The zombie wasn’t dead. That thought was enough motivation to force Jubal to his feet. His vision swam in and out of focus, but he could see the creature also struggling to stand. Part of its chest and left shoulder were missing. The humming had turned into an angry howl. At least it sounded angry.
Jubal brie?y wondered if the dead things felt anything, whether anger or fear. He decided he didn’t care. He switched the shotgun to his left hand and ended the creature with a headshot.
He had used four shots and there were still so many of them trying to pour in through the door. The pain from his right arm was excruciating. He thought retreat might be a prudent course. He pumped a shell into the Mossberg with a one-armed gesture.
Just like a movie hero.
Cold, dead hands closed on his neck from behind.
How-?
He spun around, though it meant turning his back on the others. The zombie turned with him, so he assumed it was a child or a small woman. He still couldn’t see it but at least he knew how it got the drop on him. The picture window in the living room had shattered. It must have happened when he was down on the?oor. He had almost blacked out and his ears were ringing from the shotgun?re, so he wouldn’t have heard it.
He used the barrel of the Mossberg to swat at the thing on his back. His effort had no effect.
Something tore into the?esh at the base of his neck. Jubal screamed and threw his body against the wall. The grip on his neck loosened and he spun around. His attacker was a girl, probably 13 or 14 years old. Her long blonde hair was braided into pigtails.
Jubal’s blood decorated her lips.
He screamed again as he shoved the tip of the barrel under her chin. He pulled the trigger, and the ceiling was painted with the contents of her skull.
Oh sweet Jesus, it bit me!
He backed toward the hallway, keeping his eyes on the advancing dead.
He kept the shotgun level in front of him. With his right hand he felt around on the back of his neck. The pain in his arm made him whimper.
The wound was small, but it was deep and the edges were ragged. His body went cold.
Am I going to change?
He didn’t know if Fiona had been right when she said Jubal was immune to the disease. Even if he were, would the immunity hold up to a direct bite? He imagined the virus or bacteria or whatever it was making its way through his bloodstream, tweaking him as it went along, soon to materialize as ugly, pus-?lled blisters. The next step would be his induction into the dead army.
No fucking way. It wasn’t going to happen.
If it came to that, he would take Fiona’s way out. He would never become one of those things.
Several of the monsters had worked their way past the bodies on the?oor and were getting close to him.
“Motherfuckers,” Jubal said. He started toward them.
He shot the?rst one in the head.
“Fuck you.”
Two more of the things approached, taking its place. One of them was Patty from the diner. Her smile had been replaced by a hungry grin. Her black tongue played across her swollen lips in a disgusting parody of seduction. Patty hadn’t even been sick two days ago. Was this plague working faster the longer it was in the air?
He did another one-handed pump to ready the shotgun.
“Sorry, Patty.” The blast tore through her face and removed the back of her head.
A crazy thought entered his mind: No more Wednesday special.
Laughter welled up in his chest, the crazy kind that you couldn’t let out. Once it took root it would never stop. He jacked another shell into the chamber and killed Patty’s companion.
The?rst shotgun was empty. He dropped in on the?oor and swung the other Mossberg off his shoulder.
The next zombie through the door was Mr. Handley, his high school math teacher. Handley had given Jubal a particularly hard time in school, apparently owed to an old encounter Handley had with Jubal’s dad. It wasn’t hard to pull the trigger this time.
A shadow fell across the?oor.
Jubal whirled to see two teenagers-a boy and a girl-nearly upon him. He had forgotten about the broken picture window.
There was no time to pump the Mossberg. Jubal swung the shotgun like a ball bat. He knocked the girl to the ground. He struck the boy in the face, driving the zombie to its knees. Jubal hammered at the creature again and again until the thing’s head was pulped and it lay unmoving. He pumped another shell into the chamber, praying the barrel wasn’t ruined.
The girl was twitching on the?oor as if she were in the throes of an epileptic seizure.
He stood over her and?red the shotgun.
The barrel seemed to be in good shape. The girl’s brain matter was spread around her like an unholy aura.
There was no movement near the picture window, so he turned back to the front door. Some of the creatures must have moved on. Only two remained in the doorway. The larger of the two, Damon’s old friend Red, shoved his way past the cute cashier from the Amoco station. Red held his arms in front of him,?exing his?ngers, seemingly anxious to get a grip on Jubal. The dead man made hooting sounds that sounded like some great ape.
Jubal raised the shotgun to pump in another shell. He was covered in blood and other bits of his former neighbors, and his right arm was screaming at him. The wound on the back of his neck didn’t hurt anymore, but it throbbed in time with his pulse.
He sprayed Red’s head across the room. Bits of blood, bone and brain spattered the walls, dotting the Amoco girl, who hungrily licked the gore off her lips with a long gray tongue.
After he blew the Amoco girl away, he walked to the broken picture window and took a peek outside. In the middle of the street, the zombies had a screaming teenage girl pinned down. Her distressed cries reached a fever pitch when one of the larger zombies tore her arm from its socket with a loud pop. An arc of blood squirted straight up from within the swarming mass of dead. The girl’s screaming was muf?ed, then gone. The fresh glistening blood that had splattered the zombies looked like wet red paint.
There was nothing Jubal could do for the girl now. He wondered if she had been the last living townsperson besides himself. It sure seemed like it. The dead were walking everywhere. Jubal never knew the town had so many people. He’d never seen this many at the monthly town meeting-ever.
Several zombies wandered about in Jubal’s front yard. One was amusing itself by repeatedly skewering its?nger on the long needles of one of Ma’s favorite cacti.
Jubal stepped back into the house and reloaded the Mossbergs. As he worked, he happened to glance up at a shelf on the wall next to the TV. There sat an old picture, one that had been there so long that Jubal had stopped noticing it until now. It was of himself as a child with his mother and father standing proudly behind him. His Dad had his hand on Jubal’s shoulder. Everyone was smiling for the photographer and looking quite happy.
They had been happy.
Jubal took the picture down and removed the photo from its frame.
Rubbing his neck, which had stopped bleeding, he went to the kitchen and put the picture along with some non-perishable food into a sturdy grocery bag. He would have used his backpack, but that was in his bedroom and he wasn’t about to go in there ever again.
The picture reminded him of something he hadn’t thought about in a long time. He went to his mother’s bedroom and opened her closet. Moving aside dresses and blouses, Jubal reached to the back corner and felt the item he had been searching for. The closet smelled of his mother’s perfume and it made him dizzy with memory, so he quickly pulled the item out and slammed the door closed.