The night was mournful as a family anguished over the death of their youngest member, the sounds of the crickets' melancholy music that enveloped them synonymous with that of a funeral procession.
Harriet, the mother of the family, was inconsolable in her grief over the loss of her precious little daughter, while John, her husband, was shocked into a superficially apathetic state, though internally a battle raged between his profound anger and monumental sadness. Harriet's feeble whimperings seemed to resonate throughout the night as Hunter, her grown-up son, wrapped his arm around her shoulders and hugged her closer to himself, quivering lips kissing her forehead and turning them away from the grave where his sister lay, to lead them both to the humble wooden cabin that for the moment they called home.
Emily, the middle child, remained outside with her father, listening to her mother's weak cries grow ever fainter as Hunter shut the door behind them.
The moon was glistening palely through the trees now, and its rays mingled with the light spilling from Hunter's window to illuminate Penny's body lying on the edge of a massive pit beside a ten-foot-high mound of freshly dug earth.
Penny's long red hair stood out vividly in contrast with the pallid complexion she now possessed--her lips' blue tinge, her skin's opaque white, the emotionless expression that would now be present on her childlike face until decomposition had erased it.
Her small hands rested to her sides beside the navy blue dress that her mother had dressed her in the lifetime ago that had been that morning--her favorite dress in life now her permanent attire in death. On her small feet were scuffed, black little shoes, the bottoms still dirty with the mud of the forest floor that she and Emily had so often explored before this day.
John and Emily stood there in utter silence, both trying to pretend that Penny was simply sleeping...that she'd wake up well rested and convince them to go on another adventure with her bubbly enthusiasm...However, their attempts were thwarted by the sickly red brown gash ever present on her neck--the illusion of peaceful sleep shattered by its deadly finality.
"What do we do now?" asked Emily quietly, restraining the rage that felt like a tide breaking over her heart from entering her voice.
"We move on," said her father simply.
Emily looked at him furiously, "Move on? That's it?"
"There's nothing else we can do," he said bluntly, "What's done is done, we have no control over what will happen to us in the coming days, but we do have the power to decide to carry with some semblance of our normal life for as long as we can."
Emily shook her head in disgust, letting some of the anger burning in her heart seep into her retort, "How can you say that?" She stormed over to the pit by where her sister lay and pointed down into it, "These people deserve to be avenged. None of them deserved to die--especially not like this, not like animals tracked down and feasted upon for sport." Looking down into the mass grave, Emily saw the mutilated bodies of her childhood companions, her parents' friends...the people she had known and loved her entire life--all wiped out by an infectious mutation. Some of their faces had begun to show signs of the change--teeth slightly longer and sharper than normal, blue patches across their cheeks and noses where blood vessels had broken. Their heads showed patches of white where their hair had begun to fall out, arms and necks covered in scabs where they had itched to the point of skinning themselves, and, if she could have seen their eyes, she knew that they would have been luridly red. All the victims had been in a different phase of the change when Emily and her father and brother had ended their suffering, however every corpse shared two similarities--at least one bite wound somewhere on their bodies, and a bullet hole in their heads.
Emily knew that Penny was lucky to have been one of the few to carry the gene that caused her to die upon infection, unlike the multitudes that had suffered slowly as their humanity slipped away, gradually overshadowed by the monster they were becoming.
John looked at his daughter, admiring the strength and passion she possessed, even at a time like this. "I'm sorry, Emily, but that's too dangerous. I won't risk losing you or your brother or mother like I lost Penny. We were naive to think we could escape the infection merely by moving away from densely populated cities--and it cost everyone in that grave," he said, gesturing towards the pit, "their lives. Now, I think it's time we put your sister at peace."
Treading slowly, as if his feet were made of lead, John reached his daughter and bent to pick her up, her small lifeless body dangling limply in his strong arms. Kissing her forehead for the last time, he laid her down on top of the pile of deceased that had formed in the grave, brushing a stray red curl away from her tiny angelic face before standing up and walking back to the house without another word.
Emily stepped over to where he had been, directly in front of her sister, and crouched down. Reaching into the grave she lightly caressed her sister's face, remembering its bright green eyes and glowing smile...the way her little nose had crinkled when she ate something sour...the way she would stick her tongue out at Hunter whenever he would mess with her hair...The way her eyes would grow wide with curiosity whenever they would spot a new plant or animal on one of their adventures...
A single tear was shed by Emily then, the first and last she would ever shed for her sister, for in her mind there was no longer room for sorrow. Unrelenting rage was fermenting in her heart, and was inexorably consuming her grief.
Her father had said that all they could do now was move on, but Emily refused to accept that her sister's death could go unavenged, and, as she stalked back to the house a plan was materializing in her mind...for nothing--not her father, risk of infection and death, or the solitude she knew she would most likely have to endure--would stop her from killing every last infected that got in her way.
With her sister's death, so too had died any hope of a normal life, and the void of empty space in her heart where her loved ones had been was now filled with utter wrath.
Don't worry Penny, your death will not go unpunished, she thought to herself as she entered the house. Then, with a last glance outside, she shut the door, knowing that that the next time she stepped out of it, there would be no turning back.
Inspirational Quote of the Day:
"The moon was glistening palely through the trees now, and its rays mingled with the light spilling from Hagrid's window to illuminate Aragog's body lying on the edge of a massive pit beside a ten-foot-high mound of freshly dug earth," Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling
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