The Blood That Binds by Madeline Sheehan
Logan
One, two, three, four… I counted the snow-covered bodies from my upstairs vantage point inside the Bed & Breakfast, clearly discerning each neatly wrapped form. One body, however, was quite a ways away from the rest, unwrapped, and not so neatly placed. As if he’d just been dumped there… like the heap of garbage he was.
It was snowing again; it had snowed every day for countless days. I’d lost all sense of time; day and night had become one and the same. Both were a prison I couldn’t escape from… much like this fucking house.
Pushing away from the windowsill, I wandered into the hallway, taking great care not to look to my left, not to look at the room where it had happened. Not that I could forget it, not when I laid awake each night replaying every horrible moment over and over again.
Willow stepped into the hall, her eyes bloodshot, her expression haunted.
“How is he?” I asked, glancing behind her into mine and Lucas’s room.
“He won’t talk to me. He won’t even look at me—he keeps… he just keeps rolling away from me.” Her mouth wobbled, tears filling her eyes. “He blames me, I know he does.”
“Has he eaten anything?” I couldn’t deal with her tears right now—I already had enough garbage to contend with without having to deal with everyone’s personal bullshit as well.
Willow shook her head.
“Have you eaten anything?”
Again, she shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”
Dragging a hand roughly down my face, I pointed to the stairs. “Go fucking eat something before you get sick,” I said, shoving past her into the room.
Lucas remained in the same state he’d been since it happened—he lay in his bed, the covers pulled up over his head, the entire space stinking of unwashed bodies and piss. Tossing the last of the log pile onto the dwindling fire, I bent down beside him.
“Luke.” I tugged the blankets down and shook his shoulder. “Luke, you need to eat something.”
He snatched the covers back from me, pulling them tightly to his neck. “I’m not hungry,” he rasped, his voice dry and grating. “Leave me alone.”
“Fine,” I sighed.
Pulling the door shut behind me, I resumed wandering aimlessly throughout the house, in search of something I couldn’t name.
Passing the kitchen window, I glimpsed a splash of red in the white world beyond. Spinning back, I pressed my fist to the glass, rubbing the frozen condensation away.
Willow was sitting in the snow beside her mother’s body, her arms wrapped around her knees, her breath leaving her in visible wisps of white. She was barefoot, wearing nothing but sweatpants and a torn red T-shirt. Cursing, I raced to the back door, flinging it open and shouting her name. She didn’t acknowledge me as I reached for her, didn’t even flinch when I grabbed her arms and yanked her up onto her feet.
“Are you trying to die?” I demanded, dragging her inside the house and dropping her into a lounge chair. Rushing to the fireplace, I looked over our nearly depleted wood supply in dismay. We’d have to start burning the furniture soon.
Returning to Willow, I wrapped my arm around her waist and walked her to the fireplace, depositing her on a nearby sofa. Realizing her clothes were wet, I ran back upstairs, grabbing several warm articles of clothing, along with the blankets from the bed.
Downstairs again, I dumped everything on the floor beside the sofa. “Willow? Can you change your clothes? You need to get out of the wet stuff.” Running my hands through my hair, I continued, “Jesus, it’s twenty fucking degrees out—what were you thinking?”
Her eyes found mine, bloodshot and framed in clumps of frozen eyelashes. Her body was listless, as if every bit of energy had been leached from her. “I w-w-wanted my mom,” she slurred, as she continued to shiver and shake. “I just wanted my mo-m-m.”
I swallowed back the pain that swelled inside me, the heartbreak I felt for her, for Lucas, and even for myself. It was just the three of us now, and if I didn’t keep us going, no one else would.
“Alright.” I sighed angrily. “Alright, I’ll help you—can I help you?” Slowly, sluggishly, she nodded.
After wrangling her wet shirt off her frozen body and replacing it with a long-sleeved flannel, I dragged her sweatpants down her legs, exchanging them for a pair of fleece pajama pants. Tugging thick woolen socks onto each of her feet, I wrapped her tightly in blankets and tossed the last of the wood into the fire.
Leaving Willow to get warm, I took the stairs two at a time back to Lucas. Finding his fire dwindling again, I scanned the room for something to burn. An antique desk sat against one wall, heavy and nearly immobile, but large enough to keep both fires burning until tomorrow. Another trip downstairs and I’d returned with an ax. The first collision of steel against wood and Lucas jolted awake—he blinked sluggishly across the dimly lit room, before eventually rolling away.
Gritting my teeth, I resumed chopping, stopping only once the desk lay in pieces. Tossing some wood onto Lucas’s fire, I gathered up as much as I could carry and hurried back to Willow.
She remained as I’d left her—wrapped in blankets in front of the dying fire, still shivering. Dropping the wood, I shoved the sofa closer, then headed to the kitchen to scour the cupboards. Mackenzie’s family, along with the Gleasons, had taken almost everything of value with them, leaving the three of us with only a kitchen full of perishables, most of which were already rotten and beginning to stink. Scanning the putrid contents of the pantry, I found half a box of crackers that appeared edible—taking them, I snagged a ceramic mug from the countertop and a pot from the stove. Holding the box of crackers between my teeth, I pushed the sliding doors open, scooping a pot of snow off the porch. That’s when I noticed it—the silhouette of a fast-approaching person. Not a person, I realized, taking note of its stiff, jerky movements. An infected.
“Fuck,” I muttered, slamming the door closed and quickly locking it. My heart hammering in my chest, I dropped everything I was carrying and ran back up the stairs, reclaiming the ax from my room. I was halfway down the stairs when an angry thud echoed through the building, followed closely by several more. I closed my eyes as my heart rate continued to climb; the infected had found its way onto the porch and was throwing itself against the sliding doors. I had no idea how long those doors would hold, but I couldn’t imagine it being very long.
Shrugging into my coat, knowing what I would have to do, my stomach roiled with nerves.
Ax in hand, I left the house via the front door, circling quickly around the side. The snow crunched loudly beneath my boots, alerting the infected to my presence. Swinging around, it jolted forward, stumbling down the steps. Jaw snapping, eyes milky yet focused, it lifted up its arms, reaching for me.
My mouth fell open, my hand fell limply to my side, almost losing my grip on the ax.
Mackenzie’s long blonde hair was streaked with black, large clumps of it having been ripped straight from her scalp. There were more wounds; she appeared to have been partially eaten before turning herself. Her mouth opened and closed, low, guttural groans erupting from within.
“No,” I whispered, backing away. “No, no, no… ”
Mackenzie continued to gain on me until she was close enough that I could smell the rot—a musty, heavy smell that surrounded her. I pushed her back with the end of the ax, suddenly unable to wield it. She wasn’t the first infected I’d seen—we’d all seen them on the news, on YouTube, and eventually in our own town, too. But our town was small and had cleared out pretty quickly once supplies had begun to dwindle. Occasionally, whenever an infected had been spotted nearby, the adults had always taken care of it.
You’re the adult now, I reminded myself. Protecting Lucas and Willow is your job now.
Several minutes passed before I’d convinced myself to do it—to kill my girlfriend. I readied myself, and held my breath as I swung, flinching at the last second and sending the sharpened edge of the ax into her neck instead of her skull. Her head canted to one side, the wound exposing the rotten tendons and muscle there, and still she continued coming for me, utterly unfazed.
This time, I swung the ax like a bat, hitting her hard enough that she toppled over, and then I swung again, lodging the blade in the top of her skull. It stuck there, forcing me to step on her face in order to pull it free.
She still wasn’t dead—her mouth continued to open and close, her eyes still blinked.
I wanted to run and hide. I wanted to scream and rail against the unfairness of it all. But most of all I wanted someone else to do what needed to be done.
Instead, I swung. I swung until she was no longer moving, no longer recognizable. Just a pile of death at my feet. And then I ran back inside the house, just barely managing to shut and lock the door before I crumbled to the floor and remained there, staring in horror at the gore covering my boots.
“W-what happened?” Willow stood off to the side of the entryway, a blanket wrapped tightly around her.
I blinked up at her, feeling dizzy and disorientated. “This is so fucked,” I whispered, banging my head back against the wall. “This is all so fucked—I feel like I’m going insane. How is this real?”
Still banging my head against the wall, I continued speaking frantically, verging on hysteria. “How is any of this real? I feel like—I feel like—”
With a silent roar, I burst up onto my feet and swung my fist into the wall, over and over again. Plaster cracked and caved in, wallpaper ripped, and yet I continued to strike,hoping that with each blow some of the tension, some of the frustration, some of the aching, some of the completely fucked-up feelings building inside of me would start to ease. It wasn’t the case; the shitty feelings only continued to grow, growing until I was rapidly pummeling the wall with both hands. We were going to die here—the world was picking us off handfuls at a time—and I was helpless to stop it.
“Logan.” Willow was grabbing at my arms, trying to pull me away. “Stop, you’re bleeding—stop it!” She slipped between me and the wall, shoving me away with what little strength she had. I grabbed her in surprise, gripping her arms and blinking down at her through blurry, waterlogged eyes.
I was crying, I realized angrily. I was fucking crying, and in front of Willow, no less. I didn’t want to cry; I wanted to hit something. I wanted to hurt something. I wanted to feel something other than all this fucking madness swelling inside me.
But I couldn’t hit Willow. The lone sliver of sanity that I still possessed realized that much.
So I kissed her instead—I pushed her back against the ruined wall, covered her mouth with mine and kissed her like my life depended on it—which, in that one weak moment, it did.
And when she kissed me back, fisting her hands in my shirt, matching my desperation with equal measure, I kept going, not thinking, just needing.
Just needing to feel something—anything at all—that didn’t hurt.
Still sitting on the bathroom floor, I was propped against the wall with Willow draped across my lap, having since cried herself to sleep. Looking down at her, I ran my knuckles lightly against the side of her face. We’d only been kids back then—terrified teenagers consumed with grief who’d had a horrible lapse in judgment. I’d never tried to justify it, not even to myself—there was no justifying a mistake of that caliber. I’d assumed Willow felt the same, and that was why we never spoke of it, and why we’d carried on like nothing had ever happened between us.
But what had occurred tonight wasn’t the same.
Tonight had been the culmination of feelings that had been building inside me for a hell of a long time, maybe even since the first time. There was no more denying what I felt for Willow. It was what Willow felt for me, or what she didn’t feel… that remained to be seen.
With that in mind, I shifted to my feet, lifting Willow in my arms, and carried her to bed. As I slid in beside her, she turned toward me, curling her body around mine with a sigh. Staring down at her, I wished we could stay just like this—safely ensconced in the dead of night where I could touch her without her pushing me away, and where I could sleep beside her without worrying about what might change once the sun came up.
Because, come morning would come reality—the reality was that I was in love with Willow, and Willow was still in love with my brother.