“What'd you do after that?” asked Max.
“I finished eating, I even rummaged through the cupboards and downed a coupled cans of chili cold, along with the rest of the crackers. By the time I was done I felt bloated and ready to sleep again, but by then I realized I had better secure my surroundings first. Of course I was hoping for a bed to lay down in too.”
“I left the kitchen and found a blood trail leading up the stairs, I didn't think it was from the guy I killed, his blood was more black colored and this looked older. I needed a weapon too, something heavy to bash anything I found, but their wasn't a baseball bat or hockey stick or even a fire poker on the ground floor. There was a bedroom with a large bed in it, I thought about just laying down after locking the doors, but then I heard a quiet thump from upstairs. I wasn't going to leave a zombie over my head to burst in on me, it was probably a stupid slow zombie, but still I needed to check it out. I grabbed another kitchen knife from the counter and headed upstairs. There were five closed doors in the hallway there, but the blood trail was crystal clear; it ended at a door halfway down the hall.”
“I decided to check the other doors first, being as quiet as a forty year old guy could. I was hoping to find a sports storage room filled with baseball bats or better, some survivalist's arsenal, but I only found a linen closet, a den and two bedrooms. By the process of elimination that meant the zombie was in the bathroom, it doesn't take a genius to figure out you don't have a linen closet on the second floor unless there is a bathroom there too. I hadn't found any weapons and was getting ready to turn the doorknob when a thought occurred to me and I stopped. I went back to the bedroom closet to check out what the hangers were hanging from. The closets were pretty small, but the post holding up the hanger was a good solid piece of round hardwood. I ditched the clothing and pulled the wood off of the brackets it was resting on. The thing was two feet long and felt good in my hands. I tucked the knife into my belt and went back and opened the bathroom door, ready to do some serious head smashing.”
“The bathroom floor was covered in dried blood that ended at the shower curtain, which, of course, was pulled closed. Another thump sounded from the tub and I stepped in and prodded the curtain with my club. Nothing happened, so I eased one end of my stick between the wall and the curtain then slowly pulled it back far enough so I could see. The zombie wasn't standing up, it was laying in the tub. It had been a woman once, maybe in her thirties and something had been eating on her, she was a bloody mess. Everything from her hips on down were missing, not gnawed up; missing completely. One arm was also gone and the other was cut or torn off at the elbow. Her face was the worst, she had no eyes or nose, just bite marks from where they had been eaten out of her head, the skin around her mouth was gone as well, leaving an exposed numb of a tongue that was frantically bobbing in and out between her crooked white teeth. She couldn't see me. I mean there is no way, she had no eyes, no senses left really, even her ears were gone. Still as I stood there looking down on her she started squirming frantically, like a spider trying to crawl up the side of a porcelain tub, she would wiggle her way up a few inches, then slide back down. I have seen a lot of horrible things in the past couple of weeks, but this was the worst so far. I dropped my stick and ran out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind me while wondering who was screaming 'Oh my God!' so loud. It turns out it was me, I had to put my hands over my mouth to make it stop. I turned and faced the bathroom door then slid to the floor and rested my back against the linen closet. After awhile I seemed to get a little better, I wasn't screaming anymore, and I could move. I crawled into the bedroom I hadn't stolen the hanger rod from and shut the door behind me.”
“I knew two things right then, first: I was not going to be staying in that house any longer, and second: I wasn't going to get my club from the bathroom. I forced myself to get up and dismantle the rod from the closet and then slowly cracked open the bedroom door. The bathroom door was still closed, but I thought I heard a thump from inside, I hurried by it and took the stairs three at a time, which probably saved my life. I was so busy looking over my shoulder that I didn't see the zombie coming up the stairs. It was a, what did you call it? A 'super zombie', another smart one and the first I knew about it was when I ran into it and we were tumbling down the stairway into the living room. I ended up on top of him and fortunately I had not broken my neck, but I did break something in him. His arms seemed to be working okay, at least he was trying to hold onto me, but he wasn't kicking or anything, just twitching around with his legs. I rolled away from him and recovered my hanger rod, which had been wrenched from my hand in the collision. I broke the things arms with three blows and then spent a few minutes bashing the its head in.”
“I probably hit it more than I needed to, but I was upset, it had been a traumatic morning. When I finally stopped I was splattered with blood and had broken yet another club. I stood up and looked at my victim, he had been a soldier, but I didn't recognize him. His unit insignia wasn't one I was familiar with either, but he had a pistol on his belt and bars on his shoulder, which means he was an officer. I picked up the pistol and checked it out. No ammo. And none in his pockets either. Any thoughts I had that I might have killed a living guy and not a zombie were dispelled by the ends of his blood stained sleeves, both arms had blood scabs on them and one hand was missing three fingers and oozing the blood of the undead. I kept the pistol, I figured I might find bullets for it and went and got another club from the downstairs closet, in fact I raided both closets and got two of them. At the rate I was using clubs up I would need them. If I had been thinking I might have figured out that the guy had somehow seen me through the walls of the house right then, but I didn't make that connection until later.”
“I went to the next house over, it was locked up front and back, none of the windows were open either. I couldn't find any obvious fake rocks hiding a key or anything so I just moved to the next house. I found a fake rock in the back yard of that house that had a key hidden inside it. The key let me into the door on the side of the garage and in there I found a key to the house hidden on the top of the trim over the doorway. I locked everything behind me and made sure the place was empty before raiding the kitchen. I wasn't hungry, but I thought I should get a bag of stuff to take with me when I left. I made up two bags, one I left in the fridge to grab when I walked out the door and the other I brought with me upstairs and put beside the bed. I took a quick shower, washed and wrung out my uniform and went into the bedroom. I opened the window a bit and a breeze blew in, so I rigged up my cloths on a hanger in front of it. I didn't see any zombies on the street outside, but there were a lot of trees in the way so I couldn't see much. I then pushed every piece of furniture up against the door and piled a lot of the stuff from the closet on there as well. This house's closet was filled with the wire shelving crap, like I have in my place. Tucked into one corner of the closet was this little plunker.” Bill patted the rifle he was holding, “and there was a brick of bullets to go with it.”
“A brick?” asked Max.