her eyes and looked at the cupcake. Then she tore off the wrapping and shoved the piece of cake into her mouth. The whole thing.
Adam watched her with a big smile on his face, feeling pride toward her too.