The Infected (Book 2): Karen's First Day (3 page)

At the local Safeway only a mile from Karen and Jim’s
apartment, the upstairs neighbors Cliff and Tina, were doing some shopping.
Their two-year-old, Brea, sat quietly down in the front seat of the fake car attached
to the cart. She steered the toy wheel like she was the one running the show.

Cliff fought to get the stupid thing down the aisle. This
kind of cart was a bitch to push around because it was a few feet longer than a
normal shopping cart and handled like a boat. It kept the little one happy so
it is worth the strain.

The two older girls wandered ahead of them. The little
ones were dressed in colorful clothes, in stark contrast to how the parents were
dressed. Tina wore a pair of skintight black jeans and a black Depeche Mode
t-shirt. Cliff was in a pair of black jeans with the knees worn out. They flapped
open with every step he took. His blank gray t-shirt was well worn and hung
nicely from his broad muscular shoulders.

The kids pointed excitedly at every colorful box on the
shelf.

“I want that,” the nine-year-old, Eve said.

“Me too,” the five-year old, Alex seconded her older
sister.

“Me three,” the voice came from Brea down in the car. She
loved that joke.

“Guys, Daddy didn’t get any overtime last month so we
need to keep it simple,” Cliff said as he pulled a store brand box of cereal
down off the shelf and tossed it into the back of the cart, “Plus I don’t think
a girl that gets suspended from school for smoking in the bathroom gets to pick
any food.”

“I only took one puff. Carly was the one smoking it.” Eve
rolled her eyes at her Dad. She had been hearing this all week.

“Who got caught? Who was kicked out for a few days?” Tina
said flatly.

“Me.” the eye rolls kept coming.

“What did you learn?”

“Don’t get caught,” she said as she pulled at her hair
sheepishly.

“That’s right. If you’re going to do something bad, don’t
get caught.” Cliff nodded his head at her. Eve was a very smart kid. Both
parents knew she was much smarter than they were at that age. After the initial
disappointment wore off, the lesson they wanted to teach had morphed. As the
week of suspension dragged on the lesson went from: “Do not ever do anything
bad ever again.” to a more realistic “Don’t get caught, dummy.” Maybe it was
the wrong thing to teach the child. Who knew? Over the last nine years they had
become keenly aware that they were making up most of this parenting shit up on
the spot.

“We are really good parents.” Tina looked at her husband.
In comparison, they were light years ahead of the people that raised them.

“Really, really good parents.” Cliff gave her a little
smooch on the cheek.

“You guys are dorks,” Alex giggled into her hands. She was
repeating something her older sister said way too often.

“Wow, you kiss your mother with that mouth?” Tina acted
like she was more shocked than she really was. This kind of language had been
popping up more and more ever since Alex started going to school. “You think
you’ll get any extra shifts this month?” Tina asked as she touched Cliff’s
shoulder with a gentle pat.

He hesitated with his answer. “Maybe, boss says there’s a
new strip mall going up at the edge of town. If he gets the bid we’ll be
floating in cash.” He muscled the cart straight again.

His wife read him like a book. He was keeping something
from her but she didn’t want to get into it now so she kept the conversation
rolling.

“When I finish nursing school we’ll be really rolling in
the cheddar. No more store brand shit.” She moved in fast for another smooch
and Cliff met her halfway. There was something in his eyes every time she asked
about his work or if she mentioned becoming a nurse.

“Mama, you said a bad word,” Eve shook a disappointed finger
at her mother.

“Which one? Store brand? That’s not a bad word.”

“Not that word.” The kid played right into Mama’s game.

“Your Mama never says any bad words. You only think she
said it.” Cliff winked at his wife.

“That’s right. Your ears must not be working. Call the
doctor we got a girl that can’t hear,” Tina said as a devious smile stretched
across her face.

“You guys are so weird,” Eve, pointed at a store brand
box of mac and cheese.

“Yep, grab four.” Tina nodded at her daughter.

The girl’s little hands snatched the boxes down off the
shelf.

“Mama, can we have tuna fish for sandwiches?” Alex
squatted down in front of the cans of fish.

“Yes, get five of the ones on sale.” Tina playfully
bumped hips with Cliff and knocked him off course.

“Hey, this thing is hard enough without you pushing me
around,” he said as he bumped her right back.

“You guys stop it. You’re embarrassing me.” Eve dropped
the boxes of macaroni into the cart.

“Dat way,” a tiny hand popped out of the fake car and
Brea pointed for them to go right. She was a real big help. Alex dropped her
cans of discount tuna into the back of the cart. Something caught her eye at
the front of the store.

“Mama, Daddy, look,” Alex, pointed her little hand back
down the aisle. The two parents took their time to turn and see what she was
talking about. It’s not very often that a five-year-old finds something
interesting that is actually interesting to the parents. It was a man. He stood
hunched over and pressed up against the window just to the left of the electric
sliding doors. The doors remained shut. He hadn’t set off the sensor.

Cliff and Tina had to do a double take and if a record were
playing music in the store it would have scratched to a halt. The man was
dressed in his Sunday finest. A black suit and tie, but the thing that caught
their eye was the fact that he was missing a good portion of his face. His body
swayed back and forth. He looked confused and lost, like this was the first
grocery store he had ever seen. Blood smeared across the glass as his forehead
rubbed slowly from one side to the other.

A gangly teenaged stock-boy stopped filling a display of
apples and moved closer to the front door. “Tom get over here. This guy is
really hurt!”

The man in the suit’s forehead sounded like a windshield
wiper dragging across dry glass. A chunk of metal protruded from his chest. It
was blood soaked and sticking through both sides of his torso. The sharp metal
tip ground loudly across the window every time he swayed back and forth. The
manager jogged over next to the stock boy.

“Wow! What the… Darleen, call an ambulance.” Tom told the
woman behind the cashier’s counter. The two co-workers moved slowly for the
front door. They had a difficult time telling if the man was looking at them,
his eyes were solid black. The two of them moved in a little closer. Seeing
someone this injured had put the two men into a state of shock.  

“I should go see if I can help,” Tina moved away from
Cliff’s side.

He quickly grabbed her arm and stopped her, “I don’t know.
We don’t want to get sued. Let the store take care of it.” He gave her arm a
squeeze. She knew he was right, but it was in her nature to want to help
people. “Let’s go, kids.” The two of them maneuvered the oldest children so
their curious eyes couldn’t see the injured man.

The sensor to the front door was set off when Tom stepped
into its range and the door slid open. The man at the window jumped with animal
purpose. He darted in through the doors and a second later he pulled Tom to the
floor and had chomped off most of his fingers with a few bites. Tom’s screams
filled the store. Cliff let go of the cart and took a few steps back into the
aisle to get a better look.

“What’s happening?” Tina called after him.

“Someone is getting attacked!”

The stock-boy reached out and pulled the man off of Tom.
He was swiftly pulled to the ground and the man with half a face tore into the
teen. His teeth smashed down onto the young man’s thigh.

Blood sprayed onto the cheap linoleum floor.

Cliff bolted down the aisle and grabbed a twelve pack of
beer that sat on top of a display. He got close to the attacker and tossed the
box at the man with everything he had. The domestic bottles clanked around in
the box as it flew through the air. It hit the man with the missing skin and
knocked him off the teen. The box exploded and bottles crashed to the floor.
The air filled with the metallic smell of blood and the sweet smell of hops.
The shattered bottles fizzed on the floor and the blood mixed with the amber
colored suds.

Cliff looked over at Tom. The manager was laid out on his
back, his mangled hands in front of his face. His screams were only broken up
by the few seconds it took to fill his lungs with more air. A few of his fingers
dangled by threads of flesh. Blood pumped out of his wounds and back down onto
his face and chest.

The teen clutched his leg. His black slacks had gone
shiny with the blood that pooled underneath the fabric. He whimpered fearfully.
Cliff had worked construction for ten years. He had seen his fair share of on
the job accidents. Smashed thumbs and deep saw cuts, but nothing at all like
this.

Eve and Alex had broken out in tears. Tina put her arms
around them and pulled the two in close. She tried her best to cover their
young ears from the cries of pain.

“Cliff, what the hell are you doing?!” Tina called after
him from the back of the store.

“I don’t know. It’s a mess. Keep the kids back,” he said
as he looked over to the woman with a phone pressed to her ear. “Did you get
ahold of an ambulance?”

She shook her head no, “Nine-one-one is busy. No one’s
picking up.”

“All right don’t panic!” Cliff looked around and realized
all eyes were on him. There were a good twenty people, staff and customers
watching the action unfold. Cliff had never liked being the center of
attention. He wished he had not gotten involved, but it was too late now. He
looked over the scene before him.

 “Shit,” he whispered. It was the same as when you
decide to clean out the junk in your garage but have no idea where to start. The
man in the suit with the missing face slowly got back to his feet.

“Hey asshole, what are you doing?” shouted Cliff. It
dawned on him that this guy might try and attack him. One of the bottles
survived the crash and rolled over next to Cliff’s foot. He bent down and
plucked it from the floor. Cliff held it up in the air by the neck. Deep down
he had always wanted to smash someone with a beer bottle like in a movie bar
fight.

The man lunged at Cliff. The bottle shattered across the
man’s forehead and chunks of glass were buried deep into the exposed muscle.
There was a distinct sound of the skull cracking from the blow. It was like a
baseball hitting a wooden bat at ninety-miles an hour and Cliff had hit a home run.
The sound echoed through the entire store.

The body of the man in the suit stiffened, fell straight
back and his skull cracked again on the hard floor. Cliff’s heart pounded in
his chest. What was left of the bottle shook in his hand. He kept it perched
high in the air. Ready to strike if this crazy son-of-a-bitch got up again. Black
blood oozed out of the cracked skull and mixed with the other two growing pools
on the floor.

“Cliff?! You tell me right now, what’s going on?” Tina
demanded after him. She stayed behind the shelving with her arms wrapped tight
around the children so they didn’t escape and run to their father.

“He tried to attack me and I hit him with a bottle. They pick
up that call?” Cliff looked over to Darleen.

“I keep calling but no one’s there.” She dropped the
phone on the hanger.

Cliff looked back over the audience. A guy in his early
twenties held up his phone and recorded everything.

“Hey, dipshit. Stop recording and call the cops!”

“No way, bro. I’m selling this to the news.” The guy with
the phone angled around to get a better look at Cliff’s face.

“Turn that shit off!” Cliff realized he was holding the
jagged broken bottle while threatening the guy and doing it all on video. Cliff
tossed the broken bottle to the ground and it shattered. A girl standing next
to the cameraman thumbed through her phone.

“The internet is going nuts. Something about an infection
that spreads through bites,” she said as her face held a look of disgust.

“Infection?” Cliff rubbed the hairs on the back of his
head, “What kind of infection is that?”

An old man with a cane waddled next to the bleeding teen.
He struggled to get down on one knee. He read the kid’s nametag. Jake.

“All right Jake. Let’s take a look.” The old man set his
cane down and produced a pearl-handled switchblade from his pants pocket. He
flicked it open and cut the cuff at the bottom of Jake’s pants. The fabric tore
easily once he got it going. He ripped it past Jake’s knee and revealed the mouth-sized
gash in his thigh. The tear in his skin already looked festered. The veins
around the wound had turned black. Cliff looked over at Tom on the ground and
the same black lines streaked down his wrists.

“You’re going to be okay,” the old man lied, “Try and
keep pressure on it,” the old man faced Cliff and shrugged his shoulders.

Cliff kneeled next to Tom and hesitated to reach out and
comfort the stranger.

“Hang in there, buddy.” Cliff glanced over at the woman
behind the counter, “Darleen, right? You have a first aid kit?”

“In the manager’s office.”

“Go get it.”

“The door’s locked and he’s got the keys.”

Against his better judgment Cliff dug into the man’s
pants. He found the keys and tossed them over to Darleen. She caught them and
took off for the office.

A woman raced into the store from the parking lot. She was
covered in blood and yelling at the top of her lungs, “Please help! My husband
tried to kill me!” She finally noticed the nightmare taking place in here, “Oh
my God, it’s spreading!”