That could be her in the other room. That would be her, screaming nonstop for hours on end. She chewed the inside of her lip, wondering why the screaming had stopped. Was Tammy dead? She held the knife in her hand, turning it over and over, focusing on it so her mind wouldn't run away to a different place. It needed sharpening. The way she had been using it had dulled the knife to the point of near worthlessness. It might as well be a butter knife.
She knew there was a whetstone in some of Chad's things. They were still bundled in the corner, Chad's things. She had yet to go through them. She thought that touching his possessions would drive her insane. She jammed the knife into the wooden wall of the ranger station. The wood shuddered from the force. A howling wind shot through the night, or was it morning now? Either way, it was still dark out.
She pulled the knife from the wood. That could be her in there. Suddenly, she had to see. She folded the knife and put it in her pocket. There would be time to sharpen it later. She stood at the closed door of her room for a heartbeat, and then she threw it open. She crossed the narrow hallway and peeked into the room. She could smell the blood, the shit, the piss.
On the bed, Tammy's head lolled to the side, and she wondered if she had died. Oh, God. She could die. Dez didn't want to die giving birth. She could think of no worse way to go. It would be like running a marathon, only to have your heart burst within sight of the finish line.
Joan stood with her back to her, bending over Tammy's unconscious body. Blood soaked the sheets, and Dez's hand went to her mouth involuntarily. Tammy was dead. There was no doubt about that.
Katie hunched over with a towel in her hands, wiping the sweat away from Joan's forehead, concern and concentration etched on Joan's face in equal parts. Mort stood to Joan's right, holding Tammy's limp hand. He whispered words softly, tears running from his eyes.
Dez slipped the knife from her pocket. It was dull, but it could be of use. If Tammy woke, she would stop her. She was toying with moving to the head of the bed to finish Tammy off when Joan stood up, a wet, wriggling thing in her hands. It was a baby, normal looking. Joan slapped it on its bottom, and then there was a wet cry.
Dez backed away from the room, the shock of new life driving her away. It was a boy. She forgot about Tammy and ran from the cabin.
****
Outside, snow fell audibly, dropping from a thousand feet in the air to land with the tiniest of thuds on the ice-crusted surface of the snow. The cloud above had a million such flakes, a steady bombardment that it could keep up for hours.
Outside the compound, the snow piled up, flake by flake, minute by minute. Cold feet, frozen like blocks of ice, paced outside the compound, smashing the snow, smashing the snowflakes, compacting them, and with each step, those cold feet trod higher and higher.
Hands like frozen steaks pounded on the thin metal of the trailers, producing a dull bang that traveled throughout the forest, passing through leafless branches and branches covered in pine needles, until the bang found its way into the rotten earlobes of a dead thing. The dead thing rocked in a circle, focusing on the bang.
Its feet crunched in the snow, and it emitted a groan, a low, guttural bellow. That bellow drifted across the mostly unbroken surface of the snow until it found another set of ears, not alive, but not dead either. This being, this once-man, emitted its own groan, even as it rocked towards the sound it had heard, following the sound of food. Noise meant food.
That creature's groan was picked up by another, and another, until it reached the ears of dozens of the dead. The dead moved among the cars, constantly bumping into each other and veering this way and that. But one of them heard a faint groan coming from the woods. It turned, drawn by the groan.
Two of the dead saw another walking into the forest in the direction of a barely audible moan, and they followed. The two became three, and four more of the dead noticed the three, and they became seven, and soon they were all coming. Struggling through the snow, a trail of the dead leaving cars behind, leaving behind the place where they had died trapped on a mountain road.
Outside the compound, another of the dead pounded on the trailers, compacting the snow beneath, walking over dead bodies that were already encased in snow, the dead that the survivors had already killed but been unable to burn.
The snow fell harder now, like a thick white blanket, like the world was covered by a layer of static. The snowpack outside the trailers thickened, and with each passing hour, the dead rose.
Chapter 15: Audrey Hopburn Belgian IPA
Rudy knew the kids in the room. They were him. They were orphans like he had been. His pain, the pain at having been unwanted, was not something they shared. Not yet, at least. But
