by Victor Allen
***
It was maybe a week later when she heard the movement above her. She jolted awake with a start. It had been quite some time since she had heard anything moving above her. Maybe it was an animal that had come in through the open door. Perhaps by now the weather had turned and it was cold out. The days had become so jumbled that she really didn't know. She didn't imagine that the burglars and zombies had had the courtesy to close and lock the doors on their way out.
She gripped the pistol in her hand, listening. The footfalls were heavy, definitely not an animal. There was no clicking of claws, but only the steady, two legged cadence of a human being. A big human being. Hardly daring to believe it, she thought she actually recognized the gait and meter. Surely it couldn't be?
The hidden latch on the door at the top of the stairs clicked. But that was impossible. No-one but her knew it was there. The door creaked open. It was dusk, maybe, and just enough light came in through the open front door to eerily backlight the silhouette of the large man who stood in the doorway, the top of his head even with the header.
Loretta gripped the pistol tighter and held it at trembling arm's length as Mr. C.O. Jones began plodding down the stairs.
Her vocal cords turned to immovable steel as the Zombie tramped implacably closer, one black step at a time. What would she say?
Mr. C.O. Jones reached the level at the bottom of the stairs and shuffled into the light. Skin had sloughed from his bald head, showing the bloody red musculature beneath. His face was slack, yet still split by the feral grin Loretta had first noticed at the lake. Sinew and ridges of bone stood out starkly on the backs of his hands. He was what leprosy would look like if it were a person. Yet his eyes sparkled, as if with glee.
“C.O.,” Loretta squeaked. “You wouldn't hurt me, would you?”
C.O. shuddered a step forward, reaching out with a dripping hand.
“No,” Loretta shrieked. She wouldn't go out this way. She placed the Nine mil beneath her chin, slipped her finger into the trigger guard, and fired. It was the prepper's creed: Always save the last round for yourself.
She fell backward, the gun slipping from her nerveless fingers, into an eternal sleep in which she never had to worry about Zombies or the New World Order ever again.