Days of Love and Blood

dreadfully shy at first but after letting her sip on some cognac from my parent’s stash, she eventually told me that she was seventeen and orphaned. Her parents and sister had all died from the virus and out of desperation she drove and drove until she found Ivy’s farm. She was living out of her car. I had just finished cleaning out the guest room and asked her to stay on impulse.
    I took pity on her. Maybe it was because I was a mother. I wanted to take care of her. I couldn’t bear to think of this child living out of a car. I had been thinking of offering the room to Marianna and her two boys but they needed a house. A small guest room with a twin bed wouldn’t have worked. Besides, Marianna was forward enough to ask if she ever needed a place to stay. With this girl, I needed to order her to stay. I’d have to feed her, too. By the looks of her sunken cheeks and knobby knees, she had been too shy to ask for food. I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. A few hours later, Cassie was dragging her bags up the stairs.

    Ivy had been quietly working on her row of plantings for a half-hour when I realized she hadn’t spoken. I learned long ago that her rare periods of silence meant that she was carefully planning a way to begin a delicate conversation. I waited until I heard the characteristic deep sigh of her preparedness and then caught the sun bouncing off her amber highlights in my peripheral vision when she brought her head up to face me.
    “Does it bother you?”
    “Does what bother me?” I asked without looking up from my pathetic attempt at seed holes.
    “Killing people.”
    “They’re not people anymore, Ivy.” My half-hearted, curt reply was followed by an unintentional sigh.
    “But they are.”
    “They’re something, but they’re not people. I don’t know what they are. Real people don’t just kill other people for the sake of killing them. The homicidals do. They were people once, but they changed. And they’re dying anyway.”
    “But it’s not like they’re already dead.”
    “What would you have me do? Let them kill me? Kill Ronan? It’s either us or them. It’s not like we have a choice in the matter.”
    “I know, I know. I just would have a hard time doing it. You do it so easily.” My mouth dropped open in astonishment and I sat down on a pile of turned dirt to look at her.
    “Yes, actually, it is easy, Ivy. I’ll do anything to protect my son. I would do it to protect you. They’re not human anymore. Trust me. If you snuck up on them and just watched them for a while, you would see. Any humanity in them is gone. I don’t see them as people. I can’t see them as people. I can’t have an ounce of compassion because they’re a threat. A very real threat who will kill my son if I hesitate. And I’m helping them. I’m putting them out of their misery. It’s not like I could ever kill a real human. I’d rather skewer myself. Jesus - Ivy.”
    “I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad about it. I was just curious. You know, I wanted to know how you coped. I mean, doesn’t it affect you at all?”
    “ After what they did to my husband? Hell no. I evolved with them. I adapted to a new way of life. It’s how I survived. They don’t beg for mercy right before you’re about to kill ‘em and they wouldn’t give you a moment’s worth of hesitation either. They wouldn’t bat an eyelash about killing my son. They’re not people anymore. I don’t feel bad about killing them. You shouldn’t either.”
    “What if someone was trying to hurt you, someone who wasn’t a homicidal? One of the uninfected?”
    “I suppose it depends. I would defend myself, same as always. I would never kill someone unless I absolutely needed to. And I would never hurt an unarmed person if I didn’t have to. You know me better than that.”
    “You’re different.”
    “I’m exactly the same. The world is different. Do you feel bad for them? For the infected?”
    “Sometimes. What if we found a cure?”
    “I did,” I replied.
    “What?”
    “They’re the plague and my sword is the cure.”
    “Are you serious?” she asked. I was, but any further attempt at explanations in the matter might have found me admitting the pleasure I received while killing those responsible for my husband’s death. I hid the truth of my smile behind the absurdity of a possible cure.
    “Who’s going to find a cure? ” I laughed. “There’s hardly anyone left. There’s no time either! They’ll