IX
By dawn most of the dead had wandered off. Noah took care of the few that strayed into the backyard, but most had instinctively walked out the front door and onto the street.
When the house looked like it was kicked, Noah quietly slipped in the back door. He crept through the house, stepping over rigid bodies without incident, until he came to the living room. A corpse laid adjacent to a staircase, its head moving from side to side—teeth clicking lightly.
Noah moved in for a closer look. His spinal cord had been blown out through its sternum. Paralyzed, it stared at Noah, futilely biting in his direction. Noah shuddered. If only we had such persistence in life, he thought. And with one solid chop to the temple, its teeth stopped clacking.
With machete drawn, Noah slowly advanced up the staircase. When he reached the landing, Dakota stepped out of the shadows.
Noah gasped. “Jesus.”
The skin on his chest and abdomen had been ripped off. His mangled guts dangled beneath his ribcage like the tentacles of some Lovecraftian monster. The flesh on his face had been gnawed off to reveal red-stained facial bones beneath. The only way Noah even knew that it was Dakota was by the black mane that still wreathed his bare skull. Even to a veteran of gore, like Noah, the gruesome sight of Dakota was enough to make his stomach turn.
His eyes now scraped sockets, Dakota could not see his prey, but he could hear it. He stepped forward and stumbled down the staircase. Noah held the broad side of the machete blade in front of his chest, bracing against Dakota’s weight as he pinned him against the wall.
Dakota snapped his jaws from side to side searching for a sweet spot. Noah pivoted and heaved his weight against the blade, pushing the horror down the staircase. Dakota glided over the stairs and landed on the floor with a hollow thud. After only a moment’s pause, he sat up and turned his head from side to side, listening for Noah. But the only noise he heard was the sip of the machete cutting the air as Noah jumped down the stairs, and by then it was too late. Dakota let out a feeble gurgle as Noah split his head down the center like a Venus flytrap.
Upstairs all the doors were open and the rooms devoid of anything animate, except for one. Noah cupped his ear to the door and heard movement. With machete poised to strike, he kicked the door open and waited, expecting something to spring forth from within. But nothing did. His eyes adjusted after a moment, and he could see a vague shape squirming in the far corner of the room.
As he inched his way into the darkness, the stench of rot grew more pungent. Noah moved to a window on the far wall and tore down a sheet that had been tacked to the frame. The early morning sun filled the room with a sallow glow. In the corner lay Alvin—now a member of the living dead. His brothers had tied his arms and legs to the bedposts with rope. Bloodied bandages dressed his chest and arms. Alvin’s wounds were skin avulsions—craters in the tissue that required surgical intervention, but without any hospitals or medical knowledge, the Bartlett’s could only slap bandages on their brother and hope his body would take care of the rest.
Noah approached the bed slowly, wary that the ropes might snap at any moment. Alvin thrashed violently, riled at the sight of warm meat.
He held the rifle muzzle up to Alvin's face. “Do you recognize me?” he said.
Alvin moaned and wrenched in his bonds.
“Do you remember what you did to my sister? To my family?”
Alvin stared at him with what Noah hoped was the same glimmer of recognition his father had shown back in Abby’s bedroom.
“I could have protected them.” He thought of the horde that had overtaken his house, and how there were so many dead—perhaps too many to fend off. “I—I would have thought of something. I always do.” He paused. “But instead I was with you.”
Noah slung the rifle over his shoulder and unsheathed the machete. Gripping the handle with one hand and the pommel with the other, Noah pushed the blade into Alvin’s shoulder. The tip stopped at the scapula. Noah looked into his eyes hoping to see even a faint register of pain, but Alvin’s only response was his snapping jaws. Noah turned the handle and again watched Alvin’s reaction. Nothing. Nothing but all-consuming hunger.
Noah dislodged the blade and stepped back. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. Was revenge now impossible? He wondered. He looked back at Alvin, who was still relentlessly trying to bite him, when he had an idea—one that could have been torn straight from the pages of Dante’s Inferno.
Noah raised the machete overhead and chopped down on Alvin’s arm, hacking at the elbow again and again until he had completely severed the forearm. He put his foot on Alvin’s chest and, with one swipe, cut off the hand on his other arm, just below the restraint. Noah turned the blade over as he raised the machete above Alvin’s head. He swung the blunt side down on Alvin’s mouth, breaking his jaw and knocking out most of his teeth.
Noah stepped off Alvin’s chest and admired his handiwork. The newly-mangled Alvin made feeble biting motions with his destroyed mouth as he continued to reach out with one limbless arm. A wicked grin spread across Noah’s face.
A floorboard creaked behind him. Noah wheeled around, the machete arched over his shoulder ready to strike. “Drop it!”
Brandy opened her hand, dropping a carving knife. The tip of the dinged-up blade stuck into a wooden plank.
Noah looked her up and down. “How did you—?” Not get devoured was what Noah was thinking, but his shame wouldn’t let him finish the sentence. If she had been killed, it would have been his fault.
She didn’t answer immediately. “I’m good at hidin’,” she said, averting his gaze.
Noah didn’t know what to say.
“You gonna use that on me?” she said timidly.
He lowered his weapon. “How did he turn?” Noah motioned to Alvin with his head.
“He came back a few days ago. Said he got bit down at the Walmart.”
“Did he mention that he left me there to die?”
“Said he was with someone, but he left him ‘cause he went crazy. Started threatenin’ to kill him.”
“Your brother's a liar,” he said and then paused, “among other things.”
“I know,” she squeaked. Brandy lowered her head and hugged her chest. “You gonna kill him?” she asked.
Noah looked back at Alvin who was squirming and snapping. The rope was slowly sliding down toward his stumped wrist.
“No.” He moved to the ropes binding Alvin’s ankles. “You should get out of here—at least for a little while.” Noah grabbed a rope and began sawing through it with the machete. Once he cut through three quarters of the strand he stopped and then repeated the process on the other rope.
“Why are you doin’ that?” she asked.
“Because I want him to get free.”
Brandy tilted her head. “Why?”
“I want him to be able to get close to the living, but not touch them. I want him to press his mouth against the meat, but not be able to eat it. Insatiable hunger without a moment’s relief. That’s the only thing I can do to him now.” He stopped sawing and looked out the window. “Maybe that’s worse than dying.”
Noah turned to leave the room. On his way out, he bent down and pulled Brandy's knife out of the floor.
“Here,” he said, handing it to her. “You'll need this.”
As Noah walked down the stairs, he plucked the cigarette pack out of his pocket. He pulled a smoke from the box with his mouth and then tucked it back into his shirt. Before stepping outside, he took a knit blanket off the couch and threw it over Dakota’s body. She shouldn’t have to see him like this, he thought.
He sat on the porch steps and lit the cigarette. A minute later Brandy came out after him. She stood near the door and watched him with curiosity.
Noah exhaled a thick plume of smoke. “I came here because your brother cost me my family.” He spoke without looking at her. “And here I've done the same thing to you.”
He pulled the rifle off his shoulder and exte
nded it to her.
“You can kill me if you want. I have no one left to come after you.”
Brandy looked at the gun, surprised by the gesture. “I don't want to kill you, mister.”
Noah looked at her and squinted. “Why not?”
“’Cause I don't want to be left alone.”
Noah stared into her big brown eyes seated on two freckled cheeks and finally noticed the resemblance to his sister.
He flicked the cigarette onto the grass and stood up. “My name is Noah,” he said holding his hand out to her.
She hesitated and then grasped his hand as if it were an envelope. “Brandy.”
Noah smiled. He pulled out the pack of Marlboros from his pocket and set it on the railing.
A loud thump sounded from upstairs.
“Well, Brandy,” he said, slinging the rifle over his shoulder, “I think that’s our cue to get going.”
To be continued…
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