36 Hours by Anthony Barnhart Read Free Book Online Page B

shut the window hard.
    “Lock it.”
    “It doesn’t lock. He’s dead, anyways.”
    “No. Don’t count on it.”
    He squinted out the window. Sunlight reflected sharply into his eyes. “I don’t know. You got him good.”
    I pointed into the living room. “Look in there.”
    Les looked at me weird and went through the kitchen, into the living room, returned. “Where is he?”
    “He left. He just got up and left. See the guy out the window? Yeah. He was the one shot with the shotgun. Came back to life. I saw it, Les. Saw it with my own eyes. Don’t believe me? Half his chest is gone. I saw him get off the street. He came through the window at me.”
    “That’s impossible.”
    Wryly, “I don’t think impossibility counts for much anymore.”
    “Blood’s all over your shirt. I don’t know how to wash it.”
    “Yeah. I’ll change shirts, if that’s okay.”
    He tensed. “Did any get in you?”
    “What?”
    “Did any body fluid get in you?”
    No. Shook my head.
    “Sure?”
    “I’m not clawing at you, and my skin isn’t turning purple, is it?”
    “Let’s get you changed.”
    Anthony Barnhart
    36 Hours
    37
    As we walked from the room, I cast a risky glance back out the blood-smeared window; the man still lie there, the tool in his face, blood gently oozing along the aged contours of his face.
    We trudged upstairs. Hannah stood by Jack’s door. “What happened?”
    “They don’t die,” I said. She followed me with her eyes. Looking at all the blood. I still quaked.
    Hannah went with us into Les’ room. He grabbed me a shirt and I changed. It felt good to be in something clean. When I changed my pants, Hannah turned and faced Les’ open closet. We threw my bloody clothes onto the floor. No one really cared.
    “Be sure to wash up,” Les said when we returned to Jack’s room.
    “I will. I want to get this crap off my hands.”
    “It’s in your hair, too.”
    “Does the shower work?”
    “At your own risk,” Les said. He locked the door, paused. “Before things heat up… Hannah, when he’s showering, can you watch the window? Make sure no one comes at me.”
    I was halfway into the bathroom, said over my shoulder, “Where do you think you’re going?”
    “I don’t want to go downstairs to get food when night comes. We’d better stock up. I’m gonna grab anything I can. Mom—“ He paused for a moment at the thought of his mother. “She usually keeps big boxes in the downstairs closet. I’ll fill one to the brim. That should last us a day or two.”
    I nodded. “Better to risk it in daylight than in dark.”
    “Sound good, Hannah?”
    She shrugged and went to the window.
    Les left and I locked the door. Going into the bathroom, I shut the door and tried to lock it, but it refused to lock. The jam was all out of whack. I stripped out of my new clothes—carefully, not wanting to get them stained with any traces of infected body fluid—and covered my hands with toilet paper, and folded them neatly over the barred window. I gazed into the backyard, standing in my skivvies. Fences enclosed the Whites’ yard, where their little Chihuahua barked at the commotion next door, infected running through a home. A house to either side, and one behind. One was empty, the other had some dogs moving about. The next door neighbor’s dogs were gone. The chains lie sprawled in the waving grass. In the lawn behind us, an infected stood on the back porch, just Anthony Barnhart
    36 Hours
    38
    standing there, hunched, arms drooping, staring into space; the door was open, and another was prancing about inside, tearing at the furniture and gutting out the cup-boards of the kitchen and dining room. I ducked away. They didn’t need to see me. How did they not hear the wild racket moments ago?
    Mold crusted over the edges of the shower. I opened the fogged door and stared at the mold for what seemed to be hours. I thought I saw a cockroach scurry into the drain. A gut fear gripped me, and I almost