Story #1
Duke is breathing heavily by the time he makes it to the front door of his house. He rams it open, slams it shut, and looks around the empty living room.
“What the fuck? Dad!”
The boy sprints to his parents' bedroom.
His father pops out from the doorway, startling him. Duke notices his eyes are bloodshot, and crimson red. In addition, tears soak his entire lower face, even staining his red plaid shirt, and a little bit of his jeans.
He wasn't crying. He was sobbing.
Duke and his father stare at each other for a moment, before Duke pushes past the man and races into the room with the bag of stolen meds still in his left hand, knowing what this could mean.
He immediately collapses to his knees. A child thought so strong turns into a toddler within an almost unnatural instant. Some may see it as simply a biological reaction.
For Duke, it's life as he knows it being torn apart right in front of him. First his grandmother, now his mother, a lifeless corpse on her own bed. Nothing can stop this outbreak. It's going to kill them all.
Duke's father just watches as the boy literally chokes, droplets of salty water falling to the hardwood he sits on. He's rocking back and forth, involuntarily releasing sounds he hasn't in many years, maybe even since he was born. The boy's head spins, and, suddenly, he can't hear anything anymore. His ears ring, his eyes sting and are now cracked with red veins. His hands go completely numb, before spreading up to his shoulders. He tries to open his eyes, but the pain is too great. Instead, he just allows himself to fall to the side, lying on the floor now, with his knees cradled against his chest.
His father slowly walks in behind him, hesitantly picking up the bag of medicine.
“I'm sorry. You'll join her soon.”
He exits, not even looking back.
Duke didn't hear him. His cries only grow louder. When a droplet of blood falls from the bed onto his elbow, he screams in sudden, undeniable rage, finally able to ignore the pain and open his eyes. It feels cold on his skin. He touches it, getting some on his finger. A violent swirl of emotion overcomes him. He grabs his hair with both hands and continues to scream, no one there to aid or comfort him. This was it.
With her gone, there's really only one person he cares about left on this Earth.
It's not his father, however. It never has been. Not after it
happened. Not after that day when they both got arrested. Not after he put his hands on her.
But none of that matters, now. Neither does the medicine. He was too late. He always is.
There's some sort of rustling in the background as Tex speaks through the phone a couple hours later.
“Duke, come over here. It's only getting worse out there, and you even said it yourself this is overwhelming you. Try to just convince your dad, and get over here. Please. I can't stand to think of you having to deal with this alone. The grid’s going down, anyways. We have to meet up sometime. What happens when I can't call you anymore? You promised we would get through this together. No matter what. The world is fucking ending, remember? I can't go through that without-”
“I’m fucking trying!”
Duke interrupts.
“-you.” Tex finishes. She can hear how badly Duke is suffering. Anymore of this, and he might break, for the first time ever. That's right. Cool, level-headed Duke is no more, it seems. He's her only friend left. Literally all she has left, besides her parents. She can't let this happen. She has to help him. Before he does something that would surely break her.
“Duke, listen-”
“I know, I know,” he interrupts. “Tex, I'm not leaving you. Nor am I ever breaking my promise. But I can't,” he sighs deeply.
“Can't what? Duke, talk to me.” She sounds deeply concerned, now.
“I can't just leave. Not yet.”
Tex begins to panic.
“Huh? What do you mean? Duke, please! I need-”
All power to Duke's house suddenly shuts off without a sound. He stares at his phone in extreme disbelief.
“What? No!”
Silence fills the entire house. Even the usual sounds of screams, gunshots, and sirens outside cease. Fear consumes the boy sitting in his bedroom alone. He carefully sets his phone down.
“Dad? Dad!”
No response. His heart beats harder, faster, and begins to hurt with each beat, like it's tearing through his chest. His ears are filled with the sound of air, and his eyes focus in the dark. As he rises from the bed, his legs tremble. Everything feels numb once more. His fingers seem to sting as he clenches his fists. Adrenaline is flowing through him like water through a pipe. Nothing seems real anymore; the next few seconds are pure reaction. Instinct. Thinking is now impossible, the voice normally in his head, his verbal? conscience, has disappeared.
Abandoned him.
Duke rushes to his desk, retrieving his flashlight and knife. He holds the torch in his left hand, the blade in the other, his dominant. Carefully, and with exasperated breaths, he proceeds to carefully exit his room, shuffling instead of taking full steps.
“Dad?” He yells, once in the hallway. The boy struggles to see in the pitch blackness surrounding him, instilling dread. He pushes his parents' bedroom door back open. Nothing.
But his mother's corpse is gone.
A trail of blood leads from inside deeper into the house, where the kitchen and living room are.
“What the fuck?”
It makes sense for his dad to dispose of her body, since the current state of emergency means any kind of funeral would be impossible, even in their backyard. But why didn't he wrap her up? Why did he just sloppily drag her off the bed and...
A crash from the kitchen alerts Duke. He raises his flashlight, and slowly continues down the hall.
“Dad?”
He passes the bathroom.
“Dad?”
When Duke enters the living room and looks into the open-floor kitchen, he immediately freezes, dropping his knife and light.
There, on the dining table, lies his mother, her corpse chopped up, spread all across like a star.
To the right, stands Duke's father. He has a lantern lit near the toaster, giving an ominous blue glow to the cramped space, and some of the living room. He's preparing something, a bloody pan and pot sitting in front of him. He seems to be playing with both of them. He doesn't seem to know the oven is off, like everything else.
Several veins bulge out of his forehead, looking ready to burst at any given moment. His eyes are crossed, and he repeatedly puffs out his cheeks and grunts, as if constipated. Sometimes, he squeals.
The man dawns an apron, and it's caked in blood, just like his hands. He begins to randomly shout.
“Ma-ma-ma. Ma-ma. Ma-ma-ma-ma!”
As he does this, Duke lowers his head and stares at the floor. He has now lost both parents to the disease.
His entire family is now gone.
No, not his entire family. His best friend is still out there. If the entire city grid went out, then she's in trouble too.
Duke looks up a little. A single and final tear falls.
“Tex.”
His father's incoherent mumbles grow louder.
“Chop! Chop-chop! Chop-chop-chop-”
“Shut up!”
Duke screams. His fear becomes anger. His sadness becomes rage. His hopelessness becomes passion. A lost will reforms.
A newfound will to fight.
To survive.
To never lose anyone else again.
The boy slowly picks up his weapon and torch as his father, with a pale face and soulless eyes, slowly cranes his head as he stares at his son.
Silent moments pass, until, out of nowhere, Duke's infected father vaults over the counter with surprising speed, brandishing a dirty meat cleaver. Duke shines the light into his eyes, blinding him, then shoves his knife into the man's chest.
Seconds later, he is slammed through the coffee table. Duke's father sits on top of the boy, raining down hammer fists that stun the boy. He makes a grab for the cleaver. That's when Duke grabs the knife in his chest and attempts to drive it into his neck. Instead, it enters his arm, and Duke is punished for his mistake when the cleaver is firmly lodged into his shoulder.
Duke screams in agony, searing pain taking over the focus of his mind. His father yanks out the knife, and slashes it across the boy's chest and stomach, over and over, over and over. Several new slices decorate Duke's body. Blood flies as Duke scrambles free of his father's mounted position. He attempts to crawl towards the corner behind him, but is quickly seized by his father, who drops the knife and tears the cleaver from his shoulder, striking him in the side with it. He leaves it there again, and retrieves the knife. Duke is now squirming on the floor, grabbing the handle, but mentally refusing to pull it free. His father towers over him, now just a black figure here in the back of the room, and begins to repeatedly run the knife over his body once more. Duke freaks, kicking one of the man's knees out, before he catches his foot after a second one and throws it to the side, climbing on top of the boy once more. He grabs his left hand and drives the bloody blade through it, literally pinning Duke's hand to the floor like Jesus on the cross. Agonizing screams fill the house, but his father's expression remains the exact same. From the pale moonlight shining in through the top of the front door, Duke can make out, just for a second, tears streaming down the man's face.
“Sorry,” he whimpers. He raises the cleaver. “Sorry-sorry-sorry-sorry-sorry-sorry-sorry-”
In an instant, Duke rips the knife from his left hand with his right, and slashes it across his father's throat. Blood sprays onto Duke's face. The poor man falls back, landing on the floor, gurgling. Duke lies there, still, heavily breathing, and several minutes pass.
Duke sits on his bed again later that night, phone in hand. He has just dialed Tex’s number for the final time. Blood pours from his broken nose into his mouth, and the several lacerations all over his torso still sting. He shakily lifts the device to his ear.
“Duke, what happened?” Tex shouts rattily from the speaker.
“The power went out. My dad left," he pauses to swallow hard.
"To go see my mom.”
