The Town of Last Haven: A Zombie Novel

Part 7

Natalie went to her brothers and sister as Julia was firing the gunshots at their parents--the Angel of Death was giving them both mercy. Hand on the bedroom doorknob, Natalie wiped away her tears.

Bang!

Bang!

"What was that?" Clarise asked, her eyes wide with fear. "Did any of them try to get inside?" She tilted her head to the side curiously.

"Julia was... taking care of something." Natalie said quietly, looking to a nodding-once Austin--he knew. Trent suspected but didn't say a word. 

"Are mom and dad coming home at all? It's been days." Clarise sniffled, putting the pieces together herself. "Days, right?" Clarise wasn't the best with timing--she was unable to read a clock. Not the digital kind, just the face clock with the numbers in a circle.

"Remind me to explain later why they're taking as much time as they are," Trent said glumly, patting Clarise on the back.

"What?" Clarise's eyes went wide again, flashing from her brothers to her sisters, Julia appearing in the doorway behind Natalie. "Julia, what did you do to mom and dad?" She was louder now, almost to the point of crying. "I want mom and dad back!" Clarise started crying, and when Julia went to hug Clarise for a moment, the youngest sister of the Brown clan pushed her away. "I want mom! Daddy, too! Bring them back!" she sobbed.

"I can't..." Julia said quietly, her face dead white. "Oh, Clarise, I want to bring them back more than anything, but I can't!" Julia was sobbing now too, her hand shaking like the final leaves on an Avery tree branch before the first winter snowfall.

"We have to protect each other. Remember all those things mom and dad taught us in the event of a crisis, Clarise?" Austin asked, cocking his head to the side. "They taught us--told us not to fight. We have to depend on each other, or all hell breaks loose, remember?"

Clarise sniffled, brushing the tears away--they still came. "I remember," she said slowly. "I hate it when we fight, too." She looked at the carpeted floor, her hands scratching Opal's ears and neck. When Clarise hit the spot, as all of them called it, Opal's feet kicked up and it appeared she was having a good time being petted.

"Austin, can you come with me?" Julia asked quietly. "We need a few things from the garden... none of them are out there right now, so... so, I need you now."

Austin understood, nodding once.

"Natalie, read a book to Trent and Clarise. Austin and I will be back... I promise." Julia said quietly.

Austin followed Julia down the hall, watching as she looked at the remaining bullets in the gun. None left. Austin cursed mentally, thinking about all the hell they'd been put through days before and even now. It was almost too painful to bear, but this is what they all had to face--this hell was real. It couldn't be avoided in any possible way.

"You gave them mercy, didn't you?" Austin asked quietly as he helped Julia move the chairs and dining room table away from the door.

Julia didn't say a word--Austin figured his sister didn't want to talk about what she'd just did. I mean, who would? Who would really want to talk about what they just did--kill their own parents. Who'd want to talk after some trauma like that?

"I could have done it," Austin said quietly, staring at Julia just before they left through the back door. His throat went dry when he saw the bloody bodies of their parents lying on the back porch. There were two small bullet holes going into their foreheads and coming out through the back.

"Are you sure you could have done this?" Julia asked.

Austin went weak. "I'm not sure now." He thought of one of the times before the now--a time when he couldn't get to sleep, so he went downstairs to the living room. Austin remembered seeing Julia watching The Walking Dead with their parents. It was one of the episodes in the first season--before the show itself went to rot--when Morgan had to mercy his zombie wife.

Morgan couldn't do it first try, and Austin himself doubted he could ever be--would ever be as strong as Julia was in the moments before, during, and after the killing . . . the mercying of their parents.

Could he really do it? The way Julia did? He didn't think so after all...

"There's no time like the present," Julia said quietly. "Help me dig two holes in the ground... so, we can bury mom and dad. We can have the others out for prayers later, but... but not now."

Austin nodded once in compliance, running to the shed to retrieve two shovels. When he brought them back to Julia, they dug quickly. No zombies were in sight anywhere, so it felt weird--it still felt like they were being watched.

The sky turned grey with clouds, and Austin felt a cold sweat overtake him. When he stood again to wipe the sweat from his brow, he saw a few crows on the tree branches--they seemed to be waiting for a meal. Austin didn't like that one bit, so he went back to digging quickly.

"Do you think we have a few flowers for the graves?" asked the eldest Brown brother solemnly.

Julia nodded slowly. "Yeah," she said. "Mom still needed to plant a few things before winter's coming. Go get them now."

Austin ran off to the shed, Julia leaning against the shovel impacted in the ground. She looked to the crows, reciting The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe in her head--she didn't think a better-suited time to think of the poem than now.

Julia looked to the house--it looked so lonely now, so... lifeless. There would be no more good family times in the house. No more dad jokes, no more laughter from mom, no more laughter from anyone. It was a dead past indeed, and Julia wanted to break down in tears and bury herself in the ground with her parents...

...but she knew she couldn't do that. She had to protect her siblings. She had to protect Natalie, protect Austin, protect Trent, protect Clarise. And Opal too. They were her family, the kin of her parents. Julia felt solely responsible for her sisters' and brothers' lives.

This was her mission now: protect her sisters and brothers.

"I'll do it, mom and dad," Julia's voice was hushed upon the coolly blowing wind, and Austin returned with undug plants--the last of their mother's batch of late-blooming flowers.

"Got them," he said, and Julia offered him a sad smile.

"Thank you." Julia had Austin put down the flowers to place their parents in the graves before reburying them and planting the flowers at the heads of the makeshift plots. 

The two just stared at the plots for what seemed like a very long time.

And no zombies came after them, not even as the clouds bunched up with rainfall and thunder in the far distance. After a time, Austin put a hand on Julia's shoulder.

"Let's go back to the others. They'll be wondering why we've been gone."

As the two siblings returned inside the house, Julia's eyes glanced up at the windows. She could see Clarise in the window--not what she was supposed to be doing, but Julia couldn't offer her youngest sister even the smallest consoling smile. She was just too devastated to do anything--too devastated even to cry.

"I love you, mom... I love you, dad..." Clarise said, putting a hand to the window, tears in her eyes. "I'll miss you forever." She sniffled again, crying silently to herself. "Don't forget me up there in Heaven, okay?" she asked the angels that were her parents--Owen and Violet Brown.