“Agnes. Agnes Crabapple.”
“I’m Vin Scoggins.” Tears stung his eyes.
“Nice to meet you, Vin. Now can you hurry it up? I’m in a lot of pain here. And I’m sooo cold.”
“You might die of hypothermia? That’s not a bad way to go.”
“And if I don’t? I’ll starve to death. Did I mention I’m confined to this bed without food? I’m really very hungry . . . And I hear starving to death is really horrible.”
He was despondent but determined to carry out her wishes, if only to prove to himself that he was no coward. He looked down as he said, “In the mouth would be more certain to be painless and effective.”
“Yes, yes, fine. Do it now before you change your mind.”
She tilted her head back and opened her mouth, closing her eyes. Before he could overthink it, he placed the shotgun in her mouth, said, “Goodbye, Agnes,” and pulled the trigger.
Her diseased brains splattered against the wall.
He stood there still for several seconds. Then he retracted his shotgun and left the room. He vowed not to tell a single soul about what he had done.
Trudging through the wet snow to the house where Vin found the firewood, Janice gained a newfound respect for Jize Chen. She always respected him as a musician, but she never got to appreciate him as a person. She forgot his precise age, but she remembered from his bio online that he was in his late sixties. And yet here he was, braving the falling snow and the wind and the several inches of slush, all to help carry firewood for the group.
Although he probably felt he had little choice. Alexander couldn’t carry firewood because he was resting his wrist—Janice insisted upon that. No one would let Emily do it. And the sheriff needed to protect those two, plus the store, as he and Vin were the only ones with shotguns and the training in how to use them.
And Vin needed to protect those carrying the wood, and to do that well, he couldn’t carry it himself.
That left Janice and Jize to carry the firewood.
Janice looked back to see Jize struggling to keep up. Janice herself was several yards behind Vin.
“Slow down!” Janice called.
Vin turned around with a scowl on his face. As he approached her, shotgun in his right hand, he looked menacing, almost frightening and intimidating, despite his absurd wet navy-blue sweat pants with the white stripes.
“I thought I told you no loud noises.”
Janice looked around. “Here? There’s no one out here.”
“You don’t know that. People could be watching us. And I scared off a pack of wild dogs with this.” He stuck his shotgun out at her.
“People who need our help could be watching us. Should we turn our backs on them?”
Jize caught up to them. He took off his gloves and blew on his hands.
“We have enough people to deal with,” Vin said, scowling again.
“We are just a burden to you,” Jize said in between breaths on his hands.
“I didn’t say that. You’re helping me carry firewood.”
“So we’re pack mules, then?” Janice asked. “You know what I think? I think you care about no one but yourself. You judge everyone by how useful they are to you.”
“So what would you have us do? Take in a whole town of survivors? You realize, don’t you, that not the best ones of us will survive this.”
Janice clucked her tongue on the roof of her mouth. “You don’t trust anyone, do you?”
“I’m trusting each of you with those handguns, even though you barely know how to use them.”
“So,” Jize said. “We are your pack mules, and our worth is determined by how good we are with a handgun.”
Vin clenched his jaw and scowled once more. “I won’t have this conversation in the middle of a snowstorm, out in the open like this. You two need to face the reality that the life you once led, the society you lived in, is over. And the first thing we need to do is to get some god-damned firewood so we can all keep warm, dry these wet clothes, and maybe cook some food. I’m worrying about our survival—”
“Your survival,” Janice said.
“Enough,” Vin said through closed teeth. “Follow me and keep up.” With that, he turned around and waded through the slush. Jize hastily put on his gloves and followed.
Janice looked at the first house on the road that Vin walked toward. She still believed the best thing to do was canvass all the houses in town, looking for survivors, and bring them back to the supermarket.
Nonetheless, that idea frightened her. The sheriff had said the zombies were impervious to every weapon except a shotgun. Until she had one, she would never feel safe. What if not all the zombies traveled north? What if some remained behind? To finish the job?
Janice shuddered in the icy wind and then jogged in the slush, her legs wet and cold above her boots.
Chapter Twenty
Day Eight
Jocelyn jerked her body with a start. Splashing her wrists out of the water, she looked at them in a panic, expecting pain and gushing blood. Her wrists were perfectly clean. No blood. No cuts of any kind.
Was it all a dream?
No. The water was pink—some blood but not as much as expected.
No more voices. She faced the terror of another psychotic break. Thank the Lord it was over.
She dared not trust her memories, at least not entirely. Maybe she hadn’t slit her wrists?
She stood up, sending waves and splashes of pink over the side onto the floor. Inspecting her body for other sources of blood, she couldn’t find any, anywhere, not even in her vagina, so she wasn’t menstruating.
She remembered healing after George’s bite. Without a scar. Smooth skin.
She looked around for the knife and spotted it at the bottom of the tub. Sitting back down, she put her right arm in the water and cut a small sliver, drawing blood. Then she watched as the blood stopped flowing. Her wound closed
