Justin McCain watches as the huge firemen's axe, came down on the sleepwalkers. The axe was a full three feet long, was sharp as hell, and covered in the fluids and was held in the beefy arms and scarred hands of Jordan McCain, his brother.

The axe came down on the sleepwalkers forehead, and sunk down into its skull, matter of brain tissue spewing everywhere and Justin can help but feel disgusted by Jordan, as his more muscular bother swings the axe down and almost literally split the sleepwalkers head in half. The sleepwalker moaned softly and his legs crumpled, falling onto the hardwood floor. Blood oozed out of the sleepwalkers head and spread like water coming out of a garden hose. Jordan then twists the axe and, with a cracking sound jerked the red axe blade out of his frontal lobe.

Behind Jordan another sleepwalker gets to her feet and stumbles towards the sibling. Jordan then swings the axe up over his head and slices the sleepwalkers head clean off. Justin groans. He hates the sight of this. Nonstop killing has been the only thing the McCain brothers have seen and done the last 5 days since the cities fell to the sleepwalkers and the disease went global. And Justin hated every minute of the gut wrenching business. But it had to be done. Sure Justin knew that but be didn't want to know that. Didn't want to do it. That's why 4 days ago he got out of Atlanta to run from the walking pusbags. That's why 3 days ago he sent text messages off to every person he had on his contact list and discovered that all signal had been lost. And that's why 2 days ago he set out for the local police station to get his brother out of the Slammer. He simply wanted to be safe. Whether or not Jordan chose to cooperate was up to him.

That's also why this morning Jordan had made Justin pull over onto a hunting reserve to collect weapons and to have a place to sleep for the night. And now the two brothers were clearing out a hunting cabin to stay in.

Jordan swung the axe towards an approaching pusbag and the blade became stuck in his cranium. Jordan kicked the corpse and the things head slid off the blade and hit the floor with a wet thump. Justin winced. He hated that noise. He also hated the cabin, and his brother and the whole situation they were in. but they had to deal with what they had been handed even if they hated it. Even if Justin hated him.

Jordan brushed his hand over his forehead wiping the sweat and cadaver blood off, "that the last of them?" he asked.

Justin's eyes swept the large cabin. 'More of a mansion,' Justin thought. "Yeah, I think so." he said aloud. "I hope so."

"Better be." Jordan said, already settling down on the couch. "I don't mind killing the things, but you can only do it so long until you're tired."

"I'm going to go check upstairs." Justin mumbled, already annoyed with his brother.

"Whatever." Jordan sighed and got to his feet. "Where is all the booze in this place?"

Justin was almost shocked by what he found on the upper floor. The second floor was completely untouched. Nothing was taken or looted. as far as the brothers had seen from the downstairs everything had been taken. But upstairs everything was right where it was supposed to be.

He drew his only weapon, a C96 pistol that he had taken from his father. None one of the bullets in the clip had been used once.

'Huh. I said my father. Not our father.' Justin noticed. He didn't like to remind himself that he was related to Jordan. It was better to pretend that Jordan was some homeless veteran drunk that he had found wandering in the road, or a messed up alcohol addicted survivor that he had picked up in his Ford; Anything but Justin's brother.

When they were growing up, Justin had been the golden boy. He had been the baseball star, the athlete. Later in college he got a scholarship for law and went on to become a defense attorney. But Jordan was the kid in the neighborhood who nobody liked. That smoked cigarettes at 12 and drunk at 14. It wasn't like his parents -their parents- raised him that way. That's just how he was. He caused trouble for the sake of causing trouble.

Justin shook his head trying to clear away all the bad memories. He had a job to do.

Justin kicked open the door to the first room. it was practically empty, besides an old bedframe against the wall. The room was old, dusty and smelled like old people, a smell Justin didn't like. It reminded him of a soon to be death; like it was waiting just around the corner.

Justin moved on. The next room there was a desk and an empty closet. The floor was different. Instead of wooden floors there was a fuzzy blue carpet. Unlike the first room he had a good feeling about this room. Maybe if the brothers decided to stay for a few days here he would move the bed from the first room into this room.

There was one last room down the hall. A chill passed down his spine. There was something eerie about this room. This door. Justin felt his breath leave him. He sucked it in and put his hand on the door knob. He twisted it ever so slightly. He swallowed. Downstairs there was a sound of glass falling onto hardwood floor. Not breaking, just falling. Justin rushed down the stairs skipping two at a time and holding onto the rail. He turned the corner.

"Jordan what was-" he stopped short.

Jordan was passed out on the couch, snoring loudly, a bottle of liquor rolling on the floor near his hand.

Justin suddenly felt something. Anger. He felt anger at his brother. But he was angry at his brother all the time. Why would this be different? Because Jordan being drunk and passed out on the couch when Justin needed him, really needed him, showed Justin that his brother didn't care about anything anymore.

Justin threw a pillow that had been lying on the floor at Jordan. Jordan sat up with a start. "wha-?"

"What the hell are you doing?" Justin demanded angrily.

"What does it look like?" Jordan mumbled, his voice slurred from the drink.

"It looks like you're getting smashed when I need your help." Justin said his eyes narrowing.

Jordan waved his hand dismissively. "Naw your fine! Come on bro, have a drink!"

Justin's eyes flashed. "I don't want a drink; I want you to help me! So get your lazy ass off that couch before I kick it off."

Jordan smiled. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you such a buzz kill man?" he chuckled.

I groaned. "You are the most irresponsible, disgusting, obnoxious, person I have ever known!"

"S'all right, so long as I have my...uh...my..."

Justin left then, to move the bed into his new room.

The cabin was a two story mansion styled firm surrounded by trees on all sides. Leading up to the cabin was a quarter mile road, and on the road was smaller hunting cabins and the ranger's station. The smaller cabins consisted of one story, and five rooms. Justin had checked out those cabins and the ranger's station in the first half of the week. By the time Wednesday rolled around the cabins had been cleaned out of food. Within all these cabins and even in the ranger's station, no firearms had been found.

Over the next few days, Justin managed to get into a routine. First he would struggle out of bed, go across the rug floor, go to the lone empty closet where his C96 pistol lay (for days now he'd been calling it Broom Handle) and head out ignoring Jordan's drunken snores. He would then go into town with the truck and gather the limited supplies there until noon. Then he would head back to the house and make breakfast for the two, while Jordan pulled himself off the couch. After breakfast Justin would clean the dishes, use soap, and put them away. He would then head outside to do rounds keeping watch until the sun went down.

However on his fifth day out in the hot sun, (it was still September and the heat was still hanging on) he began to think. He thought back to the first day. In the small cabin that Justin had started to think of as a home. The room. The room that he hadn't opened. The room that was down the hall. For some reason he kept thinking about it. He couldn't get the room out of his head. Finally Justin did one last sweep of the perimeter making sure it was clear, and then headed up to the house. The cabin was dark. Darker than usual. He immediately headed to the living room. He assumed Jordan would be laying his lazy ass on the couch. He looked around the room. In less than 5 days the living room was a wreak. Liquor bottles were strewn about on the floor, pillows and blankets were littered all over the room. Justin shook his head. But there was no Jordan. That's when Justin thought maybe he was drunk and wandered to another part of the cabin. Justin thought whatever his brother was up to it wasn't good

'Doesn't matter.' He thought. 'I came inside to do something and that's what I plan to do.' Maybe it was for the best anyway. He didn't know what was behind the door and he didn't want Jordan finding out.

Suddenly something occurred to him. He had found a room on the upper floor that Jordan knew nothing about. So what did that mean? It meant that Justin wasn't going to show his brother anything upstairs. He didn't deserve to know. Justin took the stairs two at a time. He was eager to see what was behind that door. Maybe too eager. He didn't care. He NEEDED to find out what was in there. He got to the upper floor. He looked down the hall. The solid wooden door was there. He looked at it, stared at it taking in all the detail. The door was mahogany colored with four square outlines. The frame was a dark shade of brown, and the paint on the door was faded, the wood chipping away. The doorknob was a dark golden color. Justin stretched his arm toward the knob, his fingers unfolding, stretching toward the door handle. With trembling hands he grasped the door knob. He turned it ever so slightly-

Downstairs there was a shatter of glass and a loud yell that sounded like Jordan. Justin let go of the doorknob and rushed downstairs.

Jordan walked down the stairs. The wooden steps leading to the basement were old and creaky. He hated how they were. He was afraid they would break under his weight.

This basement reminded Jordan of their houses basement. The one he and Justin lived in when they were kids. He remembered the first time he had dared Justin to go in that basement. It had looked a lot like it did now, Dark and oppressing. Justin had told Jordan he didn't want to, because he was still afraid of monsters at that point.

"There are demons in the basement!" He had said. So just to be a jerk, Jordan had convinced some of his friends to go into the basement and wait there for Justin. Turns out Justin was down there the whole time, waiting to scare them. Jordan smiled at the memory.

He took another few stops down to the basement. Jordan was looking for something to drink. It had been a long day and he needed some whiskey or bourbon or even some vodka at this point.

He knew his drinking was a problem, but he had never done anything to stop it. He didn't know why, he just never needed to. His drinking never hurt anyone, or done any real permanent damage to him or anyone else. Actually he preferred getting drunk, than the alternative any day. But he didn't care about getting drunk. Other people did. And he hated that. Hated the pity that people gave. Almost more than he hated the way people shouted at him and sometimes threw things. Most important though, he hated getting mad.

For some reason whenever he got really mad at someone, bad stuff fallowed afterwards. He didn't know why. He would just get so angry and see red, then he would find out the person was in the hospital. It was because of this, Jordan had landed in prison. And he never knew what he really ever did.

Jordan had reached the basement floor. He clicked on the LED flashlight he held and scanned the room. He saw a washing machine that would never be run, a barrel full of cans that were never going to be recycled and a hamper full of laundry that would never be washed. He continued flashing the light around the basement. Against the wall was a wall full of power tools, and more to the left, a large Tv with a game console. To the right was a workshop. No liquor.

He then flashed the light again and caught sight of something that flashed back. He zeroed in on the object.

Jackpot. A wine rack. Bottles upon bottles of wine. He smiled and walked over. He lifted one and looked close at the label. He needed to get wasted, fast.

Suddenly something- a pusbag who'd been hiding in the shadows revealed itself and gabbed Jordan's arm causing him to yelp and drop the bottle. The bottle shattered and Jordan angrily pushed the cadaver to the floor. The pusbag snarled and Jordan raised his foot and curve stomped the snarling thing. Then out of nowhere, another came at him grabbing his tank top. Jordan had trouble pushing this one down. Somehow, the one on the floor was still moving, struggling to get up. It was stuck between its legs. If I wanted to it could simply sit up and bite his crotch, but apparently it was too stupid. The other snarled and snapped its teeth. Even in the dim light, Jordan could see the droop dripping from it unspeaking mouth. He managed to hold back the monster as it tried to reach his jugular.

Behind him he could hear the sound of footsteps on wooden stairs. Justin had arrived.

Justin stood at the foot of the stairs, staring at the scene. "What the-?"

"Help me!" Jordan yelled. He was holding a snarling sleepwalker by her wrists, keeping her away from his throat. Below him, between his legs, another sleepwalker was snapping his jaws weakly, but making no attempt- no effort - to bite him.

Justin drew his gun. He hesitated when he saw the one on the floor. But after hesitation, the gun barked and the barrel kicked, smoke rising up in curls. The sleepwalker's blood spread on the floor like water.

He raised the gun again. The two- the walker and Jordan- still struggled. Justin pointed the gun at the walker. Then he realized something. One shot. One shot to the head and it would all be over. Jordan would expire and Justin wouldn't have to take care of him. Wouldn't have to deal with him. He could hear his heart pumping, much louder than how it did upstairs. Jordan didn't notice. He put a little more pressure on the trigger. He then then turned the gun to the left, and pulled the trigger.

With a grunt Jordan tossed the final body on the pile of them the brothers had collected throughout the whole house. The bodies were rank and Jordan was eager to burn them. With a sigh he turned to Justin, who was staring at the pile with an expression Jordan couldn't make out. He rarely could tell what Justin was thinking. Usually he came right out and said what he was feeling. Especially when they were kids. The McCain Brothers had been close for a good portion of their childhood. Now...Jordan was ashamed to say the brother that he had known for years, he barely knew anymore.

"Well that's it." Jordan said.

"Yeah." Justin mumbled, still poker faced.

"You ok man?" Jordan asked, looking deep into Justin's face. looking for any expression.

Justin shrugged.

Jordan sighed. He tried. "Well if this little shindig is over, I'm going to get wasted." he looked at Justin. "your welcome to join. Plenty of booze to go around."

Justin swallowed. "We should say something."

Jordan was confused. "About what?"

"Them." Justin inclined his head towards the pile of bodies.

Jordan narrowed his eyes at his brother. "They're not people, Justin."

"They were." Justin stared at his brother. "How could you he so cold hearted. You've always been that way." he paused, thought, and then continued. "What if it was dad in that pile? Or mom?"

Jordan stared at the ground. He couldn't believe Justin was thinking that much into this. "You are such a pain in the ass." Jordan turned back to the pile.

"Um...here lies a pile of bodies. Before they lived good full lives. At least we assume they did and now...well now their dead. And it sucks. So God almighty let these poor fellas up to heaven. Unless they were like serial killers or something and they got what they deserved." Justin shot a glare at Jordan. "So…um...let them rest in peace. Let them be with their friends and family.. and neighbors..and..coworkers ..and..." Jordan was surprised when he felt a small tear fall off his cheek. He wiped it away roughly. "So yeah thanks. Uh amen. Huzzah." He sighed. "Ok now I'm getting wasted."

Justin was still staring at the bodies. The gasoline that Justin had brought from the rangers station sat near he fire. He picked it up and started soaking the pile with the gas. He took a match, lit it and threw it on. The gasoline lit up with flames and the bodies started to burn. Justin stared at the fire as if he could see his soul burning with it. Finally he looked up. "I think I'll have that drink now." He said in a hoarse voice.

Jordan refilled his glass on the couch. Justin was sitting across from him on a stool also holding a glass. It was strange for Justin, sitting there sharing a drink with Jordan. Like the Twilight Zone. More strange he could feel the drink affecting him, giving him a slight buzz.

"Haven't had a drink in eight years." Justin murmured.

"Then you're overdue." Jordan took a swing from the glass and smacked his lips, enjoying the taste of the 30 year old wine. He refilled the glass then offered the bottle to Justin. The brother accepted the bottle and put a hearty ammount of wine in the glass. He then looked at the bottle and, after putting the glass down, took a long 10 second drink from the bottle. He then offered it back to Jordan, who accepted it then took a swing himself.

Jordan broke the silence. "Always thought you were more of a light weight."

Justin shrugged. "I dunno. Whenever I was with Katrina I didn't drink. None of the guys around the office ever went out drinking, as far as I know so I never really drank with the guys..." he paused and took a sip from his glass. "You know the last drink I really ever had was with dad."

"Last drink I had with someone," Jordan said, "was a prostitute at an ACDC concert."

The brothers looked at one another and started laughing. For a minute they couldn't stop. Maybe it was the relief of safety, or the drink, but whatever the case the two siblings couldn't control their fits of laughing. Finally the men controlled their chortling, and continued their conversation.

Jordan spoke first. "So who's Katrina? She your squeeze?"

Justin nodded. "Yeah. Wouldn't put it quite like that but yeah. We're together."

"Where is she?"

"Not sure. Haven't seen her since I got out of Atlanta."

Jordan sighed. "Sorry man."

"Don't be." Justin said. "She's alive."

"You don't know that."

"Well I survived. Why not her?"

"Huh. Good point." Jordan joked.

Justin sighed. "Neither of us is drunk enough for this conversation."

Jordan nodded. "Agreed."

The two brothers raised their glasses to drink when upstairs was a loud thump.

"What was that?" Jordan asked, fully alert and clearly alarmed.

'Uh oh.' Justin thought. "Probably nothing." He said aloud.

"Didn't sound like nothing." Jordan's eyes scanned across the room and landed on his axe, leaning against the wall next to the door. He got up and marched across the room, snatched up the axe and stormed to the foot of the stairs.

"Look man. It was probably just the house settling. Let's just have a few drinks, huh?" Justin pried trying to get Jordan's attention away from the second floor.

"I'll be right back." Jordan said and started walking up the stairs.

"Come on man..." Justin pleaded getting up, and going over to his brother.

"What are you hiding?" Jordan demanded.

"Nothing."

Jordan stared at his brother. "Justin. What. Are. You. Hiding.?"

"Nothing at all I swear! I have no idea what's up there!" He said. Technically, he wasn't lying.

"Well I'm going to find out." Jordan sneered.

"Jordan..."

"Grow a pair! Just stop being such a punk ass wimp!" He yelled the anger in his voice growing.

Justin opened his mouth to say something. Anything. But he couldn't. His brother was right. He was a wimp. He didnt have the balls to open the door.

"Okay. Let's go check it out."

The upper floor was weird to Jordan. He spent most of his time in the cabin on the couch, not exploring most of the house. That was Justin's job really. He didn't care if the cabin looked nice as long as it was secure. Safe. That's all it came down to now was safety.

Back at the stairs he didn't know what came over him. How he had shouted at his brother. He had a good afternoon with his brother, one that he hadn't had in a long time. Now it felt he had just severed that cord of likeness between himself and his brother. He would apologize later. Maybe.

The room that Justin had said he hadn't investigated was right down the narrow hall. Jordan walked slowly over the wooden floor, hearing his footsteps on creaky wood, his brother close behind. The door was closed. It was mahogany colored wood with a golden doorknob. Jordan reached out and twisted the knob and pushed. The door swung inwardly easily.

It was a bathroom. It was oceanic style, the wallpaper a mixed color of dark and light blue. A towel hung from a hook, and the mat on the floor which was supposed to be lined up with the tub, was ajar. Justin breathed out softly. Jordan's eyes locked onto the shower curtain which hid he tub. Jordan grabbed the corner of the curtain and with flourish ripped it from the bar holding it up. Sitting cross-legged in the tub, holding a small stub nose pistol was a little girl.