Free Life Among The Dead by Daniel Cotton Page B

empty. She realizes Stevie is awake.
    She backs away into the open door keeping her eyes on the master bedroom. She lays her head against the door after she closes it. Even through the wood she can hear Stevie. The sound gives her the chills, her spine shivers as his lamentation reverberates in her ears. She knows she is the reason he is one of them now.
    “ No.” she tells herself. “You had to do it.”
    She wants to snap out of it and be herself again. If she wants to get through this she will have to fake it. Fake it like she did at school. Fake it like her cheerleading. Fake it like she had faked it with all her jock boyfriends. She decides she will have to pretend that she is something else in order to survive. She will just be Becka.
    “ I’m good at that.” She sighs opening her eyes. Her body is trembling with pent up tension. She takes a few deep breaths trying to calm down. Her brain slowly registers that she is currently staring at a giant breast.
    A step back is needed to reveal the poster that covers the entire door. A naked, blonde model sits indian style eating a banana. Her head is turned so the act can be seen in profile as she forever holds the fruit in her mouth.
    “ Thoughtful of her.” Becka says with a nervous laugh.
    The room is very drab. Everything is either black, gray, or is colored military green. The blonde is the one exception.
    “ Congrats. You’re the brightest thing in the room for once.”
    Other posters adorn the walls of bands Becka has never heard of, or ever wished to. They all have angry sounding names. She walks to a dresser and begins her search. If there isn’t a weapon in this room she will be very surprised. She finds the gloomy setting to be oddly reassuring.
    The dresser is littered with candles and ceramic skulls. She opens the drawers and finds only clothes that match the colors of the room.
    “ Even your underwear is black.” She makes a sound of disgust at the boy away at college. Becka pulls on the bottom drawer, but it won’t budge more than a few inches. She bends down and tries to peer into it. Metallic objects are visible, she just can’t access them. She believes one of the items must be sticking up, jamming it from opening. This happened at her home all the time in the kitchen whenever she went for a cooking utensil.
    Becka squeezes her hand into the drawer and feels around the foreign things. She hopes to find the jam and push it down so the drawer will open freely. Her hand recoils.
    “ Fuck.” She exclaims. Something sharp has poked her. Blood oozes from a small puncture in her index finger. She quickly places the infirmed digit into her mouth. I won’t be doing that again, she says to herself. On top of the dresser among the macabre decorations she locates a CD case. Becka uses the clear plastic to push down the objects in the drawer. A cache of weapons greets her. Most of them are of Asian descent; nun chucks, a sai, throwing stars.
    “ What are you a fucking ninja turtle?”
    There are jars labeled with chemical symbols she doesn’t dare touch, let alone open. There are small arrows, and a length of plastic pipe. All of it is useless to her. She removes the one item from the arsenal that she believes may be useful. It’s a straight razor that she slides into her pocket as she shuts the drawer.
    She turns, looking around the room from her crouched position. She wonders where the boy would keep more weapons. She sets her sights on the lazily made bed; its sheets are bunched and lumpy. She throws back the covering to get a look underneath; a musty smell makes her gag. She only finds a box and a nasty infestation of dust bunnies.
    She needs to use both hands to slide the heavy container out into the light of day. The brown cardboard is creased and worn. It looks as if at one time the box had fallen apart and was mended with silver duct tape. The flaps that conceal the contents are well used and move easily, they just flop down at the sides as she