Wash After Reading

Chapter 1

I used to keep my shoes outside.

I’d step out of them and over the threshold and into my inside slippers.

But the bugs would come, as they do, in the spring after the frost has melted and their eggs can gestate and hatch and the millipedes would come and - they never did - but if they did, they would come into my shoes and hide in the dark recesses of the front of the shoe. And when I put my foot in, they could crawl and wriggle between my toes, and I would be forced to kick off the shoe and stomp around outside to shake off the terrible feeling of something crawling between my toes.

And then what?

How could I safely re-enter my home, then, if the bottoms of my feet could contaminate the floors on the way to the tub where I’d wash them.

Best to leave the shoes inside, even if it meant that the floor just inside the door was forever contaminated.

A no-go zone.

That’s also where I keep my masks. I have two cloth ones. The clean one goes on the left, and the dirty one on the right.

There’s a hamper in the entryway so I can undress right when I come in, and my inside clothes won’t mix with my outside clothes in the wash.

A coat can go there too, on a hook.

Outside things.

Chapter 2

There are big plumes of smoke on the TV.

Helicopters recording shaky footage from above.

The news station likes to show us the neatly stacked body bags in the streets before they wake up and claw their way out. Frozen ones don’t get up again, but the freezers at the morgue are too full to fit more. Burning them works too. But how can a crematorium keep up if the freezers can’t do it?

“The Risen Walk the Streets” was printed in big black letters at the top of The Herald Newspaper. A higher death count that updated each day. A story of some famous person who’d turned. Talking heads on TV, saying the same things the newspapers said, but nothing new, and nobody really knew.

It soon became a blur of normalized noise, of sensational names - exciting things. “Zombie Plague!” to scare, to sell newspapers.

How can anyone care for very long?

I’ve measured out exactly how much money I need on the countertop of my kitchen, which I sanitized afterwards. It goes into a little plastic bag, and then into the zippered pocket of the jacket so it doesn’t fall out. Tucked in next to the wallet my husband forgot. I can just hand the bag to the cashier, and they don’t even bother counting it, as long as it’s the Woman With the Brown Hair and not the Older Man With a Thick Neck.

I step into my transfer slippers which wait for me in the entryway.

Jacket zipped up.

It barely fits over my belly. I couldn’t find a maternity one at the store. Out of season, out of stock.

So I took it from his closet, even though it still smelled like him.

It doesn’t anymore, and it’s too big on my shoulders.

Hat on, mask on.

Fresh pair of nitrile gloves in the left pocket. The left pocket is clean, and the right pocket is dirty.

Another pair to use while I put my shoes on, so that I don’t have to wash my hands afterwards.

When I take the gloves off I slide them from the wrist and turn them inside out, so I don’t touch the outsides, and the outsides of the glove never touch the insides of the pocket liner, but it’s a dirty pocket anyway, just in case.

Dirty gloves go in the trash on the street corner.

I drop them on top of the growing pile of gloves, which are stacked on top of an already overflowing pile of trash.

My neighborhood is safe.

I probably won’t see any of them wandering around until I get closer to the store, where it’s busy.

There are normal people here, hugging either side of the sidewalk across from each other with covered faces and downcast eyes and slumped shoulders.

Some of them don’t wear a mask, which I can’t quite wrap my head around. I hold my breath when I walk past them even though they said the masks would keep everything out, but I’m still not sure about that. There are little gaps on either side of the nose where I can’t quite keep it pinched closed especially after it’s been through the wash a few times.

The other ones, the ones who didn’t stay dead. Sick, if that’s what you really want to say. Nobody calls them “The Risen”.

They don’t move fast.

They sort of wait, and stare, or walk toward you if you get too close.

They are especially contagious.

And they stink.

They hang about outside. I walk quickly around them and into the store and relax where the air conditioning works to keep things smelling fresh and the bright fluorescent lights shine off the linoleum floors. They keep it mopped with a big electric Zamboni that’s parked in the employee area around back, where the surplus boxes are piled high on metal shelves from the deliveries from the semi trucks, and if you come early in the morning, like it is now, it’s mostly empty aside from the elderly and the infirm.

Last week they said they hadn’t had any more shipments, and whatever was left on the shelves is whatever they had left.

No more surplus.

The Dial Antibacterial Hand Soap, the Clean and Fresh scent, is nearly gone. I reach into the very back of the shelf to grab the last two.

Someone touches me on my shoulder.

I thought maybe a store clerk, or someone trying to help…

It’s one of them.

Touching me, rancid skin and teeth close enough that I could see the whites of its pupils. It grabs the sleeve of the jacket and lunges at me, and it exhales rancid breath, hot into my mask.

We stumbled, I think, and crashed into the shelf, and I could feel it scratching and pulling at my clothing, trying to get to my flesh.

Before I could come to terms with what happened I’d already screamed and shoved it away and run from the store and halfway down the block.

I keep my head down to avoid the furrowed brows above their masks and the frowns hidden behind.

Their heads turn to watch me run, and then look behind me to see if anything is chasing.

The sick ones don’t run, and they don’t follow me.

End of sample.
Thank you for reading! :)