bent its head to the spurting stump and drank, as if at a water fountain. Then, seeming to sense Larry’s presence, its head pivoted towards him.
“Shit.” Frantic, Larry glanced around for the missing pistol.
Pulse racing, Larry scrambled backward. Shards of glass ripped into his palms. He ignored them. The zombie charged. Larry held the bottle he’d manufactured up to ward it off. He saw it coming through the glass.
Then it was upon him and the glass grew dark.
A MAN’S HOME
IS HIS CASKET
H Michael Casper didn’t go outside anymore. Not that he had much before. Silver Bay had no cultural activities. H and his wife, Leen, went to Duluth and Two Harbors for that. They did much of their shopping via the internet, and bought groceries off a whole foods coop truck that made the weekly trek from Madison, Wisconsin.
H firmly believed that a man’s home was his castle.
He didn’t go outside now because everything he needed was here. Amazingly, after twenty-four days, the power was still on. He had plenty of food and water (although he longed for some spicy Asian take-out), tequila, two cases of St. Paulie Girl Dark and a six pack of Spaten Optimator), weapons (a semi-automatic .22, which he’d used to kill some feral cats that strayed onto his property and attacked his own cats, and a homemade driftwood cane that he kept next to the front door), radio and television (the satellite wasn’t sending signals—although he occasionally heard snippets of phantom broadcasts on the radio), movies (luckily, because it might be a while before Netflix delivered again), his guitar (even at age fifty-two, H still maintained his tenor and awesome falsetto), music (Rundgren, Champlin, and that ol’ albino, Edgar Winter), and his books. Lots and lots of books…
H lived in a rambler with a tuck-under garage and huge, vaulted ceilings. His library overflowed with books and comics. He had more comics downstairs in the basement—along with Leen and the cats.He didn’t know what had killed her. She just fell asleep one night and didn’t wake up. Oh, her eyes opened again. She moved around, attacking him in bed. But it wasn’t Leen. She’d gone to sleep and something else had woken inside her. He’d wrestled away. She chased him into the library and he clubbed her with a lettered Brian Lumley edition. That bought him enough time to get the gun. H was a peaceful man. Killing his wife, even if she was no longer his wife, was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. Killing Kitchi and Kito, their two black cats, had been a close second. Disposing of them all was third.
He didn’t go down to the basement anymore. It stank.
Besides, he had all of his comforts right here. The only thing he missed was going fishing at Thunderbird Lake, but it was probably full of zombie walleye now, anyway.
The clock showed midnight. He was sitting in front of the fireplace, reading a short story collection, when he grew uneasy. It felt like somebody was watching him.
“Leen?” His own voice sounded funny to him after so long without speaking.
H crept to the front door and peeked outside. He had a large front yard, filled with apple, maple and birch trees, and his one hundred foot long driveway was lined with trees as well. Their leafy canopy cast all in shadows. The shadows were empty. He locked the door, and crossed to the east side of the house, looking out across the backyard. Nothing moved in the darkness. He saw the old woodshed and Leen’s gardens, and beyond them, the tree line of Tettagouche State Park. That was all.
“Quit being paranoid.”
Nobody else knew he was here. Nobody was coming, living or otherwise.
All he had to do was wait it out.
There was a knock at the door.
H nearly screamed.
The knock came again.
Quietly, H picked up the .22 and crept into the foyer. He’d blocked off the skylight to keep the birds from breaking through, and the small space was pitch black.
A third knock—louder, longer, more insistent.
“Who is it?” He pointed the rifle at the door.
Nobody he knew called him Kresby. That was his internet identity. Only his online friends referred to him that way.
The knocking changed to hammering. The door rocked on its frame.
H racked his brain. “Michael? Michael Bland?”
“PG?”
The door splintered inward, and a leering skull, stripped of most of its flesh, peered through.
With a cry, H squeezed the trigger. The .22
punched a small hole in the creature’s jawbone. The zombie vanished. H’s ears rang. The foyer smelled like smoke.
“He lives in Arizona,” H whispered, peeking through the hole in the door. “What’s he doing here?”
The door exploded inward, knocking H
backward. He gritted his teeth against the pain shooting through his bad lower back.
Paul Goblirsch’s corpse lurched into the foyer. Even as he scuttled away, H’s analytical, biologytrained mind observed the zombie’s condition. It looked like he’d been skinned alive and dropped from a great height. His ribs and pelvis were shattered, skull cracked, legs broken yet still mobile. His internal organs and one eye were missing. His nerves and veins hung like spaghetti. The zombie grabbed the heavy wooden cane H
kept by the door.
Grimacing, H fired again. The bullet punched through the creature’s empty eye-socket. Cursing, he aimed higher.
The zombie lashed out with the cane, knocking the barrel aside as H fired a third time. Then it smacked him on the head. Blood ran into H’s eyes.
“Son of a bitch…”
The cane descended again, cracking him on the knuckles. The gun slipped from H’s grasp. Clambering to his feet, H dodged another blow and ran. His lower back was a sheet of agony, and he kept wiping blood from his eyes to see. The zombie pursued him into the library. Though H wasn’t a trained fighter, he was determined to use whatever means necessary to live.
The zombie swung the cane. H ducked, and the driftwood bludgeon snapped on a bookshelf. H plowed into the creature, turning his face away from the stink. He clenched his fists, digging into the tissue. It felt like cottage cheese. Maggots wiggled between his fingers. Living man and dead man slammed into the wall.
Roaring, the zombie wedged a rancid thumb into H’s eye. Screaming, H did the same. The zombie reared back, blinded.
