On Wednesday, they burned the bodies. They did it at 7 a.m. on the dot, just as the sun was coming up. Clint said it was best to do it in the morning and joked that their neighbor's breakfast cooking would mask the smell of burning bodies.

Joked.

Clint’s tone came off as joking, but Laine didn’t think he was. She stood in the backyard, hands tucked under her armpits for warmth. Exhaling plumes of breath into the crisp Fall air. She tried her best to divert her eyes from Rory Sans’s blinking eyes, but it was hard to do.

So. So. Hard to do.

Because…decapitated heads shouldn’t blink, and beyond that, they shouldn’t smirk or smile. The fingers and toes on severed hands and feet shouldn’t wiggle. But they did that too. It was too early, and the situation was too bizarre for Laine to process. She wanted to go to bed, but she knew that sleeping wasn’t an option. Sleeping wouldn’t be an option for the next few nights, maybe even the next few weeks.

Last night, Rory and Gloria Sans came over for game night, and everyone was having a great time. The guys chatted about video games over beers, as Clint handled the cooking, and Gloria filled Laine in on all the latest gossip from her office. Laine worked 100% remote, so any gossip from her previous job was welcome...especially when Gloria was the one spilling the tea.

Everything was going just fine, and then she heard Clint’s scream. At first, her brain couldn’t process her fiancé’s strange scream. At first, she thought he was laughing while taking beer down the wrong tube. Then she turned around and saw the blood. That and the fork that was sticking out the top of his hand. She couldn't make sense of what she was seeing; all she saw was the fountain of red that gushed out of Clint's wound and onto the counter.

If Gloria hadn’t screamed like a banshee, she would have plunged a knife into Laine’s throat. Laine had turned at the last second to see Gloria lunge at her, eyes wide like those of a feral creature. Laine’s thoughts as she tumbled out of her chair was:

1) Where did that knife come from?

And

2) That’s not one of our butcher knives.

Which meant that Gloria had brought it into their house, and she and Clint were none the wiser.

“Lunacy!!” Clint howled. She could hear the pain in the crack of his voice. “They’re infected with Lunacy!!”

Lunacy was short for Lunaticitis, and its symptoms were simple. Once you contracted it, you became a deranged, nearly unkillable lunatic. Contracting it was as simple as catching the common cold. She had no idea that Gloria and Rory were infected, and she’d shared glasses of wine with both of them.

Gloria continued to wail like a lunatic, the whites of her eyes consumed by frantic red veins. Maybe it was a trick of the lighting or Laine's angle from the floor, but Gloria's pupils looked like a mustard yellow. Spittle rained down onto the kitchen tiles, as beads of saliva dribbled from her bottom lip. Laine crab-walked backward as Gloria slashed the knife like a woman possessed. She wasn't even close to striking her, but she kept stumbling forward. Laine shot her right foot out and into the chair closest to her, launching it into Gloria's path and causing her to fall forward and to the ground. She practically threw the knife in Laine's direction. Laine hurled her body to the right, the blade clashing to the tiles. Laine snatched the knife from the floor and lunged forward without a second thought.

She heard the sound of knife to flesh and felt the warmth of blood before her mind could register what she'd done. Even Gloria's gurgle failed to bring her back to reality. Laine blinked Gloria's blood from her eyes, as her brain struggled to make sense of what was in front of her. The blade, now covered in gore, was sticking up and out of Gloria's mouth. Laine released her grip around the knife's handle, each finger cracking as though she'd been stricken with rigor mortis. Gloria's head fell forward, balancing on the knife's handle for a second before dropping to the right with a thud.

When Clint came to pick her up, he was saying something, but she couldn't make sense of a single word. It was like he was on the phone with a bad connection; she made out every other word...if that.

Back...life. Chop.

They're...to...Dismember.

He kept saying these words over and over again, and none of it really clicked until Gloria got back up to her feet. They watched in silence as she stood up and ripped the butcher knife through her lower jaw, her teeth clattering to the bloody tiles. Clint grabbed her hand, and they ran; she could see Rory get up from her peripherals. Clint led them into the garage, talking through a funnel, and then he handed her an ax.

"Swing." He said.

And she did—just as Gloria charged at her with that damn knife. Laine swung right for her neck, and that's when everything went black. She regained consciousness this morning, to the smell of a crackling fire.

"We have to burn the bodies; that's the only way to really kill them," Clint said, but it sounded like he was across a field.

"Don't look at them, baby. Ignore them. Go back inside; I got this. Take a test to see if you're infected."

Laine didn't have to take a test. She knew her answer. She watched as Gloria and Rory's features melted into one. Clint said something from over her shoulder, but she heard none of it. She did, however, hear his scream as she pushed him headfirst into the fire.

And she watched in silence as his face melted. Because it was that funny.