“You’ll kill us both and your mother too,” Dan goes on, speaking fast and low. “Even if she makes it out before the fire can get to her, the house will burn down and she’ll have nowhere to go.”
“You … you’re lying,” Dennis says.
“No, I’m not, Dennis. Don’t you know how gasoline works? It’s the fumes that will burn, and the fumes are drifting upwards. I guarantee you, if you drop that match, you’ll burn before I do. It’s dangerous for you to even stand there with it. You need to put it out right now!”
Dan surprises them both by shouting those last two words. Dennis jumps a little and takes half a step backwards before regaining control of himself.
Dan finds himself unable to stop talking. “You don’t want to do this, Dennis. I’m coming up now so that we can talk this over. I promise you I won’t try anything. And I know you won’t drop that match, because I know you’re too smart for that.”
Dan takes a step up, then another one, and Dennis is still hesitating. Then, as Dan takes yet another step, Dennis suddenly blows out the match.
Dan lets out a sigh of relief. “That’s good, Dennis. I knew you were too—”
“Don’t come any closer,” Dennis says, producing something from his back and points it at Dan. In the dim light, Dan can make out the gun.
Dan stops and holds up his hands. “Dennis,” he begins slowly.
“You might be right about the gasoline,” Dennis says. “That was a stupid idea. I hadn’t thought it through. But I was smart enough to have a backup plan.”
“You’re not going to shoot me, Dennis.”
“I am, if you take one more step. And don’t test me. I already shot one person.”
It sounds like a lie, but Dan doesn’t want to challenge it. Dennis’s voice and whole demeanor have shifted noticeably; now he sounds more like the guy on the phone, scared and uncertain of himself. Yet he’s still pointing a gun at Dan, and he might just fire it if Dan does anything rash. Getting himself shot dead this close to his goal would be a tragedy.
“All right, I’m not coming any closer,” Dan says, still holding up his hands. “Can we just talk like this, then? I can explain everything to you. I can explain how I think your mother can help …”
“I already told you,” Dennis says, waving the gun. “I’m done listening to you, because you’re a liar.”
“Even if I did lie to you once,” Dan says, “that doesn’t mean you’ll shoot me, Dennis. You’re not like that. You’re not like—” Dan cuts himself short just before the last word can escape him.
It’s too late, though.
Dennis obviously catches the message.
“Screw you,” he whispers, and his voice is so full of hate, for a moment, Dan is sure he’ll pull the trigger. “You can stay down here and starve to death.”
Then Dennis reaches out and grabs the door. Dan jumps up the steps, taking them three at a time. But Dennis slams the door before he can reach it, and Dan hears the lock click from the other side.
TWELVE
Liv watches the sunrise. She can’t remember the last time she did that. It’s beautiful. The way the horizon turns slowly brighter, goes from deep purple to red to orange and then to teal.
Now and then she looks over at the house to check for Dan’s signal. So far, she hasn’t seen him or anyone else in the windows. She hasn’t heard any gunshots, either, which she takes to be a good sign. He must be in there, talking with the woman, working to convince her of his plan.
Her thoughts are drifting as she sits there behind the wheel of the van, trying her best to ignore the zombies surrounding her, pushing and shoving to get to her. Some of them have left the van and gone back to the house, clawing again at the door and the boarded-up windows. A couple must have squeezed under the van, because even through the hum of the engine, Liv can hear fingernails scratch away at the undercarriage.
She ignores the living dead and thinks instead of Solveig. The sunrise always reminds her of her sister. Sol means “sun” in Danish, after all, which is what their parents named her after. Liv means “life,” which now seems like a cruel prophecy come true, as Liv is the only one of them still alive.
She can’t help but cry as the faces of her family pass by her inner eye. The tears are big and warm, the sobs coming from deep down in her belly. It feels like something is leaving her body. Like she’s letting go of something. It feels painful and peaceful at the same time.
She sits in that feeling for the longest time, hovering on the edge of sleep.
Then she suddenly returns to a fully wakened state, called back by something she can’t place. She sits upright, realizes that she was sleeping for real and must have been for at least a couple of hours, because the daylight is blinding. It’s warmer inside the van. Her body feels a little lighter, as though something heavy has been lifted from it.
Nothing else seems to have changed, though: the van is still parked on top of the well cover, the zombies are still outside and underneath van.
She looks towards the house and the windows, but sees no one in there.
Why hasn’t Dan called for me? Or has he? Did I just sleep right through it?
No, that doesn’t seem likely. If Dan had signaled for her already, he would have seen her asleep behind the wheel, and he would have found some way of waking her up.
Then she realizes that something else has changed. Something has gone silent. The van’s engine is no longer running.
At first, Liv assumes
