"Can we cut it off?" Clara asked.
"Fuck that. I already lost two fingers yesterday.I'm not losing an arm today," Katie said, the blood draining from herface.
Joan said, "No, it wouldn't do any good. The bodycan move your entire volume of blood within only a couple of minutes. If thiswas a bite from one of them, cutting off the arm wouldn't stop it. You'd justhave a dead person with one arm."
"None of this matters right now," Lou said."We'll keep an eye on her, but right now, we have to get the fuck out ofhere."
They felt the truth in his words, the urgency. They hadto leave. They had to get the fuck out of suburbia before anything else couldhappen.
"Let's grab what we can, and check out thegarage," Clara said.
Joan hung back as the others moved through the house likea scourging wind, snatching up anything that could be of use. "Was itreally a dog?" Joan asked conspiratorially.
Katie nodded her head, still shocked that the others hadbeen ready to kill her just a few moments ago. "I think so. I don't knowfor sure. I was just running on adrenaline there. I don't really remember muchof it."
"If you start to feel... different. Let us know. Iwon't let them kill you, but we also don't want to take the chance that you'regoing to turn on us. And, just so you know, if it was a dog, you're not out ofthe woods yet. There's still rabies to worry about."
"Rabies?"
"Yes, rabies. It's a nasty way to go," Joansaid.
"Is there anything we can do?" Katie asked.
"Not without going to a hospital or a doctor'soffice, and I can guarantee that you don't want to go to any of those placesright now."
Katie slumped on the ground, worry on her face. Joan feltbad for her, but she wasn't in the business of lying to people. She had givenher the news as softly as she could, but in the end, shitty news was shittynews.
They spent the next few minutes tossing the house,pulling out drawers and dumping their contents onto the ground. They shovedwhatever was useful into their pockets, the usual stuff, flashlights, food,toothpaste. In the kitchen, Joan found some paper bags, and they all begantossing their goods into them.
Clara ran up to her, something hidden behind her back,and a big smile on her face. "Look what I found," she said.
Joan already knew what it was before she even pulled themout. A pack of cigarettes. You would have thought that Clara had found the curefor the walking dead, but no, it was just a pack of generic cigarettes. Joan,fully knowing the consequences of smoking, found that she was actually pleased."Gimme one of those," she said.
They lit them up, and stood smoking in the kitchen,puffing smoke into the air as the dead pounded on the outside of the house. Noone noticed as Katie moved to a different part of the house to avoid the smoke.
****
In the garage they found a brand new vehicle. It was adark blue SUV, the temporary license plate was still valid. That'll be goodif the cops ever pull us over, Lou thought humorlessly. He had finallyfound the keys by fishing through the pockets of the dead man in the livingroom.
Fighting with the shovel had been tougher than he hadexpected. The balance of the shovel was such that all the weight was on theend. He hadn't been able to get enough power swinging the damn thing like abaseball bat. Instead, he had basically had to run at the man and drive him tothe ground. Once the man was on the ground, that's when the shovel showed itstrue benefits.
Now they stood in the garage. They had already disengagedthe garage door. From inside the house, they heard the sounds of breaking glass.The dead were coming.
"Well, this is it boys and girls. Either this pieceof junk works, or we're trapped in this garage for the rest of our lives."
It was a bleak statement, but then Katie said,"Check out what I found." From a paper bag in the back of the SUV,she produced a bottle of wine and a bottle opener. "I found it in thekitchen... only damn alcohol in the house."
Smiles popped up in the darkness, illuminated by thepools of light cast from their flashlights, as if they were all camping and readyto tell ghost stories.
"No time like the present," Mort said. He hadnever been one for drinking, but things were different now.
Katie peeled the foil off the bottle and then jammed thecorkscrew into the top. It seemed like she twisted the handle forever.Meanwhile, they could hear shuffling, crashing footsteps inside the house. Theyhad locked the door behind them, figuring that they were never going to go backinside. Altogether, they had spent close to fifteen minutes combing through thehouse, scavenging supplies, and they had done well. Flashlights, batteries,cans of food, and even a brand new car. It was like they had come awayvictorious from a game show.
With a pop, the cork came free, and Katie held the bottleout before her. It was halfway to her lips before she decided that sheshouldn't. She handed the bottle to Clara on her left and said, "Youfirst."
Clara had no such reservations. She tipped the bottleback, and took a healthy swig of wine. It was classless, but class had littleplace in present circumstances. As she pulled the bottle away, she had ared-lipped smile on her face. "It's awful," she said, "but it'salso the best damned thing I think I ever tasted."
She passed the bottle to Joan who took a swig, her facescrewing up when she was done. They stood in the darkness of the garage,passing the bottle back and forth. When the bottle was close to done, she tookit and had one last swig, figuring that a little wine wouldn't hurt the childgrowing inside her. She held the empty bottle in her hand, wishing that therewas more. Then she brought
