Free Storm Orphans: The Beginning by Matt Handle Page B

grocery store incident flashed through his head. He and Tyler needed to be careful.
    “It’s okay, honey,” he said softly as he took another step closer. “Tyler and I are here. You’re going to be alright.”
    Tyler didn’t budge. His feet were frozen in place as he looked on in horror as his mother began shaking, foam appearing around the corners of her mouth.
    Roger stood directly in front of his wife and put his hands on her shoulders. He gripped them firmly and looked her in the face as he spoke.
    “Sherry, honey, try to take a deep breath,” he told her. “You need to calm down.”
    She didn’t acknowledge him in any manner. Only the whites of her eyes were visible and she continued to shake so hard that the cords in her neck stood out as she screamed her nonsense.
    “Sherry!” Roger said louder and more forcefully. “Honey, can you hear me?” he asked desperately.
    Her voice raised an octave, the pitch so high that it hurt Roger and Tyler’s ears. There was absolutely nothing human in that final cry. Then she slumped to the floor in a heap, her head thudding on the tile. Her eyes closed and she went completely still.
    Roger immediately knelt beside her and cradled her head in both of his trembling hands.
    “Honey?” he asked, tears welling from his eyes now too. “Honey, look at me.”
    But she never looked at him or anything else again. Sherry died in their rented kitchen in front of her husband and son less than two minutes after they arrived in the room. Both Roger and Tyler were devastated.
    They buried her the next day in the cemetery a half mile down the road. There wasn’t a funeral director or caretaker to be found so Roger and Tyler did the job themselves. It took them most of the morning to dig a hole deep enough, but once it was done, Roger said a short prayer and Tyler laid some wildflowers on her grave. They barely said a word to each other on the way home or for the rest of the day.
    When Tyler woke up the following morning, his first thought was that the smell of fresh coffee was missing. And then he remembered why. His father was the one that drank most of it, but it was his mother that had always brewed it. It was a morning ritual that was as gone as the sight of her smiling face when Tyler would shuffle sleepily to the kitchen table every morning and ask what was for breakfast.
    He and his father were alone now, in a world that was crumbling all around them. Tyler was 16 and old enough that he was usually embarrassed to shed tears, but he lay on his bed and cried until he couldn’t anymore. When he finally rubbed his hand across his eyes and got out of bed, he saw his father standing silently in the doorway to his room.
    “I miss mom,” Tyler said quietly in explanation.
    “I do too,” his father replied. “Go wash your face. I’ll make us something to eat.”
    So began Roger and Tyler’s short life as a two-person household. Over the next year and a half, as society continued to crumble and their neighbors went from few to none, Roger taught Tyler everything he could about his science and his work. They spent their days in his garage laboratory and their evenings talking by candlelight in their living room over whatever dinner they could scrounge together.
    Twice, Afflicted managed to scale the fence and attempt to break down their door. But Roger had had enough foresight to buy a shotgun and ammunition when they’d first moved to town. Neither of them had any experience shooting the weapon, but at point blank range, the monsters didn’t put up much of a fight. They burned both corpses in a fire pit they’d dug on the farthest corner of the property from the house.
    Many of their evening conversations hinged on what Roger knew of the plague and speculation on what might have spread the infection. He found that his son had a natural curiosity for science a nd even in their dire situation, Roger took a certain pride in Tyler’s seeming desire to follow in his