Afterbirth by Belinda Frisch Read Free Book Online

of plastic and fabric around her. The smell of vanilla lotion radiated from her skin and he cradled her in his arms, breathing the scent in deeply. His eyes burned with tears. Her dead weight made her hard to manage and he carefully moved her through the door and downstairs. Walking through the sliding glass door, the thought came to mind that this would be the last time he’d ever hold her.
    He moved across the lawn, shielding her as best he could from the wind, and knelt down. His muscles shook from the strain as he gently lowered her into the hole.
    “I love you,” he said and slowly let go.
    He said a brief prayer and shoveled in the first scoop of dirt, which was the hardest part yet. Each pass made her death seem that much more permanent. The tears came so hard and fast that he could barely see. He piled the dirt back into the hole and patted the mound flat, numb to everything around him.
    Footsteps rustled the leaves on the other side of the fence and Earl called out to Randy.
    “Hey, over here.”
    The gate hinge creaked as Randy unlocked and opened it.
    Adam’s blue shirt dangled from Earl’s weathered hand. He opened the small tee and showed Michael the bloodstains.
    “I’m so sorry,” he said.
    Michael couldn’t have been more distant. He blinked and tears spilled from his eyes.
    Earl set his hand on his shoulder and tried to comfort him. “What can I do to help you?” he asked.
    Unable to so much as speak, Michael didn’t answer. He pressed his lips together and broke down, sobbing.
    At least now they’d stop looking.

CHAPTER 10
     
    Penny joined Foster in a large, two-floor Colonial which had belonged to Dr. Ralph Halstead, a Nixon Center employee who died the night of the escape. The infection took his wife and three children shortly after they had gone there to look for him. The news reported their deaths with the usual sterile verbiage, warning those not yet sick to steer clear.
    The marble floor radiated cold through her feet. She toweled off and pushed her shoulder-length, black hair behind her ear. The cold shower barely took the edge off her exhaustion and she wondered if a single night would pass without nightmares of her parents’ deaths. She leaned in to the mirror and wiped the remains of her mascara from under her lids. Her bright blue eyes, now dull and gray, sank into the purple hollows beneath them. Sleep was sporadic even before the attack. She couldn’t remember her last uninterrupted night and, as she picked at the crusted corner of her right eye, she stopped trying.
    She’d all but starved herself so that her parents, especially her mother, could eat. Her baby fat had melted away, leaving her with an unfamiliar body and a handful of stretch marks on her arms, belly, and thighs. She pulled on a pair of slim-fit white jeans and a navy blue button-down top made from the softest cotton she’d ever felt. She couldn’t help feeling like a thief for taking the clothes, even if their owner was never coming back for them. She opened the bathroom door and stared at the wall of photos across the hallway.
    The Halstead children were almost exactly one head apart in height and photographed liked steps, shortest to tallest. She said a prayer for each of the smiling faces and comforted herself with thoughts of Heaven, a place free of infection and fear.
    A tear rolled down her cheek and she bent down to pick up the pile of clothing covered in her mother’s blood.
    Foster appeared at the top of the stairs with a plastic bag covering his hand. “Don’t touch them.” He scooped up the clothing, turned the bag inside out around them, and knotted the top. “We have to be careful.”
    They hadn’t said more than a few words to each other since leaving her house and she wondered if she’d made a mistake agreeing to go with him. Her mouth bent into a frown and she cried, giving into another wave of unrelenting sadness.
    Foster set the bag down and ran his hand through his reddish-blond hair.