Feeling dizzy, Jocelyn struggled to catch her breath. “I’ll be okay,” she rasped, placing her sword onto the asphalt. She knelt down, her heart pounding.
“I don’t mean to be rude, ma’am, but it might not be safe here.” She looked at him and noticed the ludicrous white stripe going down the length of his sweatpants.
“You can go. I need to say a prayer for his soul.” I have to contact him—have him tell me as much of his story as he can.
“Don’t be foolish, ma’am, there may be more lurking about. There’ll be plenty of time for prayer, but first we need to go into the store. I’ve been hidin’ there, and right now it’s safe.”
She couldn’t explain to him that there wasn’t much time, that she only had a few hours to communicate with it. Instead, she nodded and told him to lead the way.
Confirming that the zombie had returned home disturbed Marty, and he wanted to go back now and warn the others, but he faced a dilemma. This woman with the shotgun and sword—a sword that cut through the zombie’s head like butter—could make a useful ally and companion. And he couldn’t leave her to fend for herself—alone, she would eventually succumb to a horde of the zombies if they did come back. As the sheriff of this county, he felt responsible for all in it, but, more important, as a human being he just couldn’t leave her. It was one thing not to canvass for survivors, but quite another to stare one in the face and tell them they’re on their own. However, her ability to dispatch of the zombie with that sword made her dangerous—where did she get a sword, anyway? What kind of person comes equipped with a sword when a zombie apocalypse hits?
Could he trust this woman with the shotgun and sword?
First, he must get the woman to safety. They retreated to the general store’s storage area, though he didn’t know for sure if the zombies could detect them there. He supposed it was as good a place as any.
Darkness hit them as the dim sunlight only came through the windows on the doors that swung shut behind them. The woman fumbled around the walls near the doors looking for something, and it took Marty a few seconds to realize she was looking for a light switch.
“The electricity has been out for days,” he said. “Isn’t it out where you came from?”
The woman shook her head. “I didn’t realize the power grid was down. I came from a house with solar and a home battery.”
He grunted. “That could be useful.” He extended his hand. “Hello, I’m Sheriff Hill.”
She shook his hand. Her hands were strong, almost like a man’s, though her skin was soft, so she hadn’t known much manual labor. “Jocelyn Radomski. Thanks for coming by when you did, though I had no idea he was hostile.”
Marty raised an eyebrow. “They’re all hostile. How could you have survived without knowing that?”
“I was in a cabin by myself for the past month. I came out and got attacked by the cabin’s owner. If it weren’t for this—” She put down her sword on the floor, which she had kept out after chopping that zombie’s head off. “—I wouldn’t have survived.”
Damn. That meant the zombie he followed wasn’t the only one who had returned home.
“The shotgun could have done the trick,” Marty said.
“Ah, well, that’s good to know . . . I didn’t have access to it when he attacked.”
“So, when did this attack occur? Just recently?”
“No, uh, a few days ago.”
A few days? That was much earlier than he had expected. This would be the first instance of a zombie going home, to his knowledge. Unless he had always been home.
“I see. What have you been doing all this time since?”
“Well, I . . .” She paused for a while.
“Forgive me, ma’am. I don’t want this to sound like twenty questions, but I believe we can benefit from knowing each other’s stories.”
She nodded and paused for a while. People generally only do that when they’re trying to figure out what to say—and that meant they have something to hide. Marty felt it was time to look out the windows on the doors for zombies or other normals, but he didn’t want to give her more time to craft a good lie.
“Ma’am, I think we have to be honest with each other. Some incredible things have happened, things I wouldn’t believe possible, things I would think others couldn’t believe. Normally, I would be hesitant to repeat any of it for fear they think I’m nuts. But I know enough people who have had similar experiences—”
At that, her expression brightened. “You know more survivors?”
Marty looked at her curiously. “You’ve been in a cabin. Have you encountered more of these diseased creatures other than the cabin owner and that guy lying in the street?”
She looked like a deer caught in headlights. Definitely hiding something.
“I just, well, no I haven’t, but I came into town, and it was deserted, so I figured something really awful had happened to them. I suppose they could have fled, but . . . look, the cabin owner was dead. I mean, really dead. But then he came back to life to attack me. I hope you can believe that.”
Marty nodded. “As I said, I’ve seen things, heard stories, that I wouldn’t have believed a week ago if I hadn’t experienced it myself. How ‘bout this. I tell you my story, and then you tell me yours. You’ll see that I’m open to believing all sorts of crazy shit once you’ve heard my story.”
“We call them ‘zombies’ on account of they eat brains . . .”
Jocelyn noticed hunger setting in, but even with food stacked in crates and on shelves all around her, she waited until they finished telling their stories.
The sheriff told Jocelyn his long and sad story, of how his entire family became
