The kitchen was the last room we explored because that was where we kept all hope. It was the most barren of all the rooms. Drawers and cabinets opened, the refrigerator empty save for a pitcher of tea and some mustard and ketchup. The pantry was a little better. Half a bag of rice and some small boxes of raisins, cake mixes and cans of frosting, soy sauce, a can of refried beans. Then, Audrey laughed, holding up a box of instant macaroni and cheese and several packages of oriental noodles. Reaching far back on a shelf behind the water heater, she pulled out a plastic-wrapped sausage.
“Major Meat Holiday Pork Log,” she read the label aloud.
“How old is that?”
She searched the package but couldn’t find a date. I checked for myself. It was the old logo. Before re-branding three years ago.
“It’s still good,” I said.
“How’s that for some shit?”
I tore open the sausage with my teeth. “What do you mean?”
“Major Meat got us into this shit, and now they’re saving us.”
The propane tank was still full, and I cooked dinner on the kitchen stove. We melted more snow to cook our macaroni. I didn’t bother straining it, just added the cheese and half the sausage log torn into small pieces.
We ate in the formal dining room, the pack resting on the marble-top buffet. We used Occupied Japan dishware and generations-old silverware. Things the family couldn’t take. Things they’d never see again.
Neither of us could eat very much. The cold. The exhaustion. The dread of another day in the Unknown. All of it curbed our appetites.
We left the dishes on the table and the chairs pulled out. After pushing the couch in front of the fireplace, we sat in the living room. A pile of logs collected dust in an open cabinet. I dropped to the floor to keep the weight off my leg and leaned into the fireplace. I started the kindling and slowly fed logs into it. Audrey and I sat together on the couch, her legs tucked between mine and our heads together. The logs popped and tiny embers soared up the flue.
“I will stay in this house,” she said.
“I will, too.”
“You need to go on.”
“And you need to come with me.”
“I can’t. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It makes less sense to split up.”
“We’re already split up.”
“No.”
She held up her arm. “You know we’re split. Now or later.”
“As long as possible.”
“What’ll you do when I…”
“You know what I’ll do.”
“You’ll do what’s right.”
I kissed her forehead.
“We need to find more food.”
“I have a feeling all the houses we find will be the same.”
“If we find any more.”
“Maybe they left a truck or something here.”
“That’d be something.”
“We’ll look tomorrow.”
We stared into the fire. I put my head back on the sofa. My neck cracked and I closed my eyes. I fell asleep for about twenty minutes, but Audrey was still awake. The fire was almost dead.
“You shouldn’t worry.”
“I don’t want to turn into that thing Sewell’s wife was.”
“You won’t.”
“It wasn’t human.”
“You should stop worrying. You’re born and you die.”
“And you ignore it?”
“Every day like I’ll live forever.”
There was little to do for her except sit and hold and caress.
As I fell asleep the second time, the front door rattled.
Audrey stirred and leapt from the couch. She grabbed the Winchester. The front door clattered. The walls shook. Audrey stood frozen over the couch. She steadied the rifle.
The room was the orange of embers from the fireplace.
The door swung open against the chain.
“What do you want?” She yelled.
“Shoot,” I demanded. “Don’t talk, shoot.”
A bright blue light flooded the doorway.
“Undo the chain, ma’am.”
“Who are you?”
“A spotter saw smoke from this house. You’re inside a cleared area.”
“I don’t know what the hell a cleared area is.”
The flashlight bounced nervously. She could have shot straight through the door, but she danced from foot to foot. She kept the rifle still, an inch away from the door.
“We cleared this area the day before yesterday. Everyone’s gone except you. What the hell is that?” He shined the light on Audrey’s arm, the bloodstain on her sleeve. “Undo the chain, ma’am. We can help you.”
“Are you arresting me?”
“Is anyone else with you?” He pulled the door shut before ramming against it with his shoulder. A picture fell to the floor. The chain barely held. His radio squawked. He rammed the door again. The chain was almost off.
“One squatter, possibly more, likely infection,” he yelled into the radio.
He rammed the door a third time.
The chain gave. The door struck the muzzle of the rifle.
Audrey fell on her ass.
She fired.
The man fell to the floor. His flashlight rolled away and stopped against a doorframe. It shined back at him. He was a young guy, twenty or so. He wriggled on the floor, clutching his gut.
Blood gushed out of his shirt and through his fingers. He stared at Audrey slack-jawed, silent. There aren’t words when you’re shot like that. There’s nothing when you’re shot like that but drumming in your ears and cold in your heart. He died without a sound.
He wore a belt with two gun holsters, cop-issue 9-millimeter Glocks, a pair of handcuffs, and eight extra clips. His radio was bulky, something they probably used in Viet Nam. It had landed on the porch, chirping with constant activity.
Audrey looked out the foyer window. “He left a truck running in the driveway.”
“We need to go,” I said. “Before they send the whole army.”
We took his guns, clips, cuffs, and flashlight. We crammed the remaining rations in the pack and loaded the truck. Audrey hopped in the passenger side. It was a straight shift. I stared at my feet. “I don’t think I can work the pedals.”
She climbed over my lap and sat behind the wheel. The heat in the truck was nice, but I missed the fire. The couch. The quiet.
The truck slid and skidded down the driveway. We plowed through the steel gate and went sideways into the ditch. It stopped as soon as she let off the gas. The engine stalled. She cranked the motor but it wouldn’t catch. The sour smell of gas leaked into the cab.
“Flooded,” she hit her head against the steering wheel.
“You ought to see if we’re stuck otherwise,” I said.
She hopped out with the flashlight and circled the truck. I watched her kneel in the ditch and dig at the snow. It was cold, but I only admitted it to myself. I was tired of running.
Barely visible in the headlights was a girl, not ten years old, in white pajamas. Like the rest of them, her face was filthy with blood. The white gown dripped in the snow. She stood just behind Audrey. I crawled across the seat and fell out the door into the snow.
“Get up!” I yelled.
Audrey looked up, panicked, and scooted through the ditch on her knees. The girl in white pajamas followed her, mimicking Audrey by moving on her knees. The girl was fast, not two steps behind Audrey.
Chasing her was like a bad dream. I tried to stand. To run. But there was only cold air and pain. The girl was already on top of Audrey when I got to her. The tiny fingers wrapped ferociously around Audrey’s forearms. I took the rope saw from my back pocket and wrapped it around the girl’s neck. I felt every bit of cartilage and muscle as it tore through, vibrating through my fingers, my body. I felt it in my heart. Not beating, but shaking.