He tried to stand and nearly slid back down the wall. Megan moved in to help, but he waved her off, and he managed to right himself on the second attempt. Looking down at a huge lump of decayed flesh at his feet, Jeff shook his head. None of them had moved that fast before. Other than the fact that its brains were now dripping in thick chunks down the wall, the ghoul looked to be in pretty good shape. Decomposition, which was so common amongst the infected, was limited. In fact, outside of the dry, leathery skin, the man looked almost normal.
Jeff looked at Megan. Despite their little close encounter with the beast, she looked better than when he had left her downstairs. Grinning, he chucked her lightly on the shoulder. She blushed and smiled meekly.
Suddenly, her eyes went wide, as if she had just remembered something. Raising the revolver, she turned to face the master bedroom. “Are there any more of them?”
Megan started toward the door, and Jeff yelled out as he ran ahead of her. “No!”
He blocked her path and, without looking into the room, pulled the door shut. “You don’t want to go in there. Trust me.”
Jeff held out his arms, guarding the door. Megan was startled by his reaction but saw the look on his face and slowly nodded as she lowered the gun. Jeff’s shoulders sagged in relief as he moved back toward her.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized as he put his arm around her shoulder, turning her around. “But there’s nothing in there you need to see.”
Megan looked up at Jeff, but he kept his eyes forward as they moved back down the hall. Less than a minute later, they were outside, climbing back into the van. As they pulled away from the curb, Jeff rubbed gently at his bruised throat, never looking back at the house.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, they found another house. The garage was open, and none of the windows was boarded up, which Jeff hoped indicated that the owners had fled long ago.
A quick but thorough search confirmed that the house was indeed abandoned. Whoever had lived there had left in a rush, like so many other families that had chosen to head either to one of the emergency shelters hastily set up by the National Guard or to anywhere else where they thought they might escape the ravages of the virus that had burned through the earth’s population in a matter of days.
Jeff pulled the van into the garage. Megan was already inside, searching for anything they could add to their meager food supply.
He stepped out of the vehicle and moved toward the driveway. Scanning the street, he saw nothing that caught his eye except for the sun, which was beginning to set. Houses cast long shadows as the bright yellow orb continued to sink below the horizon. Off in the distance, he could see wisps of smoke curling up to the sky from the smoldering ruins of his house.
Jeff rubbed his eyes. His headache was in full bloom and it felt as if his brain were trying to pound its way out of his skull. In a way, it was a comfort; …a distraction from the real pain he was feeling.
After taking one last look around, he pulled the garage door closed. He wondered if there was any booze in the house, because all he wanted to do was drink until he forgot everything that had happened that day.
Chapter 13
“We need to get going.”
Sunlight trickled in through the drawn curtains, spreading fingers of light across the floor and onto the bed. There had been no alcohol in the house, but he still felt hung over as he ran his tongue over his teeth. His mouth tasted like a baby dragon had peed in it.
Megan was standing at the foot of the bed, wearing a clean sweatshirt and jeans. They were loose on her, but given her near-anorexic condition, Jeff thought they were a pretty good fit. She looked freshly scrubbed, and there was something about her that he could not pinpoint, but she looked sharper, more alert than she had the day before. He nodded and ran his fingers through his tangled hair.
“There are plenty of clothes in the closet that might fit you,” Megan said, and Jeff looked down at his sweatshirt and jeans, in which he had slept. They were in bad shape. Not only were they drenched in sweat, there were dried splatters of blood and smears of dirt all over them. “I put a couple of the bottles of water we found downstairs in the bathroom…” She let the comment hang in the air.
“I know I smell like an outhouse.” Jeff cracked a smile. “I’ll change and clean up.”
A small grin passed over Megan’s lips. “I’m going downstairs to see what else we can take with us.” She paused, looking at her hands and picking at a fingernail. Jeff stared, waiting for her to say whatever was bothering her.
“We are going to leave, right?”
Jeff sighed as he stretched, rubbing the bruise on his neck self-consciously. It was a garish purple but didn’t feel as bad as it looked. He recalled their conversation from the night before and understood why Megan was acting so timidly.
They had argued about leaving immediately. Jeff thought it might be a good idea to stick it out for a few days, while she wanted to figure out a way around the blockade of cars so they could start trying to find other survivors. She suggested checking out the emergency shelters, and when Jeff laughed bitterly, she glared at him until he fumbled over an apology and mumbled an excuse, saying, “You never know” to placate her.
In the end, they agreed to wait until morning to decide. Megan fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, but Jeff was stuck tossing and turning over the next few hours as he tried to figure out what they hell they were going to do.
He nodded, too tired and feeling far too shitty to argue again. Megan’s smile lit up her face.
“Great!” She turned to leave the room. “I’ll see if I can rustle up some breakfast.”
“I’ll take two eggs over easy, three slices of bacon, toast with just a touch of butter…and a gallon of coffee,” Jeff said, staring at the floor between his legs and trying to keep from throwing up on his shoes.
He heard Megan’s laugh as she walked down the hall. It sounded happy. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Five minutes later, he felt well enough to stand and make his way to the bathroom. He saw the bottled water Megan had brought up, along with a bar of soap and some toothpaste. Jeff laughed and stared into the mirror.
It was hard to believe the person looking back at him was Jeffery Blaine. The gray streaks in his scraggly beard and the drawn and haggard expression made him feel a couple of decades older than his thirty-five years. His hair was a tangled, curly mess that hung in greasy clumps around his face.
He flashed a peace sign at the mirror and assumed his best stoner pose. “Dirty fucking hippie,” he mumbled under his breath. If he could just find a pair of Birkenstocks in the closet, it would complete the look.
After stripping off his filthy clothes, Jeff splashed water on his face and body, unconcerned with the mess he was making, since they were leaving anyway.
A few minutes later, after having found a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt that fit reasonably well, Jeff felt like a new man. The headache had subsided, and the scent of soap on his skin smelled good. When he walked down the steps, he was actually cheerful.
When he hit the first floor, he spotted Megan sitting at the kitchen table facing away from him.
“Where’s my breakfast, woman?” he demanded, lowering his voice with exaggerated irritation.
When Megan ignored the snarky comment, Jeff shrugged and moved into the kitchen. “I guess I’ll just have to fix it myself.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re already shirking your womanly duties.”
He found no breakfast food in the cabinets, though there were plenty of baking supplies. “Hey, Megan, you could bake me a cake. That might make up for no eggs and bacon laid out for breakfast.”
He smiled and turned to her, wondering why she wasn’t laughing or tossing off a snide riposte. When Jeff saw that she was staring off into space, he moved slowly toward her.