Only The Dead Don't Die by A.D. Popovich Page A

reaching the sidewalk to his building, she noticed an abandoned shopping cart overflowing with all kinds of items, mainly food. A few feet beyond that was a stuffed rucksack. Did he just leave all of this ? Why would he do such a thing ? Surprisingly, his courtyard gate stood wide open; the huge chain was crumpled in a pile on the concrete: useless.
    Once inside the secluded courtyard, to her horror, she saw a bloody body lying face down on the porch. The body appeared to be a woman wearing a blood-soaked skirt and no shirt. Scarlett quickly averted her eyes, afraid of what else she might see.
    “OH, SHIT!” Blood was everywhere, and it was still moist. Scarlett gagged and attempted to scuff-off the sticky blood from the bottom of her Sketchers. The front door was open, and to her astonishment, a rifle stood in the doorway as if someone had completely forgotten about it. She couldn’t help but think that was odd, extremely odd, especially for this particular neighbor who had seemed so obsessed with security.
    Scarlett rationalized: Obviously he recently had an encounter with one of them, a creeper, which had resulted in a bloody battle, and it looked like he had shot it in the head from what she could tell. Perhaps in his shock, he just left the gun.
    She poked her head inside his condo and impatiently knocked on the open door. “Hellloooo, it’s your neighbor,” she felt her throat go hoarse. “Sorry to barge in, I really need to talk to you,” she pleaded. No answer. She stepped into the entryway and shouted a panic-y “Hellooo?” again.
    Scarlett let herself in, thinking he could be injured and may need help. The condo had the same floorplan as hers as she dared to snoop about the living room. The place was a wreck, with blood just about everywhere. She realized that perhaps it was not the smartest thing to enter a stranger’s home, uninvited. However, she had to find out what was going on right this very minute, and she tiptoed from the living room to the kitchen and dining room. He wasn’t here.
    One of the bedrooms’ doors stood ajar. She opened the door ever so slowly until she saw him on the bed, his back towards her, apparently asleep. She figured that based on the amount of blood on the carpet and blankets that he must have been attacked by the dead creeper in his courtyard. I thought those creepers were dangerous.
    He seemed to be having trouble with his breathing. Since she couldn’t see him, she really couldn’t tell how badly injured he was. She decided to let him sleep. I‘ll wait in the living room for a while. That way he can’t avoid me.
    Ugh, I’m not sitting on that! The couch cushions were soaked in blood. She decided it might be best to sit in the dining room (away from the blood), and wait for him to wake up.
    “What’s this?” she whispered. She grabbed a flyer from the oak dining room table: FEMA MANDATORY EVACUATION. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. It listed high schools as temporary evacuation shelters, and it also listed Major Shelter Centers. The list included all the big sporting arenas, stadiums and concert auditoriums in the Sacramento metropolitan area and the San Francisco Bay Area as well. The nearest Major Shelter Center was the old Sacramento Kings’ arena in Natomas, in the Sacramento area.
    She stared at the bloodied-fingerprinted flyer, speechless. So there had been a major catastrophe . . . It happened when I was drugged-out on those flippin’ painkillers . She tried thinking back, but those four to five to six days were all a blur. It started to make a bit of sense, as she recalled the sirens and the helicopters and the fact that the electricity had gone out. And poor old Miss Purlie, whatever had happened—it must have been too much for her to handle. “Oh, please let Cyndi and her family be all right.” And she couldn’t stop the flood of tears that followed.
    A commotion in the bedroom startled her. He’s awake . “Uh, excuse me, dear Mr. Neighbor, I really need to