Clara looked at the rifle, pointed it at the man, andpulled the trigger. There was a click. Crazy old bastard, she thought.The gun was empty. She let it clatter to the ground.
"Come on!" Joan yelled, as she threw open thedoor to the house, ignoring the bloody handprints on the screen door. Clarahefted the rifle in her hands and stepped into the darkened interior of the oldman's house. Immediately, she wished that the rifle actually had some bulletsin it.
In the darkness, underneath the moans of the dead, andthe distant barking of the wild mongrels trumpeting their kill, Clara couldhear the stretch and creak of rope as shadowy figures strained in the dark. Theother survivors stood in the living room, looks of shock on their faces. Claracircled around, letting her eyes adjust.
She saw them, an older woman and a couple of children,one boy and one girl, tied up with coarse rope to wooden chairs at the diningroom table. They had been tied up for some time, and the rope that held theirarms down had shredded away the flesh, leaving gaping wounds in their gray,mottled skin. Their teeth clacked in the gloom of the dining room, orange lightpouring in through smoke-tarnished drapes.
Beer cans were piled up in a paper bag to the left of theone empty seat at the table. An ashtray overflowed with cigarette butts.
"What the hell is this?" Mort asked.
"It looks like he was just keeping them here,"Clara said, wondering in her mind if she would have done the same withCourtney. At the beginning maybe she would have, but knowing what she knew now,she couldn't believe that anyone would go through with it. How could the oldman stand the smell, the stench of the dead clawing up his nose? How could hesleep with the dead gnashing their teeth just a few feet down the hallway? Butmost of all, why wouldn't he give them peace? Maybe he was too weak. Maybe hehad used up all of his ammo.
"I'm not staying here with those things," Joansaid.
"Then let's fix the problem," Lou stalked intothe kitchen and pulled a butcher knife free from the knife block. He walkedinto the living room, and without pausing, stepped up to the old lady. He raisedthe knife over his head and brought it downwards. The blade skittered off theold woman's skull, splitting the flesh but leaving the bone intact.
"Goddammit!" Lou said.
This time, he brought the knife around to the front andplunged it deep into the old woman's eye. Her body spasmed and went still. Loutried to pull the knife free, but it was lodged too deep into the old woman'sskull.
There was banging on the screen door as the dead outsideaccumulated like drifts of snow piling up against a building in the middle of asnowstorm. Lou gave up on the butcher knife, and walked into the kitchen tograb a small, more delicate knife. With a paring knife in his hand, heapproached the first of the children.
His hand flattened the curly blond hair of a little girl.He steadied her head this way as he drove the paring knife through her eyesocket. There was an audible crunch, followed by another spasm, and then shetoo was still. The little boy came next. His freckled face sneered up at Lou ashe wiped the blade on the shirt of the little girl. Then his sneer was gone,replaced by a rivulet of blood running from his eye socket to his cheek.
Just a few weeks ago, they had all been shocked to seeKatie gun down a little girl so fast that no one had even had the time toobject. Now, they couldn't wait to see it done. The death of an undead childwas nothing anymore. It was just a fact of life. There was no more goddamnkaraoke, beer was no longer cold, and sometimes you had to stab an undead kidin the eye with a paring knife taken from the kitchen of an old man that hadjust held a rifle on you.
"Toss this place," Lou said, and they rushedthrough the house, finding anything they could use to fight with. They had losttheir weapons, their food, even their damn toothpaste in the fire. One damncul-de-sac, Clara thought, and we couldn't even make it out unscathed.
Clara and Joan headed down the stairs into a basementarea. The basement was dark, lit only by a couple of small rectangular windowsset near the roof of the basement. They were in a room with a smooth concretefloor, crisscrossed by webs of faint cracks. The walls were concrete, linedwith wooden joists that kept the upper floors from caving in on them. A waterheater sat cold and dead in one corner; a similarly defunct furnace sat next toit.
In the gloom of the basement, they found handledimplements, things that could be used to both keep the dead away andpotentially incapacitate them if necessary. Shovels, a pickaxe, a sledgehammer.They grabbed them and climbed up the stairs, their weapons carried the waymothers used to carry babies.
They dumped them in the living room, amid the sounds ofthe dead trying to bash their way into the house.
"I saw a hammer and some nails down there,"Clara said. "Should we board this place up?"
"I don't know," Joan said.
She seemed lost in her own thoughts, but now wasn't thetime for introspection or wallowing in self pity. "Hey, are you ok?"Clara asked Joan.
"No, no, I'm not," she responded.
"Listen, I know things are shitty right now, but youcan't give up. We're all here. We're all trying to stay alive."
Joan looked at her, a cold look in her eye. "We'renot all here."
Clara slapped Joan across the face. Joan looked shocked,and Clara didn't feel the least bit sorry for it. Hell, she owed her one anywayfor tricking her into quarantine. Never mind that the move had probably savedher life. "Hey, don't gimme that shit. Things suck. I get it. But that'sno reason to give up."
Joan
