Malem Deformem

A short story about the aftermath of a nationwide virus, told in a first person perspective. Elise, the main character and narrator, has a friend who witnesses a tragic event.

  The virus seemed to have run its course. No new cases had turned up in the past two weeks, and while not everyone was ready to heave a sigh of relief, the terror that had gripped the U.S. was dying down. Mostly the virus just killed you- quickly, and it was an ugly death. The few who had survived weren’t really human anymore, and permission from the government had been given that they could be killed on sight. Little good that does you, when the infected were intelligent, strong, and FAST. One needed to know they were being hunted, and be prepared. No matter what the CDC had named the virus- malem deformem, or the Deformity Sickness, as to not awaken superstition and fear thousands of years old- the term “werewolf” was still muttered, and with increasing frequency.

 

  It was hot. Hotter than any other May on record in the desert Southwest, with temps over 120 in some areas. Too damned hot to even go outside, although my muscles were twitching with the sitting around that had become my life for the last several days. Even halfway through a good book, I was thinking about my garden, cleaning my house, baking something….but the heat sapped the strength from me not 20 minutes into a task. The little “efficiency” wall AC unit tried its best, and one room was even tolerable. So, instead of a nice hike or being a productive human being, I was sprawled on the couch with a book and ice water for company. Wiggling a little to adjust my position of laziness, I sank further into the upholstery.

  The infection had been relatively light here in Arizona, with some attributing the record heat and people staying inside and away from each other to that. Most of us watched the news, worried a little, and went about our day, all while trying not to dwell on what was happening in milder climates. I was no better than the rest of them, as I lost myself in the chapters of the latest book in my favorite series.

  The peace was shattered for me when someone pounded on my door, less that two feet from my head. The book went flying, and I was glad that no one had seen my whole body lift up off the couch. Grumpily standing up and straightening my shirt and hair, I answered the door trying not to look as irritated as I felt.

“Hey Bobby, what’s up?” I asked the scrawny red-head that darkened my doorway. “Come on in before you cook.”

  My friend Robert Moran was a newish friend, us having met through a mutual friend of ours. Similar interests draw people together, and an appreciation for hiking and good coffee meant that both Bobby and I got along just fine. We could even talk politics without wanting to punch each other.

  “Hey Elise.” He hesitated just a moment, then came inside.

  Usually a pretty animated guy, he seemed almost somber today. His shoulders were slightly stooped, and his walk closer to a shuffle than his normal long stride. Either the heat was getting to him or he’d had a rough day. I quickly went into the kitchen and poured another glass of water, and also grabbed the tub of ice cream I’d bought last night. Not that I’d been planning on sharing, but he looked like a little sugar and cream would do him some good.

  “You look a little rough, dude.” I said.

  “Thanks a lot. You didn’t have to be quite so honest about it.” He replied as he grabbed the Moose Tracks and a spoon. “I’ve had a real crappy week, not to mention all that s**t on the news this morning,” he mumbled through a mouthful of fudgy goodness.

  “The news? There’s always something bad on the news these days. What’s so special about todays news?” I asked as I dipped my own spoon in the tub. “Another innocent person shot? A natural disaster? Protests?”

  “Worse. That werewolf virus thing? There have been sightings. Here. They don’t think it’s a new case, but some of the infected that escaped initial notice. That’s just what I need to worry about at work, aside from the heat. Being nabbed by a goddamned werewolf!” Bobby was a bit of a worrier.

  “Come on, dude. A couple sightings does not make it any more likely that you’ll become a victim. The virus has come and gone- we got lucky that it didn’t hit the Southwest as hard as it did elsewhere, but there were still a couple hundred cases. It’s not like we didn’t know there were still a few stragglers around.” I said, licking the spoon and pointing it at him. “Besides, everyone is holed up because of this heat. Maybe he’ll die from heatstroke out there first. And they are NOT werewolves, Bobby. Just poor, sick, deformed victims of an illness.”

  “Yeah, well YOU don’t have to work outside. At least in a building there is some protection, even if they CAN break through a window or door. At least you’d hear it coming.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, shrugged, and handed me the rest of the ice cream. All two bites left. “I suppose you’re right, but it doesn’t make me any less jumpy when I am outside and all alone. F*****g creeps me out. Let’s do something so I don’t have to think about it for a while- movie?”

  I thought about it for a hot second, and then said, “Nope. While I would love to sit in an actual air conditioned building, I am broke until next week, and I don’t feel like overdrawing my bank account…again.” I sat on the arm rest of the couch and put my hand on my chin, thinking. “I have a pizza in the fridge, and some cards?”

He laughed and said, “Sure. Anything is better than nothing.”

   The pizza didn’t last nearly as long as the card game, and after a couple beers the conversation and friendly debate lasted even longer than that. Finally, around midnight, I was barely able to keep my eyes open. I told Bobby he’d better get his butt home before I fell asleep at the table. After a few quick friendly insults and a hug, he was on his way out the door and I was dragging myself to bed. Even on weekends I couldn’t seem to stay up much past twelve anymore. Damned day jobs. I also knew that no matter what time I fell asleep, my body would wake me up at the ungodly hour of seven a.m. Ick.

  The next morning, at seven on the dot, I opened my eyes. That’s what routine will get you. I rolled over and tried to sleep in, tossing and turning for a solid hour, and finally gave up. Defeated, I figured I might as well pretend to be ambitious. A shower, clean clothes, and some Guatemalan coffee helped. Caffeine in my belly and working its marvelous way into my bloodstream, I sat down to do some work on my computer, first checking the good old book of face. Not much going on, but another news story about a sighting of one of the deformed. Nothing confirmed, and I didn’t think too hard about it. The sighting had been near the Catalina Foothills, the ritzy part of Tucson. Probably just rich people making s**t up to get attention. I wondered if my friend was working today- he hadn’t mentioned it last night that I could remember. He was a district ranger for the USFS, and for a short moment I felt a twinge of guilt for picking on him over his fear. Then it was forgotten as I settled into work mode.

 

   When my phone rang I cursed it for interrupting the flow I had going in my report for work, and looked at the caller ID. Bobby. I sighed and answered.

  “Hey what’s up, Bobby?”

   The voice on the other end babbled out a string of non-sense for about 5 seconds before I even realized he was talking.

  “Whoa, hey! Slow down! I can’t understand a word you’re saying!” I chided him. He always talked obscenely fast when super excited about something. His next words, though, made me realize that he also talked that fast when terrified.

   “I saw it. I SAW it, Elise! The werewolf, the infected. Just for a moment! It was far enough away, and I was by my truck. Elise- it LOOKED RIGHT AT ME. Like it knew what I was thinking. They don’t look like that on TV. This thing was a monster, not some illness ridden victim!” He was breathing so hard I could still barely understand him. The panicky gulps of air sounded almost like sobbing.

   “Hey, hey! It’s OK. He’s there, you’re not now, right?” I asked. At least I hoped he was smart enough to get the hell away.

   “Do I look stupid?! Like hell if I was going to linger!” His irritation seemed to help him calm down just a tad. Good. I’d poke at him again if it kept him thinking straight.

   “Just making sure, Bobby. Did you notify the police?” Everyone had been told to call the police in the event that we saw a deformed one. They would track and shoot it. Efforts had been made during the first three months to find a cure, to restrain and try to help those with the disease, but thousands of people had died trying to keep the infected humans restrained or locked up. No cure had been found yet, and they were too dangerous to try to “catch”. It was sad, but necessary.

  “Yes. I called them first. They are already out looking.” He said, breathing more normally. “I think I will take a few days off. Like hell if I am going back out in the woods with that THING out there.” Way to be PC, Bobby. I wasn’t going to call him out on his political incorrectness, not right now.

   “Ok, good, good. Are you OK, then?” He was still rattled, I could tell.

   “I will be, after I change my shorts.” He laughed. I hoped he was kidding. “But I really don’t want to go to my empty, and rather secluded, house right now. My roommate it out of town. Are you busy, or do you mind if I stop by? I’ll even buy the ice cream this time.”

   Well, who could say no to that?

   About an hour later I heard Bobbys old Forest Service truck pull up. Half gallon of mint chocolate chip in hand, along with a much welcomed six pack of cheap beer, he walked on in. I rarely lock my door, having not much that anyone would steal, and Bobby knew that. Nonetheless, he turned and locked it behind him, something he had never done.

  “Still a little skittish, are we?” I lightly asked, as he cracked a beer for me and narrowed his eyes at my teasing. “I am pretty sure your “thing” doesn’t have my address.” I wasn’t really offended by him calling the infected that, but I did feel bad when people dehumanized them. They were still people, they just didn’t know it.

  “Pardon me for taking precautions. You’ll thank me when you don’t get mauled.” He quipped as we toasted beer cans. “So, let’s get on that computer of yours and do a little research, eh?”

  Oh boy. He was going to start obsessing. That was just his thing. Whenever encountered by a problem or enigma, he would invariably “research” it to death. Depending on how complex the issue, his obsession could last days, or months. Unfortunately, I was usually willing to indulge him.

  “Fine, but once you’ve scared the crap out of yourself with your Google searches and horror stories, I know damned well you’ll be sleeping on my couch with every light in the house turned on. YOU can pay my electric bill, good sir.”

  “Deal.”

  Several hours and several beers later, we both fell asleep on the couch with all the lights on, each curled up at our own end. Nightmares were made of the things we had learned.

I woke up to movement- Bobby must have gotten up to pee or something, my bleary mind told me. I tried to dose off again, but sat straight up at the sound of a knock on the door. What the hell time was it? My still open laptop said three thirty two a.m. Seriously? Did some drunk college kid have the wrong house? My still mostly asleep brain didn’t even register that Bobby was at the door, getting ready to answer it.

  “Who the hell is here?” I slurred, wiping some drool off my face. I must’ve slept with my face pressed into the arm rest.

  “It’s the police.” He whispered, then opened the door a little. “Hello. Can I help you, Officers?” I could hear the pleasant tone, but underneath that, fear.

There must have been two of them, then. I felt a spike of fear, myself. What were cops doing at my house? At three thirty in the morning on a Sunday? Was someone hurt, was there a nearby crime?

  “Sorry to bother you at this hour, sir. Is Elise Barber home? We’d like to speak with her.” One of the cops asked politely. He didn’t sound young, but had a timbre and smoothness to his word that said he had put in his time as an officer. Polite, but also firm.

I sat up straighter, wiped my face some more ran a hand through my hair, and stood up. While walking the whole three steps to the door, I called out that I was right here.

  “Good evening, Officers. Is there a problem?” Ok. Not as polite as Officer Number One had been, but it WAS almost four in the morning. I yawned, covering my mouth with my hand.

Officer Number Two spoke up this time.

  “Yes ma’am. Are you Elise Barber?” When I nodded, he continued, “Do you know a Daniel Kaminski?”

My heart about jumped out of my throat. Of course I did. He was mine and Bobbys mutual friend who had introduced us. A million bad things went through my mind in an instant, but all I said was a quiet,

  “Yes. Why?”

  “When was the last time you saw him, Ms. Barber?” Cop Number One asked. Now that I could see them, I could also see that they had name tags. The first cop was in his mid-forties, moderately handsome, graying, and had that veteran look, like he had seen some s**t. His name was Sgt. Reynolds. Cop number two was the younger, maybe a rookie, somewhere in his early twenties. Cute in the young and athletic sort of way, moderately tall, light brown hair and blue eyes. Officer Allen looked untried next to Reynolds. He fidgeted a little, looked around, and asked before I could answer the first time,

  “When, and where did you see him last?”

Impatient, and rude. Can’t win ‘em all, I guess. I looked at Sgt. Reynolds, the more courteous of the two, and told him exactly when and where I had seen Dan.

  “I last saw Dan on Wednesday, this past week. We had lunch at the taco cart on Grant Street, right around noon. He said he was off that day, and in the city. He works out of town a lot. What happened?” I asked pointedly. No point in beating around the bush. They were here for a reason.

  “Are you sure?” Asked Allen, a little too quickly.

  “Yes, I am positive. We don’t see each other as often as we used to since he took that new job in the Rincons.”      The Rincons were the mountain range to the east of town. Dan had been doing some sort of research there for the Forest Service.

   Sgt. Reynolds looked grim, and asked if I had heard from him over the phone or internet, or if any of our mutual friends had seen or heard from him. At that point, Bobby stepped up and said that he also knew Daniel, and also had not seen nor heard from him since Wednesday.

  “He shot me an email Wednesday morning about his progress with the research up in the mountains, and said he was headed up there Thursday morning. He planned to camp that night, and come back down to Tucson on Friday afternoon. Said we should grab a burger Friday or Saturday, come to think of it. I got busy and forgot.” Bobby rattled all this off quickly, looking worried. “Officers, did something happen? Is he missing?”

  “We got a report from his girlfriend that he didn’t come home on Friday, which apparently isn’t unusual. She said sometimes he stays out an extra day or two when he’s backcountry. She wasn’t worried until this evening. Says he never works on Sundays when he doesn’t have to, and apparently he didn’t have to this week.” Reynolds was at least being helpful. Allen just stood there and looked suspicious.

  Well s**t. This wasn’t good news at all. And his girlfriend was right- Daniel liked his Sundays off. Sunday Funday he always said, and meant it. It was possible that something up in the mountains had him fascinated, but to not even let anyone know that he’d be days later than he’d said was unusual. Not great cell service up there, but you could usually find a signal by hiking up high.

   “Has a search party been sent out?” I asked. “It’s been too hot- maybe something happened while he was in the woods. He could be hurt!”

   Allen sneered a little, and said, “We can’t send out a search party in the dark, Ma’am.” Making the “Ma’am” sound sarcastic. Reynolds gave him a look.

  “Thank you folks. We will let you know if we hear anything. Please let us know if you hear anything, as well. Have a good night.” Yep. I definitely liked Reynolds way more than Allen.

  There was no more sleep to be had that night. I made a pot of coffee. Bobby was more worried than I was, but that’s just Bobby. He’s a little high strung. But, he worked closely with Daniel, both of them patrolling the Rincons, if for differing reasons. What if HE had gone missing, he asked. What if it was the thing he’d seen? I assured him that Daniel hadn’t gotten attacked by one of the deformed, but it didn’t seem to lessen his fear. So we racked our brains as to what might have kept Dan away from home. Had he fallen and gotten hurt? Succumbed to the intense heat? Ran out of water? Or maybe he had just hunkered down and was collecting data on some cool new species of plant. Too many possibilities. I felt bad for Bobby, mostly.

  As dawn lightened my windows, I realized that it was now Monday, and I was supposed to be to work in a few hours. Crap. I decided to call in sick, which I rarely do. Two or three hours of sleep, police at your door in the middle of the night, and a friend AWOL…it seemed a good enough reason to not be there. Bobby got a call that the police had been up to the Foothills and his section of mountain, and there had been no sightings and no more reports of an infected. They told him to wait 48 hours, and if no sightings had been reported by then he could return to work. Residents up there had only been notified to “report suspicious activity”. No need causing a panic by saying that there might be a virus ridden, deformed human chewing on people. A search and rescue team was called out to look for Daniel when it was obvious he hadn’t returned by Monday morning. Bobby is a member of the volunteer Search and Rescue, and decided to go up with the group.

   Left to my own devices, and a rare Monday off, I did some busy work around the house and yard. The temperature had dropped- it was only 103 instead of 115, today. Damn near a cold front after the weekend. I even decided to cook myself an actual dinner that evening. I was waiting to hear form somebody, anybody, about the rescue mission. By eight p.m. I gave up waiting for a call. It was almost dark, and everyone would be either camping or headed home. Exhausted from the last two days of excitement, I fell into a deep sleep before nine.

Tuesday had me back at work. I was a little worried that no one had called, but that wasn’t too unusual, especially if they were still looking. It was the time of year for our quarterly reports, so that kept my mind pretty occupied for most of the day. Still, I checked the news and the SARA (Southern Arizona Search and Rescue) feed periodically, and my coworkers said I was awfully quiet. I didn’t want to worry them, so I just chocked it off as being tired and busy with paperwork. When it was the end of the day, I packed up, said my goodbyes, and headed home. A quick stop at the grocery store bought a frozen dinner, and another half-gallon of ice cream, dark chocolate with espresso chips this time. Damn it, worrying was NOT helping my waistline.

   After a TV dinner and still resisting the desert, I settled down to read. Not five minutes into my book, a frantic knocking started on my door. For once, I had locked it, due to nerves. I opened it and Bobby almost fell in. He grabbed me in an almost painful hug, squeezing until I could barely breathe. He didn’t say anything for a couple minutes. Something bad had happened in the mountains.

  “Bobby?”

  He hugged even tighter for a moment, then stepped back. He looked at me with a dirt and tear stained face, and said,

  “Daniel is dead.”

   My heart skipped a beat, and I sat down on the couch. Dead? I hadn’t really thought it would be that. I had thought lost, maybe hurt. Not dead. The only word that would come out was, 

  “How?”

  Bobby told me that they had spread out and searched the area where he was supposed to be. And they had found him. A small group of searchers, Bobby included, had found his tent and camp stove. No one was around, but it didn’t look abandoned. When they started to look through his tent and belongings, it attacked. Not it- Daniel. He was infected. He hadn’t gotten to the fully deformed stage, but his mind was gone, and he was no more Daniel than a rabid wolf would have been. He was unnaturally fast and strong, and tossed the searchers about like they weighed no more than a sack of potatoes. Bobby talked as if he were in a daze. Maybe he was in a state of shock.

  “When Daniel, the monster that had been Daniel, looked at me, he recognized me.  It should have made me feel less afraid, but it didn’t I was MORE afraid. Too terrified to move. The crazy look in his eyes just dimmed, and for a moment he SAW me. I think he tried to say something, but before he could, shots rang out right beside me and he was gone. Dead. They shot him down. Even as scared as I was, they shouldn’t have done that. He KNEW me. Maybe I could have helped him!” He had spoken quickly towards the end, and by the time he was done tears were leaking down his face, which had a lost look on it.

   I just sat there in shock myself. Many unformed questions passed through my brain, but I couldn’t put them to words, and even if I could, I would not have burdened Bobby with them just now. For now, we sat in silence, mourning the loss of a friend. I felt bad for Bobby- he had watched as his friend had not only turned into a mindless beast, but also watch him get gunned down by the apparent good guys. He would have nightmares for years, I knew.

  It seemed like hours later, but it could have been minutes, I finally took a good look at Bobby. He hadn’t said a word since his story, and I was concerned. He was dirty, ragged, and hollow looking.

  “Hey, go ahead and use my shower. There should be clean towel in there. You’ll feel a little better if you shower, and try to sleep.”

  He just nodded absently and shuffled across the room towards the bathroom. A shower wouldn’t fix a damned thing, but sometimes giving a person in a crisis a task gives them purpose. Plus it allowed me to cry to my hearts content for 30 minutes or so.

  When I heard the shower stop, I stopped crying so hard, and cleaned my face up in the kitchen sink. I had to be the strong one for my friend. He came out of the bathroom looking pale and drawn, towel help around him like a shield. I gave him some too-big-for-me clean clothes and sent him back in to put them on. When he came out again, I had a couple cups of tea ready. As we sipped our chamomile tea in companionable and somber silence, I snuck a look over, and noticed some scrapes and bruises on his arms and legs.

  “You banged yourself up a little out there.” I said, waving vaguely at one nasty scratch on his arm.

  “Yeah.” He gave a short laugh, “I f*****g hate cats claw.”

  Cats claw is an indigenous shrub of the acacia family. Its thorns look like rose thorns, or cat claws- wickedly curved, and they grab viciously onto clothes and skin. They do, indeed, suck royally to bushwhack through.

  “Well, I know you showered but those suckers need some antibiotic ointment at least. I’ll go grab some.” I said, even though I was already halfway down the hall. I came back and dabbed some ointment on the scrapes and scratches, put Band aids on the worst of them, and sat down to finish my cold tea. When there is an emergency, I have a hard time sitting still. I need to be doing something, to be useful. Even though there was nothing left to be done, I was restless. Bobby just stared at his cup, wide-eyed and barely moving.

  “Let’s go to bed. You can sleep in my room tonight. I don’t think either of us needs to be alone just yet.” No, it wasn’t an offer for THAT. People, even if they don’t know or admit it, crave the touch of others. Why do you think we like to pet dogs and cats so much? Why it’s soothing to us to do so? Especially when we are upset? So Bobby and I crawled into bed, and cuddled like it was the middle of winter and we didn’t have heat, even though it was 80 degrees in the house. Some things chill your soul.

  I woke up alone. It was late morning, past time for me to be awake and at work. I panicked for a hot minute, then remembered that at some point before falling asleep I had sent out an email about what had happened to our friend. They would understand that I would not be in for the rest of the week.

Assuming that Bobby had gotten up and was still around, I got up myself to hunt down the coffee. But he wasn’t in my house. His truck was gone. I was surprised that he hadn’t at least left a note, but then figured that probably wasn’t the first thing on his mind this morning. Resigned to making my own coffee, I put water in the kettle and went to the bathroom to take care of business. I flushed the toilet, and went to the sink, and looked up at the mirror. It was broken. It hadn’t been broken last night. Had Bobby broken it this morning? I knew he wasn’t in good shape, emotionally, but it wasn’t like him to get physical. Well, he’d seen things yesterday that no one should ever see. That’d make even Gandhi punch an inanimate object.

A cup of coffee later, I was reading the morning news. There it was, already:

         “Man with Malem Deformem Virus Found in Rincon Mountains- Is the virus making a comeback?”

 Great. Either it was, or poor Daniel had already had it. Either way, good way to cause another panic, stupid reporters. The story went on to say that two SARA members had been hurt badly, but were expected to make a full recovery. Some good news, at least. From what we had researched that weekend, the virus was transmittable through blood or saliva, and had a 50% of infecting someone exposed to it. Of those who did become infected, most died within a week or two. Of the few that survived, mostly young adults in good health, t

he disease was horrifying. The infected person became violent, and faster and stronger than a human should be. They could, at times, have lucid moments, but they would pass in the blink of an eye and the person would attack the closest living thing, biting, scratching, and tearing. That was bad enough, but the worst part of the disease was that it deformed its host. The infected would start growing hair on their bodies and face, the back would curl out and give a hunched appearance. Fingernails grew quickly and became hardened, like bone. Calcified bony deformities grew on the face and out of the mouth. In the mouth they looked like teeth or fangs. On the face they grew under the skin, causing large looking brow ridges, high, bony cheek bones, and making the mouth protrude. There was a reason this had been nicknamed the werewolf disease. They weren’t werewolves, but they sure didn’t look human, either.

   Still trying to absorb the news of Daniel, I decided that I needed to do something other than sit around. I had done enough sitting. It was early, and not yet 100 outside, so I hopped on my bike. I rode around town, grabbed lunch at a fish taco cart, got a haircut and picked up some groceries. By the time I rode my bike up to my house, the temperature at soared to 106, and I was tired of being out in it, and pleasantly tired out from the ride. Having burned off some energy seemed to help. I checked my phone, but no messages. Bobby was probably mourning in peace, catching up on sleep, or dealing with the Forest Service in the aftermath of the event. I’d leave him be for a day or two, then check in on him.

  Three days later, I was worried. The only thing I had heard from my friend was a text the day before saying,         “Just need to be alone for now.” Ok, no problem, but it wasn’t very Bobby-like to be so blunt and uncommunicative. I’d give him one more day, and then I was just going to show up and make SURE that he was OK.

But I didn’t need to. The sound of a truck engine in my driveway told me who was here, and I opened the door before he could knock.

  He looked better, actually. Not as strung out, maybe. I quickly dragged him in and gave him a hug.

  “I was worried about you. You’re not usually the type to fall off the planet when you’re upset. I had to eat ALL of the damned ice cream without you.” I rambled on and gave his chest a poke with my finger. “I’m going to get fat because of you!”

  Usually, Bobby and I have a similar sense of humor, using it in uncomfortable situations to relieve the tension. This time, just for a split second after I had poked my finger at him, I saw not humor but anger in his face. Just a millisecond, and it was gone, and he smiled.

 “Learn restraint. Everything in moderation- even ice cream.” He chided.

  I rolled my eyes at him, but still felt a little unnerved at that flash of anger I had seen. “Ice cream is my crack. There IS no moderation.” I said, as I made little finger quotation marks when I said “moderation”.

  He laughed and suggestion getting a burger and a beer. Sounded good to me, so I grabbed my money and we walked to the nearest burger place. Everything was starting to feel normal again, and I relaxed. On the way back to my house, feeling fat and happy with a belly full of medium rare ground beef and French fries, we passed a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk. There are very many homeless in Tucson, and they are common to see downtown. I’ve given plenty a spare dollar bill to someone who probably needed it more than I did, and I knew Bobby had as well. That’s why when this man asked for change, I politely told him I didn’t have any cash on me- which was true. Neither did Bobby. As we walked away, the man said, under his breath, 

  “Snobby b***h.”

  I didn’t realize what had happened at first. One moment we were walking away, the next Bobby wasn’t beside me. I turned to see if he had dropped something, and saw him standing over the homeless man- who looked unconscious. And I saw Bobby shaking his hand out, like it hurt. Like someone does when they have hit something.

  “BOBBY!” I whisper-yelled, as to not attract attention. “What the HELL did you DO?”

He just stared at the man on the ground for a minute, and when he didn’t say anything I rushed over and knelt down to see how bad it was. Luckily, he was only knocked out, and coming out of it already.

  “Let’s go before someone notices that.” Bobby said, turning on his heel and stalking down the sidewalk toward my house.

  I just stood there, dumbfounded. Bobby was not a violent person. Had never, as far as I knew, ever been in even a bar fight. Maybe Dan’s death had affected him worse than I thought. Maybe he needed counseling, or therapy. After a second or two I hurried to catch up. I didn’t say anything at first. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t yell at him- he’d just seen his friend get blown away in front of him. It wasn’t his fault, but he obviously needed help.

I waited until we got back to the house to confront him. Before we went inside, I gently said,

  “Bobby, what happened back there?”

  He just looked at me a little confused for a minute, and then said, 

  “What? That piece of garbage who called you a b***h? He deserved it! Piece of s**t probably just wanted money for booze. He already reeked of it.”

  Not that I had stopped to take a whiff, but it wasn’t uncommon that some homeless folk liked their drink. For some of them, it’s the only way they know how to cope. It’s a shame, but we all have our vices. Bobby already knew that, though. He’d been called worse names by people, and so had I, and he knew that too. We never took it personally. Until today, apparently.

 “I wasn’t offended by it. It would have been OK to ignore him. It’s not like you to just haul off and hit anyone. Are you sure you’re OK?”

  “I’m just fine.”

  “I think you should find someone to talk to. A professional.”

  “A damned shrink? You think I’m crazy?”

  “No. I think you saw something awful and you need to work out how to handle that.”

  “I said, I’m fine.” Again, there was that edge of anger. He clenched his fists and jaw.

  “OK then. If you’re fine, then you’re fine. But for now, I think you should go home.” I said, biting back tears. I didn’t want to send my friend away, not when he was obviously not “fine”, but truth be told I was a little scared of him right then.

  The anger faded, and he looked hurt. And normal. I breathed a silent sigh of relief.

  “You don’t want me here? I don’t want to be alone.” He looked almost like a little kid, a lost little boy. His smattering of freckles stood out even more than usual, his face pale a wan. His reddish orange hair was disheveled and unkempt, and he looked too thin. I hadn’t noticed until I really stepped back and LOOKED at him, just how fragile he appeared.

  “I don’t want you to be alone, either, mi amigo. But I can’t have you smacking around everyone who calls me names. There would be a whole path of unconscious people leading up to my door, and then those nice policemen would be back. And the last thing I need is to be woken up at three in the morning AGAIN. So, either calm down and keep a lid on it, or get help.” I smiled as I said it, to take the sting off the words, but I meant them.

  “Alright. I should probably go home anyway. The roommate will start to think we’re a “thing”.” He said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

  “Then I would have to set him straight,” I replied shaking my fist. “Go home and get some rest. Talk to someone- you’ll feel better. Good night.”

  “Later.” And he got in his truck and headed home.

  A week went by, and although we sent a few texts back and forth, I did not see Bobby. He said he was doing better, busy at work and trying to get back to normal. That was good. Normal is sometimes better than exciting.

The week after, I didn’t hear from him for three or four days. When I did, it was a short message that read, “Been away. Everything’s OK.” Cryptic b*****d.

  Four days after that cryptic message, I was again startled by the pounding of my front door. Thinking it to be Bobby, I didn’t bother getting up of the couch, and simply yelled to come in. Again, pounding on the door. Again I yelled to come in. Again with the pounding, louder and more insistent this time. Damn it. Fine. I rolled off the couch and flung the door open, about to give someone an earful, when I saw who it was.

Sgt. Reynolds and Officer Allen. Ah. That would explain why they wouldn’t just “get in here already.” Oops.

  “Sorry officers, I assumed you were one of my friends.” I said.

  “And which of your friends might that be, Ms. Barber?” Allen said. Yep. I still didn’t like him.

   “Well, I would normally say Bobby, but I do have other friends who come over, and he has been busy.” I said a little testily, crossing my arms and looking Allen straight in the eye. “To what do I owe the pleasure of seeing you this evening?”

  Sgt. Reynolds gave me a “don’t poke the bear” look, and answered my question.

  “When was the last time you saw Robert Moran?”

   S**t.

  I thought about it, and realized it had been too long.

  “Almost three weeks, I think.” I said breathily. “I got a text from him several days ago, though. He was OK.”

  “You were the last person to be seen with him.” Allen almost sneered.

  I was? In three weeks? Hadn’t he gone back to work? Visited friends or family?

  All that came out was, “I was?” And even to me it sounded more lame than confused, and I was certainly confused.

  “You must be mistaken. He had to have gone to work, at least. He told me he was busy at work. I can show you the texts.”

  “Ms. Barber, when his friend…passed…he told his boss that he was taking an extended vacation. No one has seen or heard from him in weeks. The last time anyone saw him was when he was with you, downtown.” Reynolds said gently.

  I sat down abruptly on the doorstep. Three weeks? He’d sent me that message not that long ago. He’d said that everything was OK. It was fine. My god…had he killed himself? After seeing what he saw, unable to help his friend? After a few moments I could hear Allen whispering at Reynolds furiously.

  “Sir! She was the last one seen with BOTH of them before they died! The last guy was infected! Now his friend- her friend- is missing, too. Awfully coincidental, I think.”

  “Shut up, Allen.” I don’t think I was supposed to hear all that, so I just sat there hugging my knees.

  “Uhm…ahem. Ms. Barber? Are you OK? Would you like us to call someone?” Sgt. Reynolds was kind of my hero right about then.

  “No, thank you. I’m just afraid for Bobby. He was a mess when Dan…died. He saw it, in person. He wasn’t the same after that. I’m afraid he might have done something…hurt himself maybe. His last text was pretty vague.” 

  I showed them the text, while trying not to leak too many tears. My friend could be dead, and after Daniel….I was afraid to put too much into hope for fear of being disappointed.

  “Thank you, Ms. Barber. We will let you know if we find him, or if we have any more questions.” Reynolds said, as Allen looked on, anger in his eyes at being chastised.

 “Thank you.”

  The next day was Saturday, and the weather was actually nice. Instead of hiding from the heat and wallowing in my friend’s disappearance, I decided to go for a hike. Up on the mountain it was a pleasant 75 degrees, and in the shade of the Ponderosa Pines I could pretend that I wasn’t even in the desert for a couple of hours. I hiked for about 5 miles, and then stopped to take lunch. I was lightly dozing on a rock, enjoying a light breeze. Then the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

  I didn’t move. Almost couldn’t move. That primal, gut instinct that tells you to stay perfectly still. That if you run, it- whatever it may be- will chase you and eat you. So I just lay there, frozen in place, heart pounding in my chest. Then I heard my name.

  “Elise.” It was a soft, guttural whisper, but I knew the voice it belonged to.

  Without moving, I whispered back, 

  “Bobby?”

  I heard pine needles crunch, and something brushing up against the nearby bushes. I couldn’t help but turn my head towards the noise. When I did, my body refroze. No sound would come out.

  Bobby was infected. His body was misshapen and deformed, covered in patches of thick reddish hair. The patches made him look like he had mange. His back was bent and humped, so that his hands nearly dragged the ground in front of him, hands that ended in ragged, filthy claws. The face was terrible. Bony ridges distorted his brow, cheeks, and jaw, giving an animalistic appearance. Fang-like protrusions jutted from his mouth.

But it was his eyes that were the worst. They were the same color and shape they had always been- greenish grey and widely curious. But it was the look in them that made them awful. A hungry, rage-filled look, lurking just below the surface. I knew that if I ran, or moved too quickly, that hunger would surface and there would be no escape.

  I just looked at him, tears welling up and sliding down my face.

  He tried to speak again, and the rage took over for an instant. He started forward, then shook his head, grabbing it with both gnarled and clawed hands.

  “Go.” He said. “Go.”

  I couldn’t go. If I ran I was dead. Whatever he was fighting in his infected brain was winning. I just sat there, hoping that maybe Bobby would win the fight just now, and he would leave, and I could sneak away. I looked at him, and took a chance.

  “You’ll always be my friend, and I love you, you know.”

  His grotesque face softened for a moment, and I knew I’d gotten through. But only for a moment. The next instant the hunger had taken over. I watched in horror and awe as he jumped toward me- over 30 feet between us and he was on me in less than a heartbeat. The fingernails that were claws ripped into me, and from that moment on pain was all I knew. He was too fast, and too much abuse was happening to my body for my mind to understand, and it shut down. I’d die soon and it would be all over, my brain seemed to say.

  Except that it wasn’t. My brain clicked back on. Hours, days later, I didn’t know. My body hurt, but was healing. The wounds healing over with strange, bony calcifications. I couldn’t piece together what was happening. I should be dead. I slowly looked at my raw wounds- none seemed to be a killing blow. Deep, yes, but no arteries had been sliced, no bones were broken. I also noticed that even if I tried, I couldn’t stand up quite right. Frustrated with being forced to stoop, an anger, a rage, took over my mind and I tore into the trees and bushes surrounding me. Ten minutes of furiously destroying, rending the earth, and breaking small trees then my mind cleared, and I knew what had happened. Bobby hadn’t killed me- he’d turned me into this. It was purposeful, that much was obvious. Every claw and tooth mark, while indeed done in a rage, also done with no intent to kill. I had woken up not anywhere near where he’d attacked me, so I must have been carried or dragged.

  I remembered the cuts on Bobbys arms and legs the day they’d found Daniel. Daniel had attacked Bobby, but let him live, and Bobby knew that he was either going to become infected and die, or turn into what everyone considered to be a monster. So he never told anyone the complete truth about what had happened that day.

Rage overtook me again as I thought of my friends dying, and again at the thought that Bobby must have waited, and bided his time for a chance to turn me into what he was. Slowly, coherent thoughts waxed and waned. Sometimes my thinking was clear as a bell, and other times the only thing that was understandable was the rage that hung over my vision like a red haze over the world.

  During a clear moment, I knew that I had to get away from there. I had to run. People would kill me if they saw me, and I would kill someone if I saw them first. But I had a job to do before that happened.

  Bobby.

  He had turned me into a monster. Just so he wouldn’t have to be alone. Selfish b*****d. He needed to be punished. I needed to find him. My body was getting stronger, I could feel it. Speed and quickness were easy things now. I knew I could find my maker. With every thought, my brain sizzled in anger. A white hot heat. How DARE my friend betray me like this?! He turned me into a monster! Something that other people hunt down and killed! He would PAY.

  With that last coherent thought, I started running, faster, and faster. It felt good to run. Intent burned in me- kill Bobby. I must kill the one that caused this. Betrayed our friendship. Selfish. Kill him. Kill him!

Kill. 

Author's Note

Please be honest! This is the first short story I have written in over a decade and I probably need all the help I can get.