The zombie slammed the basement door open.
Mercifully, Vin shut off the TV again. Janice wasn’t sure what effect it was having on Emily, but it sure couldn’t be good.
Emily grabbed onto Vin’s leg and asked, “Charming, are my Mommy and Daddy dead?”
Vin looked around the room for help, and his eyes settled on Janice. Janice nodded and gently took Emily’s hand.
“Emily, I’m Ms. Fernley, and he is Mr. Scoggins. Emily, I can answer that. Come with me.”
Emily looked wide-eyed at Janice, then turned to look up at Vin.
“It’s okay,” Vin said. “I’ll stay here in this store. I won’t leave you. Understand?”
Emily nodded.
“Come, Emily,” Janice said in a soothing voice.
“Can I help?” Jize asked. “I lost my mother when I was eleven.”
Janice smiled and looked at Emily. “What do you say, Emily, can Mr. Chen come and talk with us, too?”
Emily looked at Jize, who smiled.
“Okay,” Emily said sheepishly.
Janice led Jize and Emily to a table off toward the side, away from the others. Emily must come to terms with the fact that she couldn’t go home again, and she guessed the best approach was a direct one.
“I’ll go see if I can find a radio,” Vin announced. Janice assumed he wanted an excuse not to deal with Emily at the moment, if ever.
Once they had sat down, Janice held one of Emily’s hands, and Jize held the other. Emily looked down at the table as if depressed. She probably was, and she probably understood what was coming.
“Emily, you know what death is, right?” Janice asked.
Emily nodded, keeping her head facing downwards.
“And where do people go when they die?”
“To Heaven,” Emily said with all the enthusiasm of a root canal. Her eyes hadn’t moved.
“Yes, that’s right. Emily, your parents and your brother have gone to Heaven. How do you feel about that?” Of course, Janice didn’t believe in Heaven, and even if she did, she wouldn’t believe they had moved on, because they were most likely zombies. But Janice focused on the task at hand—Emily couldn’t go home, and she needed to understand that. Plus, they needed to learn if she had any other family.
“I don’t know.”
“You feel sad, don’t you?” Janice gave Emily’s hand a gentle squeeze. So did Jize.
“I guess.” Emily looked up at Janice. “I’m supposed to feel happy, right? We want to go to Heaven, right?”
Jize spoke in a soothing voice. “It’s okay to feel sad, Emily. Your family is in a better place, but you can feel sad that you won’t see them for quite some time.”
“Emily, we talked about your brother that attacked you. Do you have any other brothers or sisters?” Janice asked.
She shook her head.
“Do you have any relatives in the area? Uncles? Aunts? Cousins?”
“They all live in New York. It’s far away.”
“Emily,” Jize said, “this isn’t your fault. None of this is your fault. Understand? No matter how you’re feeling, or what anybody says, this is not your fault.”
“If it’s not my fault, then why did my brother attack me?”
“Honey,” Janice said. “He suffered from a disease. Do you understand what a disease is?”
Emily nodded. “It makes you feel icky, and you stay home from school, but it doesn’t make you attack anyone.”
“This one does,” Janice explained. “All diseases are different.”
“When can I go home?”
“You can’t,” Jize answered. “I’m sorry, Emily, but with your family in Heaven, you need someone to take care of you.”
Suddenly Emily looked happy. “I have Charming! Charming can take care of me!”
Janice gave another gentle squeeze. “Yes, you have Mr. Scoggins, and you have me, Ms. Fernley, and you have Mr. Chen here. Promise me you’ll stay with one of us at all times. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” Janice said. “Emily, do you like ice cream?”
The zombie leapt—almost flew—down the stairs.
It was the zombie Marty had dropped first, a crater on its left side where its ear and some skull had been.
There were only two rounds in the shotgun when he fired at the head of the zombie, or what remained of it. The zombie’s body struck him with great force, sending them both down to the floor in a heap.
Another zombie—the one he’d hit between the eyes—flew down the stairs, and Marty had just enough opportunity to raise his gun and shoot.
Not even waiting for the result, he rolled out from under the zombie, toward the bathroom door. He got up, fled into the bathroom, and locked the door. Right away something slammed into the door, weakening it and the lock.
Shaking, adrenaline pumping with fury—Marty had never fired at a person until today—he reloaded his gun while a zombie tried to break the door down.
He had just finished loading and pumping the gun when a zombie—he couldn’t tell which one, all of them had significant chunks of skull missing—crashed in. Marty aimed and blasted its head, dropping it.
Silence.
He noted he had shot three zombies in the basement a second time in the skull. Two he last shot—once each—upstairs.
Oh, no.
Guessing the zombie in front of him would re-animate, he shot it again in the skull, this time pulverizing what remained of its brain.
He hoped three times had done the trick.
He crept out of the bathroom and shot the zombies lying at the bottom of the basement stairs twice each at their skulls.
He pumped his last shell from the magazine into the chamber. He felt in his pockets. Only three shells left. He hurriedly re-loaded them into the magazine as his heart raced. His awareness flashed to the blood and zombie brains that covered his body. Now he ran up the stairs, pivoting, expecting a zombie.
And there it crouched, about ten feet away from him in the hall, with some missing skull, eating his wife’s brains.
He shot the zombie in the head twice, driving it back away from his wife. Knowing she was dead, he ran to the front doorway only to find another zombie eating his daughter’s brains.
