The Resurrected Compendium (33 page)

"I have clothes in the dresser," he said. "There should still be clothes in there. And I should shower, too."

She didn't move. He couldn't look at her. Wouldn't. Everything inside him had clenched. He'd never wanted anything more in his life than to have her push him back on the bed, her fingers working at the zip and button of his jeans...and after that, then what? He would make a mess of it. You only got one shot at the first time, he knew that much. One shot, and all the rest of it would be ruined.
 

"Dennis..."

"You don't have to, okay?" Sounding more angry than he meant to, Dennis pushed her gently off his lap and got up from the bed. "I didn't think...I don't want you to do that. Because you think you have to."

"I'm not doing it because I think I have to." She frowned, not even pulling up the towel to cover her breasts. "Jesus, Dennis."

He turned away and gestured at the dresser, then opened a few of the drawers and pulled out some things. "Clothes. Help yourself. Umm...I'm taking a shower."

He closed the door tight behind him, locking it.

39

She wouldn't cry. There were a dozen reasons she could think of right off the top of her head for why he'd rejected her the first time -- she probably smelled bad, for one. She could think of another dozen for why he'd rejected her the second time, but none of them felt right. He wasn't gay, she'd have bet anything on that. The semi-chubby in his pants proved that.
 

He wasn't into her, that was all.

She'd spent a lot of time, money and effort in becoming the kind of woman any man would be into. Yet it was too entirely believable to her that Dennis might not want to fuck her -- how did that happen? How did all the years of turning heads, of cat-calls and whistles and random men offering to buy her drinks, jewelry, a car...how did that all become so easily forgotten?

Because you're nothing but paint covering up ruin, and he knows it.

"Shut up," Kelsey breathed, pressing her hands to her ears, though it would do no good. The voice was in her head and could only be stifled, never completely shut off.
 

By the time Dennis came out of the bathroom, Kelsey had found a pair of jeans, too big but easily belted, and a flannel shirt. She wore a couple of tight tank-tops beneath in place of the bra she thought would be better burned than washed, and she'd filched a pair of soft boxer shorts to replace her panties.

"She kept a lot of your stuff," she told him.

"She keeps everything." Dennis had dressed in the bathroom and rubbed at his hair to dry it. It stood up all over his head. Watching her look, he smoothed it hastily. "Food?"

Kelsey put a hand to her stomach. "Yes. Sure."

He let her go first through the doorway. Such a gentleman. Kelsey hoped that whatever he'd done to shut off his mother's internal security worked, or else she was going to end up walking into a garrotte wire or something equally deadly. They made it down the stairs and into the kitchen without anything happening, and she let herself relax a little.

"It must've been interesting. Growing up here."

He shot her a look from the fridge, which he'd opened to rummage inside. "Interesting is a good way to put it."

"Useful?" She added. "Umm...helpful? Prophetic?"

"Something like that." He held up a carton of eggs and a stick of butter. "Scrambled or fried?"

Back in the early days, Kelsey had lived off eggs. A carton would last her a week. A hard-boiled egg for breakfast and one for lunch, every day, for weeks. Months. Years. She'd have thought she'd never eat another egg again, but suddenly she was so hungry that saliva squirted under her tongue. Her stomach clenched, rumbling.

"Scrambled."

He nodded with a small smile. "Sit tight. I'll have this up in a couple of minutes. Then we can go out to the truck and get some real provisions."

The food was good, and she ate her fill slowly at first, remembering to chew every bite ten times, to chase it with water to fill her stomach faster...until she remembered they were living in the fucking apocalypse and a flat belly didn't matter. Her bikini days were over for the foreseeable future. Then she dug into her share, scraping her plate and gobbling it up, ignoring her grandmother's persistent yammering in the back of her head about what a piggy she was.

When she'd finished, Kelsey sat back with a hand on her stomach, wondering if she'd gone too far. Eaten too fast, too much. She burped gently. Her stomach settled.

Dennis paused, his plate still half full. "Good? Want more?"

"No. I'm okay." She got up to take her plate to the dishwasher and found it full of moldering dishes. Recoiling at the smell, she put her plate in the sink. "Um...?"

Dennis got up to look, his brow furrowing. "This hasn't been run in a long time."

She looked at the plate on the counter that had been there when they came in. "Dennis. Where do you think she is?"

"Something happened to her." He looked less upset than she thought he might. More grim than anything.
 

"...But what?"

"I don't know. She must've tripped the security system weeks ago and then...she wouldn't leave. Couldn't leave with it still running."

Kelsey bit her lower lip for a minute, a chill running through her despite the warm clothes she'd borrowed. "So, she's still in the house."

"Yes. Probably."

She had an image of a giant black widow spider settled in the center of a huge, pulsing web, venom dripping from its fangs as it waited for a couple of tasty flies to stumble into its trap. "Do you think your mom would like me, Dennis?"

He paused, considering. "No. She wouldn't."

Kelsey smiled at his honesty. "Would I like her?"

"Probably not." He smiled, just a little. "She's a tough woman to like."

"I'd say we should look for her though, don't you?"

Dennis sighed and scraped a hand across his head, then down over his face. "Yeah. I guess so."

It didn't take long to find her. Dennis opened the door to the basement and flicked on the light, a bare bulb hung with dust. At the bottom of the stairs, they found a puddle of blood gone long dark, streaks of it leading into the darkness of the basement. Kelsey swallowed her distaste and trepidation to take him by the elbow before he could move forward.

"Be careful," she whispered.

He nodded and reached for the cord of another overhead bulb. As soon as it lit, they both saw the overturned scooter and the corpse of the woman beside it. Kelsey couldn't see her face because of the blood and the flap of skin and flesh hanging down. She let out a small noise, but Dennis was silent.

"She must've tried to get her scooter down the stairs," he said after a minute. "She was always bragging how she could make it do whatever she wanted."

Kelsey slipped her hand into his. "I'm so sorry."

He gave her a level look. "Better this way."

She squeezed his fingers, not sure what to say. Dennis didn't pull his hand away, not at first, but when he did it gently. He knelt by his mother's body and touched it with just his fingertips before looking back at Kelsey.

"She was a crazy bitch," he said without much emotion in his voice, though it was evident in his eyes. "I don't think I ever said that to anyone before, but she was. Crazy as a shithouse rat, crazier than that. She kind of made my life hell as a kid, she said she did it out of love, but really...she was just nuts."

He stood. "You think that makes me a shitty son? To say that over her dead body like that?"

"No." Kelsey shook her head. "I think it makes you honest."

He snorted softly, not a real laugh but only something pretending at humor. "But you know, if she hadn't done all the things she did, I wouldn't be who I am. I'd probably be dead already. Or sick."

Kelsey knelt beside him, one hand on his shoulder. "It's okay to hate her, Dennis. Just because she was your mom doesn't mean you can't hate her. And love her, too. Sometimes, it's kind of hard to tell the difference."

He nodded but stayed quiet for another few seconds. Then he looked at her. "I'm going to have to burn her."

Startled, she stood. "What? I mean..."

"We can't go outside. I can't bury her. Anyway," he said, "she's got a furnace hot enough. She made sure of that."

"In case something happened to her?" Kelsey asked with a frown, wondering what sort of woman his mother had been, to make a house like this, complete with a furnace capable of cremation.

"No," Dennis told her. "It was for anyone who didn't make it past the traps."

"Oh. Of course." It wasn't funny, but she clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the giggle. It came out sounded strangled, more like a groan.

Then she was sobbing, wretched and ugly and not caring about how she must look with swollen eyes and snot leaking from her nose. Everything had become too much, all of it, and she let it all out. She felt the press of his chest against her face as he put his arms around her, awkwardly but without hesitation. He patted her back, stroking her hair in silence until her sobs tapered off. Sniffling, she let herself rest in the comfort of his embrace. How nice it was, she thought, to be held. Just held.

They stayed like that for a few more minutes before she pushed away from him. "Thanks, Dennis. For everything. Just...thanks."

"You're welcome."

She looked at his mother's body, then back at him. "Let's take care of her, okay? I'll help you."

"You don't have to."

"I know I don't," she told him. "But it will be easier, if I do."

40

Dennis had used the furnace before. Mom had instructed him carefully in the dials and gauges, now to check the temperature, how to make sure the door was completely locked. Squirrels, a few stray cats and once, sadly, a dog that had been hit in the road outside and left to die had all met their fiery fate inside. He'd never in a million years imagined stuffing his mother inside it.

There was no satisfaction in it. No grim triumph. If anything, he imagined his mother's laughter. She'd have been delighted to know that she'd ended up in one of her own additions to the house. It would've seemed perfect to her, he knew that much. Watching the flames rise inside the small glass frame, he thought should mourn or something...anything than feel nothing.

Behind him, Kelsey waited without saying a word. She'd helped him carry Mom's body, though the smell had been disgusting and moving her had been difficult because of the decomposition. Kelsey hadn't so much as flinched or gagged, though Dennis himself had found it hard to keep from choking.
 

She was a pretty incredible woman, beneath the mass of bleached hair and fake boobs. It wasn't the first time he'd thought so, but now he thought he should tell her. Except the words wouldn't come, they stuck in his throat and caught behind his teeth the way they always did when something was important.

He was saved from having to say anything at all when the alarms started to sound. Nothing loud and whooping, not like a klaxon or firebell. Instead, a series of lights set into the walls at regular intervals started blinking. They'd be doing that all over the house but away from any windows, a silent warning that would alert the people inside without letting those outside know they'd been caught.

"What's that?" Kelsey asked.

"Alarm," he said.

He was only a little surprised, having seen the motion of oncoming strangers on the road earlier. What concerned him was not that people might be moving past the house, but that they were approaching it. There was nothing to attract random people to this house, set back so far, no lights, no signs. Unless you already knew the house was here, it would be unlikely for anyone to simply happen past, even in a world that hadn't been half-destroyed by some weird disease thing already.
 

Upstairs, he took Kelsey into the small room that had originally been a pantry but now housed the house's main control panels. He showed her the rows of video screens. "There are other control boxes, like the one upstairs, but this is the big one. From here we can see everything from every video feed."

She studied the screens. Nothing strange showed on the interior ones, of course, though she looked a long time at the one broadcasting his bathroom, the one where she'd showered. A small smile tugged the corner of her mouth when she looked at him. "Dennis."

He cleared his throat, heat rising up his throat and across his face. She could see it, he was sure of it. But Kelsey didn't say more than that, just shook her head a little and looked back at the rest of the monitors.

"There." She pointed, leaning close. "They're coming up the driveway."

A staggering group of four, their clothes torn, shoes off. One woman had her face sheared away from the jaw down, her arms curled and fingers clenched into claws. The two men behind her looked more normal, their skin dark with blood or dirt or bruises, it was too hard to tell. Their shuffling gait told Dennis they'd moved past the sickness to the next stage, that reanimated stage, and it sent a shiver of loathing down his spine.
 

It was the fourth person in the group that fixed his attention, though. Lumbering like the others, this man nevertheless moved with purpose at the front of the small pack. He came up the driveway dragging one leg, the ankle bent at a painful angle, the white glint of bone peeking out from below what had once been a very expensive pair of pants. The others looked as though they might wander off, except that every few minutes the man in the front barked out some sort of command Dennis couldn't hear. The guy's jaw opened impossibly wide each time as his head jerked. Whatever he was doing, it always brought his companions back into line.

They made it up the driveway and stood in front of the garage. The others turned and twisted aimlessly, never going more than a few steps away from their apparent leader, who didn't move at all. He stared directly into the security camera mounted over the garage's control panel. His jaw was slack and his face a ruined mess, but his gaze bore without blinking into the camera.

"Shit," Dennis said softly. "Shit, shit, shit."