Broken Dreams(22)

“Henry, do you want to check the stores for people who are alive?” I asked him. I have to admit, I was crossing my fingers that he would say no.

“No. Let’s just keep going. Go slow, though.” I acknowledged his request and felt relief. We looked like vigilantes: calculated movements, heads high, armed to the hilt. The church was a short distance ahead.

I could hear a banging sound, like someone knocking. I looked around to find it. The banging was coming from the flower shop on our right. It was our wedding coordinator, Nate, pounding on the front windows. He was pointing across the way. I could see that he was yelling, but I couldn’t make out what it was through all the gore on the window. I looked toward the church, where he was pointing. I could vaguely see two people behind the gates to the lot.

It looked like my brother, Nick, but I wasn’t sure. He seemed to be fighting off an undead. I started over there to see if it was him when Henry yelled, “Wait!” He came up to us. “Let me go check them out. I want to see if they have any bites or wounds. Cover me.” I was trying to stay calm. I didn’t think I could bear seeing another member of my family slaughtered.

Claire and I stood back-to-back in the middle of the street, holding our guns, watching for undeads. I almost felt like we were having a Charlie’s Angels moment. I kept looking back and forth between Nate and at Henry. Nate was pressed up against the window, still pounding on it. He looked terrified.

There was blood all over the windows of the shops and doors. It had to have been from people who were trying to escape the madness of the street. Henry stopped a few feet short of the gate with his gun pointed toward the scuffle.

“Elaina!” he called out to me.

“Yeah?” I was watching Nate carefully, while trying to respond to Henry.

“It’s Nick and Jenna!”

I whipped around. “Oh, my god.”

I ran over to him. He turned around and held his hand up. “No. Stand down!” He bit out the words.

“Why?”

“Jenna is undead and Nick is trying to hold her off.” Jenna was my brother’s girlfriend of about two months. He always had a new flame who he claimed was “the one”, but they never lasted more than six months. I swear he had more girlfriends than Hugh Hefner.

I admit that I did like Jenna, even though I only knew her for a very short period of time. She was level-headed and had a great job at a marketing firm in the city. She was beautiful and, to be frank, she did seem like marriage material. Nick’s scream snapped me back to reality.

“Did she bite him? Nick! Are you bit?!” I shook all over at the thought of possibly having to shoot my brother, as well.

“No! Help me, please!” Nick was pleading for his life.

“Henry, let me come over.” Henry was looking back and forth between Nick and me.

“Alright, but Jenna needs true death.”

“I know,” I said, just above a whisper. The anxiety set in. “I will take care of it.” I needed to help him. I needed to save my family, even if it was just one person. That was why I wanted to go with Henry.

Henry walked back toward me and I headed toward him. He stopped me. He put his hand on my face to make me look into his eyes. Those brilliant green eyes began to look a bit faded.

“Look him over carefully. If he’s bit...”

“I know.” He kissed my forehead, and I walked to my brother, trying to stay as calm as possible.

“Elaina!” Nick started to cry. “Please, you have got to help me!”

“Nick, I have to shoot Jenna.” It was a bit blunt and business-like, but there was no time to beat around the bush.

“No. No, please…don’t. She’s the love of my life,” he pleaded.

“I understand that, Nick, but she is gravely sick and she will not get any better.”

“What is happening? I don’t know what’s going on.” He was talking between tears and holding Jenna back with a piece of metal handrail from the church.

“I don’t know all the details, but we can explain some of this later. Now, step back.”

“No, please don’t. Please…don’t!” he pleaded with me, while still trying to hold Jenna off. “I love her.”

“I have to or she will hurt you or someone else.” I raised my gun and aimed at Jenna’s head. “Back away, Nick.”

“No, Elaina, please…” I pulled the trigger and down she went. I was stunned by my accuracy and, in my mind’s eye, I saw Jenna drop over and over again. The sound of Nick dropping the rail brought me back to the present. He stood there, silent for a moment, until he looked over at me. He had Jenna’s blood and matter all over him.