A Little More Dead (23 page)

Downstairs, it smelled like a Texas
steakhouse again. He took a seat at the long dining room table with the others,
exchanging silent nods and staring at a giant platter of smoking steaks with
charred stripes like you’d see in a commercial where everything is perfect. But
this was far from perfect because Dan told Paul how Brock showed him how to
kill a steer for one last big supper. Paul could only blink in response. Two
weeks ago, Dan was hawking
iPhones
and fifty dollar
leopard print cases for his bread and butter; now he was killing livestock with
his bare hands.

“I mean, there was blood everywhere,”
Dan continued, slurring a bit and washing the meat down with some Jack and Coke.
Paul stared at the half empty bottle of Jack Daniels sitting next to the platter
of steaks, wondering how long they’d been drinking without him. How long they’d
been drinking without her.

“That is so gross.” Wendy scrunched her
nose up and turned to Brock. “How did you do it before the power went out? No,
don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

Brock chuckled and chomped away on the
delicious meat making Paul’s mouth water even though he refused to be hungry ever
again out of respect for his wife. His eyes drew to Cora while Brock told a
story about nearly
getting gored
by the very animal
they were eating. Throughout the sordid tale, Cora quietly pushed food around her
plate,
her brilliant hazel eyes a heavy shade of gray.
She wasn’t busying herself with playing hostess like the night before and Paul
couldn’t tell if she was upset about Lindsey or too drunk to form complete sentences.

Probably a lot
of both.

Brock finished his story with a
half-hearted laugh and, soon, the quiet slowly resumed its place in the room.
Paul could tell little Lindsey had hit home with Brock and Cora, and their
little
Bonanza
fantasy
was headed
to the slaughterhouse. Paul could see it in their
faces. The worst part was that if those things were way out here, they were
everywhere. Nowhere was safe. The oversized forks and knives seemed much louder
than the night before and Paul was grateful for the lull in conversation. His
mind floated back to the hill overlooking a great valley of trees spreading below.
He should’ve written her name on that cross. Stupid!

Brock dropped his utensils to his
half-empty plate with a loud clatter, jarring Paul from his thoughts. Brock
looked up at the eyes staring back at him. “Sorry, guess I’m not very hungry,”
he said, pushing his chair back and heading for the patio doors.

“I’m not leaving this house, Brock.”
Cora’s words were slurred but stern nonetheless.

He stopped in the doorway and lit up a cigar.
Exhaling, he followed the smoke out into the night. Cora threw her fork down
and whisked her plate and rocks glass out into the kitchen while Paul forced
himself to chew. Apparently,
the plan
hadn’t gone over well with Cora and Paul didn’t blame her. They could stay here
but it wouldn’t take long to deplete the neighboring small towns of their food
and ammo. Plus it smelled like cow shit here.

Dan filled everyone’s glass, grabbed the
bottle of whiskey and went out back to join Brock. Wendy wiped her mouth on a
napkin and gave Paul a tight smile before taking her glass outside and leaving
Paul to his intrusive thoughts while Cora noisily cleaned the kitchen. He ate
more than he wanted and took advantage of the solitude to go back upstairs and fall
asleep before anyone could stop him. His eyelids and legs had gained a hundred
pounds over the last few days and all he wanted to do was sleep.

Until his dreams got their hands on him.

Then he just wanted to wake up and
scream.

He jerked awake at three-nineteen in the
morning, fully clothed and needing to pee like a race horse. He’d hoped it
would’ve been closer to six or seven so he could put the nightmares behind him
for another night but he still had three good hours left to squirm beneath the
sandman’s touch. Feeling his way through the dark, Paul slipped into a Jack and
Jill bathroom and relieved himself in the bathtub, which, unlike the toilet,
was still taking a drain. After that, Paul made sure his gun was loaded and tip-toed
downstairs, mouth as dry as a cotton ball. He crept past Dan and Wendy, both curled
up asleep on the living room couch, and went into the kitchen. Chugging a
bottle of lukewarm water, his gaze hitched on the French doors where a thick
fog pressed up against the glass. His Adidas shuffled closer. He set the water
on the island without looking, not sure if he was seeing things or if somebody
was really standing on the deck. A wave of fog rolled past and the figure vanished
from sight.

Paul glanced behind him, and then quietly
removed the two long planks running across the patio doors. He held his breath
when he unlocked the deadbolt with a soft click. Heart pounding, he pulled the
right door back and let in the fog. Paul stepped out into night, drawing his
handgun and filling his lungs with a cool breath while the mist coiled around
his jeans like ghostly tentacles. He blinked to clear his eyes. A sliver of moonlight
broke through a patch in the clouds. The silhouette was standing even closer
now, spiking Paul’s adrenaline. He opened his mouth to say something that
didn’t matter but couldn’t find his voice. The shadow watched him, bemused by
Paul’s incapacitation. A brisk breeze chilled him to the bone, freezing his
feet to the deck. The silhouette moved, spurring Paul to take aim. Fog rolled
by in a wave, shielding the shadow for a brief moment. Paul spread his legs and
pointed the gun with both hands, breathing much too fast to be accurate with
his shots. He remembered the camper at the gas station and refused to pull the
trigger unless he was
absolutely sure
his mind wasn’t
messing with him again. The pale vapor cleared with a slight breeze and the
thing sauntered closer with that all too familiar hobble in its step. Not
wanting to attract more flesh-eaters with a gunshot piercing the dead of night,
Paul backpedalled into the kitchen and locked the patio doors. Holstering his
gun, he pulled a knife from a butcher’s block, the blade long and sharp.
Tightly gripping the handle, he envisioned himself stabbing the thing through
the skull. He would have to get close but he could do this. They do it in the
movies all the time. Granted, this was real life but sometimes less was more.
He forced his legs to take a step toward the doors when a teenage boy floated
out of the fog and smashed into the glass. Paul tripped and fell to his ass,
watching the pimply faced boy in a Slipknot concert-tee languidly claw at the glass
door. Another figure dashed through the fog behind the teen and disappeared.

“We’ve got company,” Paul yelled, scrambling
to his feet and trading the knife for his Beretta.

The gangly teen licked the glass with a
charred tongue, desperate for a taste of Paul’s flesh. He aimed for the kid’s big
nose, pushing the teen back into the fog and out of sight. The boy’s sudden
reaction triggered a frown to slide down Paul’s face like a slow moving
avalanche. The kid seemed to recognize the gun’s
repercussions
which was
impossible. Wasn’t it? Paul inched closer, pointing the weapon
at the doors, the swirling vapor playing tricks on him.

“What’s wrong?” Dan asked, stumbling
into the dark kitchen with his
Glock
out.

Paul spoke in a chilled whisper.
“There’s at least two out there.”

Dan followed Paul’s intense gaze to the French
doors, blinking the sleep from his eyes. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he snapped, the camper
family slipping through his mind again. He could hear the doubt in Dan’s voice
and didn’t blame him but it pissed him off just the same. “Let’s hold on for a
second and maybe they’ll go away.”

“Maybe we should put the boards back,”
Dan whispered, staring at the two planks lying on the floor.

Paul nodded to the doors. “Lock the
deadbolt too,” he whispered.

Dan’s face crumbled. “Me?”

“I’ll cover you.”

“No way, you do it.”

“I already have my gun out.”

Dan raised the gun in his hand. “So do
I
.”

“What’s going on?” Wendy asked
,
pink gun clutched in both hands like she was on some primetime
cop show.

Paul put a finger to his lips and jerked
his chin to the French doors.
“Two of them out on the deck.”

“Seriously?”

“There’s nobody out there,” Dan whispered,
squinting through the glass.

Swallowing against the lump in his
throat, Paul knelt down and grabbed a board, sweat dripping from his brow. “There
is.”

Wendy stepped closer. “How can you see
anything? It’s so foggy out.”

A nude man flung himself from the fog’s
shifting grasp and smashed against the doors, fingernails scratching against the
glass. Paul jumped and dropped the board, watching the man bounce back into the
curling haze and
disappear
from view.

“Oh shit!” Dan took aim. “You weren’t
kidding.”

The three stood with their guns aimed at
the patio doors, the quiet ringing in Paul’s ears. It was the same kind of
quiet just before an EF5 rips a small town to pieces. Uneven breaths made his
chest hitch and he stiffened when a faint shadow rushed from one side of the
deck to the other.

“Did you see that?” he whispered.

Wendy threw her hair over her shoulder.
“See what?”

Paul scurried over and replaced the
boards. “They’re fucking with us.”

Glass broke somewhere in the basement
and Paul spun around on his heels, pointing the flat black Beretta at the door
next to the fridge. Dan holstered his handgun and grabbed the state trooper’s
shotgun leaning in the corner while Wendy covered the French doors.

Heavy boot steps thundered down the hallway.
“What’s the score, boss?” Brock asked gruffly, fastening his gun belt around a pair
of boxers. Paul guessed he slept in the hat because there was no way he
would’ve wasted the time putting it on when all hell was breaking loose like
this.

But he had.

Cora’s satin red robe glimmered when she
crossed through a slice of moonlight, her bare feet slapping against the hardwood
flooring. Her swollen eyes looked to Paul for clarification as Brock snatched a
flashlight from the counter and tossed it to Wendy. He grabbed the other
flashlight but didn’t turn it on, keeping it just as ready as the smoke wagon
in his right hand.

“At least three of them,” Paul replied,
eyes bouncing between the basement door and the deck. “Two out back and someone’s
downstairs.”

Brock pushed Cora behind him and took up
a defensive stance, white belly hanging over his hand stitched gun belt. “Dan
and Wendy take the basement door. Paul and I will cover the deck.” It wasn’t a
suggestion and, without another word, they waited in the glowing darkness. The
house was dead quiet. Paul’s skin crawled. They shared wide-eyed looks, afraid
to breathe.

“Maybe we should go downstairs and check
it out,” Dan whispered, pointing the shotgun at the basement door.

Wendy adjusted her grip on Sophia’s gun.
“I’ll cover you.”

He frowned. “Damn, why am I always the
one that has to go?”

Brock shushed them and tipped his hat
back,
searching the ceiling for something Paul didn’t see.

Cora, who looked half fucked up from
last night and totally scared to death, followed her husband’s roaming gaze.
“What is it?”

Brock looked down, face drawn and pale.
“They’re on the roof.”

“What?” Dan hissed. “I don’t hear
anything.”

“They’re up there.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can they get inside?”

Brock swallowed hard. “We have dormer
windows.”

“Oh, great,” Dan whispered, grabbing the
doorknob to the basement. “Well, someone is definitely downstairs. I’m going
down there.”

“I’ll go with you,” Wendy said, falling
in line.

The angry teenager smashed into the
glass door again and Cora screamed. Brock lit the bastard up with the
flashlight, drawing a bead on the worst case of acne Paul had ever seen. Red
sores oozed yellow pus down the kid’s peeling face, dripping to the deck in wet
globs.

Paul shot a hand out. “Don’t shoot! They’ll
get in if the glass breaks.”

Something knocked over and broke
downstairs that sounded like a lamp, pulling their attention from the teenager.

Brock swung his gun to the basement door.
“They’re already in!”

The flashlight trembled in Wendy’s hand
as much as the gun in her other. They waited, the calm before the storm wringing
the air from their lungs.

Dan looked back to Wendy and grabbed the
basement doorknob again. “Ready?”

She nodded. “Go.”

He was about to pull it open when three
walking corpses banged into the French doors like bugs to light. It was the
teenager and the naked guy again, now joined by a white-haired black lady still
carrying a purse. The trio pounded against the doors and Paul knew the glass
wouldn’t hold long. Someone smashed against the basement door and Dan and Wendy
fell to their asses. They didn’t hear a single footstep come up those stairs
and Paul had time to wonder if the dead were launching a coordinated attack. The
basement door burst open with the next crash, sending splinters flying. Dan
fired a booming round from his butt, catapulting a fireman to the bottom of the
carpeted steps in a heap. The man didn’t get back up but two of his firefighter
buddies stumbled over his lifeless body like he meant nothing to them and took
their rightful place in the dinner line, hats and all. Wendy fired wild shots,
the nine-millimeter jumping in her hands. The firemen absorbed the hits and
kept climbing while two redheaded
tweens
brought up
the rear with matching freckles and scratches on their faces.