Dead, but Not for Long by Matthew Kinney, Lesa Anders Page B

quipped.
    “Thanks for the warning. Now we just need to make sure they walk off the edge,” Keith said. “I
wonder if they’ll do it or if they’ll just go back inside.”
    “Maybe if one of us hangs out the library window,” Lindsey suggested, pointing to the room on
the other side of the fire escape.
    “That might work,” Keith agreed. It would be risky since it was on the same floor as the
infected and it would be possible to become trapped inside the room with no other exit besides the window.
    “All right, let’s finish this,” Keith said. They discussed the details of the plan for a few
minutes to make sure everybody knew what they were supposed to do.
    ~*~
    For a moment, Eric held his breath, not making a sound as he wondered if he had really heard
what he thought he had heard. His mother’s scream broke the silence. Eric took
his portly body as fast as he could up the stairs. As he opened the door at the
top, the screaming stopped. He found that several of the creatures had entered
the room through the shattered front window and were feasting on his mother.
Rage welled up inside him as he ran at the group and grabbed two of them by the
backs of their tattered shirts and threw them on the ground. Looking down, he could see that his mother was dead.
    Two others stopped feeding and turned their attention on Eric, while the two on the ground
slowly stood back up. Eric backed up toward the basement door, cursing all the
way. He could now see that the two he had thrown to the ground were covered in tattoos
and had their pants down below their waists. Anger rushed through him.
    He slipped back behind the door and sat at the top of the stairwell. His mind moved back to
another time, to a time when he had still been engaged to Cheri.
    They had been at the parking lot of their favorite restaurant, circling to find a parking space.
They had spotted a couple heading to their car and had waited patiently for
them to exit the space. As Eric was pulling into the spot, a car had sped down
the row and squeezed into the coveted space, clipping Eric’s car on the bumper.
Cheri had gotten out and confronted them.
    “Excuse me, but we were waiting for that spot,” she had said politely.
    Two young men, probably about 18 or so, had jumped from the car. There had hardly been a spot
on their bodies that hadn’t had a tattoo. They had worn tank tops and their
pants had been oversized and had sat below their hips. The driver had let go
with a flurry of profanity that would have made the entire U.S. Navy blush. His
partner had taunted her with sexual references, each one referring to what he could do to her body. Eric had stood frozen.
    “Eric?” she had asked. “Are you going to say something?”
    Eric hadn’t said a word. Cheri had gotten into the car, the two teens still taunting her, and
had said, “Take me home.”
    Eric had complied. On the way home he had explained to her that he was trained to kill.
    “If I had intervened,” he had argued, “those kids would have ended up dead.”
    She hadn’t believed him. It had been the turning point, she had said later. It had been
when she had lost all respect for him. Unwilling to take the blame upon
himself, Eric had blamed the punks in the parking lot for destroying his
relationship with Cheri. Now they, or someone just like them, had killed his mother.
    “Mom,” he sobbed into his hands, “why did you have to go near the window?”
    Rubbing the tears from his eyes, he couldn’t help but wonder if she had finished the laundry yet.
    As Eric sat on the top step, he realized that fate had granted him a chance to regain his
honor. He ran downstairs to his closet shelf, grabbed a long box, and opened
it. Inside, nestled on a bed of blue Styrofoam, lay a long sword with Japanese
markings. He liked to tell everyone that it was a Samurai sword, but in reality
he had gotten it at the local swap meet for $20 and had added the Japanese
markings himself. If one were to