Joey couldn’t have been less suspicious when he walked around looking at Ellie’s desk and scratching his head. Joey said, “Ellie, do you have a crayon at your desk?”
Ellie knew damn well he knew they didn’t and said, “No, Joey, after we lost Lou, we got rid of all the crayons, sorry. Would a pen work for you?”
“Geez I don’t know, those tips on them could hurt my hand if I went and missed the paper.”
“Well, what do you need it for? Is it something I can help with?”
“How are you with big words?”
“Like how big?” Ellie asked.
Joey seemed to be looking at an imaginary word in his head and held out his thumb and index finger a few inches apart. Mark, who didn’t have the patience for teens or many people in life which is why he spent the majority of his time happily in a lab nerding it up and doing his thing with no complaints, said, “Christ, so maybe you could tell me when they get…”
Joey cut him off saying, “Mr. Mark, sorry I don’t know your last name but my mom always said it isn’t polite to interrupt others. I don't know if you didn’t know that.”
“Yes, I did know that. You don’t think you might go find your mother on base so I can talk with Ellie, please. This might be a bit over your head, young man.”
Joey never broke the act not even for a millisecond, the more this guy gave him to play with the more line he was going to pull off his reel. “Ellie, oh my gosh, my mom isn’t here is she, she isn’t on base, is she? Did Mark see them when they were flying in maybe?”
“No Joey, I promise your mom isn’t on base.”
Mark said, “Was his mother abusive?”
“She and my dad tried to eat my sister and brother and me. We barely escaped with our lives. We probably wouldn’t have made it if Ellie and Shaun and Mr. Clary and everyone hadn’t stopped to pick us up in Adel. It was one of the scariest days of my life. I couldn’t believe that we’d gotten out of the car, let alone gotten somewhere safe...as safe as you can be during a zombie apocalypse.”
“And that is why we don’t bring up people’s pasts if it isn’t important to the conversation. We also don’t assume things about people. Got it?” Ellie instructed.
Joey asked, “So, do you think that you might be able to write down what you need, Mr. Mark?”
“I don’t see the point?”
“Oh, don’t worry, I can’t spell big words either.”
“It isn’t an issue with length Joey, it is that it won’t do you any good.”
“That’s what she said,” Joey replied to an obviously frustrated Mark.
“That’s what she said, what?”
“That’s what she said about your length.”
Ellie said, “We don’t have much to watch with the world ending, Joey found a boxset of The Office, it is just a reference to his favorite character, Michael.”
Joey said, “So how about you get to writing.”
“Again, I don’t see the point.”
Joey said, “You write down what you need, and Ellie and I can go get it.”
“Just the two of you? I’m sure you’d need me to go with you, you’ll never be able to…”
“Thanks for thinking I’m not able to do anything, I really appreciate it, Mr. Mark, but believe it or not, even someone like me can spell. I probably can’t spell any of your drugs and chemicals that you need but I bet no one else here could either. If you write it down, I’ll make sure that everything on the paper matches.”
“You kids are going to need adult supervision if you are leaving the base. I wouldn't feel right sending you off to go and do something that I should be a part of. I would feel horrible if something happened to you going out and getting the things that I needed.”
“We all need them, Mr. Mark. If you can kill those zombies with them, then we want to get it going as soon as possible. Now, if you don’t think your formula works, then let's wait. But if you think you can kill a couple zombies without bullets then let’s rock and roll. I hate guns and don’t shoot them.”
“That makes two of us.”
Joey replied, “No, that makes one of us, because I don’t know how to make that stuff and you do. So, unless you wanna write down how to do it really quick in a way that anyone can understand then you might be just smart to keep yourself here, Mr. Mark. How does that sound?”
Mark realized quite quickly that this teenager seemed to be a helluva lot brighter all of a sudden than he had let on just a few minutes ago. He could feel his blood pressure and annoyance level at this beginning to soar higher than he was used to and probably higher than was healthy too. Ellie said, “You might as well give up, Mark. I agree with him; you can’t be risked. We try to be optimistic, but we never know who is going to come back when they roll out those gates. I mean, think about the dead and what they are capable of. Have you seen a lot of humans? It is going to make for some very hungry and angry Turned out there to contend with.”
“So, I just write down a list and you guys go get them. Is that about it, and are you stunted in growth? You talk like a forty-year-old woman.”
“I got to grow up fast. But yeah, that’s about it. We can go to a
