He scampered back to the still open gun cabinet, jumping over his wife’s body. He pocketed more shells from off the floor, and placed one shell into the magazine, pumping it into the chamber.
Out of the corner of his eye, a zombie stood up and snarled.
It had little skull but with one eye intact.
He aimed and fired, pulverizing the rest of the skull as it flopped to the floor.
Tears streaming down his cheeks, he ran outside and looked around. No more zombies outside. He turned around and saw his daughter get up, turn her bloody head, snarl, and lunge at him.
She was a zombie.
And there was no more ammo in his gun.
Chapter Fourteen
Day Six
Their names were Kate, Aaron, Nickolas, and Zachary. They were all in their early twenties.
Her victims.
She meditated and met them in her Inner Temple, where they appeared to her as normal people. Her grandfather said she could communicate with the dead, just as she had with him, but only when touching their physical bodies.
“I’m sorry. I’m mentally ill, and I don’t have access to my medication. I had a psychotic break. I thought you were aliens come to kill me.”
“I understand,” Kate said. “I forgive you.”
“You do?”
“Yes, I do. I am going to the Kingdom of Heaven, where I will be reunited with my parents, rather than struggling for survival in a nightmare.”
“I see. Do all of you feel that way?”
“Yes,” they all said in unison.
“You are the one I feel sorry for,” Kate said.
It was as if the crushing weight of a building lifted off her. Her guilt subsided, though not entirely, but enough to ask the next question.
“Is there any information you can give me about the zombies? Did you encounter any?”
“We were recovering from a wild weekend—we all called in sick from work—when the news on TV broke to tell of a zombie apocalypse. Only a few minutes later, two zombies attacked us in my home. Two of us didn’t make it, but they slowed the zombies down enough for us to escape into my parents’ fallout shelter. The zombies tried to break the door down, but it was strong enough to hold. Thank the Lord for that or we all would have perished.”
“You wouldn’t have,” Jocelyn said sheepishly. “I think you would have become infected.”
“Sheesh. What a horrible life that must be. Thanks, Jocelyn, for killing us.”
“Um . . . okay . . . wait, you said your parents were dead. How is it their shelter?”
“I inherited the house from them.”
“I see,” was all Jocelyn could say.
“We decided to come here, to George’s house, after the power went out a few days ago and never came back on. It was a risk, but as I work in his store, I knew George had solar power.”
George had mentioned to Jocelyn that he owned a general store nearby.
“Oh, my God, what a disaster this is,” Kate continued. “After we left the shelter, we saw no zombies, but there was nobody else either! Dogs roamed around in packs, and there were a few stray cats, and a possum, but no people at all.” She paused. “Are they all infected?”
“I don’t know. You mean you encountered no one at all?”
“None until you.”
Jocelyn searched the dead bodies until she found a live cell phone, which gave the time as 7:03 p.m., August 31. She tried dialing 911 on that phone but it rang with no one picking up.
Jocelyn proceeded to remove the corpses from the house and placed them onto the patio next to George, whom she buried first. In order to have enough moonlight, but not wanting anyone to see her—she guessed being caught burying people wouldn’t go over well—she started as soon as it was dark, around eight o’clock. She buried them in the woods in shallow graves and covered them with leaves, and by the time she finished, the moon was disappearing behind the mountain she had called home for the month of August. Afterwards, she made the sign of the cross and went back inside. She thought about whether this whole thing was supernatural, mundane, or both combined.
More pressing was to find a place to sleep with no blood. George’s house had three bedrooms, she remembered. She entered the previously unseen third bedroom. It was an office with a computer and desk, with bookshelves, but no bed.
She reeked of body odor. She hadn’t showered since just after she killed George. So, after another long hot shower—George had a propane hot water heater—she made a nest of three clean blankets and a clean sheet on the floor. She turned out the lights and crawled in naked, refusing to wear her blood-soaked clothes.
Day Seven
When Jocelyn awoke, she felt a chill despite the layers of blankets on top of her. She searched George’s bedroom while using a blanket as a shawl, looking for something without blood stains to wear. The only thing that fit her were sweatpants, elastic on the waist and shins, as he was larger than her. She also identified a loose-fitting t-shirt and sweatshirt, which fit well enough. She looked ridiculous in the bathroom mirror, but that was the least of her worries.
Jocelyn turned on the TV and flipped though the channels, but all of them were blue screens—either the stations were all out, or George’s satellite dish was broken. She found an old portable radio in George’s bedroom. Static filled the entire FM and AM spectrums, except on one frequency of the AM dial. She interpreted an occasional break in the static as some kind of station signal trying to come through.
She left that station on as she drifted off to sleep again.
When she awoke, it was still dark both inside and outside, and a mumbled voice came through. Unable to make out anything, she turned up the volume and moved the dial back and forth, trying to obtain a better signal. One
