* * *
Samuel wiped his eyes with his sleeve and aimed along the shotgun at his only child. No! That wasn’t his son any more. It was one of Them. Once bitten, there was nothing you could do.
“I should kill you…” Samuel said, “or it’ll spread, again…”
He’d only been a boy last time – too young to fight, trapped in his house as the world burned around him – but he remembered the heroes who’d fought the horde with lead and steel and fire.
Now it was all up to him. Samuel had to be the hero, stop the outbreak, save Archi…
Norman lumbered up another step and made a throaty noise.
“You’re not my son,” Samuel told the zombie, but he wasn’t sure he could pull the trigger. With Norman only two steps away, Samuel tucked his trembling arm into his side to steady his aim. He had to pull the trigger.
“You’re not a failure,” he told his son.
“Blarg!” Norman shouted, arms groping.
Samuel fired.
The zombie flopped facedown onto the stairs with a wet smacking sound and the lingering tinkle of broken wine bottles. Samuel dropped onto the step, hot tears streaming down his face, and prayed for forgiveness as he stared at his son’s corpse.
Which moved a finger.
A moment later, Norman lurched to his feet and spotted his left arm a few stairs farther up. His elbow leaked thick blood.
Samuel pumped another round into the shotgun’s chamber, but he couldn’t shoot his son again, not again, and he’d never reach the top of the stairs before Norman reached him.
He was as good as dead.
“Norman, this is your father!” Samuel said with as much strength as he had left. “You’ve been very naughty!”
Norman crawled up another step. “Blarg?”
“I’m serious!” Samuel shouted. “You know the rules! Go to your… cellar!”
Norman’s outstretched arm was inches from his throat.
Samuel raised the shotgun. “Tell them I’m sorry, son,” he whispered.