Trying not to panic in the dark entryway of the townhouse, she darted inside the first door she found and leaned against it heavily. Still holding her breath, she delved into her purse.
Where’s the flashlight?
She frantically flashed the light around the room. “What?” she was in the garage. The sounds of crunching glass behind the closed door made her stomach suddenly turn acidic. She was safe in the garage. Or was she? There was no way to lock the door from the inside of the garage. She was safe unless
they
opened the door. That did
not
sound very promising.
Can creepers open doors
? She couldn’t take that chance.
They
had seen her enter the townhouse, and she knew how relentless
they
were. She tugged on the manual garage door release and went back into the darkening night.
Scarlett reeled down three rows of townhouses and went door to door, breathlessly trying each knob, praying that someone had left in a hurry, without locking the door. It was dark now with only the light of the moon and the flashlight to guide her. A scuffling sound too close for comfort sent a chill down her spine, causing her to panic. She ducked behind a bush and waited several terrifying minutes until the scampering sounds finally faded off somewhere into the darkness.
Taking long, slow, deep breaths, Scarlett managed to go from panic to stealth mode, quietly slipping from door to door. Finally, a doorknob turned. She didn’t bother to knock; she just let herself inside and locked the door.
“Hello, anybody home?” she announced as loudly as she dared. She listened carefully to the silence. If the townhome’s residents were home, surely they’d have confronted her by now.
What if they shoot me? Really, get a grip
. She stood in the downstairs entryway struggling with her nerves. With a trembling hand, she beamed the flashlight to get a layout of the downstairs. The townhome was similar to Jeff’s: the garage, laundry room, and front entryway were
downstairs.
“Hello, anyone home?” she called out a little louder, climbing the stairs. She crept about in sneak-mode from room to room, thinking that at any second a creeper might pounce on her out of the darkness, and her clammy grip tightened on the bat.
The living room, kitchen, dining room, and bedrooms were all upstairs. And after her breath-holding search, she realized the home was empty. No people. No creepers. Scarlett flopped down on the sofa in relief. She wondered where the homeowners were right now, this very second.
Were they even alive? Had they made it to one of the shelters?
Her curiosity would
not
stop nagging; besides, she needed a distraction. She was far too tense to even think about sleeping. So she snooped around with the flashlight and noticed a paper printout on the computer desk. The printout listed the major Evac Shelters. From the best of her knowledge, it listed nearly every auditorium and stadium in California. Circled in red marker was Levi’s Stadium, the San Francisco 49ers brand new state-of-the-art stadium. According to the printout, the flu vaccine was free to everyone: NO PERSON WILL BE TURNED AWAY. ONLY ONE SUITCASE PER PERSON. ABSOLUTELY NO PETS.
Stunned, Scarlett studied the paper, trying hard
not
to believe it, and yet, believing it. It hadn’t been just a local disaster.
It was all of California!
She couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe. She wanted to cry, but there were no tears. She felt lost in some sort of time warp. Apparently, the entire state of California had been evacuated without her, because of something as simple as the flu?
How’s that even possible?
Although, not everybody had managed to evacuate the state, people like herself and Miss Purlie and her hermit neighbor; they had stayed behind. Either by choice or not. So, logically, there should be other people who decided not to evacuate, for whatever reason.
Scarlett grabbed a blanket from the bedroom and strategically placed herself on the sofa; from that position, she could view the stairway with the help of the flashlight. She sat on the sofa and found herself hoping that the family that lived here had made it to one of the shelters. And, Scarlett found herself imagining what hellish event had occurred during those few days she had been recovering (more from self-pity than the surgery). She had awakened from her bout of self-pity to an empty world. Was she the only person left?
The next morning Scarlett did a complete inventory of all the possible useful items in the house: food, first aid supplies, and toiletries. Unfortunately, she only had enough food for a few days, maybe three if she rationed. She munched on a bowl of milkless maple granola and planned the day’s agenda. Her car was packed with food, but she wasn’t ready to go back out there—where the creepers lurked, waiting for her around every flippin’ corner.
No, she definitely didn’t have the nerve to go outside. She decided to check the garage and laundry room, hoping to find more useful items. Scarlett ran down the stairs to check the garage and was surprised to find a cute blue and white Mini Cooper sitting there like a Hot Wheels toy.
I
always wanted one,
she thought while admiring the car.
She scanned the garage and noticed a mountain bike mounted to the wall, and what looked to be various parts of another mountain bike scattered about on the workbench and the garage’s cement floor. The shelves were lined with all sorts of sporting equipment and camping equipment. The Coleman camping stove caught her attention.
That will definitely come in handy.
“Oops.” She noticed the owners had apparently left a suitcase by the trunk of the Mini Cooper. “Must have been in a hurry,” she chuckled.
“Grhrrrrrr . . .”
Scarlett spun around at the sound. There, only a few feet in front of her stood the most bizarre creature she’d ever seen. It stood there swaying about. She froze, afraid to move. Afraid to do anything.
It
was wearing a yellow and black, polka dot dress with flashy rhinestone sandals.
It
—had been a woman.
As the creature tottered towards her, Scarlett couldn’t help but notice the Betsey Johnson sunflower earrings dangling daintily from
its
ears. Didn’t her sister have a pair like that? What a ghastly paradox to see a monster in such fashionable attire. It was all she could do to keep from laughing: hysterically.
It
suddenly pounced. “AAAAH!” Scarlett screamed, dodging it.
Oh, shit, the bat’s upstairs!
It lunged forward again. Scarlett jumped back again, barely avoiding its impact. It seemed mad now, mad and hungry. It stood before her glaring and snarling with bloody saliva dripping from its two rows of gnarly teeth. For a moment, its bulging, obsidian-black eyes rolled to the back of its head. Its whole body shuddered as it howled.
Scarlett decided to make a run for the door, but it must have sensed that. It lurched forward in a quick jerky movement, knocking Scarlett down on her back. It landed on top of her with coveting eyes, eyes of hunger, eyes of lust. It was all Scarlett could do to hold its corpse-like, flesh-rotting head back inches from her face. Its saliva felt deadly as it dripped onto her cheek. Scarlett couldn’t hold it back much longer. Frantically, she scanned the garage for a weapon, something within her grasp that she could use.
Anything?
As they struggled on the floor of the garage, Scarlett used her last burst of energy to roll over, dragging the creature with her. Now Scarlett was on top of it. Its hands clawed at her neck while its deadly teeth snapped repeatedly. Snap—Snap—Snap!
Scarlett eyed the bicycle wheel next to the work bench and grabbed it. She rammed the wheel against the thing’s head, knocking the creeper to the side. But to her horror, it suddenly bellyflopped—on top of her, knocking her down on her back again. And, once again she was face to face with snapping teeth. Scarlett somehow managed to shove the mountain bike wheel between its face and hers as it flopped on top of her, convulsing and growling.
Scarlett had the eerie feeling it was ferociously trying to rip-out her throat, but the bicycle spokes were her shield, and she tightly held onto the sturdy wheel. When Scarlett realized that the wheel could be used as a shield, it gave her a renewed sense of power. She took a deep breath, gathered all her strength and with a sudden thrust, pushed the creature over, and Scarlett was on top of it once more.
Scarlett firmly shoved the wheel down on its nauseating face, the metal spokes slicing into its decaying flesh (like a perfectly sliced cheesecake), leaving a gruesome imprint of the wheel’s spokes on its once human face. Scarlett managed to regain her strength and pulled herself up using the workbench for support and vigorously stomped on the wheel. She put all of her weight into each skull-squashing stomp. And she did not stop until she had crushed the horrid thing’s skull—crushed it to a mush of grisly splintered bone.
September had come and gone. October thankfully arrived with the offering of cool delta breezes. Initially, Scarlett had only intended to stay a day or two to re-energize and devise a reasonable plan of action. But she had been too petrified to leave the security of the townhome after that dreadful incident with the creeper in the garage.
She refrained from venturing outside: where the creepers lurked. Instead, she often found herself pacing the narrow hallway deep in contemplation. For some reason, she could not stop thinking about Miss Purlie, and the hermit neighbor, and the woman in the garage. Those cryptic words Miss Purlie had declared minutes before her death, “Only the dead don’t die,” still tormented Scarlett’s thoughts. Now she understood. Well, not so much . . .
According to the stack of mail, the home belonged (or had belonged) to Katrina and Nicoli Katovich. Were they from the Ukraine or Russia she wondered? She often found herself thumbing through their family scrapbook. It must have been Katrina in the garage that day; although, it was difficult to tell, for its flesh had melted into a bloody-bubbly ooze, devouring Katrina’s once beautiful complexion. It made her queasy whenever she thought about it. Scarlett had actually killed a person, a human being.
No, it was already dead—right?
Scarlett tried to convince herself that she had done the right thing. Sometimes she found herself wondering what had ever become of Mr. Nicoli Katovich. Had Nicoli come home one day to find that his beautiful wife had mutated into a repulsive, deadly creature?
At least she wasn’t thinking about Kevin every flippin’ five minutes of the day. Time had a way of numbing her broken heart (the true love she thought she had found with Kevin) that had soured to something close to hatred and was now a fleeting phantom pain in her heart: a dull ache that had been replaced by something else. Fear.
Scarlett shuffled through the stack of paperwork on the computer desk until she found the newspaper article she had already read umpteen times. A disturbing photo of hideous creatures roaming the Golden Gate Bridge plastered the front page like one of those ridiculously absurd tabloid rags that tempted customers waiting in grocery store check-out lines. Only, it wasn’t a tabloid paper at all: it was the front page of
The San Francisco Chronicle
.
The article explained that the deadly Super-Summer flu was highly contagious and turned its victims into man-eating creatures: cannibals. The CDC and FEMA were distributing free vaccines at all the designated shelters and mandated that every single person be vaccinated. A mandatory curfew had been enforced by the National Guard due to massive rioting and looting. And to make things worse, the gas stations and grocery stores had begun to run out of supplies due to a massive breakdown in the transportation system, because too many people were sick or afraid or dead or one of them . . .
Scarlett let out an involuntary shiver when she focused on the date printed on the newspaper: August 6. That would have been her
Wedding Day
. Things were starting to add up. All those cryptic texts from Kevin now made sense.
That is if I can get over the fact that a minuscule virus turns people into cannibals.
According to the newspaper, there wouldn’t have been a wedding anyway, regardless. The newsprint suddenly blurred before her very eyes after a solitary tear splashed onto the newspaper, but that was all she could spare: one tear. Times had changed. She had changed.
Scarlett had managed to leave the townhouse two times only for a few minutes: once to dispose of the dead body that she had wrapped in a plastic tarp and drug out to the far side of the townhouses and once to drive her car (loaded with food and supplies) inside the garage.
Fortunately, the day she had left Roseville, she had packed her car with a good supply of food. But now, the food supply had dwindled down to a few cans of soup. Maybe she would leave when the food was gone? She should head to the nearest shelter to get an update. Maybe go to her sister’s home in Pinole? She found herself constantly praying that Cyndi, Rex, and the boys were safe. Were they still alive? And her best friend Maggie, did she make it to one of the shelters?
Scarlett wondered how the shelters could possibly be safe. She hadn’t been sick so far; perhaps she was immune to the virus. Or not? If she checked-in to one of the designated shelters and breathed the same air as the infected, wouldn’t she become infected? In actuality, the shelters were just huge holding tanks of sick people.
Now doesn’t that sound like a swell recovery plan?
That’s it, put everyone together in a giant bowl and whoever does
not
die—wins, like the movie
Gladiator
. “Surely, our government wouldn’t do something that stupid?” She shook her head in disgust.
Scarlett decided that going to a shelter didn’t sound so good, after all. That whole Hurricane Katrina and Superdome thing had been an utter fiasco.
I’m safe as long as I stay here—isolated from the infected. Safe, as long as I don’t go outside.
Still, she had to leave soon in search of food and water. Surely, the government would have everything under control any day now.
Luckily for Scarlett, the homeowners had turned one of the spare bedrooms into a workout room, and she spent a couple of hours exercising every day. She did push-ups, sit-ups, Pilates, weights, and even used the elliptical machine, since it worked manually. After the incident with the creeper in the garage, Scarlett realized she needed to be stronger. Besides, the exercising kept her mind preoccupied, and she was happy with her weight loss; she was in the best shape she’d ever been in her entire life.
Nothing like a pandemic to lose weight. Kevin would be so pleased.
The thought was fleeting.
Scarlett also spent much of her spare time sitting on the balcony off the dining room. The balcony overlooked an overgrown field of sun-dried, golden weeds, and from that vantage point, she could survey two main roads off in the distance. Eventually, she should spot military personnel or a government official or at the very least, another lost person like herself. It didn’t seem possible that all of society could just vanish. How could she be the only person left? Really, it wasn’t logical.
She also had a habit of spending the cool October afternoons on the balcony, hidden behind the stucco wall-like railing and studied the enemy, observing the way
they
walked and noticed that their behavior was fairly consistent.
They
mostly wandered about listlessly but became instantly alert at the slightest sound. Sometimes she thought
they
could smell her presence. She noticed that when the delta breeze was blowing just right,
they
would jerk their grotesque heads up at the sky, sniff the air, and then gawk in her direction, but
they
had never actually spotted her; she had been careful of that.
It seemed like
they
communicated with each other on a primal level. At the possibility of food,
they
tended to herd together like a pack of hungry wolves encircling their prey as she had witnessed on several occasions.
They
had trapped and fed on several dogs and cats caught off guard in the field. The possibility of food seemed to get them excited and out of their sluggish state and also seemed to be the only time
they
articulated with their limited vocabulary of guttural groans.
Scarlett often found herself daydreaming that she would look out across the field one day and see everyone returning to their homes . . . that the pandemic was over and everything was back to normal. But, she never saw a single
living
soul.
The day she dreaded finally came: she was out of food. Scarlett had been devising a plan the past couple of weeks. She needed to be extremely careful from now on:
No more being stupid—so far I’ve managed to survive on plain dumb luck.
Sooner or later luck always ran out. Now she needed skill and good planning in order to survive. She would go at dawn.
Hidden in the predawn shadows as the sun edged up over the horizon, she sat on the balcony and scanned the field below. There were a dozen or so creepers scattered about in the field and more in nearby streets and sidewalks. It was time.
They
were in their restless sleep-like state.
Quickly snatching her backpack of tools: a hammer, a roll of duct tape, a thick towel, a small, thick blanket, and several brown-paper grocery bags, along with a Maglite flashlight; she opened the front door, paused a moment to scout out the area and forced herself outside. “It’s Now or Never,” she hummed, forcing a fake smile, unable to get that Elvis song out of her mind.
Scarlett really didn’t have a clue on how to go about breaking into someone’s home, and she didn’t know if the plan she had devised would actually work. She decided to start with the adjacent townhouse. That way if she chickened out on her first attempt, she could drop everything and run back to the Katovich home. She tiptoed to the neighbor’s front porch, bat in hand. She tapped on the door lightly, but after her weeks of window watching, she was reasonably sure that the entire complex was uninhabited (with non-creepers).
All was silent. Quickly, she crisscrossed the entryway’s golden-glass window with duct tape. Then she placed the blanket on the ground below the window.
OK, now for the hard part
. She held the towel over the taped window and swung the hammer into the double-folded towel. Nothing happened. She hit the window harder, still nothing.
Scarlett daringly swung the hammer with much more force. To her relief, the window gave and billowed inwards, the glass still clinging to the tape, which the fragmented glass conformed to. She pulled on the tape until the glass billowed towards her, and slowly, carefully, pulled on the tape. The glass-covered tape fell onto the blanket below, and the blanket somewhat muffled the sound of the broken glass.
Yes, it worked!
She had chosen the front door window because she figured she could reach inside and unlock the front door. And that’s exactly what she did.
Paranoia swept over her when she stepped inside; what if there were creepers inside? She methodically searched every corner of every room with the flashlight, even checked under the beds, the shower, and the closets. “Creeper free,” she sighed a deep breath of relief. Scarlett decided
not
to check the garage; she had definitely acquired an “official fear of garages.”
Food first, and water—anything to drink
, she thought, trying to organize her thoughts. Scarlett’s heart raced at the thrill of breaking into someone’s home: a crime she would have gone to prison for a few months ago. She felt guilty about it, but it was a necessity if she was going to survive until help came.
Yes!
The kitchen pantry did not disappoint. Scarlett’s stomach started to growl as she loaded the brown-paper grocery bags with an assortment of canned fruits and vegetables, pasta, rice, pasta sauce, and several boxes of cereal. “Woo Hoo,” she let out a whispered-whoop upon finding a bag of Star Bucks Morning Joe ground coffee; she had been out of coffee for weeks.
A sound . . . Had it come from outside? Could a creeper come in through the broken window? Had she just done something terribly stupid after planning this for so long? Clutching the bat, she sneaked her way to the front door. No creepers. Instinctively, she slid the mahogany entryway table in front of the broken window, and “Duh
”
she locked the front door. Although, she didn’t think creepers had the common sense it took to open a door.
Scarlett thoroughly searched every room, closet, and drawer for anything that might be of some use. No luck with a gun, but she did find a lovely set of playing cards with pink and red roses edged in gold. The small find made her excited. She had been bored out of her mind these past few weeks. Solitaire would be a great way to pass the time, she thought. A dusty bookshelf of paperbacks in the hallway caught her attention; unfortunately, they were all horror type novels.
No, not today
. She already felt like a doomed character forever trapped in an eerie Stephen King novel.
Next, she decided to check the kitchen faucet for water. The water in her unit was bone-dry, but if she was lucky, there might be water left in the hot water tank. At first, the faucet sputtered and faltered reluctantly, and then the water finally poured out. “Yes!” Next time she would bring plastic bottles.
Scarlett lugged the bags of goodies to the front door and then sat on the balcony and nervously munched on a granola bar and guzzled a warm Red Bull while surveying the field behind the townhouses. It was midmorning, and several creepers ambled about the field. Did
they
know she was here?
They
hadn’t formed into any packs yet, a good sign that
they
hadn’t heard, sensed or smelled her.
Scarlett couldn’t put off her return trip any longer. Still, the fear of opening the front door and running into a pack of creepers sent chills down her spine. The glass-less window’s shimmery-golden curtain waved about. Wind was not a good thing. Wind meant that
they
could sniff her out. Taking a deep breath, she opened the front door a crack and to her relief, there wasn’t a pack of creepers awaiting her on the front porch. She did spot a creeper in the parking lot, a few yards away, so she hunched down behind a realtor FOR SALE sign for a minute, until it rambled down to the next row of townhomes. Not too bad she thought.
I can do this!