“There it is!” Lonnie said through a whispered laugh. “Son of a bitch, we made it!”
The house was part ranch, part two story with a wraparound porch. The pale yellow siding with brown shutters and roof gave it a sunny demeanor, opposite of the world it was cruelly placed in. A little brown and white striped awning hovered over the front doorway, beckoning them in.
Lonnie imagined the family who lived there—a perfect family with a clean-cut dad who worked Mondays through Fridays and was always home for dinner, a mother with pinned up hair who wore an apron and baked cookies for her three perfect kids. He wasn’t sure if his senses were playing tricks on him, but he thought he caught the wafting scent of an apple pie cooling in an open window.
The two men crept closer as their eyes scanned every window in the home. There wasn’t a single light on. Either no one was there, or the family was smart enough to make it look like they weren’t there.
Once they reached the porch, Lonnie held his fist up to signal Rowan to stop where he was, bringing authenticity to his Army façade.
“We’re not makin’ the same fucking mistake twice and goin’ up to the front door. You go that way,” he pointed to the right of the house, “and peek in. See if you see anything. I’ll go this way and meet you around back.”
“Got it.” Rowan’s face was stern and unflinching, but his voice wavered when he spoke.
Lonnie wanted to slap him and yell in his face. He was in his goddamn thirties for Christ’s sake and he was acting like a sniveling baby, too scared of his own shadow to be of any use. Lonnie was only twenty-two and more in control of his emotions.
The image of Buddy Lands beaten to death on the floor flared in his mind. Well, maybe “in control” wasn’t the right choice of words. Without a doubt, Lonnie was the only reason he and Rowan were still alive, though, and that irked him. He wasn’t anybody’s goddamn babysitter.
Thoughts of resentment fueled the fire inside Lonnie as he walked around the left side of the house carefully, his rifle readied in both hands at his chest. He raised up onto his tip-toes to look into the first window across the porch. The setting sun behind him was too bright in the glass to make out any details, but he was sure he didn’t see any movement inside. The same with the next window and the next one.
He turned the corner to the back of the house and ran into something hard. Without hesitation, he raised the gun and pointed it right between the eyes of the towering figure.
“Whoa, it’s just me!” Rowan practically yelled as he threw his hands up over his head, dropping the pistol to the ground.
“Jesus-H-Christ, don’t fucking sneak up on me like that!” Lonnie bent down to pick up the 9 mil and tossed it back to his companion.
Rowan bounced it around as he tried to get a grip, his sweaty fingers slipping against the slick metal comically.
Any other day, Lonnie would have been rolling on the ground. Instead, he looked at the pathetic man with a wrinkled nose and narrowed eyes. The only thought in his mind was how long the guy would last before one of those fuckers ripped his throat out. Deep down, buried beneath that thought, was a shameful afterthought—he couldn’t wait for the day Rowan was no longer his problem.
XII.
The house was stifling. The air conditioning units had been removed and piled on the living room floor so the windows could be locked shut. After doing a quick walk-through of the home to find it empty, Lonnie collapsed on the living room sofa.
He hadn’t realized how exhausted he was until he was secured behind walls and doors again. His head pounded at both temples and ran down the back of his neck, giving him a nauseating feeling deep inside his stomach, which growled through the pain. He hadn’t eaten all day. The last thing to go down his throat was a shot of tequila the night before.
Lonnie sat with his head rested in his hands. As he tried to will the pain away, the shadowed flicker of Rowan’s feet paced back and forth in front of him and caught the corner of his eye, intensifying the nausea.
“Would you sit down or something?” he groaned as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.
Without a word, Rowan complied. He set himself down on the other end of the creaky old sofa. His legs jiggled as his feet bounced up and down and his hands slapped his knees rhythmically.
Lonnie opened one eye and glared through the darkness at him. “Jesus Christ, would you knock it off? You’re gonna make me puke.”
“Sorry.”
Rowan tightened his hands on his knees to steady them as his eyes focused out the front window. His thin, muscular legs still bounced slightly under the pressure. Lonnie rolled his eyes and winced when another sharp pain ran down his neck.
“Why don’t we hit the sack? Upstairs will be best. Gives us time to get shit together if someone decides to try and claim the place in the middle of the night.” Lonnie stood up slowly and scooped up his rifle that leaned against the arm of the couch.
Rowan nodded his head relentlessly as he too stood up, like the world’s tallest and most annoying bobble head. He walked so closely behind Lonnie that he stepped on the heel of his boots. Each time, Lonnie took a deep breath to rid the urge to whip around and punch the guy in the face. One of the wooden steps groaned loudly from the weight and distracted him.
Logically, Lonnie knew there was no way the sound could be heard from the outside, but that knowledge didn’t stop the hairs on his arms from standing on end. The last thing he wanted to do in that moment was find the miniscule amount of energy left in him to fight off more of those fuckers. The full weight of his exhaustion had kicked in, making his bulging muscles ache, his head spin, and his eyelids droop.
At the top of the staircase there were four closed doors. Lonnie had already searched each room thoroughly when he volunteered to make sure the upstairs was clear of people, alive or dead, while Rowan took the main level—a carefully calculated plan to ensure maximum comfort for Lonnie later that night. He walked right over to the door he knew belonged to the master bedroom, equipped with a King size bed and private bathroom with a garden tub.
“See ya in the mornin’. Holler if ya hear anything.” He placed his hand on the doorknob.
“Wait!” Rowan exhaled with a jerky whisper. “We’re not going to stay together?”
Lonnie furrowed his brow. “What the hell are you suggestin’?”
Rowan was taken aback. His mouth hung open as he stood frozen with wide eyes. “What? No. Nothing. Just that it might be safer to stick together, in case anything happens.”
Lonnie took his hand off the doorknob and gripped his AR-15. “That’s why we’re on the
second
floor,” he said as if he were teaching a toddler to count. “See, if anything gets in the house we’ll hear it before they can find us. That’s how that works.”
The two men stared at each other in a moment of heavy silence. He couldn’t be sure, but Lonnie thought he detected a flicker of fire behind Rowan’s almond eyes. Maybe the guy did have some hidden balls he didn’t know about. Lonnie huffed a breath of laughter, opened the bedroom door a crack, and slipped inside, leaving Rowan to stand dumbfounded and paranoid in the darkened hallway.
The master bedroom was pitch black. The thick gaudy curtains were drawn tightly shut, tied together by a decorative rope. Lonnie tossed his rifle onto the bed and sat down at the edge, his head in his hands and his elbows rested on his knees once again. He waited for the sound of Rowan’s receding footsteps, but he didn’t hear them. The tall man still stood in the hallway outside the bedroom door.
What was with that guy? It was like he was terrified to leave Lonnie’s side, like a scared little puppy. It annoyed Lonnie to no end, made the simmering fire deep inside him rise up and fuel the rage he tried so desperately to control. He didn’t know how much longer the two could carry on together before he blacked out and killed the poor sad sap.
Buddy’s bludgeoned, beaten mess of a face flashed again, sending another nauseating wave through his head and down into his stomach. He rubbed the back of his neck. One day at a time. That was the only way he could approach the situation they were in. One day at a time. Who knew how long either of them had to live?
He pushed aside his gun and scooched himself back to lay his head down on the pillow. Staring up into the black void that hovered just below the ceiling, Lonnie let his mind wander from thoughts of murder to survival to Amy, until there was nothing left. He drifted off into a deep sleep on top of the floral duvet cover.
XIII.
The echo of a loud bang teetered on the edge of Lonnie’s consciousness until he questioned whether he’d heard it or if it had been part of some dream. He sat upright, perfectly still, hands pressed into the memory foam mattress, ears tuned to the complete silence that encased him. The breath he’d been holding rushed from his nostrils as he lowered himself back down onto the soft pillow.
An unmistakable, wall rattling bang brought him right back up. It came from downstairs. Another bang and then another, until it sounded like a flock of birds were flying right into the side of the house. All at once, Lonnie’s chest tightened. He knew what the noise was. It was the sound of hands beating against glass.
His door flew open and a shadowed figure rushed in at him. His hands groped the bed for his rifle as his heart raced.
“Do you hear that?” Rowan’s voice came from the darkness.
He let out a breath of relief and wiped the sleep from his eyes. “Of course I hear it. I’m not deaf.”
“What do you think it is?”
Lonnie stood up and stretched his arms high above his head. “People tryin’ to get in. What else?” He spoke with the casual air of someone expecting visitors.
“You and me people or those other kinds of people?”
Lonnie heard the wet sound of Rowan swallowing a lump of fear down his dry throat as countless hands threw themselves into the windows to break through.
“Judging by the sound of it, the other kind.”
“How can you tell?”
Lonnie stood with his hands on his hips and glared in Rowan’s general direction. His eyes adjusted to the darkness. The crewman stood, body tensed, gun clutched awkwardly in his hands, and ever so slightly leaned forward as if he could take off running at any moment. Lonnie shook his head at the sight of him.
He could either continue to resent the man for being a useless lump or he could teach him to pull his own weight. He could teach him how to survive. That way when he didn’t, it wouldn’t be entirely on Lonnie. He wouldn’t have to feel like it was his fault another person died on his watch.
“Well, there’s more than one out there. Sounds like the house is surrounded almost. And it seems like all they’re doing is beating against the windows. If it were normal assholes, like you or me, they’d be picking locks or using a rock to break the glass. They’d be more quiet about it, that’s for damn sure.”
The black outline of Rowan’s head bobbled up and down. It was almost enough to make Lonnie burst out in laughter. Immense exhaustion might have had something to do with that. He couldn’t have gotten more than a few hours of sleep, though it felt like minutes. He wasn’t wearing a watch and there was no clock in the bedroom so he couldn’t check the time.
“What do we do?” Rowan asked.
Lonnie flicked the safety off his gun. “We check it out.”
Downstairs, the light from the half-moon shown through the open curtains. The shadows of many hands rattled the glass and Lonnie’s nerves. The sound of the front and back door shaking on their hinges made every muscle in his body tense up and refuse to release. His hands gripped the AR-15 so tightly his knuckles turned a sickly shade of white.
“Shit—shit, shit, shit!” Rowan whispered in panic behind him.
Lonnie wanted to tell him to shut up and calm the hell down, but it wouldn’t have done any good. He was certain if he said anything his voice would have come out high and unstable, like a boy going through puberty. In all his eight weeks of Army training, they never taught him how to prepare for an attack against the undead, which is what those things had proven to be. They were not people anymore—they were freaks of nature. They deserved to die, for good.
Low, drawn out moans drifted through the warm night air and into the sealed off house. A chill ran through Lonnie’s sturdy spine, giving him goosebumps on his arms and a tingly feeling in his brain. With every passing minute, the banging grew louder and faster as more joined in to beat down the walls and devour whatever was on the other side.