A cat.
The animal darts through an open doorway halfway down the corridor, out of which pours the golden light that I saw in the stairwell. As I ease toward the light, the smell of decay is overcome by two very different smells: hot soup, maybe beef stew, warring with the unmistakable odor of a dirty litter box. I can hear a high-pitched voice warbling softly:
When through the woods and forest glades I wander
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees . . .
I’ve heard this song before. Many times. I even remember the refrain:
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Her voice reminds me of another, thin and scratchy from age, slightly out of tune, singing with fierce determination and the self-assurance that comes with unshakable faith. How many Sundays did I stand beside my grandmother while she sang this hymn? Bored out of my adolescent mind, silently bitching about my itchy collar and uncomfortable shoes, daydreaming about my latest crush and sacrilegiously changing (in my head) the last line to How great thy ass! How great thy ass!
Hearing that song opens a floodgate through which the memories pour, unstoppable. Grandma’s perfume. Her thick legs encased in white stockings and her square-toed black shoes. The way the powder caked in the deep crevices of her face, at the corners of her mouth and her dark, kind eyes. The knobbiness of her arthritic knuckles and how she held the steering wheel of that ancient Mercury like a desperate swimmer clutching a lifesaver. Chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven and apple pies cooling on racks and her voice in the other room rising in excitement as the latest bombshells were delivered by a lady in her prayer circle.
Stopping just short of the doorway, I pull out one of the stun grenades. I slip my finger into the pin. My hands are shaking. A dribble of sweat courses down the middle of my back. This is how they get you, this is how they crush the spirit right out of you. Out of the blue the past is rammed down your throat, a gut punch of memories of all the things you took for granted, the things that you lost in the blink of an eye, the stupid, trivial, forgettable things you didn’t know could crush you, things like an old woman’s quivery voice, high-pitched and far away, calling you inside for a plate of warm cookies and a glass of ice-cold milk.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee!
I pull the pin and toss the grenade through the open door. A blinding flash, the terrified chorus of cats screeching, and a human being crying out in pain.
I swing into the doorway, sighting the crumpled figure in the far corner of the room, her face hidden behind the swirl of green fire created by my eyepiece. Take her, Zombie. One shot and done.
But I don’t pull the trigger. I’m not sure what stops me. Maybe it’s the cats, dozens of them leaping and diving over and under furniture. Maybe it’s her singing, how she reminded me of my grandmother and all the uncountable lost things. Maybe it’s Sullivan’s story, her Crucifix Soldier cowering in a corner, defenseless and doomed. Or maybe it’s the simple fact that the light from kerosene lamps placed around the room show me that she isn’t armed. Instead of a sniper’s rifle, she’s clutching a wooden spoon.
“Please, God, don’t kill me!” the old lady shrieks, curling herself into a tight little ball and throwing her hands over her face. I sweep the room quickly. Corners clear, no way in or out except the way I just came. The window facing Main Street is hidden behind heavy black drapes. I step over to it and push the material aside with the muzzle of my rifle. The window’s been boarded up. No wonder I didn’t see the light from the street. The barrier also tells me this isn’t any sniper’s nest.
“Please don’t,” she whimpers. “Please don’t hurt me.”
The green fire surrounding her head is bugging me; I yank off the eyepiece. Next to the window is a small table on which a pot of stew burbles over a can of Sterno. There’s a Bible next to it, open to the Twenty-Third Psalm. There’s a sofa piled with blankets and pillows. A couple of chairs. A desk. A potted plastic tree. Listing towers of magazines and newspapers. It’s not the sniper kind, but it’s definitely a nest.
She’s probably been holed up here since the 3rd Wave rolled through town. And that raises an important question: How’d she make it this long without the resident Silencer finding her?
“Where is he?” I ask. My voice sounds weak and too young to my own ears, like I’ve fallen backward through time. “Where’s the shooter?”
“Shooter?” she echoes. Her gray hair is stuffed into a knit cap, but a few wispy strands have escaped and fall on either side of her pale face. She’s wearing black sweatpants, her upper half encased in several layers of sweaters. I step toward her, and she shrinks farther into the corner, clutching the spoon to her chest. Cat hair flits and dances in the smoky, golden light, and I sneeze.
“Bless you,” she says automatically.
“You had to hear it,” I tell her, meaning the shot that took down Dumbo. “You have to know he’s here.”
“There’s no one here,” she squeaks. “Just me and my babies. Please don’t hurt my babies!”
It takes me a second to understand she’s talking about the cats. I move around the room, along the narrow paths that wind through the stacks of old magazines, one eye on her, the other looking for weapons. There’re a hundred places to hide a gun in this clutter. I poke through the mound of blankets on the sofa. I check under the desk, pulling open a couple of drawers, then behind the plastic plant. A cat dashes between my legs, hissing. I weave my way over to her corner and order her to stand up.
“Are you going to kill me?” she whispers.
I should. I know I should. The risk is in letting her live. The shot that Dumbo took for me came from somewhere in this building. I sling the rifle over my shoulder, draw my sidearm, and order her up again. It’s a struggle for both of us—her physical battle to get her legs beneath her, my psychological one to resist the instinct to help her. Upright, she sways, hands to her chest, worrying with that damn spoon.
“Drop the spoon.”
“You want me to drop my spoon?”
“Drop it.”
“It’s just a spoon . . .”