children, all of which were carrying rifles of varying calibers.
“We are just going for a stroll,” Eliza answered in a sing-song voice, grabbing Tomas’ arm.
“You need to get out of the street!” the woman cried. “There are zombies all over the place!” The woman was dressed in a moo-moo that at one time may have fit, but now billowed in the breeze. Her hair was pulled back tightly, pinching her sagging flesh against her ears.
“Are we truly in danger?” Eliza asked aghast, placing her hand to her breast.
“Is she daft?” the woman asked Tomas.
“Most likely,” Tomas said. Eliza shot him a wicked glance.
“Come in here!” the woman screamed.
Eliza started heading towards the door.
“What are you doing?” Tomas asked.
“She’s inviting us in for dinner, Tomas. It would be rude of us not to accept.”
“They’re just children, Eliza,” Tomas moaned.
“That’s what makes it so special. Come on, Tomas.”
He reluctantly followed.
The woman ushered her children in and began to doubt the wisdom of her graciousness as Eliza strode purposefully closer.
“You ain’t dangerous or nothing are you?” the woman asked with a quiver in her voice.
“My dear we are your worst nightmare,” Eliza said as she crossed over the threshold.
“Please,” The mother begged Tomas.
“It’s too late,” he said softly.
“Don’t be shy,” Eliza said to the mother as she pulled her in. “Some have said I have no heart, but I offer you this,” Eliza told the young mother. “Would you rather I kill you first or your children?”
The woman nearly swooned. Tomas reached out and steadied her.
“Momma, should I shoot her?” the oldest boy asked. He was standing bravely in front of his smaller sister and brother.
“Run, Jacob, run!” the woman screamed.
“Yes, Jacob, run,” Eliza mimicked. “I love the taste of adrenaline in blood it gives it a slight tang I find pleasant upon my palate,” she said as she swept her tongue across her extended canines.
“Not my babies, please not my babies,” the mother begged.
“Come, come. What would become of them if I left them to their own devices?”
Eliza spun to her right a few inches as a rifle round caught her in the shoulder blade.
“That is how you treat guests?” Eliza said as she traversed the room in the span of an eye blink.
Jacob was six inches off the ground suspended from his neck as Eliza gripped him tightly.
“Please!” the mother sobbed as she fell to her knees.
“Finish her, Tomas,” Eliza barked.
“Let us leave, sister.”
“Finish her or I will pop this boy’s head like an over ripened peach.”
Eliza wrapped both her small hands on either side of the Jacob’s head. She was applying so much pressure that the boy’s eyes were beginning to bulge.
“NO!” the mother shrieked. The small boy and his sister were screaming as they watched the whole encounter from midway up the stairs.
The sound of the oldest boy’s skull crushing dominated above all the other din within the room. His face fell in as bone ground against bone, his body twitched spasmodically.
“Jakie!” the little girl screamed as she ran down the stairs. Brain matter leaked through her brother’s ear.
The woman collapsed. Eliza, in one fluid motion, let the boy drop to the ground and plucked the little girl up into the air. She plunged her fangs deep into the girl’s throat and drank heavily. Urine ran in rivulets from the only remaining sibling.
Tomas was straining against his urges as he watched his sister drink her fill. Her eyes never left him as she pulled the life out of the little girl one drop at a time.
“You must eat, brother,” she said to Tomas as she discarded the girl like a used juice box.
The mother was moaning in her unconscious state, her head resting up against Tomas’ leg. The boy watched as Tomas bent down and almost tenderly placed his lips against her neck. The young boy did not move, he did not blink as blood leaked out from around Tomas’ mouth and onto the carpet.
Eliza laughed as she climbed the four stairs to the boy; he placed his thumb in his mouth.
“No, Eliza!” Tomas said forcibly as he stood after getting his fill.
“The mother lives, Tomas, I can smell her stench of life from here. You are doing her no favors by allowing her life.”
“We have eaten, Eliza, why must you torment them?”
“Two of her whelps are dead and she will be weaker than a newborn for the next two days. My zombies are destroying this entire city. They are not nearly as efficient in their feeding as we are, the pain these two will suffer at their hands will be far worse than the end I offer.”
“You don’t get it. You could stop
“How did father tolerate one with such a dramatic disposition?”
“I’m done here,” Tomas said, heading for the door. He waited in the middle of the roadway for another five minutes before Eliza walked out. She wiped the blood off her mouth with her fingers, then licked them clean.
“Don’t be so sad, Tomas, they now live eternally. Come, let us go see what other fun we can have,” she said as she grabbed his arm.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BT and Gary
It was long moments before any of them had calmed down enough from their close encounter of the girth kind. The city shone like a dying sun in the rearview mirror.
“That’s really the end of them,” BT said looking back.
Gary’s eyes were wet with remembrance.
Mrs. Deneaux was subdued, but it was more out of self-preservation than from any type of respect. To her, Brian’s death was a necessity; he died to save her. Paul was an idiot that shouldn’t have made it anyway, and Mike’s demise was more of a stroke of good fortune. She realized that he had more than a sneaking suspicion that she was in some way involved in Brian’s death as well as Paul’s disappearance, and he would have kept pressing the matter. Especially since Paul had been eaten—by cats no less. She smiled as she humored herself with the thought.
“Something funny?” BT asked her.
She hadn’t realized she’d been displaying her mood on the outside. “I’m just happy to be away from there.” she said, recovering smoothly. “I mean safely of course. I am sorry for your loss, Gary,” she said as motherly as she could. It sounded more like a pit viper before it struck a field mouse.
Gary did not hear the tone, only the words. “Thank you,” he practically sobbed. “I...I don’t know how I’m going to tell Tracy, the kids, my father.”
“I’ll be there with you, Gary, we’ll get through it,” BT said as he turned to face him.
“It should have been me, BT,” Gary sniffed heavily.
“Please tell me you do not plan to cry the entire drive to Maine,” Mrs. Deneaux said. When BT turned an evil eye on her she added. “I’m merely looking out for the lad, he won’t be able to see the road properly and he will give himself a truly bad headache.”
