and up a tight captain stair; not likely. Everything within reach from the outside is boarded up or shut tight. I dim the lantern in the big room so that it barely casts light and set it aside.
Moving to the couch, I grab the AK and check the clip—25 rounds. I make sure I know where a fresh clip lays and, for good measure, set a hammer on the work table and grab some nails.
Back through the entry room I take a left and come to the sliding door of the workshop. The way the hill slopes behind the barn, the window in here is maybe twelve feet off the ground below. I step around the tub and look out into the gray-near-black of the outside world.
With no light in the room, it seems brighter outside and my eyes adjust quickly. There. Forms are moving in the distance closing toward the barn. They shamble and crawl with the halting movements of the dead. The faster ones are nearly to the privy. Well, I think, at least it’s not angry townspeople with torches.
I decide to snipe a couple if I can from this vantage while the light remains. I swing the window open and stand, leaning the wooden foregrip on the sill. The closest one is probably fifteen feet out. I take aim closing my eye as I pull the trigger. Even with my eye closed, the muzzle flash ruins my night vision with a floating orange blob.
I have torn an evil hole in the thing’s jaw, but still it comes. I fire again. This time I don’t worry about the flash. It dazzles me, but I focus and keep firing. The first one down, I aim at a crawler rounding the privy. I account for five of them before running out of ammo.
As I turn to fetch another clip from the big room, I hear the tell tale knocking and scraping behind me. They are coming at the barn from both sides.
I grab my pistol, hung beside the tub days before and belt it on. Walking to the big room, AK slung on my shoulder, I close and bar doors behind me. I grab the extra clip, seat it, and draw back the bolt chambering a round. I also grab the hammer, dropping it in a loop on my pants. Lastly, I shoulder a water bag that is about half full before climbing the ladder to the loft and pulling it up behind me, grabbing the rope and tying it off on the rail.
I drop the gear next to the kitchen table and slap my forehead with my hand. The lamp! I let the ladder back down, trot over to the lamp, turn it up, and grab my pipe before returning to the loft and pulling the ladder up again. Sobriety might have to wait until this crisis has passed.
I hang the lantern from a beam over the table and walk around the loft. The lantern casts soft yellow light across the floor and makes blocky shadows as it passes the railings and casts itself against the slope over my bed. I select an old paperback, something light, from the makeshift shelf there.
Pocketing the book, I walk across the open space at the back of the loft and pull on the old hay door set above the line of windows sliding it open about six inches.
The night is made even more black by the light behind me. It is as if I am looking into a void. Below me, I can hear the shuffle of the zombies as they call in unison, ”Nnngh!”
I shudder. Closing the window, I cross over and look out and down at the big room. I can hear the arms that flail at the wood from outside, but it holds. If enough of them pile up they might break through the entry door, and perhaps, the door that leads to the big room, but that would take a lot of pushing.
What concerns me most is the large barn door. I imagine that it might come off its track despite my fortifications and reinforcements if proper force were applied. If this happens, I will pick them off as best I can and see what happens. I pray it will hold.
Daylight will bring the opportunity to pick off as many as I can, and, barring a swarm of
Moving to the couch, I grab the AK and check the clip—25 rounds. I make sure I know where a fresh clip lays and, for good measure, set a hammer on the work table and grab some nails.
Back through the entry room I take a left and come to the sliding door of the workshop. The way the hill slopes behind the barn, the window in here is maybe twelve feet off the ground below. I step around the tub and look out into the gray-near-black of the outside world.
With no light in the room, it seems brighter outside and my eyes adjust quickly. There. Forms are moving in the distance closing toward the barn. They shamble and crawl with the halting movements of the dead. The faster ones are nearly to the privy. Well, I think, at least it’s not angry townspeople with torches.
I decide to snipe a couple if I can from this vantage while the light remains. I swing the window open and stand, leaning the wooden foregrip on the sill. The closest one is probably fifteen feet out. I take aim closing my eye as I pull the trigger. Even with my eye closed, the muzzle flash ruins my night vision with a floating orange blob.
I have torn an evil hole in the thing’s jaw, but still it comes. I fire again. This time I don’t worry about the flash. It dazzles me, but I focus and keep firing. The first one down, I aim at a crawler rounding the privy. I account for five of them before running out of ammo.
As I turn to fetch another clip from the big room, I hear the tell tale knocking and scraping behind me. They are coming at the barn from both sides.
I grab my pistol, hung beside the tub days before and belt it on. Walking to the big room, AK slung on my shoulder, I close and bar doors behind me. I grab the extra clip, seat it, and draw back the bolt chambering a round. I also grab the hammer, dropping it in a loop on my pants. Lastly, I shoulder a water bag that is about half full before climbing the ladder to the loft and pulling it up behind me, grabbing the rope and tying it off on the rail.
I drop the gear next to the kitchen table and slap my forehead with my hand. The lamp! I let the ladder back down, trot over to the lamp, turn it up, and grab my pipe before returning to the loft and pulling the ladder up again. Sobriety might have to wait until this crisis has passed.
I hang the lantern from a beam over the table and walk around the loft. The lantern casts soft yellow light across the floor and makes blocky shadows as it passes the railings and casts itself against the slope over my bed. I select an old paperback, something light, from the makeshift shelf there.
Pocketing the book, I walk across the open space at the back of the loft and pull on the old hay door set above the line of windows sliding it open about six inches.
The night is made even more black by the light behind me. It is as if I am looking into a void. Below me, I can hear the shuffle of the zombies as they call in unison, ”Nnngh!”
I shudder. Closing the window, I cross over and look out and down at the big room. I can hear the arms that flail at the wood from outside, but it holds. If enough of them pile up they might break through the entry door, and perhaps, the door that leads to the big room, but that would take a lot of pushing.
What concerns me most is the large barn door. I imagine that it might come off its track despite my fortifications and reinforcements if proper force were applied. If this happens, I will pick them off as best I can and see what happens. I pray it will hold.
Daylight will bring the opportunity to pick off as many as I can, and, barring a swarm of
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