Free (Book 2)What Remains by Nathan Barnes

in a white-knuckled grip waiting for the moment I'd
have to rectify this vile intrusion.
    Maddox sat still and silent next to Sarah with a
blank expression; a disturbing state to see him in since he hadn't
stopped moving a single day in his life. Occasionally his eyes
darted about as if they were sketching a recreation of his troubled
thoughts in the air. Sarah stroked his thick brown hair in a
regular interval; I know the action was meant to comfort him as
much as it also kept her own thoughts at bay.
    Holding him there defied her fears by confirming
he'd made it out of the encounter with the mangled ghoul in one
piece. We exchanged glances in the dim light; a palpable worry
overcame her delicate features and it horrified me. Seeing such a
strong woman in such a fragile state forced me to face the
undeniable truth that we could not stay in this house much
longer.
    Calise whimpered into my chest non-stop for the
duration of it all. I held her tight while occasionally kissing the
top of her head hoping to diffuse her terror. She deserved to be
sweet and innocent; innocence is the God-given right of any
five-year-old. All I wanted was to keep the monsters relegated to
story and myth so that she could dance on worry-free in her pink
tutus without a care in the world. However, thinking that we could
keep her from seeing one of the beasts up close was a foolish
delusion.
    Desperate to calm her, I subconsciously shifted
my weight, setting us both into a slow back-and-forth rocking. The
pointed lip on my Kukri’s handle was lightly brushed causing it to
gradually spin on the plywood floor. At that moment I also became
aware of a cool spot on my chest from Calise’s drenching tears.
Staring at the Kukri, my insides grew incensed with red-hot rage.
It was as if the blade called my name, beckoning me to make the
infected mob pay for what they had done to my family.
    My mind wandered beyond the present
circumstances. A wandering mind was likely the only real
preventative action one could allow to avoid madness in such
maddening times. One would think that I’d mentally escape to the
happy times before the end of the world but I could hardly remember
them. The horrors of my flight home still gripped my subconscious
with parasitic determination. Those memories were so palpable that
it didn’t take much to transport me right back to where I was weeks
before.
    In the blink of an eye I'd find myself peering
off the railroad bridge into the James River, the turbulent rapids
dotted with the refuse of the dead. Splashes from a recently
reanimated corpse pulled my attention one way while a motionless
figure floated face down past the place I'd just been staring. Then
some sound from the outside would snap me back to our isolated
hiding place. My thoughts screamed within my tortured mind, PULL
YOURSELF TOGETHER! YOU’RE NOT OUT THERE ANYMORE - YOU’RE HERE WITH
THEM AND THEY NEED STRENGTH YOU DON’T POSSESS ANY LONGER.
    A more recent curiosity of recalling the sound
of the lunatic on a dirt bike we’d all heard the night before
brought me closer to the present horrors. I ran through all the
possibilities that the reckless stranger could present... could he
be an ally? Or was he an even greater threat to us then the undead?
Someone who rode around on a dirt bike taking potshots at walking
viral disasters couldn’t possibly be entirely ‘stable’. Regardless
of who the zombie vigilante was, considering the possibilities
helped me keep memories of the past from the forefront of my mind.
Calise coughed; I’d become so lost in my thoughts that I nearly
forgot she was sitting on me.
    Finally the pounding simmered to a stop. I
handed Calise to Sarah so I could get some visual confirmation that
the worst was over. Moving like a teen sneaking out of his house at
midnight I tiptoed across the attic floor to the driveway side
where the vent was blocked by Maddox's box wall. I eased the
'peephole' box out of the wall with bated breath. Glancing