It's raining today. I can hear the steady pour of water on the tin roof of our farmhouse. I wih I could go outside and dance in it like I use to. Adam is sleeping. I watch him, curled up on my bed with his arm across his eyes. My little brother. His eighteenth birthday was three weeks ago but we couldn't celebrate. Adam didn't want too anyway. He said there was no point. He doubted he'd live to see nineteen. I hate when he talks that way. Our sister is beside him. My beautiful Annie. She doesn't understand what's happening. She can't figure out why Adam and I boarded up all the windows (minus the upstairs) and doors. She whines to go outside and play, as any seven year old should, but I hear the moaning. I hear their splintered nails on the boards of the house and the doors. Digging insistently into the wood, trying to claw their way in. My fear that they will succeed. They smell! Oh God, how they stink! Their rotten, decomposing bodies melt in the early summer sunshine. The wind carries their stench into the upstairs windows that I leave open to keep us cool. I climb from the floor of my room and walk over to look out. My window faces the hills of Kentucky. The beauty of the countryside is marred by the staggering, lifeless corpses that wander aimlessly around the yard. I've shot at a few with dad's gun (they go down and stay down easily enough if shot in the head) but the gun shots attract more of them so I don't shoot much anymore. I catch the rain in my open palm and close my eyes. I wish they wouldnt moan. I hear them constantly, even in my dreams. Annie stirs in Adam's arms and I close the window some to keep the rain from dampening the carpet. She cries softly in her sleep and I watch tears run down her face. She's dreaming again. Adam tightens his grip on her and pulls her into him. His eyes are open and locked onto mine. He seems close to tears himself. Annie whimpers and whispers, "Mama"
But our mother doesn't respond. Our mother cannot console her. I glance over my shoulder at the window, knowing that Mom is down there, now with them, her eyes vacant and milky. Her once soft skin now tight and withered. Cracking and bleeding in death. She cries for us, her moaning at times sound like our names.
