"Not Even a Mouse" (cont.) - December 19, 2024
Two strangers find a connection in the unexpected apocalypse...
Every Thursday, Silver Gecko Publishing highlights one of my stories, either a work of short fiction, a novel, or an audiobook. This week’s selection is an excerpt from the novelette NOT ONLY A MOUSE.
Readers of this Substack will recognize this as the same novelette I presented two weeks ago. That installment came from the audiobook (available through Audible). The next section comes from the Kindle edition (available through Amazon).
This is part of the zombie apocalypse holiday series. If you liked GOBBLE from last month, you get more of the same here.
Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!
-Kevin Carr
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Illustration from Pixabay
Not Even a Mouse by Kevin Carr
…Ashleigh watched the metal pot dangling over the crackling fire. Wasn’t it her father who used to say that a watched pot never boiled, or something like that? She couldn’t quite remember if that was his saying. She really didn’t understand it. Never had. She watched water boil all the time... especially now that there was nothing to watch on television or tablets, with electricity gone. Whether she watched the pot or not, the water always boiled the same. It just seemed to take a little longer now.
Bubbles soon started to pop over the sides of the pot. Light splashes fell onto the coals below, sizzling as they hit the hot embers. Ashleigh fit an oversized oven mitt on her small right hand and grabbed the handle of the pot.
Carefully, Ashleigh walked with the boiling water to the coffee table. There, her mug sat, stained with dark brown splatters from the previous splurges of hot chocolate. Even she knew to conserve water in this situation. No need to wash the mug if she was going to use it again so soon for the same thing.
Next to the mug was an empty packet of Swiss Miss hot cocoa. A small dusting of chocolate powder ran from the packet to the mug, where she had poured most of it a few minutes ago.
As Ashleigh started to pour the hot water into the mug, she felt a moment of regret. Only four more packets left in the pantry. Only four more times could she find comfort in hot chocolate. It was just a little thing, a tiny shred of normalcy from the life that was now gone from her. So its loss was a devastating blow. After she drank the last five mugs (four mugs if she didn’t count this one she was pouring right now), that tiny shred of normalcy would be gone. And she would be that much closer to being forced to look at the hand the world had dealt her... a happy eleven-year-old girl without a care in the world who had now been left an orphan, all alone in a landscape overrun with monsters.
Ashleigh took a deep breath and let it out as as the mug filled. She set the pot down directly on the coffee table, something her mother would have thrown a fit about just a few weeks ago. But now Ashleigh didn’t care. The finish of the coffee table was no longer a concern.
Ashleigh forced the bad thoughts from her head. She forced the oppressive feeling of loneliness away. She forced back the tears for her lost parents. She forced the lump in her throat to reduce to a small wrinkle. Even in this new, horrible world in which she lived, Ashleigh wanted to enjoy her cocoa... and escape, even if it were for a brief moment.
She picked up a metal spoon and gently stirred the cocoa in the mug. A dozen tiny marshmallows floated on the top. They weren’t as good as real marshmallows. She had run out of those three cups ago, and the only extras were downstairs in the cellar. Ashleigh wasn’t ready to brave that just for marshmallows. The sweet, crunchy, desiccated pellets in the cocoa packet that Swiss Miss passed off as marshmallows would have to do for now.
Ashleigh sighed and raised the mug to her lips, feeling the comforting heat radiating from the liquid. She sipped gingerly, and the hot cocoa stung her lips slightly. She didn’t mind. It felt good. It felt normal. And there wasn’t any more good and normal left in her life, so she could deal with that sting just to feel something again.
Just as Ashleigh was ready to rest her lips against the warm mug again, she heard a sound, which chilled her flesh. It was something she heard occasionally, something that meant she had to be very quiet. The things out there still remembered doors. They remembered how to knock. And they still remembered how to open them. And sometimes they still tried to come inside.
The doorknob rattled a second time, and Ashleigh slowly lowered the mug onto the coffee table.
The door rattled again. And again.
* * *
Peter had approached the house quietly. He didn’t see any movement in the snow banks, but that didn’t mean there were no zombies lying dormant. Over the past few weeks, Peter had learned to approach every situation with great caution.
He had drawn a pistol, keeping his machete in its sheath. While machetes were good for close encounters in the open, there were too many unknowns in this moment. Sure, a gunshot might bring other zombies from the landscape, but Peter needed something for close quarters, and he needed something with definite stopping power.
Peter was pretty sure that the zombies weren’t in the house... unless they had only recently attacked. But even then, Peter doubted this. There was no sign of attack on the outside. If anything had happened, surely there’d be a window or door broken. But everything on the outside looked uncomfortably normal.
Peter reached out to the door with his left hand, keeping his right hand on the pistol so he could aim it quickly. He tried the handle.
Locked.
Peter rattled it a couple more times. It didn’t even turn. Locked in the doorknob mechanism, and possibly with other deadbolts from the inside.
Peter paused for a moment, considering his options. He was pretty sure someone was in there. Someone had started a fire in the actual fireplace. There was too much smoke coming out of that chimney to be the remains of a fire from days ago. And he was pretty sure that the fire wasn’t out of control on the inside because he saw no other evidence of that. No burning elsewhere. No smoke escaping from windows or through the roof itself. Beyond all that, it smelled like a fire in the fireplace should: seasoned wood, crackling with the smell of Christmas. Had it been something other than a fireplace, there would be unpleasant smells like melting plastic or burning cloth.
Of course, Peter could leave... steal away without bothering the people inside. But Peter wanted inside. He hadn’t seen a normal human in weeks. He could do with a little companionship.
So he did the next best thing. He knocked.
There was a long pause. Then, he heard a knock in return.
Peter nodded. So someone was in there. Still, he couldn’t be too careful. The zombies retained some memories and cognitive abilities. It was not inconceivable that one would reply with a rapping call-and-response.
Peter knocked twice.
A moment later, two knocks.
Okay, Peter thought. This wasn’t exactly a Turing test, but it was getting closer. He grinned and knew what to do.
He knocked five times... one long, two short, and two long.
“Shave and a hair cut...” Peter said to himself softly.
A moment later, two short knocks replied, matching the meter of his intro.
“Two bits,” Peter said, loud enough for the person on the other side of the door to hear.
A moment later, he heard a clattering sound, which he knew were deadbolts and chains releasing. Then he looked down to the doorknob and saw it wobble a bit with another sound of a lock being disengaged.
Then nothing. Peter nodded. The door was now unlocked. But he would have to open it.
Peter cocked the hammer of his pistol and reached out with his left hand to turn the doorknob. This time, it turned easily,. Peter put the barrel of the pistol close to the door jamb and aimed it at approximate eye level. Then he pushed the door open.
And for the second time that day, Peter was surprised.
Instead of seeing an adult staring him in the eye, he found himself literally staring down two barrels of a break-action shotgun. The barrel pointed upward because it was being held by a young girl, half his height. Peter froze. He could see the hammers of the shotgun were cocked. And while he had a gun too, his was simply aimed too high.
Peter looked at the girl’s eyes. He saw a lot of things in there. Fear, of course, was in the forefront. There was also grief, confusion, worry, sadness, and even a dash of excitement. But what he saw most was the fear.
Then Peter grinned. He let go of the butt of the pistol, and the gun toppled backwards, dangling from his trigger finger. He lifted that and his left hand up, surrendering.
“Looks like you got the drop on me, little lady,” Peter said with a calming voice.
The girl didn’t reply. She also didn’t lower the gun.
Peter slowly holstered his gun and showed her his hands.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Peter said softly. “Can I come in?”
The girl still didn’t reply.
Peter looked deep into her eyes. “It’s cold out here,” he said with a sympathetic voice. “And those things could be anywhere. I’d love to warm up by your fire.”
After another moment, Peter saw the girl’s body relax slightly. She lowered the gun slowly. When the barrel was touching the floor, Peter stepped gingerly into the house.
It was warm in here, warmer than Peter thought it would be. But that was to be expected. He had spent the last several days in the ice and snow.
“What’s your name?” Peter asked.
“Ashleigh,” she said. Her voice was soft. She still hadn’t let go of the shotgun, which seemed comically large for her. She also hadn’t disengaged the hammers, so accidental discharge was still very possible. For this reason, Peter continued to move extremely cautiously.
“Hi Ashleigh, my name is Peter,” he said, still holding his hands up. He looked around, then nodded at her. “Are you alone here?”
She nodded softly. Already, Peter could see tears forming in her eyes.
“I’m going to take off my coat, if that’s okay, Ashleigh,” Peter said softly. “But I’m going to have to take my guns off my back to do that. Is that alright?”
Ashleigh nodded, still clutching the stock of her own shotgun.
Peter took off his backpack and set it next to the sofa. He then slowly slipped his own rifle and shotgun from his shoulders. As carefully as he could, not holding them in a threatening way, Peter gently set them next to the sofa, leaning against the wall. He then slipped his arms out of his coat and took that off, folding it gingerly in his hands. He then set it down on a small wooden chair next to the sofa.
As soon as he was done with that, Peter raised his hands again.
“Okay,” Peter said softly. “I’ve laid down my weapons. I’d certainly appreciate it if you would do me the courtesy of putting that rather formidable shotgun down.” He ended the sentence with a crooked half-grin. This grin usually worked its charm on ladies at the bars, and while Ashleigh may only be a child, Peter hoped it might ease the tension between them.
Ashleigh blinked her eyes, as if coming out of a trance. She looked down to the shotgun and gasped slightly.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said suddenly. Ashleigh cautiously uncocked the hammers on the barrels and laid the gun across the arms of an easy chair between her and the fireplace.
Peter took note of how well she handled the weapon. She was small, but she seemed unfazed by its sheer weight. It was clear that even at her young age, she had spent plenty of time around firearms. She knew how to use that thing, and it was likely that while she might have not shot a person, she had very likely shot at least a rabbit or groundhog with it at sometime in her life. Such is childhood in rural Ohio.
Ashleigh smiled after she set the gun down, brightening up considerably. It was as if a light switch had been flipped from “cautious would-be victim” to “friendly child.”
“Are you here alone, Ashleigh?” Peter asked again. He took note to use her name. That would make him less threatening, more endearing. It was a trick he had learned over the years to help manage people.
A little bit of the brightness left Ashleigh’s face. She nodded, almost imperceptibly.
Peter nodded back and slowly sat down on the couch. “Where are your parents?” he asked as sympathetically as he could.
Ashleigh took a deep breath. The tears started to well up in her eyes again. She looked to her right. Peter couldn’t tell whether she was looking at the ascending staircase, the large bay window with the shades drawn tight, or the large wooden door that led to either a closet or a pantry. The lock he saw on the doorknob led him to believe it could be either of those, or possibly a bathroom. Peter guessed it was either the stairs or the window she was looking at. Probably the staircase led to her parents’ room (or possibly their bodies still upstairs).
Of course, he didn’t know anything about the woodpile outside the large bay window, or about what awful memory lay out there for Ashleigh to avoid.
“They’re… they’re…” she started, then trailed off.
“Gone?” Peter finished her thought for her.
Ashleigh nodded, and suddenly the tears that had been merely welling up in her eyes started to burst forth. The small girl stumbled forward and landed in Peter’s arms.
Peter was not prepared for this. At first, he thought she was attacking him, and he almost reacted in kind.
Then he heard the sobs. Ashleigh, overcome with emotion, had leaped onto his lap, thrown her arms around his neck, and started crying. He assumed he was the first person she had seen since her parents had “gone.”
Peter did not have any children of his own. He never wanted them, it just wasn’t in his life plan. But he wasn’t completely detached from reality. He remembered what it was like to be a child, when your mom and dad were the most important thing in your life, and their loss or separation from them would be the worst thing you could endure.
In this new beautiful-yet-desolate wasteland, Ashleigh had suffered the worst fate for any child, and she had no one with which to share her grief.
Peter reached a hand up to her head, laying it upon her matted black hair that probably hadn’t seen a shower since before Thanksgiving, and he patted it. It was rather cliché, but it seemed to help.
For what felt like hours, Peter held Ashleigh, feeling strangely connected to her. Their experiences were so different, but now they’d found each other.
Soon, Ashleigh’s sobs subsided, but she didn’t let go. She held tight to him, and Peter let her. It felt right.
Eventually, Ashleigh’s arms released him. She crawled off his lap and slid next to him on the couch, sniffling and wiping her nose with the corner of her sleeve.
“Sorry…” she said softly.
Peter smiled and took her hand. “No need to apologize,” he said softly. Ashleigh leaned into him, snuggling. Peter felt cool from where she climbed off of him, even with the warmth of the fire in front of them. In this moment, knowing the world was different now, knowing that they found themselves in a more primitive existence, Peter was glad they had found each other. He let go of her hand and let his own hand fall down to her knee. Ashleigh responded by wrapping her arm around him and hugging him tight.
Peter looked over to the coffee table and saw the mug. Steam no longer danced from the rim, but he saw the packet of Swiss Miss right next to it and immediately figured what it was.
“Is that hot chocolate?” Peter asked.
Ashleigh sat up and looked at the mug. She smiled and sat forward.
“Uh huh,” she said and nodded.
“I love hot chocolate,” Peter said, smiling.
Ashleigh scooted forward and grabbed the mug. She turned, paused for the briefest of moments, and handed it to Peter. He looked into the mug and saw the now-cooled cocoa. A thin layer of white foam covered the top, and he figured it was probably left by mini marshmallows that had already dissolved.
“Do you want it?” Ashleigh asked.
Peter shook his head. “I don’t want to drink all of your hot chocolate,” he said.
Ashleigh stood up. “It’s no problem, really,” she said. “We still have four packets left. I can make more.”
Before Peter could reply, Ashleigh walked towards the kitchen. When she got to the big wooden door, she stopped, touched the locked doorknob for a moment, then turned back to Peter. She strode over to the coffee table and grabbed the pot with her bare hands, no longer needing the oven mitt.
“Let me heat up some water first,” Ashleigh said, and disappeared into the kitchen….