Chapter 3
Chapter three
Emery
My parents were on the couch watching the news when I walked in.
“Pequenino!” Mom said as she jumped up and ran to me. “We were worried sick about you! Are you ok? Are you hungry?”
“I’m fine, Mami,” I replied as she wrapped her arms around me.
I sank into her embrace, the feeling of being home bringing my guard down faster than anything else could.
My tears started to fall, and when a ragged sob slid from my lips, my mother led me to the couch.
She sat me between her and Papi, who wrapped us both in a hug.
“It’s ok, Piccina,” he said softly. “You’re safe now.”
“It’s bad out there, Papi,” I cried. “Tony is dead. He died making sure I got out of there and could make it home.”
“And you did. There’s nothing we can do for Tony now; God rest his soul. I’ll forever be grateful he made sure you got back to us.”
They continued to hold me until my tears had stopped, then my mother fetched me a bowl of beef stew and watched me like a hawk until I had eaten every drop.
The rest of the evening, I alternated between watching the news and the streets below.
The news didn’t have any information worth a damn, just a bunch of warnings to stay inside.
Not that the warning was necessary. All you had to do was look outside to see that the streets were in complete chaos.
The screams started to die down as the night progressed, but that didn’t mean they were silent.
A person would be brought down, killed, in some cases devoured, and then soon, what was left of them would begin to twitch before slowly reanimating and joining the others on the hunt for the living.
When the living stopped showing up, the.
.. zombies shuffled around on the streets aimlessly.
Eventually, my parents fell asleep, but I was too unsettled for sleep.
I’d finally convinced myself to sit in the recliner and try when I heard a loud commotion from downstairs.
Curious, I went to see what was going on.
I opened the door just enough to peek my head out and saw that Nico, Luis, and Miguel were still in the foyer and in the process of dragging a man off the stairwell.
“I’m not sick!” the man shouted. “Get the fuck off of me, I told you, I’m not fucking sick!”
“You’ve been bitten,” Luis told him. “You might be fine now, but you won’t be soon, and then you’ll turn into one of them and become a danger to the entire building.”
Before the man could react, Miguel stepped up and stabbed the man through the chin and into the brain.
I stared in horror. I knew if he was bitten, the man was a threat, but I hadn’t expected to witness his murder.
As my brain tried to process what I had seen, my eyes wandered.
There was a lot of blood covering the foyer floor.
Luis let the man’s dead body fall to the floor with a thud, and the sight of him lying face down in a pool of blood triggered the memory of my brother when he was shot.
The sights and sounds of that day flooded my senses and took over.
I hadn’t realized I was breathing heavily until a pair of concerned brown eyes came into my vision.
“Emery?” Nico asked.
“You killed him,” I accused. “And from the looks of things, you’ve killed a lot of people.”
“We had to, and unfortunately, there is no way around the bloodiness,” Nico explained.
“We discovered that you have to stab the brain in order to kill them,” Luis said. “We didn’t with the first one, and he came back.”
“Learned our lesson after he almost bit Nico,” Miguel said with a weary sigh. “And unfortunately, we’ve had a lot of residents show up with bites. We did what we had to do to keep the building safe.”
I nodded. It made sense. If someone were bitten, they would pose a threat to us all. They couldn’t be allowed to remain in the building, but I hadn’t considered what would have to be done with them instead.
“You’re safe, Emery,” Nico said softly. He gently pushed my door open. “Go back inside and try to get some sleep.”
Safe. There was once a time when Nico did make me feel safe. Knowing he was always watching out for me, for the neighborhood. That went away two years ago when I realized nobody was safe as long as they were around to bring violence to our doorstep.
I didn’t trust them, but I also realized I had no choice.
Tomorrow, I’d figure out a plan that didn’t require me to rely on my brother’s killers.
I went back inside my apartment without another word.
My parents were still asleep on the couch, so I grabbed a baseball bat out of the closet and curled up in the recliner.
Sometime between commercials, I fell asleep.
Sudden gunfire woke us all up the next morning. We rushed to the windows to see the military moving through the streets.
“Oh, thank God,” I sighed. The military would kill all the zombies, and then we could return to everyday life, or what was left of it.
“Let’s move away from the windows,” Papi suggested. “We don’t need to watch this.”
I understood his discomfort with the situation. If you didn’t look closely enough, you couldn’t tell that there was anything wrong with the people being gunned down in the street. I looked at the TV and saw footage of the military. I grabbed the remote and turned up the volume.
“As you can see, John, the army is currently moving through the city at this moment. All citizens have been instructed to remain indoors. Anyone caught on the street will be shot on sight.”
“They aren’t taking any chances,” Mami commented. “This will be a sad day.”
“Certainly one for the history books,” Papi agreed.
He settled on the couch and patted the cushion next to him for me to join him as Mami wandered into the kitchen to make breakfast.
“Pequenino, the coffee is ready. Come bring your father a cup.”
I went into the kitchen to get his coffee and found her making breakfast burritos. A lot of breakfast burritos. “Mami, what’s with all the burritos?”
“I made extra for those boys downstairs,” she replied as she wrapped several up and stacked them on a plate. “And you’re going to take it to them.”
“Mami, you can’t be serious. I’m not bringing them breakfast. Have you forgotten that they’re the reason Eddie died?”
“Emery Faye, those boys have been downstairs protecting us all night. And they weren’t responsible for your brother’s death.
They didn’t pull the trigger; Eddie was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It was a tragic accident, but you can’t hold on to all of this anger and hate toward them.
It isn’t healthy, Pequenino. Now they did not have to stay up all night keeping us safe, but they did, and now you are going to bring them breakfast.”
“But, Mami—“
“This isn’t up for debate, Emery. Bring your father his coffee and then bring them their breakfast.”
I sighed as I fixed the coffee. I knew better than to keep pushing the issue. I’d bring those assholes the damned burritos, but I didn’t have to be happy about it. I brought my father his coffee, and he looked up at me as he took it.
“Listen to your mother, Piccina. She is smarter than us both.”
“Yes, Papi,” I grumbled.
“And find my old thermos and bring them some coffee as well.”
Maybe I should fetch the morning paper for them, too, I thought to myself as I tried not to stomp back into the kitchen.
Once I filled the thermos, I grabbed it and the plate of burritos and left the apartment.
Nico, Luis, and Miguel were still downstairs.
Miguel was standing at the door, watching for any danger outside, while Nico and Luis sat on the stairs.
They jumped up when they saw me coming down the stairs.
“Good morning, Emery,” Luis said as he brushed his brown curly hair from his eyes, “Whatcha got there?”
“My mother made you breakfast burritos and my father told me to bring you coffee as well,” I said as I held both items out to them. “They want to thank you for standing guard last night.”
Both were plucked from my hands with excitement, and I wandered toward the door as they dug into their food and coffee.
The streets were a mess. Bodies were strewn everywhere, but the dead still shuffled around.
The army hadn’t killed them all. As I watched, I considered my mother’s words.
Was I letting my feelings control me? Should I let go of Eddie’s death?
I turned back to them, determined to attempt a civilized conversation.
If I was going to let go of my anger, I had to start somewhere.
“How long do you think it will be until they clear us to leave the building?”
“I’m not sure that will happen any time soon,” Nico replied.
“There are still a lot of videos being shared that show the military starting to get overrun,” Luis said. “There are eight and a half million people in the city. That’s a lot of potential zombies, even if only a fraction of the population became infected.”
He had a point, and the truth in it was terrifying. “Well, thanks for protecting the building,” I replied as I ran past them and up the stairs. Even that barely existent conversation was difficult to have, and being indebted to them made me sick.
“Thanks for breakfast,” Nico called after me.
I didn’t reply as I slipped back into my apartment. Even if my mom was right, I wasn’t ready to let go of that anger yet.