Lily tongued her cheek. “Excuse the fuck outta me, Miss Trailer Park Queen,” she snapped.
“Bitch, what you just call me?!” the woman shrieked, and took another step forward.
Maddox grabbed her around the waist, and Lily moved towards her too, but Ace caught her wrist to stop her.
“Ladies, as much as my redneck heart would love to see a full-on catfight,” Ace drawled, “we have a situation on our hands.”
The dealer pulled his pouting woman against him, brushing her bangs off of her forehead. “He’s right baby,” he cooed. “Why don’t you go smoke a bowl and calm down?”
She glared at Lily before snaking her arms around Maddox’s neck, practically devouring his mouth in a show of possessiveness before flouncing off into the trailer, slamming the door behind her.
“Still slumming it, I see,” Lily said dryly.
Ace pinched her shoulder, shaking his head. She rolled her eyes, but kept her mouth shut.
One of the pie-eyed guys, presumably Henry, stared wide-eyed at Dante’s face, and Tate smacked him in the back of the head.
“Boy, it ain’t polite to be starin’!” he hissed. “Man’s been through some shit, just let him be with it.” He looked apologetically at Dante, who responded with a nod.
“I’m…” Henry stammered, shaking his head and looking at the ground. “I’m sorry, sir.”
Dante smiled softly. “It’s all right.”
“Who’s your new friend here, Ace?” Maddox asked.
“Oh, him?” the redneck motioned to his large friend. “This is Dante. He’s a big ole badass who found his way to my doorstep.”
Maddox stepped up, cocking his head. “Big ole badass, huh?” he asked. “So what makes you so big and bad?”
“I’m humble,” Dante replied with a smirk, “so you’ll just have to stick around and watch me in action.”
The dealer chuckled. “Okay, come on now, I’m gonna need more than that,” he drawled. “Like what would you do if I grabbed your—” He snatched a fistful of Dante’s shirt, and the bigger man smacked his arm away, catching him around the throat with his free hand.
Maddox blinked up at him in shock and then grinned.
Tate rubbed his forehead, shaking his head.
“Yep,” Maddox choked out, “pretty good.”
“I think my dumbass brother gets the point,” Tate suggested, scratching the back of his head.
Dante smirked and let go.
Maddox sucked in a lungful and coughed before giving him a thumbs up. “I like him,” he said hoarsely, and then cleared his throat. “Okay. So, you wanna tell me what you’re doing down here? I’m guessing with your zombie comment it’s not because you need drugs.”
“We’ve just been referring to them as zombies since it’s as good an explanation as any,” Ace explained.
Tate cocked his head. “What makes you say that?” he asked.
“Have you not been paying attention to what’s going on out there?” Lily demanded, motioning over her shoulder.
Henry shook his head slowly. “Not since the news went dead a couple days ago, man,” he drawled. “We’ve been locked up tight here ever since.”
“So you don’t know about the bites?” she asked, furrowing her brow.
Maddox shrugged. “I mean, we know those things try to bite,” he replied. “But what about ‘em?”
“The people who get bitten are infected,” Dante explained. “When they die, they come back.”
“Hence, zombie,” Ace added.
Maddox wrinkled his nose. “Good thing we didn’t let ole Chucky bite us, then,” he said.
“Who’s Chucky?” Dante asked.
Maddox and his brother shared a look, and Tate nodded.
“Come on,” the dealer said, motioning for them to follow, “there’s something you need to see.”
He led the group down a trail through the woods. They walked a couple hundred yards until they reached a shack that was no bigger than ten by ten yards squared. There were a couple of windows that were closed, and the door had been boarded up.
“Our uncle used to live here back in the eighties,” Tate explained. “Went abandoned for quite a while after his death. Then we started using it before upgrading our digs.”
Lily rolled her eyes. “Impressive,” she mocked. “So why did you bring us down here?”
Maddox opened his mouth, giving her the side-eye, but Tate spoke up, pointing.
“Look in the window,” he said.
The three stepped up to the window, peering into the dim ransacked space.
“Looks about how I would expect Maddox to live,” Lily muttered.
He pursed his lips, ignoring her, and knocked on the glass. A second later, a zombie emerged from the shadows, shambling towards the window. It didn’t have any visible bite marks and looked clean save for the decaying skin.
“Is there anything wrong with him?” Dante asked.
Maddox raised an eyebrow. “You mean, besides being dead as fuck?”
“I mean with his legs,” Dante replied, pointing. “Could he run before?”
The dealer nodded emphatically. “Oh hell yeah,” he replied. “A couple days ago he said he wasn’t feeling well and asked if he could crash out in the cabin. We came down a few hours later to check on him and he ran like a fucking Olympic sprinter, smacking into the windows.”
“We got bored and started having fun with him,” Tate added, “baiting him to keep running around the cabin like a crazy person.”
Dante cocked his head. “When did he slow down?” he asked.
“Started getting gimpy yesterday, and frankly just took all the fun out of it,” Maddox said with a sigh.
Dante and Ace shared a pointed look.
“Hey now, don’t go getting all judgy on us now,” Tate drawled, pointing a finger at the visiting redneck. “Especially with all the shit you’ve pulled over the years.”
Ace shook his head. “Nah, it’s not that,” he said, waving a hand. “We think they’re slowing down.”
The stoners looked at each other, confused.
“Okay, you guys are going to have to start from the beginning,” Maddox piped up. “Because it feels like we’re coming in halfway through.”
Henry slowly raised his hand, looking nervous. Nobody knew quite how to react until Dante finally pointed at him.
“Um… yes?” he asked.
The stoner chewed his lip for a moment, with his hand still in the air. “Why don’t
