This Dark Earth by John Hornor Jacobs Page A

with them. Now? What are they? What are the shamblers? Do I still have some moral responsibility to them? Meemaw would say yes. Peepaw would say, shoot ’em dead if they’re trying to get you. And yes, they are trying to get me. And people I care for. Emily in Iraq, maybe. Lucy, definitely. And Gus. I’ve never met the boy, but I’m fascinated that there’s a child in the world that’s half this woman. What will he be like? Will he have her eyes? Her hair? Her brains and confidence?
    I want to meet him because meeting him will bring me closer to understanding her.
    Once we’re over the mound of the dead, I can see her face darken, worry for her child eroding her resolve. She’s not thinking the same things I am, but at least her mind is working again.
    There’s a thump from below us, and Lucy gasps. It doesn’t sound good. Thumps, in my experience, mean shamblers.
    “Downstairs,” she says, and she points at a door down a long hall. “Gus and Fred would’ve gone to the workroom. There are guns there. The safe.” There’s a wide opening on the left with a spill of light coming across the floorboards. The shadows aren’t moving, which makes me think that room, at least, is devoid of shamblers.
    I go first, keeping my shotgun to my shoulder, ready to fire.
    I pop around the corner like I’ve seen SWAT teams do on television, and realize the reason they do it that way is it’s better to get it over with. And it makes sense. My body wants to pop around the corner.
    It’s a nice dining room, made nicer by the absence of walking dead.
    “The stairs are farther down the hall.”
    I retarget our front sector. I’m starting to think in television cop-show speak. Lucy’s standing off to the side with her pistol out. She falls in behind me as I move toward the door.
    “This is the one.”
    I open it quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid or breaking up with a girlfriend.
    The stairwell is dark. I hear another thump and some garbled moans. There’s a shambler down there, no doubt about it.
    Lucy flips on her Maglite, spearing the long stairwell with the beam, and whispers, “At the bottom of the stairs, it turns left. There’s a long hallway running back underneath the house. There’s a storage room, a little gym and laundry, and the last door is the workroom. It’s got a safe. A gun cabinet. Fred had been reinforcing the doors and walls to make it a safe room. Just in case. It’s a nice neighborhood, if that meant anything anymore.”
    “You’re telling me.”
    I move down the stairs, holding the shotgun up with one hand and keeping my other hand on the rail. The carpet here is plush and springy, and I’m worried about my foothold.
    When we reach the bottom, it’s pitch black except for Lucy’s wobbly flashlight beam. She’s really upset, if the steadiness of her hands is any indication.
    The carpet is still springy, and we’re not making any noise.
    I walk to the first door on the left, the one Lucy said is storage. I put my ear to it. Nothing.
    I slowly turn the knob and then quickly push open the door. The flashlight beam jumps around the room, and I follow it as best I can. No shamblers.
    We move to the next door. It’s open, and Lucy shines the light inside, and for a moment, my mind assembles images and I have the impression of a shambler walking on a treadmill. But then the flashlight beam pans around and I realize it’s just ironed shirts hanging from a pipe above an elliptical machine.
    There’s a loud thump, and it’s obvious where it came from. The workroom.
    We’re as quiet as possible, going down the hall. It’s become a habit, silence.
    I go to the door and put my ear against it. There’s a weird deep moan, a garbled sound, and then the door, right against my ear, bangs. The deepness of the moan lets me know it’s a man. The shambler beats on the door, trying to get out.
    I grab the door handle, look back at Lucy, who is pale faced and thin lipped, and turn the handle. It doesn’t