“Holy shit,” was all one of the men could say before Darlene was upon them, holding the gun to his head.
They were both middle-aged but clean. They smelled of deodorant instead of shit. They wore coveralls and baseball caps, clean sneakers and they were clean-shaven. Darlene hadn’t shaved in God-knows how long. I could scare them with my damn bush, she thought.
They stood in this pose for at least two minutes, Darlene with the gun to one’s head and eyeing both. She had no idea what she was going to do at this point. She was too tired to take them both on and knew as soon as she pulled the trigger on the first one the second was close enough to grab her.
“Can I help you?” the second one managed, hands in the air.
“You can start by getting me a cup of that coffee.”
He smiled slightly. “When was the last time you ate?”
“None of your fucking business. Move before your lover here gets his brains splattered on the floor.”
“Yes, ma’am. Just relax, we can work this out.” The man took three strides to the coffee pots. Darlene pressed the gun to the other’s head and tried not to let him see her hand shaking.
“Never tell a woman to relax.”
“Sorry,” he said as he turned. He had a small-caliber pistol in his hand.
Darlene pulled the trigger on instinct and it saved her life. The explosion of his partner’s head wasn’t expected and his shot went wide. Darlene shot him in the stomach and he fell to the floor.
When she heard him moaning she swung around the table and leveled the gun at his head. “Move and you die.”
“Too late, I think. You bitch.” He tried vainly to cover the blood pouring from his midsection. His eyes were already glossing over.
She went to him, standing over him with the gun. “I can end this now or leave you here to bleed to death.”
“Doesn’t much matter,” he choked out the words.
“Oh, but it does.” Darlene leaned closer. “All I wanted was some fucking coffee.”
He actually laughed at that, and began coughing and screaming in pain.
“Shut up.”
He complied.
“It’s your choice.”
“Kill me,” he managed.
“Who’s at the house?”
“No one.”
“Liar.”
“I swear. Joe and I were the last two left. The others turned about a week ago.”
“Then why were you sitting here playing cards?”
He coughed blood. She repeated the question.
“Why the fuck not? We had enough food and drink here, and the house was overrun with dead fuckers. We trapped them inside and came out here. What else could we do?”
“It doesn’t look like there’s a ton of food left in here.”
He tried to roll onto his side but she threatened him with a kick and he stopped moving. “The bulk of the food is stacked in the house. There’s enough food and water there to last a lifetime. Fucking Gary fucked up. Why did he have to go out and explore? Fuck.”
“How many in the house?”
“Eight.”
“What about that fucker I met before?”
“Who?”
“The asshole with the lazy eye.”
He shook his head. “No idea who you’re talking about. We’ve been cut off from everything since this shit started. We were smart enough to raid two Publix in the area for supplies.”
“How is the power on?”
“Shit, the whole grid never shut off. You got power from here to St. Augustine. Fuck,” he said and squirmed on the floor. “Shoot me.”
Darlene pulled the trigger without preamble and shot him in the head. She hoped the fences around the building would keep the undead out. She was sure they had heard the commotion and gunfire.
At this moment she didn’t care. All she wanted was a sip of the coffee. She poured a cup, added powdered creamer and chipped off a chunk of hardened sugar from a bowl, and held the cup to her nose. She remembered this smell, although she knew the coffee was stale, it had been burnt, and watered down. As soon as her tongue touched the hot brew it sent a ripple through her body. She remembered having a favorite coffee mug, a taupe one with an old, grumpy woman on the side. Below her it said ‘…not before my first sip…’ Darlene started to weep softly as she took a seat and held the cup with both hands.