“Oh this turned serious all of a sudden. I agree though.”
“That goes for me too. But we better not separate on a whim. It better count for something. How long do you think we can stay here Max?”
“Until the zombies come. Then we pack up and go.”
“Anything close by now?” Amelia asked.
Max concentrated, he had been casting out for any wandering zombies periodically while they cleaned up the kitchen. Stewart was on watch from the porch, but she was having some cloudy vision, so Max was keeping an eye on things as well. “Nothing I can sense, nothing close or headed this way.” He didn't add that he could sense to the edge of North Platte now, a good three miles away. Before his little dust up this afternoon his range had been much more limited.
“Something wrong Max?” Amelia asked.
“No. Well sort of. You take for granted I am not insane and can sense the dead, that is a leap of faith I think.”
“If you hadn't proved it to me, I wouldn't believe you.” she replied.
“Well, okay, I guess, but now it is like I can 'see' farther. Since the fight I mean.”
“Why?” asked Tom.
“That is what I am wondering.”
“It is the zombies, you know they can do things we can't, the fast ones like Nancy and that guy Jimbo from your house. They moved so fast! I've only seen Stewart move that quick before.”
“I think I get it from them.” Max confessed, waiting for the two to disagree.
Instead Amelia just nodded and Tom looked thoughtful. “Could be.” he said, “I thought maybe Stewart was just that fast because, you know, she is a cop.”
“It is getting dark. We need to get the kids in. Is the floor good enough Tom?” asked Amelia, looking at the spotless linoleum.
“I guess. I don't think it will ever be clean to me again.”
“Can you get blankets to hang over the windows? I want to keep any light from attracting, well anything, living or dead to us tonight. And we are going to have to use the kitchen to get the kids fed.” Max said.
“Yeah and my old man had duct tape I the shed too, I will go grab a couple of rolls and tell the kids to come in.” Tom opened a cabinet door and pulled out a long narrow box of aluminum foil, he handed it to Max, “We can do the windows with this first, then put blankets over them too, kind of have a double protection. If we let the kids onto the porch they can look and see if they see any light, it could be a fun job for them while helping us out.”
“Good idea, let's do this.” said Max.
Hours later everyone was sleeping in the basement, with the exception of Stewart and Max who were up in the kitchen, keeping watch by peeking through slots cut into the aluminum foil and by occasionally walking the porch around the house. Stewart wanted first watch in case her head injury was worse than it appeared, she said she had heard somewhere that sleeping was bad if you had a brain injury. Max wondered if she had ulterior motives, but for the first couple of hours they barely spoke. The silence was not uncomfortable, they had played a few rounds of cards between paroling the porch. Stewart lost more than she won and after the last hand, where she lost somewhere near ten thousand dollars to Max she had given up in frustration. Max rose from the table and went to the back door.
Stewart perked up and asked, “Something?”
“No. Nothing. But I want to go outside on the porch for a bit. You coming?”
“Count me in. You want another pop?”
Max checked his watch, it was a few minutes after midnight, “Sure one more, and I think that will do me until we get Amelia and Tom up. Mountain Dew me.”
Stewart gave him a wry look in the dim light, “Maturity, that is what I see in you.”
They went out onto the porch and sat down on a couple of chairs with a table in between them. The chairs were around the side of the house looking back over towards where the zombie family had come from earlier. The large utility light was still burning over the huge gravel driveway, but from where they sat it was cut off by the corner of the house, casting the whole area in darkness.
“Anything?” Stewart asked, handing Max his drink.
“No. You just asked me that.”
“I know, but don't you get a longer ranger without any walls in the way?”
“I hadn't thought about it. I guess I do. The town still seems to have a lot of zombies in it.”
“Any people?”
“I haven't looked.”
“Still there were a lot of people here, where did they go?”
“Evacuated, like Tom's parents. Maybe.”
“There were a lot more zombies here too. Most of them moved on. You worried about something?” Stewart asked.
“Yeah. Many, many somethings.”
“Well what is your top concern right now? Zeds?”
“No, not really. I guess I am having faith in my ability to detect them. There are not any close by.”
“So what has you brooding then?”
“I'm not brooding.” Max said, taking a long pull at his can of soda.
“Look it was one quick kiss. I was out of my head, I di…”
“I liked it.”
They sat in silence for twenty or thirty seconds.
“That is good, right?”
“I don't know, my wife died four days ago. I never thought I would be the kind of guy who would jump into bed with another woman this quickly.”
“Who said anything about jumping into bed? What kind of person do you think I am?” Stewart said with mock anger.
“That kind of person. You don't have anything holding you back. I am the one with baggage. On the one hand I want to do what is right for my kids, for my friends, even for Seth and Riley. On the other…”
“Sex.”
“Well yeah.” Max said blushing in the dark.
“You're cute when you blush.”
“Fuck.” He had forgotten that while he seemed to be able to sense the proximity of anyone near them, Stewart seemed to have eyes that could see in the dark.
“Max when we got back to your wife did you make love to her?”
“What kind of question is that?”
She shrugged, “Well, we were holed up in your office for four days, then spent a couple days at your house, then three days on the road, that is nine days, at least, without any relief. From a purely biological perspective you have to be getting, well antsy by now. Unless you choked the chicken somewhere along the way?”
“Stewart! Good God! I don't even talk to friends like this!”
“I am just saying, none of us have had much time for privacy in the past week and a half, the 'buddy system' we have sucks for getting some alone time to take care of our other human needs. I supposed I adopted you as a partner before we ever left your office. Now I find myself attracted to you. Maybe it is just the lack of sex that is driving this. Maybe it is something else.”
“Yeah, like what?”
“You ever hear of 'earthquake sex'?”
“Sure, where the sex is so good the earth moves.”
Stewart laughed and asked, “That ever happen to you?”
“Well, no, not really. I mean the earth didn't move or anything.”
“I am not talking 'good sex', I am talking of a phenomenon where an earthquake causes regular people to get horny and bump their uglies together soon after an earthquake hits them. It is like surviving a horrible catastrophe brings out a zest for living and procreating.”
“I've never been in an earthquake, but you are saying this apocalypse is having that affect on us?”
