I walked away from the Suburban, turning back once more to make sure Trina had her head down. No sign of her. Good.
No calling out to anyone this time. As quiet as I could be. Unlike Jack inside the house, I needed my heart and my brain, and even more than that, Trina needed me to keep them, so stealth was my new modus operandi.
I planned to go back inside the house where I would have light. I’d not yet completed my search there, and before I considered going into the back yard, I would be bathing that area in the light from the back porch – and the switch was only accessible from inside.
Holding the Smith & Wesson out in front of me, I used one finger to hook around the slimy screen door handle. I didn’t want any more of that blood on me. I’d already touched enough and seen enough. I had no idea how much more I’d see as the next days passed.
I eased the door open. Everything inside was as it had been. With a last glance toward my truck, I went inside and guided the door closed quietly behind me. I moved back down the hall and stopped by the kitchen.
A flashlight. Who didn’t have one in the junk drawer? I went in and opened it. Sure, I knew which one it was – I’d been here a thousand times – and as soon as I opened the drawer I saw the four inch LED light with the rubber power button. I pushed it, and that sucker lit up like a tiny football stadium.
I smiled then. I was proud of myself. I have no idea when the next time I smiled was. I might have done it for Trina – to make her feel like everything was okay, but it wasn’t real. I may have done it for Gem, when I saw her again – no maybe about it; I did smile when I saw Gem again, but that’s for later.
The hallway was foreboding, and I didn’t get why. I knew there were still unexplored places down there, but it was so out of place for me to feel anything but comfort and a desire for a beer in this home. All I’d ever experienced before this night was love in this place. Now I could add terror and relief to that list. But right now I was back to the terror part. I was an electrician, and the worst thing I usually run into is the odd spider or rat.
I stopped across from the laundry room and stared for a moment at the closed bi-fold doors. The hall light was still burning, so I didn’t need my flashlight yet. I pulled open one of the doors, and in the silence of the house, it squealed like a 16 penny nail being dragged over a chalkboard.
Then I saw the dress. It was hanging out of the closed washer lid. I’d seen the dress before. I’d seen Jesse wearing it. My breath caught in my throat, and I transferred my gun to my left hand and pointed it down toward the end of the empty hallway where the door to the back patio was, just to make sure I was ready in case someone – or something – appeared there.
I turned my eyes back to the washer. The closed lid. Jesse’s dress. It no longer looked like a washer, but like a coffin. A crypt. Then I snapped, realizing I had to take action and shake off the bullshit fear I was experiencing. One more glance down the hall.
Empty. Back to the washer. I pulled that lid up as fast as I could. The washer was turned off, but the tub was filled with dirty water. Rust colored. The dress was white with red polka dots, so it could have been the color running into the water, but my heart pounded out the words in my ears: It’s Jesse in there.
My jaw was sore from clenching my teeth together, and my gun hand was shaking. I tugged firmly on that dress, sure I’d feel the resistance of a little girl’s dead body weighing it down. But it slid out easily and fell to the floor.
An involuntary sigh of relief left my body. Back to relief. Thank God. It was so much better than the terror part. The dress was not on Jesse. The dress was just a dress, and I didn’t care how it got like that. I moved away from the utility room and further down the hall. I pulled the mini flashlight out of my pocket and shined it into the bathroom on the left at the end of the hall. Nothing in there. No closets big enough to hide in, so I pushed the door back to make sure nothing – okay, nobody – hid behind it, and then pulled it softly closed. I shined the light toward the master bedroom and saw nothing. As I went to reach inside to hit the light switch, I heard a sound, like a metallic reverberation and a thud. My hand froze.
It sounded kind of random, like it was being made by a something, not a someone. I discovered I was holding my breath again, and my sore jaw reminded me not to clench my teeth so tightly. I checked behind me again, down the hall, looked at the bathroom door. I reached over and tried to turn the knob to the patio door. It was locked. Everything was as it had been just a moment ago, which really shouldn’t have surprised or relieved me, but it did both. I felt with my fingers along the wall of the bedroom, found and flipped the light switch up, and the room came into view. Nobody lay in wait. The metallic banging sound persisted.
Then I looked down and saw them. How could I have missed them? The bloody footprints that led into the bedroom did not appear until they stained this carpeting. The carpeting in the hallway had been a deep brown, and the blood, having dried to a darker color, was not readily visible. But as I looked back behind me, I saw not only the blood on the floor, but the blood on the walls. How could I have missed it? My heart pounded in my chest suddenly, and I could hear it in my ears. It drowned out every other sound and I gripped the revolver with both hands, swinging it to all corners of the room, my eyes falling toward the floor as I stepped after the bloody footprints. They led to the window.
It was open. The sheer curtains were blowing into the room, and the half-open aluminum mini blinds were banging against the wall. The bloody handprints were all around the window, on the sheers, and on the sill. I saw a footprint on the sill and I guessed what had happened.
Trina had slipped into her bedroom closet, or under a bed while running from her mother. Jesse had run into the back room and was trapped when her mother, covered in blood and God knew what kind of gore, came in behind her. Jesse opened the window and scrambled through it, and she had been pursued by something that was no longer her mother, but something . . . something hungry. Something with a hunger that apparently could not be satisfied.
I wanted to turn on the light, but there was no time. If there was any chance – any chance at all that Jesse was alive – that Jamie was not responsible for this and that she was alive, I had to find them. I had wasted enough time.
I pulled the flashlight and pushed the button, lighting the 10 mini LED lights. I stepped through the window and onto the back patio. The hall door would have taken me out to the same area, but I wanted the benefit of following the bloody footprints directly. I didn’t want to have to pick up the trail again.
I shone the light down. They were fading now, but every now and then there was a dark chunk of something on the concrete pool deck, and the trail led toward the dark water of the pool. And then away.
When Jack and Jamie had been discussing putting in a pool, she’d mentioned considering a black-bottomed pool. I’d heard that wasn’t the best idea, because chlorine would fade it in time, but she did it anyway. What it served to do was to make the pool appear as black and murky as a pond when the moon was non-existent. But I could see the bloody footprints stopped on the edge of the water, and then several prints and chunks of gore were centralized on the edge.
Jamie – or what used to be Jamie – stopped here. For a long time. Watching? Waiting?
Fuck. Jesse.
I jammed the gun into my pants and dove into the water. I could see nothing, but I swam hard to the bottom and ran my hands along it at the deepest point, moving side to side until – until my hands fell on cloth. And skin. I screamed underwater, the bubbles escaping my mouth, and I pulled on the child’s body, lifting her out of the watery prison, toward the surface. When I broke through I had her pressed against me, her lifeless, limp body. I paddled with my free arm, struggling up the inclined bottom of the pool until I was in the shallow end and could walk more easily. When I reached the edge, I rested my niece’s body down on the pool deck and leaned over her, pressing my hands on her chest, pumping, pumping, but feeling nothing in response.
I realized with each compression I was saying, “Come on! Come on! Breathe!” but I couldn’t stop myself. It was as if my very words could force this little girl to come back to life. Breathing hard, I finally gave up. I dropped my head down beside hers and I cried, pulling her cheek to mine. Cold. But her body was intact. She was not torn open. She had not been attacked.
She had drowned.
And when I looked up, I saw what was, at one time, my sister staring back at me. She stood just outside of the pool enclosure, her skin pale white, her cap-sleeved tee shirt torn and bloody, her mouth open to reveal gnashing teeth that looked like they were always chewing, chewing, eating, eating.
“Jamie,” I said softly. “Jamie, it’s me, Flex.”
Her eyes filled with something like concern for just a split second. Then she started to tear at the screening, trying to get to where we were. The door was right in front of her, but it was closed.
And she spoke as she did this. Not clear. Garbled. But the words I could still make out.
“I’m hungry hungry starving hungry hungry . . .” Her eyes glowed, but there was no light reflecting in them. The pupils were dilated huge, so that no irises were visible, only black. Against her pale white skin, this increased the oddness of it. Her hair, once so shiny and beautiful, was stringy and even beginning to fall out in places. What had happened to her had happened fast. I couldn’t imagine that we’d spoken on the phone just earlier that day.
“Jamie, baby. It’s me, Flex! I’ll help you! You’re sick, sis. Just sick. Sit down there on the grass, and I’ll get someone to help you! Just stay there and –”
I stopped talking. She didn’t hear anything, and her guttural grunts and moans as she continued tearing down the screen mesh just obscured what I was trying to get across. She was making headway through the screen and as it broke through, she began her scramble over the lower crossbar.
I looked at her, then looked at sweet Jesse’s limp body lying on the concrete in front of me, and there was no way I was going to let this . . . this thing get to her. I’d never forgive myself. I pulled Jesse’s soaked body into my arms and back into the water. I carried her to the deep end and let her body slip beneath the surface to the dark bottom again.
As I headed back toward the shallow end, the Jamie-thing had made it through and was staggering toward the pool. I stood about five feet from the edge and watched her. As she reached the edge of the pool again, she stopped and stared down.
Afraid? Unable to judge the water, perhaps even confused as to what it was?
In my mind I kept thinking cure. The gun was in my hand, but I knew I would not be using it on my sister. Whatever she was, whatever she’d become, she was Jamie, my kid sister, and I loved her more than anyone else on this entire planet. She had not killed her daughter directly, though clearly she’d been the cause of her death. But I had to use that logic; she was incapable, even at this strange stage of metamorphosis, or whatever it was, of killing her own child.
And so I had to capture her somehow. Get her to a doctor.
Something.
As I stared at her an idea began to formulate. She stood stock still, staring into the water toward me, her teeth gnashing, gnashing. I was horrified to see her so far gone.
I could not get too near her. Trina was relying on me, and if this was contagious, it wouldn’t do to become infected. If not airborne, it could be transferred by bodily fluids, and Jamie looked to be capable of spreading her share of them right now. She could not be allowed to be too near me or Trina.
I stood there, the idea continuing to take shape. The pool cover was a bubble wrap type material, only thicker. It was rolled up on a long cylinder at the deep end of the pool, operated by a hand crank. If I wanted to pull it out, I had only to grab onto it and start to pull it across the pool. I could safely work in the water, because apparently Jamie did not want to work in the water. I looked at the large roll and felt in the front pocket of my jeans. My pocket knife was there.
I looked at the Jamie-thing again, gauging her reluctance to come in after me, and while I could read nothing in her features, she hadn’t moved. Aside from her mouth, she stood perfectly still. Occasionally she moaned, and the gnashing was constant. Her face did not turn away from me. I can’t say she saw me, but she knew exactly where I was.
I turned and cupped the knife in my hand and swam to the far edge. As I reached it, I leaned out and took the bubble plastic in my hand and pushed off the edge back toward the middle of the pool, unspooling it behind me. When my feet could touch the bottom again, I stood, one eye on Jamie and the other on my work. With my pocket knife, I began cutting the plastic off at about an eight foot length. It was about fourteen feet wide. Still light and easy to work with. I had just finished cutting through the last two feet and had started rolling it up so that the width would become my length. When I glanced back toward Jamie I saw that she was no longer alone.
There was a man walking up behind her.
“Stop!” I shouted. “Stay away from her!” The man didn’t falter. His gait was strange. Unsteady, jerky. Jamie, apparently sensing his presence behind her, turned her body and head to see him, but did not step out of his path. Her movement was enough to allow me to see his face.
He was her. They were the same. My God, he had the disease too, and he seemed more determined. Chills shot so fast down my spine I was surprised the pool didn’t ripple as they sped past the water line. I pocketed the knife and pulled the gun out of the back of my pants, then shook what water I could from it. The man-creature walked around Jamie as though he didn’t see her, his eyes on me. He walked to the pool’s edge, just opposite where I stood. Jamie had remained at the corner, eyes on me, but had never walked the edge to be closer.
He may have been hungrier than even she was. His teeth and jaws also gnashed and worked at chewing nothing, and he had the same eyes. His feet now hung over the edge of the pool’s coping, and he looked from my face to the surface of the water.
“Hey, you, ya fuck! You’re not coming in here,” I yelled, my voice tremulous. “Get out of here, or I’ll put a bullet –”
And it was as if he dared me to do it. Suddenly he was falling forward, his body stiff as a board, his eyes staring through me as he plummeted toward the dark water and into my sanctuary. His eyes were somehow black, yet aglow with an internal light of their own. His jaws working back and forth, up and down, anticipating my flesh. Mid-fall, I jerked my arm up and pulled the trigger hard, shooting him square in the forehead. Two more quick pulls of the trigger and his left eye was blown out of the socket and his right cheekbone disintegrated.
The booming sound shook me to the bone as I gripped the bubble wrap in my hands and pushed back away from where his body splashed into the water. I scrambled to the opposite side and pressed myself against the pool wall. Jamie still had not moved, or even seemed to have noticed the encounter at all. As the thing’s body floated toward me, now motionless, I nudged it away from me with the now rolled up bubble wrap. When I was sure it was floating away – and to the shallow end of the pool, for I did not want it to sink down anywhere near my Jesse – I scrambled out of the water. I still didn’t know whether this horror was transmitted via air, fluid, or what, but I didn’t want to be in any water this thing might excrete its fluids into.
Once I was out, Jamie started toward me. It was the water she was afraid of, this woman who was once a hell of a swimmer. But now I was out, and she was still hungry, because her guttural words came again, and she stepped slowly, erratically toward me. Not fast, but steady. I tucked my gun back into the back of my pants and hefted the roll of bubble wrap. It was rolled up like a rug, long and stiff enough for me to use as a tool to push her away.
If I could push her down, then I would execute my plan.
Or try, at least.
Starting at the back side of the pool, I hurried around it and soon was in the middle of the yard, between the pool and the patio. Jamie’s eyes stayed on me, and she jerked steadily toward me.
“Hungry hungry hungry . . .”
But it sounded like “ungy ungy ungy.”
Suddenly I was overwhelmed. My sister was messed up – majorly messed up, and I started to cry. I backed up as she staggered toward me, and it broke my heart to know she would kill me against her will, that she loved me and she would fucking kill me and never even have any conscious awareness she’d done it. I prodded her with the bubble wrap, and she staggered backward. When she was off balance, I pushed her with it again.
I spun around to her side and pushed her toward the side yard fence with the roll, and this time she did fall over. As she moaned out loud, and her newfound lack of coordination made it a struggle to roll onto her stomach so she could pull her knees under her and get up, I stood over her and flipped open the roll of bubble wrap like an evacuation slide on an airplane. Like a lizard’s tongue, it uncoiled on her opposite side, all fourteen feet of it. Her prone body was parallel to the eight foot length, and I kicked her square in the center of her back, push-rolling her onto the sheeting. Another kick and she was far enough on the sheeting that I could grab the edge, which I pulled over her flailing arms. I then rolled her over onto her stomach again. Her arms were forced down to her sides, and I gained more confidence as I rolled her further and further along the fourteen foot length of the plastic, tighter and tighter. By the time I got to the end, she was a mummy entombed in the roll, unable to move, and unable to bite or get to me with mouth or hands.
Her moans grew more frantic, but were muffled now.
I lay on top of the roll, feeling her struggling beneath me, but to no avail; my breath heaved and my heart pounded. I was still crying, but now most of it was with relief. I had no idea what I’d do with her, but I had her. I had her.
Maybe I could find someone to help her.
Cinching the sheeting together where I ran out of length, I struggled to drag the bundle containing my sister toward the house. An old garden hose lay coiled there, and I picked it up to test it for usefulness. The rubber was still soft enough to use for my purposes, so I cut an 8’ length of it and split it lengthwise with my pocketknife. Now I had two pieces pliable enough to tie like a rope. I sat on the roll with Jamie’s body inside it, and tied one length tightly around the end where her head was, and repeated the procedure where her feet were.
I took note that she was quiet now. But I felt her shifting within, so could tell she was still alive – if that was even a word I could use to describe her anymore. At the time, I really didn’t know.
As I did this, I kept my eye on the pool and on the yard beyond where I sat working, because if there had been one curious zombie-neighbor, there could be more. And I wasn’t comfortable anymore with just the .38 and three more rounds of ammo. I needed way more firepower if this was as widespread as I had begun to fear.
Trina was on my mind. She was locked in the truck, and should be safe if she just stayed put, but she was six years old and not extremely logical. I felt a sudden sense of dread and urgency even greater than what had seemed to become the new normal.
I stood and looked down at the roll containing Jamie. Slight movement. No insane struggling, no screaming. Stillness. Silence. I could take a moment and go check on Trina.
My gun was in my hand as I opened the screen door and walked around the corner to the side yard. The rear of the Suburban was visible, and looked okay. I broke into a slight jog and seconds later I was at the truck. I knocked softly on the window so as not to frighten Trina. A second later I saw her little face appear before mine behind the glass. She waved her little hand back and forth, her mouth unsmiling. I pointed at the lock, and she pulled it up.
I opened the door. “Hey, baby. Good girl.”
“Did you find Jesse and mommy?” she asked.
I didn’t want to have this conversation, so I lied to her, the way adults are supposed to lie to kids when what they’ve got to tell them would shatter their worlds.
“No, baby. I think maybe your mommy felt better and they went and hid. I’m hoping they took your daddy’s car and drove to Jacksonville.” This was a lot of bullshit that she’d likely have trouble sorting through. I was just talking off the top of my head so had no idea what I’d said the moment it was out of my mouth. I hoped she wouldn’t ask any questions and test my powers of recall, and I got lucky.
She nodded. “I hope she’s better. Maybe she was pretending, like at Halloween.”
“I think you’re right, honey. Just play-scary, like Halloween. Now I have something to do that’s going to take me about an hour. But first I’ve got to hook your daddy’s trailer up my car so we can bring some stuff with us. I want you to stay right here, just like you were, and if you feel the car bouncing and stuff, it’s just me. Get back on the floor and see if you can go to sleep for awhile, okay?”
She nodded. I looked at her for a moment. “Baby, wait right here, okay? Just a sec.”
She nodded. I locked and closed the door again, and ran back inside the house. I ran right by the scene in the entry and to the girls’ bedroom. I grabbed the two twin sized Disney Princess comforters from the beds and ran back to the truck. I unlocked it with my key and pulled the door open. Her head popped up.
“Here, Trinie,” I said, using my pet name for her. “I know it’s warm out, but I want you out of sight. Cover yourself with this and stay on the floor, okay?”
She nodded, her blonde hair bouncing with her cute little head. “Okay, Uncle Flexy.” That was her pet name for me.
“On the floor,” I said. I pushed the lock knob down again and closed the door tight.
The trailer was parked up against the side of the house. I didn’t want to start the truck’s engine because of the noise, so I lifted the tongue of the trailer and walked backward, rolling it over the uneven ground toward my Suburban. I passed the truck and spun the trailer slowly around, then dropped it down onto the tow ball, snapping the latch into place. I plugged in the electrical connector just to be safe. Hauling what I planned to haul, it wouldn’t be smart to get pulled over, though I kind of doubted that dead running lights were something the police would be concerned with right now. They’d be more likely to take you for a criminal if you were hunched over somebody sawing the top of their skull off with a steak knife.
That job complete, I had three more tasks left before I could get my ass on the road. I was exhausted, but the adrenaline was still coursing through my veins, and sleep was the last thing on my mind.
My next task was to bury Jesse. That sweet little girl who loved to play checkers with me. The one who really taught me the rules of hopscotch, and who could beat me at both even when I wasn’t letting her.
But first I needed to get Jamie secured in the back of the equipment hauler. I went back inside the screened pool enclosure and lifted one end of the cylindrical shaped sarcophagus I created for Jamie, then dragged it behind me as I walked backward toward the Suburban. The plastic slid fairly easily over the ground, and I got her to the trailer in just over a minute. I lowered the rear hatch, which converted into a ramp, and dragged her up onto it. There were two coils of nylon rope on the trailer, so I tied one length around the center of the bundle in case the hose slipped or loosened. No loud noises from Jamie so far, but I could still feel slight movement, so I knew she was alive – or at least not completely dead. Afterward, I lashed the bundle containing my former sister to the passenger-side railing of the open trailer using the steel tie-down rings.
She would not be going anywhere. I didn’t know what to do with her. This wouldn’t do for very long, but I didn’t have any choice, and this was all I could do right now.
Before I could lay Jesse to rest, I had to retrieve her from the bottom of the pool, but it would not do to have her body lying exposed in case it drew more of them. I would be better off digging her grave and getting her afterward.
I walked around to the side of the pool enclosure to the small shed. It wasn’t locked, and inside was everything I’d need. There was a tarp, but I didn’t want to wrap her body in that. I grabbed a spade shovel and took note of the empty space that I believed once accommodated the small axe that was now inside the house – or more specifically, embedded in Jack’s flesh.
I walked back out and tested the earth in several spots. It had rained earlier, so the ground was moist, to my relief. I started digging the grave for my darling Jesse directly behind the shed. The rear fence blocked sight of me from anybody who might still be alive, or anyone who might want to come at me for whatever reason – I still wasn’t completely sure, at least at that point, what was happening. I would love to be as blind to the new dangers of the world as I was at that particular moment in time, but I’m no fool. The saying used to go ‘what you don’t know can’t hurt you,’ but it’s changed in this world. Now it’s ‘what you don’t know can eat you.’
From my vantage point, I could look around the corner and see the cab of my truck, so that made me feel better about leaving Jamie so close to Trina.
The grave was not too big. Just about four and a half feet long by two feet wide. I wanted to make it about another foot deep, but I didn’t have the time or, as it turned out, the energy. The adrenaline had started to dissipate, after all. Using the shovel as a support, I propped it outside the hole and leaned on it as I stepped up and out.
“Flex?”
The unexpected voice made me draw back, and I almost fell back into the small grave.
She stood barely five feet in front of me. It was Gem.
“Jesus Christ, Flex! It is you!” She ran to me and I threw the shovel down and took her into my arms. I wrapped them around her and squeezed her so tight to me that I almost couldn’t breathe. We didn’t say a word for the longest time, and when she pulled away from me, I looked into her face, her eyes.
She kissed me gently on the mouth, then pulled back, her eyes meeting mine, a question in them.
I broke the silence, but there was nothing awkward about it. “Gem, I’ve been thinking about you. And here you are. God I missed you.”
“Me, too,” she said. Then: “Flex, I’m scared. Uncle Rogelio is . . . one of them, and there were so many of them in Miami that I had to get out of there. He killed my Aunt Ana, Flex! I can’t tell you how. . . You do know what’s happening to people, right?” She searched my eyes, waiting for my answer.
I nodded. “Gem, I know. This is the only firsthand experience I’ve had so far. It’s fucking bad here.”
Gem shook her head. “I know, Flex. You were on my mind for weeks before this all happened, but once I realized something bizarre was going on, I knew I had to find you.”
“Gem, I’m glad you’re here, and there’s a lot I need to tell you – none of it good. Jamie’s one of them. She killed Jack, near as I can tell, and Jesse . . . well, Jess is dead. She drowned in the pool trying to escape her mom.”
Gem’s face fell, and tears immediately formed in her eyes. “Oh, Flex. Oh, my God. Not little Jess.” Her expression became more distressed. “Where’s Trina? Is she okay?”
I nodded and pulled her against me again. She put her head on my chest and I breathed her in. “Trina’s in my truck, locked in, lying on the floor. She’s a good little hider, and she’s been really good, listening to what I’ve told her to do.”
Gem held onto me for another long moment, then pulled back. “So this . . . grave. It’s for Jess?”
I nodded. “She’s still in the pool. I didn’t want to get her until . . . you know.” I looked at the grave. “I think it’s good enough now.”
“Give me your keys,” she said. “I need to go to Trina.”
I fished them out of my pocket and handed them to her. “I’m glad you’re here, Gem. You are the one person I needed to see now. I think the only person.”
She shrugged. “It was the same with me. Go get her, and I’ll sit with Trina for a bit. But don’t finish this without me. I want to see her.”
I nodded and headed toward the pool, turning back to watch her walk to the Suburban. The one that got away was back. I must not have done everything wrong.
I reached the edge of the pool again and scanned the water. The zombie I’d killed was caught in the side ladder. He’d floated into it and his arm was caught, so he was not sinking down to where Jesse’s body lay. I entered at the steps and just walked in. When I was chest deep, I dove down and found her again.
Back at the Suburban, I tapped on the window. Trina sat beside Gem, another of her favorite big people in the world, and was talking animatedly. I noticed a machine gun of some type on the dashboard, and noted to myself that this was not my weapon. Gem rolled down the window.
“Is that an Uzi?” I asked, shaking my head. “I’m ready. Bring that other comforter with you.”
She nodded. No words were necessary. Gem pulled the twin comforter from the floorboard, and turned to Trina. “On the floor, door locked, not a peep, right?”
“Like I’m playing hide and seek,” Trina said, smiling.
“Just like that,” Gem responded. “Shhh.”
“Shhh,” repeated Trina, crawling onto the floor. Gem dropped the other comforter on top of her and rolled the driver’s side window back up. She got out of the truck, clicked the lock and closed the door.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Back at the gravesite Gem knelt down over Jesse’s body. I had rested her on her back and had done my best to straighten her clothes and hair. Despite her condition, her hair and clothes soaking wet, she still looked beautiful.
“I never should have had to see you like this, Jesse,” Gem said. She stroked the child’s face and hair, then lowered her face to Jesse’s and kissed her cheek, then her forehead. “Rest in peace, little rabbit, you.”
It was what she’d always called Jesse. Jesse loved it, because she loved rabbits. In fact, against her mother’s better judgment, Gem had convinced Jamie to let her read Watership Down to Jesse, who from the beginning, adored the tale of Fiver, Hazel and their warren of rabbits.
When Gem was done with her goodbyes, I knelt down beside Jesse and touched her face. I dropped down and put her cheek against mine. “I love you, little one. And I want you to know that wasn’t your mama you were running from. She loves you. Your mama would never do anything to hurt you.”
I stared down at her for a long time, kissed her cheek and stood. “Let’s wrap her.”
Gem spread out the comforter and I picked Jesse up and placed her on it. Gem carefully folded the blanket over and around her, tucking it in tightly on all sides. Together, we lifted her and placed her inside the grave.
In silence, we covered her body with soil until only a mound of earth was visible before us.
“Jamie’s in the equipment hauler hooked up to the Suburban.”
“How?” asked Gem.
“Wrapped in a big bubble wrap sheet. A piece of the pool cover. Like a mummy.”
Gem stared at me. I knew the question in her eyes before she vocalized it.
“Because, Gem, I can’t leave her. I have to see if she can be cured . . . something. I can’t just shoot her, and I won’t leave her to do what she did to – well, I just can’t.”
“I get that, babe. If you’re comfortable she’s secure, that’s good enough for me.”
She had the sub machine gun slung over her shoulder and with her crazy long locks, she reminded me of a female Rambo.
“I miss hearing you call me babe, Gem,” I said. “I’ve missed it for a long time.”
“Well, you won’t miss it anymore, babe. Because I’ve felt exactly the same since the last time I saw you. Now let’s get out of here. I smell fire.”