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  Pain flared up somewhere between his stomach and his heart. The years he had cared for her meant nothing now. The years of fighting over taking her medication were washed away with the breeze that rolled through his house. She could be infected now all because she opened the door for someone.

  “Hey!” Roland screamed.

  The man in the kitchen jumped, sending dishes shattering to the ground. He pulled down his mask, turned around, and leaned back against the counter. Roland noticed the front of his jacket was covered with a spray of blood. The looter grabbed a knife from the dish rack behind him. “I’m not infected—”

  “Whose blood is that!”

  The stranger inched toward the front door with the butcher knife held out in front of him. “I—I was just looking for meds and food,” he said. “I’m not infected—”

  “Why do you keep saying that?” Roland asked.

  “Just let me go,” he responded. “I’ll go. And I won’t come back.”

  Roland looked closer at the looter. Something about his gas mask looked off. He peered into the reflective eye holes. “Your mask is cracked,” Roland said pointing at the clear line through the eye. “That won’t protect you.” Roland stepped toward him. The intruder swung the knife at him. “Jesus! Will you chill out man—”

  “Get away from me!” The stranger sprinted from the kitchen out the front door. Roland threw himself out the door and into the street after the dark figure. He lunged toward the stranger and latched onto the straps of his gas mask. The masked man swung with the knife again and stumbled out of Roland’s grasp. The knife clattered about two feet away until it went silent. His gas mask fell to the ground, the Plexiglas cracking as it hit the pavement.

  Without his gas mask on, he pushed himself to his knees and vomited blood onto the road. No. He cried out in pain and gripped his stomach with his arm. Please, no. The stranger turned his head over his shoulder and two blood-red eyes stared back at Roland.

  “You killed her,” Roland growled. He looked into the fear-filled eyes of the man and felt his blood boil. “You killed her!”

  Roland reached for his pistol. The man tried to run but stumbled over his feet in his attempt and collided with the pavement once more. Roland pulled back the slide and pressed the muzzle into the infected’s forehead.

  “Please, sir,” he begged. “I’m sorry—”

  Hearing his plea stung, but his anger won. “You lied to me!” Roland yelled. “You lied to me and now my mother is dead because of it!” The gun fired once, and the looter’s head snapped back. His body fell backward while Roland emptied the rest of the clip into the man’s chest. Then, the silence returned. Death had taken another soul from the streets.

  “Rolo?” his mother called from inside the house.

  Roland walked through the open door in complete nausea. I’m a murderer. Just like that person with the flamed car. Just like all the people on the news.

  “Rolo, honey,” she said. “Did you call the school? Do they know that I’m going to be late?”

  Roland began to take his mask off, but then stopped himself. She’s probably infected now. He reached out and rubbed his finger across her cheek. “I’m so sorry Ma,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you safe.”

  “Oh honey,” she said smiling. “Don’t worry about that now. We’re still together right? That’s all that matters.”

  Roland nodded. He was grateful for the mask now; it hid the tears. Twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours was all he had left with her.

  * * *

  A knock at the door woke Roland from his sleep. The Spanish soap opera Oma requested to watch blared on the television. He turned to her and saw the sheen of sweat on her forehead. “Stay here Oma,” he said through his mask.

  “Okay dear,” she said. “Don’t be gone too long now. You’re going to miss something.”

  Another knock, louder this time, boomed throughout the house. Roland gripped his pistol and pulled it from behind him. “What?” he asked through the door.

  “Roland?” a voice called from the other side. “Please tell me that’s you.”

  Roland frowned at the voice. He unlatched the chain to the door and pulled it open. A loud purring from an engine filled the house in an instant. He saw the vibrant red and orange flames first, followed by large shiny rims and then the tattooed hands of his brother.

  “Paton?” Roland peered closer into the reflective eyes of the person’s gas mask, and then behind him at the red car with skulls and flames painted along its sides; a stream of smoke floated up from behind the car.

  Roland felt sick. He thought the man who had been slaughtering and burning people in the streets was Death, but he was wrong. The man burning people in his neighborhood was his own flesh and blood. He backed into the house and aimed at Paton’s chest.

  “Stop,” Paton said. “Let me explain—”

  “You killed off more than half the neighborhood and now you want to explain!”

  “I know this looks bad, Roland. Please just give me a chance,” he responded, inching his way into the house with his hands raised.

  “Shhh!” Oma said from behind them both. “I can’t hear my show.”

  Paton looked past Roland at their mother with wide eyes. “Ma?”

  “Oh, you must be mistaken,” she responded. “Rolo, who’s this you invited?” Her eyes reflected red in the television’s light. She coughed several times into a white handkerchief. When she pulled it away from her mouth, it too was stained a dark red.

  “You’ve been keeping her here like this?” he said pulling a long-barrel rifle over his back. “Tell me you didn’t take off your mask.”

  “What are you doing Paton!”

  “Answer me!” Roland’s brother yelled.

  “No, okay! I didn’t!” Roland answered, stepping in front of their mother. “What the hell’s gotten into you?”

  “My life was destroyed because of the Fever, Roland!”

  “She’s our mother!”

  “She’s suffering,” Paton growled.

  They stood with weapons drawn at each other for a few moments. Roland released a strained breath from his lungs. “Okay.” He lowered his pistol. “I don’t feel up to shooting anyone else tonight—”

  “Who else did you shoot?”

  “The one that’s burning on the other side of that car you came out of, Paton. He’s the reason Ma’s sick.”

  The horn honked from the flamed lowrider outside as if on command. Paton looked over his shoulder and let out a long sigh. “Listen,” he said. “I’ve been doing circles around the house for a couple days now. I didn’t feel right leaving things the way I did. I’ve been trying to keep this place safe for you two until I was able to move the both of you elsewhere.”

  “By murdering people?”

  “If you mean infected people, then yes. And it’s not murder, Roland. Not exactly. I don’t expect you to understand—”

  “Help me understand.” Roland reached a hand out to his brother.

  “My wife and kids are gone,” he responded. “A police officer stopped by our house while I was out scrounging for groceries. It was after I tried to get you and Ma to leave. He was informing my family of the new curfew. My wife wasn’t wearing her mask.”

  “They’re—dead?” They both stood in silence looking away from each other. Roland loved his brother’s family. As much hell as Paton put Oma and him through while they all lived under the same roof, turning his life around was his saving grace. Roland disengaged the pistol and slipped it back into his belt.

  “Yes,” Paton said turning his head back to his brother. “I didn’t know she was infected until she started throwing up. She didn’t separate herself from our kids, Roland. The news says it takes hours for this disease to kill its host, but it felt like years watching my family die.”

  “Paton, I’m sorry—”

  “You’re doing the same thing to Ma,” his brother responded.

  “No, I’m not—”r />
  “She’s dying in front of you right now. The amount of pain she’s in—even if she has a bit of sanity left in her, it’ll disintegrate. And then, she’ll die a shell of the woman who raised us.”

  Roland glanced over at Oma feeling his temper burn again. “Yeah, well, where were you when that guy came in here?” Roland yelled. “You left us both so many times just so you could get drunk with your low-life friends. Ma doesn’t even know you anymore—”

  “I’m here now.” Paton shifted uncomfortably on the balls of his feet. His sobriety was not something spoken about out loud. “I know it may not mean much, but I can’t just leave both of you here without trying to help. Whether you like it or not, I’m the only family you’re going to have left.”

  Roland turned his gaze over his shoulder at Oma. She laughed at something on the television and coughed into her handkerchief multiple times; more blood soaked into the white cloth. A groan escaped her lips as she attempted to push herself up in her chair.

  “I listened to my wife beg me to kill her; her screams still haunt me,” Paton whispered. “I couldn’t do it. I was so stuck on not losing her. I kept telling her help was coming. Just hold on. When the kids started getting sick, she made me promise not to let our children suffer like she did.” Paton’s voice cracked. He turned away from Roland and cleared his throat. “I had to kill my kids, Roland.”

  Roland listened to Oma’s hacking cough fill the room. Her laughter was replaced by wheezing now.

  “I hunted down the police officer who came by our house,” Paton continued. “But I was too late. And all that anger I had towards him. It just lingered there.”

  Roland looked away from Oma back to his brother feeling his throat tighten with tears.

  “You’ve got to give Ma that peace. Don’t watch her suffer anymore, Roland. I can’t lose you both because of this. I can’t.”

  A knot grew in Roland’s chest. Their mother turned to both of them and smiled—blood staining the front of her teeth.

  “My friend, the one in the car—his name is Sanderson. He found me at my apartment. He’s been keeping the infection at bay in this area,” Paton continued. “He’s intense, but his plan is working.”

  “How?”

  The horn honked again. Paton turned and held out his hand toward the car, motioning him to wait. “He has a story similar to mine, but we don’t talk about it. He’s been cleaning out neighborhoods to honor what he lost. He was heading this way. I knew you would still be here, so when he made the offer to join him, I said yes. I was a mess, Roland. I needed something to make this anger go away and prevent me from putting a bullet in my brain or drowning myself in liquor, you know?” he continued.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Listen, I know we’ve had our differences. I know I screwed up more than once. I’ve brought holy hell into this family so many times that I’ve lost count all because our dad left. I thought I was doing the right thing when I left you guys here back before the virus spread. I knew you were capable of taking care of Ma. If there was a nurse that said she’d stay with her twenty-four-seven, I’d still choose you to be her guardian. I thought that someone eventually would come for us after the outbreak. Then I lost my wife and kids, and all I feel is hatred and resentment for anyone who’s infected. Sanderson helped me from falling apart by showing me how to channel those feelings into something useful.”

  “The news said to—”

  “Oh screw the news, Roland! I’m your brother. I care about you,” he said poking a finger into his chest. “No one else cares that we’re suffering out here. If they did, they’d be helping us. Not ignoring us. Not sending infected police officers to people’s houses. Not coming into our homes and spreading the Fever knowingly, and especially not making us play God with a rifle.”

  For once in Roland’s life, his brother was right. He knew that Paton was the only other person who would look out for him. And the anger over losing his mother to this virus boiled just under the surface. He looked into the eye holes of his brother’s gas mask and felt his humanity teetering dangerously on a ledge. Paton reached out and gripped his brother’s arm and squeezed.

  “How do I do this?” Roland said shaking his head. “I took care of her for so long. And now what? It just—ends?”

  “No,” Paton said lifting the rifle off of his shoulder. “This is where we start making a difference. We need to take matters into our own hands. That is something Oma would be proud of.”

  Paton held out the rifle to his brother. Roland gripped it with a shaky hand. He walked behind his mother and ran his hand through her thinning hair. “Is it time to go, my Rolo?” she asked through wheezing.

  “Yes,” he responded, aiming the rifle at the back of her head. “Close your eyes Ma.”

  “Okay,” she said, leaning her head back against the muzzle of the rifle. “You know I love you, Rolo. No matter what happens.”

  His palms sweat against the grip. Oma hacked another bloodied cough up, then, as clear as day, a soft laugh escaped her lips. Before the disease took her memories, she was always laughing like that—a soft reminder that she was happy. Roland stifled a sob.

  “Roland—”

  “Tell me I’m doing the right thing here. Please.”

  Paton’s hand gripped onto his shoulder. “It’s what she needs, Roland,” he said into his brother’s ear. “Don’t let her suffer anymore.” Roland tightened his grip. His brother backed away toward the front door, but he didn’t leave.

  Before the infection, Roland, Paton, and Oma would go to the town’s drive-in movie theatre every Friday night. Roland wasn’t sure why the memory popped into his head while his brother was offering up her death sentence, but it calmed the knot in his gut.

  She would always get her popcorn with so much butter that Roland was sure her doctor’s ears were ringing. That was before Paton was married. Back when he was still the black sheep with an alcohol problem. Even with him like that back then, the memory was good enough to make Roland smile. Their family was never about perfection—and Oma never pointed that out.

  I love you, Ma.

  The gunshot exploded, leaving nothing behind but the smell of burning flesh and the silent swoop of Death’s grasp.

  Roland fell back against the wall letting the rifle clatter to the floor. Sweat covered his skin as he forced vomit back down his throat. He never really knew how much he depended on her. It sounded ridiculous to him to even think that now. She had Alzheimer’s so bad that she needed directions on how to open a jar of peanut butter, but she was his rock. Oma was the one good thing left in his life.

  His sobs filled his gas mask and the living room until his head pounded. It wasn’t just the pain of losing her that made him snap. It was blood—the blood on his hands made the old Roland die with Oma. Paton sat next to him with his head in his palms. “Her suffering’s over, Roland,” he said just above a whisper.

  “What do we do now?” Roland straightened his aching muscles out.

  “We get back what this virus has taken from us.” Paton gripped his brother around his shoulders. “We get back our reason to live.”

  Things were almost normal in his life. That’s all Roland wanted. He wanted Oma to have her memories. He wanted to play music again. He wanted no more fear of the Fever.

  But the anger he had for the man that infected her was what he needed. He needed vengeance. Something that gave him purpose. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  “You know I love you Rolo. No matter what happens.”

  “Roland,” Paton said nudging his brother’s shoulder. “You still with me?”

  “Yeah, I’m here,” he responded. It had been one week with Paton and Sanderson. Roland was beginning to feel the aftereffects of ending people’s miseries. What started out as something that felt like murder now felt like the noble thing to do.

  Paton’s description of Sanderson as a savior was far from the truth. Roland recognized that during their first run through a bui
lding. But if he had to choose between curling up in a ball of depression or staying with his brother, he’d always choose blood over his feelings. Paton was the only person left that mattered to him—and he clung to that with a strangling grip.

  The shooting got easier. His feelings, aside from anger, were like ghosts. Sanderson said he was giving people mercy from their pain, but there was something in the way he killed that seemed manic. He saw glimpses of that in Paton’s eyes, in the way he carried himself into a building filled with the dead. If he was honest with himself, he’d say that he was most definitely following in his footsteps. I’m doing this to honor Oma—right?

  “You’re still okay with this right?” Paton said, checking his rifle. “Our whole mission?”

  “Taking back what was taken from us?” Roland laughed. He let out a long sigh as memories flooded him again. “Yeah, I’m good.”

  “You know I’d put a bullet in anyone that tried anything with you, right?”

  “Yeah, it’s why I came with you.” The truth was that he felt hopeless without his brother and Sanderson. He’d have nothing to fight for if they weren’t there. “You’re the only blood I’ve got left. You’re really the only one I can trust.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t leave us,” Paton leaned against Roland’s car with his rifle pointed at the ground. The silence swooped over them as they stood outside of the last apartment building. “It’s not your fault that Ma’s dead—”

  “I get that, Paton. It was that damn looter’s fault.”

  “Just making sure you keep that in your head,” Paton said gripping his brother’s shoulder. “That fire? That’s what drives me. Screw all those people who made this happen to us. Just focus on the people we’re helping one at a time. Things’ll be back to normal before we know it.”

  Roland nodded and looked down at the cracks in the concrete.

  “All right,” Paton said. “There are several people inside. They haven’t been there long, but I heard a lot of muffled cries on the first floor. We go in, clear the floors out one by one and burn the building to prevent anyone else from getting infected. Then you, Sanderson, and I go to the next town.”