Mary

The night was warm and the sky was clear. Mary sat silently in a broken down van at one end of a debris laden street. At the other end of the street sat a small two story house, which had a window on it's second floor illuminated. Mary's eyes had not left that window since it'd lit up. She'd sat there quietly and watched their shadows pass the light as they prepared to rest. They'd been on the road for a while and were surely looking forward to a good night's sleep, in a nice safe place. Mary had been on the road a while as well. She'd been following behind them for some time. Watching, waiting, and preparing. They hadn't noticed her, she's made sure of that. They wouldn't see her until she wanted them to, but when they did, they'd know it was her that had come for them.

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Mary sat at the end of a long wooden dining room table. On her right, her teenage daughter talked on and on about school and gymnastics. On her left, her young son sat quietly reading a comic book while he ate. Mary smiled as she listened to her daughter speak. She tried to ignore the empty seat across from her. The vacant wooden chair, which felt as if it was mocking her for being weak.

Her kids had become used to their father missing dinners and being frequently absent. Whenever he returned, he would shower the children in gifts until they forgot he was ever gone. Mary, however, had the unfortunate privilege of knowing why he was always gone. Her husband thought he had been so clever when he told them all that he had been put on a special project and would be working late and out of town more often. After three straight months of it, Mary decided to call his boss and personally ask why her husband was being constantly kept away from his family. To her utter heartbreak, her husband's boss had no idea what Mary was talking about. There had been no special project.

It'd been three weeks since that phone call and her husband had not mentioned anything. Mary wasn't stupid. She knew his boss must have said something about the phone call, but her husband had said nothing to her and Mary had not been able to build up the nerve to topple her little world. She tried to convince herself it was anything else, but she knew what was going on and she also knew her denial was the only thing keeping them together. She thought about how her children would handle a divorce. She thought about what she would do without him. Could she make it on her own? She was afraid to find out.

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Ragged fingers scraped down the glass of the van's driver's side window. The undead man, whose sunken face and discolored skin made him barely recognizable as human, growled and chomped his jaw at Mary, spitting blood and fluids all over the window glass. She barely even noticed him. Her eyes were still fixed on the lighted window on the second floor of the small, two story house. Her thoughts were of memories she could barely stand to remember. Her mind was a blur of pain, loss, and betrayal. Yet her face remained cold and emotionless. A shell of a person. Mary waited patiently for the light in the window to get dimmer and when it finally did, she turned towards the drivers side door and rolled the window down just slightly. The undead man's fingers slid through the opening as he snarled and gnawed at the window, trying to get at her. Mary braced herself on the seat and held a broken broom handle at her shoulder with both hands. Pointing it at the crack in the window, she waited for the undead man's eye to line up with the opening for a moment and then she shoved forward with the broken end of the broom handle as hard as she could. It went right into his eye socket, popping what was left of his eyeball, and Mary continued to push outward on the handle until the undead man, still trying to get at her, eventually impaled itself the rest of the way and fell limp, sliding off the end of the handle onto the ground next to the van.

Mary let the broken broom handle fall out the window, and then she took a moment to listen. She could see only a few undead wandering around in the shadows of the houses here and there, but she could hear many more not far away. She knew more would be there soon, and that was good. She was counting on that.

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Mary sat alone at the long wooden dining room table. It was cleared off from the night's meal, but the scent of turkey and pie still hung in the air. The kids had long since gone to bed and the house was quiet when Mary's husband finally came home.

He greeted Mary casually as he walked into the dinning room, "Hey honey, it still smells amazing in here. Sorry I'm so late. Work, you know." He spoke to her like it was any normal night as he collected the leftovers from the fridge and made himself a plate of food. Mary burned with the sting of his heartless bullshit. She was partially drunk and entirely fed up. She finally spoke with a sharp tone, and she let each word strike down on him like a hammer.

"It was Thanksgiving." She stared him down with a frustrated, heartbroken fury in her eyes.

Her husband tried to ignore her tone, "I know hun, I am so sorry, but you know how my boss can be, he doesn't care about holidays." Mary cut him off by throwing her glass against the wall next to his head. "What the fuck!?" he exclaimed as he jumped out of the way of the shattering glass.

Mary stood and came at him, pushing him backward and throwing wild blows, "You stupid asshole! Stop lying! All you do is lie! I know! I know you have been cheating! I called your damn boss! I know you haven't been "staying late" at work! There is no "special project"! I sounded like an idiot getting angry with him! You're a fucking liar!" Mary pushed her husband and hit him repeatedly as she yelled. He grabbed her wrists and tried to calm her. "Mary! Please, stop!"

Mary pulled her hands free and stormed to the other side of the dining room. She turned back to him furiously. He tried to speak, "It's not..."

"No!" She cut him off again, storming back towards him. He backed away from her, "Don't tell me it's not what I think! Stop fucking lying. How could you do this to us? Who is she?" He did not respond. Mary screamed at him, "Who is she!?!"

Just then Mary's children came into the dining room rubbing their eyes. "What the heck is going on?" Mary's daughter asked her.

Mary looked at her husband, but he did not speak. He wouldn't look her in the eyes. She gave him one last disgusted glare before swallowing down her tears and going to her children. "Your father and I were just having a little argument about his work schedule. We're sorry we woke you guys. Let's all head back to bed, OK?" She lead her children back to their beds, then returned to her own. She threw her husband's pillows onto the floor before going to bed herself. He collected them and went to sleep on the sofa. The next morning he was gone earlier than usual.

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The back door of the van popped open and Mary stepped out cautiously. She could both hear and see the large number of undead coming down on the narrow city block. She stayed low and quiet, being very careful not to go out in the open. She'd learned, in her travels, how to stay hidden and had managed to avoid them realizing she was following. Sneaking in the shadows, Mary made her way to the house down the street. She couldn't see anyone in the dim light of the window, and hoped that they hadn't noticed anything unusual happening outside. She waited patiently until she was sure they had not noticed her or the horde, and then she went to work.

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Mary frantically dialed the number to her husband's cell phone for the twelfth time. He wasn't answering, which at that point wasn't out of the ordinary, only that day things in the city were getting out of control. The streets were becoming chaotic and the local news was reporting some kind of spreading viral epidemic. Many people had already been infected and had become violent and dangerous. A number of deaths had also been reported and Mary had been advised to take her children to the local community center to be medically evaluated, before being evacuated from the city. Mary tried her husband's cell phone once more before giving up and leaving with her children for the community center.

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Mary worked as quickly and quietly as possible, taking a small container of gasoline and pouring it carefully around all the doors and windows on the house's first floor. She let a trail of gas spill all around the house as she walked. When she finished, she ditched the gas container and snuck into the house directly across the street. She broke in through the back door and found a room on the second floor that faced the street. Mary perched herself in the front window of the room and peered out at the dim light, still illuminating the window of the house across the way. She opened her window and listened again. The sound of the undead was getting louder. An unnatural wave of growling and moaning. She could see them coming, maybe a hundred or so, staggering down the narrow city street towards them. It wouldn't be long now, she thought.

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A horde of the undead banged on the door of the community center. The place that was suppose to have lead them to safety had now turned into complete anarchy. The large gymnasium of the community center had been filled with people waiting to be evaluated by Red Cross volunteers, but the numbers had simply been too great to handle. It only took one small misunderstanding to send the whole place into a panic. Someone's test results came back inconclusive. The nurse that was helping the person made the mistake of ignoring discretion and next thing anyone knew, people were screaming that the infection had gotten into the building. It only took moments for the whole place to fall into chaos.

Mary pushed her children behind her as she backed them away from the madness. People were acting out of control, pushing and trampling each other, taking anything they could get their hands on. A loud crashing sound let them all know that the undead had broken through the front doors. Mary could already hear the banging as they tried to get through the gymnasium doors. She knew they had to get out of there quickly. She looked around and spotted a high window that people were already jumping from. It looked like it was just low enough for her kids to safely jump. She grabbed her children's hands and pulled them towards the window. As Mary desperately tried to push their way to the window, she heard another loud cracking. The undead had made it into the gym and were ripping through the crowd.

Mary continued to push her and her children through the crowd, and as she neared the window she looked up and spotted a woman that she recognized. The woman was a co worker of Mary's husband. Mary saw the man who was lifting her through the window and screamed his name with desperate fury. Mary's husband turned to see her screaming and pulling her children towards him. His female companion beckoned him to follow her. Mary and her children screamed for him to help them. He looked back and forth between the two women with a panicked expression.

Just then, the undead broke through the crowd and a set of bloody teeth sank into Mary's young son's neck. Mary and her daughter struggled to pull him free from the undead attacker, but with one hard, monstrous jerk, the creature pulled him away from them and he was overcome by bodies. Mary and her daughter tried to fight their way out of the mess, but Mary was grabbed by the hair and violently pulled to the ground. Her daughter jumped to her aid but was immediately grabbed by two of the undead and dragged off before she could do anything. Mary let the hair rip from her scalp as she pulled herself free and bellowed after her daughter. Pushing through the crowd, she found her daughter's lifeless body being eaten by a group of undead.

Screaming in horror, Mary saw a piece of broken chair and grabbed it up. She swung it with blind rage. In her craze, her eyes stopped for a moment on the window again and she saw her husband going through it. He looked back before jumping and saw her, alone, covered in blood. He looked around her once with a horrified and guilty expression, before turning and jumping out the window. Mary's mind went black and red. She lost all thought and started beating whatever was in front of her until she was somehow out of the building and still alive. Her thoughts cleared only long enough for her to decide what she was going to do next.

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Mary could see them looking out the window onto the now crowded street. The horde had done it's job and followed the trails Mary had left. She saw the light go out across the way and two heads popped out of the window to get a better view of the street. She delighted in their panicked expressions as they realized the scope of the horde. Mary stuck her head out of her window and whistled to them. Both Mary's husband and his female companion heard her whistle and looked up in surprise. The woman just looked confused and afraid, but Mary's husband had the unmistakable, horrified expression of a man that knew that hell had come for him.

Mary looked down at the horde on the street and then back up to them as she pulled a flare gun from her pack. She pointed it at the front door of the house across the street and, letting all her anger and rage possess her, she fired. The flare hit the front door of the house with a thump, and the whole place went up in flames. It spread quickly around the base of the house and started to rise. Mary's husband and the woman disappeared from the window and Mary watched as they tried to get out of the burning house. There was nowhere for them to go and even after they managed to bust out one of the windows and douse it with water, they were greeted by a horde of hungry, flaming undead, who pulled them both out of the broken window and devoured them while they burned alive. Mary watched them perish in the blazing, brutal madness she'd created. After a moment she pulled a crumpled photograph from her pocket and propped it on the window seal. The immortalized faces of her children shone in the light of the undead inferno.