“Do you need some water, Charlotte?” Tracy said.
Charlotte leaned forward and vomited blood across the picnic table.
Over the next few days they saw five more of them. They seemed like they had been normal people before the disease. Some had glasses and sun hats on. One was only a little kid, who kept bumping into the sliding glass doors of the porch. Tracy swatted at his face with a broom until he moved off through the woods. Another got her hand stuck in the crook of a split tree trunk and stayed there all evening, groaning. In the morning, Tim found a torn-off hand covered in ants.
Other than that, the undead just slowly walked on through. They didn’t seem to have any place in particular to get to, but they were getting there nonetheless.
“We have to call a hospital, Byrd!” Tracy said. She was standing outside of Byrd and Charlotte’s room. Tim was sitting on the couch, Googling information on zombism. He found a long list of symptoms on WebMD, but the treatments were all unsubstantiated or involved decapitation.
“Goddamnit, I said I’m taking care of it.”
Loud thumps came from the room. Tracy frowned at Tim. The disease was spreading exponentially, and the whole state was overwhelmed. Even if the police came, Tim thought they’d probably just shoot Charlotte from the passenger window and drive off again.
A few minutes later, Byrd slid out of the bedroom door. He locked it behind him.
“Okay, under control,” Byrd said. He gave Tracy and Tim a thin smile. His clothes were disheveled and his hair was matted with gray goo. “Hey, what do you guys want to do? Take a hike or a swim maybe?”
“I think we need to deal with this situation,” Tracy said.
“I’m not going to be micromanaged on this, Tracy.”
“Well, I think we should have a vote. Right, Tim?”
Byrd punched the wall several times.
“God fucking Christ shit!” he said. “She’s tied up to the damn support beam! She isn’t going anywhere. We are not taking a vote on whether Charlotte’s head gets blown off or not!”
Tim was worried about Tracy. Byrd marched around the house like nothing was going on, but Tracy barely left the guest room. When she did, it was with a kitchen knife and wild eyes. At night, they could hear moans from the room next-door. Tracy would cry, and Tim didn’t know what to do. She would grab him and kiss him and force him quickly inside her before he was even hard, crying the whole time.
Tracy tiptoed back into the room.
“Grab your bag and let’s go!” she whispered.
“Huh?” Tim said, slowly opening his eyes. “I thought we were leaving on Saturday?”
“I stole Byrd’s car keys. Do you want to get out of this death trap or not?”
Tim was sitting up now. He scratched his head and walked into the bathroom to urinate. “How will we get Charlotte in the car?” he said.
“That thing isn’t Charlotte, and we aren’t bringing it.”
“But she’s your BFF.”
Tracy had to keep shushing Tim as they walked through the house.
“Huffington Post said it was safer in remote locations.”
“Not if your remote location already has one growling in the bedroom next to yours!”
Tracy drove slowly up the road, hoping not to wake Byrd.
Tim reached over and fiddled with the radio. The only station that came on had a Christian preacher singing a hymn about the end times. Tracy pushed the rubber power button off.
The top of the driveway was blocked by a car crash.
“There’s got to be a way around it,” Tracy said. She turned on the high beams to get a better look. That’s when she noticed the bodies in the car. She turned the headlights off. She started to cry, and after a minute, Tim put a hand on her neck and rubbed the soft hairs there. He stopped when he heard a dog barking.
“Oh my god, there’s a dog trapped in there.”
“Can dogs be zombies?” Tim said. He started to open the passenger door. The dog’s barks got louder. They heard the sound of an oncoming car and loud whoops.
“What the hell is going on anymore?” Tracy said.
There were two loud blasts from sawed-off shotguns as a group of screaming men in hunting gear drove by. The bodies in the car started to thrash around. They seemed to be trapped in their seat belts.
“One more pass, boys!”
The tires screeched and roared by as three men braced in the back of a pickup truck let loose another volley of gunfire. All of the windows of the crashed cars erupted, and something soft and wet landed on the windshield of Byrd’s car.
“Holy shit!” Tim said.
Tracy watched as the right side of the dog’s face slid down the windshield, one large eye seeming to scan the length of her body.
She put the car in reverse and backed down the driveway.
The internet went down and three days later the TV. The landline had been giving them nothing but a monotone beep for over a week. Tracy took the radio into her and Tim’s room and listened to it every night for news. Mostly they got static, but every two hours the hiss would dry up for one of two prerecorded announcements. The first urged calm and recommended various home treatments if licensed medical practitioners could not be reached. The second message urged calm and two bullets from no farther than twenty feet away to any victim’s cerebral cortex.
Tim stumbled on Byrd in the hammock by the woodshed. He was swinging sadly with one foot on the ground.
“I thought there might be some canned goods in the shed.”
“This was the first place.” Byrd sniffled. He moved his legs for Tim to sit down.
“What?” Tim said.
“Sophomore year, when we all came up here for spring break instead of going to Florida with everyone else. When you guys were watching old slasher movies, Charlotte and I sneaked out here and drank a bottle of Ketel One. When she pulled her shirt off, her breasts looked like. . Christ. What the fuck are we going to do, man?”
They sat there swinging. Even though he was a writer, or trying to be, Tim didn’t know what to say. He tried to think about what his coach would tell them after a big loss. “Sometimes things look bad, and they might even be bad, but the important thing is to pick yourself up and get ready for the next play that life throws at you,” he said.
Byrd cocked his head at Tim. The wind was warm and rattled the ripe leaves above their heads. In the distance, something moaned.
“What in the shit fuck does that mean?”
“Hi, Tracy.”
“Oh god!” Tracy jumped back against the laundry machine. She had been searching for a flashlight since the power had blinked off that morning.
“Do you ever wonder what love is?” Byrd said. He had dark bags under his eyes, and his clothes were dirty and filled with rips and holes.
“I have a knife,” Tracy said.
“Is love doing whatever you can do to synergize with someone? Is it giving up your own self to be what they need you to be?” Byrd was looking past Tracy at the rows of chemicals and tools. His shoulders were slumped, and he scratched at his neck with one long fingernail. “Coach always said love was sacrifice. He was talking about football, but is it the same thing with people?”
Tracy felt the terrible sadness that had been living in her for weeks rise up into her face. “I don’t know, Byrd,” she said. “I don’t know anything anymore.”
Byrd jiggled the doorknob and shouted, “Hey, the door is locked.”