Kevin vomited heavily into the toilet for the third time in three hours.
All that came out was green bile.
All he felt was stomach cramps.
He leaned back against the wall, drew in a deep breath, then wiped the sweat from his forehead.
At least his eyes had stopped weeping blood.
Amanda was in the shower cleaning herself because he had thrown up on her. She was as healthy as ever, which he was thankful for because if they had both become sick at the same time, maybe one of them would be dead now.
He had no idea what the disease was. Nobody did. But he knew it was severe, and people had been dying from it for about a week before he caught it. Hospitals were refusing new patients unless they were extremely bad. When Kevin's eyes started to bleed, the doctor simply said to Amanda in a matter-of-fact statement, "Unless he starts coughing up blood, don't take him to hospital. They are becoming buildings of death."
Amanda liked her doctor's no-bullshit attitude.
That was four days ago. A lifetime of misery had passed by. The last thing he knew about the spread was it was a virus, it had popped up in several regions around the world at once, and the numbers of sick were small but multiplying.
He briefly remembered wondering how unlucky he was to be one of the first to catch it.
Amanda had sat by his side for four days. She had taken sick leave to look after and nursed him through the high fever, bleeding eyes, and constant vomiting. He even vaguely remembered her saying, "You are really sick this time, not just man sick."
Yet not hospital sick. No blood was being vomited up.
Usually, bleeding eyes meant visiting the hospital in a panic. How harmful is this virus?
Amanda had kept him up to date on the spread of the disease for the first day, but then she stopped talking about it.
By day two, there was fear in her voice. Kevin didn't ask questions because he was too busy feeling like death, vomiting, and bleeding.
As he leaned against the toilet wall, he began to feel like he was getting better. Still sick, but better.
The toilet door opened to reveal Amanda standing there wrapped in a towel. She ordered, "Shower, now. You stink to high heaven, and since you're moving, I no longer have to put up with it."
She walked back to their bedroom to get dressed.
He said to himself, "Well, good to know she's still healthy, I suppose."
He dragged himself up the side of the wall. He was getting waves of mild dizziness while standing, so he needed something to balance himself against for support. He then made his way to the shower. When he stripped off, he became painfully aware of how right she was about the smell.
He caught himself in the mirror and saw how much weight he had lost. Was it possible to waste away in a matter of several days?
After he'd washed up in hot water, he felt human again. He got dressed, brushed his hair, then decided today was going to be a good day. Even if he still felt terrible.
He staggered to the TV room to see Amanda watching the news.
Before he could say anything, she said, "Shut up and listen. While you've been sick, the whole world has been going to hell in a handbasket. You need to see this, then tell me everything is going to be okay."
Kevin looked at her for a moment and smiled some reassurance to her. She wasn't someone who worried about the world, disasters, or anything. Yet here she was, watching the news and looking pale with fear.
He suddenly dreaded taking notice of the news presenter. Maybe the look in her eyes meant it wasn't going to be okay.
Not even close to okay.
He really had no option, so he turned his attention to the TV, opened his ears to the words, then allowed his eyes to see what was happening.
"…… Redeye is highly contagious. It is killing 90% of the people who catch it, and when the person appears to die, they are not dead. This information is important. If someone dies from Redeye, they are not dead. They wake up between five and twenty minutes after apparent death. When they do, they are highly aggressive to the point of killing loved ones. They are attacking people. They are slow-moving, so they are slow walking and look, for want of a better word, like a zombie….."
As the presenter was talking, images of victims of the disease appeared on the screen. They had grey skin, their eyes were blood red, and their movements were jolted and slow. Kevin became mortified because it was clear that he had just recovered from the deadly disease.
He looked at Amanda, then said, "I could have died and killed you."
"Yes, and if they were saying 100% chance of death, I would have ended it quickly for you. But, until I knew for sure, I did things like, and please don't hate me, but I tied your legs to the end of the bed. I also carried the meat cleaver with me all the time. And I locked the bedroom door behind me every time I left the room."
He frowned at her, "That is why I love you. So practical, so pragmatic. What else did you do while I was sick?"
She looked uncomfortable as she said, "This disease, it's global. It is everywhere. Zombies are starting to turn up on the streets and in buildings. Hospitals are in trouble, and some have been overrun. Darling, the army dropped bombs on one hospital to stop the zombies from escaping."
She had tears coming down her face. Kevin felt her growing sense of terror.
She continued, "I'm not sure if I am crazy thinking this, but I look at this, and I think the world is going to come to a grinding halt soon. So, and please don't be angry with me, but I withdrew all our savings and bought $2000 worth of dried foods and stuff before the real panic buying started. It is in the spare bedroom. I figured that if I am right, we can stay here and hide from it. I thought I'd be able to look after you until you woke up alive or dead. I believe I did the right thing."
Kevin looked at her in amazement, "Hun, this is why I love you. Not only did you stay next to me, but you also bought us time to think. You saved our lives."
Amanda smiled and relaxed. She knew she had done well, but it was such a strange thing to do that she felt weird doing it. The idea that the world was in serious trouble because of one disease seemed crazy. But it was happening in front of her on the TV.
Kevin asked, "How bad is it? I mean, the news is still happening, and the power is still on so, it's not terrible, right?"
Amanda said, "Well, it seems that it is global. Every city in the world has cases of Redeye. It is everywhere. When you passed out, it wasn't bad. But by the second day, before your eyes started bleeding, the cases around the world exploded. And it exploded everywhere at once. By the next morning, you were terribly ill. I called for an ambulance, but they said it was better to stay home. A few hours later, the army bombed the city hospital."
Kevin was speechless. His heart was pounding. Was he in an illness-induced hallucination?
Amanda kept talking, "At the moment, it seems the disease is already everywhere. On the first day, you were sick, there were one million reported cases worldwide. On the second day, it was twenty million. That was when I bought the food. Yesterday, they estimated there were over one hundred million new cases worldwide."
Kevin's mind was reeling. He wanted to escape the city now, but he wasn't physically capable of moving much. He said, "It's days like this that I wish we had a car and not just our bicycles."
He couldn't quite comprehend the idea that this was happening, that life was about to change for the worse. The idea that they could work, save for a house, have kids, and grow old had changed to disaster within the week.
He felt constrained. Panicked. Suddenly, he wanted to jump up and run out the door.
Amanda asked, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I mean, shit. Surely this will sort itself out somehow? I am sure it will be okay. We just ride it out for a few weeks, right?"
Amanda reached over to hug him, "Nine out of ten people have died from the disease. All nine that die return as zombies, and they begin to kill anyone they can get their hands on."
"……. and this just in. The World Health Authority has released a statement that the number of new cases worldwide is beyond counting. A global emergency has been declared. All flights around the world have been canceled. This is going to change the world forever….."
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