Dan suddenly turns away and throws up on the floor.
Thomas darts a look at Jennie. He has almost—amazingly—forgotten about her while focusing on the zombie child. The last screw of the radiator is still holding. If they’re lucky, it will hold just long enough for them to get out.
Just as he turns his attention back to the hatch, the bloody arm disappears back up through the whole.
“No!” he shouts. “No, don’t you fucking do it! Don’t put your other arm down here! I fucking dare you!”
The thought of having to break the zombie child’s other arm is too much to bear.
But the arm doesn’t appear. Nothing appears. Instead, he can hear the zombie child getting to her feet. She walks away from the hatch.
Dan has finished puking and is wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Where did she go?” he croaks.
“No idea.”
A new sound comes down through the hole now: it’s a whiny scratching noise. Like fingernails on glass. It takes Thomas a few seconds to figure out what the zombie child is doing.
“She went to the window,” he mumbles. “Maybe … maybe she saw something.” He turns and points. “Check the windows in the other room, Dan.”
Dan slips around Jennie, who reaches for him, and steps through the hole in the wall. Thomas holds his breath waiting. A few seconds pass. Then Dan shouts: “A car! Thomas, I can see a car! Someone’s coming!”
Thomas feels his heart leap.
At that exact moment, something happens which turns the situation upside down completely inside the steamy basement: The last screw gives way and the radiator comes loose.
NINE
Once again, everything speeds up. Like fast-forwarding a movie.
Jennie staggers towards Thomas, dragging the heater noisily behind her.
Thomas is still standing on the second rung of the ladder. He turns just in time to see her, gives a yelp and jumps aside. Jennie’s outstretched hands only catch the ladder. Thomas runs behind the nearest stool, lifting it up and holding it out like a shield. A gutted rabbit still dangles from the seat.
Jennie comes at him, not paying the slightest notice to the stool, even as Thomas thrusts it at her, knocking her backwards. She just regains balance and tries again, snarling hungrily.
Thomas backs away, bumping into the table, turning in another direction. He doesn’t dare take his eyes off of Jennie, as they perform a bizarre dance: him backing up, her still dragging the heater on the cord. Thomas throws the stool at her face. She falls over backwards, but immediately tries to get back up. Thomas grabs the next stool, just as he notices Dan’s head peeking in through the hole in the wall.
“Watch out!” Thomas roars. “She’s free!”
His warning is redundant; Dan has eyes. In fact, he has very large eyes right now. They’re staring at the reanimated corpse of his older sister, now sensing his presence and turning around to come at him, her thin fingers reaching for him, her mouth gargling eagerly.
“For fuck’s sake, Dan! Get out of the way!”
This time, the warning is not redundant, as it snaps Dan out of his temporary trance. He disappears through the hole a second before Jennie bends over clumsily and tries to follow him.
Oh, shit! He’ll be trapped in there! There’s no room to move around her …
Thomas’s gaze falls on the heater still tied to Jennie’s leg. He jumps forward, grabs it and tugs hard.
Her leg jerks backwards, causing her to slide into a painful split. With a grunt she tries to crawl on, but Thomas pulls the heater again, dragging her a few feet away from the wall. Jennie flails her arms, clawing at the concrete floor, as though to pull herself forward.
Thomas tugs again, and the cord breaks, sending him tumbling backwards into a stool. Jennie, finally free of her anchor, crawls eagerly forward and slips through the hole in the wall.
“Oh, fuck … Dan! She’s coming for you!”
“I’m safe!” Dan’s voice calls back. “At least I think so …”
Thomas steps carefully to the hole and looks into the other room. Jennie has come to her feet and is making her way through the maze of old furniture and junk. She bumps into things, knocking stuff to the floor, but keeps steering determined towards the far corner, where a large dresser is standing. For a moment, Thomas figures Dan must have locked himself inside the dresser, but then he sees him on top of it. There’s little more than two feet between the dresser and the ceiling, but Dan has managed to squeeze himself into the tight space.
Jennie reaches the dresser and reaches up. The tips of her fingers are ten inches short of the top of the dresser.
“She … she can’t get to me …” Dan says, looking like he might laugh or cry any minute.
Then, there’s a loud, terrified scream from up above.
Thomas looks to the ceiling, then over at Dan. “I think our guests have met the zombie kid.”
TEN
“I need to go on,” Thomas tells Dan. “Are you gonna be okay?”
Jennie is still standing by the dresser, stretching her arms in the air, like a groupie trying to touch her idol on stage. She moans and steps a few inches from side to side, but makes no other effort to find a way to get to Dan.
“Do I have a choice?” Dan asks grimly. “It’s okay, just go. I’ll make it till you find help.”
“Right. If anything happens, just call out as loud as you can.”
“I will.”
Thomas darts one last look at Jennie. She’s completely absorbed with Dan and doesn’t seem like she’ll get tired of him anytime soon. Thomas is just about to turn around, when something comes to him. “Dan?”
