“Did you?” Grant said with a mischievous grin. “Did you worship Satan?”
“Kiss my ass, Grant,” she said. “Frat boys like you were the same way–fucking knuckle-draggers.”
“All that aside, they do have a plan,” Sara said. “Eventually, it can be as good in Clayfield as in Biloxi but without the gangs.”
“It might be better than pulling weeds and shitting in a bucket,” Christine said, “but I don’t think I want to live with them. I don’t want to live here either. There’s nothing good anywhere.”
“I haven’t seen you pull a single weed,” I said. “The only problem here is that you haven’t even tried. You–”
“Stop,” Sara said.
I glared at Christine a moment then turned my attention to Sara.
“We’ve had bad experiences with other groups,” I added in an even tone.
“I’m sure you were the common denominator in those bad experiences,” Christine said.
“I never said we weren’t going to help these people. We just shouldn’t move in with them. At least here you know you’re safe. I’ve done a lot of work here. Here we have fresh food to eat, and if we work it right, we can have a relatively comfortable life…considering.”
“Well, consider me gone,” Christine said. “It just isn’t worth it. Julio was all I had left that made all this bearable.”
“Sweetie, I know you’re hurting, but it’ll get better,” Sara said.
“I don’t want it to,” Christine said. I could tell by the way she was speaking that the wine was hitting her a little harder than the rest of us.
We were quiet for a minute then Christine spoke again.
“Know what?” she said. “We’ve got guns and ammo out the ass. We need their electricity, but we don’t have to take their shit. If we went in there and let them know that we’re running the show then–”
“Then we’d be no different than the other gangs,” I said.
“Should we be sheep?” she said. “Should we join his little flock?”
“What if they wouldn’t go for it?” Grant said. “What would you do?”
“We would do what we have to do,” Christine said. “Pastor Andrew might have to go.”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “You haven’t even met the guy yet. He said we could meet on Tuesday. That’s the day after tomorrow.”
“I don’t need to meet him,” she said. “I know his type.”
“I’m not into religion either,” I said, “especially not these days, but you’re acting no differently from the religious people that judged you.”
Christine stood up. “You don’t understand, and you never will. People like me get a lot of shit from people like them.”
“Maybe people like you bring it on yourselves,” I said.
“You’ve brought a lot on yourself, asshole,” she said, leaning in, hands on the table. “I hope you can handle the shit storm.” She had a look in her eyes that made me squirm a little.
Grant laughed, “What does that even mean, Christine?”
“Fuck you,” she said to Grant, her speech slurred.
“Why don’t you go to bed,” Sara said. “I think you had too much wine.”
“I think you’ve had too much dick,” Christine laughed. She stood straight again and looked around at everyone. “She’s laid every healthy man between here and Mississippi.”
“Go to bed, Christine,” Sara said.
“I’ll go to bed when I want,” Christine said. Then she looked at Grant with a smirk. “Want to join me, jackass?”
Grant seemed startled by her gaze, “What? Me? No.”
She stepped over to him, sat in his lap, and kissed him. Sara stood.
“Stop it,” Grant said, pushing Christine away. “What’s wrong with you?”
Christine got off and slapped him. Then she took a step backward and pulled her 9mm from its holster and pointed it at Grant. Immediately, we were all on our feet, guns drawn.
“What the hell?” I said. “Put it away.”
“Drop the gun!” Sara yelled.
“You got Julio killed, Sara,” Christine said softly. “You all had something to do with it. I should take a man from you. Unlike you, I didn’t have a backup; Julio was my only one. He was special. You could lose one and not even miss him. Grant, come upstairs with me and screw my brains out…or I could just blow yours out here and now.”
“Christine, don’t talk like that! You’re drunk, and–”
She quickly turned and pointed the gun at me.
“What about you? Want to come upstairs and give it to me? Let me see why Sara had to put us all in danger to come back to you.”
“Don’t make me shoot you, Christine,” Sara said.
Christine stood there a moment longer then she took a breath and put her pistol on the table next to her plate.
“I’m trying to give out free poon, but I’m surrounded by faggots. Julio was a real man.”
The three of us had not relaxed at all; we were still pointing our weapons at her.
“Go to bed, Christine,” Sara said. “I know you don’t mean any of this. I’m still your friend.”
“Fucking shit storm,” Christine said, then turned and went upstairs.
Slowly, we all holstered our weapons.
“It’ll be best to leave her alone,” Sara said.
“No shit,” Grant said.
“She can’t be here,” I said. “I know what I said earlier, but she’ll have to go.”
Sara took her plate to the sink. “You should have just left her alone. You kept picking on her.”
“I won’t have her living in my house, not after that.”
“It’s not your house,” Sara said, coldly. “I’m going to save these dishes until tomorrow. I don’t feel like washing them.”
“I’ll wash them, babe,” Grant said.
“Whatever,” she said and left us. I heard the front door open and saw her walk past the window on her way off the porch.
Grant and I stood next to the table in an uncomfortable silence.
“Crazy week,” Grant said.
“Yeah,” I said with a frown. “Crazy year.”
“Chicks and their periods, huh, bro?”
Christine kept herself closed up in the other upstairs bedroom, and no one bothered her. Grant slept in the RV again, and Sara slept on the couch. I didn’t speak to anyone after the ordeal at dinner. We all just avoided each other.
I tried to read for a while before bed, but I couldn’t concentrate. I finally gave up, and just went to bed. Around midnight, I woke up to a warm body crawling in with me. It was almost completely dark in the room, and all I could see was a silhouette.
“Sara?” I said.
She straddled me. My hands found soft, warm thighs then moved up unclothed skin to her waist. Her crotch pressed against mine. I could feel her heat even through my jeans, and my body responded. When she leaned in, I realized it wasn’t Sara.
“Christine? Get off me! Get out of here!”
“Shut up,” she said and ground herself against me.
Then I heard Sara scream downstairs.
“Sara?” I yelled.
I reached back over my head and fumbled under the pillow for my flashlight. The beam hit Christine in the face, and she turned her eyes away from the light. She pushed her crotch against me again harder and leaned back so that she was sitting upright. That’s when I noticed the knife.
“Shit!”
She knocked the flashlight out of my hand. It hit the floor and spun around. I tried to push her off me before she could stick the knife into my chest.
“You ruined everything,” she spat out through clenched teeth. Then she screamed and slumped over me.
I gave a final push and rolled her into the floor. She was on her feet right away and fell back against the wall by the door.
“Sara!” I yelled. My feet went into my boots, but I didn’t lace them. I grabbed my pistol, picked up my flashlight, and pointed
both of them at Christine.
She was naked, and her arms hung at her side. Her hands were wet and red. Blood dripped from the fingertips to the floor. She squinted into my flashlight beam then gave me a little grin.
“You are so fucked,” she said.
Sara screamed again, and I heard glass break downstairs.
“What’s happening?” I said.
Christine turned her wrists up so I could see. Blood dribbled and spurted out of deep, open gashes. The bloody knife was in the floor. There was a gunshot downstairs. I looked at the dark doorway then back at the bleeding woman in front of me.
“What have you done, Christine?!”
She slid down the wall and sat on the floor with her knees around her ears, then grinned up at me.
I ran out the door, “Sara!”
“They’re in!” she yelled. “I need light; I can’t see!”
CHAPTER 21
I ran into the first creature at the top of the stairs. I did a quick shine of the flashlight, saw the ghoulish face, and put my pistol against its forehead. I fired, and it fell back down to the landing and sprawled there. I got a better look at it then. The bottom of its face below the nose and ears was raw bone. Its eyes were gray and milky. A few strands of black hair remained. The body was clad only in the dirty elastic collar of a t-shirt and the elastic waistband of some Hanes tightie-whiteys. Between its open legs was something, but it didn’t look like genitalia.
I went down as far as the dead zombie then I saw Sara coming up. I shined my light behind her. The front door was standing open, and there were several in the house. I could see the shadowy figures of more on the porch. Farther out, the headlight beams of the RV shown on scores more in the driveway and in the yard.
I took Sara’s hand and helped her over the dead thing on the landing.
“How did they get in?” she said as we both ran back up the stairs.
“Christine,” I said. “She must have opened the gate. Then she left the door open so they could come in the house.”
“No. She wouldn’t.”
We ran into my bedroom. I shut and locked the door. Christine was still on the floor between the door and the dresser. She was sitting in a dark puddle of her own blood and urine. She was hanging on, but her eyelids were drooping.
“Christine?” Sara said in a pleading voice. “Tell me you didn’t do this.”
Christine only stared.
“Christine, please…oh, God, your wrists…oh, sweetie…”
Sara grabbed my shirt from the floor and tried to wrap it around Christine’s wrists to stop the bleeding. I shined the flashlight below the window on the other side of the room to make sure my bug out bag was still there.
“Light!” Sara yelled. “I can’t see what I’m doing!”
I put the flashlight on the floor and shined it in her direction. Then I went around the bed for the bug out bag. There would be another flashlight in there.
“Why?” Sara said to Christine.
There was a thump against the door. The undead were on the second floor. I felt around in the backpack until I found the light–an LED headlamp. I put the strap around my head and turned the switch, illuminating everything in front of me in bright, bluish light.
“There’s a first aid kit in here,” I offered as I dug through the bag taking a quick inventory.
“No,” Sara said softly. “It’s too late. She’s already gone.”
I turned and looked at the two women. Christine slouched there like a marionette with cut strings. Her legs were obscenely bent and spread. Her head rested against the wall, and her mouth hung open. There was scratching on the bedroom door. Sara didn’t move. She sat cross-legged on the floor facing Christine.
“She was so angry,” she said, “even before all this, even before she lost Julio. She had so much anger.”
The thumps continued against the door and more started against the wall.
Then Sara looked up at me and shielded her eyes from the light. “Oh my God. Grant!”
“There’s nothing we can do right now,” I said. “Hopefully he stayed in the RV. He knows they’re inside because he had the RV headlights on.”
She stood and pulled the blanket from my bed. Then she put it over Christine’s body.
“She might turn soon,” I said. “We don’t want a repeat of Julio.”
“I know,” she whispered.
“I’ll take care of her,” I said. “You go out the window and climb up the ladder to the roof. There’s a shotgun and a .30-30 in the closet. Have you ever fired a lever action?”
She didn’t answer. She bent over and picked up her little pink gun, checked it to see if it was ready, then quickly aimed at the blanket and put two rounds into Christine’s skull. The sound of the gun in that enclosed space made my ears ring. The smoke, moving through the blue light of my lamp, looked ghostly.
“Do you have food?” Sara asked calmly as she shoved her still-smoking weapon into the back of her jeans.
“Yeah,” I said. “Some.”
“Do you think they’ll get in? We could stay in here until morning at least.”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I don’t like them being so close. I don’t like her being so close.”
Sara looked down at Christine’s body again.
“We could…we could dump her out the window if you’re worried about her,” she said. “We could push the dresser against the door. It’s not like we’ll be able to get off the roof anyway.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to go ahead and move some of this stuff up there, though, just in case we have to go out. I want more than just the bug out bag. It’ll take more than one trip to get all of it.”
She picked up the flashlight and went to the closet to remove the long guns. I opened the window then went over to the dresser. I opened the top drawer and pulled out another headlamp, a .45 revolver, and a box of ammunition. I put on a shirt, tied my boots, strapped on my hip holster with the 9mm. Then I got into my shoulder holster with the .45. I strapped a knife to my leg by my boot and went to the corner for my baseball bat.
Sara stood by the window and watched me.
“Here,” I said and tossed her the extra headlamp. She caught it and put it on, but didn’t turn it on.
“Are you sorry I came back?” she said.
The knocks and scratches against the door were louder.
“Nope,” I said.
“It’s been trouble,” she said.
“And more to come, I expect,” I said. “But you’re worth it.”
She looked at the floor. “Grant and Bruce were the only ones. That thing Christine said earlier…it wasn’t true.”
“I don’t care about that,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. It especially doesn’t matter right now. I just want to know about potential threats. I don’t like being in the dark. I don’t like you keeping secrets.”
She looked back to Christine’s body then back to me.
“You cared before,” she said.
“It took me by surprise,” I replied. “I hate surprises. Right now, we have a more pressing matter.”
She sat down on the bed and ran her fingers through her hair.
“I tried to kill Bruce,” she said, “and I thought I did. That’s why he’s here, I think.”
“What…you…?”
“I hit him in the head with a piece of wood and locked him in a room with the infected down in Hattiesburg, and I left him to die.”
A loud moan outside made her glance at the door. I just stared at her, unsure what to say.
“Did I ever really know you?” was what eventually came out of my mouth.
“He was a cruel man,” she said. “I had to do it.”
“Okay…but…Christ, Sara.”
“I’m not sorry I did it,” she said.
“Why are you telling me this now? Jesus Christ! Look around!” I yelled and waved a hand over to Christine and the pool of blood.
“I don’t want to think
about this right now,” I said, putting the stuff on the bed next to Sara. “Christine just slit her wrists while she was sitting on top of me. She could have stabbed me. She could have done anything. There are zombies in the house, and–” I stopped next to Sara and looked down at her. My headlamp shined in her face. “What the hell is going on with you?”
She turned her head out of the glare and started to speak.
“Don’t answer that,” I said. “Come on. Let’s get her out of the room.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We have more important things going on right now. Grab her legs.”
I lifted Christine up from under her armpits, and Sara grabbed her ankles. The blanket fell off her when we went around the bed, and I was uncomfortably aware that my hand was touching her bare, lifeless breast. When we got her to the window, Sara helped me lift her up so her torso was hanging out then we lifted her legs and let gravity pull her out the window to backyard. She hit the ground below with a thud.
I took a moment to breathe and get over the sight of her bloody legs and dirty feet disappearing out the window. Sara stared at me expectantly.
“I’m taking some of these things up to the roof,” I said. “Can you move the dresser by yourself?”
“I’ll be fine,” she said.
I put on the backpack and grabbed the .30-30. Then I climbed out the window onto the ladder that I had built months before. It was dark outside, but below me I could see movement. I was hopeful that we wouldn’t be overrun the way we had been before. I knew there were a lot on the property, just from that brief view I’d gotten of the RV’s headlight beams, but they were only coming in through the gate at the driveway, unlike the last time when they came in from everywhere. If we could get the gate shut, I was confident we had enough ammo to clear them out.
I climbed up onto the roof and walked up the incline on the asphalt shingles to the peak. I put the rifle down across the top of the chimney and took off the backpack. Then I looked out to the front of the property. The RV’s engine was idling and the high beams were on. Most of the zombies from the road were either already inside or coming in. The lights barely illuminated the road, but from what I could see there weren’t any coming in to replace the ones that had come onto the property.
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