Ell and I exchanged an uncertain look.
“Oh, c’mon,” the man said. “You got the gun and the knife. I’m a scrappy fighter, I won’t lie, but not when my brains are leaking outta my head. Plus, how many are ya, four?”
“Five,” Ell corrected. “Including our dog.”
“Five, okay. Well, I’m outnumbered, ain’t I?”
Ell leaned closer to me, and whispered, “I don’t care what we do, Grady, but I wanna get somewhere warm.”
The man cocked a thumb at the theater up the road. “That’s my HQ. We can weather the dark together, and come first light, I’ll take a look at your snowmobile. See what I can do. And let me tell y’all this, there ain’t an engine I can’t fix. I promise ya that.”
It sounded nice, I’ll admit, and aside from shooting at us, the man didn’t give off bad vibes like Bob Ballard had. But the decision ultimately came down to the group.
“Give us a minute,” I said, motioning Ell toward Stone and Mia while I kept the rifle trained on the stranger.
Stone leaned farther out of his open door. “He’s inviting us to stay with him?” He laughed. “Yeah, right.”
“I mean, his place is right there.” I patted the rifle. “I’ve got the weapon. But he seems all right to me.”
“Me too,” Ell said. “Kinda sweet, actually. I mostly just feel bad for him.”
“That’s probably because you busted his head open with Stone’s crutch,” Mia said. “Yeah, we saw it.”
Ell shrugged.
Ignoring this, Stone raised his voice. “You guys can’t be serious. This dude fucking shot at us.”
“Well…” I said, “to be fair, he shot upward, like he was trying to scare us off as opposed to killing us.”
Stone bowed his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked back at Ell and me after a few seconds. “You get this dumbass expression on your face whenever you wanna do something stupid, Grady. Did you know that?”
“You’ve reminded me a few times, yeah.”
“Have we learned nothing?” Stone said. “Do you want to go through another Woodhaven situation?”
“He’s not infected,” Ell said.
I kept not only my eyes on the guy standing in the snow a few feet away, but the gun too. Aside from keeping his head on a swivel, he hadn’t moved.
Stone’s upper body jolted as he chuckled. “Bob wasn’t infected either, not in a way we were familiar with.” He drew an imaginary line between his eyes.
“What are the odds of running into two people like Bob this close together?” Mia asked.
“Fuck if I know, but I don’t wanna find out.” Stone’s brow wrinkled. “Do you guys?”
Eleanor leaned closer. “Listen, I don’t want another Woodhaven situation as much, if not more, than any of you. But I’m freezing and Mia’s pregnant—”
“As hell,” Mia interjected. She seemed comfortable despite that, reclining as far as her seat allowed, petting Chewy beneath his many blankets.
“Yeah, she’s pregnant as hell, and we’re gonna need the other snowmobile to get to the City.”
“Crazy or not,” I added, “the guy’s right about not getting far with all of us piled in this piece of junk. Remember the short trip from the Woodhaven Motel to Bob’s house? We moved about five miles per hour.”
Stone took a deep breath, exhaling a white cloud of vapor. He knew I was right, and I could always tell how that annoyed him. I could also tell when he was going to give in, and this, too, was verging on one of those times.
I patted him on the shoulder. “It all comes to risk, buddy. The way we’re living now, you can’t escape it. It factors into everything we do, no matter how small. Right?” Stone glared at me, opened his mouth to argue, but I raised a hand from the rifle, stopping him before he could get started. “Hey, I’ve listened to your countless rants about Tom & Jerry and horror movies. Least you could do is hear me out.”
He rolled his eyes. “Fine. You’re right—about the risk, I mean.”
“I know I am. What I’m saying is, no matter what we do, there’s a risk. So it comes down to what’s the bigger risk. You think I really wanna share a room with the dude who could’ve put a bullet through one of your guys’ brains? Hell to the no I don’t, but I’d much rather take my chances against him than an army of monsters.”
Silence except for the wind as Ell, Mia and I, and even Chewy, waited for Stone’s response.
“Damn it,” he finally said. “Fine. But when we’re dead, I’m gonna rub it in your face so hard.”
“Wow,” Ell exclaimed. “What a wonderful mindset.”
Stone offered half a shrug.
I gave Ell a quick shake of the head. “Don’t pay any attention to him. He likes being right more than he likes living.”
In the circle of light, the man raised a hand our way. “Uh, yeah, excuse me, I don’t wanna be rude here or nothin’ like that...you know, on account of you havin’ my rifle and all, but I think we should get a move-on ASAP.”
“The movie theater right there, correct?” I shouted.
He nodded, squinting against the beams cutting through the darkness. “Yeah. It ain’t much, but I’ve been livin’ there a long time and I like to think I’m all right.”
Besides the occasional mental breakdown, I added silently.
“That’s debatable,” Stone mumbled, the voice to my thoughts.
I backed away from the sled, said, “Wait up a minute while I get him, and follow us,” and then I closed the door before Stone grew even sassier. To Ell, I told her to ride with them, that I could handle the short walk by myself.
She laughed. “Yeah, like you handled being alone earlier.”
“Oh boy, I’ll never hear the end of that one, will I?”
Whirling the crutch like a master swordsman, she shook her head. “Not a chance, babe.”
I sighed. Oh well, it beat the hell out of dying.
The man was on his best behavior throughout the small trek to the movie theater. As we approached it,
