While waiting for the dead to clear the house for him, Noah wondered what would be left when they were through. He hoped that Alvin would be alive—maybe locked in some closet, like she was—but he knew that was hoping for much. There was a far greater chance Alvin would be a thriving corpse by then, but there was nothing Noah could do about that. Alive would be ideal. Dead: enough. He could work with either state so long as the brain was intact.
Noah’s thoughts were interrupted by a nightstand crashing through an upstairs window. A moment later, Jimmy dropped from the second floor, landing on the lawn at an awkward angle. He was quick to get up and continue moving, which was fortunate, as a corpse tumbled out the window right after him and fell head-first onto the spot where Jimmy had landed.
As he limped into the backyard, he caught sight of Noah.
“You,” he said bitterly.
“Yeah, me,” Noah replied holding the rifle up to his shoulder. “Other way,” he said, motioning with the barrel.
Jimmy kept coming.
Even though the gun was already loaded, Noah slid out the bolt and locked it back in place for effect. “You take the road or a bullet,” he told him. “I really don’t care.”
Jimmy stopped. His lip curled as he leered at Noah. Then he turned and hobbled away. “I'll get you,” he said looking back over his shoulder. “I’ll get you.”
“No, you won’t.”
As Jimmy departed, Noah trained the barrel on the back of his head. Why let him live? He thought. Revenge, as he well knew, was a highly motivating emotion. It’s likely, Jimmy will come for me when he’s ready, just like I came for Alvin.
Noah’s finger tightened on the trigger, agonizing over his options until it was too late. Jimmy disappeared around the bend in the driveway, and Noah lowered the gun. It won’t matter after tonight anyway, he told himself.
IX
By dawn most of the dead had wandered off. Noah took care of the few that strayed into the backyard, but most had instinctively walked out the front door and onto the street.
When the house looked like it was kicked, Noah quietly slipped in the back door. He crept through the house, stepping over rigid bodies without incident, until he came to the living room. A corpse laid adjacent to a staircase, its head moving from side to side—teeth clicking lightly.
Noah moved in for a closer look. His spinal cord had been blown out through its sternum. Paralyzed, it stared at Noah, futilely biting in his direction. Noah shuddered. If only we had such persistence in life, he thought. And with one solid chop to the temple, its teeth stopped clacking.
With machete drawn, Noah slowly advanced up the staircase. When he reached the landing, Dakota stepped out of the shadows.
Noah gasped. “Jesus.”
The skin on his chest and abdomen had been ripped off. His mangled guts dangled beneath his ribcage like the tentacles of some Lovecraftian monster. The flesh on his face had been gnawed off to reveal red-stained facial bones beneath. The only way Noah even knew that it was Dakota was by the black mane that still wreathed his bare skull. Even to a veteran of gore, like Noah, the gruesome sight of Dakota was enough to make his stomach turn.
His eyes now scraped sockets, Dakota could not see his prey, but he could hear it. He stepped forward and stumbled down the staircase. Noah held the broad side of the machete blade in front of his chest, bracing against Dakota’s weight as he pinned him against the wall.
Dakota snapped his jaws from side to side searching for a sweet spot. Noah pivoted and heaved his weight against the blade, pushing the horror down the staircase. Dakota glided over the stairs and landed on the floor with a hollow thud. After only a moment’s pause, he sat up and turned his head from side to side, listening for Noah. But the only noise he heard was the sip of the machete cutting the air as Noah jumped down the stairs, and by then it was too late. Dakota let out a feeble gurgle as Noah split his head down the center like a Venus flytrap.
Upstairs all the doors were open and the rooms devoid of anything animate, except for one. Noah cupped his ear to the door and heard movement. With machete poised to strike, he kicked the door open and waited, expecting something to spring forth from within. But nothing did. His eyes adjusted after a moment, and he could see a vague shape squirming in the far corner of the room.
As he inched his way into the darkness, the stench of rot grew more pungent. Noah moved to a window on the far wall and tore down a sheet that had been tacked to the frame. The early morning sun filled the room with a sallow glow. In the corner lay Alvin—now a member of the living dead. His brothers had tied his arms and legs to the bedposts with rope. Bloodied bandages dressed his chest and arms. Alvin’s wounds were skin avulsions—craters in the tissue that required surgical intervention, but without any hospitals or medical knowledge, the Bartlett’s could only slap bandages on their brother and hope his body would take care of the rest.
Noah approached the bed slowly, wary that the ropes might snap at any moment.
