Days of Love and Blood

locking the door I pulled down the large plastic bin in the overhead and put the used sword inside. I would have to clean it later.
    “Mommy?”
    “Yeah, baby?”
    I moved toward my son to find him sitting up, wide-eyed and mouth agape.
    “Are we okay?”
    “Yes, baby. I scooted next to him and enveloped Ronan in my arms. “We’re fine sweetheart. I just needed to put gas in the tank. But we have to move now, alright? Go back to sleep, love.” I kissed his forehead and laid him back down. One more kiss on the cheek wouldn’t hurt.
    I backed out of the drive without any lights and soon we were on our way again.
    I hated to keep driving while diseased blood was in the R.V. I knew we were immune at this point, but the germaphobe in me couldn’t stand the idea. The thought of festering, viral blood cells in the plastic bin behind me and on the stairs nagged at my inner thoughts. Before I slept tonight, everything would be cleaned with bleach.
    The homicidals were diseased in appearance. Some of them died in a few days. Some - within a few weeks. But others persisted. It was obvious that they were dying; it was just taking longer. Blood ran from their eyes, nostrils and mouths. Open lesions appeared, bursting forth with putrid essence of decay and blood-colored pus. I wasn’t sure how long they would last but judging from the looks of them, it wouldn’t be long.
    Some of them were still strong. They could run, and they could run fast. The ones who stumbled, like the woman outside the camper just now, were weak. Those ones probably had only a few days left.
    Most of the homicidals ran together in groups. I don’t know why they never killed each other. Somehow, they knew one another. They sensed the disease and understood the desire to kill which bubbled inside the mind of the other. I didn’t know how it worked. No doctors were around long enough to give any kind of theory.
    May be it was the smell. Sometimes I could tell when one was close just by the odor. It was awful, like they were already dead. But they weren’t. They weren’t like the zombies in horror movies. These people were still alive. They could speak. They could hunt. And they didn’t want to feast on your flesh; they only wanted to stand over your dead body. They had no pity or rationality. And you could kill them like any other man. It wasn’t necessary to destroy only the brain. They were still alive, unlike the popularized living dead. A stab through the heart or cutting a main artery would take care of the situation. If I took a limb, they might crawl for a bit but eventually the body would stop moving and die.
    The y didn’t eat people but the homicidals still had to eat. Even though they were dying, they had to provide their bodies with some kind of sustenance for the short term duration. That’s why I avoided grocery stores. They were always in food stores, eating whatever they could. They lived in them, together.
    When they were in groups, they seemed harmless. They even spoke to one another. I could see th eir lips moving when I spied on groups of homicidals with my binoculars. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but they were definitely communicating. Every so often, I would see all of their heads snap in the same direction, as if some strange sound caused them all to react in the same predatory fashion.
    Having to fight against one homicidal was easy. They were slow and riddled with disease while I was fast, healthy and in shape. But when multiple lunatics who had no fear of combat or death charged at once, it was dangerous. I managed to survive. Mothers will do anything for their children, even kill. It was only a matter of getting used to the slaughter. As soon as I was past the initial guilt, it became easy. I think that’s why so many people allowed themselves to be killed by the homicidals. They were still restricted by the common ideals of humanity.
    Thou shalt not kill.
    Over the weeks, I developed a routine. Every morning I trained. I did some sort of exercise to keep in shape so that I would always have the upper hand against the diseased which wasn’t that difficult. They were already dying. Still, I needed to keep my mind fresh and my body healthy. Either I trained with resistance bands and weights or I went for short runs with my swords strapped to my backside, just in case. I wanted to do more, but there was only so much I could do without eventually being seen and becoming a target. And there was only