Dead World (Book 1): Dead Come Home by Nathan Brown, Fox Robert

from his weapon and took inventory of his ammo. He slammed it back home … two rounds left … one in the clip and one in the pipe. He now regretted his decision to leave the extra clips in the vehicle. He wondered if anymore of these things were still hiding somewhere in the house. Just in case, he took up the fireplace poker in his left hand and the Desert Eagle in his right before making his way towards the back room … towards Ma.
     
    She woulda locked herself back there like I told her. Ma’s a tough old bird. She’s gonna be okay.
     
    He’d felt this way many times before. His entire body, every nerve, every one of his senses, peaked at a level of intensity that a training sergeant had once described to him as “turning your body into the head of a penis.” He forcefully slowed down his breathing. In this heightened state of awareness, his own breathing, even his pulse, sounded out in his skull as loudly as would the drums of war. He stepped into the kitchen and navigated slowly over the body of the man in the Wranglers, suddenly recognizing the large, oval-shaped silver belt buckle at the fellow’s waist. This was, or at least had been, Percy Watkins, an older man who lived in the house around the corner. He’d borrowed a post-hole digger from the guy once when Ma’s fence had needed repairing.
    Mike crept on into the hallway. All was deathly silent as he reached the door to the back bedroom. Mike had to stifle a whimper when he saw that the door was open a just a crack. He used the poker to slowly shove the door open. About halfway, the door hit something. Mike decided to risk drawing attention and flipped on the hallway lights. Through the crack he saw a pair of feet, adorned with a pair of bloodstained and very familiar blue slippers.
    “Ma? MA!” Mike lost all resolve and began shoving on the door until he could get himself inside.
    Had Mike eaten anything that day, he would have puked it up. What he saw sent him into a mixed fit of sobs and dry heaves. There before him lay what remained of his beloved Ma. She must have seen Sheriff Tom through the window and gone to open the front door to let him in. That had to be how they’d gotten inside … why the front door had been opened.
    Ma was wearing her favorite flannel nightgown, now torn open to reveal her ruptured abdomen. Her face was frozen as if in a scream and her entrails were strewn in a bloody mess about the floor. It didn’t take much examination to know they had fed on her. Mike wiped the torrential flood of tears from his cheeks and scanned the room. His father’s rifle lay propped up in the corner. Ma must have left it behind when she’d gone to answer the door. Trying hard not to look too long at the horror before him, Mike put the poker down and went to retrieve his father’s weapon. He stepped around Ma’s body with uneasy steps.
    Just as he put the Desert Eagle back into his waistband and took up the rifle, he heard the sound of a raspy gasp from behind him. He spun around, snapping the rifle butt into his shoulder, ready to fire.
    The weapon turned to lead in his grip.
    The barrel drooped towards the floor and Mike let out a long and terrible wail of pain, horror, and sorrow.
    Ma was awake … though he knew that she was no longer alive.
    This is not Ma , he told himself, though the thought was of little comfort.
    Her spine must have been damaged when they’d fed upon her. She crunched forward, clawed for him, barely sitting up, her legs not moving. She chomped at the air. Yellow eyes darted back and forth.
    Mike’s vision blurred. He could see the twisted figure before him. In his mind’s eye, he could see her reaching out to give him a hug.
    His hands shook. He tried to line up the sights, but they wouldn’t sit still. In all his years, he had never held a weapon so heavy.
    His shoulders convulsed. Not since his first firefight, when he’d been paralyzed by terror, had his body refused to obey him so vehemently. This