Twenty-nine days out of thirty, you’d think my daughter Nadine had never had the virus at all.
She’s a happy girl, and smart, already reading her way through stack after stack of YA books even though she’s only in third grade. She’s not a bad soccer player either. She’s a wing, and I’ve seen her set up some beautiful goals this year. It’s actually fun to watch now that the kids aren’t all clumping around the ball anymore.
But one day a month, she’s not my daughter anymore. On that day, she has to be fed.
My wife and I were lucky to have the resources to build her a custom lockroom for the 30th day. It’s got metal walls and a drain, so it’s easy to hose down.
Before dark on the 30th day, we put her in there with something to eat. At first, a bloody steak was totally sufficient. After a while though, it had to be something fresher, something living. Rats and mice worked for a while, but these days it has to be something bigger. A baby goat works best if we can get one.
Of course, we knew what she really wanted. I’ve seen the way she eyes me hungrily through the small bit of bulletproof glass we installed on the room’s door.
Last month, the goat wasn’t enough. I could tell she was hungry, because she was pacing like mad, her steps rattling the house. Toward dawn, we heard an angry pounding like thunder, and in the morning, we woke to find massive dents in the walls, the steel bent thanks to the strength of her blows.
In the country of [redacted] where she first got attacked, the people simply kill anyone with the bite. They don’t even wait for the first full moon. It’s cruel, of course. But then, they don’t have the resources to take care of their children like we do. They don’t tell outsiders about the virus until it’s too late. You wouldn’t believe how much we had to pay to get her back to the U.S. alive.
The day after her change, Nadine is usually exhausted but thankful. We let her watch a few extra cartoons and eat whatever she likes. Any other time, she’d be begging for gummi bears and ice cream, but the day after a change, it’s nothing but protein: eggs and bacon for breakfast, a full packet of deli turkey for lunch, two steaks for dinner. She just inhales the stuff, barely tasting it. Then, by the next day, she’s pretty much back to normal, back to school and playing with her friends.
Yesterday morning, as she left for school, my wife turned to me, tears in her eyes.
“What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
“We have to kill her,” she said. “We have to. I’ve been looking up ways to do it. She wouldn’t feel any pain, and we could make it look like an accident.”
“You’re just having a hard day,” I told her. “Don’t worry. We can reinforce the steel with concrete. I’ve got a quote out to a guy right now.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It’ll last for a month. Maybe two. And then what?”
“Then we’ll figure it out.”
That afternoon, the quote for the reinforced concrete came in. It was even higher than I’d expected, but it was a rush job after all. We only had a few more days before gametime. I told the guys to come right away.
And if I’m going to be honest, I think it would have worked. Nadine has to stop getting stronger at some point, right? It just doesn’t physically seem possible that her muscles on day 30 can keep growing, or that her teeth and nails can get any longer or sharper. There’s got to be a physical limit.
Unfortunately, I may never get to find out.
You see, for some reason, last night, the change came early. Day 28 instead of day 30. We hadn’t even put Nadine in the room. She was just in her regular bed down the hall.
I barely had time to wake up as I heard her sprinting down the hall. Then the door burst open, splintering into tiny chunks of wood as she stood there staring at us, her black fur shining in the moonlight, her mouth open and displaying so many teeth they it didn’t seem possible she could even close her jaws.
My wife screamed, and Nadine leapt on her, tearing through her nightgown and opening her from chest to hip with a single swipe of her claws. My wife gurgled a small sound and then went limp as Nadine devoured her.
I backed up to the side of the room, my body shaking with the knowledge that I’d soon be devoured by my own daughter. And if I’m being honest, I was more afraid for her than I was for myself.
Because for me, it would all be over in a minute.
For her, she’d wake up in some strange alley a mile away, naked and covered in blood, wondering how she got there. And then if she somehow made it home, she’d see the mess she’d created. And she’d have to live with that forever.
“It’s okay,” I said as Nadine turned to me, my wife’s entrails dripping down her face. “I’m so sorry.”
But then, as she looked at me, something odd happened. Something in her eyes. I saw a glimmer there I hadn’t witnessed before. Maybe it was because she was finally full–sated by the kind of meat she’d been wanting all along. Or maybe it was just a part of her evolution.
For a moment, she saw me. And then she ran off into the dark.
It’s late now, and I don’t know where Nadine is. I’ve heard a few screams in the distance, and I’ve tried to follow them in my car, but by the time I get to them, all I find is a bloody mess. Gored bodies and sirens. But dawn is coming soon. Soon, she’ll be back to the sweet girl she’s always been. She’ll have no idea where she is or how she got there. She’ll be crying for me.
And so I’m begging you. If you happen to find a little girl covered in blood in your backyard, in your pool house, in some dark corner of your room. Know that she means you no harm. She only wants to come home to her dad.
I can build a better room, maybe have her sleep in it every night. We can make this right. We can keep her safe.