The Living Dead 2 (The Living Dead, #2)(233)

He nods, but doesn’t answer, because he has lost the words. He is losing himself, one brain cell at a time.

She licks her lips, and he sees that she’s less happy to see him than hungry. But this is the nature of parents and children. The former give, the latter take. “The key, Dad?” she asks.

It feels sharp in his hand. He remembers those missing high school kids, and after that, the junkies’ bodies he read about in the paper that had been drained of blood. No wonder she developed a taste for heroin.

“The virus came from me,” she says. “I bit someone and they lived. It mutated inside them and spread.”

“I’m dying,” he says.

Her orange jumpsuit is slack in the hips and waist. It’s probably been a while since she fed. If he opens the door for her, she’ll make a meal of him. But what are fathers for, if not sustenance? “Fuck you, Dad. You never understood it was a gift. You made me ashamed.”

He shakes his head. Feels his heart slowing in his chest. It doesn’t remember how to pump, so he hits it, hard. “I love you,” he says.

Her eyes water. He thinks that means she’s sad, but he can’t really tell. Monsters don’t act like normal people. “I love you, too,” she answers. “Now give me the key.”

Are you lonesome, just like me?

Connie, did you know? Gladys asks. Maybe it’s coming from him. Maybe it’s her ghost.

“Yes, I knew,” he whispers. “So did you.”

Behind the bars, Delia licks her lips. “The key.”

He doesn’t remember his name anymore, or this woman before him. All that is left is the emotion underneath it, and instinct.

“Now, Dad.”

He fires the shotgun. His aim is true.

Then he turns the shotgun on himself, but it is too long and his fingers won’t obey him, so he drops it.

The young woman lies motionless while blood pools around her. He thinks about the color blue as he reaches through the bars that will now separate them for an eternity, and squeezes her fingers. She squeezes back as if she is relieved, and then lets go.

In sadness he can no longer comprehend, his heart tears itself into wings and flaps blood. It is a caged bird in there, that has shred itself inside-out but still can’t get free.