She shuddered, she swallowed, and her stomach plummeted, as if on command, at the words that tumbled out of Joshua’s lips.

“…What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Josh?”

The stomach plummeting was a whisper compared to the insistent pulse climbing up Joshua’s chest, past his throat, and into his ears.

He forced himself out of the doorway. “I-I checked on Terry, like you said to, in the living room, but he’s…Terry’s gone Maeve.”

Maeve threw her sight back to her half-empty suitcase. And then she turned back Joshua, stiffer than the corpse just one floor above them, and said, “...People do tend to die when they crack their skulls on a coffee table.”

Joshua’s hands and lips raced to see who would shake rattle Maeve first. “I mean his body! His body’s gone! When I came down those creepy ass stairs and opened that creaky door to that room he wasn’t there! He wasn’t curled up on the rug but it was still bloody an’ blood was till on the table corner and is till, so, groooo...”

Maeve’s body and mind ceased to tolerate Joshua pushing her back and forth, back and forth, so she pushed him back.

“Get a hold of yourself!” She turned back to her suitcase, forgoing any patience, logic, and order that packing needed. “Just go back to your room, go back to packing, and I’ll deal with it once Moira gets out of the shower.”

Joshua looked to the bathroom door, trembling still. “But, but where did it go? How could it…Who could- “

“I’ll. Take care of it.”

Joshua eventually crawled out the girls’ room back to his and Terry’s room. What was his and Terry’s room.

The next time Maeve looked up from her work, Moira had appeared from the bathroom, looking more ghostly than usual.

Her hair clung to her face, which was red and puffy and squeaky clean thanks to her tears. He hair also dampened her crumpled blouse a bit. She paid it no mind. “I heard shouting, is everything alright?”

Maeve looked down again. “About as alright as this situation can get.”

Moira said nothing; Maeve wished she could say the same.

“Terry’s been moved.”

Moira grew paler. “What?”

Maeve rubbed her eyes (They’ve yet to water, she realized.) as she sighed, “While I packed your bag, I sent Josh around the house for anything else we brought along. I made him check the living for that and to…”

“To check on Terry?”

“Yeah.” Maeve chose to ignore the sting in her eyes. “Pointless, but…for some, fucking reason, when he looked again, it was gone. Terry’s body.”

As she processed this response, Moira grew redder and redder. “It...? He’s, he’s been dead for mere hours and you refer to him as ‘it’? Your own brother!”

Wetness relieved Maeve’s stinging as she replied, “Yeah, he’s my fucking brother alright. He’s also dead! That’s not your fault, that’s not anyone’s fault, but it sure as shit don’t look that way! That’s why we have to fucking go.”

“But what about Terry? Where is he!”

The next scream came from neither Maeve nor Moira; it was too far into the living for that to be the case.

“Joshua…?” Moira called as she followed Maeve down the long, narrow hall.

“Josh!” There was no patience in Maeve, only panic as she swung the living room door open, rushed in, and then rushed back out to Moira’s arm. She joined Joshua in screaming.

Moira understood why the moment she walked into the room, Maeve still holding onto her for dear life.

Josh sat on the floor where the left side of the couch should have been. He seemed to have shoved it back as he fell. When he patted the ground he also hit the wet spot Terry’s brain spilled out onto. But he paid it no mind; nothing was more important than scooting far away from the undead figure standing above him.

Terry, or what was once Terry but isn’t anymore, looked up at Moira now, and stared into her soul with glassy eyes. “Myyyyy…raaaaa…”

Despite backing closer and closer toward the door, Moira, Maeve, and Joshua watched with glued gazes as their former friend slowly brought his hand to the gaping hole in his skull.

“Myyyyyy…Hehhhhh…” was all it said before Joshua followed the girls out of the living room and slammed the door behind him.

The trio grasped their own hearts, holding onto each and every ba-thump.

“Well, it looks like we at least found him.”