wasnât thinking very clearly at all. âSit down.â
Any second now Brianâs shotgun would go off. I tensed my muscles in anticipation of the noise and the blast.
Ikeâs hand moved in slow motion. The knife was moving through the air.
Then my mom spun around and smacked it out of Ikeâs hand as if she were swatting a fly. The blade cut deep into the flesh of her index finger, and blood splattered the countertop, flecked the fragments of the lobster shell. Ike screamed and I wondered, idly, if sheâd scratched him with her fingernails.
They tell us zombies donât feel any pain, that the virus that causes this burns out the thinking parts of their brains. That they donât feel anything except hunger and thirst. They tell us a lot of things. I guess that one was true.
âBrian, please,â I guess I said. Iâm not sure if I was asking him to shoot her or asking him not to.
I was the only one talking, the only one making noise. That was a mistakeâÂit got her attention. She came for me. Her hands reached for me like she was going to give me a hug. Her mouth opened wide like she was going to give me a big kiss.
This was my mom.
This used to be my mom.
My body, it turned out, could act independently from my brain. I lifted one foot and kicked her back across the room, toward the windows. She knocked over half of the herb planters and a stack of plates, which clattered and broke on the floor.
âBrian,â I said, and turned around, and suddenly it was like the air in the room had changed, like everything snapped into place and locked down and I was thinking and acting in the same body again. âBrianâÂâ
He was standing by the door, pressed up against the wall. His shoulders pulled up around his neck. He had dropped the shotgun on the floor, and his mouth hung open as if heâd forgotten how to close it.
âNot now,â he whispered. âNot after all this time. We were so careful.â
My mom was back on her feet. Zombies are slow and weak, they tell us. Dangerous only in numbers. One zombie alone is no great threat.
Some of the things they tell us are probably lies.
âFinn!â Ike shouted, because she was going for him now. He dove around the side of the counter, but she grabbed his ankle, grabbed him and started reeling him in like a fish.
I went for the shotgun. Sometimes if you stop and think about things, if you really try to work out what they mean, you are utterly damned. I grabbed the weapon and tried to point it, tried to figure out if there was a safety or not. Iâd been trained how to handle firearmsâÂof courseâÂbut that had been pistols and rifles, not shotguns.
In the end I swung it like a club. Brought it down like a hammer on my momâs wrists. She didnât scream in pain, but she let go of Ike and drew back, hands pulled back like an injured animal.
I turned the shotgun around in my hands, looking for the trigger, which suddenly I couldnât find. My hands were sweaty, and I nearly dropped the thing. Was it even loaded? Did Brian keep it loaded?
I thinkâÂwell, in hindsight, I just donât know. I donât know what I might have done. I wonder sometimes. Late at night, especially, I wonder if I could have shot my own mom.
I didnât have to. Ike stood up next to me and snatched the gun out of my hands. I was shocked at how rough the motion was, how my finger nearly got caught in the trigger guard. He could have broken my finger.
I was supposed to be the mature one. I guess not.
âGet the fuck out of here!â he said, because I wasnât moving fast enough. I grabbed Brian and ran out of the apartment, into the darkness of the hall. Up and down the way, every door was open. ÂPeople were leaning out of their doors, looking for what was making so much noise. I let go of Brian and dropped to my knees on the hallway carpeting. I couldnât stand up