Free The Scattered and the Dead (Book 1): A Post-Apocalyptic Series by Tim McBain, L.T. Vargus Page A

all the way down. Should he go buy a gun now? He turned his head to look at the basement door.
    No. No, he couldn’t leave with her down there. It felt like she was exposed somehow. Alone.
    He saw it again in his mind, the toppled chair, the scrawny frame, the tip of the nose poking out of the hair, the arm folding up to tuck against the chest.
    It reminded him of when they found Mitzi dead in the driveway. The cat sprawled on her back on the line where the cement and grass met, one front paw partially extended above her, the arm locked in that position with rigor mortis. Her eyes were open but blank. He touched her to make sure: cold and stiff. It was such a shock. Janice burst into tears. Inconsolable. They stood around for a moment, and then they went right back into the house out of instinct, maybe to try to process it.
    Once they were inside, though, he didn’t feel right. They couldn’t leave her out there in the open. It wasn’t right. He paced around and looked out the window every two seconds, nausea building in his gut. He only made it a few minutes before he went out to gather her up and bury her.
    He felt that sickness times 1,000 right now. It wasn’t a cat. It was Janice. And she was worse than dead. She was wiggling around without her say so. It was a violation.
    He remembered her as she was before all of this, a montage of images playing in his head with the saturation turned way up so the colors were brighter than real life.
    Yellow sun shined on her face, reflected off of her hair, shadows framing her jaw on the opposite side in grays and blacks. Her jaw was distinct, feminine, striking, attractive. It made her look sophisticated somehow, intelligent, clever. When she smiled, it transformed, her chin becoming more prominent, emitting some wave of happiness into the air, making her seem a little more approachable than the sophisticated version of herself. She was smiling when they first met.
    Even as she pulled on a shirt and her face was draped in t-shirt fabric, he could recognize her by her jaw alone when the fabric pulled taut enough to reveal its shape. He couldn’t believe it had just happened that way by chance and biology and genetics. Someone must have sculpted it, must have painstakingly selected the lines and forms for it to turn out with such striking character. It was the only way.
    That image faded, and blue water lapped at her shins, her skin pale and smooth as always like cream. She waded out into the water, the sky gray and cloudy above them, the wind roaring all around them.
    Then she stood in the kitchen with her back to him, her neck angled so her head rested beneath her shoulders as she worked to prepare a meal. As she moved to the cutting board, strands of hair shook loose from the rest, spilling from the back of her head to hang down on each side of her face. He saw her arms move, heard the knife thump out a rhythm against the wood as she chopped up some ingredient he couldn’t quite see.
    He smelled her smell now, heard the rise and fall of her voice, felt the smooth and cool of her skin against his.
    There were no words for the weight these memories piled on his shoulders and chest, no words to capture the sense of great fortune and misfortune he felt all at once, a mix of the best and worst luck—the best in knowing her at all, the worst in having her torn away in one swift motion, a gaping void left in her place, a negative somehow, like a black hole threatening to collapse all nearby reality.
    He sat there in the kitchen, shoulders hunched, elbows resting on the corner of the table. Alone in the quiet. The weight of it stacked up on him until it became hard to breathe. He choked on the emptiness, the wind catching in his throat for no good reason. His face got all hot. He wanted a drink, but he couldn’t now. Not for a long while perhaps. He had to keep it together. For the boys.
    Yes. He rubbed his eyes, willing himself to focus on the here and now. He patted a hand on the