Eventually, my parents fell asleep, but I was too unsettled for sleep. I’d finally convinced myself to sit in the recliner and try when I heard a loud commotion from downstairs. Curious, I went to see what was going on. I opened the door just enough to peek my head out and saw that Nico, Luis, and Miguel were still in the foyer and in the process of dragging a man off the stairwell.
“I’m not sick!” the man shouted. “Get the fuck off of me, I told you, I’m not fucking sick!”
“You’ve been bitten,” Luis told him. “You might be fine now, but you won’t be soon, and then you’ll turn into one of them and become a danger to the entire building.”
Before the man could react, Miguel stepped up and stabbed the man through the chin and into the brain. I stared in horror. I knew if he was bitten, the man was a threat, but I hadn’t expected to witness his murder. As my brain tried to process what I had seen, my eyes wandered. There was a lot of blood covering the foyer floor. Luis let the man’s dead body fall to the floor with a thud, and the sight of him lying face down in a pool of blood triggered the memory of my brother when he was shot. The sights and sounds of that day flooded my senses and tookover. I hadn’t realized I was breathing heavily until a pair of concerned brown eyes came into my vision.
“Emery?” Nico asked.
“You killed him,” I accused. “And from the looks of things, you’ve killed a lot of people.”
“We had to, and unfortunately, there is no way around the bloodiness,” Nico explained.
“We discovered that you have to stab the brain in order to kill them,” Luis said. “We didn’t with the first one, and he came back.”
“Learned our lesson after he almost bit Nico,” Miguel said with a weary sigh. “And unfortunately, we’ve had a lot of residents show up with bites. We did what we had to do to keep the building safe.”
I nodded. It made sense. If someone were bitten, they would pose a threat to us all. They couldn’t be allowed to remain in the building, but I hadn’t considered what would have to be done with them instead.
“You’re safe, Emery,” Nico said softly. He gently pushed my door open. “Go back inside and try to get some sleep.”
Safe. There was once a time when Nico did make me feel safe. Knowing he was always watching out for me, for the neighborhood. That went away two years ago when I realized nobody was safe as long as they were around to bring violence to our doorstep.
I didn’t trust them, but I also realized I had no choice. Tomorrow, I’d figure out a plan that didn’t require me to rely on my brother’s killers. I went back inside my apartment without another word. My parents were still asleep on the couch, so I grabbed a baseball bat out of the closet and curled up in the recliner. Sometime between commercials, I fell asleep.
Sudden gunfire woke us all up the next morning. We rushed to the windows to see the military moving through the streets.
“Oh, thank God,” I sighed. The military would kill all the zombies, and then we could return to everyday life, or what was left of it.
“Let’s move away from the windows,” Papi suggested. “We don’t need to watch this.”
I understood his discomfort with the situation. If you didn’t look closely enough, you couldn’t tell that there was anything wrong with the people being gunned down in the street. I looked at the TV and saw footage of the military. I grabbed the remote and turned up the volume.
“As you can see, John, the army is currently moving through the city at this moment. All citizens have been instructed to remain indoors. Anyone caught on the street will be shot on sight.”
“They aren’t taking any chances,” Mami commented. “This will be a sad day.”
“Certainly one for the history books,” Papi agreed.
He settled on the couch and patted the cushion next to him for me to join him as Mami wandered into the kitchen to make breakfast.
“Pequenino, the coffee is ready. Come bring your father a cup.”
I went into the kitchen to get his coffee and found her making breakfast burritos. A lot of breakfast burritos. “Mami, what’s with all the burritos?”
“I made extra for those boys downstairs,” she replied as she wrapped several up and stacked them on a plate. “And you’re going to take it to them.”
“Mami, you can’t be serious. I’m not bringing them breakfast. Have you forgotten that they’re the reason Eddie died?”
“Emery Faye, those boys have been downstairs protecting us all night. And they weren’t responsible for your brother’s death. They didn’t pull the trigger; Eddie was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was a tragic accident, but you can’t hold on to all of this anger and hate toward them. It isn’t healthy, Pequenino. Now they did not have to stay up all night keeping us safe, but they did, and now you are going to bring them breakfast.”
“But, Mami—“
“This isn’t up for debate, Emery. Bring your father his coffee and then bring them their breakfast.”
I sighed as I fixed the coffee. I knew better than to keep pushing the issue. I’d bring those assholes the damned burritos, but I didn’t have to be happy about it. I brought my father his coffee, and he looked up at me as he took it.
“Listen to your mother, Piccina. She is smarter than us both.”
