Blackbird's Fall - Jenika Snow Page 0,1
mouth and wiping away the smear of blood. She cleaned it by repeating the action with the water and placed the cloth on his forehead now.
The silence stretched on as she didn’t respond to what he said. She didn’t want to acknowledge any of this, even if it was their reality and right in front of them. She was about to turn away and grab some fresh water, when her father grabbed her arm gently, stopping her.
They looked into each other’s eyes for a moment, and she told herself not to show emotion, not to break down right now. She knew what he was about to say, and as much as she didn’t want to hear it, she knew it was the truth, and the truth of the situation needed to be laid out.
“When it happens, I want you to finish me off with my rifle, understand?”
She breathed out slowly and nodded.
“I don’t want to hurt you or your mother or anyone else, and I don’t want to live like one of… those.”
Maya’s eyes were watering, but she didn’t let the tears fall. Her father said this same statement over the last week, ever since he’d gone out to search for supplies for them and had gotten bitten.
Although they initially had food and water stocked up, had started stockpiling when they first heard about the infection rapidly spreading, among the three of them, it was running low. That’s why her dad had gone out, despite Maya and her mother pleading with him to stay.
Although there weren’t a lot of infected in the small town they lived in, what was more dangerous right now were the looters and rioters in the heart of town, and the ones migrating from the bigger cities. That’s what they’d been so worried about, yet it seemed like it wasn’t the healthy who had gotten her dad but the damn infected.
“I promise, Dad,” she said and sniffed, turning and grabbing the medical kit to look at his wound.
“I don’t like you even touching it, Maya,” her dad said, knowing what she was going to do. “There isn’t any point in cleaning it.”
She ignored his last comment. “You know it’s only spread through bites and scratches.”
“It’s bloodborne, sweetheart.”
“I’ll wear gloves, like I do every time. I’m not going to let it fester without trying to make you comfortable.”
Her dad smiled sadly and didn’t argue anymore. Good, because she wouldn’t deviate from what she wanted to do.
“Here, honey,” her mother said as she walked into the room, carrying a bowl of steaming water. Her mom set it on the table and grabbed an apron. “Wear this, just in case.”
Maya put the apron on, tripled-up on the latex gloves, and pulled up the blanket. She exposed her father’s legs first and continued lifting until she got to his thighs. He wore a pair of boxers, and the leg that had gotten the bite was patched with a thick white bandage—one that was seeped through with black and red fluid.
The smell was intense, that of rotting, decaying flesh. That was what happened with the infected, with someone who was bitten. The infection spread throughout their body quickly, turning usually happening within a week’s time.
The person rotted from the inside out… literally.
“Here,” her mother said and handed her a mask. “I don’t want any risk of you catching it.”
It wasn’t airborne, and although the likelihood of the blood or fluid getting into Maya’s mouth was low, she knew this had been her parents’ biggest fear since the infection spread. She was their only child, and with her father on the brink of turning, life seemed hopeless.
She held in her gag reflex as the wound was revealed. The bite mark had been nasty when he first got it, and now because of the infection spreading, it was god-awful. Necrotic tissue was all the way around the wound and spreading throughout his legs.
Even his veins were now black and visible. There was blood and gray fluid oozing out, and the flesh that wasn’t grossly rotting was ashen, as if corpse-like.
She made quick work of cleaning it with peroxide and alcohol, of spreading ointment on it, and then bandaged it back up. Of course this wouldn’t heal or cure it, but she felt better knowing she was at least trying to keep it clean.
“How did it look?” her dad asked, but he sounded exhausted. When she looked at him, she saw he had his eyes closed, the wear and tear of what was happening