I was just attaching the last board when the phone rang. It was Ellie.
“John?”
“Hey, Babe!” I said, trying to sound cheerful, in spite of all that had happened today.
“How are you doing?” She sounded like there was something seriously wrong.
“I’m fine,” I said, moving over to where Jacob was.
“Have you been watching the news?” Ellie asked.
“Actually, I’ve been a little busy.” I understated things, since I didn’t want her to worry.
Ellie sounded exhausted. “Just to let you know, whatever you hear on the news about this crisis being localized and that the government is handling things, is a flat out lie.”
I actually wasn’t so shocked by this, giving what I had been through. “What are you talking about?”
Ellie sighed and told me. “We have been working non-stop on infected people. They don’t go into comas; they die. They die and then they come back. The morgue is a nightmare, full of walking dead and they are trying to get out. Several patients who weren’t transferred in time, came back and attacked staff members. John, I watched my shift boss get eaten by two patients. Eaten!” Ellie sounded more panicked. “Jesus, God, what the hell?”
I didn’t know what to say, so I was quiet for a minute. I was having a hard enough time wrapping my head around the events of the day to hear what Ellie was really telling me. Ellie seemed to shake herself and asked me “Did you do what I asked, earlier?”
I told her, yes, and I went into detail about my preparations, about where I had guns and ammo, and the boarding of the windows.
“They’re that far south, are they?” Ellie asked.
“What do you mean?”
Ellie sighed again. “We had a Chicago cop in here and he said the city was complete anarchy. Thousands of those things were in the streets, attacking anyone they saw, and transferring the virus. If they aren’t killed, eventually they become one of them. Sometimes it’s fast, sometimes it’s slow, and it all depends on the individual. The cop said they can only be killed by destroying the brain.”
“I know,” I said inadvertently.
Ellie paused. “How do you know?”
I told her about my little excursion, not leaving out any detail. I figured I would catch nine kinds of hell, but she just was quiet and then said, “Thank you for saving my baby.”
I tried to be reassuring with a little false bravado. “Any zombie coming after him has to go through me first, and hell hasn’t made a zombie yet to match me.”
Ellie began to cry, and I immediately regretted my words. “I’m sorry babe, I know this is serious.”
Ellie managed to bring herself together, and asked me where Jakey was. “He’s over on the floor, trying to figure out why he can’t put a ball that’s bigger than his head in his mouth.”
“Can I talk to him?”
“Sure.” I brought the phone over to Jake and held it to his ear. I could hear his mother speaking to him, and he smiled as he recognized his mother’s voice. He squealed and laughed, and I could hear Ellie say, how much she loved him and how she would watch over him. That was odd.
I brought the phone back to me and said, “Hey, I’m back, he rolled away.”
Ellie was crying again. “John?”
“Yeah?”
“Take good care of my baby, please.”
“Sure thing. What’s going on? When are you coming home?”
Ellie paused. “I’m not.”
“What? What are you saying? Why aren’t you coming home? If things are that bad, you need to get out of there and come home.” I was getting very concerned.
“John, please listen to me,” Ellie begged.
“Okay,” I said suddenly worried.
“I’ve been infected with the virus.”
My world suddenly crashed. The sinking feeling I had in my gut became a hole in my chest. My heart sank and I could not focus. I started breathing heavily and I nearly dropped the phone.
“John? Please talk to me,” Ellie said. “I need you to talk to me.”
“Jesus, no, Ellie. Not you. Please not you.” I started to choke up, cursing a God that would do this to my family. “How?”
“An accident. An infected patient was brought in, and he hemorrhaged in the OR. Two of us got blood in our eyes.”
All I could do was shake my head. “No, no, no, God, please, no.”
“John!” Ellie cried. “I need for you to be strong for me. I need you to take care of Jake for me. Please!”
“I’ll come get you,” I said, knowing deep down it would be suicide. “Just wait and I’ll come get you.” I could barely talk.
“No, John. Please don’t. This is hard enough as it is. If I know you and Jake are safe, it will make things easier. Please don’t come for me. I don’t want you infected. Promise me, John, please.”
Watching Jake with tears in my eyes, I promised my wife I would not come to her rescue. “I won’t. You’re right.”
“Thank you, John.” Elli sounded relieved. “John?”
“Yeah, babe?”
“Could we just talk? The phones have been going in and out and I don’t know how much time I have.” Ellie sounded like she did when we first started dating. My eyes watered up again, and I almost couldn’t talk.
“Sure, babe. Sure.”
So Ellie and I talked for the next hour about everything we had done, all of our happy memories, our regrets at not being able to do the things we wanted to do. I must have told her I loved her a thousand times, and she did the same. I brought the phone over to Jake again, and with the phone on the floor, I tickled Jake so his mother would have a memory of her baby laughing as she went into the long night. I asked her about what was going to happen, and she told me that the doctors have been giving massive doses of morphine to anyone who was infected, so they would die peacefully. I found this to be of some comfort, morbid, as it seemed.
Suddenly, the phone started to have static and Ellie and I realized we did not have much time left.
“John, please remember me as I was,” Ellie asked
“Of course,” I said. “Nothing else.”
“Take care of my baby.”
“He’ll grow into a fine man,” I said, my voice catching.
“Just like his daddy.” Ellie said, starting to cry again.
The phone buzzed again and for a second I thought I lost her. “Ellie? Ellie?”
“I’m here, John. We may as well stop, as I’m not feeling well, and I need to go see the doctor.”
“I don’t know if I can do this without you, babe,” I cried, trying to hold back my sobs.
“John, be strong. You’re much tougher than you give yourself credit for.” Ellie tried to console me, but it was hard. “Jake needs you.”
That brought me back into focus. “I miss you already,” I said.
“Me, too,” She said.
I didn’t know what else to say, except, “I promise you, Jake will survive this. On my life, he will survive this.”
Ellie cried again, “Thank you, John. I love you.”
“I love you, too, babe.”
“Give Jakey a hug for me.”
“Will do. Ellie?”
“Yes, John?”
“Thanks for all the joy you’ve given me.”
“My pleasure, sweetheart. Good-bye, John. Love you.”
“Love you.” I started crying again. “I’ll see you again.”
“Promise?” She asked, crying herself.
“Promise,” I said, and I meant it with all my heart.
The line crackled once, and went dead.
With that, I never saw my wife alive again. I went over to where Jake was, sat down, and just started crying.
White Flag of the Dead is available on Amazon here