by Nick Clausen
“I know, Mom. I’ll … I’ll be more careful.”
She looks at him for a moment, hands at her sides. “What’s up with you? You don’t look well.”
Dennis feels his cheeks burning. Most of the confidence he felt last night has gone. He thought he was doing a brave thing in handling the situation on his own, but it turned into a mess, and now all he can think of is how to keep Mom from finding Dan in the tunnel. But why would she go down there? Maybe if Dennis just waits it out, the problem will—
“Dennis?” Mom insists. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
Dennis opens his mouth, not sure what will come out. His voice is suddenly calm again. “I’m fine, Mom. I just had a bad dream right now.”
“Oh,” Mom says, eyeing him for another second. “Well, good thing it was just a dream.”
Dennis nods and smiles up at her.
“You hungry?” she asks, picking up the laundry basket. “You must be. I already ate, but I can fix you something.”
Mom goes to the kitchen, and Dennis remembers the van parked in the courtyard. He jumps to his feet and runs after her. He’s just about to grab her and stop her from going into the kitchen, when he sees the boards covering the windows.
He stops and exhales. He forgot about the boards. They put them up so they wouldn’t have to look at the dead people clawing at the windows. Which means the only window the van can be seen from is the one upstairs, in the room Dennis kept a lookout for Dan last night. And Mom rarely goes up there, so he should be safe.
“You want eggs?” she asks him, putting down the basket again and opening the fridge. “We still have some, but we’ll have to eat them before they go bad.”
“Yes, please,” Dennis says, sitting down at the table.
As Mom begins preparing breakfast for him—even though it’s late in the afternoon—Dennis can almost tell himself it’s a normal day. He can almost forget about the van out in the courtyard or Dan in the tunnel. Almost.
To his surprise, though, something other than the fear of Mom finding out has begun to bug him. It feels like guilt. And it’s not from keeping the truth from Mom. It’s the thought of Dan being trapped and alone down there in the tunnel. He is probably starving by now. He must be afraid, too. That’s how Dennis would feel if it was him down there.
Still, Dan came to kill them and take the house. Dennis is certain of that. At least he was certain yesterday. Now, as he sits here in the kitchen, watching Mom start up a pan to make him scrambled eggs, he’s much less certain of Dan’s motives.
Sure, he lied, but when Dennis had confronted him about it, he had seemed honest enough. Then again, he seemed honest when they spoke on the phone, too, but it turned out he was lying.
Either Dan was lying both then and now.
Or else Dan was only lying then but not now.
Either Dan’s intentions are bad and he deserves to be trapped down in the tunnel.
Or Dan told a single lie but is being truthful about everything else.
Which one was it?
If it is the first one, and Dennis lets Dan stay down there to starve to death, he would have stopped Dan’s evil plot to kill them and takeover the house.
If it is the second one, though … then Dennis would be killing a basically innocent person. One who has only told a single lie.
The trouble is, Dennis has no way of finding out which one is true and which one is false. He only has Dan’s words to go on, and his own judgement. He can’t ask Mom or anyone else for advice. The decision is his alone.
Should he just pretend like Dan never existed and wait for him to die? Could he live with that choice? Even if Dan really is a liar and a killer, could Dennis still be the one sentencing him to death?
I didn’t kill him, he killed himself. He shouldn’t have lied to me. If he hadn’t then I would still have trusted him. I would have never—
Dennis notices Mom sniffing the eggs frying on the pan. Then she goes to the fridge, opens it and sniffs inside it.
She looks around the kitchen, then over at Dennis. “You smell something, Dennis?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, something … chemical.”
“No, I don’t smell anything,” Dennis says earnestly.
Mom shrugs, then goes back to the stove. “I just keep thinking I can smell something. It’s almost like gasoline.”
That last word makes Dennis tense up.
As soon as Mom said it, Dennis can smell it all too well. The stench of gasoline seems to be hanging thick like a blanket in the air. He probably didn’t notice it before because he’s gotten used to it.
“It’s probably nothing,” Mom mutters, dumping the eggs onto a plate. She brings it to Dennis, hands him a fork and runs her hand through his hair—a rare sign of affection. “We’ll be okay, Dennis,” she says. “I believe the hardest part is over now. As long as we have each other, we’ll be okay.”
Her voice is uncharacteristically soft and warm—it sounds almost like Mom is smiling.
Dennis doesn’t know for sure, though, because he can’t bring himself to look up at her, so he just nods and begins eating the eggs—even though his appetite is suddenly gone.
Mom stays by his side a moment longer. Then he can hear her sniffing once more. “There it is again. I just remembered, the gas can in the cabinet. Maybe I left the plug open. I’ll go and check.”
Dennis turns his head sideways and watches in horror as Mom walks across the kitchen, headed for the hallway and the cabinet under the stairs.
As soon as she opens it, she will find the gas can empty. And then Dennis will have to confess everything.
“Mom,” he hears himself say, just as Mom is about to leave the kitchen.
Things jump back into normal speed as she turns around to look at him. “Yes, Dennis?”
Dennis takes a deep breath. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
She folds her arms across her chest. “All right?”
“First, promise me you won’t be mad.”
Mom frowns. “I don’t like the sound of that. What did you do, Dennis?”
Dennis stands up. “There’s … there’s someone down in the tunnel.”
SIXTEEN
He walks along the empty road under the scorching sun, Ozzy patrolling up ahead.
William doesn’t know the area that well, and everything basically looks alike; it’s all just fields with the occasional house now and then. But he feels pretty certain he’s at least on Old Mill Road, which means Holger’s house should be coming up ahead any minute now.
They’ve been walking for an hour or so, and William is sweating profusely. He took off his shirt earlier and is wearing it over his head like a turban. He’ll probably get an aggressive tan from walking in the midday sun like this, but who gives a shit? He probably won’t get to enjoy it anyway.
And yet for all the might of the sun, it doesn’t feel as hot as it used to. William even notices a few clouds drifting by now and then. They’re light grey and seem to be growing in size and number. Looks like the heatwave is finally about to break.
Change is in the air, William thinks to himself. Quite literally.
A butterfly floats by in front of him. He’s heard something about butterflies having a lifespan of only a few days. If that’s true, then this fellow chose the right time to live. In two days, it’ll be too late.
He still can’t wrap his head around the fact that Denmark and all the surrounding countries will be turned into a wasteland like the ones you see in American disaster movies. Not only that, it’ll probably also be radioactive for centuries to come, just like the area around Chernobyl, except on a continental scale.
He remembers what Åsaa said, about the European Union answering back if America threatened to bomb everything and how that would draw others into what would soon be a global conflict.
William cares very little for politics, and he has no idea what the relations between the big nations
are or how they’ll respond to a nuclear attack. But he does know that once the first bomb is dropped, it’ll likely mark the end of the world in one way or another.
It’ll certainly be the end of his world, as he’s walking around right where the fun will begin.
There’s time, he tells himself, licking sweat from his upper lip. We can reverse it. Dan was right. We can find a cure.
But even if they did—which conveniently ignores a bunch of difficulties, like convincing the voodoo lady to even give it a try—how would they get the message to the Americans? How would they communicate to the world that the so-called infection could be fought back? They would have to at least be able to demonstrate it somehow. And all of this within forty-eight hours? The more William thinks about it, the more it sounds like a computer game set to difficulty level “impossible.”
He tries to shove aside the thoughts, tries to focus on the task at hand. That’s all he can do, after all; he already made his choice.
They haven’t met any zombies yet, which probably doesn’t mean they aren’t here, they’re just not roaming the open landscape any longer. More likely, the ones who haven’t left the country for bigger meals are huddled around the few people still alive inside their houses.
Still, that’s no guarantee, and William keeps scanning the horizon for any figures. So far, though, he hasn’t seen another human, living or dead. And Ozzy hasn’t picked up any ominous scents, either; at least he hasn’t reacted to anything.
William takes a swig from the bottle the sergeant gave him. The water has turned lukewarm. He’s already drunk most of it, sharing a handful with Ozzy now and then. In his pockets are a couple of jerky strips and a loaf of bread the soldiers were nice enough to let him keep.
“God speed, son,” the sergeant had told him as William climbed onto the ladder with Ozzy hanging over his shoulders. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I hope so too,” William had told him, glancing briefly at the faces of the survivors, most of them eyeing him back with wondering looks.
Then, to his surprise, the sergeant offered him his hand. William took it. Everton held his hand firmly, looking him dead in the eye. “I’m a religious man. I believe what you said about this being a spiritual pandemic. I think of it as God’s wrath.”
William had nodded, feeling a bit uncertain. “I guess you could say that.”
“In case you find out something we can use—anything,” the sergeant went on, staring at William. “Give me a call.” Then he broke the handshake.
“How would I reach—oh.” William noticed the piece of paper the sergeant had left in his hand. It had a long, hand-written number on it. “Thank you.”
“Take care of yourself down there, son.”
Then he had left the helicopter and watched it fly away, disappearing over the horizon in a matter of minutes, leaving him to the heat and the quiet of the day.
“What the fuck am I doing here?” William mutters, wiping sweat from his brow.
And as he looks again, he actually sees it: Holger’s house surrounded by trees, perched on the slight hill. His heart rate rises slightly, and he picks up speed.
SEVENTEEN
After calling for Dan for a couple of minutes and getting no reply, Liv is about to stop.
And that’s when Dan’s voice comes back up at her: “Liv! Is that you? I can hear you!”
It’s faint and difficult to make out through the moaning and the scratching of the zombies, but it’s definitely him.
“Dan! Oh, my God, what a relief! You okay?”
“I guess so. You still in the van?”
“I am.”
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Dan calls back. “I need your help. They trapped me down here. I can’t get out. You’ll have to lure the zombies away.”
Liv moans. “I can’t!”
“Sure you can. You just drive the van slowly away, and they will—”
“No, I mean I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Liv closes her eyes. “It’s empty. The van. It ran out of gas.”
A brief pause. “It did? How did that happen?”
“I … I fell asleep.” She feels stupid for admitting it.
“Oh.” Dan seems to think for a moment. “And you can’t get out?”
“No, they’re everywhere out there.”
“So we’re both trapped,” Dan concludes.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Fuck.”
It’s the first time she’s heard Dan swear.
“Why’d they lock you down there?” she asks. “They didn’t want to try your plan?”
“I never got to speak to Birgit. It was Dennis who locked me down here. I’m not even sure she knows about me yet.”
“Oh, I think she does. She just mad dogged me from the window five minutes ago.”
“I see. Maybe she’ll come and speak to me then.”
“Can’t you call out for her?”
“I already tried; I don’t think they can hear me through the door.”
“So if she decides she doesn’t want to talk, she’ll just leave you down there, and that means we’ll both …” Liv can’t bring herself to finish the sentence.
“Looks that way,” Dan says, sounding defeated. “I can’t … I can’t really see any way out of this, can you?”
Liv chews her lip. “I could try and make a run for it.”
“Didn’t you say they are right outside?”
“Yes, but … I can climb out of the sunroof. If I can jump over them, maybe I can get away clean.”
“How many of them are we talking about?” Dan asks, sounding skeptical.
“I don’t know, not that many,” Liv says, realizing she’s halfway lying, not sure if she’s doing it to comfort him or herself. “Most of them have gone back to the house.”
“Well, they will all be coming for you as soon as you jump,” he warns her. “So you’d better not sprain an ankle or hurt yourself in any other way, or you’ll be in trouble.”
“I know, and I know how to jump.”
“Fine, I’m just saying—”
“Listen, I can do it, okay? It’s just a couple of yards, it’s no big deal.” Liv can hear the fear in her own voice.
There’s a brief pause before Dan says: “Even if you get out clean, how will you move the van?”
“I won’t have to; I’ll just lure away the zombies so you can climb up.”
“I’m not sure the cover can open that way. It’s on hinges.”
“Okay, then I’ll run out to find someone who can help me move the van.”
Dan doesn’t answer, which only prompts Liv to go on.
“We’ll be back here soon and we’ll get the van out of the way so you can get out. Or, better yet, I’ll just bring back a can of gasoline so I can drive the van away myself. That way I don’t need any help.”
As she finally manages to stop herself talking, she realizes her chest is all tight. She breathes out in a long, trembling exhale.
“It’s not going to work,” she whispers to the inside of the van.
“It’ll take too long,” Dan says, confirming her own thoughts. “There are miles between the houses out here. And it’s way too dangerous for you to run around in the open without any weapons or anything.”
“Shit!” Liv spits. “Shit, why’d I have to fall asleep and let the stupid van run dry? I’m such a moron.”
“Stop beating yourself up,” Dan tells her. “That’s no use. We still have time. Maybe—” Dan cuts himself short.
“Dan?” Liv asks.
“Hold on,” he says, almost too low for her to pick it up. “I think I heard something.”
“What?” Liv asks, holding her breath. “Are they coming down there?”
Five long seconds of silence.
Then Dan’s voice comes again: “I think so.”
EIGHTEEN
When Dennis finally stops talking, his mouth is all dry and his palms are all sweaty.<
br />
He looks at Mom for a reaction. She just stands there for the longest time, staring back at him, her expression unreadable.
Dennis feels very uncomfortable. He’s certain Mom will explode, scold him badly or even strike him. This is probably the worst he has ever disrespected her authority, and of course there will be a punishment.
But Mom just stands there. It looks like she’s thinking.
“Mom?” Dennis says, moving restlessly on the spot. He wishes for some strange reason that he had brought the gun from the living room—not that he would use it on Mom, not even as a deterrent from her punishing him—but he longs for that feeling of confidence the gun gives him when he holds it. He feels grown-up. Right now, he feels more like a five-year-old who accidentally broke a plate.
Mom still doesn’t answer.
“Would you please say something, Mom?” Dennis urges. “You can yell at me if you want.”
Mom’s left eye grows a little narrower. “Yell at you?”
“Yes,” Dennis nods eagerly. “Or, you know … punish me. That’s okay, I totally understand …”
Mom steps closer to him, making Dennis flinch. But she doesn’t come at him; instead, she just stands in front of him, towering over him.
“You want me to treat you like an adult, Dennis?”
Dennis blinks with surprise. “Uhm, well, yes … I’d like that.”
“Then act like one.”
Dennis considers for a moment. Then he slowly straightens up. He lifts his chin, standing at his full height, which is almost enough to be at eye level with Mom.
“That’s better,” Mom says, her voice still betraying no emotion. And then, with the speed of a striking snake, her hand shoots up and grabs Dennis by the chin, her nails digging into his skin.
“Ouch!” he cries out and tries to pull back, but Mom holds him firmly.
She pulls his face close to hers and hisses very low: “That will be the last time you lie to me.”
“It will! It will, Mom, I swear!”
Dennis stands on his toes, shuffling to try and take the pressure of his throbbing chin. Mom holds on to him for another couple of seconds, then she finally releases him, and Dennis stumbles backwards, his hands going to his chin, expecting to feel blood, but amazingly, Mom’s nails don’t seem to have penetrated his skin.
