His first instinct upon seeing the armless man had beento get out and run, but as he had learned in his training, first instincts wereusually the wrong instinct. First instincts were essentially panic in brainwaveform, misfired neurons reacting like a pinball machine's bumpers when anegative stimulus was introduced. He was lucky. His training had prevented himfrom hopping in a vehicle and trying to escape the city.
As he had heard it from a soldier at the Coliseum, thehighways had become parking lots where the dead roamed; they were now theworld's biggest mausoleums. Had he followed his first instinct, he could be oneof the dead, wandering among the forgotten Pontiacs, BMWs, and Priuses. It wasthe second instinct that Blake had grown to trust.
That first night, as the city began to fall under thespell of the dead, he had waited, venturing out into the street to do a littlefield study. His first shot at one of the dead had been a clear hit. The bullethad hit the creature, a neighbor that he had recognized from his frequentdog-walking forays, right in the chest. It staggered but continued forward. Heswore, pulled the bolt back on his rifle, and aimed again. It was dark; thestreetlights only lit certain pockets of the street and even though he was surehe had hit the man, it was always possible that he had missed. He waited untilhis neighbor was underneath one of the streetlights, and then he fired again. Thesecond shot hit his neighbor in the chest with visible force, and the creaturetottered in the street before regaining its balance and starting forward again.Still, it came at him, blood running down the man's shirt. When the man was ahundred feet away, despite a massive chest wound, Blake's second instinctkicked in. The head. It had to be the head. And if a bullet in the head didn'ttake the man down, then they were all fucked anyway, unless they could invent abullet that would sever a human's legs and arms. He sighted, pulled thetrigger, and smiled in the darkness of the street as the back of his neighbor'shead exploded, creating a fine red mist under a streetlight. He crumpled to theground, and Blake smiled like a wolf in the night.
Later, while he was cleaning his rifle, he heard a pairof gunshots coming from the house next door. The house had been turned into arestaurant by the old lady that owned it. It was a two-story building thatdwarfed his own little piece of real estate. Without thinking, he had rushednext door. He figured that anyone who could take a slab of pork and turn itinto a saucy piece of heaven deserved his help. Once inside, he found the ownerof the house lying dead on the floor, and when he ventured upstairs, he found moreof the dead scratching and clawing at the bathroom door. Blake was eager totest his hypothesis about headshots, so he put it to the test. When he wasdone, the bathroom door opened slowly to reveal a dirty homeless man lying onthe floor, pills scattered about him. He had never seen the man before, butleaving him lying on the floor was no way for any man to die, so he had helpedthe man back to his place and gotten him back on his feet... all because he hadheard those gunshots. Now he heard nothing.
Mort held out a candy bar to him, and he took it,muttering the words, "Thank you." He thought the words came outalright, but he couldn't be sure. He wondered what would happen to his speechover time. He already had a bit of a country boy accent. As he tore open theyellow wrapper and took a bite from a Butterfinger, he wondered if he wouldeventually come to sound like those deaf people he had seen and heard throughouthis life, his speech accurate enough to be understood, but a dead giveaway tothe entire world that he couldn't hear.
He convulsed with a silent laugh. He supposed therewouldn't be much of an "entire world" left to hear him by the timethat happened.
Blake chewed his candy bar, the fake, crispy, peanutbutter bits getting crushed into the crowns of his molars. He dug some of thecompressed material out with his fingernail, and then proceeded to try and readthe lips of the two girls across from him. He might not be able to hear, but hewas determined to learn to read lips. He had been practicing for days. Itseemed like such an easy thing, but so far, his efforts had been unsuccessful.He thought he was making progress. Given enough time, Blake could do anything.
****
Unaware that they were being spied upon, Joan and Claracontinued to talk about random shit. It was all they had. They kept away fromtopics like family, friends, religion and politics. All these things were deadand gone. Now there was only time and memory. For now, they were comfortablewith that.
"Alright," Joan said, snacking on her own candybar. "We're in a movie theater, so what movie do you wish you could watchright now?"
Clara, the wilder, more demonstrative of the two, leaned backon her elbows, and looked up at the square of light in the ceiling. She thoughtabout it for a while, and then her lips spread in a smile as she said,"SLC Punk!"
"What the hell is that?" Joan said.
"Oh, come on. You've never seen SLC punk?"
"Nope."
"I wish I had a DVD player and some electricity. I'dmake you watch it right now."
Joan shrugged her shoulders in an easy way. Though theirinitial meeting had
