Read When the Dead for Free Online

which will help him feel at ease
without me around for a few hours.”
    Isobel went upstairs to ask Molly if her earlier offer to help still
stood. Her heart leapt. She was happy to spend more time with the Pace family.
She stopped cleaning her dishes and followed Isobel downstairs to assume her
role as “the babysitter”.  To which Gabe responded that he “wasn’t a baby”.
    Molly agreed. “You’ve got it all wrong guys! I’m not a babysitter . . . I
don’t play with babies.” She sat down immediately; legs crossed Indian-style
and started to build Legos with Gabe, who was smiling ear-to-ear at Molly, a
pretty girl he remembered as liking his dad, who was nice, and who knew how to
build with the multi-colored bricks.
    Now a group of three, Ben, Isobel and Rob checked the last apartment on
the second floor.
     

(Un)Charismatically Cold Blooded
    Jeff had
found no joy in killing Sheila and the dog, not in the acts themselves. His
satisfaction and content came from the silence that fell across the apartment
when the deed was done. He’d been able to enjoy one wonderfully lonely day before
the silence was broken once again.
    Ben was regretting rapping his knuckles on the Browns door. He knew they
had problems and he had heard fighting from their apartment yesterday, while he
had been making coffee for his injured Anna across the hall.
    “I hope the dog is tied up,” Ben said. “I hate that thing.” Last year he
had the chance to meet the dog and its owners when they moved here from New
York.
    “I hate it too. It attacked me the other day,” Isobel said.
    “It attacked me downstairs about a year ago when I was checking the mail.
That dog is psychotic.”
    “I don’t hear any barking,” Rob observed.
    “Strange. It never stops barking, I swear to God.”
    Ben knocked again and Jeff, Sheila’s husband, slowly opened the door.
    “Oh, hi guys. I hope I haven’t been making too much noise. Come in!” He
said happily; his eyes a subtle mix of fear and exhilaration.
    Ben had never seen Jeff like that, all chipper and smiley. The contents
of the kitchen cupboards had been thoroughly emptied onto the countertops and
it looked, just as it had sounded, as though Jeff was alone.
    “What happened in here Jeff?” Rob asked as he picked up a dented can of
string beans.
    “Sheila was looking for some dog food. She did this. I was sick and she
wasn’t handling this well, and she just lost it. But I took care of it and
things are fine now.” Jeff strummed his fingers on the countertop impatiently.
    “Did she leave?” Ben asked as he turned to look down the hallway.
    “Kind of. She is . . .I . . . they are dead. I . . . strangled them. I
couldn’t handle the bitching or the barking anymore. But don’t worry, I’m not
dangerous. I won’t hurt anyone else. I’ve been putting up with her shit for
years. You all know that, don’t you?” The words spilled from his mouth. He held
his hands up in surrender.
    “The dog too then, Jeff? What have you done?” Isobel was trying very hard
to figure that out.
    “I’m sorry. I know it wasn’t the right thing to do. This plague outside
has got my thinking messed up but I’m ok now.” Now that the truth was out the
look in his eyes changed from fear and exhilaration to desperation.
     Isobel had a bit of a moral dilemma. She’d taken Ben in even though he’d
shot his girlfriend, but she was a zombie! Jeff? He was a killer plain and
simple, and one without a pang of regret. Isobel and the others couldn’t stand
Sheila either but they didn’t want her dead. I’ve seen people eating people,
touched a dead body, seen brains blown out, and heard a murder confession in
under five days time, Isobel thought, the world truly has been turned
inside out. Because of this shift, everyone had to change their way of
thinking. Jeff did what he felt he had to do to survive this nightmare. What
could they do but believe that? What would they have done if the situation was
their