The Rabid (17 page)

From the
Desk of Dr. Lisa James

December 15

Time
seemed to pass quickly, but not quickly enough. Two weeks after Jack left, the
kids seemed to be doing all right. Alex had sulked for days, but seemed to have
the spring back in her step again. And Rex drowned himself in sleep, ice cream
and butterflies. The interesting part of the whole thing was that he'd never
been happier. There were times when he'd dream of Jack. And the only reason I knew
that was because he'd talk in his sleep. I'd hear him mumbling through the wall
at night or Alex would tell me the next day. If he could have understood, I knew
he would have been hurting.

But I had to keep going strong. So I did. The plan to end my life kept creeping
ever forward in my head, however. Day by day it became a louder voice inside
me. And day after day I choked it back down. It wasn't healthy, no, but I'd
find a way to deal with it when I had the time.

One night — about two and a half weeks after Jack had left — I was tucking the
children into bed. Rex had had his bedtime story and was fast asleep. When Alex's
turn came, she quickly hid a book she'd been writing in under her mattress and
straightened up.

"What's that, sweetheart?" I knelt beside the bed.

"Nothing."

"A diary?"

She paused. "Yes."

I nodded. "Just know I'm here to talk if you need it, okay?"

"Oh, I'm fine." She smiled wide and puffed out her chest. "I talk to Jack all
the time."

The poignancy of her statement weighed heavily on me. "Alex. it's not healthy
for a girl your age to talk to herself."

"But...!"

"I understand you miss him, honey. So do I. But we have to keep going."

Alex was silent for a moment. "It sounds like you're trying to make yourself
believe that more than me."

I smiled on the inside. She was a smart cookie. "It's bedtime."

"I know."

Even though I'd grown accustomed to sleeping in a bed by myself after Rex was born,
it was difficult again. I felt the need for warmth and companionship. All
because of Jack. he'd simply asked far too much of me. If I were to give in,
who knows what would have happened. Having no plan is not a healthy way to
live.

Writing has become very difficult. I find I may not continue with journal
entries unless I deem it necessary.

December 17

Okay...what
the ever-loving fuck just happened?

I was asleep. The bed was fluffy and soft. It'd been about two and half weeks
since I'd left the house. I just couldn't allow myself to move on. I knew I
would, but there was still food and water at the hotel. I couldn't let it go to
waste.

My little buddy Lucky woke me. He was scratching at his thin fur. I assumed he
had fleas. There was nothing I could do about it.

"Why don't you go find us some grub, buddy?" I rolled away from the harsh white
of daylight through the curtains. The raccoon had somehow clicked with me right
away. He'd brought me a beer the first night we'd met. And since, he'd been
fetching things for me all over the place. He could get into places I couldn't,
so he'd find random stuff to snack on.

The curtains parted and Lucky exited through the broken window. I sat up
slowly, rubbing my temples. While I hand't had a drink in three days, my body
was still experiencing a hangover. I thought a shower may have helped, so I
stood and stumbled my way to the bathroom.

The water was cold, but at least it woke me up. And at least it was still
running. There were some clothes left behind, so I gathered those and dressed
myself. It seemed like hours — me standing in front of the mirror, staring at
my scruff.

"Maybe I should grow a goatee." I made a few poses in the mirror to cheer
myself up. Then I remembered my cell phone. While I'd thought it was a useless
brick since it couldn't make or receive calls, it could still take pictures. I
reached for it in my back pocket.

"Maybe I should take a selfie!"

"Or maybe you should do what's right for once." Silas was looking worse every
day. His skin had turned a very sickly gray. Veins were noticeable just under
his skin and I could even see shiny bone poking through his jawline. The hole
in his chest had ceased pulsating but was exchanged by a thick, black drippy
substance that smelled like sewage.

"What do you know about what's right?" I rolled my eyes while facing him.

"I know more than your dumb fucking ass."

I leaned against the sink. "Whoa...what's with the hostility?"

Silas took a step toward me. Something inside him made an awful gurgling noise.
"You'd better do what's right, Jack. Otherwise it's gonna come and bite you in
the arm."

That was an odd choice of words. "I think you mean ass."

A smirk slid across my friend"s face, ripping some necrotic flesh from the
corner of his mouth. "Nope. I definitely meant arm."

Without warning, the long glass window of the bathroom shattered into a thousand
tiny pieces. On instinct, I shielded myself from it while cursing.

"The fuck? Did a bomb just go off or some..." I stopped dead when I saw what was
once a woman clawing through the new opening. Thick rivulets of foam dripped
from her mouth. She was covered in blood, but I wondered how much of it was her
own. And where was my gun?

I spun around, trying to remember where I'd put it when I went to sleep. Why
the hell had I taken it out of my belt? I made a move to get it, but the
bathroom door slammed shut in my face.

"What the fuck?" I grabbed the knob and pushed, but the thing wouldn't budge.
"No!" I slammed my fist against the wood. Then I kicked it. I could hear the
diseased thing behind me creeping closer. Throwing my entire shoulder into the
door didn't even move it.

"I told you. Do what's right, Jack." Silas's voice mocked me from beyond the
door.

"Silas! Silas, let me the fuck out! This isn't funny anymore!"

My friend laughed. The woman behind me grabbed my ankle. I kicked her in the
face, but she didn't let go. A yank later, I was on my ass on the bathroom
floor, struggling hard to get her away. But her bony grip held fast.

"Get. The. Fuck. Off!" With each word I spoke, I gave her a swift kick. I swore
her growls sounded like laughter.

"Do what's right, Jacky-boy."

In a split second, the diseased was on top of me. She was strong as hell. Too
strong. She hissed and spit at me as I held her at arm's distance.

"Silas! Help!"

A sudden hot, raw pain tore through my bicep. She'd bitten me. Her rotting
teeth had torn right through my skin and into my muscle. I cried out, but no
one answered me. Tears stung my cheeks.

A good chunk of my arm ripped off in her mouth. And the look in her eye as she
happily chewed my flesh and the pain of the virus flooding my veins just pushed
me over the edge.

With all the strength I had left, I shoved my knee into her stomach. She
growled and fell to the floor. As I tried to use the toilet to lift myself up,
more burning pain clawed at my shoulder.

The bitch had jumped on my back and sunk her nasty teeth into my neck. And that
was all it took. My rage turned violent. I screamed and grabbed the lid to the
toilet tank. Then I spun around and smashed her head with it. She went down,
but I didn't stop. I didn't stop hitting her with the lid until her swollen
brains splashed over the tile floor.

I threw the lid behind me where it landed on the floor with a loud clunk. The
sound hurt. I was breathing hard. The ringing in my head grew to a deafening
level until I had to hold my hands over my ears.

"Make it stop!"

I fell to my knees and began to cough. My body hurt all over. My stomach was in
knots and I couldn't focus. A splash of blood came out of me. Then another.
Suddenly I was vomiting a waterfall of red. Dizziness overtook me and
everything began to go dark. And then I fell to floor in a pool of my own
blood. I was dead.

***

A
faint tinkling melody roused me. My brain was a fog; my vision dark. When I
opened my eyes, the room was a blur. I could only see a few tiles clearly. My
phone vibrated three inches away, singing a tune.

I tried to move, but could only get one arm to cooperate. The tips of my
fingers came into view. The phone stopped vibrating and the screen went dark. I
made an attempt to pull myself up, anticipating the white hot burn of the bite
on my arm.

But there was nothing. No pain at all.

I sat up in one quick motion and pressed a palm to my neck. There was no bite.
The floor wasn't covered in blood and there wasn't the body of a diseased woman
lying dead next to me. The bathroom door stood wide open and Lucky was munching
on something happily. What the hell had happened?

The tinkling melody filled my ears again. My phone was vibrating. The screen
was bright. The name "Raychel" was clear.

"Holy shit!" I lunged for the phone and pressed the answer key. "Hello?"

"Oh, my God, Jack! Thank you, Lord Almighty! The phones weren't working! I
finally found a signal!" Her voice sounded like it hand't changed at all.

"Raychel...where are you?" I stood slowly to steady myself. The back of my head
ached.

"we're at your house! We didn't know where else to go..." Static crippled the
line for a moment.

"Raychel?!"

"Jac...I...here...you...there?"

"Raychel, do you have a car?"

Static. "Yes."

"Okay, drive straight to Las Vegas and stay there! I'll meet you there. Don't
get out of the car and don't talk to anyone, okay?" I began to search
frantically for my gun and a jacket.

"Okay. See you."

I paused. The air hung empty with the words I knew we both wanted to say. "See
you."

"I—"

The phone beeped loudly in my ear. I looked at the screen. No service. I didn't
have time to dwell on what had just happened in the bathroom. I had to light a
fire under my own ass.

I found both my guns, shrugged into a beat up coat, and threw open the hotel
door. "You coming?" I turned back toward Lucky. He regarded me for a moment,
then jumped up to follow me out the door.

December 18

Ten
hours. Seven hours of driving. Two hours of stopping to piss and one hour spent
syphoning diesel fuel with a hose. Man that shit tasted terrible.

It took me ten hours to get to Vegas. In that ten hours, I had way too much
time to think about what happened between me and Raychel. So many hurtful words
were exchanged and so much time had passed without a phone call that I wasn't
sure how it was going to go.

"Now we're talkin...!"

I jumped halfway out of my seat, causing the van to swerve into the shoulder.
Dirt and snow plunged into the air. The sound of skidding tires met me. I
calmly took my foot off the gas pedal and turned the wheel back toward the
road.

"You're lucky I know shit about cars." I rolled my eyes skyward, avoiding the
disgusting corpse rotting in the passenger seat.

"Wait...how am I lucky? I'm already dead."

I opened my mouth to say something, but he was right. My jaw hung open for a
few seconds more before I closed it again.

"Why the hell did you pull that stunt back at the hotel?" I kept my eyes on the
road ahead. Only ten miles to go.

"Me? Man, that was all
your
imagination. You have a damn powerful one."

"Not the hallucination. You telling me I need to do what's right. What
is
right?"

"This. What you're doing right now is what you should have done ages ago."

I took one hand off the wheel to scratch the back of my head. "No shit."

Five miles.

"You know...I never met Raychel. Is she as hot as
Lisa
?"

My blood pressure spiked. "Why'd you say her name like that?"

There was no response from Silas. I'd almost forgotten what I'd said because a
small Fiat car was coming into view on the side of the road.

"Must be them."

Slowing to a crawl, I could feel my stomach rising into my throat. Would it
really take an apocalypse to bring me and Raychel together again? Would she
even forgive me? There was no time to worry about that. She must have seen my
car slowing down, because the driver side door opened and out she jumped in all
her blonde glory.

"Jack!"

I
parked the van. Raychel ran to me before I was even out and threw her arms
around my middle. For a moment I was dumbstruck. It was if nothing had gone bad
between us. It felt right to hug her — as if we were meeting for a movie or dinner
or something.

I
held her back at arm's length. She was obviously older than the last time I'd
seen her, but her eyes were still that vibrant blue. A few more wrinkles
creased her face. It was as if life were showing how harsh it had been to her.

The
large smile on her face suddenly faded. She pulled away before slapping me on
the arm. "Why didn't you ever call?!" Crossing her arms over her chest, she
turned away in a pretend huff.

"Did
you have any trouble getting here? I hope you weren't waiting too long."

She
turned back toward me with her eyes a bit wider. It was as if my voice or words
had come as a surprise to her.

"Uh,
no. The drive was boring. We've only been here for about an hour or so."

"Yeah,
okay. Who's 'we' again?"

"Are
you seeing anyone?"

"What?"

Her
face went into blank mode. Her head tilted to one side. "Are. You. Seeing.
Anyone?"

I
leaned forward slightly. "What. Does that. Have to do. With anything?"

"Then
that's a no."

I
said nothing.

"No
one since Claire?"

That
caught my attention. "You never met Claire."

A coy
smile appeared on her face. "I stalked your Facebook page. She was cute. Why'd
you break up?"

After
a deep sigh, I pinched the bridge of my nose. "What are you talking about?"

Raychel
grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the small car. Through the window I could
see a man and a woman in the back seat. I didn't recognize him, but I
recognized her.

"Jack!"
She began getting out of the car.

I
swung back around to Raychel. "What the hell?"

Raychel
shrugged. "She and I got to talking after you two broke up. She's sweet. We
became friends."

Claire
rounded the back of the vehicle with her arms outstretched for a hug. But I
wasn't feeling it. "Sorry. I'm seeing someone."

Both
Raychel and Claire's faces drooped. It was quiet for a moment until Raychel
introduced the man as he got out.

"This
is Gregg."

I
studied the side of her face as she watched him. There was a soft fondness in
her eyes. It reminded me of the way she used to look at me.

"So,
what..."

She
finally tore her gaze away from him. "Yeah?"

"What
do you...what are we gonna do?"

"Well,"
Claire said, "we were kind of hoping you'd gotten somewhere safe and could show
us where."

That
was typical. Only calling when she needed something. I cleared my throat. "I
was staying in a hotel in Utah. Seemed okay."

"Well,
let's go!"

We
debated for a few moments whether or not the two of them should follow me or if
we should go in one car. In the end, we decided to siphon the gas out of the
van and take the Fiat. While it was a smaller, we could most likely save time
by driving quicker, and if anything were to happen, I'd be there.

"So,
Jack...where is your girlfriend?"

I
turned my attention to the rear view mirror so I could see Claire. "What?"

She
shrugged one shoulder. "You said you had a girlfriend, but she wasn't with you.
Where is she?" That single question was loaded with a multitude of others.
There was so much hesitation in in the air that it was impossible to sort
everything out right then and there.

Closing
my eyes for a second, I turned my head back toward the passenger side window. "She's
in Utah."

"At
the hotel we're going to?"

"No."

Out
of the corner of my eye, I saw Raychel nod. "So, you lied."

"Can
we talk about something else?"

She
paused. I'd almost thought I'd hurt her feelings until she let out an exhausted
sounding chuckle. "You are still the Dancing King. Dancing around the issues."

"Is
my dating life really an issue?"

She
smiled, reached over and flicked my ear. "Stop it!"

I
flinched, waving her hand away. "I was seeing her, okay? But it didn't work
out."

"Maybe
she was turned off by your scruffy beard." Claire let out a snort of amusement.

I
shook my head. "This is a new development."

"Yeah,
well it should probably go. You look homeless."

I
raised an eyebrow. "Aren't I?"

Her
face went blank. "I think we all kind of are."

***

"So what is the four-one-one?" Raychel sat in the swivel chair at the bar and
turned to face me. She still had that mischievous look in her eyes.

I grabbed the counter behind the bar and leaned forward. "About what?"

She shrugged. "Life, the universe and everything."

"Forty-two."

"I'm serious!"

"Me too."

After a sigh, she rolled her eyes. "All jokes aside"

"Wait... When did we agree to that?"

She eyed me. "Just tell me how your life has been."

I took a deep breath. "Nothing out of the ordinary. Aside from these Biters on
my heels ready to tear me a new asshole. What about you?"

"Same shit, different day."

I could have sympathized with that. "How's Ray doing?"

Raychel scoffed. It was a sound I knew all too well. "You are the only person I
know that refers to his father by his first name." She paused. "He's dead."

"Good. When did that happen?"

"Two years ago. And you were right, so...no gloating."

I put my hands up in a defensive pose. "I wasn't going to."

She gave me a half-cocked smile. It was the same one I remembered from years
ago. A familiar ache inched its way into my chest.

"So...this girl you were seeing... Care to offer up a serving of what she was
like?"

Leaning forward, I rested my elbows on the bar while crossing my arms.
"Perfect."

Raychel slapped the bar with an open palm, alerting Claire and Gregg who'd been
off exploring the lobby. "Wow! She musta sucked the soul outta you to get you
to say that!" A laugh accompanied the sentiment.

"Dude. Gross. What the fuck?" I narrowed my eyes at her while she continued to
laugh like nothing had happened between us or in the world.

"That must have been some blow job!"

I could feel a grimace cross my expression. "All right, all right. Are we
done?"

"Aww!" Raychel stood to reach across the bar. Then she pinched one of my cheeks
before I could swat her away. "Cheer up, Jackie. Give me a smile!"

"What's so funny over here?" Gregg took the seat next to Raychel who still
thought she was the funniest thing since David Brent.

"Ray Ray got into the laughing gas again," I said. Claire giggled, so I nodded
toward her. "C'mon, Charlie. let's get out of here before Raychel's head
explodes."

***

"You used my
nickname."

I was in my own
world when Claire spoke. The stars were so bright because lack of light
pollution, I could see the Milky Way. Yum. Milky Way.

"Jack?"

"What?" I turned
to look at my ex-girlfriend. She hand't changed at all — still had that short
brown hair and shy look to her.

"You used my
nickname back there."

I blinked a few
times. "Oh, yeah. I got used to giving people nicknames when I was with Lisa."

Claire was quiet
for a moment. I knew that quiet. That quiet was the jealous quiet. There was no
energy to handle that shit. So, I decided it was time to try and head to bed.
But she followed me. Could not take a hint, that one.

"it's um...it's
nice to see you again. How have you been?"

I sighed while opening the door to my cabin. "Just peachy. You?"

"I've seen better days."

I glanced at her. "You look fine. Haven't changed much."

A tinge of red filled her cheeks. "Thanks."

A long silence fell over us. I felt bad for being angry with her. Despite what
she'd done to me in the past, she was a sweet woman and always kind. Just not
that bright.

"I didn't mean for things to end the way they did."

I expected to feel upset at her statement, but I felt nothing. It was kind of
refreshing. I sat on the bed and she followed again. "Well, cheating is a
conscious decision."

She turned to me, her eyes wet. "And I feel terrible for that."

I shrugged. "The past is the past."

"I tried to get a hold of you a lot after that."

"I know."

"I wanted things to work." There was a slight waver in her voice. All I needed
then was for a woman to cry at me. "Raychel told me why your last relationship
didn't work out."

"Oh boy..." I knew she'd be looking to get back together, but I had no idea she
wanted to take it so fast.

"You know I always wanted to marry you."

"Yeah, I knew that. But it wasn't right."

A tear fell down her cheek. "The only reason I cheated was because you wouldn't
commit!"

I could feel my brow furrow. "As backwards as that sounds, I was twenty-seven,
Claire. I wasn't ready to get married."

"Raychel says you were always ready."

I let out a low groan. "Jesus. Yes, I was always ready, but I didn't feel like
you were the one. I was trying to spare your feelings."