Dredging Up Memories by AJ Brown Page B

see you have some protection,” I said.
    “Give me your gun,” he said. 
    I turned to him, saw the shotgun in his hands. 
    “Whoa, Mister,” I said and put both hands in the air about face high. “I’m not here to hurt you or anything.”
    “I said give me your gun.”
    The first of many thumps struck the door from the outside.  The dead had reached us.
    “Give me your gun. I won’t tell you again.”
    I nodded and lowered the hand with my pistol in it. He took it and tossed it on a dusty couch. 
    “Now the knife.”
    I slid the machete from my shoulder and dropped it to the floor. “Look, Mister, I don’t know what the deal is, but—”
    “I tried to warn you,” he said. “But you wouldn’t listen. Since you’re here, my Louisa is hungry, and I’m all out of food for her.”
    “There’s plenty of food back at that store.”
    He shook his head. “Not that Louisa will eat.”
    My stomach dropped. Even before he opened the only other door in the room, I knew what he meant. At that point, I prayed he didn’t pat me down and find the cop’s gun tucked in my waistband.
    The man opened the door slightly and motioned with a jerk of his head. “Get on in there.”
    “You’re making a mistake,” I said.
    “They all say that,” he responded. He cradled the shotgun in the nook of one elbow and held the doorknob with his other hand. “Now get on in there. She’ll take you dead or alive, and I have no problems putting you down before she gets hold of you. That’ll keep the noise down since you won’t be screaming.”
    I could take him. I knew I could, but I had to be careful. Reaching for the cop’s gun was out of the question at that moment. I gave a nod and stepped forward, hands still in the air. As I approached the door, he opened it further.
    “Louisa,” he called. “Time to eat, Sweetie.”
    A groan echoed from the room. I peeked through the foot of space between the open door and the jamb. That room was darker than the one I stood in with no candles to keep it lit.
    Three feet from the door, the man stepped to the side, pushed it all the way open. In the light of the dancing candles from the front room, I could see bones on the floor, skulls with hair still attached, faces that were half eaten. My stomach lurched as Louisa came into sight. She was a big woman with thick chords of gray hair hanging alongside her gore-stained face. Her housedress was bloodied and clung to her ample breasts that sagged to her belly. A meaty hand reached forward, and fear clutched me tight.
    “Get,” the man said and shoved the shotgun forward.
    It was all reaction, maybe from having three brothers. I dropped my right arm quickly, the hand grabbing the barrel of the shotgun. The left hand came down across the bridge of the man’s nose. It cracked, popped, and blood spilled down his face. He fell back against the door, stunned, the open hand reaching for his shattered nose. Louisa—his Louisa—grabbed his elbow, pulled him to her. His eyes widened, and he screamed as she bit down on his shoulder. The shotgun fell to the floor. I ducked. It didn’t go off.
    The man tried to shove her off of him, but her teeth were firmly at the base of his neck. His screams were loud and filled with terror. I could have helped him. I could have pulled out the gun from behind me and put a bullet in Louisa’s head and pulled him free of her. But I didn’t. In those seconds before Louisa had bit into him, I saw the remains on the floor, saw the crazed look in his eyes—he was going to feed me to her, his Louisa. That town had been through what every other town in the world had, but the survivors had faced something worse, being sacrificed to the very thing they were trying to escape.
    Heat filled my face, and I finally moved. With my boot, I shoved the man and his Louisa back through the door and slammed it shut. His screams were muffled, but they were there. As I waited for them to die down, I stood listening, having