Jacqueline Druga - No Man's Land

At that moment, I ran. “Get in the car! Now!” I shouted.

“Why?”

Why? Why would she even take a second to ask? I was running, I was screaming. Was she that much in denial? Before I even arrived, before I guess she could process my yelling, Vee Girl lunged at Leah and latched onto her arm. The force of the child knocked Leah a bit off her balance and into the side of the car.

She screamed and tried to pull the child from her.

As I ran, I watched the struggle and saw Van Boy. He ran my way, but wasn’t fast enough. We crossed paths and I arrived at Leah.

She screamed at the top of her lungs, loud and shrill. I grabbed Vee Girl and whipped her small body as hard as I could from Leah. She pulled the flesh right from Leah’s arm, and had it in her mouth. Blood poured out of my wife and I tossed the child. She didn’t weigh much, and my adrenaline fueled my strength. Vee Girl landed with a ‘thud’ on the road.

I shoved a hysterical Leah in the car and raced around to my side.

Van Boy arrived.

Hurriedly, I got inside as the boy leapt on the hood of my car. I jolted the car in gear and slammed the gas causing him to roll off.

I couldn’t move very fast, it was an obstacle course of vehicles. Carefully, I drove around the cars, looking in my mirror. The Vee children had collected themselves and were following. The little girl’s leg dragged behind her.

Leah cried, and there was nothing I was able do at that moment to help her. I had to get free and clear and to the open side of the road. Once I did and we were safe, I’d pull over and see what I should do.

Bottom line was, she had been bitten and other than trying to stop the bleeding, there wasn’t much more I could do.

I couldn’t do it.

When Leah smoothly rolled from her side to a sitting position and looked at us, I cringed and froze. Then I thought, You know what? This is it. This is how it ends.

I prepared to die holding my newborn son because I just couldn’t kill Leah. I had weapons, not a gun, but weapons: a huge wrench, a hammer, a bat. All of which were at my disposal, none of which I could bring myself to pick up against her.

How? How do I just simply bash in the brains of someone I loved?

I cradled the baby into my chest, lowered my head to his and waited.

Then it was easy. Leah wasn’t violent. She didn’t lunge at us. It was almost as if a part of her knew us and remembered us. Then she became preoccupied with the placenta that slipped from her body. She lifted it and slowly began to consume it.

We weren’t on the menu at that moment. It gave me time to figure out what I was going to do.

Keeping her - for lack of a better word - alive, had its advantages. I always knew the Vee could hear and see us. I theorized they could smell or sense us. That theory was somewhat proven true when Leah reanimated. From that moment on, the viciously attacking Vee started to leave. The ones that reached in through the broken walls and tried to get us, tried no more. It could have been, as I predicated earlier, because we were quiet and Leah wasn’t screaming. A part of me believed not only could they not hear us, they couldn’t smell me and the baby, so they moved on.

That left one problem solved, the other was nightfall. We couldn’t go anywhere until the sun came up. Simply because I couldn’t see a foot in front of me at night.

That shed was only going to get darker. I wouldn’t have worried about it so much, had it not been for Leah and worrying what she was going to do once she finished her placenta.

In the dark, my eyes wouldn’t adjust. I wouldn’t see her coming at all.

I had to chance it and use the small, round, battery operated closet light I had. It didn’t give a lot of light, but enough for me to watch Leah.

I had to pick my battles. Take a chance of sitting in the dark or having the Vee outside see the light.

Without sound or scent, I was hoping the light didn’t draw them in. Maybe they moved on. They did that. After failing at a food source, they eventually walked off.

I’d deal with them in the morning.

The car wasn’t that far, but with the overcast sky and no moon I couldn’t see it. I hoped at first light no Vee would be outside and I could make a quick escape.

As the hours passed the temperature dropped. All I could do was sit there shivering, holding the baby, hammer at my side, while I watched Leah and waited for her to attack.

I gave my son a name. I called him Edward. The baby’s name was always a source of contention between Leah and myself. She wanted to name the baby one of those names that no one ever pronounced correctly. I wanted to give the child something old-fashioned, like John or Jill. I thought ahead to their old age and what name would be fitting for a senior citizen.

Now it didn’t matter. Chances were, Edward would probably never see his first birthday. Not in this world.

The tiny circle light was enough and I kept my eye on Leah. When I realized she wasn’t immediately attacking after her placenta meal, I pulled the duct tape from the bag, set the baby on my jacket and ripped a long piece. Carefully I approached her. She perched on her knees and moved her head my way, snapping her jaws in my direction, trying to bite me.

I was ready for her to lunge, but she never did and I took advantage of that. When I felt confident, I placed the strip of duct tape over her mouth.

She shook her head violently, trying to shuck the tape. While she did that, I bound her hands. Then after the initial taping, I reinforced.

I didn’t know how much was left in her brain, but common sense was gone. Not once did she reach up her hands to her mouth.

After several minutes of thrashing and tossing herself around, Leah gave up. Almost in defeat, she sat back down on the ground.

I suppose it was wrong to duct tape her. To let her suffer. But I just couldn’t bring myself to kill my wife.

Dead, alive, infected, whatever… she was still my wife.

It would have been physically simple to grab the hammer, walk over and smash it down to her skull. No matter how she appeared, she was Leah.

Before becoming infected there was nothing bad I could ever say about her. She was kind and loving, unselfish to a fault. Leah was a first grade teacher who cared more about her students than she did anything else. She brought the joys and problems home and worried about students during break.

With all that kindness how could I do it? Even though the experts said she wasn’t my wife, how did I know? What if she just couldn’t control what she did? What if my Leah, my beautiful Leah, was inside that shell of a body crying out, “Calvin please help me. Help me, Calvin”?

I didn’t sleep the whole night, which wasn’t good. I had to care for the baby, protect him. If I was tired and weak then I wasn’t any good to my son.

It had been three days since we left our home, at first making lots of miles, then Leah was bitten and we had to stop frequently. The infection didn’t really seem to hit her at all, with the exception of the wound. It didn’t want to heal. She showed no signs and I thought maybe she didn’t get infected at all until she went into labor. That was when the fever started and Leah grew weak.

Her water had broken and giving birth on the road didn’t seem like an option. We saw the lone house in the distance. The house ended up being filled with Vee and by the time we decided to run back to the car, we were surrounded. The only option was the shed.

Hours later, after Edward was born, the night was quiet and I just had to wait.