The zombies were still rooting around in the house when Naomi brought Max up through the back exit from his little secret basement game room/apocalypse survival hangout. There was a manhole in the back. The contractor had laughed at him, but he'd put it in anyway. Naomi had thought it was cute at the time. Now she thought it was perfect.
The things in the house hadn't noticed her yet.
She'd tied him to a gurney that he'd had in the closet down there for some unknown reason. It had made it a bit easier, but shit he was heavy.
She finally managed to get him out on the lawn and ducked back down almost all of the way into the manhole. She pulled the cover almost closed, which wasn't really all that heavy, just some steel bars with fake grass attached to the top. Then she started yelling.
Max woke up immediately.
"Hey, what the…"
The back door started shaking, then banging. Seconds later something on the other side was really slamming into it hard. And then it crashed open.
Naomi wished she could watch, but she could hear just fine.
"Oh God…. No… Naomi… Oh, Nah AHHHHHAHhhh!"
It was over pretty quickly. His screams bled into wet gurgles and then silence.
She forced herself back down the drainage tunnel to the basement, which was only about twenty yards away. The full weight of what she had done was hitting her slowly, but she was nauseous suddenly.
I had to do it, didn't I? Could she have let him live? She didn't know. She thought back to the excitement in his response when he had heard her voice and rushed to open the door for her. It was obvious looking back that he had been happy to know she was alive and well. Maybe he would have been sorry, she thought. Maybe he didn't mean to do it.
Regardless of the how and why, it was done. There was no going back.
She dropped to her knees suddenly and vomited.
For a few minutes longer she just crouched there over a steaming puddle of the partially digested picnic they'd shared earlier.
Where do I go from here? she wondered.
Slowly she made her way back to Max's shelter and was shocked numb of emotion by the sheer bleak nature of the small three roomed prison. And that's what it was, no doubt about it. How long would it be before help came? That is, assuming that it did, in fact, ever come. And until that mess outside cleared up or someone put an end to it, this would be her home. The dead silence tormented her. You could have had someone; the room seemed to say, mocking her. Or maybe that was her conscience. You didn't have to be alone. It was then that the real tears came. The adrenalin was wearing off. All of the shock of what had occurred in the last hours hit her full force; the betrayal and fear and rage crashed in on her and she dropped to the floor where she remained for hours more. She cried until her whole body hurt. Then she fell asleep. When she woke up she cried some more. If what she had seen today was all that she had to look forward to, what was the point of living? For days she laid there, only getting up occasionally to use the bathroom and then only half conscious of the act. At some point she managed to make herself eat some crackers from Max's emergency food supply. Was there anyone else out there? Should she have forgiven him? Could she forgive herself? Did she even want to live? Only time would tell.