The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology by Christopher Golden Page A

basement.
     
    Copper doesn’t flinch at the basement door.
     
    Copper leads us all downstairs.
     
    Basement is clean, neat, tidy. Like the whole house.
     
    Copper spreads out the floor plans and the street plans, and Copper looks and makes marks and asks questions and looks some more.
     
    Copper calls Fetus and Stout and Shiner and McFay and those two amputees and me in for a powwow.
     
    He lays it all out and we drink it all in and we sit real quiet for a long time and think about it, and we sit real quiet.
     
    Copper calls Shiner and Fetus in with state maps.
     
    Copper has big plans.
     
     
    I stop dreaming about Mount McKinley.
     
    I can’t remember Mount McKinley any more.
     
    I wake up on the cot Copper provides and I make my bed.
     
    I fold the corners the way I was taught in -
     
    I can’t remember.
     
    Copper reminds me.
     
    I remember dying in the Baker house basement.
     
    Now I’m in Copper’s basement.
     
    It’s nice.
     
    Copper brings us LED lights.
     
    Copper brings in stuff to read.
     
    It’s nice.
     
    I don’t remember the cold.
     
    I remember how to make my bed.
     
    I don’t remember Mount McKinley.
     
     
    Copper stays put on his porch, day after day, and watches.
     
    Copper watches the cops drive by when they bother to drive by at all, and they don’t wave, and Copper doesn’t wave.
     
    Copper doesn’t cup his wrists in his hands any more, because Copper doesn’t feel the cold any more.
     
    Nobody knows Copper doesn’t feel the cold, no more than anyone knows how badly he felt it over his long, slow passing back in March, except for me.
     
    Copper watches, and nobody knows any better.
     
    Nobody is watching.
     
    Nobody cares.
     
    Copper is watching.
     
    Copper cares.
     
     
    Copper sees T drive by.
     
    Copper watches T drive by.
     
    T doesn’t turn his head.
     
    Copper doesn’t wave.
     
     
    Copper and Shiner go away for -
     
    I don’t remember.
     
    I remember how to make my bed.
     
    I sit on Copper’s porch but never in his rocker.
     
    I look out the Baker-house basement window.
     
    I remember Copper.
     
    Copper and Shiner come back in a pickup truck with two other men.
     
    Copper and Shiner meet with the men for I don’t know how long.
     
    Copper and Shiner put away the state maps and the map of the United States and call me and Stout and McFay in.
     
    ‘Pack your gear, we’re moving out next week, kid.’
     
    ‘I’ll miss you.’
     
    ‘No, no, you’re coming too.’
     
    Copper winks.
     
    ‘New detail. New plans.’
     
    Copper talks about the big plan.
     
    Lots of towns, lots of houses.
     
    Lots of states.
     
    ‘Will we come back?’ I ask.
     
    ‘Back?’
     
    ‘Home?’
     
    ‘Wherever we are, kid, it’ll be home.’
     
    Home.
     
    ‘This country is our home.’
     
    Home.
     
    ‘We’ll make it our home.’
     
    Plans.
     
    ‘This country owes you that much, kid.’
     
    Plans.
     
    Homes.
     
    Cities.
     
    States.
     
    A whole big country, full of grunts like us.
     
    Nobody sees us.
     
    Nobody cares.
     
    Nobody cares about our plans.
     
    Lots of plans.
     
     
    ‘We move out next week.’
     
    Copper winks at me.
     
    ‘We’ve got a job to finish.’
     
    Copper lays out the floor plans and points to the street plan and hands his pickup keys to McFay.
     
    McFay and Shiner drive off and come back.
     
    Stout and me stack the copper piping just as we were told to - half in and half out of Copper’s basement window.
     
    Stout leaves two coils of wire in Copper’s driveway, one leaning against the basement-window casing.
     
    Shiner is boarding up the other windows.
     
    Shiner leaves only one window open - the one with the pipes half in, half out.
     
    Copper sits on his porch, watching.
     
    Copper and I sit on this porch.
     
     
    Copper sits on his porch.
     
    Copper sees T drive by.
     
    Copper watches T drive by.
     
    T doesn’t turn his head.
     
    Copper waves.
     
     
    Copper sits in his