Down with the Fallen: A Post-Apocalyptic Horror Anthology

A Year Later ^{Irina Slav}

The straps of the backpack had rubbed Haley’s flesh raw and were now gnawing at it, biting ever deeper, to the bone. The backpack weighed a ton, or maybe it was just a couple of pounds but she’d been carrying it for what felt like months. Or was it months? Right now, Haley couldn’t care less which it was. She tried to adjust the right strap a bit, wincing with pain and then relief washed over her, for about a second, until the strap slipped back into its old place, gnawing at her flesh with every step she took.

“Look, smoke!” Juli yelled and Haley almost jumped out of her skin. She swayed but kept her balance. Her daughter grabbed her hand and pointed forward. “Look!”

“Juli…” She didn’t have the energy to tell the girl it’s not a good idea to yell. She didn’t have the energy to tell her to be quiet, as she had done so many times in the early days after the world got what it deserved in her decidedly non-humble opinion. She only had enough energy to look up from the road, where she had been gazing for the last few hours, or days, or months. There was a town about half a mile from them, the town they had set out to reach, and there was indeed a plume of smoke rising from the chimney of a house at the near end of the place.

“Come on, Mom!” The girl pulled on her hand and Haley lurched forward, almost falling over again. Her hair, wispy brown streaked with white now that she couldn’t maintain the lovely auburn shade that came in bottles, fell into her eyes. She tossed it back.

“Juli, give me a second and stop pulling,” she finally managed to say. She swallowed spit—spit that had suddenly filled her mouth at the sight of the smoke rising from that chimney of the nice-looking house half a mile away. Smoke meant people, sane people, and people meant food. But not necessarily, Haley thought. Not always. Her daughter let go of her hand and looked away, biting her lower lip.

“I’m sorry, hon, you know it may not be good,” Haley said. “It’s July, you know. People don’t light fires in July.”

She was barely keeping her eyes open. She was barely standing on her feet. If she were on her own, she would have put an end to it a long time ago. She had a knife. But she wasn’t alone. She had a 12-year-old to take care of and she had promised Jim.

“Can you give me just a minute?” she asked and without waiting for an answer, she slipped the straps of the backpack off her shoulders and sagged to the ground.

“Sure,” Juli said quietly. “I’m sorry.” She sat down next to her mother, crossing her legs. “Are you in pain?”

Haley shook her head and tried to smile. She almost did and saw Juli’s face mirroring her expression. The deep brown eyes, the raven black hair—Jim’s eyes and hair—sent a bolt of pain through her chest but she swallowed it and tried to smile.

“I’ll be fine, just need a bit of a rest before we reach that house.”

“Sure,” Juli said, frowning. “We can wait ’til tomorrow, if you want.”

“No, we can’t,” Haley said, looking around and then meeting her daughter’s eyes. She saw the disgust that suddenly claimed the girl’s face. “It’s okay. I forget about them too sometimes.”

They were surrounded by corpses. The road leading to the village was lined with piles of still decomposing bodies, bony fingers sticking out from rotting sleeves, eyeless skulls with pieces of skin still stubbornly hanging onto them staring at the woman and the girl, the bodies at the bottom crushed by so many other bodies on top, human parts scattered around the piles.

“It must have been bad,” Haley said, gazing at the stinking piles.

At the beginning, she used to throw up from the smell whenever the Barnes family encountered a single corpse, of which there were many. Then the killings began on a mass scale. Now, a year later, Haley didn’t notice the smell most of the time. Neither did Juli. The girl looked embarrassed by it now. Haley got hold of her hand and squeezed. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah, I know,” Juli said, squeezing her mother’s hand back. She cleared her throat and tore her eyes from the piles of former humans. “I just forgot and that’s kind of scary.”

“I know, honey,” Haley said. “I forget about it, too. It’s normal.”

“But it stinks so badly!” Juli said. “It’s… It’s disgusting!”

“I know. I know.” A shot of pain made her wince again and double over.

“Mom?” Panic rang out loud from that single word.

“I’ll be all right,” Haley said. “I will, I promise. Just a cramp.”

She’d been pregnant when Jim died. She was no longer pregnant, exhaustion and malnourishment had taken quick care of that last mistake she and her husband had made, but she was still bleeding. Haley hoped she hadn’t developed an infection, she really hoped. Doctors and medicines were hard to come by these days, as was food.

“Are you sure?” Juli asked, her eyes wide with fear. Haley thought, not for the first time, what she would do to make this fear go away. Anything, that’s what she would do. Or maybe not, she thought hazily. Sometimes there was a worse look in her girl’s eyes—an absent, indifferent look. Haley was seeing it more and more often.

“I am,” she said, hoping she’d managed the reassuring expression she tried for.

“Okay,” the girl said and looked away, to the house with the smoke coming from the chimney. Haley sighed.

They sat like this for another minute or so. Haley offered Juli water from the half-empty and much used plastic bottle she carried in the backpack. Juli refused. Haley took a very small sip and put the bottle back. They had to find water soon. This was their last bottle and the sun was scorching. Haley stood up, slowly and carefully.

“Come on, Juli, let’s go,” she said, picking up the backpack and putting it on. “Got your knife?”

Juli rolled her eyes and that made Haley finally smile. The kid was still okay. As okay as a kid of 12 could be a year after a breakout that had wiped out 80 percent of the population. At least, that’s how it looked to Haley. Their whole neighborhood was gone, dead or sick, very sick. And infectious. So infectious that you couldn’t touch them unless you wanted to become like them—completely retarded, incapable of doing anything more than shuffle aimlessly, mouth hanging open, and moan. Zombies, only not those from the movies, thankfully. The sick ones didn’t chase people and they didn’t try to eat them, but they could still be dangerous because sometimes they lurked in their houses and could grab the unwary by an arm or a leg, which was a death sentence. They died of starvation and dehydration. Or they got shot and thrown by the road. Nobody could be bothered with graves, not any more.

The disease was terminal, whether you died quickly, from complications, or wilted away slowly like these new helpless monsters whose touch was death. Everyone died, some by their own hand right after they were infected or even without being infected. They just couldn’t take it, and Haley could completely relate. She couldn’t take it either but she was taking it. Just like most of the people still left out there, she guessed.

“All right now,” Haley said as they started walking again. “What’s the drill?”

The first time she’d referred to it as a drill, Juli had laughed, a little hysterically but still amused. This was exactly why Haley had used the word. Yet funny or not, they both knew they had to be prepared for their encounters with strangers. So far they’d been lucky. Kind of.

“We move slowly, we look around, and we listen,” Juli recited.

“And?”

“And we’re ready to run if we hear a moan,” her daughter said.

They didn’t carry knives. It was a joke that Jim had come up with a few months ago, after they’d waited out the exodus and the quick deaths, and they were forced to move on because they’d eaten all the food. The shops were looted, the streets were clogged by empty cars, so walking was their only option. Jim had taken a knife, the biggest knife from the kitchen. But they all knew, even Juli, that a knife would be useless if one of the sick ones touched them. The knife was for the healthy ones. They all knew that, too.

The piles of human bodies thinned as they approached the town. By the time the two got to the sign that said “Biderford,” all traces of corpses had disappeared. The stench remained, though. It was everywhere. Juli turned around and looked at the road they’d just come from.

“Do you think they killed them all?”

“Yes,” Haley said curtly. Even though they’d spent a year surviving, running, and hiding, she still had that instinct to protect her daughter from life’s cruelties, which had significantly multiplied over the past twelve months. Yet now she saw no point in trying to make the truth look prettier. Not that it was possible, really, not after they’d both seen the piles of decomposing flesh and cloth.

“Makes sense,” Juli murmured. They’d stopped to look around. There weren’t any obvious signs of life in the town, or at least this part of it—only an empty road lined by seemingly empty houses. There were no cars, which probably meant there were enough survivors in Biderford to have cleared them from the streets. Why anyone would bother doing that was beyond Haley but if the townspeople had really driven the sick ones out and massacred them, then they were probably capable of caring about the state of their streets and clearing them from abandoned cars. Or they just all left in those cars if we’re being realistic, Haley told herself.

The house with the smoke coming out from its chimney was two houses down on the right. An unassuming two-storey affair in faded white. That’s how it looked from a distance, anyway. The smoke continued to trickle up into the still July air, dissipating into the intense blue of the sky. For a second everything looked so peaceful that Haley dared imagine that this whole last year was a nightmare, an extremely vivid one but still just a nightmare. And then the stench returned, filling her nostrils, bringing her back to reality.

“Come on,” she told Juli, who was looking around, daring a few steps forward. Haley detached herself from the pole of the town sign and took a step forward. The backpack, containing two sweaters, a half-empty 50-pair box of surgical gloves, three cans of baked beans and the half-empty bottle of water along with what remained from a shirt that had belonged to Jim, which she’d used for the bleeding, weighed her down again. Juli had carried it for a while in the morning but Haley had insisted they switch after a couple of hours. For some reason she felt safer with the backpack on, despite the pain. If anything happened that needed them to run, Juli would be quicker without a backpack.

Haley staggered a bit and then straightened up. She was feeling a little better. The pain in her belly had dulled, there didn’t seem to be any sick ones around, and her girl was okay. There was bound to be water somewhere in this town. And food. The baked beans were a strategic reserve, which Haley had picked up from the last place they’d stayed—the Geigers. Both were dead now. Like Jim.

A bird chirped from the maple tree by the town sign. Juli jumped. Haley didn’t have the energy but her heart did a somersault. Her daughter huffed, embarrassed. They walked into town, along what was most probably the main street. There was a Citgo station on the left and a dilapidated house on the right. Its door was hanging open but Haley didn’t even consider going in. Houses with their doors hanging open were always looted and sometimes contained their original occupants, sprawled on the floor, or the bed, or the couch, where the disease had overcome them, starting to moan the moment they saw someone come in, groping the air, exuding disease from their every pore.

Or, worse, they lurked behind doors and sometimes fell on the person who opened that door. That’s what had happened to Jim—a second of distraction had cost him his life. Haley wasn’t sure he was dead. Maybe he was. Maybe he had taken care of himself like he’d said he would. Or maybe he’d gotten scared and had died painfully or was still dying. She refused to think about these alternatives. She assumed he had ended it himself. It was easier this way.

“Do you think there may be something left at the store?” Juli asked, working hard to conceal the hope under a thin veneer of curiosity.

“Let’s check,” Haley said and the two turned left, where five pumps stood dusty and blind in the heat. Most of the hoses lay on the ground, spread in a chaotic pattern, thrown down no doubt angrily or desperately by the unlucky ones who’d reached the station too late, too long after the tanks had run dry.

The convenience store’s door was ajar, they saw when they approached, moving slowly, cautiously, between pump 2 and pump 3. The glass front revealed a mess inside but a mess was better than emptiness and they had seen empty stores on the road. Completely empty, cleared out, with just the shelves left standing. That was the curious thing—those who had cleared out the store had done it in an orderly fashion. Haley was terrified when she saw such a store for the first time and she couldn’t explain why.

This one, however, looked normal, like stores should look after the apocalypse—broken shelves, overturned racks, the floor littered with empty packets of chips, broken bottles and soda cans, and, hopefully, some food lost in all this trash. Juli peered through the door without touching it. Haley mouthed Be careful but her daughter didn’t see it. Besides, she knew to be careful. She was especially careful after Mrs. Geiger fell on her father from behind the door of the Geigers’ bedroom. She turned around.

“It looks empty,” the girl said and turned her head back to the store. Haley nodded. Stores often looked empty and were empty. The big looting wave was long over, along with the initial panic that caused it when people started dying in the thousands, in hospitals, in their beds, on the streets. Now, it was only scavengers like her and Juli that dropped in. Sometimes sick ones wandered into a store, too, but they were easy to spot there—they were very noisy as they tried to move through the usual mess. Often, they fell and stayed on the floor. Often, they died there and stopped being a danger. But you never knew.

“Okay, let’s see what’s in there,” Haley said and took the backpack off. She kneeled in the dust, took out the glove box and pulled out two pairs of latex gloves. She passed one to Juli and donned the other. The disease lingered on things like handles, water faucets and pretty much everything that people touched. It was like Ebola this way. Only it was much worse than Ebola. It was an Ebola-like virus that was supposed to eradicate malaria by killing off the plasmodium that caused it from the inside. Only it didn’t. Something went wrong with the infection. The mosquitoes died, which was one of the purposes, but before they did, they spread the all-new disease so efficiently that instead of getting good old malaria, humankind was now close to extinction. Gloves were precious.

Haley watched Juli put on the gloves. Then she put the box back in the backpack and got up. She dreaded the thought of putting the backpack on again but she couldn’t risk leaving it here, not with the gloves in it. And the water, she reminded herself. As she straightened up, she felt that her crotch was sticky but not exactly wet. Haley took it as a good sign and even cheered up a little. She was getting better. She wouldn’t have to leave Juli alone. The thought made her sick.

“Ready?” she asked and the girl nodded her head. Haley walked up to the door, took the handle between her thumb and index finger, and pulled very slowly. The door opened wider, silently. Juli waited by her side. Haley paused for a second and then pulled the door wide open. The two exchanged a look and stepped in, Haley first, Juli right behind her. A new smell suddenly overruled the all-pervading stink of old decay outside. The counter, to the left of the door, was covered with cash and blood. It stank, not as bad as the piles outside the town line, but still bad. The body was behind the counter—a girl, it looked like, judging by the form. The face was a total loss—bits of bones protruded from the bloody mask that covered what remained of the skull, no features discernible. A swarm of flies made the bloody mask look alive—they were feeding, laying eggs, taking a break hovering over the corpse and then returning for their next meal.

Someone had shot at least two bullets into that head, which may have been pretty before. Two large-caliber bullets. And it hadn’t happened long ago—no maggots had hatched yet. Haley suddenly lost all hope of finding anything worth taking in this place. She turned to tell her daughter they’d better go just in time to see Juli bend over and throw up a handful of water and stomach juices. Haley had forgotten to tell the girl to stay away and not look. She had forgotten to protect her from the sight behind the counter.

“Deep breaths, honey,” she said, rushing to her daughter, squatting next to her. “Deep breaths.”

Juli tried to nod but a dry retch shook her. After it passed, she inhaled deeply and wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her T-shirt.

“I’m sorry,” the girl whispered.

“It’s okay, baby, you haven’t done anything wrong,” Haley whispered back, hugging her tightly and rubbing her back. The girl hid her head in her mother’s neck. “It’s okay. I’m sorry I let you see this. I’m really sorry.”

Juli sobbed a couple of times, then raised her head and stepped away from Haley.

“It’s okay,” she said. She took another deep breath and closed her eyes for a second. “I’m okay.” She opened her eyes. “It didn’t happen long ago, did it?”

Haley shook her head and got up.

“Do you think they’ll come back?” the girl asked, sniffing.

Haley took off the backpack and took out the bottle of water. Juli took a sip and gave the bottle back to her mother.

“I don’t think they’ll come back,” Haley said.

“How do you know?’ Juli asked and kicked at an empty pack of chips. “Why would they make such a mess? Can’t they clean up after themselves?”

Haley smiled at her daughter’s outrage, so out of place and yet so reasonable, so sane. Julianne was still sane.

“Let’s see if we can find some food, all right?” she said and reached out to Juli. The girl took her hand and for a second they stood there, hand in hand, in the debris, the stench of fresh death hanging over them, almost palpable. Juli thrust her right leg forward, stirring the pile of packages, bottles, and cans. Haley hesitated for a moment, then did the same. They started moving forward, stirring the debris with their feet, scanning the store for any candy bar, packet of chips, box of cookies, anything that the last visitors of the place might have missed.

The last time they’d eaten was the previous afternoon—they’d split the ten remaining saltines from a box they’d found in an abandoned house a week earlier and had finished the pack of peanut butter chocolates that Haley had taken from the bag of a dead woman they’d stumbled upon when they were leaving the last town. She didn’t remember its name. She remembered they left it three days ago, after it turned out there was a whole swarm of sick ones in the town’s Methodist church. Apparently, there were a few infected people among them still at the early stages of the disease, who broke down the doors and let them all free. Haley and Juli were squatting in a house nearby and they heard the shouts of “Get them!” and the moans. Then they saw the still-sane ones run up the street, to the house they were hiding in, and made a quick exit through the back door and into the woods. They had to run. Haley almost gave up halfway through but she made it to the road, bleeding, breathless, but alive. And so did Juli, which was the important thing.

“See anything good?” Haley asked in her new cheery voice. She was feeling better by the minute, in spite of the dull pain in the pit of her belly, in spite of the girl’s corpse behind the counter, in spite of the stench. She’d felt worse pain, when Juli was born, prematurely. She’d seen worse things, when Mrs. Geiger fell on Jim, hands groping, mouth opening and closing, eyes unfocused, sealing his death sentence the moment her palm came into contact with his neck. And she’d smelled worse smells, when the blood started flowing out of her when she miscarried two weeks ago.

Juli tapped her foot on something in the pile of garbage and her face lit up. She grinned at her mother, let go of her hand and reached down. Her hand came up with a box of lemon cookies. The box was trampled but unopened. Haley’s mouth filled with saliva again, just as it did every time she thought about the baked beans in the backpack. She swallowed.

“Great find, kid,” she said. “It’s all yours.”

Juli hesitated with the misshapen cookie box in her hand. Then she offered it to her mother. Haley blinked back the tears that had suddenly filled her eyes and shook her head.

“All yours,” she managed. “You need your strength.’

Juli’s chin started trembling.

“No, Juli, I’m not going anywhere!” Haley said. She waded through the debris to her daughter and grabbed her by the shoulders. “I’m fine, seriously. And I have baked beans.”

Juli didn’t smile. She continued staring at her mother, studying her face, which Haley knew was drawn, dry, and paler than usual, blinking away tears, swallowing back her worry.

“Juli?” Haley said, relaxing her grip on the girl’s shoulders. She forced her fingers to loosen their grip on the thin bones and turn the squeezing into light massaging. “Juli, please have the cookies. You know you love them and you’re hungry. Then we’ll have some beans, okay?”

“Are you really fine?” her daughter asked, with her bottomless eyes that cut short any attempt at a lie fixed on hers. “Are you?”

“Of course I am,” Haley said. She knelt in the pile of garbage in front of her daughter and looked her straight in the eyes. Jim’s eyes. “I’m well and good, and I’ll be much better after you eat these cookies.”

“Mom, that’s emotional blackmail,” Juli said. She looked somber. So somber that Haley burst out laughing. Juli jumped. Haley grabbed her and pulled her to her chest, squeezing the girl, not caring if she hurt the tiny body. Juli hugged her back, fiercely. The box of cookies fell on the floor behind Haley’s back. She groped for it with one hand and pulled it out from the mess. Then she wedged it between her and Juli.

“Take it,” Haley said, letting go of Juli and pressing the shapeless cookie box to the girl’s now scrawny chest. “Please. Emotional blackmail and all.”

Juli took the box with one hand, keeping the other one around her mother’s neck.

“Okay,” she said, stifling a sob. “If you insist.”

Haley hugged her again, kissed her cheek and let go.

“Let’s see if we can find anything else,” she said, getting up. The empty packs, wrappers, and cans rustled under her feet, so she didn’t hear the soft moan that came from the door. Neither did Juli. She’d opened the box of cookies and had stuffed a palmful of crumbs into her mouth. She was watching her mother, who was blocking the door from view. Then Haley made a step forward, to the single aisle of the small store, and Juli choked on her cookies. She shot up from the floor, coughing up crumbs, and grabbed her mother’s arm. Haley started and her head snapped back to the door.

The sick man at the door had not been sick for a long time. He still looked normal but for the mouth that opened and closed erratically and the unfocused eyes. His clothes were filthy and he swayed a little like a drunk, but otherwise he could pass for a healthy man. A year ago, of course. Not now. He let out a low moan and stepped forward unsteadily. The reek of urine, feces and unwashed body hit Haley and Juli in the nose, for a second overtaking the other prevailing smell, of violent and messy death. The man lifted his right hand and groped the air. He was moving toward them.

Haley and Jim had discussed whether the sick ones could smell the healthy humans and neither of them was sure, but it did look that way. The eyes of the sick ones didn’t seem to see very well, the feet were unsteady and still they always tried to approach the healthy ones they encountered and touch them. Perhaps that was their way of asking for help. Perhaps they wanted to spread the disease now that they’d lost their own lives to it. Haley didn’t know. Juli had insisted they were asking for help but since her father’s death—or accident, as she called it—she refused to talk about it.

“Slowly,” Haley whispered, trying to push Juli behind her back. Juli resisted, planting her legs right where she was, next to her mother, facing the door and the stinking man who was standing there, groping the air, his head swiveling from side to side like a hinge that’d gotten unhinged. Which was pretty much what had happened, what happened to all of them. And then they died of starvation and lack of water.

“I know, Mom,” the girl said, her eyes fixed on the sad creature at the door who’d just taken another tentative step toward them. They both stepped back into the aisle—the very short aisle, it now seemed to Haley. They had no weapons. They were both in T-shirts, which was bad. But they wore long pants, which was good. And they couldn’t just outwait the sick one or run. Haley was sure they would find more food in here, food they needed because they might have to run from that house with the smoke coming out of its chimney. There could be bad people there. Or dead people. Besides, Haley had seen—or imagined she’d seen—a few cans left standing in the soft drinks fridge and she wanted them. They needed them.

The sick one advanced, now moaning more loudly, his feet trampling what could be food, and Haley felt a sudden hot wave rise to her face. Anything he touched they couldn’t use. And he couldn’t eat it, not even with help. She knew that because she’d seen people try to feed their sick ones. They couldn’t chew or swallow, even if they were fed forcefully. The food and the water just didn’t go beyond their mouths. This she’d heard from a doctor previously employed by one of the biggest hospitals in the Midwest, now on the run like the rest of them. “They can’t live,” she’d said. “But they don’t die quickly enough.”

That doctor, Miriam, as she’d introduced herself to Haley and Jim, had, as far as Haley was concerned, saved their girl’s life six months ago by sewing up a wound Juli had gotten on her knee trying to run away from a sick one. That was back at home, in Iowa, when they were hanging on to their last hope that the disease could be contained. Three stitches were what Miriam administered, plus a helping of antibiotic powder. That was all she could spare and Haley was endlessly grateful for it. Miriam was now dead, touched by a seemingly recovering patient who said she had the flu before she collapsed on the floor of the shelter—a former high school—and made it clear to everyone that their hopes were doomed. They were all certain the shelter was safe until Constance collapsed on the floor of what had been the chemistry lab in happier times.

“We’ll go round the aisle,” Haley said. “See if there’s anything that looks edible or drinkable. We’re not coming back.”

“But we can try and trip it or something,” Juli said.

“No,” Haley said. She had no intention of letting Juli near the creature or approaching it herself. That was too much risk. One swipe with a hand, that’s all it took for one of them—or both—to become like him or, if they were lucky, die within a week.

“I can trip him, Mom,” Juli insisted. “I can tackle him to the ground.”

“No!” Haley said, no longer caring who heard them. There was nobody here, after all, besides the sick one and the corpse. One done corpse, one on the way. And two potential corpses. “You’re not going anywhere near it. And don’t you dare say ‘But.’”

She didn’t turn to look at her daughter as she said this but she felt the girl’s hand tense in hers for a second before relaxing. Juli knew the risks. She was just being defiant. Or hopeful, maybe. Haley, however, was taking no chances. They’d scope the place, take what they found, and they would then beat it as quickly as possible. It stank here, anyway. She continued walking backward, her eyes fixed on the thing that was now much closer to them, while Juli turned around and started rummaging through the shelves.

“Give me a bag,” she said. “There’s some candy bars here.”

Haley risked a glance away from the staggering creature and saw her daughter pick up a Starburst stick. The colors on the wrapper were so bright they blinded her for a second. How the candy had survived she couldn’t imagine, but it had.

“Yes!” Juli said and waved her hand, full of candy. Two Mars bars. One Twix. Too much chocolate, Haley would have said just a year ago. Now they were food, as good as any other. She took out a plastic sandwich bag from the back pocket of her pants without taking her eyes off the creature advancing on them and passed it to Juli. The sick one was standing five feet away now, in the pile of garbage, his head swiveling left and right, his right foot raised for the next step, arms groping the air in front of him. Then his head swung to the left and he froze.

“Mom, I think there are some more cookies here!” Juli whispered. She was excited. She was hungry. And she hadn’t finished her box of squashed cookies.

“Good,” Haley said, not really hearing her. She’d never seen any of the sick ones freeze like this. They always seemed to be moving, groping, shuffling, seeking the life they no longer had, it seemed to Haley. And she was not giving it to them. Or to him, this stinky former bull of a man who was now hunched down, skin hanging off the bones, greasy blond hair hanging down his filthy face, and huge hands flailing around, groping for them, for her and Juli.

Now the filthy face was turned halfway to the counter where the flies buzzed all businesslike, or rather business-as-usual-like. They didn’t care about the sick ones, Haley thought wistfully for a second before focusing again on the weird thing that was happening to the sick one. His arms had seized flailing and had fallen slowly to the sides of his wasted body. His back had straightened. He looked like a man ready to fight. A man who’d sensed danger. Which was impossible, Haley told herself, because they could not sense anything, except for the living humans. They could only waste away. She turned to Juli to tell her there was something wrong with the sick one, when her uterus dumped what felt like a pound of blood and endometrial matter into her panties. With the load came pain, dull but strong, rendering her temporarily incapable of anything more than doubling down and pressing her hand to her belly.

“Mom?” Juli piped, her voice leaving no doubt that Haley looked really bad. And she felt bad, as if all her energy had drained out to pool in the center of the shirt sleeve she was using as a sanitary napkin. It weighed her down. It weighed her down so much Haley felt her knees buckle and sagged down to the floor. Black fog started seeping into her peripheral vision, advancing to the center. Sounds started fading, replaced by a shrill ringing in her ears. Haley gathered the last remnants of energy she had and bit on her tongue, as hard as she could. The fog cleared almost instantly and sounds returned. She heard Juli calling her, pulling on her arm, and then she heard something else. The sick one. The sick one whined like a dog that’d been kicked viciously. Her head snapped up and she saw the man make an about turn and walk out of the store.

“Mom! Mom!”

“I’m fine, Juli,” Haley said. Her voice was steadier than she expected but that was probably the stress—too much of it and you start sounding calm and apathetic.

“What happened?” the girl asked, staring intently into her mother’s eyes, now a very pale blue, disturbingly pale.

“Just a cramp,” Haley said, glancing at the open door of the store. “What happened to him?”

Juli shrugged.

“He stood like a statue for a while and then just left. Lucky us. Can you walk?”

“In a while,” Haley said, closing her eyes for a moment. Her tongue hurt but thankfully she hadn’t bitten into it too hard to worry about an infection. “And we better hurry. Something scared the sick one and I don’t know what it was.”

“Maybe more sick ones are coming and he got scared?”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Haley said. She no longer saw any point in trying to hide her fears and anxieties from Juli. If things got bad, she’d better be prepared than shielded by her mother’s care. That would only make her more vulnerable.

“Okay, let’s go through the shelves quickly and then we’re out,” Juli said.

“You go, hon,” Haley said. “I need to rest a little.”

“All right.” Juli didn’t look like she thought this was the best idea but she didn’t try to argue. She started rummaging through the shelves, trying to find the food in the trash, moving along the aisle away from her mother. Haley closed her eyes again and tried to relax.

A noise made her realize she was about to doze off. A weird rustling sound, followed by a dull thump and then another one. There was another sick one in here with them.

“Juli!” Haley called just when her daughter, who had by now gone around the aisle, started screaming. Haley found energy she didn’t know she had and sprang to her feet. She turned to where the screams were coming from and froze just like the sick one.

Juli was standing a few steps away from the counter, screaming her head off. Behind the counter, a faceless figure caked with blood and stinking of death swayed slightly when it got to its feet and lurched toward Juli. The countertop stopped it.

“Juli!” Haley yelled and got moving. She rushed to her daughter, who was standing there as if she had been planted, screaming and screaming, and screaming. She grabbed the girl’s hand and pulled her to the door, glancing in passing to the dead, faceless girl who had just found where the countertop ended.

Mother and daughter ran out of the store and Haley slammed the door shut, unsure how much good this would do but incapable of coming up with a better idea. The first few steps she had to drag Juli along but now the girl was running on her own. They crossed the road and went around the dilapidated house that marked the beginning of the town. Its backyard was shaded by a huge oak tree. Haley pulled her daughter behind its trunk and sagged down to the ground. She couldn’t run any farther. She couldn’t even walk right now.

“What was that, Mom?” Juli said, her voice quavering, her face as white as the snow that used to cover their own backyard every October. “Was it dead?”

“Yes,” Haley said. There was no way anyone could survive two or more shots to the head.

“Was it a zombie?”

“Zombies are in the movies, Juli,” Haley said. She hated zombie movies. She hated all the supernatural movies, actually, zombies, vampires, the lot. And now one such movie was unfolding right here, in real life.

“So what was it, then?” the girl insisted, a little belligerent, a little agitated, still shaking in her mother’s arms.

“I don’t know,” Haley sighed. She didn’t add that there may be more like it. There were bound to be more like it. But Juli could figure this out for herself.

“What are we going to do now?”

“We’re going to stay put,” her mother said. She wasn’t afraid anymore. She was too exhausted to be afraid. “We can spend the night here. Then we’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

“You think it’s safe?” Juli asked, incredulous.

“No, Juli,” she said. “Nowhere is safe, but it’s a bit better here than trying the house. We can run if something—that thing—comes this way. I can’t fight right now and I need some rest before we move on.”

“I know,” the girl said softly. “I’m sorry.”

Haley thought she actually heard her heart snap. She had a pretty good idea what she would do, right after Juli went to sleep. Walking corpses were just too much. She wasn’t going to live in a horror movie and she wasn’t going to let her daughter live in one, either. Haley had a knife that Juli didn’t know about, a pocket one, and she was going to put it to good use later this night.

“It’s okay, honey,” she said, pulling her daughter into her lap. “It’s okay.”