world in the horde of zombies. They circled around him, ignoring Fannie Mae and me. She got a firm grip on my hand and tugged me away from them, pulling me the opposite direction.
I knew this was why Barrett had done what he’d done, so that we could be saved, but I couldn’t reconcile that in my head. So Fannie Mae dragged me behind her as I watched my best friend in the world being buried in the mass of zombies.
I flashed to meeting Barrett many years ago in school: the rich kid befriending the white trash.
Looking at porn together once when he’d stolen one of his dad’s magazines.
Smoking our first cigarette together and taking our first swig of my mom’s booze together.
Throwing up violently together moments later.
The easy grin on his face as he offered me the keys to his father’s car what seemed an eternity ago.
Tears streamed down my cheeks as he disappeared beneath the pile of zombies and the shotgun blasts finally stopped.
Fannie Mae and I ran and ran and finally came upon the last bastion of sanity in this small corner of hell.
We saw no more zombies on the way. Apparently they were all off doing other things or eating other people. Or eating my best friend Barrett.
The fuckers. All my fault. All my freaking fault.
We finally arrived at the House.
14.
The House blazed with the safety of electric light. They must have had the generator going. Once I thought about the generators all I could hear was their angry motors going off in the silent night. Smoke rose to the sky from the back of the House where the generators ran. As my gaze followed the smoke to the sky I saw the lightning flashing in the distance again. Apparently the storm was coming –soon. I had no doubt the clouds would break tonight and dump the rains on us.
It just seemed like that kind of night.
Fannie Mae was still dragging me behind her, leading me by the hand. Tears streamed down my cheeks and I couldn’t even begin to voice the horror I was feeling. Why would Barrett do such a thing? Why would he sacrifice himself for us? For his friends?
For his friends.
I guess at the end he’d found all the courage he’d ever needed.
We reached the door of the House and Fannie Mae started banging on it, yelling for them to let us in. Less than 30 seconds later the door opened a crack and a gun barrel poked out.
“Who’s there?”
We had run straight there from the shootout and Fannie had half-dragged me the whole way so she was completely out of breath. She finally managed to breathe out, “Fannie Mae Jennsen and Duke Johnson. Please let us in.”
The door opened wide enough to let us in and we stumbled quickly inside. They shut and bolted the door behind us. When I looked around I could see at least five or six different guns pointed directly at us.
Stupid Herbert Jennings sat not thirty feet away from us with a blanket over his shoulders sipping something out of a coffee cup. I got to my feet and held the shotgun threateningly in my hands.
“Stand down, Duke,” said another man from behind the group that had their guns trained on us. He stepped through them and approached me. It was Washington Jones, the manager of Rosie Acres, our trailer park.
He stopped in front of me, getting close enough to force me to point the shotgun at the floor. He put his hand on my shoulder and looked at me with his caring, brown eyes. Washington was one of the only few black (okay, African American) men in the trailer park. Hell, in most of the town if I’m being honest. He’d lived here most of his life and had faced many a tough time against the white trash in town. I’d heard tell that as a young man of 20 when he’d showed up in town that a lot of the men – my father included – had tried to show him the way right back out. He’d stood his ground and gave as much of a beating as he’d taken and somehow won their respect after many years.
He stood about 6’2” and was as thin as a rail. Many of the men had thought that’d made him weak, but he’d beaten men twice his size more than once. His head was shaved bald and shone to a high gloss. Even though he was one of the toughest men in these parts he was also one of the most gentle and there’d been many a kid who’d fallen in the trailer park and been picked up by him.
It was no surprise that he’d be the one leading the men.
“Washington?” I asked, blinking up at him rapidly.
He took me in his arms, the shotgun smashed between us, and I wept like a baby. I felt no shame for it. None at all. I cried for my friends and for the things I couldn’t unsee and the things I’d done.
I don’t know how long I cried or how long we stood there together, but finally my tears slowed to a trickle and I backed slowly away from him. He let me. But he had his hand out for the gun.
I shook my head. “Sorry, Washington, but this is mine.”
He looked at me and I could see him weighing the thoughts in his head and he finally nodded and shrugged, letting me keep the gun. Maybe he saw in my eyes that I wasn’t willing to give it up. I looked over to Fannie Mae, but she’d already hidden Thompson’s gun somewhere on her body and I don’t think any one of them had seen her do it. At least we were armed.
“You want to tell me what happened?” He asked.
I snorted and pointed at Jennings cowering in his little blanket. “I’ll tell you what happened. That coward over there got my best friend killed and shot Mr. Thompson.”
