"These things kick like a mule. We have to get used to it though. I've done the math, there's perhaps... zero point four of the US population left. Sounds small... But...
"Jesus, that fucking hurts!" Fran shouted.
"That's why we need to train. Learn how to handle them correctly. Try again." He said.
Fran tried again, aiming for the target. Not center-mass, but a decent shot at 20 yards.
He tried his own aim. It wasn't perfect. He fired a three round burst, hitting around the torso on the target. They spent the rest of the day, shooting rounds down-range, hitting the paper printouts that represented their enemies.
"The sun is beginning to set. Maybe we're the last people alive in town. Maybe not. Could be you, me, and Charlie Manson, fresh out of prison wandering around out here. Two is safer than one. Now, this cop-shop, it could be safe, if we cleared the bodies out, but that puts us at risk for diseases. Just because we were immune to the superflu doesn't mean we'd survive whatever the hell gestates on a rotting corpse. We need to sleep though." Harold began.
"What are you getting at?" Fran asked.
"I think we should sleep under the same roof. I'll take a couch or something. No funny business. Just in the matter of safety. There's no cops to catch the psychos anymore."
Fran sighed, and agreed. They drove back to her house, and brought a few of the guns inside. They had made a good haul. A baker's dozen rifles, shotguns, ammunition for days, and a generator. Harold found a wheelbarrow outback, and filled it up with ammunition and magazines.
He hooked up the generator, and got it fueled up and started. It was better to do it now, rather than later. Eventually, he managed to get the power back on. It had been a long day, but he couldn't sleep. Frannie went to her room, and laid down on the bed. Harold went to work, inserting cartridges into the magazines, one after another. Click, click, click, click, click. He could hear her weeping. He wondered if he should say something. Against his better judgement, he decided to.
"Frannie... I'm sorry. I understand." He said through the door.
"You don't fucking understand, Harold!" She shouted.
"Well... if you want to talk about it.." He suggested.
"I don't." She said flatly.
"I put a movie on if you want to watch... Groundhog Day." He offered.
She said nothing. He walked away, and went back to the television, and the piles of ammunition. One stack of loaded magazines, one stack of unloaded. Click, click, click, click. Then, another click, this time from Fran's door. She came out and sat on the couch next to him. Her eyes were red. She sat, and stared at the movie.
"You think any of the people in this are still alive?" She asked bitterly.
"Absolutely. Bill Murray survived Zombieland, up until that guy from Juno shot him..." He said. Fran choked back a sob, and looked away.
"I always hated that movie." She replied.
"Zombieland? How could you hate it? It's a great flick." He tried to create some sort of banter, some form of conversation, anything to take their minds off what was going on.
"I don't hate Zombieland.." She said flatly.
"Ah... Yeah, fuck Juno." He looked at her, trying to gauge what she meant. Then he put it together. He said nothing, but he had his suspicions.
"You want some popcorn?" He asked.
"Alright." Harold got up, and walked to the pantry. He found a bag of James Reddenbakker popcorn, and placed it into the microwave. Pop, pop, pop, pop. Ding. He walked back to the couch, and sat down again. He placed down the bag, and Fran began to snack on it rapidly. He reached into the bag, and his hand met hers briefly. He looked back to the screen, and ate some of the popcorn. Gradually, their hands met eachothers as they fell asleep.
Harold's dreams were full of nightmares, horror. One in which his love had no part of. She was gone, and away. The dreams showed him something worse. She was planning to leave him. To take the weapons, and flee. He awoke with a shudder. He felt nauseous. He felt Fran's hand on his. Could it be real? Was it a dream within a dream? He squeezed her hand gently. Then, he saw a sigil in the darkness, a crimson eye.
"I can give her to you, Harold. I can make her yours." Said a voice.
"You don't want that, child.. You don't want it that way, not from him. His so-called gifts always come with strings attached. He don't give anything away for free." Said another one, this time, much kinder, with a matronly voice full of love. He was no longer on the couch, but in a cornfield which stretched on for miles.
"Who are you?" Harold asked.
"Well, Harold, I'm your own personal Jesus Christ, the man who's going to liberate you, and lift you up. See, society is dead and gone, but I'm rebuilding it, personally. We could use a man like you. You're smart. You could probably teach me a thing or two myself." The man in black pontificated.
"You ain't no Jesus. You just a copperhead, and this bright young man, he sees through it, don't you, son?" Said the matronly voice.
"Where... Where are you? I can hear your voice, but... I can't see you." He asked.
"Hemingford Home... Though, by the time you get to where you headed to, I might be long gone." She replied, wistfully.
"Dead?" He asked, worried.
"Not dead, child. Moved onto to a different place. I got plenty of friends who don't know they's my friends yet. I think you'll be one of them. See, I got faith in you." She did her best to sooth his worries.
"The people that will gather under him, they're the ones who would have tormented you before all of this mess began. They ain't good people, that's for sure." She added.
"And what would you have of this boy, this young man? You'd use him up and toss him away. His woman would leave him, and go out on the road by herself. He'd find her torn to pieces a few miles down the road." Said the man in black.
"Fear... That's all you've got. Harold, you will be reborn. You will be a new man, soon enough. Your friend, she'll be fine, child." She promised. He awoke gently
Fran's dream was different. She saw a dark shadow, with a spade, out in the garden. He was digging up her father. He muttered strange words, spat into his mouth, and... Her father twitched back to life. Only, it was wrong. It was a mockery of life. His corpse rose to his feet, and stared at her.
"You know your mother was right, my child. You are a whore. A disgrace to us. But the doctor is in.. And he can fix this." Peter Goldsmith's rotting corpse grinned, and introduced her to the faceless stranger, who held a needle.
"I've always been one for honor killings, dear. Helps keep order." The stranger with the blood red eyes and malicious smile advanced on her, and she began to run. The streets of Ogunquit turned into a vast desert, and she fled. The faceless stranger in black followed. She screamed as loud as she could, ran as fast as her feet could carry her, but eventually, he caught up. The stranger held aloft the needle, filled with some terrible injection, and brought it down, and she felt herself jolted back into consciousness. Harold had shook her awake.
"Frannie!" Harold shouted.
"Uhm.." She said.
"You were screaming. Jesus, you scared the hell of out me. You have night terrors often?"
"Bad dreams." She blurted out.
"Me too, kind of. There was this... thing... It was like it was pretending to be human. Just, this formless shape." He looked away.
Fran looked startled at that statement.
"What's with the look?" He asked.
"What did you dream about, Harold?" She asked.
"Nothing." He kept looking away. He did his best to face his insecurities and looked at her, and spoke his piece.
"We're a team, right?" She asked.
"Yeah, we are." He said.
"Good." She replied.
"You saw him too. The man with no face." She said, without any emotional affect.
"I... I did." He stammered, and avoided eye contact.
"What does it mean, Harold? I mean... this sort of thing has to have a meaning."
"I don't know. I never believed in God before all this... I don't know if I do now... But if there is a god, whatever the man in black is, he's the devil".