continued reading, “I’ve been bitten. I know what will happen next so
I’m going to lock myself in. I’ve left out sandwiches and juice but I’m dreading the next few hours. I love you, Tony. Take good care of Jacob for me. Tell him every day his mummy loves him.”
“That’s tragic,” Cannon let slip.
“Wait,” Cahz interrupted, his finger scanning the note. “You told us to stay inside.”
“She should have listened,” Cannon said.
“No, ‘
“Fuck,” Cannon snapped.
Both men scanned the hallway for signs of movement. The house had taken on an eerie silent quality. Since the zombie in the bathroom had been dispatched the only sound was the rasp of their own breath.
“I’m going to check the bedrooms again,” Cahz said. “Keep my back,”
“Yes, sir,” Cannon replied in a crisp military tone.
Cahz strode purposely into the master bedroom. The decor was a mix of dark woods and cream fabrics. The bed clothes were thrown back and the linen crumpled.
Cahz checked each side of the bed. Nothing but wayward pillows and discarded clothes. He lent over and checked the side of the open dresser but it was clear.
With a hard swallow he got down on the floor to check under the bed. His heart raced. He knew how vulnerable a position going prone was. All his years of army training had taught him to get down and flat, stay low stay alive. But the tactics for surviving in this new theatre was to stay mobile.
His breathing still heavy, Cahz scanned the murky space under the bed. There was something there, something drawing the light away.
“Fuck it,” Cahz whispered, getting to his feet.
He backed up and closed the door as he left the room.
“I couldn’t see anything,” he reported. “But there’s no point securing the room when a closed door will do.”
Cannon nodded his agreement as Cahz entered the child’s room.
Again the cupboards and drawers were wide open. Clothing and toys scattered around the room. But the room was less cluttered with furniture than the adult equivalent next door. In only a few seconds it was obvious the room was empty.
“Downstairs. We’ve yet to check the living room,” Cahz said as he passed his colleague.
“Maybe she’s the only one?” Cannon said hopefully.
Cahz was ahead of him on the staircase, his gun sweeping, ready to snap off a shot at any second. “Maybe, but you know better than to work on maybe’s,” he said without looking back.
The stairs protested with loud creaks and groans as the two soldiers worked their way down. They knew that the noise they made would mask the sounds of a zombie creeping in the rooms below and even though the element of surprise was long gone they kept their voices low.
As Cahz reached the living room door he took up position on the right side.
“Take up the left. After me you cover left.”
“Yes sir.”
“Three, two, one.”
Cahz whipped the door open and dived round the corner. Behind him he could sense Cannon doing the same thing, mirroring his actions.
Cahz swept his aim around the living space. The room had the usual array of expected furniture: sofa, TV set, DVD player with the disc drawer open. There was a photo frame-laden mantelpiece with an electric fire nestling beneath it. The room looked like the aftermath of a burglary just like the bedrooms upstairs, but there was something wrong.
The room hadn’t been looted. The valuable items were still here. The place was just a mess. The missing cushions from the sofa, toys cast among the scattered DVD cases and empty food wrappers. At his feet lay an empty blackcurrant cordial bottle.
“Ah, Christ,” Cannon gasped.
Cahz turned round to see what caused Cannon’s exclamation. The other half of the room had been used as a dining area and he could see the edge of a large table, but Cannon’s massive shoulders blocked the rest of the view.
Cannon slipped his weapon back into its holster and turned round. He took a deep breath and wiped his chin. “There was someone else in the house.”
Cahz brushed past him. The dining room table was covered in sheets of the same white paper he’d seen in the bathroom. Crayons and felt tip pens lay higgledy-piggledy on the tabletop. There were a couple of empty glasses stained red from the remains of the blackcurrant drink.
Cahz’s gaze fell and he spotted something under the table. Curled up in a ball, embracing a brown and white fluffy toy rabbit, was a half naked child. A blue pacifier was firmly stuck in his mouth. Wearing only underpants and socks, he lay on a bed of cushions surrounded by a nest of die cast cars and garish plastic toys. The boy’s curly brown hair looked matted and unwashed. His grey dead skin stretched over the prominent ribs. A pair of blue, white and black camouflage cotton socks were on his feet, the soles blacked. A sob broke out from behind him.
“Cannon?” Cahz called as the big soldier stormed out of the room.
He turned back to the child. Coloured streaks of felt-tip pen covered his hands and mouth. In that tiny grasp he still clutched an orange crayon and beside him the last piece of art he’d failed to post under the bathroom door.
Cahz picked up the scribbled artwork and felt his heart sinking deeper in his chest. Breaking away from the pitiful sight, he followed his colleague out of the house.
“You all right?” Ryan was asking.
“Cannon,” Cahz called absently, stuffing the drawing in his pocket.
Cannon stumbled into the garden, weeping, the rain bouncing off his thick padded body armour.
“Is everything all right?” Ryan asked.
Cahz stayed silent and walked past him.
“Can we go into the house?” Ryan asked. “Is it safe?”
Cannon ripped off the fastening on his chinstrap and hurled his helmet at the ground. He brought his hands up to his face and collapsed to his knees, his shoulders heaving under the weight of the sobs.
“Cannon?” Ryan’s voice was weak and uneasy. The baby strapped to his front was awake and sucking furiously on her father’s pinkie.
“Get in under shelter,” Cahz instructed Ryan as he emerged from the house. “But don’t leave the kitchen.”
“Why? What is it?”
“Get inside and feed the baby. Just don’t leave the kitchen,” Cahz reiterated more forcefully.
“Why?”
Cahz whipped round, tears streaming from his eyes. “You don’t want to know.”
Ryan’s expression dropped to see the emotion in Cahz’s face. He nodded and made his way into the house.
Cahz stepped up beside Cannon and took a deep breath.
Cannon sat there in the overgrown grass of the neglected garden. He sniffed back a tearful snivel and tried to talk, but the pain grabbed his throat and the sobs burst back.
Cahz sat down in the wet grass. The moisture soaked instantly into his fatigues and drew the heat away.
“I must have shot a hundred W.D.s today,” Cahz said softly. “You forget who they were.”
“I left them,” Cannon blurted out.
“You left who?”
“My little boy and my wife,” Cannon said.
“I don’t understand, buddy,” Cahz said.
“We were always arguing,” Cannon wept. “About everything. About when I’d come home, about money, about getting a job. I was fucked up when I got back to the real world. You know the score; the stuff we went through and they expected us to go back to our wives and families and jobs. I stormed out one night, her screaming at me
