Free Afterbirth by Belinda Frisch Page A

pistol.
    Miranda turned to him, and her eyes welled up with tears. “You don’t have to go in there. We can just leave.”
    Scott shook his head. “You know we can’t. Did you pack the bags?” He told her to gather their most valuable supplies—formula, diapers, wipes, and some clothes—in case they had to evacuate.
    Miranda looked behind the seat. “We have enough to start over. Let’s just go.”
    “Did you pack the bags or not?”
    She nodded. “They’re in the nursery, but…”
    He held up his hand, refusing to listen. “I’ll be right back.”
    She sniffled. “Something bad happens every time one of us says that.”
    He leaned across the seat and kissed her. “Today, we’re at quota.” He locked the truck and walked quietly up the front porch steps. The door jamb had splintered and sharp points of wood jutted out at knob level where someone had kicked it open.
    “Hello?” He called out as he went inside.
    A rustling noise came from the kitchen and he held his finger on the trigger.
    “If anyone’s in here, I’m armed and I’ll shoot.”
    A male infected, in dark, blood-stained jeans and a NY Giants t-shirt clawed at the pantry door, trying, for some unknown reason, to get inside. Scott looked around for signs of others and seeing only the one, took the pointed chef’s knife from the butcher block.
    The sound of the blade against wood called the man’s attention and he charged.
    Scott held the knife firmly overhand and used the island to keep distance between them. Determined as the man was, he couldn’t keep up with Scott’s rapid back and forth pace, and he stumbled. Scott, seeing an opportunity, thrust the blade into the man’s white right eye and drove him backward. He advanced the knife until the blade was buried to the handle and the tip came out of the back of the infected man’s head. The bifold pantry doors folded around him and a field mouse scurried across the tile floor. Scott shook the gluey, vitreous fluid from his hand, and headed upstairs for the bags.
    Standing in the nursery one last time, sadness gripped him. Dust clung to the pink wall in the places where Rosalie’s name had hung in wooden letters over her crib. He forced back his sadness, knowing they had to leave for Miranda’s sake, and the baby’s. He picked up the two emergency packs, and as he was about to leave, a white rectangle of paper caught his eye. On the table next to the gliding rocking chair, a business card read “Michael Waters, M.D. Obstetrics and Gynecology.”
    He couldn’t decide whether the card was an offering of help or another in a long line of threats.
    There was only one way to find out.

CHAPTER 17
     
    The remains of two failed feeding attempts littered the small examination room. Formula and breast milk spilled on the counter, and the rubber feeding nipples were full of holes. The infant’s relentless crying pierced Reid’s throbbing head and filled his mind with a dozen ways to make it stop, all of which gave up his bargaining chip.
    “I know! I hear you!”
    Carlene’s naked body sat slumped against the wall where Reid had put her. Dark hair clung to her face and masked her lifeless expression. Black liquid and blood leaked from the jagged hole in her stomach, and her bowels had let go. Decomposition hadn’t fully set in, but it wouldn’t be long.
    The smells made it hard for Reid to breathe. He took one of the remaining scalpels from his shirt pocket and opened the sterile envelope. Somehow, what he was about to do was harder and more disturbing than anything he’d done before. Reheating amputated parts had been one thing, harvesting them was entirely another. He assessed Carlene’s shape, noting the round curves of her hips and the thickness of her thighs, and decided on trimming the latter. He set his hand on her cold leg and nicked her skin with the scalpel’s sharp tip. Corpses bled differently, a fact he noted as he forced the scalpel into the muscle and extracted a