The Scattered and the Dead (Book 1): A Post-Apocalyptic Series (60 page)

“Then why is it B.F.E.? Shouldn’t it be M.O.N.?”

“It’s French,” Erin said, feeling a touch guilty for lying.

“Oh.”

Izzy nodded as if this made perfect sense.

Erin stepped into the haunting silence of the house. Someday she’d tell her what it really stood for. When there wasn’t a tax for swearing.

She brushed a stray hair from her cheek and was startled at how cold her fingers were. She hadn’t kept track of how many houses they’d been through now, but it was a lot. Fifty? A hundred? She should have counted. However many it was, she still got that burst of adrenaline. She felt jittery, like she’d just chugged a couple lattes.

She waited for a moment, letting her eyes orient to the low light, listening for any signs of life or un-death, but hearing nothing. As her eyes adjusted, she found she was in a small kitchen.

Across from her, a door stood open, probably the basement judging from the steps she could see descending into the gloom. She preferred to do the basements last when she could. Save the worst for last, that’s what she always said.

When she peeled her foot away from the floor, a sticky sound broke the silence. Again with the next step. The soles of her shoes clung to the floor a little with each movement, like someone had spilled something on the linoleum and done a half-assed job cleaning it up.

She was glad to reach the hallway, where the floors transitioned to carpet. She did a quick scan of the living room, then moved farther down the hall. The bathroom and first two bedrooms were empty, but her pulse quickened as soon as she got to the door of the third bedroom.

She stood in front of it for what seemed like a long time, just staring at the smear of dried blood just above the door handle. She didn’t want to go in there. But she knew she had to.

Erin closed her eyes, took two long breaths, and pulled the utility knife from her pocket. She wouldn’t need it, but it made her feel better to hold it. She counted silently.

On three she opened the door and her eyes at the same time.

Dark, red-brown splotches stained the bedspread and the carpet. More blood spattered the far wall, a big Jackson Pollock-style spray made of little dots. The bed blocked her view from most of the carnage, but from her position in the doorway, she could see four socked feet protruding from the other side of the bed. Small feet. Izzy-sized feet.

Kids.

Her skin prickled, hot and itchy, and she felt acid rising in her throat. She stumbled backward, wanting out of the room.

Back in the hall, she bent forward and put her hands on her knees in case she passed out or barfed. Both seemed equally possible at the moment.

Maybe it was worse, having it left to her imagination like that, but she couldn’t bring herself to go back into the room to investigate further. She didn’t want to know.

When the queasy, lightheaded feeling finally passed, she pulled the door all the way closed and went back to the kitchen.

She didn’t hesitate at the basement door like she usually did. What she’d seen in the bedroom had put things in perspective. She’d take a creepy basement over that kind of gruesome scene any day.

The wood stairs down to the basement creaked and squeaked under her feet, changing pitch with each step. Halfway down, she stopped to get out her lighter. She’d upgraded to a stick lighter so she no longer had to singe off her fingerprints for a little illumination.

The dim glow showed an unfinished concrete floor below. She padded down the last few steps and inspected her surroundings. Pretty standard basement — washer, dryer, water heater, and furnace. A folded up ping pong table and some Rubbermaid storage bins pushed against one wall.

Erin’s foot collided with something. Whatever it was went skittering across the cement floor, the metallic rattle echoing in the stillness. She gasped and jumped at the sound, and the movement made her light go out.

The darkness closed in, and she tried not to panic. She got that urge she used to get as a kid — like she knew there was nothing there, it was just her imagination, but she better run up the last few stairs as fast as she could, just in case.

She flailed with the push-button igniter, forgetting to press down on the child safety lock. After several unsuccessful clicks, she got the flame back. She filled her cheeks with air and let out a long sigh.

The offending object, the one she’d kicked across the room, was an empty Red Bull can. Not exactly the stuff of bad dreams. It had come to rest next to two canvas camp chairs and a cooler. Probably whoever had lived here had holed up down here for a while.

She did a quick rotation around the room before she started back up to the kitchen. Four steps from the top, she paused. There was something there, pushed into the far corner of the step.

Erin stretched out the hand holding the lighter, and the polished surface of it reflected the flame back at her. A pistol.

“Yahtzee!”

She stooped to pick it up, then held it in the flat of her hand, just feeling the weight of it. Now that she could see it up close, she noticed some bits of… something… speckling the surface of it. If she had to guess? Dried blood. Crusted brain matter.

A probable sequence of events started to play themselves in her mind like a movie. She imagined the family sitting in the camp chairs, a lantern on the cooler, thinking they’d just wait out the chaos outside. And then as things got worse — maybe they started to get sick — the parents took matters into their own hands. A quick death. Painless and efficient.

Something about this proposed scenario bothered her, seemed not quite right, but with the excitement coursing through her from finding the gun, she ignored it.

She took one last look at the spatter marring the smooth metal before tucking it into the back of her pants, like she’d seen people do on TV. Beggars can’t be choosers.

A manic chuckle shivered out of her. Man, she knew this house was going to be lucky. She could just tell.

She bounded up the remaining stairs and pushed the door mostly shut with her hip. She couldn’t wait to show Izzy.

At the back door she found Izzy steaming up the glass with her breath and doodling smiley faces.

Erin stopped a few feet away, then pulled the pistol from her waistband.

“Check this shit out!”

She made gun noises with her mouth and pumped it in the air, cowboy style.

“Erin!”

Erin stopped air-shooting and lowered the gun to her side. She made a clicking sound with her tongue. Such a stickler.

“Fine, check this
poop
out.”

“No!”

Izzy grabbed at the gun, gingerly taking it away from her. She flicked a little switch on the side.

“The safety was off!”

“Oh,” Erin said, taking the gun back and looking at it. “Well then, I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t shoot my own ass off.”

Izzy didn’t laugh. Not even a smirk. The combination of her seriousness and the adrenaline from finally finding a gun squeezed another half-crazy-sounding giggle from her, even though she tried to fight it.

Izzy’s nostrils flared, still not amused, and that just made Erin laugh harder.

“I’ll poke around the living room while you check the food sitch. I’m hoping we find a stash of bullets.”

Izzy closed the door and followed her inside.

“What’s with the giant clock?”

Erin turned, following Izzy’s gaze to the grandfather clock in the hall.

“It’s a grandfather clock. You’ve never seen one before?”

“In cartoons and stuff. But I thought it was just supposed to be funny.”

Izzy opened the door on the front, her sticky kid fingers leaving smudges on the glass.

“Why is it so huge? I could fit in it!”

She swiveled around and planted her butt inside the cavity.

“Here, let me help you with that.”

Erin grabbed Izzy by the ankles and pushed so her legs folded up to her belly. Then she pretended she was going to close the door.

Now Izzy laughed.

“Don’t squish me!”

Erin released her, and Izzy wriggled out of the clock.

She turned and stared at the pendulum.

“Too bad there’s no power.”

“It doesn’t need power.”

“Then why doesn’t it work?”

“You have to wind them up every few days or they stop,” Erin said. “Watch.”

Erin reached in and grabbed one of the chains. She’d never actually done it herself, only watched her grandmother do it. But what the hell? It wasn’t like she had to answer to anyone if she fucked up their clock.

She grasped one of the chains and pulled, watching the weight rise. She repeated this for the other chains until all the weights were at the top, then gave the pendulum a little push to get it going.

“Man, it’s loud,” Izzy said once the ticking started.

“Just wait until the big bastard chimes.”

“Language.”

Izzy hopped onto the kitchen counter to better reach the upper cabinets while Erin sifted through a bookshelf. It was mostly paperbacks and a few DVDs, plus a smattering of knickknacks brought back from traditional suburban vacations: sand art from the Florida Keys, a lighthouse figurine from Maine, and a Niagara Falls snow globe.

Not finding anything worthwhile on the bookshelf, she moved to the entertainment center. A black MDF model she recognized from IKEA, because they’d had the same one back home. Her real home. It was probably called something like ARKELSTORP or SANDHAUG or EXPEDIT.

She squatted in front of it, shifting a stack of video game cases to see if anything was tucked behind. If she had owned a gun, where would she hide the ammo?

Erin heard a thumping noise from the vicinity of the kitchen. Izzy slamming a cupboard door or setting some cans on the counter top.

“Find anything good?” Erin asked.

“Not yet.”

There was a bump and a scrape. It wasn’t even that it was loud… it was just out of the norm.

She’d never thought about it before, but it struck Erin that they were usually both very quiet when they went through a house — when they spoke it was often in a whisper and doors were closed with care. She thought maybe it was that the stillness of the empty homes was infectious. Or maybe they felt a bit like trespassers, and making as little sound as possible felt like the respectful thing to do.

The drumming continued, and Erin wondered if Izzy was upset about something.

“Everything OK out there?” she called.

There was a pause.

“Yeah.”

Did the pause mean something? Was there a touch of attitude in Izzy’s tone? Erin abandoned her exploration under the couch cushions. If Izzy was mad — probably about her waving the gun around with the safety off — better to deal with it now.

Erin jumped up on the cushions, the springs squeaking in protest, then vaulted over the back of the couch.

From her position in the hallway, she heard the telltale creaking of the basement stairs. It was curious that Izzy would decide to go down there by herself, but maybe the kitchen had been a bust. Still, Izzy hated the basements even more than she did.

“Hey, if you’re done with the kitchen and you’re going to start looking around the rest of the house, skip the back bedroom. It’s…”

Erin tried to think of an appropriate word. One that didn’t use the words
bloody
or
massacre
or
horrorshow
.

“Just don’t go in there.”

When she reached the archway that looked in on the dining area, she found it empty. There came a high-pitched squeal from the basement door, hinges groaning as it swung open. Slowly. Dramatically. Like a scene in a horror movie. And suddenly Erin understood.

“If you’re trying to scare me by jumping out from behind that door, just know this. You are opening a dangerous can of worms, kid.”

Instead of bursting open quickly, like she’d been expecting, the door continued to inch open. At the same moment, Izzy rose from where she’d been tucked behind the kitchen counter, out of sight.

Erin’s breath caught in her throat, but it took her brain a few moments to process what her pounding heart had already figured out.

It wasn’t Izzy on the basement steps.

Mitch

Bethel Park, Pennsylvania

41 days before

Slobber glazed the barrel of the gun, and that empty feeling occupied his mouth again. He left his jaw open for a second, obeying some impulse to keep still, to focus on the emptiness. He blinked a few times, and the muscles in his face contracted, bringing his bottom teeth up toward his top teeth. The motion felt odd and stiff and mechanical with a little hitch at the end that made his jaw jerk and his teeth clack together.

The gun still hovered before him, the muzzle angled away from him on a diagonal, pointed at the ceiling. He looked at it for a long moment, all wet and shiny. He didn’t quite know what to do with it. It reminded him of carrying a dirty diaper or a wadded up paper towel full of cat puke. He wanted to find some place to put it without touching anything else. He didn’t know if this was because of the saliva slime or growing discomfort with handling the firearm, having thought too hard about its purpose here.