"Tomorrow we'll get your stepson," Katie assured her.
"And kill more zombies," Jenni added.
Katie somewhat laughed, her eyes still feeling horribly large and swollen. "Yeah, kill zombies."
"But avoid malls and farmhouses and helicopters."
"And find ourselves a handsome black man for the main lead in our story," Katie added.
They both began to laugh and it felt amazingly good.
And outside, the zombies gathered and moaned.
3. The Midnight Hour
Jenni's heart pounded almost as fiercely as her footfalls as she rushed down the stairs with Mikey beside her. Her fingers slid down the banister as she struggled to not fall headlong down the stairs. Mikey's hand was slippery in hers and she tugged him hard as she reached the bottom of the staircase and headed toward the front door.
She felt Lloyd grab her long hair and yank her backwards.
"Don't touch my Mom!" Mike's hand slipped from hers and her little boy launched himself at his father.
"No," Jenni whispered and her eyes snapped open. Her heart was beating so hard in her chest it hurt. Slowly, she sat up and struggled to catch her breath.
Katie was sleeping beside her with her arms wrapped around the German Shepherd. The dog eyed Jenni drowsily and she rubbed his brow lightly.
"I'm okay," she lied.
He licked her arm lightly before laying his head back down.
She was sure he was tired, too, after their long day. Plus he had started the day with surgery and had endured their crazed escape from the city in a drugged stupor.
Feeling shaken, she slid from the bed and stood in the darkened room listening to the moans of the dead outside. Lloyd always used to make her watch zombie movies because he knew they scared her. Scaring her had been something he enjoyed doing. Every time they watched a zombie film, he'd do things to upset her. Pretending to be a zombie while moaning always made her scurry away from him. She hated it. The entire concept of zombies was terrifying to her.
And then this morning…
No, don't think about it, she told herself.
She ran her fingers through her hair to comb it back from her face and walked to the door. Careful not to make too much noise, she turned the handle and slipped out into the hallway. Down the hall she saw a dim light and followed it into the living room. The TV was still on, but muted. An ashen looking anchorman from one of the major networks was talking to several people including a minister. Ralph was asleep in his lounge chair with a quilt laid gently over him. A rifle lay on the floor next to him.
"He couldn't sleep," Nerit's voice said quietly from behind her.
Jenni turned around and saw the older woman was dressed in a nightgown and holding a cup of tea. "I had nightmares."
"Me, too," Nerit said with a weary smile. "Would you like some tea and some cheesecake?"
Jenni sighed. "That would be awesome."
They settled into the kitchen, Jenni tucked into a stiff-backed chair as Nerit put on a fresh pot of tea.
"You know, zombies always scared me," Jenni said after a quiet moment.
"I never thought much about them or any movie monsters," Nerit answered. "I always thought the monsters of the real world were much more terrifying."
"Serial killers and all that."
"Terrorists, too." Nerit shrugged and cut two slices of the Italian-style cheesecake. "Ralph likes the monster movies. He says they're a safe kind of scary."
"Not anymore," Jenni sighed.
"No, not anymore," Nerit agreed and set down the dessert in front of her before taking a seat as well.
"I…had kids." Jenni raised her eyes and gazed at Nerit. "They died this morning."
Maybe she was expecting an accusation of her being incompetent or something like that, but Nerit only answered with, "I'm sorry."
"My husband got bit last night. A bum, he said." Jenni stabbed at the pierce of cheesecake with her fork. A little bit of it crumbled off and she scooped it up and ate it.
"Ralph discovered what was going on at the grocery store. We had stayed in bed late to celebrate his birthday. He was just going across the road to grab the paper when he saw the attacks inside." Nerit cut her piece into small sections and played with one tiny slice with her fork. "I didn't believe him at first when he called me. People eating each other. It sounds so ludicrous. Not real."
Jenni set her fork down and stared at the plate for a long moment.
"Lloyd liked to sleep on the sofa. He said I move around too much when I sleep and that he couldn't get a decent night's rest. He wouldn't sleep with me often. I would hear the TV on all night. If he had been in our room…Benji's room is the first one off the stairs. I think he just went there first because…" She covered her face with her hands and tried so hard not to think of what she had seen. It was a blur, actually. Just a swift image of Lloyd stuffing something thick and fleshy into his mouth and Benji's little body looking wrong under all that blood staining the floor. Her mind fought between adding in details and wiping the image out altogether.
Nerit's fingers were soft and dry as she drew Jenni's hand down from her face. Gently, she held Jenni's hand in her own and said, "There was nothing you could do."
Jenni forced back a sob and wiped away her tears. She wasn't sure if that was the truth and she didn't want to think about it anymore. Already, yesterday morning felt so far away and the world already felt very different.
Mikey, Benji and even Lloyd felt like shadows to her.
"When you saw them inside the store, what did you do?"
Nerit sighed. "At first, we were going to go in and try to rescue people.
But the…zombies," she slightly laughed at the word "the zombies rushed toward the door and we realized very quickly we couldn't go inside. We ran back here and locked ourselves in. At first we thought the people were infected with some strange virus, like the news said, but one of them came up behind the hunting store and was chewed down to the bone. There was hardly anything left of him. There was no way in heaven he could be that badly damaged and walking. He saw us through the window and began to beat on it. That is when we decided to head back upstairs and figure out exactly what was going on around us. That is when we saw our own neighbors forcing themselves into people's homes and attacking them. We took some out from a distance, but…" Nerit shook her head. "We've been killing our neighbors all day. And had no choice."
Jenni took another bite of the cheesecake and the rich flavor distracted her thoughts for a few precious moments. "Does it bother you to kill them?"
Nerit stood up, stretched and headed toward the teakettle. It was beginning to whistle. "The real question is do we have a choice?"
"It doesn't bother me to kill them," Jenni confessed. "Not at all."
The older woman poured the hot water into a cup and moved to set it down in front of Jenni. "It doesn't bother me either."
The hot water was letting off a small plume of steam and Jenni waved her hand through it. It felt good against her skin. The cold spring night was pressing against the windows and she could feel a chill in her bones. The warmth from the hot water was a soothing sensation. Dumping too much sugar into the tea, Jenni tried hard not to think too deeply about anything other than rescuing Jason in the morning.
Nerit sipped some tea and eyed Jenni thoughtfully. "It's a good thing, you know."
"What is?" Katie padded into the room looking bleary eyed. Jack was at her heels yawning and looking for the nearest food bowl.
"Being able to kill them," Nerit answered.
Spotting the teakettle, Katie headed over to it.
"Couldn't sleep?" Jenni dumped in more sugar for good measure.
"Nightmares," Katie confessed. "But I guess we better get used to them."
"Get used to all of it," Jenni agreed. Her friend looked pale and tired.
They both needed to rest, but the sound of the zombies was dragging on all of them.
"You don't think it will be stopped, do you?" Katie slid into a chair, a mug in her hand.
Nerit shook her head and reached out for a pack of cigarettes sitting on the table. "No. It's too late. They didn't do what they needed to do in the beginning."
"Which was?" Katie shoved her blond curls out of her face.
"Kill everyone bitten," Jenni answered. She leaned her head on Katie's shoulder and sighed softly. "Everyone bitten should have been killed right away. Lloyd was bitten. The emergency room gave him some shots and told him to make a follow up appointment with his doctor."
Nerit lit a cigarette and exhaled slowly. She leaned over and flipped on an air filter next to the table to suck up the second hand smoke. "The authorities told all the wounded to go to the hospitals and rescue centers.
They accelerated the infection rate."
"They still don't get it." Ralph walked into the kitchen rubbing his eyes.
Clad in pajamas and an old robe, he looked frail. "Anyone saying zombies or end of the world is getting mocked. Got CDC taking back some of what they said and still telling people to go to rescue centers. Got major cities burning all over the States and they still can't figure it out."