Free Apocalypse Asunder by David Rogers Page B

unit she’d pulled out of a bedroom and tipped over across the top of the stairs earlier.  “Don’t come upstairs.”
    “Hey, we’re people, just people.” the man said.  She heard a scraping as the couch she’d moved to block the bottom of the stairs started shifting, as someone pushed on it.  A metallic clicking sound went off behind her, to the left some, as Austin thumbed back the hammer on his pistol.  She couldn’t do that – her thumb never seemed to have enough strength or leverage or whatever to pull it off – but Austin had been shooting for twenty years.  She wasn’t even two months in yet.
    “If you even think about pointing that weapon up here you’re dead.” Austin said, and his voice was utterly devoid of the relaxed cheerfulness it had held during the card game.  “Stop moving.”
    “Jesus!” the woman blurted.
    Jessica’s eyes were starting to adapt to the near dark.  She registered three people downstairs, not two.  One was right at the bottom of the stairs.  Another was off to the side of that one, and the third was just barely in view at the edge of what she could see before the stairwell cut off her line of sight.
    The one at the bottom of the stairs was standing very still, directly behind the blockading couch.  He spoke very slowly, very carefully, as she kept her pistol pointed at him.  “Let’s not nobody do anything drastic.”  She was fingering the button on the flashlight, but kept it off for the moment.  Another Austin tip was how having the only light source in a dark area could make you a target.  She didn’t know enough about what was going on down there to chance the light just yet.
    “The house is occupied.” Jessica said.
    “I know.  We saw the window upstairs, lit from inside.”
    “Then why’d you break in?”
    “Our car ran out of gas down the road a ways.  We just need a place to rest for the night.”
    “Sorry, but we’ve had some bad experiences with sudden visitors.” Jessica said.
    “Well we didn’t mean to be sudden, but it ain’t like there’s exactly a ton of places around here to bed down in.”
    Jessica frowned.  She wasn’t unsympathetic, but she really didn’t like the idea of sharing the house.  Maybe during the day it might be one thing, but not when she and Candice and Austin were about to sleep.
    All of her standard ‘security’ measures were geared mostly toward zombies, and with the primary purpose of keeping anyone else from being able to surprise her.  Someone who was already inside would only have to get through the bedroom door and they’d be in a position to cause problems.  And, contrary to what the movies and television showed, Austin had assured her most guns would shoot right through the doors and walls of a regular house.
    “No.” she said firmly.
    “Hey—”
    “But—”
    “Nothing personal, but we were here first.”
    “We’ve been on our feet for hours.” the woman said.
    “Hours?” Jessica asked skeptically.  This was the middle of nowhere, as best she could tell, but houses weren’t that far apart.  It had taken Jessica half-an-hour to find this one, but only because she refused to compromise on her requirement of a second story for safety and security reasons.
    “Yeah, hours.” the man insisted.  “We’re not from around here.  I think we’ve been walking mostly in circles.”
    “Go back to your car, or climb a tree, or keep walking, but you’re not staying here.”
    “It’s not like there’s a lot of other places we can go.”
    “Sure there are.  Just about everyone’s dead.” Jessica answered.  “There’re several more houses north on this road.”  She thought quickly back to what they’d passed while looking for this one.  “At least four within three miles.”
    “Three miles?” he asked, sounding desperate.
    “Oh my God!” the woman moaned.
    “Look—” the man started.
    “No.” Austin said commandingly.  “Like the lady said, we’ve had some