Muted embers lit my face and those of my comrades as we sat somberly in the silent, abandoned living room. The walls were off-white—colored from years of wear and life. The carpet was brown and clean. Someone had vacuumed recently before we had arrived. The fireplace glowed—the only light in the house to give hint that anything still lived in this home.
This used to be Eric’s home—Eric sat across the room from me with the embers lighting his shoulders and the top of his head as he bowed his head low so nobody noticed his crying. Regardless, everyone knew he had to be crying. I would be if I was in his position, but I wasn’t. And I wasn’t crying; even though I was the one who pulled the trigger of the gun that ended all movement in his mother’s broken body.
I sound like a killer, now; don’t I?
I turned away from the fire and glanced at Hominy, one of my best friends. He still didn’t look at me right. The heavy bandage on his head reminded me of when Eric’s mother attacked Hominy on the stairs, causing him to fall from the top of the crappy basement steps all the way to the concrete floor at the bottom of them.
She had been rabid. We thought she had died. And then we had realized what she was.
And Eric still begged me not to kill her.
I glanced back at Eric, who looked up at me as if he could tell what I was thinking about. His eyes were red, his cheeks pale. His lips were one thin, angry line. I set my eyes back down into the embers as the fire of a shotgun rang in my ears once more—the ghost of earlier that day.
We slept in Eric’s mom’s house that night and were not afraid of anymore zombies.
No comments:
Post a Comment