Rule Number One

Ethan was immediately shoved out of the way. The girl had grabbed a free wooden plank from an empty stable and jammed it against the dirt ground and door frame. She kicked at the ground and packed dirt around the plank then kicked it too a few times to make sure it was secure. With a shuddering crash, that could only have been Jesse throwing himself against the door, a crack appeared in the plank.

“That’s no good.” Varrick muttered, but the girl seemed unfazed. She walked up to the tractor that sat in the middle of the barn and quickly looked it over.

“Where’s the brake?”

Ethan rushed over and released the brake lever on the tractor. Together, they rolled the machine against the barn door just as the plank holding it shut split in half. The girl pulled on the brake lever and sighed in satisfaction. Ethan slowly backed away to study the strangers.

She was dressed entirely in black — black short sleeved turtleneck, black cargo pants, black boots. The only difference in color was her bat, the fanny pack clasped around her waist, and her eyes, which were all the same steely grey. Varrick, who looked uncomfortable as he leaned on the shovel he’d used to break the padlock, was also dressed in black. He was muscular with a shaved head, black tribal tattoos snaked around his wrist, up the entirety of his right arm before disappearing into the sleeve of his short sleeved black T-shirt. He had a large, black leather pack on his back, and sticking out of the top of it was the only object of color Ethan could see – the silver handle of a baseball bat.

Ethan wondered if Varrick’s bat was flattened like the girl’s, and for a moment wondered why they carried around such strange weapons until the image of his father’s head colliding with a bat flashed before his eyes. 

He tensed at the thought, flicking a glare at the girl. He knew he should be thankful but he couldn’t help feel upset that she had attacked his father without even a shred of hesitation, and in such a brutal way. The girl seemed to read his thoughts as her silver eyes suddenly met his. They held his gaze as she spoke.

“How does it look?”

Ethan thought she was talking to Varrick until he realized that there was a third stranger among them; a boy with copper colored hair was crouched over Roy. He wore a neon green jacket over a black T-shirt and grey jogging pants with a neon green stripe down the legs. His running shoes were also neon green and looked expensive even though they were covered in mud.

Martha protested as he reached out a hand, but the young man just smiled and said, “I won’t hurt him, I just gotta see how bad it is.” Martha hesitated but a groan from her injured son made her allow the stranger to rip the neck of Roy’s T-shirt to get a better look at his shoulder. He unzipped his fanny pack and took out a small penlight. He clicked it on and shone the light down on the bite. Ethan felt his stomach jump as he saw how deep the wound was.

“Damn.” The boy said as his brow furrowed and he measured the teeth marks with his fingers. He wiped the blood away to get a better look and frowned when fresh blood immediately welled up again.

“Anytime, Jack.” The girl said.

The boy, Jack, shook his head as he answered. “It’s definitely a from a Carrier, Boss.” He looked solemnly up at Martha who sat crouched beside him in the dirt and continued, “It’s fresh too. How long ago did he get bit?”

“Bit?” Martha asked blankly.

Jack frowned and repeated the question, but Martha only shook her head numbly and grasped Roy’s hand between her own as she began to rock back and forth. Ethan walked over and placed a hand on her shoulder. He answered for her, “It just happened. My dad, he did it. He just flipped out on Roy, and then he-” Ethan trailed off, uncertain of what he was trying to say.

“So a few minutes or so,” Jack said as he nodded, “Just wanted to make sure. Did he get either of you?”

“He hurt Mom.” Martha motioned with her arm to confirm and Jack moved over to examine it. He brushed the bite clean from blood and, just as it had with Roy’s, the blood quickly welled up again to pour freely from Martha’s arm in a heavy flow. Jack looked up at the girl and nodded, “This one too. What’s the plan?” Ethan turned to look at the girl as Jack questioned her. She’d taken a seat on a bale of hay and placed the bat on her lap. 

Part of the bat was rounded, but the other was almost completely flat. The effect was a sword-like object with a rounded back. It looked barbaric and arcane even without being covered in his father’s blood.

“Ness?” Varrick asked quietly after she didn’t reply to Jack. Ness stood slowly and took a step towards Roy. Her grip on the bat tightened as she raised it.

“No!” Martha gasped. She held Roy’s head to her chest as if he were the most precious object in the world. Ness’ eye twitched in irritation before she responded. “He’s gonna be just like that thing outside. Is that what you want for him? For you?” Ness asked angrily. Martha did not answer but she shook her head forcefully.

“Maybe not, Boss.” Jack said. He gently held up Roy’s right arm and pointed to a spot just above the crook of his elbow. Seared into the flesh like a brand was what looked like a small barcode of dots. Ness’ eyes widened slightly at the sight of it.

“A TZ brand?” She dropped the bat and rushed over. Martha flinched as she approached but Ness did nothing but take Roy’s arm in her hands. She looked closely at the brand before she turned to Martha in earnest.

“Is this real?”

“What?” Martha asked, confused. Ness pointed to the brand.

“Did he put this here himself?” She demanded. “Or did you? Did he get it from someone else?”

“The hospital.” Ethan answered. He hesitated when Ness turned her attention to him, but when he saw Varrick nod encouragingly to him Ethan continued to explain. “Roy almost broke his arm a few months ago. At the hospital they patched him up and gave him antibiotics, it left that bruise there. I remember ‘cause Roy complained that that brand was itching him something bad.”

“So he got this mark at the hospital? From a doctor?” Ness demanded. Ethan nodded. “How about you?” Ness snapped at Martha, “Do you have a similar mark?”

“I - I don’t know what you-“ Martha shrunk away.

“Think hard! Did you get any shots at the hospital or a clinic? At any point in the last five years?” Ness asked. Ethan saved his mother as she began to stammer in her fear by answering for her, “Yeah she did.” Ness turned to look at him and he met her eyes, which like everything she wore, looked black in the shadows of the barn. He swallowed nervously but continued, “Four years ago, she had surgery. She’s allergic to the stuff they normally use, the gas? So they shit her up with a bunch of numbing stuff to do the surgery while she was awake.” 

“Where?”

“Saint Mercy’s off Lakeview-“

“No, where did they give her the numbing agent? Where on your body?” She directed the second half of her question to Martha who seemed to have regained some of her composure while Ness spoke to her son, because the woman quickly answered, “My back, it was corrective for an old injury.” Ness asked Martha to show her back. Martha glanced at Jack who, to his credit, turned his head away out of modesty and Martha allowed Ness to raise the back of her blouse. Ness ran a hand gently down Martha’s spine and stopped about midway to trace the markings of what looked like a seared barcode in Martha’s skin. To Ethan’s relief, her eyes lost some of their icy glare. 

“Right,” Ness said curtly, “That changes things a bit, then. At least for the next hour or so.” She lowered Martha’s shirt and tapped Jack on the back, signaling it was alright for him to turn back around. Then she folded her legs under her and sat on the ground. She laid her bat on her crossed legs, unzipped the pack strapped around her waist, pulled out a dirty looking white cloth and started to wipe Jesse’s blood from her bat. Ethan gripped Roy’s hand tightly in his own and waited.

The barn was small.

Too small.

In all his life Ethan had never realized how small it was but sitting beside his mother and brother, staring at Ness and her companions, the barn seemed to shrink by the minute. The world had gone silent outside the barn; Ethan heard the chirp of a cricket somewhere in the hay behind him. Did Dad give up? He wondered as he tried to pinpoint where the chirping was coming from. The sound was amplified in the dim. As he listened, Ethan had a sudden impulse to grab the strange bat out of Ness’ hands and hunt the bug down, to smash it into oblivion and end its song. His fingers actually twitched with the thought but he stayed where he was with his knees drawn to his chest and his back against a wall.

Ness sat in the tractor’s seat. The bat, now clean, was laid across her lap. She rubbed a hand across the flat metal, lost in thought. Varrick stood like a silent soldier awaiting orders beside her. Every now and then he met Ethan’s eyes and gave a small reassuring smile.

Martha had stopped her crying. Her face was streaked in dirty tear marks as she held tightly to Roy’s hand and slowly rocked. It scared Ethan to see his big brother so pale and weak. Jack had tried to stop the flowing blood from the wound in Roy’s shoulder by using medical gauze from his fanny pack, but Ethan feared the gesture had been done too late.

“So what do those marks mean?” Ethan finally asked Varrick who stood with arms crossed not too far from him. “And why does it matter if Roy and my mom got them at the hospital?” Varrick glanced at Ness who gave a slight nod of allowance.

“They mean your brother and mother received the vaccine.” Varrick said carefully.

“A vaccine?” Ethan asked. “Like for the flu?”

“Not a vaccine,” Varrick said, shaking his head. “The vaccine. You saw the Carriers.” He nodded at the barn door that had gone silent minutes ago. “The vaccine was meant to stop us from turning into those things. They bite you, scratch you, even drool or bleed on you, they hand the disease over. That happens and, sooner or later, you become what they are.”

“What are they? Zombies?”

Even though there was skepticism in his question, Ethan felt like he wouldn’t have been surprised if they were. He’s seen enough zombie movies to know they acted just like Jesse had, although he’d never seen a zombie without eyes. Roy was silent as Jack watched him. Ethan couldn’t imagine his brother attacking him or their mother. He couldn’t imagine Roy attacking anyone. Roy Connors was the most kindhearted person Ethan knew; he’d hated even helping Ethan yank out loose teeth when they were kids because he’d been scared to hurt his little brother.

”Nothing like that.” Ness laughed from her seat. “They’re carriers of the TZ Virus, strain three.”

”That’s not possible,” Martha shook her head, “TZ was an issue years ago, back when I was a child. The government released a vaccine to deal with it, it’s no different from getting a cold now.”

“The vaccine works less than half the time.” Ness hopped down from the tractor and stood beside Varrick. She placed a hand on his shoulder to keep him from answering Ethan’s question and answered Ethan directly. “A lot of patients who receive it are immune to the vaccine itself. And there’s no way to tell if you’re immune until you’re already potentially infected. It was a huge project to cover the failures as global pandemics, terrorism, you name it. Anything except the truth.”

“So how do we find out if they’re immune or not?” Ethan asked in growing exasperation. 

“Uh, Boss?” There was worry in Jack’ voice when he spoke. In an instant, Ness stood and strode over to them. “Well?” She asked.

“He definitely had a fever when I first checked, bad too, but it’s gone now.”

“And her?” Ness nodded at Martha. His mother was slumped beside Roy. Her eyes were glazed and a thick layer of sweat beaded on her forehead. Jack shrugged. “Fever is set but isn’t breaking yet. Don’t know if that’s cuz she was bit later or what, yet, though.”

“Well that’s good, right?” Ethan said. Jack shrugged. “It’s something. We’ll know in the next few minutes. The fever is the first stage, but it’s breaking is the second. We just gotta wait and see if the third rears its ugly head.”

“What is the third stage?” Martha asked Jack quietly. Before he could answer, Roy let out a low groan and his eyes flitted open.

“Mom?”

His voice was hoarse and he struggled to sit up but Martha gently pushed him back. Jack looked at Ethan and gave him a small nod before he moved out of the way to give the family their space.

“I’m here, honey,” Martha took up Roy’s hand once more, “But you have to stay still. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” Her lower lip started to tremble.

Roy coughed slightly and blinked a few times as if his vision was clouded. “What happened?” He croaked, “Where-?”

“In the barn,” Ethan took Jack’s place beside his brother, “You scared the crap outa us, man.” Roy looked around at them all and his eyes grew wide at the sight of Ness with her bat. “Who are they?” He asked in a hushed voice.

Ethan couldn’t tell if the act of talking was physically draining Roy or if he was just trying to keep from being overheard. Ethan decided to believe the later as he lowered his own voice to respond, “No idea. They just showed up, out of nowhere. If they hadn’t, we’d all be dead or worse.” Roy didn’t need an explanation. He knew exactly what Ethan meant. “A-am I gonna be l-like them?” Roy asked. 

“We’ll know soon enough.” Ness responded. From his sitting position, Ethan felt like a small rodent being loomed over by a wolf on the hunt. Ness’ eyes were narrowed, and the bat was clutched tightly in her right hand at her side. Ethan could see the strained muscles beneath her arm and knew that she was prepared to attack at a moment’s notice.

Martha glared at Ness and leaned over Roy, shielding him with her body. “Get back!” She shrieked. At the sound, a loud bang rattled the barn door. Immediately followed the snarls and howls of Carriers outside. At a particularly loud crash, followed by a loud cracking of splintering wood, Ness whirled around and raised the bat. The plank holding the door shut had snapped in half. The tractor was the only thing that stood between them and the horde outside.

“We can’t stay here,” Varrick said as he backed away from the door. “They’ll get through at this rate.” With every push, the tractor slid forward slightly in the dirt and away from the door. He swore as a particularly loud rattling made him jump. 

“Ness, what do we do?”

“Give me a second.” She snapped and furrowed her eyes as she thought. She stared at the door as it rattled and studied the tractor in front of it. “Is the fuel diesel?” She asked Ethan.

“What?”

“Diesel!” She emphasized. “Is the fuel for the tractor diesel?”

Ethan shook his head no. She raised her head to stare up at the hay loft and then turned in a full circle to sweep the entire barn with her gaze before her eyes landed on Roy. She seemed to have a conversation with herself before she gave a small nod.

“Get everyone up in the loft.” She said to Varrick. “Give me ten minutes, then start evacuation. I’ll follow you. If there’s more Carriers below, you go out first and handle them. Jack, you’re on civilian duty. Make sure they don’t get in the way.” She nodded at Ethan and Martha. Jack grumbled his distaste as Varrick grunted in affirmation.

“Right.” He started towards Roy but Ness stopped him with a shake of her head.

“He stays.” 

“What are you talking about?” Martha shrieked, “You don’t plan to leave him behind!” Ness turned her steel eyes on her and Martha shrunk back slightly.

“He stays.” Ness repeated.

Martha opened her mouth in a fury but was silenced by Roy’s voice before she could scream any of the foul words that were on the tip of her tongue.

“Mom . . .” Roy whispered.

His pupils had faded. The moss green which he and Ethan shared, had dimmed to a pale, milky reflection of themselves. A ring of solid red encircled his irises and and turned to crimson what had once been the whites of his eyes. Roy reached out a shaky hand.

“I can’t see.” 

He gasped as he felt around for his family. Ethan grasped his hand and felt Roy’s nails dig into his palms. Ness grabbed at Roy and forced him to let go as she shouted, “Stay back!”. She shoved Ethan away and ordered Varrick to hold Martha back as well, who roared with anger as the large man lifted her off her feet and pulled her away from her son.

“No! No! Leave him alone! Don’t hurt him!” She shrieked as she beat her fists against Varick’s broad chest to no avail. 

“Stop!” Ethan threw himself over Roy’s body as Ness raised her bat, the narrowed side facing them like a sword. She paused as she stared down at him. “Move.” She said softly. “It has to be done.”

“But you said we had an hour!”

“Look at him!” 

Ethan glanced at Roy. In the few minutes that they’d spoken, his eyes had become completely red. As Ethan saw a drop of blood, like a tear, seep from the corner of Roy’s left eye and slide down his cheek in a streak of crimson.

“We could cure him! Get him some medicine!” Ethan insisted desperately.

Ness shook her head. “He won’t last that long, even if there was any medicine that could help him. Now move!” She nodded at Jack who immediately grabbed Ethan and forced him off of Roy. Ethan struggled to be free, to shield his brother from what he knew was coming. Martha had given up trying to break away from Varrick and dissolved into a fit of sobbing against him. Varrick had a complicated look on his face but said nothing as he awkwardly patted her on the back.

“Roy!” Ethan shouted, not caring that he was riling up the murderous Carriers beyond the shaking barn door. “Roy, tell them! Tell them you’re gonna be fine!”

“She’s right.” Roy whispered.

His voice was serene. He smiled and for a moment it was if Ethan was ten years old again: the bloody eyes vanished and the barn was lit with sunlight, and young Roy was looking at his kind and loving big brother with all the admiration in the world. This was the Roy he knew; strong willed and determined.

Varrick helped Martha to her feet and half carried the weeping and faintly protesting woman to the ladder which lead to the hayloft. She took a final look at Roy before Varrick gave her a gentle nudge in the back and the two of them climbed the ladder. Ethan watched them disappear into the darkness overhead as he gave Roy’s hand a firm squeeze.

“Go.” Ness said with a jerk of her head towards the ladder. Ethan gritted his teeth and slowly got to his feet. He set Roy’s hand down in the dirt as if it were something so precious that it would shatter if he dropped it too quickly before he turned and started up the ladder. 

Ness watched the heel of Ethan’s shoes disappear from the ladder before she focused her attention on Roy. Silently, she held out the handle of her bat. Varrick took the handle and stepped back, his head lowered solemnly. Ness opened the pack around her waist and pulled a dark pistol from its contents.

”Ness, the sound.” Varrick gestured to the Carriers outside, already rampant with rage over the smell of blood wafting from beyond a locked door.

“I know,” she said. She nodded to the ladder. “I‘ll catch up.” The man nodded. He climbed the ladder swiftly, leaving the young boy and girl alone in the darkness. Ness leveled the barrel of the gun against Roy’s forehead.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered.

“It’s not your fault.” Roy whispered back as thick tears fell from the corners of his ruined eyes. His smile remained unwavering to the end.