I looked down at Bob and Maureen, pity and anger burning the backs of my eyes. After all they had seen, all they had lived through, all the love they had shared, all the Christmases and Thanksgivings and weekends, the children they raised, the grandchildren they doted on, after all the years they had spent working and saving to afford this house on the lake and retire in comfort, after all that life, this is where it ended—on the floor of this bedroom, dying screaming in the maw of mindless monstrosities.

Putting a bullet in each of their heads was, up to that point in my life, the hardest thing I ever had to do.

There was a bathroom down the hallway. I leaned over the toilet and heaved up everything I had eaten for lunch that day. When I finished, I rinsed my mouth with water from the sink, stepped outside, and found Lance waiting for me. His expression was carefully blank.

“We should head back. Your stepmother is probably worried.”

“Yeah.”

We left.

*****

Lauren and Sophia tried to talk to me, but I ignored them.

The bottle of Woodford Reserve was in the cupboard where I left it. Three fingers’ worth went into a tumbler, which I carried outside and sat down in one of the Adirondack chairs near the lakeshore. I sat with my eyes closed, face turned up to the afternoon sun. I heard footsteps crunch behind me as Lauren followed me to my chair.

“Caleb, what are you doing?”

I took a sip of bourbon and said nothing. The burn was a comfort against the cold, slick knot rolling in my stomach. The tastes of honey, smoke, and charred wood competed for territory on my palate. I began to understand why Mike liked this stuff so much.

“What happened back there? I heard gunfire. Are Bob and Maureen all right?”

My eyes opened when a cloud drifted over the sun, its puffy shadow casting the lake in semi-darkness. A small group of ducks swam by, squawking at one another. What was the word for a group of ducks? Gaggle? No, that was geese.

“Caleb, look at me when I’m talking to you.”

But geese are only a gaggle when they’re on the ground, right? I was pretty sure once they took flight they were called a skein. Why they were called one thing on the ground and something else in the air, I had no idea. Probably some scientist’s idea of a joke. It bothered me I could remember what a group of geese in flight was called, but not the correct term for a gathering of ducks.

“Do I need to have a talk with your father when he gets home?”

I tossed back the rest of the bourbon in one gulp and waited for the burn to fade before speaking. “You do whatever the hell you feel like doing, Lauren. Right now, it doesn’t make a good goddamn to me.”

Her shocked silence was a physical thing I could feel prickling at my back. “Young man, you do not talk to me like that.”

I stood up, rounded on her, and threw the tumbler past her head. It whipped a lock of auburn hair backward before shattering against the cabin. “I AM NOT A FUCKING CHILD!”

She went still, eyes wide with fear. I stepped closer until our faces were less than a foot away. “Ever since we got to this cabin it’s been nothing but ‘Caleb do this, Caleb do that.’ ‘Go clean the guns, Caleb.’ ‘Go cook dinner, Caleb.’ ‘Tidy up the cabin, Caleb.’ ‘Clean up everybody else’s mess, Caleb.’ ‘Try to keep your father and stepmother from tearing each other’s throats out, Caleb.’”

I stepped closer, only inches away now. “I am telling you, Lauren, no more. I am sick of this shit. I am not your employee. I am not your slave. I am not at your beck and fucking call. I will not do all the goddamn dirty work around here while everyone else pisses their pants looking for excuses to stay out of your way. I refuse to walk on eggshells around you any longer. I’m tired of playing middleman between you and Dad because you’re both too goddamn immature to just talk things out like adults are supposed to. And if I kill a shitload of infected, and have to see the mutilated corpses of two people who were alive just this morning, and I want to have a drink afterward, you are hereby informed that I am no longer under any obligation to explain myself to you, or to anyone else. I’ve done a man’s goddamn work around here, and a man’s goddamn fighting, and when those two men broke into our house and tried to rape you that time, I did a man’s goddamn killing. So from now on, you will damned well treat me like a man, and I don’t want to hear any more of this stupid wait-till-your-father-gets-home bullshit. You’re done telling me what to do. You’re done treating me like I’m fucking twelve. You’re done taking me for granted and ordering me around like a goddamn butler. You and everyone else. Do I make myself clear?”

Lauren stood absolutely still, tears standing in her eyes. “Caleb …”

“Yes or no question, Lauren.”

She looked down, twin streaks coursing down her face leaving glistening trails across the borderland of black circles under her eyes. “Yes, Caleb. I’m … I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want to hear your apologies.”

“I know Caleb. But you have to understand, it’s been hard. I don’t know what to do, or what to think, or-”

“Do you honestly believe you’re the only one having a hard time?”

She looked up, startled.

“Do you think you’re the only one scared? The only one confused? Are you fucking blind?  We’re all scared, Lauren. The whole goddamn world is falling apart. There are walking, flesh-eating monsters out there. Lance and I just killed damn near a hundred of them not ten minutes ago. They tore Bob and Maureen apart like dogs on a side of beef.”

Her hands went up to her mouth. “Oh my God …”

“Yes, Lauren, that’s right. Bob and Maureen are dead. Those things were still feeding on them when I found them. They tore them apart, Lauren. They ate them alive. Lance and I were lucky to get out of there in one piece.”

“Hey, Caleb.”

I looked up to see Lance standing on the back porch and hissed in frustration at the interruption. “What?”

“Stop shouting,” he said.

I blinked at him. “I’m sorry, who fucking invited you to this conversation?”

His eyes hardened. “Calm the hell down and look behind you, kid.”

“What?”

He pointed at the lakeshore to the north. “Look.”

I turned and looked where he indicated. At first, I didn’t see anything. Then I cupped my hands around my eyes to reduce the sun’s glare and saw a rippling, undulating movement against the shore in the distance. I could make out no details; it looked like someone shaking a giant blanket in the wind.

“The hell …”

Lance stepped down from the porch, stopped beside me, and handed me a small pair of binoculars. “Here.”

I glanced at him, then brought the glasses up to my eyes. After turning the dial in the middle a time or two, the picture came into focus. It took a few seconds to realize what I was looking at, and then a plug popped free from my chest, and all the anger and frustration that had possessed me just a few short moments ago drained away. In its place, a coldness started in my hands and face and spread until it engulfed my limbs and froze my thoughts.

“Holy shit,” I said shakily.

“My sentiments exactly.”

Lauren came over to stand on my other side. “What is it?”

I handed her the binoculars, unable to speak. Much as I had done, her eyes narrowed in confusion for a moment, then all the color drained from her face.

“They’re headed our way,” Lance said.

My voice came out high and weak. “Do you think they heard me?”

Lance shrugged. “I’d say it’s a possibility.” He started walking away. “Come on, kid. We have work to do.”

Numbly, I did as he said.

TWENTY-TWO

“First thing you need to do is go find a couple of ladders,” Lance said.

I looked from him standing in the front yard to Lauren biting her nails a few feet away. “Okay. Then what?”