The survivors can hear the sounds of infected clawing at the red steel door behind them. The screams and shrieks go on for several minutes before the horde finally loses interest and shuffles away, leaving eerie silence. In the center of the safehouse, a previous survivor had built a fire. Bill begins pulling labels from the cans of soups and beans lining the shelves, arranging them carefully on the ashes.
"Damn it, Bill!" Francis snaps, "How the hell am I supposed to know which soup is which?"
Louis shakes his head and flips through his wallet for receipts and old lottery tickets, tossing them onto the pile as well. Then Bill pulls out a box of cigarettes, uses the lighter on the pile of papers and lights one up while he watches the flames get going. He doesn't offer one to the others. Smoking is the only pleasure left, and he is not about to share.
Zoey is bleeding badly through her sweatshirt. Her face is pale, and she has to lean against the wall to sit up. "I don't know if I'm gonna make it, guys," she mumbles, looking up at the face of the older men for support.
No one offers any, until Bill crosses the room, where someone before had piled up many jugs of drinking water. Most of them are empty, and only four of them still contain water. He takes a bowl and fills it with water before setting it on the fire. "I've seen men with their legs blown off by landmines crawl back to base and survive. After you get patched up and rested, you'll be back on your feet in no time."
There's a body slumped against the second steel door. It is so mangled that the gender and race is indiscernible. The four survivors have become so accustomed to the stench of carrion that they had not even noticed when they first came in. Flies buzz around the corpse, a sign that maggots will be soon to follow. Francis goes to investigate the body, finding a pipe bomb, but nothing else. He also finds a fat leather wallet, which contains a driver's license. The picture is clearly that of a white man, but he doesn't look at the name or information because he does not want to associate the corpse with a human that was once alive. The wallet also contains some money, which he pockets, and an assortment of pictures of children, which he flips through, hypnotized by the smiling faces, before tossing into the fire, which is starting to grow and feel warm. Then he picks up a knife and takes it to the body. The knife is dull and will not cut through bone, but the bones can be broken with a kick or a twist. The three behind him watch with indifference, numb to the gore around them. He is still slicing away when the water begins to boil, and Bill removes the bowl from the fire, so that he can clean Zoey's wounds.
Everyone is busy except for Louis, who decides to search through the mess of the safehouse for a can opener. Of course there isn't one, but there are several knives. He is unsure if they are there as utensils or weapons, but either way he uses them to open four cans, which he then sets on the fire. It's probably been ten or twelve hours since the four of them have eaten, and as frustrated as Francis claims to be about losing the soup labels, Louis knows he will be happy to eat at all.
Francis finally has the body cut up into small pieces. He peers out the bars of the red steel door and calls out to the smoker that has been following them for two days, "Hey, ugly!"
There is a tense moment for the others, while they pray Francis hasn't alerted the horde. But seconds later a tall, lumpy form limps from the shadows. The trio watch, holding their breaths, as Francis shoves the chopped up flesh outside. The smoker's tongue gathers up the first few slabs of bloody meat and drags them to his broken mouth, where they must be swallowed whole.
"Francis, get your ass back in here. It's a zombie, not a damn puppy dog," Bill growls.
"Shut your pie hole, old man," Francis says as he finishes pushing the pieces through the bars. For a moment, he makes eye contact with the smoker, who wheezes through the cloud of fumes surrounding him. He slides one last chunk to the zombie, who reaches out a long, burnt arm and takes it from his fingers. For a fraction of a second, their hands touch. The smoker's skin is incredibly hot, and is slimy with sweat and pus. Francis startles and pulls his hand back, wondering briefly what his skin felt like to the infected. Were his fingers familiar? Did they stir memories deep down in that dead animal brain? "Who knows?" Francis asks, mostly to the others but partially to himself, turning his back to the smoker and taking a seat by the fire, "Having a pet smoker could come in handy." He chuckles, then wipes his bloody, sticky fingers on Bill's pants and stifles a yawn. "He can take my shift tonight."
Bill and Louis both roll their eyes, and Zoey gives a small smile. They remove their lukewarm soup from the fire and eat in near-silence. The fire pops and hisses. Outside, there are the occasional snarls and moans from the infected. Unbeknownst to them, as the smoker struggles and coughs in order to swallow the fatty, bleeding flesh, he keeps an eye on the others, ready to kill if they come near the door.