Then there was the night when they had to relocate. The night they left their home. The night the sirens started to blare.

Wwwwwwaaaaaaaaaooooooouuuuunnnn...

Marie's eyes snapped open. She sat up in the bed, her heart pounding.

"The disaster sirens," Clint said, sounding like he hadn't been asleep at all.

"There had been no warning on the radio at all," Marie said. "There's always an announcement about approaching disasters."

Clint sat up. "There wasn't this time," he said. "That means they learnt about this disaster just a few hours ago." He sighed and rose out of bed and started to get dressed. "Grab your mask and gear. We are moving down into the basement again."

Marie shook Zack awake. The boy opened his eyes and heard the sound of the sirens. "We are going down to the basement?" he asked.

Clint nodded.

"I'll go and wake up Nick. He sleeps like a log. He probably didn't hear it," Zack said and rushed out of bed.

Everyone gathered in the hallway outside the master bedroom. Clint was still in his pajamas, Marie had pulled on a denim jacket over her nightgown. They'd forced Zack to put on a pair of jeans over his shorts and Nick wore simple trousers and a button down shirt. They all descended into the basement. Marie hoped whatever the sirens had warned against wasn't too bad.

But it turned out to be worse.

A storm. The wind howled like a wild animal to the cacophony of clattering and shattering shingles and exploding glass. Debris hurled against walls, against doors, against the windows.

They sat crouched by the walls in the basement, listening to mother nature taking apart their house, one brick at a time, hoping that they would at least have a roof left once they got back upstairs. A sodium-phosphorus lamp sat at the center of the small room.

Marie held onto Zack tightly as if afraid somehow the storm outside would blow her son away. The boy flinched every instance there was a crack of thunder outside. Clint stroked the boy's hair, trying to comfort him. Nick sat with his back against the opposite wall, watching them through the visor of his gas mask. He smirked at Zack. "Hey, kiddo. Wanna see a magic trick?" he said.

Zack raised his head, looked at him. Nick raised his palms, holding his fingers wide open, showing that his hands were empty. Then he gripped the thumb of his right hand between the thumb and forefinger of his left. Then he moved both the hands away from each other, his right thumb stayed in the grip of his left hand as if he'd severed the finger from his palm.

Zack pursed his lips, unimpressed. "That's lame," he said. "We used to do this trick back in kindergarten."

Nick smirked at him. "How about this one then?" He pulled out an old silver coin from his pocket. He held it up between his thumb and forefinger before closing his fist around it. When he opened his fist, the coin was gone.

Zack gasped. "Where did it go?"

Nick grinned at the boy and beckoned him with a finger. "It's right there." He reached behind the boy's ear and pulled back his hand, revealing the coin.

Zack gasped again. "Where did it come from?"

Nick chuckled. "I'll tell you, but keep it a secret, okay?" He smiled and leaned in to whisper in his ear.

Zack giggled as Nick told him the trick.

Marie was smiling under her gas mask as she watched Nick and Zack managing to have fun while the storm kept stirring things up outside. That's when she turned to Clint but noticed the frown on his brow, the anger in his eyes.

Marie reached out and touched his arm. "You okay, dear?" she said.

Clint perked up and looked at her, nodded, then looked away. "Just...wondering when this thing will be over. I'm just waiting for the time when everything will be normal again," he said.

She took his hand and held onto it. They waited for the storm to settle down.

That took about two more hours. When they climbed up the stairs and out of the basement, there wasn't much left to call a home. The living room window had been shattered, a trash can had been flung through the glass, debris scattered all over the floor. And the front door was dangling in its frame just by two hinges.

"Yeah, we are moving out," Clint said.

And so they did. The rest of the houses in the neighborhood weren't any better than their own. Broken windows, broken doors, shattered roofs--one way or another--the virus had found its way into the livable space, contaminating them. They kept walking, passing by stranded cars that were either devoid of fuel or crumpled up like a wad of tissue paper from the storm.

After a few hours, Zack complained about his legs aching from the walk. Before Marie or Clint could say anything, Nick crouched in front of Zack with his back turned to the boy. "Hop on, kiddo," he said. "You can even take a nap while you're up there if you promise not to snore up a storm. Deal?" He winked.

The boy giggled and climbed up on Nick's back and wrapped his arms around his neck. "I'm not too heavy, am I?" Zack asked.

"Oh no, you're as light as a sack full of stones." Nick chuckled.

Zack knocked him on the head, pouting.

"Hey!" Nick faux-grimaced. "I'm gonna toss you down if you do that."

"Shut up and keep walking." Zack knocked him over the head again.

"Hey!"

Both of them chuckled.

Marie was happy again, seeing Nick distracting Zack from their current predicament. Clint didn't say anything for the rest of their journey.

They walked for maybe four more miles. It was around seven o'clock in the evening when they stumbled across a house with windows and doors still intact and no trace of the infected. They ate their dinner out of cans and soon fell asleep.

Next morning, Marie and Clint woke up to Zack crying out for help. They both rushed out of bed. Nick was nowhere to be seen.

"Nick, don't go!" Zack was sobbing. "My dad is a doctor, he will fix you. Don't leave us!"

Marie and Clint donned their gas masks and rushed out. Zack was crouching next to Nick's body stretched out on the lawn. His head was in Zack's lap. "Please, don't go!" Zack cried harder.

"Zack, what happened?" Marie rushed to their side. "Is he hurt?" She noticed Nick's skin turning pale. His eyes looked like they were losing their light.

"We were playing catch," Zack said as tears streamed down his face under the visor of his mask. "Then he started to cough. He said nothing about it. Then he...he was swaying a little as if he was dizzy. Before he lost his balance and fell down...h-his face had turned pale...a-and it's turning paler..." He turned to Clint with a desperate look on his face. "Dad, do something!"

Clint was frowning down at Nick who was slowly losing his consciousness. "I can't," he said.

Zack gasped. Marie was grimacing. "Clint, at least check him, try to help in some way."

"You think I'm doing this on purpose?" he said. "Look at his skin." He turned Nick's face towards them. His flesh was already losing color, the veins were standing out under the ghostly white dermal layer, a pale blue spider-webbing of disease and pain running up and down his face as he kept gasping for breath. "The virus is spreading through him at lightning speed. We've already lost him. He can't be saved."

"Don't say that!" Zack cried out. "You're a doctor. Help him get better. Please..."

Clint frowned and looked away.

Marie wrapped an arm around her son. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart," she said softly. "It's just too late."

Zack sobbed harder.

Nick's body began to twitch. His face contorted in pain under his gas mask. "Ugh!"

Zack held him tighter, his fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt as if somehow that was going to stop the inevitable.

"Marie," Clint said, looking her right in the eyes. She understood what he was hinting at. She nodded.

"Honey," she whispered to Zack. "Let's go inside. Let dad take care of Nick."

"No!" Zack held onto Nick tighter.

"Zack, you wouldn't want to see Nick once the virus takes over completely," she said. "Let your Dad end his pains. He doesn't deserve to suffer like this."

Zack's eyes were shut too tightly, trying to stop the tears, hoping that maybe not seeing what was happening would change what was bound to happen.

Eventually, the boy sank into his mother's arms, letting go of his friend. Clint patted Zack on his shoulder. Marie took the boy inside, leaving Nick alone with Clint. She crawled into bed with Zack and held onto him, letting him cry, no amount of reassurance was going to soothe him now. He fell asleep almost soon after, exhausted and broken down.

After some time, Clint walked back inside. He had Nick's gas mask in his hand. "I had to see how it might've happened," he said to Marie after they left Zack to sleep peacefully. "The air filter was broken." He unscrewed the replaceable filter unit off the mask and showed her the inside of it. The activated charcoal pieces looked burnt out, leaving spaces through which the unfiltered air could've entered the mask. "Such a tiny thing claiming someone's entire existence." He sighed and buried his face in his hands. "Such a sad, sad thing."

###

Present Day.

Liar. Liar. Liar...the word kept doing its circuits inside her head while Clint kept yelling at her to shoot. "Shoot her, Marie!"

Marie saw the gun in her hand, saw Cathy pointing her own gun at Clint, saw Clint's face contorted in fear and anger. "Shoot her, goddammit!"

Bang!

The bullet went straight through the roof and into the second storey of Cathy's house. Both Cathy and Clint froze in terror, staring at Marie. "No one's shooting anyone!" Marie yelled. "Is this what we have become?! What are we? A pack of hyenas?!"

Clint frowned. "This isn't the time for it, Marie. When it rains--"

"We'll run away, Clint," Marie said. "We'll run away before it rains and we'll live the way we were living all along. You really are gonna take the chance of a mother to bring her child into this world?" she said. "You are a doctor, Clint. You just killed a man. And you are not hesitating to do the same to a woman and her unborn child. What's gotten into you?"

"I'm doing this for you and Za--"

"Stop saying that," Marie said. "Stop lying, Clint. You aren't telling the truth when you say you are doing it for us. Accept it."

Clint glared at her. "Why else would I be doing this? Do you think I'm selfish? You think I'm doing this out of some sense of superiority?"

"I think you want to prove something badly. Very badly," Marie said. "I don't know why you are so hell-bent on proving whatever it is, but the Clint I know would never do a thing like robbing an innocent person's chance to survive."

That's when Zack entered the garage, his eyes went wide as soon as he saw Cathy pointing his gun at his Dad. He gasped. Cathy noticed what she was doing. She lowered her gun with a shameful look.

Clint frowned at her, frowned at his son and grimaced, looking quite ashamed himself.

Marie put a hand on Zack's shoulder. "You're not a monster, Clint. Stop lying."

Clint's face twisted further with shame and regret. As if the weight of what he'd been about to do started to bear down on him. He clenched his fists, gritted his teeth. His eyes were watering up. He was trying hard to not break down sobbing. Marie dropped her gun and walked up to her husband. She wrapped him in a gentle embrace and held him close.

"How did this happen?" he whimpered. "I-I...just killed a man. I...I took a life, Marie..." He clung to her and started to cry.

Cathy watched them, felt her own grip loosening on the gun in her hand. Zack stood back and watched them all, feeling nervous, sad and confused all at once.

As Marie held onto Clint, she pulled him closer and whispered in his ear, "Did you really tamper Nick's gas mask?"

"Huh?" Clint frowned at her through his tears. Before he could say anything else, there was a loud crack of thunder outside.

Cathy saw dark purple clouds gathering around. Then the disaster sirens started to blare.

Wwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaouuuuuuuunnn...