Max leveled the pistol at the zombie woman coming towards him, hoping he had one more bullet left, as she approached to within four feet he shot her once in the head and she dropped spinelessly to the ground.
“Is Amelia okay?!” yelled the boy as Max turned towards him.
Lowering the gun, and moving towards Steve, Max replied, “Who?”
“Amelia! She found me in the hotel.” As if that explained everything. He continued to climb over the fence and Max could see he had a large bruise on his back that was oozing blood through his torn shirt, in addition to the cuts on his head. As his legs cleared the fence Max saw more of the damage, a bloody cut running down his right leg, dripping blood and finally there was another cut on the top of his left foot that was also bleeding, one foot was bare, the other had a large flip flop on it. Seeing Max watch him Cory said, “I had flip-flops that I stole from a convenience store, but one of them flew on the roof when she threw me over the fence. Amelia got me more shoes in the car. I think my game boy is broke too.” He took a small square of plastic out of his front pocket and showed Max, there was a long crack running across the front of the device and despite Cory’s insistent pushing of what Max assumed was a power button, nothing was happening.
Looking at the carnage in his backyard Max contrasted it to the small boy pressing the buttons on his game. His life had become a surreal nightmare. Going over to Steve he knelt down and checked his friend. Steve's eyes were rolled back into his head, he was not breathing, but his mouth was moving feebly open and closed, open and closed. Then that movement stopped too and his friend was deathly still. Tears wet the corners of his eyes and he stood watch over his friend for a moment, waiting to see if he would rise from the dead and reloading his pistol in case he needed it. After a couple of minutes of vigilance Max decided that Steve wasn't coming back. He turned back towards the house, dragging the boy along with him as he went, carrying the bleeding boy over the broken glass littering his back porch. As he carried him over the glass Max said, “My name is Max. What is your name?”
“Cory. Is she okay? Is Amelia okay Max?”
“I don't know, I didn't see her in the house, so…I don't know.”
As they entered the kitchen Max set Cory down well clear of the broken glass, the boy ran yelling towards the living room “Amelia! Amelia! Where are you?”
Stewart was leaning up against the wall halfway from the living room to the kitchen, a trickle of blood was coming out of the corner of her mouth. She grunted and rolled over to her hands and knees, as Max brushed by her.
Once in the living room Max called up the stairs, “Sarah! Sarah, if you are there it is me! Max! Sarah are you up there?”
Cory had gone out into the front yard and was looking wildly around, calling for Amelia.
Cries of “Daddy! Daddy!” came muffled from upstairs and Max bounded up them two at a time until he was standing underneath his attic access door. The floor was covered with loose insulation and next to the door in the ceiling was a hole through the drywall, blood was smeared along one side of the hole. As Max watched a small face appeared in the hole and looked down at him.
“Nick?” Max called up to his son, “Is everything okay buddy?”
“No mom is hurt, something pulled her leg down into the floor and hurt her, she is bleeding really bad, help her dad!” Max's son said.
Another voice joined his son's, “Max is that you?”
Nick's face was pushed aside rather quickly and Max found himself staring at Amelia, the secretary from work.
“Amelia? How did you get here?”
“I drove, I thought you would be here when we got here.”
“We thought you were dead. When did you get here?”
“About twenty minutes ago. Let me push the ladder down.”
Amelia moved sideways and Nick's face reappeared, dirt streaked and anxious. The swinging door opened and the rickety wooden stair ladder unfolded.
Chapter 50
Max climbed up into the attic, not knowing what to expect, when he was fully up into the gloomy interior Amelia pointed at the makeshift bed onto which she had brought Sarah. Jessica, Max's daughter, was near her mother's head, telling her everything would be okay. Max stepped over to them and took his wife in his arms.
“Oh Sarah! Sarah! Thank God!” he sobbed with relief, “I was so worried, when we got here and the door was open, with a body in the yard, I thought, I thought it was you!”
“Max?” Sarah mumbled, “Is it really you? You're bleeding?”
Behind Max his son came up and put his arms around his fathers waist, not saying anything. Amelia stood awkwardly near the access door, then finally cleared her throat and said she better go stop Cory, whose plaintive cries for 'Amelia' could be heard through the venting, from yelling his head off in the front yard.
“Thank God you're alright! He stayed there for a moment hugging his wife and children, before he felt Sarah stiffen. “What?”
“I think one of them bit me Max.” she said softly.
“What? No, no that can't be! Where did they bite you? You were in the attic, did they get up here?”
Sarah pushed Max back and pulled aside the blankets her children had lain down upon her. Max didn't want to believe what he saw, she had a small t-shirt folded neatly pressed against her leg, the wound underneath had bled through and Sarah gently lifted it out to reveal a wound, that was still bleeding furiously. In the darkness Max couldn't be sure it was a bite wound. “Flashlight” he said, his son let him go long enough to hand him a small LED flashlight which Max turned on and used to examine the wound. It was a bite mark, Max could see where the top row of teeth had pierced her skin.
“Oh no.”
“This is bad?” Sarah asked.
“Did you disinfect it?”
“With what?”
“Shit.” Max stood up abruptly, toppling Nick into some boxes, where Max caught him with a quick grab, “Sorry bud, stay here, I'll be right back!” moving quickly Max went down the ladder into the bathroom linen closet and grabbed a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and some clean washrags and towels. He scrambled back up the stairs and back to Sarah's side, where he unscrewed the bottle cap and poured it onto her wound, she tensed up momentarily. “Does it hurt?” Max asked.
“No it is just cold. What's wrong Max? What's wrong?”
“I…human bites are very bad for you…there are not going to be any more doctor visits or co-pays or anything for a long time, if ever again. We have to take care of ourselves better now and fast, we can't wait around to treat stuff like this.”
“Is that it?” Sarah asked.
“I'll tell ya later.” Max answered, which was parent code for 'when the kids were not around'.
Sarah nodded and lay back as Max finished cleansing the wound and then pressed a wash rag over it. Finally he tore a towel into strips and used one to bind the makeshift bandage into place.
“Can you move?” he asked.
“I think so, it is deep but not like through the bone or anything.”
Together they made their way downstairs where Amelia, Tom, Cory and Stewart were waiting. The front door had been shut and the couch moved over behind it. Stewart was on the couch looking back towards the kitchen, her pistol on her lap.
“Stewart.” Max said, “You okay?”
She raised her head to look at him and answer, “Fuck no. I think I have broken ribs.”
Wincing at her language around the kids Max said, “So you will live?”
“Yeah, Steve?”
“Steve didn’t make it.”
A look of alarm and disbelief came over her face, then she clamped down and made her face into a neutral mask once more. “What happened?”