the living room “Amelia! Amelia! Where are you?”
Stewart was leaning up against the wall halfway from the living room to the kitchen, a trickle of blood was coming out of the corner of her mouth. She grunted and rolled over to her hands and knees, as Max brushed by her.
Once in the living room Max called up the stairs, “Sarah! Sarah, if you are there it is me! Max! Sarah are you up there?”
Cory had gone out into the front yard and was looking wildly around, calling for Amelia.
Cries of “Daddy! Daddy!” came muffled from upstairs and Max bounded up them two at a time until he was standing underneath his attic access door. The floor was covered with loose insulation and next to the door in the ceiling was a hole through the drywall, blood was smeared along one side of the hole. As Max watched a small face appeared in the hole and looked down at him.
“Nick?” Max called up to his son, “Is everything okay buddy?”
“No mom is hurt, something pulled her leg down into the floor and hurt her, she is bleeding really bad, help her dad!” Max's son said.
Another voice joined his son's, “Max is that you?”
Nick's face was pushed aside rather quickly and Max found himself staring at Amelia, the secretary from work.
“Amelia? How did you get here?”
“I drove, I thought you would be here when we got here.”
“We thought you were dead. When did you get here?”
“About twenty minutes ago. Let me push the ladder down.”
Amelia moved sideways and Nick's face reappeared, dirt streaked and anxious. The swinging door opened and the rickety wooden stair ladder unfolded.
Chapter 50
Max climbed up into the attic, not knowing what to expect, when he was fully up into the gloomy interior Amelia pointed at the makeshift bed onto which she had brought Sarah. Jessica, Max's daughter, was near her mother's head, telling her everything would be okay. Max stepped over to them and took his wife in his arms.
“Oh Sarah! Sarah! Thank God!” he sobbed with relief, “I was so worried, when we got here and the door was open, with a body in the yard, I thought, I thought it was you!”
“Max?” Sarah mumbled, “Is it really you? You're bleeding?”
Behind Max his son came up and put his arms around his fathers waist, not saying anything. Amelia stood awkwardly near the access door, then finally cleared her throat and said she better go stop Cory, whose plaintive cries for 'Amelia' could be heard through the venting, from yelling his head off in the front yard.
“Thank God you're alright! He stayed there for a moment hugging his wife and children, before he felt Sarah stiffen. “What?”
“I think one of them bit me Max.” she said softly.
“What? No, no that can't be! Where did they bite you? You were in the attic, did they get up here?”
Sarah pushed Max back and pulled aside the blankets her children had lain down upon her. Max didn't want to believe what he saw, she had a small t-shirt folded neatly pressed against her leg, the wound underneath had bled through and Sarah gently lifted it out to reveal a wound, that was still bleeding furiously. In the darkness Max couldn't be sure it was a bite wound. “Flashlight” he said, his son let him go long enough to hand him a small LED flashlight which Max turned on and used to examine the wound. It was a bite mark, Max could see where the top row of teeth had pierced her skin.
“Oh no.”
“This is bad?” Sarah asked.
“Did you disinfect it?”
“With what?”
“Shit.” Max stood up abruptly, toppling Nick into some boxes, where Max caught him with a quick grab, “Sorry bud, stay here, I'll be right back!” moving quickly Max went down the ladder into the bathroom linen closet and grabbed a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and some clean washrags and towels. He scrambled back up the stairs and back to Sarah's side, where he unscrewed the bottle cap and poured it onto her wound, she tensed up momentarily. “Does it hurt?” Max asked.
“No it is just cold. What's wrong Max? What's wrong?”
“I…human bites are very bad for you…there are not going to be any more doctor visits or co-pays or anything for a long time, if ever again. We have to take care of ourselves better now and fast, we can't wait around to treat stuff like this.”
“Is that it?” Sarah asked.
“I'll tell ya later.” Max answered, which was parent code for 'when the kids were not around'.
Sarah nodded and lay back as Max finished cleansing the wound and then pressed a wash rag over it. Finally he tore a towel into strips and used one to bind the makeshift bandage into place.
“Can you move?” he asked.
“I think so, it is deep but not like through the bone or anything.”
Together they made their way downstairs where Amelia, Tom, Cory and Stewart were waiting. The front door had been shut and the couch moved over behind it. Stewart was on the couch looking back towards the kitchen, her pistol on her lap.
“Stewart.” Max said, “You okay?”
She raised her head to look at him and answer, “Fuck no. I think I have broken ribs.”
Wincing at her language around the kids Max said, “So you will live?”
“Yeah, Steve?”
“Steve didn’t make it.”
A look of alarm and disbelief came over her face, then she clamped down and made her face into a neutral mask once more. “What happened?”
“Steve chased Veronica into the backyard, I don’t know what happened, but…”
“I do!” said Cory softly, “He..they, the zombies caught me when I came over the fence one…one had each of my hands, that guy with the shotgun came out and shot one of them, the other one tried to keep him from shooting her and when he was getting close that Veronica zombie hit him with a chair. Then she jumped on him and they were rolling around, only she was all messed up and couldn’t fight very well, so she called on the lady holding me for help. That lady threw me over the fence. He kinda saved me.”
“Yeah, I bet he did. When I came out, he was getting up off the ground, she had shot at him a couple of times and missed, but I missed her head when I got my shot off. She shot him with the shotgun, his own shotgun. Well your's really. Gut shot him, at point blank. He just stood there for a second, then tried to take a breath, but couldn’t, then he spun around and collapsed. I can’t believe it happened. If I would hit her in the head I could have saved him.” Max said bitterly.
“He came along knowing what could happen Max, he died trying to save a kid, not many people can say that and it is better than being eaten or becoming one of them. This is Sarah?”
“Yes, this is Sarah. Sarah this is Officer Jane Stewart, we all call her 'Stewart'. I think Sarah is okay…but one of them, I think, might have bit her.”
Stewart stiffened visibly at this news, which Sarah noticed, “What? It isn't anything fatal, I mean it hurts, but it is not that bad.”
“I poured a bottle of hydrogen peroxide on it.” Max began only to be interrupted by Amelia.
Addressing Max's children she said, “You must be Max's kids, what are your names?”
“Nick.”
“Jessica.”
“Well Nick and Jessica this is Cory, his about your age, huh Nick? Do you think you might have some extra
