Micro Mondays #4: “If She Stayed” by Serena Zygmunt
I never pictured it might come to this. My mother stands steadily in the doorway, bearing a pistol at any who dare come too close. I crouch in the corner of our house’s kitchen, peeking out from behind the counter to watch my mother in the doorway. Our door had been stolen in the night, ripped straight off the hinges and taken by some greedy neighbor. Sunlight streams through the dusty windows, the only thing illuminating the house seeing as the electricity cut out two months ago.
A thudding sound comes from my left and I snap my head around. One of the diseased bangs on the window’s glass, wild eyes staring into the house blankly before focusing unstably on me. The decrepit person grins maniacally, foam dripping from the corner of a mouth riddled with missing teeth. I shriek, scrambling away from it. Patches of hair are missing from what appears to be a middle-aged man’s head, having been ripped out by his own hand. He babbles nonsensically, words having abandoned his crazed mind. His hand slams into the window again and I flinch, fearing the glass might shatter.
“Mom!” I call out.
She doesn’t turn her back to the door, not being so foolish. Instead, she cocks her head, telling me she’s listening.
“There’s a sick person by the kitchen window!”
Backpedaling smoothly and never lowering her gun, she uses one hand to drag the first layer of plywood over the empty frame. I run to help, securing 3 layers of plywood we’d stolen off boarded shop windows over the doorway. She places her pistol on the side table next to the doorway, striding towards the window. The man is still there, twitching like a dying child’s toy.
“Get out of here you freak!” she yells, faking a punch towards the glass.
The man hunches over and drops to all fours, his knees getting bloody on the gravel driveway. Hissing something incoherent, he half crawls half drags himself into the shade of a nearby tree, curling up underneath it, still trembling. I hear my mother’s weary exhale as she envelopes me in a hug, pressing a kiss into my recently chopped-off hair. We stand in silence for a moment, wondering how it was only three months ago the world had gone to hell. The diseased had only begun popping up three weeks ago, adding another element of fear. The rabid, starving people would usually only come out at night, wailing and causing countless deaths to the daring healthy and each other. Not even God could save you if one of these things came after you outside in the night. They were desperate and, as I’ve learned in the past few months, people will stop at nothing to save themselves.
My mother and I separate, her worried eyes tracking my shiver. The calendar hanging on the broken fridge said it was mid-November, but it felt colder. Wordlessly, my mother pads to the back bedroom, returning with one of the many blankets we’d hoarded. I wrap myself in it, the shivers subsiding momentarily.
“C’mere baby,” my mother says, sitting on the couch and reaching her arms out towards me.
I obey, curling into her side and feeling her rib age press into me, cushioned only by her layered clothing. I tilt my head up just in time to watch a wayward tear roll down her cheek as she stares vacantly at the wall. I snuggle in tighter and her hand rests on my head, stroking my hair. A familiar lump forms in my throat, tears spilling out of my own eyes. The diseased man had given me flashbacks and memories of my sister, bone thin and foaming at the mouth, twitching as she crawled through the streets, flash before my eyes. My mom rubs my back comfortingly, dispersing the memories of the day we found my sister as one of the diseased.
“Mom,” I whisper, looking up to her.
She smiles down at me, wiping my tears.
“Yeah, baby?”
My voice breaking and trembling, I ask her softly, “What would’ve happened if she stayed?”
Tears tumble unchecked down both of our faces as she looks blankly at the wall again, as if searching for answers. “I don’t know, baby. I don’t know.”