A Dark Corner of My Mind....(Holly) Search and rescue missions were not my specialty. I was the only one in my unit with field experience though, so HQ chose me to lead our newly assembled Task forced- HIFED (Helping Innocents in the Face of Disaster). It was the first response wing of the reformed U.S. defense complex. Because our forces had been so severely depleted there was no ARMY or Air Force and so on. Instead the scattered defensive teams of our country had been desperately called together, reformed into one branch and then sent on separate missions to various parts of the country. Search and rescue teams had been deployed in the most infected states first.

Countries around the world had felt the disaster hit similarly. Yet, the third world countries did not survive at all. With no funds to support a military to protect the people they were easily annihilated no matter how hard they must have fought back.

I have been on duty for the last seven weeks searching cities and towns, only to find few survivors and mass genocide. Whole families slaughtered while they slept, children, pets, even wild animals, no one was left out. How the disaster started was a mystery that has never been solved.

I survived because I was covering a shift at Madigan for another LPN when the ‘outbreak’ was discovered. By the time it was noticed as a threat to humanity it was too widespread to contain it with quarantine. All reservists, retired, medical, military were immediately called to help, which included me. I don’t even know how to explain those days sometimes. I lost two sisters, my parents, my husband, one daughter, and at least seventy-five of the men under my command. Most of the people in my unit had also lost all or most of everyone they know as well. There weren’t many conversations about politics or religion then; there seemed to be no point any more. Our government was in ruins. Even the rich and all powerful could not escape in time. This manifestation of evil took any form it desired in order to overtake you- your neighbor, your lover, your own child.

Of all the horrors I saw, one image has somehow stuck with me more than others-more than the starving children with dead parents… or the dead parents with bellies full of their starving children.

It had started out as a normal day. I’d been on duty for seven weeks straight, searching cities and towns, finding the few still living amid the destruction. We marched along the streets pulling survivors out of the houses in which they’d holed up. We then directed them to a safe camp. We found a few deceased and heaped them together to burn their bodies to keep the infection from spreading, then kept moving. As we approached the house, that has become nestled somewhere in a dark region of my mind, it had seemed quaint. As normal as mine. The small rambler held within its walls a family that was not so lucky.

It looked as if the diseased creatures had smashed in every available window within their lazy reach. There must have been blood coming from the wounds that came from their careless entrance, which stained the siding. It looked like a harmless structure that sat unaware of the monsters that crawled towards it on the fateful night. The white shutters flapped loosely in their hinges, making an eerie tap-tap-tapping sound. This was unnerving due to the lack of wind. My unit moved forward swiftly, but it seemed to me as if everything had been slowed down. Somehow this house was special. Images of a happy family doing seasonal related activities floated into my mind. Raking leaves, putting up Christmas lights, carving pumpkins, washing their cars in the summer heat.
A cozy, pleasant family of four must have slept humbly while a threat moved in silently. Pictures were the first objects I noticed as soon as we entered the house. Our guns at ready, I studied them. Contented smiling faces. One boy about four and a girl maybe two, a mother and father, and a very extended family. All were blissful and joyous, but I was sure they had seen their share of hardships. I almost cracked when I saw the pictures. I don’t remember seeing any in other houses, I don’t know why these ones should stand out and affect me so deeply. Maybe it was a premonition of what was to come. Maybe they just looked too much like my own family I had lost to the madness.

I saw my reaction rattled the men so I silently ordered for each room to be cleared. I didn’t want one of those creatures sneaking up on us. From what I had seen it was a slow and painful death. The glass crackled beneath our issued military boots as all fanned out in unison, each doing his own job. The only other sound was the low breathing, which came from each man. Houses always made us nervous no matter how many we had been in. They were the first place the creatures hide, which made it hard to defend ourselves when we didn’t know the layout of each house.

“ Clear!” I hear from each room. I counted them; five. Bathroom, bedroom, bedroom, living room, and kitchen. The master bedroom was at the end of the main hallway, and their voices were still ringing in my ears as I entered. I found a dead creature curled up tightly, in a late stage of decay. Starved, while waiting. ‘ Waiting for what?’ I wondered.

I slowly moved ahead keeping my gun pointed straight at the creature. They were such ugly things they all looked dead even when alive. I moved towards the master bathroom. The door was locked. This creature must have been waiting on whoever was in there to come out, figuring it would last until then, the contest looked like it would be taken with all of them into the afterlife.

I kicked the latch open and looked in. I saw one fragile, thin body lying on the floor, while leaning against the wall. Her hand draped into the bath, which she had filled before she died. I ordered my men, which had gathered behind me after their given task was done, to keep an eye on the creature, then moved in closer… and covered my mouth to prevent sound from coming out. Here were two fragile bodies floating face up in the water. Recognition from the pictures set in. I closed my eyes, mentally scraping the image from them. Dissolved into tears that felt as cold on my cheeks as the water in which the children now rested. Without noticing I had averted my head and allowed my eyes to open. The mother had been busy in her last moments. She had found a marker some where in the bathroom. She had written all over the walls- words to this day that I remember in my darkest hours. My hand still enclosed over my mouth, my men came in beside me after taking the things dead body outside and burning it. We all read together:

“No music will ever come from their lips again. No voice of love shall fall upon their deserving ears. The magic spell of their youth has led them astray, for hope has abandoned us. The light of their lamp will never again open a darkness that has fallen upon me. From his blood and mine they were formed and from his blood and mine they shall die. I would have given all that I am so they may have been spared. But it was not God’s will. So we will sit and wait and die in hunger together.
Yesterday I drowned my greatest achievements on this earth. I saved them from a much worse fate. Now I will sit and wait, again sit and wait. My fate awaits me and not too soon. For the weight upon me pushes me through to a world beyond. I do know what becomes of me now. I drowned them to save them. And now I myself am drowning too. Sorrow and grief that everything I have lived for has led to this end. Everything I have lived for has been stolen from me while I was sleeping.

I stare at these walls for three days now. Their bodies start to float; yet I can still hear his hungry rasping from beneath the door. While the children were still alive, I tried to get food but the power had gone down. The bread had all molded, everything in the house lay astrewn, and when the creature had seen me come out, he lay by the door from then ‘til now waiting. He would not leave again. So I shall not either. He will not have them even in death. Their bodies will lie here untouched until the madness in the world has ceased.

It started so long ago. I stopped counting the days. My dear husband woke me, hearing a noise in the house. When he discovered what it was, he had been wounded already, he screamed at me to hide the children and myself in the bathroom until it was over. I grabbed some blankets and covered them as I rushed them in.

Next came a rasping from beneath the door, a scratching, needing hunger. A burning need to get in, but I would not open the door. It was no longer the man I loved on the other side. An evil had taken into him. And I would not let it in.

They survived on water for thirty-eight days. I finally killed them, knowing their end would be worse if I let them starve any more. It was rather easy. They were practically comatose by then. But now I die. As I deserve to. God has abandoned us. And if anyone reads this after I am gone he has abandoned you as well.”

The rest of the day was routine. I went through the motions but felt nothing. As I rolled the woman’s last words over in my mind, the choice she was forced to make, and the end it had led her to. What a desolate hour, to die next to your offspring and your spouse who helped you bear them. It has been many years since the disaster. The worst this world has ever seen. My grandchildren now learn in school what happened, and the events which took place afterwards. They stare in horror at me when I answer them:

“Yes, I was there. I survived.”

No matter what the books tell them, it will never be equal to what I had seen. I will never repeat most of what I saw. What I had to do. I have to live with that. I will be the one to answer for it and no one else can say any differently.

We are slowly rebuilding; the world’s population is still only a third of what it was before. And yet, the woman stays with me. I talk to her in my dreams. She haunts my thoughts and weighs on my heart. However, I believe God wept with her when she finally pushed her weak children under water to save them. And she has resolved the same to me during the deepest of nights.

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