What Remains

Naomi peers through a gap in the curtains, one protective hand tracing the swell of her belly. Tonight's skyline is a New England cliché, its beauty impervious to the struggles of mankind below.

Aside from some auburn-tipped leaves and a pair of pumpkins, concave with rot, the yard remains empty. Small comfort at best, for stillness does not always speak of peace. This she knows from experience. Sometimes stillness is the aftermath of rage.

She wanders over to her dresser, its surface littered with trinkets now rendered obsolete. How many nights have passed since a hush swept the town? Nineteen, she thinks. Perhaps twenty.

Minutes creep by, then entire days, indistinct and hazy, foreign except for the staticky hum of dread: the soundtrack of her childhood.

She runs her nails over a bottle of cologne, a lipstick, pausing in front of her jewelry box.

Inside are diamonds, a strand of pearls, a watch that never quite kept the beat. Each without value in this strange new world, but no matter; only the locket will be along for the journey.

Copper, heart-shaped, smooth like a worry stone. As out of place among generic finery as a puddle in a dust bowl, and every bit as welcome.

She scoops it up, fear giving way to fondness. With a smile, she recalls the evening Ryan clasped it beneath her curls, his touch a salve to her primal wound. You are seen came its burnished refrain, even as her family threatened to drown the flame within. I will keep the darkness from you.

Fate must've realized the meek require a push. They met during sophomore English, two wallflowers assigned to the same project, both progressing towards love at a pace only the inexperienced can stomach.

Ryan crafted the heart for her sweet seventeenth, tending to every curve until even the cooled metal appeared molten. These moments are now, somehow, thirteen birthdays in the rearview. They feel like a far-off place; they feel like yesterday.

Naomi fastens the chain, her throat's hollow cradling the pendant like an old friend. The dusty radio lets out a crackle, dragging her forward through time, but no announcement follows. It's been seventy-three hours since it delivered news of rural Maine. Near the border, survivors are gathering, searching, flares in the inky darkness.

Before the phone company gave up the ghost, she received a message: Ryan's parents are among the Downeast tribe, uninfected. Waiting. Hopeful.

The relief this brought was temporary, the ensuing fight fierce. Her husband would only agree to travel north in one straight shot. An entire tank of gas would be necessary when less than a quarter remained.

He refused to put her and the pregnancy in greater peril by exposing them to outsiders. She wanted to flee posthaste, dealing with trouble as it comes, safer together than apart.

Unswayed, Ryan ventured out to find supplies at dawn, leaving her isolated with the danger afoot.

The men on the airwaves call it the Fever, but that does this scourge no justice. When reports first told of massacres, of families slaughtered by their own, of neighbors turned feral and hungry, she convinced herself it was nothing more than a grand hoax. A stunt destined for the annals of urban legend.

Then came the crimson screams from down the hill, Picasso's Guernica made audible.

Naomi sleeps. Hers is a deep and colorless slumber, interrupted by the sound of glass and wood coming undone.

She waits, aware of every heartbeat.

When no one enters, she moves swiftly to the bedroom door, unprepared to find her beloved in the hallway, his back to her.

Intuition howling, she manages no more than a whisper. "Ryan?"

She repeats herself.

Once, twice, thrice.

No response.

When at last he turns, his face bathed in the glow of a burgeoning November moon, her legs almost betray the cause.

Modern psyches are replete with images of monsters, of evil and decay, but what stands before her is no silver-screen demon.

His skin is vibrant and florid, his organs fully intact. These are the same limbs that once enveloped her in refuge, the hands that stroked her hair and dried her tears.

But the eyes never lie. In his hollow stare, she sees their history erased, usurped by the need to destroy.

To feast.

Powered by sheer terror, Naomi propels herself backwards, giving him ample berth to stagger. His movements are heavy and imprecise, up until he lunges.

In one lucky maneuver, she escapes his reach and stumbles down the staircase, running out the ruined entry.

He is in close pursuit, unhurried but never far. Hunted, she sets a path for the garage. Before she can hide, he appears with a knife in want of a resting place.

Naomi raises her arms in defense just as Ryan brings the blade down without mercy, scraping away at her flesh with ease. She begs him to awaken, to return to her in the form of the familiar.

In reply, he forces his bride against the wall, fists snaking around her windpipe. The pressure in her head mounts, and she resigns herself to this farewell, to never experiencing the joy of her little girl's laughter.

Just as she's about to lose consciousness, his fingers find copper.

They explore its contours with frantic confusion, then recognition, nostalgia left to battle the unknowable.

He is two beings inhabiting a lone shell, each serving a different master.

One triumphs.

Ryan pulls back as if scalded and releases a mournful wail. Singularly human, it carries the anguish of every soul who has done harm to one they intended to cherish.

Pivoting away from her line of sight, his own neck now within his grasp, he gives a sharp, grinding twist. The noise molests her ears and reverberates through her spine.

Then he falls, and all is quiet.

Epilogue

Her steps made leaden by sorrow and injury, Naomi collects the patchwork quilt from their bed. She tucks it around Ryan's shoulders as if readying a toddler for a nap, carefully placing the locket beneath the covers.

His temple she marks with a kiss, adding a second from their daughter.

"You can go now, sweetheart. Your girls are safe."

The car is packed and running by daybreak. Naomi retreats from the house without a second look, unable to face what should've been theirs. She is determined to reach Maine with this gift—presumably Ryan's last—of life growing inside her.

With the New Hampshire border in view, she finally dares to glance at the dash.

Her presumption was hasty. The tank is full.