A Little More Dead

by Sean Thomas Fisher

  “Okay, that is really bad,” Wendy moaned, covering her nose with her shoulder.

  Her flashlight lit up a big screen TV, the thick kind that took up an entire corner of the room. They stepped onto a rug with a southwestern pattern covering most of the silver living room carpet. Paul’s eyes watered as he took in the Kocopelli trinkets adorning the end tables and window sills. A red, white and blue Houston Texans blanket lay draped over the back of a couch that had seen better days while the people in the family pictures watched Paul invade their home. He could almost see the downturned lines creeping into the faces of the balding man, his wife and young son.

  Paul crossed into the kitchen, where two dog bowls – one with “Ginger” printed on the side – sat devoid of food and water. Mangled packages of cereal, chips and cookies lay scattered around the kitchen floor without a crumb to be found. A set of keys hung from the utter of a decorative cow attached to the wall. Paul nodded to the white door next to it, beads of sweat tickling his back.

  Dan opened the door and Wendy and Paul entered an attached two car garage that smelled of oil and grass. Paul’s eyes went from the three mountain bikes leaning against a far wall to a work bench littered with tools and empty Budweiser bottles. His rambling gaze slipped over some golf clubs and fishing rods in one corner before snagging on two tall trophies sitting on a dusty shelf against another wall. Between the trophies was a framed picture of a man leaning against a black Chevelle with Shelly1 printed on the license plates. With thin arms proudly folded across a striped shirt, the man smiled at Paul wherever he went in the garage and was the same balding man from the pictures in the living room.

  “Too bad they took it with them,” Dan murmured, scanning the empty garage. “It was a four door too.”

  They debated parking the cop car in the garage, but decided against it at the last minute. Better to have it backed in the driveway and ready-to-go than have to manually open the large metal door before they split.

  “But, if those things suddenly surrounded the house,” Wendy countered, “we could safely get in the car if it was already inside the garage and crash through the door if we had to.” Another one of life’s new little decisions. In the end, they decided to take Wendy’s advice and park in the garage after all.

  The screened in sun porch held a seven-foot pool table that was too big for the room. In one corner, sat a cache of pool sticks jutting from the mouth of a rusty milk can with the word Welcome etched into its side. Three walls of windows overlooked a big backyard with several bushy pines circling an oversized machine shed thirty yards out.

  Paul wondered where the dad in the pictures had gone. They’d broken into how many houses now and no one was ever home. Did they all turn into walking stiffs? Did they all wander off on a hunting trip never to remember how to get back home or to even care?

  Guns drawn, they left the sun porch and went down a carpeted hallway, grimacing with the stench of death choking the air. They passed an outdated bathroom and then a small bedroom decorated with NASCAR stuff that tugged at Paul’s heart. At the end of the hall, they found Ginger lying on the master bed, hair matted and thin, worms wiggling in the Golden Retriever’s bloated stomach. Wendy pulled her motorcycle jacket over her nose and gagged, pink gun hanging heavy in her hand. Paul sighed as images of the past pieced together in his mind. Trapped inside the house for whatever reason, the poor dog was left to figure a way out of this mess on her own, emptying the cereal and cookie boxes in the kitchen. Finally out of ideas, Ginger took her rightful place on her master’s bed and went to sleep, never to wake up again. Paul wished it was that easy. One thing was for sure: The family who lived here must’ve been in one hell of a hurry to leave their dog behind.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  After securing the rest of the house, Wendy opened the bedroom windows while Dan and Paul found a tarp and some gloves in the garage. With Wendy providing cover, they carried Ginger out back and gently laid her down behind the machine shed.

  “That poor dog. Why would they just leave her trapped inside like that?”

  They stared at the dead dog for a moment longer before Paul folded the tarp over her swollen body.

  “Let’s check the shed,” Dan suggested, holding up the keys he found in the kitchen.

  Wendy’s jaw dropped. “Shouldn’t we bury her or something?”

  Anger contorted Paul’s face. “Are you fucking serious?”

  She turned from his scowl and grew quiet. Paul liked it better when she was tip-toeing around him after all. Less noise came out of her mouth that way.

  Dan exchanged a trepid glance with her as they followed Paul around to the front of the large shed. Sweat ran down his face and neck and the thought of digging another grave made him sick to his stomach. The last one came at a price he wasn’t willing to pay again.

  The pedestrian door to the shed had a window with drawn blinds on the inside that made it impossible to see what (or who) was hiding within so Dan politely knocked. Wendy cocked her head at him and he shrugged. Guns at the ready, he tried two keys before finding the right one. The door clicked open. Wendy sent the flashlight inside first, and there she was...Shelly1. Dan gasped when he saw the jacked up muscle car. They stepped inside the spacious outbuilding, the smell of motor oil and earth mixing in the air. A hulking green tractor sat on the other side of the shed, dwarfing the show car. Paul threw a wrench across the room. It banged off a steel wall and clattered to the concrete floor. When no one came rushing out to eat them, they went in deeper. Dust swirled in the beam of light.

  “Would you look at that,” Dan murmured, running a finger along the glossy black paint of a Chevelle 300 Deluxe that looked like it just rolled off the lot. He held his finger up to the light. “Not a speck of dust.”

  “I dated a guy who had a car like this one time. Only his was a two-door and sunburnt orange with black racing stripes.” Wendy swung the light inside the car. “Took better care of it than he did me.”

  Dan flipped through the keys on the corn-cob key-ring in his hand and the first one he tried unlocked the driver’s door. “Yes!” he said, sliding into the black bucket seat and finding the ignition key. Dan shot them a wish-me-luck-look and brought the throaty V8 to life, vibrating the shed walls and filling it with smoke. “Would you listen to that!”

  The car was sweet but wasn’t helping Paul’s headache any. He threw back the bay doors and waved Dan outside. Shelly1 rumbled out on shiny tires mounted on black rims, the gas gauge – Dan happily informed them – half full. After some heated debate, they decided to trade out the cop car and its cumbersome cage, which made passing food and water a nightmare, for the Chevelle. Dan pulled around front and, under the cover of dusk, they transferred their gear and food from the cop car to the Chevelle before backing it inside the garage in a ready-to-go position. Wendy parked the cop car around the side, out of the way in case they had to drive the Chevelle through the garage door in the middle of the night.

  Dan shut the driver’s side door and whistled, circling the car like a vulture inside the closed garage. “Now that’s some American muscle, ladies and gentlemen!”

  Paul blew out a tired breath and went back inside, not caring if anyone followed or not. On the living room couch, he curled onto his side and prayed for God to take good care of his wife. Then he cursed Him for taking her away from him, saying He had no fucking right. Paul pictured Sophia’s grave under that naked willow, alone in the cold and the dark. Through heavy-lidded eyes, he inspected the family’s pictures and furniture and trinkets, a wave of nausea washing over him. Closing his eyes against the alien possessions, Paul saw his wife’s scared face on the mint-colored couch instead.

  No, check that.

  Ex-wife now.

  A horn beeped twice in the garage followed by the Chevelle’s revving engine. Dan yelled something to Wendy that made her laugh and Paul pulled a pillow over his head because the darkness was familiar, unlike everything in this house and the one before it. His mind
shuffled on random. Sophia was gone and they would never share a quiet Sunday morning over coffee and cinnamon rolls ever again. Never swim in their new pool. Never ride in their new boat. Never have the child they so desperately wanted to have because Sophia was dead and no one would put flowers on her grave.

  He yawned, forcing his thoughts to a happier time. A time when the grass was green and the sunshine warm upon their skin. Huge rock formations jutted from the earth like elephant backs as joggers and bikers and people out walking their dogs strolled past without giving them much notice. Sophia always wanted to go to New York City and last summer he surprised her with a long weekend on Madison Avenue. Unlike the pink handgun he bought her so they could share time at the range, this surprise she liked. After countless hours of shopping on 5th and Broadway, they took a break to catch their breath in Central Park. Sophia’s smile made her glow. There were no dead people and frozen apple pies, no strange houses with someone else’s junk and nobody at home. It was just a beautiful weekend in the Big Apple.

  They shared an ice cream cone with a scoop of mint chocolate chip and one of rocky road. A light breeze tickled her silky brown hair, green eyes radiant with the city’s radiant energy. She said coming to Manhattan made her feel electric, like she could fly. Paul leaned in and kissed her, leaving ice cream on her lips. She laughed and told him she loved him, laughing some more when a wandering Golden Retriever took a sneaky lick from their cone. Giggling, she turned away from the furry visitor, her eyes more full of life than Paul could ever remember. Undeterred, the dog went to him and licked the ice cream from his face with a tongue that was rough and wet. He and Sophia laughed in the sunlight, not a care in the world. Paul wished they could stay there forever because he loved the way it made her feel. Happy with his treat, the dog sat down and panted in Paul’s face, breath warm and rancid. Paul wrinkled his nose and wiped the dog slobber from his mouth, cringing when he saw the slime coating his palm. When he looked up Sophia was sitting thirty feet away on the park’s lush green grass. The dog got up and licked Paul’s face again. He pushed him back and Sophia was even further away now. He opened his mouth to tell her to wait for him, that the last thing they wanted to do was get split up in the big city but he couldn’t find his voice and it sent a bolt of panic shooting through him. She stared at him with a sad look in her eyes as if he didn’t care, as if he didn’t love her. He knew that’s what she was thinking and it broke his heart because it couldn’t be further from the truth. He loved her more than anything in the world, and didn’t she know that? The dog’s breath smelled like it had eaten its own shit and Paul shoved the persistent sonofabitch away, staring in horror at the fur sticking to his hand. When he looked up again, his wife was gone. His heart jumped and then she was there, as clear as the alarm swimming in her eyes. Her lips moved.

  Wake up.

  Paul cracked open a single eyelid to find the balding man from the trophy picture in the garage bending over him on the couch, face glowing in the moonlight streaming through the living room windows. Warm slobber dripped onto Paul’s face.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Snapping his eye shut, Paul froze. The blood pounding strongly in his temples made it difficult to hold his breath but he had to or else. Despite the fact that the man was missing an eyelid and most of one cheek, Paul recognized him from the pictures in the house. Paul could hear the home owner sniffing at him like he was a batch of fresh cookies just pulled from the oven and it was nearly impossible resisting the urge to wipe the drool from his face. His mind raced. Where the hell were Dan and Wendy?

  He wanted to scream.

  No, correction. He had to scream.

  A long strand of saliva oozed from the slug’s festering mouth and landed on Paul’s lips. He tried not to cringe, surreptitiously sliding his right hand down his leg. The man’s discharge was salty and Paul wondered if he was infected. He wanted to open his eyes again but fought the urge off as his fingertips hit cold steel. The car show spook licked Paul’s face with a long rough tongue, painting Paul’s left cheek with a coat of putrid slime that made the bile rise in the back of his throat. He played possum, the impending bite out of his face looming just overhead. Barely moving a muscle, he drew his sidearm from the holster on his leg. The thing’s breath smelled like beer farts and when Paul opened his eyes the man’s jaws sprang back like a snake. Paul pulled the trigger and sent the gangly man of the house rolling onto the living room floor with a heavy double thud. Mockingly, he got back up, fresh blood seeping from the bullet hole in his side. The man didn’t care or seem to notice. Paul sat up on the couch, trading a long stare with this terrifying creature that couldn’t be real. Yet here it was in the silver light of the moon, staring him dead in the face, jeans caked with dried blood, Polo shirt torn and stretched.

  “Do you know who you are?” Paul said, aiming the gun at the man’s decomposing face.

  The man tilted his head to the left, skinny fingers curled into permanent claws.

  “What happened to you?”

  The car show guy answered with an ear piercing shriek and stumbled closer. Eyes still foggy with sleep, Paul fired two rounds. The first shot drove the man back a step. The second found his nose and made an awful mess on the drapes behind him. The backdoor slammed shut and Dan and Wendy sprinted into the room with their guns drawn. Wendy inhaled sharply when she saw the gory mess inside. Dan stared at the listless body on the living room rug, Glock clenched in his right hand. He turned to Paul with saucers for eyes. “Are you okay?”

  Paul sprang from the couch and wiped the nasty slobber from his face with the Texans blanket. “Can I not get one minute of peace around here?” he yelled, spitting the vial toxin from his mouth and wondering how long he had left to live. “I can’t even take a nap without getting killed!” He threw the blanket to the floor and put two more rounds in the man’s face.

  “I thought the place was clear!” Wendy searched the house with frightened eyes as if they weren’t alone.

  “Where the hell were you?”

  “W-We were out back for a minute,” she stammered, gesturing with Sophia’s gun.

  “Hitting some golf balls,” Dan added. “We found a lantern in the shed.”

  “Well it must’ve been a long minute because that sonofabitch was licking my face for what seemed like forever!”

  Wendy and Dan turned back to the mess on the floor, blinking in disbelief.

  “Where’d he come from?” Dan asked softly.

  Paul shot the big screen TV in the face. “Can’t even watch TV anymore!”

  Silence sucked the air from the room.

  “No more movies, no more going to work, no more fucking nothing. It’s all over! All of it!” Paul towered over the corpse, thinking and sweating, voice softening to a whisper. “All because of this guy right here.” His brow went up. “But this is the hand we’ve been dealt and what’re the odds we live to see forty?”

  Dan stared at him, aghast. “Paul, we’re going to make it, man. We’re almost there.”

  “And for what?” Paul screamed so loudly, Dan stepped back as if he might shoot him next. “So we can live on the beach and sing How Great Thou Art? Well, good for fucking you, Dan, but you can count me out!”

  “What else are we supposed to do, Paul?” Wendy interrupted, tears cascading the bend in her cheeks. “Give up? Hide in the basement all day with the doors locked? Shoot ourselves in the head?” She sharpened her gaze and clenched her teeth. “There are still good days ahead of us and I won’t let you take them from me!”

  His eyebrows pulled together. “Oh, I’m taking from you?” he whispered, throwing his hands out. “Well take a good look around, sweetheart, because everything’s already been taken!”

  She bowed her head and sniffled, slipping Sophia’s gun back inside Sophia’s hip holster.

  Dan looked up from the corpse. “Look, I am beyond sorry about Sophia and I don’t know what the hell is going on out there but I do know you cannot check out on me now.�
�� He paused to find Paul’s eyes. “I am scared to death and I need you, man.”

  “You know who needs me? My wife!”

  “Your wife is dead, Paul! We’re not.”

  Paul’s gaze fell to the floor. He pushed a jagged piece of the television aside with his shoe, eyes narrowing.

  Dan watched him bend down on one knee and run a hand across the rug. “What is it?”

  Paul brought his fingers to his nose. “Mud,” he said, following the muddy footprints down the hallway and into the bedroom that looked like a NASCAR store. He stopped, studying the still wet prints coming out of an open closet. “I thought we checked this door.”

  “We did,” Wendy replied.

  Paul looked back. “Where are the prints leading inside?”

  Dan’s eyes swept the room. “It’s impossible.”

  Paul stepped inside the small closet and slid a young boy’s shirts back on the rail. “What’d he take his shoes off when he came inside?”

  “I’m telling you we checked that closet!”

  Paul’s heart sank. Slowly, he looked up, pulse hammering when he saw the rectangular opening in the ceiling of the closet. “He was in the attic,” he whispered.

  Dan poked his head inside. “Oh my God, but where’d he come in at?”

  “Does it matter? We’re all fucked now.”

  “Paul,” Wendy said, her voice cracking. “We’re not fucked. We just need to…”

  “Need to what, Wendy?” he screamed. “Be more careful? Take a look around! They can fucking hide, for Christ’s sake!” He pushed past them and stormed into the living room, the7-Up igloo display surging to the forefront of his mind. He’d kicked those 7-Up cans over to draw the infected from the grocery store’s shadows but, for whatever reason, the butcher and pharmacist didn’t take the bait – same with the Kohl’s manager and the chubby little redheaded girl hiding inside. Paul collapsed onto the couch and stared at the ceiling, a weary sigh prying itself from his lips. If those things could hide, what else could they do? He found himself wondering if the flesh-eaters could, one day, learn to use weapons and tools while Dan and Wendy checked the attic for the missing family members. He didn’t know what they did next and, just before falling asleep in a pool of wet slobber that smelled like dog shit, Paul imagined those things shooting back.