Chivalry Is Dead

by Bennie Newsome

  The kitchen ran the width of the house. A curtain, pushed open, separated the kitchen from the pantry, and an open doorway to their right led into the dining room. Directly across from them, a door with a doggie door led out to a porch and the backyard. Dust covered the counter tops and kitchen table, but nothing seemed out of place. There were no evident signs of a struggle.

  “See if they have any flashlights,” Alex said.

  While Eve checked the pantry, Alex did a quick check of the cabinets and cupboards. If the house proved empty, they had struck pay dirt. The cabinets were full of canned and boxed goods. Eve returned with two large Maglites and a hand-cranked flashlight that ran on its own power. That would come in handy for when they could no longer obtain batteries. “They got a drawer full of batteries, too.”

  “Great. We’ll come back for those. And this,” Alex said, indicating the opened cabinets. “But let’s check the rest of the house first just to make sure we’re not robbing somebody blind.”

  The dining room table had placesettings for four, and dust covered everything in the room. It was beginning to appear as if the place might be deserted after all, but looks could be deceiving.

  Back out in the hallway, they started up the stairs. If what Eve said was true and there was somebody in the basement, he wanted to make certain the upstairs was empty before tackling the cellar. He was beginning to think they didn’t have anything to worry about, seeing that nobody had come forward to defend the home and supplies from the intruders, but he wasn’t about to take any chances. There was no point in risking somebody sneaking up behind them and trapping them in the basement. From the second floor, at the least they would be able to escape out one of the windows. With their backs against the wall, they took the steps one at a time, weapons at the ready. They reached the landing without incident. Immediately to their left was a door. A glance down the hall revealed four other doors, all closed but one.

  Without waiting to be told, Eve dropped to a crouch while Alex took position against the wall. He gave a nod and Eve reached out and turned the doorknob. As the door swung open, she fell back, bringing up the rifle at the empty doorway. Alex darted through the door, throwing himself against the wall, the .45 following his gaze as it swept the room. He found himself in an empty bedroom, the bed neatly made. Nightstands stood sentry at either side of the bed, atop which sat small brass lamps. The closet door stood open, revealing nothing more than a row of clothes hanging from a thick metal rod.

  They moved to the door across the hall to find it locked. They looked at each other questioningly, but continued down the hall. They would come back to it. The remaining doors opened to empty but, with the exception of the dust, well-maintained rooms. Moving back to the locked door, Alex pressed his ear to the wooden surface, listening for the slightest sound, but all was quiet. He took a step back and kicked at the door. The lock gave and the door swung open, hit the wall, and rebounded back. The smell that hit him made him gag and double over; he clapped a hand over his mouth and nose. Eve fell back, burying her nose in the crook of her elbow.

  “Stay here,” he told her. He pulled his shirt up over his mouth and nose and entered the room.

  Here was the evidence he had been looking for. On the bed was the body of a little girl, about six or seven years old. Her skin had the grayish pallor of the turned, and she might have been pretty; he couldn’t be sure because half of her head was missing. The sheet on which she lay was caked with dried blood, and there was a splatter pattern on the wall over the bed. Bits of skull, hair, and brain matter adhered to the wallpaper like the remnants of a food fight. Somebody, probably her parents, had put her out of her misery shortly after she had turned. Could they be the ones hiding in the basement?

  He backed out of the room and pulled the door closed.

  “Wha—?”

  He cut her off with a shake of his head. No matter how many times he came across the walking dead, seeing the children was always the hardest for him. He didn’t see any point in exposing her to the violence if there was no threat involved.

  Silently, they returned to the first floor and approached the cellar door. Alex tried the knob, but found the door locked, and from the looks of it, the lock that was on the door was a relatively recent addition. The wood around the deadbolt was still splintered. Whoever had installed it hadn’t taken the time to sand down the wood before insetting the cylinder mechanism. He pressed his ear to the door but could hear nothing through the thick wood. With his ear still held to the door, he knocked loudly, giving the wooden surface three hard raps. “Hello,” he called out. “Is anybody there?”

  There was no response, but somebody had to be in the basement. The door hadn’t locked itself from the other side. Maybe they were too scared to answer. Maybe they were hurt and couldn’t answer. Or, worst case scenario, they were dead and when the door was opened, they’d be face to face with a rotten corpse on two legs. No matter what awaited them, he needed to get the door open. If they were scared, perhaps he could persuade them to come with him and Eve. There was safety in numbers, after all. If they were hurt, maybe he and Eve could help. If they were dead, well, then he would send them to join their daughter—and collect whatever weapons they had stashed down there. He checked the door and realized that it pulled out, so there was no way he was going to be able to kick it open.

  Taking a couple of steps back, he brought up the .45 and aimed it at the door. Two shots took out the lock, and he stepped forward and pulled the door open. The smell that assaulted them was worse than an abandoned slaughter house in the heat of the summer, worse than what they had encountered upstairs. That left little question as to what he would find at the bottom of the stairs. Regardless, he ventured forward, pulling his shirt up over his mouth and nose. It did little to filter out the smell, as it had already rooted itself in his sinus passages and the back of his throat. It would be hours before he would be able to smell or taste anything without feeling the need to vomit.

  He was a couple of steps down when Eve came up behind him holding two of the flashlights. He sighed. With the .45 in one hand and a flashlight in the other, there was no way he would be able to keep his shirt up over his nose. Nevertheless, he took one and flicked it on. The beam of light speared the shadows, driving them back, and he continued cautiously down the stairs. Eve waited in the kitchen, far enough away in case he needed to make a hasty retreat while still being close enough should he need her help.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he swept the flashlight beam around the room. It wasn’t as cluttered as he was expecting. In addition to a washer and dryer against the far wall, there were a dozen or so boxes lining the walls, some marked “CHRIST-MAS” in black marker, and others marked “HALLOWEEN.” A make-shift clothesline ran across the room at an angle, starting just to the left of the washing machine. Hanging from it, almost to the concrete floor, was a heavy quilted comforter that hid the far corner of the room from view.

  He took the last step, setting his foot firmly on the floor, but quickly jerked it up when something crunched beneath it. He aimed the flashlight beam at the floor and saw hundreds of dead mice. The floor was literally covered with them. Some of their little bodies had been crushed, and some looked as if they had been cut in half. Where had they all come from? Were they the source of the smell? He didn’t think so; the smell was too strong to be coming from just the mice. There was definitely something else down here with him.

  He took the last step and swung the beam of light towards the back of the cellar. He could see the boiler, an old monstrosity, and a makeshift workbench that was littered with tools. There were, however, no decomposing bodies to be seen. He brought the light back towards the front of the house and aimed it at the comforter. They had to be behind that.

  Try as he might to avoid stepping on the dead mice, there were so many that it couldn’t be helped, and as he made his way across the room, he cringed with each step as the bodies gave beneath his feet with sickening popping sounds. The
noise was loud to his ears, and the snapping of the tiny bones set off vibrations that passed through the soles of his boots and traveled up his legs.

  Despite the smell, the silence of the room had a calming effect on him and the tension eased from his taught muscles. If there had been a zombie trapped down here, he would have seen it by now because it would have come right for him. As he approached the comforter, his body stiffened when he thought he heard a shuffling sound. It was coming from behind the makeshift curtain. He reached out to pull the thick blanket aside, wishing he had brought the rifle instead of the .45. The rifle had a longer reach and he could have used the barrel to push the comforter aside. As it was, he had to stick the .45 in the waistband of his jeans to have a hand free. He grabbed the comforter and pulled it down, then jumped back, the handgun all but forgotten.

  On the floor, huddled in the corner, was the source of the smell. Two bodies, a man and a woman, were wrapped in an embrace. The man appeared to be in his late 30s, early 40s, and he was covered with raw, seeping sores. There was no telling how old the woman was because her face was gone, and behind what remained of her head was a blood splatter thick with hair and brain matter. Her body also bore evidence of having been savaged. Next to the man, laying on the floor, was a double-barreled shotgun. Next to it was a large butcher knife, which explained the condition of some of the mice. It was obvious the woman had turned and the man had put her out of her misery. What he couldn’t understand was why the man, with all those festering sores, hadn’t turned. Had the mice been drawn to the decomposing corpse? Mice weren’t usually carnivorous, but with the changing world, there was no telling how they were affected.

  Alex took a step closer, preparing to retrieve the shotgun, when the man moved faster than a dead man should—faster than a zombie for that matter.

  “Oh shit!” Alex exclaimed, jumping backwards while reaching for the .45. He brought the gun up and aimed it at the wounded man, who made no move to get up; he had only reached out to snag the shotgun and draw it closer to him. He looked at Alex, and Alex found it difficult to return the man’s gaze. The guy had to be in a great deal of pain with all those open sores, and the sudden movement had caused some of them to break open. Blood ran in tiny rivers from the freshly reopened wounds.

  Alex’s gaze was drawn by the movement of the man’s hand, and he saw that the man was missing his fingers. Ragged stumps fumbled with the gun, unable to grasp it, let alone pull the trigger, and slowly he began to understand. The man was in pain, but with the missing fingers, there was no way he could put an end to his own suffering. Shining the flashlight’s beam around the room, he noticed for the first time the chunks of concrete on the floor and the deep divots in the walls where stray shells hand landed before finding their mark in the woman’s head.

  “Eash,” the man said, forcing Alex to look at the ruined face, something he had been trying hard not to do. The man’s eyelids were raw and bloody and part of his nose was missing. Bone and cartilage were barely visible through the gore. His lips were all but gone, ragged flesh hung like fringe over the man’s teeth. “Shoo ee.” When the man spoke again, Alex noticed that the man’s tongue had been ripped—or chewed—out, and he shuddered at the idea of all this happening while the man was conscious.

  From upstairs came the sound of a cabinet door being slammed shut, followed by a scream. “Eve?” Alex called out, turning away from the man and running for stairs. He skidded to a halt as something dropped down on the step and continued moving. Bringing up the flashlight, he took an involuntary step back as the beam caught the dead milky eyes of a rat, its teeth bared. “What the fuck?” he said, as the thing staggered forward, reached the end of the step, and dropped down to the next one.

  Gunshots echoed in the small kitchen overhead. “Alex, help me,” Eve called out. “Oh my God, there’s so many of them.”

  Fear settled into his stomach and started to fester there, like some rancid stew that he was trying to keep down, as a thought worked its way into his head. He started forward, bringing his heel down heavily on the undead rat, and took the stairs two at a time. With each step it was becoming an effort to keep that burning fear from working its way out. He gained the landing and was paralyzed by the sight that greeted him. A cabinet door below the sink was slightly ajar, and one by one the dead rats slipped through the thin gap, probably from a hole in the foundation. There must have been a hundred of them already in the kitchen. Eve had climbed up on the counter and was doing her best to take them out with the rifle, but the only thing that would be effective against so many was a flamethrower. Alex couldn’t understand how so many had entered the kitchen through that gap before Eve spotted them. Then he noticed the doggie door, and the steady stream of decaying furry bodies moving through it.

  “The window,” Alex called out, and Eve turned at the sound of his voice. “Go out the window and I’ll meet you outside.” As he started to move slowly backwards down the hall, Eve turned, shifting her weight to bring the butt of the rifle up to break the glass. Her foot was dangerously close to the edge, and he noticed her sock was soaked through with blood. Her sneaker was slick with it. So was the counter. She brought the rifle up, her weight shifting from one leg to the other, and her foot slipped over the edge of the counter. The rifle flew from her hands as she tried to catch herself, throwing herself forward, but her aim was off. She slammed into the corner of the overhead cabinet and rebounded.

  And then she was falling.

  She moved with a cat-like quickness, and before her body even had a chance to absorb the impact, she was rolling. He could hear her cursing under her breath as she struggled against the mass of bodies to get up, but despite her valiant efforts, he could see the blood from where the rats had already managed to sink their sharp teeth, tiny rose buds of death blossoming through the white material of her sweatshirt. On her knees now, a rat hanging from her neck where it had managed to find purchase, he started forward to help her. She must have sensed him because she looked up, the intensity of her gaze freezing him in his tracks.

  “Go!” she said, knowing that even if she got out of this alive, a death sentence had already been delivered to her. It would only be a matter of time. “Get out of here!” she screamed, dropping and rolling, determined to crush as many of the vermin as possible before she slowly bled out from their bites.

  A haze crept over his eyes and he realized he was crying. He wiped the tears away with the back of his hand and then slowly brought up the .45.

  “Do it,” she said.

  He sighted down the barrel and found he couldn’t pull the trigger. His thoughts went to the man downstairs, all those dead mice, and it dawned on him what must have happened. The mice, zombie mice, had invaded the basement and attacked the couple. In his fear that his wife would become one of them, he’d shot her, and yet, despite all the damage the man had suffered, he hadn’t changed. Maybe there was a chance. If he could just get Eve out of there, she would be okay. He’d clean and dress her wounds, give her some antibiotics to help battle any infection, and she’d be fine in a few days.

  He started forward again, gun raised, and started taking shots at the rats. Some of them turned and started down the hall. They moved so slowly that stepping on their heads and crushing their skulls would not be a problem. He could kill them easily.

  “Get out of here.” Her voice, full of pain but mysteriously absent of any fear, broke through his thoughts, and he looked at her. There were bites all over her face and the sleeves of her sweatshirt had been shredded in places, exposing the bloody flesh beneath. The material of her shirt was moving, squirming, and he knew the rats had already found their way beneath it. He raised the barrel of his gun, and she said, “Do it. If you love me, do it.”

  And he did love her, which is why, as the rats started to crawl and squirm around his feet, he finally pulled the trigger. His hands were trembling so, his first shot went wide. Taking a deep breath, with tears creeping from the corners of his eyes, he concentrate
d on steadying his hands and pulled the trigger again, this time scoring a kill shot.

  He raced from the house, barely making the porch before the vomit erupted from his mouth, spewing over the railing to spray the grass below. He wiped his mouth with the back if his hand, and when his stomach contracted again, he fought the urge. There were things that needed to be done before he could give in to his emotions. He hurried down to the rear of the car, took a five-gallon gas can from the trunk, and went back inside the house. Starting at the front door, he splashed the walls and floor, leaving a trail to the kitchen where he poured out the rest of the can, letting it pool on the tiled surface to slowly make its way across the floor.

  Returning to the porch, he took a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it. He stood at the open doorway, staring into the house as if daring the undead vermin to come for him, but they were content to work on Eve’s body. He flicked the half-smoked cigarette onto the floor just inside the door, and the saturated carpet flared up. The flames raced down the hall towards the kitchen. Alex backed down the steps and moved towards the car where he waited until he saw the flames licking at the dining room window. Only then did he put his back to the house.