She woke up as the first rays of the sun crept into the hallway from the shattered hall window and for a moment didn’t know where she was. The house was still in early morning shadow and she ached all over. She got shakily to her feet and reached up to touch a particularly painful spot on her head…and felt stubble. That brought it all crashing back to her. The zombies in the yard. The ghoul with his hands in her hair, hair that would never be clean again, hair that had killed Robert.
She crossed the bedroom like a drunk on Saturday morning. The bedside clock was dead; no power. She made it out of the room a few feet at a time and reached the window in the hall, careful to avoid the broken glass. She gazed out over the tableau in the garden. She hadn’t been able to cover Robert, let alone bury him. He was out there in the grass with his murderers. She couldn’t see that side of the house from here, though. But she could see the sky. It was still dark, but not for the cover of clouds now. In the distance there was smoke, billowing clouds of it rising from the city. Someplace far away she could hear gunshots. The first rays of morning sun felt good on her naked flesh. It felt alive. Why the hell had they tried to defend the house? It had been stupid and Robert had died for it. Whatever this was, whatever plague or blight or monstrous evil, it was everywhere. And she couldn’t stay here.
Katelyn approached the bathroom mirror and surveyed her ruined hair. She was almost bald. A few wisps crossed her forehead, a few jagged clumps stood up on her crown. But by and large her head was a forest of tiny red bristles. She took stock of her options. A shearing in mourning was one thing, but this was also a matter of practicality: nobody would ever grab her by the hair again. Ever. She should clean herself up, though or somebody was liable to shoot her as a fucking zombie herself. Robert’s Norelco clippers were still plugged in by the light switch. She picked them up and for a moment had to steady herself on the sink. Blond bristles were still caught in the blades. She thought back for a moment, thought of him sitting naked himself in a kitchen chair as she racked the humming machine across his head. He liked his hair short, liked the lack of maintenance. And she loved the feeling of the bristles, the naked curve of his head. They had made love after any good shearing, long and powerfully. Once she had shaved him bald completely and rubbed oil into his scalp by candle light.
She had to focus. The clippers were rechargeable, a must if the occasionally traveled with you to the bedroom, and that meant that they might still have a charge. She checked behind the docking station and came up with a handful of plastic guards. She thought for a moment of just running the bare blade over he scalp, but decided against it. She had to leave this placed tonight and who knew where she would end up? It was getting cold out. She had to stay practical and a little fur was the way to go. She snapped a guard on at random and took a deep breath…then pressed the switch. The clippers came to life with a powerful whirr and she pressed them to her forehead. Little late for second thoughts, she reflected, and shoved them back over her head. They plowed back into the uneven stalks of hair like a combine and she gasped as her scalp emerged. The clippers left a perfect two inch wide trail down the center of her head. She touched the stubble and gasped. She’d used the number one guard and left an eighth inch of pale red on across her scalp. It was a sensual feeling, completely incongruous with her circumstances, but she couldn’t help that. At least it would all be even. She gingerly pressed on, shaving away the last of her favorite feature, leaving only what had grown up in the last week. Ironically, that’s when the first reports had started to drift in of a national plague, “The Dead Walking;” Romero Syndrome, one reporter called it.
Katelyn stroked the clippers back again and again, denuding her head, her bare scalp peeking through the bristles in the pale morning light. She finished the top and moved to the ragged sides, starting at her sideburn and mowing a line of even, glistening fine hairs up to her hair line. She moved around to the back working carefully by feel, mindful of the torn section that was still raw and painful just above the occipital bone. The clippers began to sputter as she made a second sweep of her head. She was shorn already, but the warm, vibrating machine was comforting, a thing of the past. They slowly coughed to a halt and became just another dead thing in a world slowly hemorrhaging into a long, but far from peaceful sleep. She avoided her reflection in the mirror until she had drawn a basin of brackish water from the spluttering tap, then she washed herself as best she could. She mopped off the blood and the dead, clinging hair, feeling the springy hair beneath her fingers as she massaged her sore scalp. It revived her a bit, breathed life through the shock and numb that had enveloped her since she had stood beside her lover at an ancient stone wall to defend their property, their lives, their love against a ravaging world. She looked in the mirror. A fierce, nude soldier met her eyes, her body toned an taught, her red hair a shadow across her head. She let her hands play over the stubble, then down across her face and shoulders and breasts, becoming reacquainted with herself. She felt along the muscles of her abdomen, stroked the downy hair between her thighs, and imagined Robert’s hands exploring these curves many times, saw him so clearly for a moment that she felt tears in her eyes again. But that time was passed.
Katelyn Mears reentered her bedroom and scrounged for some clothes. She chose a close fitting T-shirt, khaki cargo pants, and a heavy flannel over shirt. She found her hiking boots amid her discarded things in the bathroom and slipped back into them. She looked down for a last time at the piles of auburn hair. The remnants of her old life. A part of her that was dead, but never to rise. It was a comforting thought, somehow. She squared her shoulders and made for the stairs, planning what she would need to take to make it across town. That was the extent of her plan for now: find others, find some shelter, move and keep moving. She clumped down the first few stairs and heard something clang in the kitchen. Somebody was in the house. A thud. The sound of a shuffling foot. A familiar footfall, even it was slow and dragging. Robert.
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