others. He’d been the first.
That was the first time I had the idea that maybe if I could find and take out Mason that all of this would stop. It worked for vampires, in some movies, so why wouldn’t it work for zombies? It worked in
Regardless, after a quick glance at Tamara’s body lying there in the dirt I turned to Washington. “What’s the plan, Wash?”
“I thought you had the plan, Duke?”
“We’re at the limits of my plan, Wash. There are nine of us. There’s nowhere to go that would hold the nine of us safely. The House was the only place that could do that. I think we need to split up.”
He looked at me incredulously. “Split up? That’s insanity, Duke. Our best defense is to stick together.” His lips continued moving after he was done speaking. My flesh crawled. He wasn’t going to make it too much longer.
The burly man laughed humorlessly.
I looked at him sourly. And then looked round at Wash and his men. “The only thing we can all do together is die together. This big of a group will attract the zombies.” I shook my head. “I don’t know if they’re attracted to the noise we make or if they can somehow sense our,” I waved my hands, trying to find the right word, “life force. Our essence. Whatever. But I think a huge group of us together is like giving them a big all you can eat buffet. They can’t stay away from it. I think if him,” I pointed at the burly guy, “and a couple of the others want to try for town they should. Maybe they can get there and send help. Then I think the rest of us should hunker down and wait til daylight. We’ll be better able to fight in the light of day.”
Wash looked hurt. “Duke? Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” I laughed. “Deadly serious.”
“Fine,” the burly man said. He turned to the others. “Clark? Walter? Remy? You guys with me?”
They nodded at him. He turned to look back at me and Wash, pity on his face. “We’ll send someone back for you, if you’re still alive.”
They took off at a slow run, checking all the corners and making sure they weren’t running directly into a pack of zombies. It didn’t take more than 10 seconds for them to pass from sight. Wash stood there with his mouth open, staring off at them and alternating between looks at them and at me. You could see the surprise and confusion on his face. Somewhere in the middle back there – maybe the moment we’d left the House – he’d lost the semblance of leadership.
He finally turned to look at me fully. “There’s five of us left now, Duke. What’s the plan? Hunker down and wait to die?”
I shook my head. “No. The first part is right. We’ll hunker down. But I have no plans to die.”
I looked at the two other unknowns. Both of their faces were etched with worry. “What are your names, guys?”
The first one, shockingly tall and built like a beanpole, mousy-brown hair and a patchy beard on his face, said, “Call me Shaggy.”
“Shaggy? Seriously?”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding solemnly. “It’s been my nickname since I was 14.” He grinned a mouth mostly empty of teeth at me. “It’s grown on me.”
A ghost of a grin of my own crossed my face and I looked at the other one. He was short, maybe 5’ 5”. A little thick through the middle, but his arms were as big around as car tires. He was covered in dark patches of hair and his dark eyes barely showed through his untrimmed beard. He said, “My name’s Kevin.”
“No big nickname?”
He shook his wild hair. “Nope. Nothing anyone’s ever lived to repeat.”
“All right, then.” I looked back over at Wash. “Any good ideas where the five of us can hole up?”
He shook his head disgustedly. “Any trailer’s as good as any other. Just a bunch of crappy tin cans.” He walked a few feet away from us, put his gun in the crook of his arm and the next thing I knew he unzipped his pants and started pissing. Shaking his head and muttering to himself as he whizzed on the ground.
I looked at the others, but they both shook their heads at me at shrugged. Great. I had to be the brains of the operation again. I sighed and looked at Fannie Mae. She shrugged at me, too. Still keeping my eyes locked on hers I said, “Maybe we can do my trailer then. It’s fairly secure and it’s at the edge of the Acres.”
Fannie Mae shook her head at me quickly, trying to tell me something with her eyes. Oh, yeah. Mom.
“Maybe that’s not such a good idea,” I said again, thoughtfully. “Fannie Mae only lives a couple trailers down from mine. Do you think that would work?” I asked her.
She nodded and said quietly, “Yeah, I think so. I locked it up when I came over earlier. It should be okay.”
I looked at the others: Wash, Shaggy, and Kevin. “Does that work for you guys?”
Shaggy just shrugged his shoulders and smiled toothlessly. Kevin didn’t bother to make a response. Wash zipped up and came back over and looked at me steadily. “If you think we’ll be safe there, Duke. I trust you.” I felt a niggling of doubt in the back of my head at the lies I’d said and the plan that was formulating inside of me. But I ignored it. What further choice did we have?
“I think we’ll be as safe there as anywhere, Wash.”
He nodded at me.
We finally got moving again. Staying in that one spot for so long had been giving me the willies so bad that I think my nuts had crawled back inside of my body. Seriously. It was uncomfortable to walk. Every hair on my body stood up in constant anticipation of being attacked. I had no idea how long the human body could stay at this heightened level of awareness and adrenaline but I figured I’d be crashing at some point and I’d much rather crash
