In the Dead: Volume 1 (16 page)

Not a good sign.

“
Curtains,” Meghan whispered and grabbed the cord to lift the shade closest to her. Light flooded the room and she flinched at the brightness and looked around. Dust covered every surface of the furniture, but otherwise there would have been no way to guess that the people here were gone. Everything was in its place. Everything was still ready for the family to return.

It was kind of creepy. Like they’d somehow stumbled into a life-sized doll house.

“
Looks like a living room to the right,” Ashley said, ever focused on the business at hand. Meghan smiled. Her sister was younger, but sometimes wiser. Though she wasn’t about to admit that out loud. Ever.

“
And a kitchen to the left,” Meghan said. “Let’s clear the living room first.”

With a nod, Ashley followed her into the living room. The house was small, so the room was a little cramped and the furniture was well-worn. It was also empty except for the emaciated corpse of what had apparently been a dog.

“
That explains the smell,” Meghan sighed. In some way, she was relieved by the discovery. If the rot was from a dead animal, that might mean they’d escape without encountering zombies.

“
Kitchen?” Ashley asked, her face pale and drawn. She’d always been sucker for animals.

“
Sure, lead the way,” Meghan motioned her toward the entryway. “
Carefully
!”

Ashley shot her a look but she did slow her creeping as they passed through the main hall and into the cramped, out-dated kitchen on the other side of the house. It, too, was empty.

Meghan set her gun down on the dirty counter. “Check the cabinets for non-perishables.”

Ashley nodded and took one set while Meghan took the other. They loaded up their backpacks with stale bags of chips, a cheapo bag of chocolate chip cookies and a few cans of beans and store-brand soup.

“
Fridge?” Ashley asked.

Meghan shook her head. “No way. Everything in there has got to be rotted. I don’t want to unleash the smell, I’ll have it in my nose for hours.”

“
But there could also be stuff in there like medicine or something,” her sister reasoned.

Meghan folded her arms. “Still not worth the-”

She didn’t get to finish the word “smell”. Before she could there was a sound behind them. Meghan pivoted to see a zombie standing in the kitchen entryway. She was a girl with what was left of a ponytail, though much of her dark hair had fallen out as her flesh rotted. She was wearing what was left of a t-shirt that seemed to have once said something about cheerleading.

And even though her face was gray and damaged, Meghan could see she was the spitting image of her Dad.

Mac.

“
Oh shit,” Ashley muttered as the girl lunged for Meghan.

Meghan scrambled for her gun, but before she could get there Ashley fired. The zombie stiffened as the bullet pierced her forehead and splattered the rotting remains of her brains on the wall behind her. Then she toppled backward and lay still.

“
Didn’t he say he had two daughters?” Meghan asked as she grabbed for the gun she had stupidly set aside.

Ashley nodded and her hand was shaking while she reloaded the chamber so that it was full. “He did.”

“
Ok, then let’s clear the rest of the house, then we’ll find this stupid picture and get out of here before it gets to be dark.” Meghan smiled, but it was just a mask. It was always just a mask.

They moved toward the back of the house in the narrow hallway. Meghan could hear a faint, muffled thumping from the very back room and she swallowed hard. The other sister.

“
Is that her?” Ashley asked.

Meghan nodded. There was a door at the end of the hallway that had been blocked by big boards nailed to the walls around the door. They were streaked with blood and Meghan shook her head. “Looks like she’s in that back bedroom.”

“
I think they blocked her in there too late,” Ashley whispered. “Since both of them went zombie anyway.”

The zombie on the other side of the door was banging against it. The boards shivered and Meghan could see where she had already nearly clawed through the door itself. There were thin spots that were almost transparent, she could see movement through them, but not the zombie girl behind it.

“
I’ve been thinking about the story Mac told us. About having to kill his wife after she made it to the farm.” Meghan looked at Ashley.

Ashley bit her lip. “Me too. We’ve never talked about…
it
. You know, what would happen if one of us… if we…”

Meghan nodded to interrupt her. “You don’t have to say it. Don’t say it. But what he did was right. If anything ever happened to me, you have to shoot me, okay. Don’t go doing what Mac’s wife did and lock me up somewhere. Obviously that didn’t work for them.”

They both looked at the door and Ashley shivered. “She’s been in there for two months, Meghan. Trapped in that room, roaming around in zombie rage and hunger. All alone. She would have been better off dead.”

“
Exactly.” Meghan grabbed for her sister’s hand. “So let’s just promise it right now: Love before mercy, right?”

“
It’s pretty messed up that love is now putting a bullet through your sister’s skull,” Ashley said with a shiver. “But you’re right. Love before mercy.”

“
Okay, so let’s put this poor girl out of her misery because this is the stupid room that Mac’s picture is in.” Meghan sighed. “And then let’s get out of here.”

“
Steel toed boot to the thin part of the door,” Ashley said as she peered at the barrier in front of them. “When she pokes her head out, shoot her.”

“
Sounds like a plan, General Ashley,” Meghan laughed.

Her sister stepped back and took a deep breath. “Here’s hoping my foot doesn’t get caught.”

With that comforting statement, she kicked the door. The damaged wood splintered and as Ashley backed away, the zombie trapped in the room stuck her head of the hole that had been created. She growled and spit sludge at the girls while she struggled to get an arm past her head and out of the tiny hole.

“
Sorry,” Meghan said and then pulled the trigger.

The girl inside fell backward and then there was only silence in the room.

It took a minute for Ashley and Meghan to get the barriers down off the door and get inside. Once they did, they both stopped and stared.

The zombie daughter had torn the room apart in her lust to escape. The walls were battered and bloodied, the furniture overturned in mindless fury and worst, the corpse of the floor was missing all her fingers. She had worn them down to the knuckles over the weeks with her attempts to claw out of the room.

“
Look for the picture,” Ashley said as she stepped over the dead girl in the doorway. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

Meghan joined her sister and they cleared through the mess in the room. Behind what had once been an end table next to the bed, Meghan found what they were looking for. The family picture had been in a nice frame, but that got smashed pretty early on. She swept away the broken glass and then opened the back of the frame to retrieve the picture.

“
Our family,” she read on the back. “Alice, Chelsea (20), Polly (22) and Vern.”

“
Vern,” Ashley repeated as she sat down on the bed to look over Meghan’s shoulder at the picture when she turned it over. They were a nice family. Vern/Mac standing behind the girls next to his wife. They were smiling.

Tears stung Meghan’s eyes at she stared at the happy faces, completely unaware of what was about to happen to them. In a way, they were her own family,. They represented everything she lost.

But also everything she still had.

“
Let’s go,” she said as she got to her feet. “But we’re not going to tell Mac about this. We’re not going to tell him his daughters were trapped in the house for the last two months, okay?”

Ashley pondered that, then nodded. “He doesn’t need to know.”

#

It was almost dark when they pulled the motorcycle back up to the fence around the old farmhouse. Meghan didn’t even have to push the green button before the gate opened to allow them in.

She parked the motorcycle and smiled. Mac had already parked a reinforced SUV with a small trailer attached to the back next to the junk pile. For them, she assumed.

He came down the hill from the house. “You find it?”

Ashley pulled the picture from her backpack and held it out. He hesitated and he was blinking a lot. Meghan cleared her throat and looked away to let him have his tears in private.

“
How was the house?” he asked.

The girls exchanged a quick glance and then Ashley shrugged. “Quiet.”

He smiled and there was relief on his face. “Good. Good.”

Finally, he took the picture, but he left it facing down in his hand. Meghan grabbed her sister’s arm. “Hey, do you mind if we freshen up a bit?”

He nodded without looking at them. He was just reading the back of the picture. Meghan dragged Ashley into the house and they sat down at the kitchen counter to wait for him. After a few minutes, he came inside. The picture was folded in his front pocket and his eyes were clear.

“
Well, thank you. This means a lot to me.” He sat down across from them. “You saw the SUV?”

Meghan nodded. “It’s for us?”

“
Yup. And I loaded up the trailer with a few necessities. Including your solar generator, Ms. Negotiator.”

Ashley smiled.

“
Then we should head out tomorrow morning,” Meghan said.

“
You should come with us,” Ashley added as she looked across the counter at Mac.

Meghan stared at her. They hadn’t discussed that.

“
Look, we’re not stupid,” Ashley continued. “I know we’re probably not going to find out parents.”

Meghan flinched. That was another subject they hadn’t brought up. She’d thought she was protecting Ashley by not bringing up that touchy fact, but her sister was not stupid. Just fifteen.

“
And we could use a man like you,” Ashley said with a smile for Mac. “And I think you might need us, too.”

“
Leave here?” Mac repeated as he stared at the girls. “But this is my home.”

Meghan reached across the table and touched his hand. “No. It’s not.”

He thought about it for a long moment. “Well, I’d hate to see you girls get hurt all alone out there. And I am getting sick of having everybody stop by here demanding my services.”

“
So you’ll come?” Ashley asked.

He opened his mouth and shut it again. “Well, I can’t believe I’m saying this but… yeah. It might be nice to see Colorado again. I’ll come with you.”

Meghan grinned at her sister. “So do we still have to call you Mac?” she asked.

He pulled the picture from his pocket and stared at it for a long moment.

“
Naw. I think you’d better just call me Vern.”

Reality Bites

“
Network Z has seen advertising revenue fall by fifty percent in the last three months,” Frank Rose screamed in his usual red-faced, angry executive way. “Why?”

Caroline fought the urge to sigh and once more motioned to the graph that explained
exactly
why.

“
Mr. Rose, as you can see, public interest in the zombie outbreak peaked right around the time the wall was built. But once they felt “safe” from the infected, their desire to watch a 24-hour news network dedicated to zombie news faded considerably. And since new television programming is being produced out of Indianapolis now and limited internet access is again available, they have other options for entertainment.”

Rose squeezed his eyes shut. He was turning purple. Caroline would have been worried about him if she didn’t hate him so much. He was just… awful. The worst person she’d ever worked for. But with the movement of the Hollywood establishment (or what was left of it) to Indianapolis after the Outbreak, she didn’t have all that many choices.

“
I don’t give a flying fuck about what viewers want,” Rose barked. “I want my money. Fix it.”

Caroline swallowed hard. “Yes, sir. I was just about to get into that.”

She glanced at her co-workers. All of them were pale, Annalise was crying (no help at all for their cause) and Roy had that expression on his face that said, “I’m going to throw you under the bus if I feel like this goes south.”

So she was basically on her own.

“
Get to it faster.” Rose gripped his pen so hard that Caroline was surprised it didn’t explode all over the table and his starched white shirt.

“
Yes, sir.
We
have done a great deal of research and we think that the answer to this problem is original programming.”

Rose opened his mouth with a big gasp of air, like he was going to start screaming, but then he hesitated. “Go on,” he said, his voice low for the first time since the meeting started.

She smiled, but her armpits felt really sweaty.