The noises had stopped, the house was quiet. Perched on her bed, huddled as far into the corner as she could get, Dinah Berry almost laughed. For days now, all she had heard were the squelching, popping, gurgling noises of those things downstairs, in her house – in her kitchen. She had wept and prayed and pleaded as silently as she could that they would stop, that they would go away and leave her alone. Now they were gone, and all she could think was that it was too quiet.
Rick was dead. Martin and Chloe were dead. Andrea was dead. At least – God – at least she hoped Andrea was dead. It would be just the kind of thing that Mother-in-law of hers would do, go and get herself turned into a zombie so she could carry on making Dinah's life a living hell.
She needed food. She hadn't eaten in four days. When things first went to shit, her and Rick had scuttled the kids upstairs with as many bottles of water they could carry and a few boxes of cereal. The cereal had gone fast. Martin was a twelve year old boy, even suggesting he ought to ration himself felt cruel. It was dried oats for God's sake. Chloe hadn't eaten at all, not once since they got her into that room. She'd just stared out blankly at the rest of her family.
Chloe. Dinah's eyes squeezed themselves shut in an autonomous reaction to the name. Chloe's death had been the worst. Martin had gone first. He was only looking out for his Dad. Rick had gone to collect more water from the bathtub, and when he hadn't come back as quickly as he usually did, Martin panicked. It was all Dinah could do to stay in that bedroom as he dashed out the door. She had heard the noises then, maybe for the first time. The squelching, popping, gurgling noises, the noises of her son being eaten by monsters. She had screamed for Rick, but he wasn't fast enough, he couldn't have been. They lost at least four bottles full of water that day.
Rick had been sick for a while, and he knew it. He'd set the gun in Dinah's hand, wrapped her finger around the trigger, and told her what she had to do. She'd been in love with him since the moment she laid eyes on him. Seventeen years ago in a bar in Scarsdale, New York. They were both young, both stupid, both searching for meaning and purpose, and they had found it in each other. She shot him in the hallway, just outside the sanctuary of Chloe's bedroom. She didn't want her daughter to see any more blood.
Andrea had lost her mind. She had simply opened the door, walked out into the hall, and made her way down the stairs. Dinah had watched, and for a moment, it almost looked like the old woman was going to make it. Maybe it was because she looked so much like a zombie herself – maybe they didn't pick up on it at first. She had even smelled like death.
But Chloe, Chloe was the worst. Chloe had just stopped being. For the first few hours, after the initial wave had crashed through their living room window, the little girl had wept. Cried and cried for hours, she did, before something inside her tiny little mind snapped, and the tears dried up. She didn't eat, or sleep, or even breathe all that much. She just laid herself down in her Mommy's arms, stuck her thumb in her mouth, and stopped being. Dinah couldn't even remember exactly when the toddler had died. Sometime while she was asleep, she suspected. Chloe was still in there with her.
Dinah's stomach turned over itself and she launched herself at the doorway to vomit. When she was finished, she slammed the door shut and waited. They always seemed to react to that, as if the smell of bodily fluids acted as some kind of beacon, "Food here!" But nothing happened. For a moment, she thought perhaps she had gone and died too. Poor Dinah Berry, lost with the rest of them. When a few more agonizing moments had passed without incident, however, she began to think otherwise. Could she leave the room? Could she venture as far as the kitchen? There were beans down there, cans of beans, and soup, and…
"I don't think there's going to be anything useful in here, guys."
Dinah blinked. She had been expecting to hear voices at some point during the ordeal, but those of her husband, her children, not some stranger. This voice was strange.
"Yeah, well, leave no stone unturned."
A male responded. Two voices, one female, one male. Dinah's heart raced as she felt for the doorknob.
"Look at the place. Some 1950's housewife lived here. We need ammunition, med kits, booze, not TV dinners and crocheted doilies."
Lurking somewhere in her rational mind, Dinah was insulted. She turned the brass doorknob and set one unsteady foot into the hallway, carefully avoiding the pile of waste that had collected over the last week or so.
"There's food, though. Canned food. Beans and stuff!"
Four different voices had contributed to what Dinah could only hope wasn't some kind of auditory hallucination. For all the fear, doubt and despair, she really didn't feel crazy, but then, crazy people never do, do they?
"Goddamn beans. I hate beans. I swear if I get outta this, I ain't touchin' a bean ever again. Not baked beans, not kidney beans, not even them sweet ones that grow in pods."
"Those aren't beans, Coach, those are peas."
"Yeah, well, none of them either. Peas."
Dinah was watching them now. They hadn't seen her yet, but she was watching them. Four people standing in her kitchen. They were armed. The woman, the one who had spoken first, had a set of pistols slung in makeshift holsters, one sitting on each hip.
"Shit." There was a man wearing a filthy suit that had once been white. He turned to face her, raising his shotgun and aiming it at her face. "Ellis, what did I say about watching the door?"
Ellis, a baby-faced man, no older than twenty-one or twenty-two, pulled his head out of Dinah's pantry.
"Come on, Nick. I found beans!" He held up a can as a stupid grin spread across his face. Dinah's eyes flashed towards him. How could he smile?
Nick's eyes narrowed at her down the twin barrels of his shotgun. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly as his finger tightened around the trigger, but he didn't shoot.
"Jesus, Nick, just kill it." Ellis rolled his eyes at the dramatic display surely meant to highlight his incompetence. Nick didn't shoot. The other two turned now, staring at the spectre standing before them. Dirty, pale and thin, she probably looked as bad as one of the monsters that they were all running from, but she wasn't.
"She's alive." Nick nodded subtly at Dinah, then lowered the nose of his massive gun to the floor. Ellis dropped the can of beans.
"Y'see? I told you guys there'd be more like us! I knew we couldn't be the last people left on Earth!" His excitement was sweet, and the light in his eyes told Dinah it was genuine. These people weren't likely to hurt her. Something told her that was good, that she might actually get some help now. Another part of her just wished the asshole had shot her.
"You just gonna stand there?" Nick asked, now appearing much less interested in her than he had just a few seconds ago.
"My family…" She started. "My family is dead." Her heart leapt. It was the first time she'd spoken the words aloud.
"Your family, my family, his family." Nick indicated towards Ellis with his gun, who waved at Dinah with a friendly nod. "They're the lucky ones if you ask me."
Dinah's eyes fell to the floor. Of course they'd lost people too. She wasn't sure if she had been looking for sympathy, but she had definitely been looking for something, because when she didn't get it, it stung.
"I'm sorry." She managed.
"Naw, honey." The woman shook her head as she made her way over to Dinah. "Just 'cause everyone else has lost people, that doesn't make it any easier." She wrapped her arm around Dinah, who shrank back slightly. "Sorry," the woman cringed with embarrassment, "let's start this way, hmm? I'm Rochelle." She gestured to the others in turn. "This is Coach, Ellis and Nick."
Dinah nodded. She really wasn't sure what to say. "You're in my kitchen."
"Nope." Nick plucked something rotten out of the fridge and tossed it aside. "We're in a kitchen. Nothing belongs to anyone anymore. Finders, keepers." He propped his shotgun against the back of a nearby chair and looked up at the ceiling, listening for something. Dinah followed his gaze.
"Don't you worry about him." Ellis grinned and leaned over to whisper in her ear. "Paranoid." He tapped the side of his nose, set his hands on his hips and slunk up beside Nick. "How's that x-ray vision working for you?"
A muscle in Nick's jaw twitched, but he didn't respond.
"Do you people know what's going on?"
"You don't?" Coach looked between Dinah and Rochelle.
"They told us people were sick, that we should stay indoors, so we did. It was fine, at first. Then..."
"Then the mother fuckers bust in through your front door and started eating whoever they could lay their cold, dead hands on." Nick continued for her. "At first you figure it's gotta be some crazy fucking nightmare you won't wake up from. Next thing you know, you're barricading yourself into your own house and using words like 'undead' and 'zombies'." He waved her off with the back of his hand. "Your story isn't any different from anyone else's."
"You're a dick." Dinah spat.
"Yeah?" Nick moved forward, shoving his face into hers. "Well I'm an alive dick." He looked at the can in his hand. "We're taking your beans."
"So, Dinah. Like the cat in Alice and Wonderland?" Ellis picked what looked like dried blood from between the treads in his boots.
"Yeah." Dinah nodded. "Chloe loved that movie."
"Chloe?" Rochelle handed Coach a small bowl of baked beans. Coach looked less than grateful.
"My daughter."
"I'm sorry." Rochelle didn't even wait to hear the rest, she knew the girl was dead.
"She didn't go that way. She was young, couldn't handle it. I think she just gave up."
From somewhere in the other room, Nick snorted. Rochelle rolled her eyes and sat back in the chair next to Dinah. For a while, no one spoke, not even Ellis. The silence stirred Dinah's mind. It wasn't so bad as long as they were talking. It almost made it possible to forget everything that had happened over the last few weeks. It was the silence that scared her, it amplified every tiny noise. Coach shuffling in his chair, Ellis tapping his toe against the leg of the table, Nick coughing -
"You ever fired a gun?" Ellis asked.
Dinah let out a sigh. "Yes." She wished that wasn't her answer.
"Good place to start." Ellis nodded. "We're heading towards the gun shop down Richmond Street. Should be able to pick you something nice up there."
Dinah didn't even know there was a gun shop on Richmond. She nodded.
"I'm not dragging another one around with me." Nick called from the other room before coughing again.
"Sounds like you need all the help you can get, Nicky boy." Ellis sniped back. "Jesus man, lay off the cigs."
"You think I'm worried about lung cancer?" Nick stood from the couch and half-sneered, half-smirked at Ellis. "Besides, Coach is the one hacking up a lung."
"Huh?" Coach looked up from his beans. "I ain't hackin' up nothin'."
Someone coughed.
Nick was at the foot of the stairs in an instant, with Ellis close on his heels. Rochelle grabbed Dinah's forearm and pulled her into the far corner of the room while Coach paced between the two pairs vigilantly, his beans all but forgotten.
"What…" Dinah started. Rochelle hushed her. The coughing sound echoed through the house again, but it was impossible to tell exactly where it was coming from. Rochelle pulled her guns from their holsters and passed her eyes in a three-hundred and sixty degree sweep of the area. They all heard it at the same time – the faint sound of someone walking over their heads. Dinah's eyes widened. She was alone in the house, she had been for four days! Nick motioned for Ellis to follow him upstairs. Everyone else's eyes turned to the balcony that overlooked the living room.
Slowly, Rochelle handed Dinah her gun. No one should be left without a way to defend themselves, not these days. Dinah took it, the cold metal of the firearm stung the palm of her hand. She had developed a distinct hatred for guns.
"Shit!" Ellis and Nick turned as Coach cried out. Something had caught him around his considerable middle. A snake? Dinah pressed her lips tight together to keep herself from screaming. The ropey thing tugged upwards, taking Coach with it.
"Smoker!" Nick called the obvious.
"Smoker?" Dinah winced, taking his assertion as a sign that it was safe to make noise. "What the hell?
"Shoot the tongue." Rochelle fired a few shots, but missed. Coach's face was turning blue. Dinah aimed, but she couldn't bring herself to pull the trigger. Nick took the last few steps at once and turned to face the beast. It was huge, far bigger than it would have been in person. He had to look up to find the head, and even then, the shot seemed impossible. It saw him, it's one good eye penetrating his own, but it was otherwise preoccupied.
"My god, it's going to kill him!" Dinah shrieked. Nick took the shot, but it struck the monster somewhere below the neck.
"It won't fucking stay still." He shouted over the railing. The smoker turned now, causing Coach to fly into the wall beneath the stairs.
"'Course it won't, you're tryin' to shoot it, ain't cha?" Ellis brought the sniper rifle up on to his shoulder and squinted through the viewfinder. Slow, steady and a little goofy, maybe, but Ellis was a damn good shot. The tongue went first, dropping Coach rather unceremoniously to the ground. Dinah and Rochelle rushed forward to help, but Nick shook his head. He filled the smoker with a barrage of bullets, finally hitting his target. The beast reeled back, fell to its knees and died. Just like that.
Dinah blinked and took a few steps backward toward the kitchen. Her hands felt numb. She stared at the four strangers with both awe and terror. Coach, who had done a surprisingly good job at staying alive, rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.
"Damn, should have seen that one coming." He tried to shrug it off, but it was clear her was more than a little sore.
"Yeah, well…" Nick sniffed.
"How do you people…how do you…" Dinah shook her head. "That was a monster!"
"That's life now, that's all we get. Monsters." Rochelle sighed. "We're heading for the gun store, then the military camp west of here. It's in the desert. You can…"
"We don't have room." Nick warned. "She'll slow us down."
"Funny, don't recall thinking that about you when we saved your life." Rochelle shot back.
"Don't kid yourself sweetheart, you need me way more than I need any of you."
"I say we vote on it!" Ellis broke in. "And by my guess, it'll be three to one says she comes with."
Dinah swallowed hard. She was a self-defeatist person, pessimistic at the best of times. Under normal circumstances, she would have argued with the asshole in the suit. She would have reminded him that he had stormed into her house uninvited, taken her things, shot holes in her walls and insulted her to her face. Today, however – today was different. Today, Dinah knew he was right. The others were trying to do the kind thing, the humane thing, but Dinah knew that Nick was right. The four of them had only survived because they were just that, the four of them. Dinah couldn't shoot like Ellis, she couldn't call them like she sees them, like Nick. She didn't have Rochelle's determination or Coach's coping skills. Dinah was a liability, and the worst part was, she didn't really see the point in trying anymore.
The others were still talking, still coming up with the terms of the vote.
"Leave me." She nodded decisively. They all turned. Even Nick looked perplexed at her response.
"We won't." Rochelle shook her head.
"Nah, we got plenty of supplies, and the next safe house ain't too far from here." Ellis nodded. Nick just watched her.
"I can't shoot, I can't run…" Dinah swallowed, "…my family's dead and, to be honest, I don't think there's much fight left in me anyway. If I'm going to die, and I figure I am, then I'm going to die here, where they did. In my home."
Rochelle frowned while Nick and Ellis looked at one another. Finally, Nick – of course it was Nick – nodded.
"Alright." He took a breath.
"Here." Dinah reached Rochelle's gun toward her. Rochelle shook her head.
"You keep it. You're gonna need it." She blinked. She felt awful, Rochelle did. She didn't want to leave the woman, but she knew she had very little choice. It's why they weren't fighting the decision more. She was right, she probably would die, and if she did, they'd leave her and move on because they had to. At least here she'd be with family. "Shoot as many of those sons of bitches that you can for me, okay?"
Dinah nodded as they turned to leave. Coach paused and pulled a can of beans out of his bag, setting it on the coffee table by the door. Dinah offered him a weak smile.
Nick was the last. He stood in the doorway for a moment, then turned to look at her one last time.
"I'm a bad guy." He admitted. "But I don't relish leaving you here."
"I know." Dinah nodded.
"If I could see it working any other way…"
"Stop trying to make me feel better." Dinah warned. Nick smirked slightly, turned, and shut the door behind him.
They weren't outside long before Dinah heard the noises again. Those squelching, popping, gurgling noises all around her home. She squeezed her eyes shut. They were coming; she knew they were, they always came back. A few gunshots rang out from further down the street, and Dinah hoped that Ellis' shots continued to ring true.
Then, something else came to Dinah – tears. Thick, hot tears streamed down her face. She had cried before, over Rick and Martin and little Chloe, but this time she was crying for herself, for everything she had lost. As she sank to the ground, she wondered how it would end. Would it be painful? Would it be quick?
Her front door burst open and in they ran, sweeping toward her with the plague they carried with them. Dinah couldn't look. Instead, she dropped her head, closed her eyes and cried. She cried as they grabbed at her, she cried as they tore at her flesh with their teeth, and she cried as the transformation set in. Dinah was enveloped in the darkness, becoming part of the world the survivors feared, but she didn't notice. She wasn't like them, not really, because she kept right on crying. Even as the hunger set in, as the unimaginable rage constricted her once-beating heart. She would keep right on crying, and when they came back – those people that abandoned her – when she saw the humans again, she'd make them regret what they brought with them. It was so clear now, it was their fault, it was all their fault, and she'd let them get away, but not a second time. If they came back, when they came back, she'd be there, waiting - crying.