Day 17

I stay up through the night with Josh. His arm looks infected, but there is no fever and he seems to be doing fine. None of us had ever seen what happens when someone gets bit and I imagine that it is rare that someone only gets bit once. I imagine that usually there are multiple bites or attacks that lead to death by the violence of zombies rather than the infection itself.

Jacob and Chad know more about the process than Josh and I do. They said that just before the news stopped they talked about how the disease seemed to spread through blood and saliva but no one was sure how it got started or how it spread so quickly. I think that if it spread so quickly it would kill quickly also, allowing it to spread. Josh, however, is showing no difference. The basic infection just around the wound needed treated and so, finding a tube of Neosporin in the bathroom mirror we began disinfecting it, but that seemed to be the worst of it.

I think of this throughout the day. Why would Josh not have any effects. We know that it is passed through their blood and spit. I think back to the times we've fought the things. There was so much blood . . . how are we not infected?

"Chad," I say, a little anxiously. I know he is still upset with me, but with Josh getting bit he has let up a bit. He walks over to me. "Did they ever mention anything about some people not getting infected?"

"No. Why?"

"I've been thinking . . . how is it that we are able to fight and kill these things, get blood everywhere, and Josh get bit, but none of us get infected?"

"I don't know. I just assumed that we all got lucky."

"But another thing," I pause, wondering if I should bring it up or not, "well . . . it's Clive." I wait. There is a flicker of something in his features. Regret? Anger, maybe. "Well, he didn't turn. He didn't change. Why wouldn't he but Crystal would?"

"Maybe it's not as infections as we thought. You know, not everyone gets infected or something."

"But look around. Everyone is gone. There is no sign of anyone else. It it was a hit or miss infection there would be more people than this, don't you think?" He was silent.

Before all of this. Before the zombies and the killing I had been going to school studying biology, or rather, biotechnology. I was still an undergraduate at the time and so my knowledge was limited to the classroom setting. I sit there for some time, thinking on what would make Josh, or rather, all of us immune.

The answer came as I walked in on Jacob, who is throwing up in the bathroom. He has a fever and throws up every ten minutes or so. Soon he simply dry-heaves, his stomach clinching causing him to moan each time he gags. Then he starts hacking up blood, and not a little bit, either. It is as if his stomach is filling with blood every few minutes and he then need to throw it up once full. Chad makes him some soup from a can in the pantry but he is unable to eat it, or even sip the broth. The moment he sips it he runs, stumbling into the bathroom and throws it up.

We all put it together pretty quickly, at least that during the attack he had gotten some of the zombie blood in his system. This infected him and it was manifesting itself.

Soon he can not get up. We had him in a bed upstairs with a mixing bowl near his head which he could throw up into. There is a cup of broth and some crackers, but he never touches it. He asks us to leave the room and I know he is going to die soon. It is getting late and we leave him, closing the door behind us.

We get down stairs and I grab my pistol. I feel like an executioner in doing so, but Chad comes up to me and puts his hand on the barrel. "I'll do it," he says, and I lower my gun. I think now, seeing the humiliation that is this disease he, on some level, understands what I had to do. And he, now, is ready to do it himself. Sparing me of the pain of yet another persons blood on my hands.

We wait.

"I think it's genetics," I say to Chad and Josh as we sit silently in the living room area. "I think that Mom or Dad have a dominant, Homozygous gene that is immune to this . . . disease." I point out side, indicating the zombies. "I mean, it makes sense doesn't it. That is why Jacob is up there dying. It's why everyone is dead, but we are still alive. We've had the blood all over us, but a day after Jacob got any on him he is sick.

"And then," I continue, "it happened to Crystal and Clive." I glance up at Chad before moving on. "Crystal was infected and was . . . but Clive, he never came back. The infection didn't get to him. He got the dominant trait from you, Chad." That's the only explanation I can come up with. That is why we are all still OK."

We mull over it for a while. Discussing it further and speculating. I am not sure if this is correct, of course, but using the information that we have it seems the most likely scenario.

A bout of hacking is heard from up stairs and I get up to check on him but Chad cautions me not to. We must respect his wishes.

The three of us sleep in shifts. One sleeping at a time while the other two stay up and wait for the change.Waiting for Jacob, who will no longer be himself, to walk down those stairs and attack.