A Small Gray Dot

Dave was sitting on the scruffy burgundy couch in the lobby, his head upright. He seemed to be staring at the wall across from him. I jammed my phone into a pocket as I went over to him.

“Dave!” I shouted, “What the hell’s going on? There’re dead people out there and I can’t find Zoni!”

He didn’t answer. He wasn’t moving and his face was ashen. I thought he must be as shocked as I was and this was his reaction so I reached down and gently shook his shoulder. “Dave?”

It was only then I realized that, in the dimly lit room, what looked like creases in his clothing was actually dark blood running down from thin, horizontal slits. I jumped back.

What the hell?

He seemed to nod and his glasses fell off as his head tumbled into his lap. The rest of him fell into four pieces as his torso collapsed onto his head and his legs parted ways with his thighs. His blood-spattered glasses caught on the piping at the edge of the couch by a handle, and in seemingly slow motion, most of him slid to the threadbare carpet on the lobby floor and landed with a sickening meaty thump. Blood soaked into the couch and ran down the legs while the smell of voided bowels permeated the room. My stomach churned as I reeled back, and bile crawled up my throat. I popped out in sweat as I swallowed to keep from puking again. Panic beat at me and I spun around and ran for the stairs.

The stairwell was pitch-black so I switched my phone light back on before sprinting up. I reached my apartment and hauled out my keys with shaking fingers, and got the door unlocked. The gray light from the window cast itself over the room as, dazed, I collapsed on the couch. My heart pounded out Zoni’s name with each beat as I sat there trying to get my brain to quit flitting around like an insane hamster. I was in shock but I needed to think.

The only thing I knew was that something had happened, something terrible, and I didn’t have a clue as to what it was. People were dying and Zoni was missing. I forced my mind to quit racing. I couldn’t keep sitting there; I had to go back out to look for her. I thought she must be frightened and hiding somewhere. Maybe she’d run the other way from the store when whatever happened to the clerk… happened.

I needed a bigger light than the one on my phone so I went to the drawer in the kitchen and pulled out the small flashlight we kept for emergencies. I flicked it on as I headed into the bedroom to get my gun case from the closet. I didn’t know what was going on but I had a vague idea that I might need a weapon. The first thing the beam bounced off was the bed.

She was wearing her favorite yellow sweats and lay on her back on what had become her side of the bed, her eyes staring at the ceiling. Blood surrounded her, soaking into the sheets and dripping to the floor.

No.

It’s possible I screamed that word, I don’t remember. Perhaps I merely whispered. I do remember that my breath refused to leave my lungs and my head roared. My body filled with ice crystals and my heart faltered. Without knowing how I’d gotten there, I was on the bed, a frozen statue on my hands and knees gazing down at her. I’d dropped the flashlight and its glow reflected back from the big mirror she had me attach to our little closet door. The stark light washed over her as I stared at her unseeing eyes, her rich chocolate face that had become a dull grayish brown, her perfect full lips that were slightly parted as though she was about to speak.

The dark liquid from her body.

I drew a ragged breath into a tightened chest that was a ball of pain, my eyes unable to leave her face. I wanted to go break the mirror to banish the light so I couldn’t see her but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I reached down a trembling hand and closed her staring eyes – gently so as not to cause her decapitated head to shift. My eyes burned but refused to release their tears. With no capacity left to move away, I lay down next to her, and a part of me died.

I wanted it to not be real, to be a horrible nightmare brought on by the spicy food I’d eaten for dinner the night before. I wanted it to be a hallucination, a memory from some stupid horror movie. But I wasn’t able to give myself a lie in which to hide and I knew it to be true. For whatever reason, this terrible thing that was happening, this… this… wrongness… had taken Zoni. And I had not been able to protect her. To save her.

I don’t know how long I huddled beside her with her lifeblood soaking into my clothing but it had congealed, and the flashlight grown dim, when at last I was able to force myself to move. I wasn’t really thinking, but it seemed the thing to do, so with care, I began wrapping the sheets around her. When I had her cocooned, I stood there looking down with dry, hurting eyes.