Kyle walked through the door and headed for the restroom. He leaned the gun next to the restroom door and walked in. The window was completely boarded up. He got some water and walked back to the garage. Susie was already heading to the living room. Banging erupted on the aluminum garage door. Kyle reached for his gun.
“Don’t worry, they can’t get in,” Susie said calmly. “They’ll bang on the door, walk around the house a few times, then go back into their hiding spot.”
Susie seemed so knowledgeable about the Existing Dead. There were so many questions Kyle wanted to ask her, but his mind was only thinking about Victor. And besides, she could just be saying things out of experience.
“Can you help Victor?” he asked.
Susie ignored his question and walked to Victor. She checked the top of his head. She put cream on the appearing bump. It was nothing to worry about. Susie had seen this type of injury many times before.
“Is he going to be okay?” Kyle asked again.
“He’ll be fine. It just looks like he has a bump on the head. I won’t know for sure what the damage is until he wakes up. We’ll have to watch his behavior to make sure he’s alright.” She looked him over again, but there wasn’t much she could see without the proper equipment. “The only thing we can do is wait a few minutes for him to wake up. If he doesn’t wake up in twenty minutes, I’ll use a smelling salt on him. If he doesn’t wake up from that we might have a problem.”
“What do you mean? You said he’s going to be fine, right? Why would we have a problem?” Kyle asked rapidly.
“He got hit in the head and was knocked out. Think of his brain as a computer, when something impacts the computer it crashes and needs to reboot. Sometimes the computer reboots on its own and sometimes you have to restart it. The body I pushed off the roof hit him in the head causing his brain to crash. It needs time to reboot. If it doesn’t do it on it’s own I’ll try restarting his brain with the smelling salt. If that doesn’t do it then we’ll …” Susie’s voice trailed off.
“We’ll what?” Kyle asked.
Susie sighed. “We’ll have to take the computer in for repair. The only thing we can do now is wait.”
Kyle lifted the bucket and took a large drink of water. He sat down on the couch next to Victor.
“This might not be the best time to say anything but …” Susie’s voice trailed off.
“But what?”
“This kid isn’t Eddie.”
Kyle looked down to the ground. “Yeah, I know that. Eddie’s dead.”
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry, Kyle. I had no idea.”
“It’s fine.”
“And Mary, is she ...?”
“She’s dead too,” Kyle answered.
“Jesus Christ,” she said walking toward Kyle and putting her arms around him.
“She killed Eddie,” Kyle blurted out.
“Excuse me?” Susie asked, letting go of Kyle.
“Mary, she killed Eddie. She put the gun in the back of his head and pulled the trigger. Then she put it under her chin and did the same.”
“Oh my God, Kyle.”
“I should have stayed with them. If I wasn’t selfish he would still be here.”
“It’s not your fault, Kyle.”
“Yes it is. I left them, I left them to go find my ex-girlfriend.”
Susie backed away. “You did what?”
Before Kyle could answer, Victor began to roll around on the couch. Kyle snapped his head toward him. “Victor! Are you alright, buddy?”
Victor groaned, still half asleep. “My head hurts.”
“Here, take these,” Susie said, handing Victor two pills. “Kyle, give him some water to wash those down.”
Kyle brought the bucket to Victor’s lips. He took the pills and lay back down.
“Thanks,” he said. He fully opened his eyes and began to panic. “Who are you people? What’s going on? Where am I?” he said, trying to back away from them.
“What’s happening?” Kyle asked.
“He may have a little bit of amnesia.”
“How did that happen?”
“Sometimes when a computer boots up from a crash, it goes into safe mode.”
“Stop with the computer talk!” Kyle yelled.
Victor started laughing. “I got you fools,” he said leaning back on the couch. “But my head really does hurt.”
Kyle stopped panicking. He was surprised how defensive he got when the boy was threatened. He tried to imagine what he would have done if Victor really did have memory loss. A part of him wanted Victor to have amnesia; it would have been so easy for Kyle to convince the kid that he was Victor’s father. He could have told Victor that his name was Eddie and he would have his son back. “I’m glad you’re okay, even though you are a little shit,” Kyle said, laughing.
Victor laughed. “So do you know this lady?”
“This is Susie. She was one of my ex-wife’s friends.” He pointed to her, then he pointed to Victor. “Susie, this is Victor. I found him hiding at a Shell gas station. He’s my friend.”
“Nice to meet you, Victor, sorry about dropping the zombie on you,” she said with a smile.
“I’m so tired,” Victor said, “can I go to sleep?”
“No,” Kyle said quickly, “it’s not safe for you to go to sleep right after a head injury.”
“That is actually false,” Susie said. “That’s just one of those myths that gets started and spreads.”
“Still,” Kyle said, “I want him to be awake.”
“Fine,” Victor said slowly, “I’ll stay up. And it’s okay, I know you didn’t mean to drop it on me.”
“Where’s your car?” Kyle asked, finally realizing that he hadn’t seen it in the driveway or the garage.
“Franklin took it a few days ago to get help.”
“Franklin?” Kyle asked.
“You never met him. He’s my boyfriend. I’m worried that something’s happened to him. We heard on the news that most of the state is infected, but there was a safe zone nearby. That’s where he went to find help.”
“Why didn’t you two go together?” Kyle asked.
“Someone had to stay here to look after Angel.”
“Who’s Angel?”
“She’s my daughter.”
“I didn’t know you had a daughter. Where is she?”
She’s taking a nap right now. She’ll come out here when she’s done.”
“Shhh,” Kyle said putting a finger on his lips. “Do you hear that?”
“What?” Victor said holding still.
“The banging on the garage door stopped.”
“I told you it was going to stop once they lost interest,” Susie said. “They’ll walk around the house a few times then go into their hiding spots until dark.”
Kyle finally found the time to ask more questions. “How do you know so much about them?”
“I’ve been in here since it started. Franklin reinforced the doors and altered the garage door. We made a hole in the roof so we can go onto the roof in case they get in somehow. All we did was watch them for a few days. They’re very strange beings.”
“You got that right. I saw them eat someone whole,” Victor chimed in.
“What did they do when you watched them?” Kyle asked, intrigued.
“Well, we made some noise and they started walking toward the house out of nowhere. It’s like they hide during the day until they hear a noise. Then they’ll come out. I tried to hide myself while staring at one and it seemed to just disappear. It walked behind a large tree and it was just gone. It doesn’t take long for them to get bored; if they can’t get you within ten minutes they’ll leave.”
“That makes sense,” Victor said. “I’ve seen them do it. When I was on the roof of the gas station I would stare at them and it seemed like they would just disappear.”
Hearing the word “disappear” made Kyle uneasy. How could something just disappear?