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There was nothing of
interest in the closet. He checked under the bed and found only dust bunnies.
Lastly, he lifted the mattress off the box spring and looked there only because
it would nag at him later if he hadn’t.
    “One room to go … where is everybody, Max?”
    Nothing.
    “You bark when you hear ‘em. OK, Max?”
    Still nothing.
    Max yawned wide and then rested his head back down on his
outstretched front legs.
    Before leaving the room, Cade skirted the bed, parted the
horizontal blinds and took a peek. Though the snow cut down on the visibility,
it seemed the Zs trudging up Center Street had geared down, going from barely
moving to statue still. The ramifications of what he was witnessing hit him
like a ton of bricks. Apparently freezing temperatures coupled with the
wind-chill was doing to the walking dead what up until now only a quick
double-tap or dagger to the brain could accomplish—render them immobile. Though
only temporary, he guessed, he would take it nonetheless.
    The second bedroom left Cade wide-eyed. It was one part
office containing some of the things on his list and two parts science fiction
geek nirvana complete with sculpted statues of popular and, not so,
superheroes. Mostly Marvel and, ironically, the first one he recognized was of
Captain America with his red, white, and blue shield raised and at the ready.
The statue next to Cap was Wolverine in his trademark pre-battle pose, hunched
over, arms curled with the razor-sharp adamantium claws fully extended, their
angular tips nearly touching up front. There were numerous homages to Star
Wars: figures on a shelf and spaceships hanging from the ceiling. For a moment
Cade was twenty and naive and the world was back to normal. No walking dead. No
opportunistic bandits. Just a full life ahead of him and Brook.
    A hot tear traced his cheek as he reminisced.
    In the front room Max growled at something then came padding
into the man cave slash shrine assembled by an adult unwilling to let go of
days gone by.
    The dog gave Cade the usual head tilted sideways look that
seemed to be saying: Hurry the hell up .
    “Just like a good wingman … reminding me to quit crying and
get the lead out.” Cade relieved the office of the laptop on the desk. Stuffed
it, the power cords, and a stack of software CDs and DVD movies that he didn’t
bother to inventory into the bulging pack.
    Turning to leave, he caught sight of himself in the mirrored
closet doors. Simultaneously he looked ten years younger and ten older. The
former impression was due to body mass alone—he was now more muscled up top and
slimmer in the waist. Just about how he’d been put together at twenty-five
years of age. The latter, however, he based on the newly formed wrinkles on his
forehead and prominent, deep crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes. Wearing a
combination scowl and thousand-yard stare, the face staring back looked more
forty-five than his chronological age of thirty-five. Hell, he thought, in a
matter of months the zombie apocalypse had prematurely aged him. If things
continued the way they had been going, in a few more people would be mistaking
him for Duncan.
    Shaking his head at the mere thought of looking anything
like the old Vietnam vet, he slid the closet door open and was instantly rid of
the stranger staring back at him.
    In a box at the bottom of the closet, he found a handheld
video game of some sort and a dozen tiny cartridges to go with it. They went in
his pocket and he pushed both mirrored doors to the right. What he saw there
defied all logic based on the rest of the pieces of the puzzle already revealed.
Belying the bare bones nature of the dwelling, secured to the back wall of the
closet was a gun safe more at home in a McMansion than a doublewide. He tried
moving the circular wheel affixed to the thousand-dollar-item’s door. It didn’t
budge, and he had no heavy tools nor the time to crack the thing. If only Tice
were here with his high-tech toys, he