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“It’s not looking too good,” Reggie’s father, Robert Casey, tells the group assembled around the tiny kitchen table in the rundown apartment on the outskirts of town. There are only two chairs. One is occupied by his wife, Vickie, the other by Lana Daniels.
The chairs are old, the legs uneven, and the plastic cushions are badly torn. The tabletop, ancient Formica with the empty cocoon scars of ancient cigarettes left burning on its edges, rocks just as unsteadily on legs whose attachments to the tabletop are tenuous at best.
“We have food and water for maybe another two days, if we’re careful. And,” he adds, glancing over at Officer Gilfoy, “if we don’t add any more people to our group.”
Gilfoy doesn’t say anything in defense of his decisions. He continues to stare out the window overlooking the apartment complex’s courtyard, where a number of infected have fallen into the pool and are floating in various poses and states of buoyancy. For some strange reason, it recalls to him a picnic he’d taken in the Blue Ridge Mountains as a young boy, back when his family lived in Virginia. There had been a lot of people attending, although he couldn’t remember the occasion or who the people were, other than his parents. He remembers watching the women setting out the food on the picnic tables while the men played lawn games. The pool scene outside the window is like a gruesome interpretive performance art piece of the Jell-O fruit bowls that seemed so popular with the guests on the buffet line.
Every so often, one of the zombies will flinch, disturbing the tranquil water and setting off a chain reaction that results in the rest of the dead thrashing about for a little while. The noise will attract even more of the infected into the courtyard, and invariably some of the new arrivals will fall in, too, adding to the mix. Eventually, they all stop moving, and it all goes quiet again.
Until something new happens to disturb them.
He can feel them all looking at him, the people in the kitchen, can feel the undercurrent of hostility and blame that comes with being the bearer of bad news. He knows it’s not his fault, and they know it too, but it doesn’t stop them from feeling resentful.
He’d barely made it out of the delivery truck alive. Most of the passengers hadn’t. With the door shut on the freight compartment, he hadn’t realized until it was too late what was happening behind him. Not until the screaming forced him to stop the truck to investigate. By then, nearly everyone had been infected and a few had already died. None had yet resurrected, so it was immediately apparent to him who had been the source. He assumes Eric had been infected in the first few minutes of their initial, failed escape attempt. In his already weakened state, it hadn’t taken long for him to reanimate.
He hasn’t told anyone any of this, only mentioning to his mother that he’d died. He thinks he’ll keep the details to himself. Knowing the truth won’t bring anyone back.
“I’ll make a supply run,” he offers, finally turning away from the window. “I think it’ll be better if we go in a team of four, no more and no less. One person will remain in the car as a driver, one will gather supplies, two will provide security.” He glances at the four remaining survivors of yesterday’s mishap and waits for them to agree. It’d be the least they can do for him saving their lives.
Although, he doubts they see it that way. They think they’d all still be alive if he hadn’t convinced them to leave the safety of the warehouse roof. He’s not sure he can disagree.
“I’ll go,” Robert Casey volunteers. His wife grabs his arm, but he shakes it off. “Everyone has to do their part.”
“If you’re worried about supplies,” Gilfoy starts to say, “we can go find another place to—”
“Of course I’m worried! We were doing fine until you came and brought... them.”
“Robert!” Missus Casey exclaims. “No!”
“I think we should reconsider finding a better place to hole up,” Gilfoy says. He’d made the argument shortly after arriving. From what he’s learned, most of the apartments in the complex are packed with survivors, all of them seeking refuge as they fled from the center of town. More people in such a concentrated area means better chances of fending off hordes of the undead, but it also means higher risk. And too many people means the supplies in the area will be depleted all the more quickly.
Lana Daniels shakes her head. “No, I’m not leaving. Not until we know for sure what happened to the kids.” She reaches up to her shoulder, where Kelly’s mother is patting her. She grabs her hand and squeezes.
“We can leave them a note.”
One of the people from the warehouse, a man who goes simply by the name of Walter B, pushes himself away from the wall he’s leaning against. He picks at a scab on his cheek, inspects his fingernail for a moment, then flicks the detritus away. “Speaking for myself only,” he says with a thick New York drawl, “and this is just my opinion so take it or leave it as you will, but what makes any youse think those kids is even still alive?”
The women turn to scowl at him. Collectively, they could freeze magma with their looks.
“We’re waiting,” Mister Corben declares.
“And in the mean time we—”
“Kelly’s still alive,” a tiny voice says. Kyle Corben pushes through the forest of legs and goes to his mother. “My brother’s coming home. Aunt Jessie, too.”
“Kyle, go back to bed,” his mother whispers. But he refuses to leave her side.
Walter B shakes his head and reclaims his spot up against the wall. He’s in no mood to argue, which is actually uncharacteristic of him. “Discussing things” in a heated manner is how he usually communicates with people. Doing so louder than anyone else is how he gets his points across. But he’s not feeling up to taking on a gang of irrational women right now. Not until he gets a little much needed sleep and starts feeling a little better. He thinks he might be coming down with one of those summer colds.
His stomach’s unsettled. It lurches as the memory of the massacre in the truck flashes through his mind for the umpteenth time in the past hour. The damn scene is going to give him nightmares for weeks to come. A small amount of puke, complete with half-digested chunks of the paltry lunch he’d received after arriving here, bubble up and into the back of his throat. He swallows it back down, wincing from the burn.
“We’ll discuss this further after we return with some supplies,” Gilfoy decides. “Do I have two more volunteers?”
Walter senses the request is aimed directly at him, but he pretends not to hear. He purposefully avoids making eye contact with the copper. He just wants to find a dark hole and crawl into it until someone with some real authority, like the government or the military, regains control of the situation. That, and he wishes this damn ache in his head would just go the fuck away. The pressure right at the base of his skull makes his head feel like an overripe watermelon getting ready to burst open.
