From Dark Places by Emma Newman Page A

it’s your funeral granddad,” she shrugged. “But when he turns on you, I’ll drop you like all the rest.”
    “You’re all charm,” he muttered and vaulted the fence.
    He followed the zombie up the path, noting it hadn’t turned towards them, even as their whispers got louder. It had a focus like no other zombie they’d crossed paths with that day.
    It went up the steps and into the house. He followed it inside, gun pointed at the back of its head like she had taught him. It moaned a little as it entered the living room. He jolted when he heard a second moan, as if in response.
    Edging up to the doorway and peeping inside, he saw the male zombie offer the brain, still dripping, to a female zombie reclining in one of the armchairs. Even though her eyes were glassy and unfocused, she tilted her head towards him and, he must be imagining it, smiled in a series of spasms at the corner of her mouth.
    He ducked back into the hallway as she devoured it, wiping the sweat from his forehead. Shooting the ones desperate to eat him had been easy. Well, easier once he’d met the teenager and she’d shown him the best way to do it. But could he kill them if they still retained emotions and the capacity to care?
    Then he remembered what the zombie did to the woman in the garden.
    He raised the barrel again and stepped into the living room. The zombies were locked in an embrace, with no chewing involved. Both made soft noises like his rumbling stomach. Neither saw him.
    A thunder crack from a gun broke his voyeurism, the shot hitting the man in the back of his head, dropping his body just like all of his fellow victims. The female zombie roared in distress, the second shot finishing her before she moved.
    “Haven’t you learnt anything?!” the teenager yelled at him. “Hesitate and you’re dead. God, you’re rubbish!”
    “They were in love.”
    “Whatever,” she said, reloading the shotgun. “They’re the last ones, I’m sure of it. Let’s get moving.”
    She left but he couldn’t take his eyes off the couple lying dead on the floor. “I’m sorry,” he said and left, the lovers’ blood joining on the carpet between them.
     
     
     
     
    EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE
    The letter lay on the writing desk, the envelope exactly six inches from the lower and left hand edges of the table. The fountain pen lay parallel to the top of the letter. Beneath him the pristine ocean of beige carpet ran out to meet the rug, fringe ends coaxed to attention, stretching out perpendicular to the edges like neat cotton soldiers. Everything was ready.
    The hallway clock told him he had two minutes.
    He returned to the bathroom, paying his numerical dues at the doorway, sucking in the manufactured-pine scent and admiring the immaculate grout, still damp from the toothbrush scrubbing an hour earlier.
    At the sink he stopped, ensured his toes were perfectly aligned with the edge. In the mirror he checked the grey hairs and noted the dark circles around his eyes. He rechecked the position of his toes, his shirt sleeves—folded back three times on each arm—and the razor blade glinting silver against the white porcelain. It would make a terrible mess, but after careful consideration of all his options this seemed right… somehow. Besides, he wouldn’t see any of it.
    Everything was in place.
    He nodded to himself, looked into the hallway to the grandfather clock, the hands at two minutes to the –
    Two minutes?
    He gripped the edge of the sink and listened. The hallway was silent, only the faint hum of the freezer could be heard. The clock had stopped at exactly the wrong time.
    A strangled cry escaped his lips as he clutched the porcelain between his fingers. What was the time? It could already be noon. The panic exploded through his chest.
    He had no idea how long he stood there, panting, but finally he gathered the ragged edges of his thoughts. He filled his lungs as best he could, and released the breath slowly.
    He washed his hands.