Open the Door

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

Open the Door

By Plot Roach

I sat in the closet, my back to the locked door. I could feel the vibrations through the wood. They had gone from pounding upon it to scratching lightly on its surface. I had been that tiny little space for six hours already and didn’t know if I could hold out much longer. Thirst and hunger were battling logic for control of my body. And I didn’t know when the appeal of a hot meal would overcome my urge to live.

Six hours before this I had been a happy mother, wife and helpful neighbor. My husband, Desmond, and I were busy setting out the picnic table and chairs, starting up the barbeque and chasing the kids around the kitchen as we were preparing for the block party that our neighborhood had every summer. It was the last weekend before the kids started off the new school year. A final hurrah of sorts for tired parents to celebrate the beginning of months worth of quiet time and give the kids chance to mourn the months of homework, pop quizzes and boring lectures to come.

We had the radio blaring some sappy pop song about love in the summertime when an announcement broke through declaring a state of emergency. At first we didn’t believe it. I mean, aren’t they supposed to lead off with that emergency signal tone. You know, the one that sounds peculiarly like when your ear ’goes out’ if you suffer from tinnitus.

There was nothing, no signal. Just some man hurriedly spewing information about ’dirty bombs’, viral infections and how to keep safe. We thought it was a joke. When the message didn’t change after about five minutes, we knew that it wasn’t. The man spoke of a contagion that had spread throughout the country, hitting every major city. No terrorist group had come forward claiming responsibility for the attack as of yet, and it was theorized that none would. The bigwigs in the government had stated that the attacks were too well planned, all of them hitting their targets precisely and all at the same time. No small political group could have executed that feat without major technology and funds, which small terrorist groups rarely had. And there was one more thing: ours wasn’t the only country being hit. It seemed that any largely populated area was a target, regardless religion, political persuasion or financial well being.

Through the radio, we heard the man chatter away at the state of the world around us. He only stopped when we heard the glass of his booth shatter. It was followed shortly by his dying screams. We looked to our neighbors for opinions on the matter. Hal, our neighbor who lived behind us, said that it must have been just a hoax. Though when we turned on the television or tried a different radio station, all we received was static.

Desmond and I told the kids to get inside while we went to the garage to pull out the emergency gear we had stored. I doubted that plastic and duct tape over the windows and air vents could stop whatever took out the man on the radio, but it made us feel as though we had some say in our fate.

About midway through this project, as Desmond was bringing in a box of emergency food and medical supplies, I saw Hal again. I waved and asked him if he had heard anything from Mary, his wife, or his kids. He merely growled and launched himself at me like a wild dog. I saw, too late, that he was bleeding from the ears and eyes. It was one of the symptoms that had been listed as signs of infection by the now deceased man from the radio. Desmond knocked Hal off his feet before he could reach me, but then the madman turned upon my husband. Desmond shouted at me to run and save the kids. Once inside the house I locked the doors, thinking us safe.

I pulled the children close and told them to stay quiet. We heard screaming all around us as other neighbors fell prey to Hal, and I assumed, the others infected like him. “But where’s Daddy?” my youngest asked, tears in her eyes.

“He can’t be with us now.” I said. I couldn’t admit to them, much less to myself, that he might be dead. I held them as they cried and tried to be strong for them as I knew that I should. Yet I could feel everything slipping away, even before it happened. We heard a crash from the living room. I had thought us safe from attack, but our windows had yet to be boarded up.

“Jen?” asked a voice from the other side of the locked master bedroom door. “Are you in there?” it sounded like Desmond. But if he had been infected…

“Daddy! It’s Daddy!” The girls yelled and ran to the door, throwing it open to reveal a very bloody man who used to be their father. I knew instinctively that it was already too late to save them as his arm swept them closer to him as he attacked. I turned an ran through the back door of the master bedroom and into the hallway closet, locking myself in. I knew that if I ran out of the house I might run into things much worse than my husband, but it might have been a quicker death.

Less than twenty minutes of being trapped, my daughters joined in with their father, trying to talk me into opening the closet door to join them. First they pleaded, with voices thick like honey. Then they shrieked as the pounded at the door in a frenzy of hate. Then they sat patiently, with someone’s nails tracing the woodwork pattern of a bundle of wheat that had been carved into our hall closet door.

Two hours ago I chewed the last stick of gum that I had hidden in an old coat pocket. I peed in a rubber boot and I’m wondering how long it will be until I’m forced to drink my own urine to survive. Because we had two young daughters, Desmond and I decided to keep the guns in a safe in the master bedroom closet -fifteen feet from where I am now. I feel the vibrations through the closet door and wonder when I’ll be forced to flee my hiding place. Will I be forced to out of starvation or will I choose to in order to try and make a run for safety. Or will I take a deep breath, accept my fate, and open the door.