Licking his dry, cracked lips, Mort continued up the path, expecting someone to pop up at any second. He would be ready to fire if they did. The ten-minute walk took twice that time as he approached quietly, walking in the already broken path ahead of him, so he didn't have to crunch through the frozen surface of the snow. Still, his approach made more sound than he cared for. He listened intently for sounds of anyone else approaching, but all he heard was the howl of the wind and the clatter of leafless branches as they brushed against each other.
He rounded the last turn in the road and found nothing. The door to the house was closed, and there were no bodies shambling around the property. But they could still be inside. He was thinking about how to enter the house and take the person by surprise when he noticed the message in the snow. Still alive. Katie and Joan. Compound.
He reached out to touch the words but then drew his hand back, not wanting to mess the words up. He read them again and again until they made sense to him. They're alive. They're waiting for me. The shotgun dropped to the snow, and he put his hands to his eyes as tears formed there. He smiled as he cried. The big man resisted the urge to crawl over to the words and lay on them.
Eventually, when he thought he was developing frostbite, and the cold, gray sky had turned even darker, he lifted himself to his feet. His knees and hips had stiffened from sitting on the ground, and he staggered up the steps to the house. That night, with a belly full of oatmeal covered in ketchup, he slept as soundly as he had for a month. And for the first time in a week, he didn't think about killing himself. It was a good day.
****
Katie's journey back to the compound had started out fine. She had made it across the washout with no problem, despite her exhaustion. However, as she tried to make her way back to the compound, something happened.
First, she felt a flash of hotness in her shoulder. She stopped in her tracks, wondering at the strange sensation. The warmth radiated from the spot where Joan had inadvertently shot her. She reached inside her shirt and touched her hand to the spot, wondering exactly what was going on. The scar felt warm to the touch, feverish. Even though it was freezing out, she undid her shirt and looked at the spot. The scar, still fresh and tender, had developed a black ring around it, and the word "infection" popped into her mind.
This wasn't the first time she had felt the strange sensation, but it was the most intense. Usually, the feeling lasted for a minute or so, but this time, it did not seem intent on going away. She picked up her pace. She wanted to get back to the compound. Joan would know what to do.
Katie hustled through the woods, not caring how much sound she made. Her body broke out in a hot sweat, and she was breathing so hard that she barely noticed the sound of the dead thing before it was reaching out for her. Its cold hands grazed her forehead, sending a chill through her burning hot body.
She spun and saw the rotten face of a gangly dead man. The skin of its face hung in tattered ribbons, dangling and jiggling with each movement. Thin, white hair hung down the sides of the man's face, as if, when alive, he had grown spider webs instead of actual hair. The muscles in its bare arms bunched as it tried to grapple Katie's much smaller form to the ground.
Katie fought the urge to scream. Where there was one of the dead, there would always be more. She pushed and fought, trying to create enough separation between her and the dead man so that she could pull the rifle from her back and kill the damn thing.
It was persistent, though, and its fingers grasped at her heavy jacket, limiting her movements. It pulled her tighter, its yellow teeth gnashing inches from her face. She was losing. She wasn't strong enough. It pulled her closer and closer. She felt the baby inside her kicking, and she took a deep breath and clenched her jaw. With the last of her remaining energy, she leaned into the embrace of the dead thing. She ducked her head under its arm and pushed as hard as she could, knocking the dead man off-balance. She thought she was free, but as it fell, one of its hands managed to grab a hold of the strap of her rifle.
The weight of the dead man falling to the ground pulled her to her knees on top of the creature. Her breath plumed before her, and she pounded at the dead thing below her, trying to untangle the dead man's hand from her rifle strap. In the distance, she could hear the crunch of more snow, and she knew that her time was limited.
She gave up on trying to pull the dead thing's slimy, cold fingers from the strap of the rifle, and she held a hand in front of the dead man's face. It snapped at her, and its arms and hands followed, trying to grasp at Katie's proffered hand and bring it to its mouth. With the rifle strap now free, she rolled to her side, clicked the safety off, leveled the rifle at the creature's head, and
