"Hello?" he called. "Is anybody there?" He hadn't even pulled his hammer this time. It still hung from the belt loop of his pants. If one of the dead appeared, he wasn't even sure that he would pull the damn thing then. Mort staggered inside with short jerky steps. He headed first to the kitchen. He threw open the cupboard doors. Each empty cupboard was like a punch to the gut. After the third cupboard, piled high with dishes that hadn't seen use in months, maybe years, all feelings of hope fled from his body. He leaned on the counter, his head down. With his eyes squeezed shut, he threw open the door of the refrigerator. When he had composed himself, he opened his eyes and looked inside. An old pack of hot dogs sat on the wire rack, next to the remains of a moldy block of cheese. He swore at the owners of the house. Why even leave anything at all? Out of duty, he checked the other rooms in the house.
He found the owner in the back bedroom. He was an elderly man, at least, that's what he thought judging by the wrinkled hands. There was no head left to judge by. The upper half of the man's torso reclined on the bed. His feet, still clad in boots, rested on the floor. A dark stain covered the ceiling, and a shotgun rested on the floor. More blood covered the man's bedspread. Mort knelt down and picked up the shotgun, frustrated.
He didn't need more guns. He needed food, but more than that, he needed someone to talk to. Mort checked the shotgun to see if it was still loaded. Then he propped the stock of the shotgun on the ground. He looked at the remains of the old man, and he tried to figure out who he was. He tried to fill in the man's background, his personality. He jumped at his own voice as he began to talk.
"Bet it was tough out here, all alone," Mort said.
Mort nodded at the man's imagined response.
"I know. I had me some friends out here, but I don't know where they are now. I don't know if they're alive or dead, or walking around dead. You know what I mean?"
He listened to the man's words.
"I don't know if I can find them. I'm… tired. You know? Yeah, you know. That's why you ain't got no head."
Mort stood up then. He realized that something was wrong with him, but he was ok with that. He scoured the house from top to bottom, calling to the headless man as he found more batteries for his flashlight and more shells for the shotgun. He liked the shotgun better than the rifle. It just felt better, and he knew he had more leeway in taking out the dead with it due to the spread of the pellets.
When he was done, he closed the door as well as he could with the splintered doorjamb and began the snowy trudge back home. Each step felt like a dozen. Every time he lifted his foot, it felt like his feet were bowling balls. The chill wind brushed across his face, and he shivered, shrinking down into the warmth of his old, olive-green military jacket. It helped, but only barely. The real cold was inside of him growing in his heart, threatening to spread to every cell in his body. Mort was not an educated man, but he knew when something was wrong. He knew that the way he had been thinking over the last week was not right. But he didn't know what to do about it.
He was plodding along when a deer sprang across the road. It stopped in the middle of the lane, its head up, and its ears twitching. It was thirty yards away, close enough that Mort could possibly shoot it. All he saw was food standing on four legs. Slowly, so as not to disturb the deer, he raised the shotgun to eye level. He peered down the sight, and then he couldn't do anything. His finger felt frozen and locked on the trigger. His mouth watered simply from the idea of eating the deer, but he couldn't do it.
As he stared down the sight, he wondered what the point of it would be. How long could he live off of one deer? Was this deer's life worth his? As he pondered the question, the wind shifted, swirling small crystals of snow around his face and spraying his scent over the deer. Its ears twitched once, and then it bounded into the woods.
Mort let the shotgun drop to his side. Though his stomach gnawed at him, he felt fine about not shooting the deer. Let it live.
He continued his trudge back home. As he approached the road, he saw a path of broken snow. Immediately, he dropped into a crouch, though his aching knees and hips rebelled at the movement. The tracks in the snow didn't give him any clue as to the owner. The prints were small, and whoever had been to his house had walked over their own path, muddying things. He couldn't tell if they had come from his house and gone back to it or the other way around. He walked slowly, his heart thumping in his chest, his hands freezing on the metal of the shotgun. He needed a set of gloves. Maybe he could fashion some out of some old socks or something.
Mort shook his head and focused his mind. He shouldn't be wandering, thinking about gloves. There was someone at his house, or maybe someone had been there and left. Maybe it was someone from the compound, come to make him pay for what he and Katie had done to them. Maybe it was a random survivor breaking into houses the way he had done. One
