Free Afterbirth by Belinda Frisch

cramp hit beneath her belly button and she grabbed a metal shelf to keep from falling. A dozen pill bottles crashed to the floor and bounced off the tile.
    “Miranda? You all right?”
    She inched forward, the pain making it impossible to run.
    “Miranda?”
    An infected, gray-haired male wearing a white pharmacist’s coat with the name “Arthur” embroidered on the pocket twitched. The wrinkles of his loose, sore-covered skin folded in on each other and his white eyes sank deep in their sockets. His rotten lips parted and a string of yellow liquid stretched between his incomplete set of jagged teeth.
    Miranda stepped back, terrified to respond.
    The sound of Scott’s footsteps put him somewhere near the door. “Miranda, answer me.”
    The pharmacist moved slowly, stuttering like a stop motion character in a Japanese horror film.
    The pain in Miranda’s stomach let up, but fear kept her from escaping. She tried to scream, but all that came out was a squeak.
    The infected man crept toward her, dragging his injured right leg. She squeezed her eyes shut and stood with her back against the end of one of the shelves. Please, no. The smell of death gagged her, and she swallowed, trying not to vomit as he stopped in front of her and stared. His nose nearly touched hers and her whole body trembled.
    “Miranda!” Scott ran down the aisle with his pistol drawn.
    The pharmacist turned his head and the flesh along his collar tore. He snapped his rotting jaws and ran in Scott’s direction.
    “Scott!”
    “Miranda, get back. Cover your ears.”
    The deafening gunshot rang out, and the pharmacist fell dead at Scott’s feet.
    “Are you okay?” Scott held out his hand. “Come on, we have to get out of here.”
    Miranda’s ears rang. She hurried along with her arms crossed over her belly and prayed for the baby to kick.
    Scott grabbed the cart and pushed it to the truck. He opened her door and unloaded their haul into the narrow space behind the driver’s seat. Miranda couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder.
    “Hurry, come on.”
    Her ankles ached and her legs burned. She climbed into the passenger’s seat, slammed the door, and locked it. A group of hungry infected that must have been hidden somewhere in the store made their way through the entrance.
    Scott jammed the screwdriver into the ignition and turned it. The truck roared to life and emitted a fog of exhaust. He slammed his foot on the gas and plowed through the aggressing mob. He knocked several aside and mowed one down with a thud.
    Miranda held her hand on the ceiling and braced herself through the jolt as they tore out of the parking lot. She refused to look back, terrified by the thought that something like one of them fathered her baby.
    Back on the highway, neither of them spoke.
    Miranda replayed her brush with death a dozen times, wondering if it was her holding still that saved her life, or if there was more to it than that.
    “Are you all right?” Scott asked. The aviators on top of his head held his hair back from his gentle, hazel eyes.
    Miranda sniffled. “He didn’t want me.” She set her hand on top of her stomach. “We were nose-to-nose, and he just stood there.”
    “You weren’t moving, Miranda. He didn’t even see you.”
    “Or something about the baby has changed me. What if they can sense their own?”
    “You’re being ridiculous. It was luck, that’s all.”
    She couldn’t be convinced. “And if you’re wrong?”
    A moment of silence passed between them.
    “Then you made the wrong choice keeping the baby.”
    Miles passed and Scott’s brutal observation sat like a wedge between them. She put her elbow on the window ledge and leaned her head against the glass. She closed her eyes, but couldn’t get the image of the pharmacist out of her head. Rolling into their driveway, she realized they had more immediate problems.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Someone had broken into their house.
    “Stay here,” Scott said and reloaded his