Death and Biker Gangs by S. P. Blackmore Page B

one. Looks like everything kind of congealed in there.”
    I leaned back against the gate. “You see any bite marks on him?”
    Tony gave the corpse a cursory inspection. “No. Doesn’t mean they aren’t there, though.”
    Or it meant he’d died a natural death—well, as natural a death as one could get these days—and came back anyway.
    Tony must have seen the thought written on my face. “Doctor Samuels would be tickled pink to hear it, wouldn’t he?”
    “Probably.”
    “More importantly,” Dax said, “where’d those bikers go?”
    “Back the way they came. They were talking about getting into trouble with someone named Root Canal.”
    Tony stuck out a hand and tugged on the back door, and after a few seconds it slid open. “Must be their boss.” He slipped inside, then tapped his gun against the glass.“Anybody home?”
    After several moments of utter silence, he beckoned us in. “We’ll stay here for the day. They’ll be watching this area, and I don’t think we have enough ammo for a gun battle.”
    We don’t really have the fortitude for one, either.  I kept that thought to myself as we crept into the house, which seemed pretty much deserted. After a few moments of poking around on the ground floor, we decided we were safe enough to relax a little bit.
    Tony spilled the contents of his backpack on the dusty countertop, while Dax inspected the cabinets for any leftover food. I deposited my rifle and backpack on the kitchen table. “Do you think these are the same guys that attacked the camp?”
    “No. Hammond was having trouble with two gangs in particular in Elderwood. These guys seem like they’ve got a few streets. I wonder how many of them there are.”
    Seriously, God? Biker gangs? Zombies aren’t enough?  “I guess if I survived the endtimes, I’d join a biker gang, too…oh, wait.” I tugged at the sleeves of my riding jacket. “I guess I did.”
    Tony pushed the guns to one side and our meager food supply to the other. “See? Survive the endtimes, join a biker gang. It all makes sense.”
    “If only we had an actual bike,” I said.
    Tony glared at me, then went back to taking stock. “If you hadn’t insisted on taking the damn  dog …”
    “Cabinets are cleared out,” Dax announced, breaking up what might have turned into an actual tense moment. 
    My stomach chose that moment to make a most unladylike sound. I covered it, trying not to imagine going the next sixteen or eighteen hours without any food at all.
    I’d never known real hunger before this. Oh, sure, there were the days when I worked late and skipped dinner, but I’d always had  access  to food, whether it was a trip to Denny’s or a snack machine. We’d been on reduced rations in Elderwood, and my clothes were starting to sag, but even then, there had been food.
    And now there wasn’t any.
    We split up to scavenge, just in case the previous owners had squirreled emergency supplies away in weird places, like the upstairs linen closet. I found a bottle of ibuprofen sitting on a bathroom counter, and after determining it was almost full, I stuck it into a pocket. After a moment’s hesitation, I gathered my nerves and looked in the mirror.
    I ran out immediately afterward. It’s probably a sad commentary that I could stare down the undead, but not my own deteriorating appearance.
    Human beings aren’t meant to go without sunshine, even naturally pale Norwegian types like me. Over the last few weeks, my pallor had started to resemble deathbed illness—to say nothing of those hive-like marks on my face—and now I had giant dark circles under my eyes. I half-heartedly pushed my black hair back into a slightly neater ponytail. If I couldn’t look good, I could at least look tidy.
    Whatever.  It wasn’t like I was participating in any post-apocalyptic beauty contests, anyway.
    I came back downstairs empty-handed, but Dax had turned up a box of cereal that had probably been purchased during the Clinton