Don't Whistle Past the Graveyard

Ch. Thirty-Eight

Shane might hate the hell out of the snow, but he didn't seem to have any problems carving a path out for me and Danielle to follow, still floundering through the drifts behind him.

We had all split up at the street, and Shane, Danielle and I were battling our way toward our second house.

This one at least had a covered porch so we got out of the snow a little sooner. Shane searched briefly for a key, then just kicked the door open, the wood popping as the frame gave, breaking the lock.

I shut the door behind us as best I could, then turned around when there was a sound of disgust from Danielle. Joining her and Shane at the end of a small hallway that led to a sitting room, I stopped dead at the gore spattered around the room.

Shane sighed. "Now I have to find one freaking reason that the cold is good."

If it had been warm, we probably wouldn't have been able to breathe.

There were five bodies. It was hard to tell if they were men or women considering that they had been decomposing for a while. Shane went across the room, looking at something written on the wall. It was faded and he read it out slowly, struggling to piece together some of the letters that had all but disappeared. "Better to die with... family, than fight the... dead. It's... all... pointless. God will... understand."

He shook his head in disgust and went through another doorway, leaving me and Danielle alone. Her fingers were playing with her necklace as she stared at the last line. Softly I said, "Is that true?"

Danielle jumped and looked at me. "What?"

"Will He understand?" I asked, looking meaningfully at her cross. I believed, but I'd never been particularly religious, so I was curious about what she would say.

Danielle just shrugged. "Maybe. But life is a gift no matter how hard it is to keep living."

She was silent for a moment, just looking around and surprised me when she said, "When my mother was a little girl in Puerto Rico, it was hard for her family. But her father taught her that there is nothing worse than to stop fighting. Even failing is better than quitting."

I nodded and we split up, Danielle going to the basement as I went up the stairs. We managed to find a little food and some water bottles. Shane raised an eyebrow at me when I put two in a backpack and I said, "We can boil the snow right? Need something to hold the water, and these are a little more resilient than regular plastic water bottles."

Shane nodded, and we went on to the next house.

Then the next and the next and the next.

We'd managed to comb through probably seven houses or so when it started snowing again. Shane looked up at the slate grey clouds, his eyes tracking one single glittering flake as it floated to the ground. He frowned up at the sky and said, "We can make one more."

Danielle and I both looked up as more snow fluttered around us, but didn't argue.

Shane didn't waste time with trying to find a key, just electing to kick the door in again, and I figured that was better than him kicking in Brayden. You know, probably.

We'd just finished when a thin, high scream floated through the gloomy air. 

It had come from the south.

I watched as Shane seemed to waver.

It lasted barely a second, and he was doing his best to run through the snow, heading toward the screams, Danielle and I doing our best to keep up with his much longer strides. We got to a section of ground that was a little clearer, and I watched as Shane somehow managed to pull farther ahead, the screams starting to get louder.