the last disgusting wretch away when Gary showed up beside me.
“Need some help?” he asked.
“How long you been watching?” I asked.
“About half an hour.”
“Nice. I think I can finish this off on my own.”
“Did you hear that?” Gary asked as the body I was pulling was making excessively loud squishy noises. I did not dwell on what could be causing it.
I stood up straight, I wanted to cup my ear to get a better grasp on any incoming sound, but I’d be damned if I was bringing those gloves anywhere near my head.
“I didn’t hear anything. What was it?”
“Gunshot.”
“Just one?”
“That’s all I heard, but it was impossible to hear much beyond your bellyaching about moving these zombies.”
“You could have helped.”
“Could have.”
“Fine, smart-ass, any idea which direction the shot came from?”
“Best guess is back that way,” Gary said, pointing to the side and back of Mary’s backyard.
“You think it’s Paul and them?” I asked, hoping, although how would he know?
“My guess is probably. Haven’t heard much of anything since we pulled into this town and now a gunshot.”
“I’m going to check it out.” I had made the decision there and then.
“Well, let me get some stuff.”
“I didn’t mean to volunteer you too.”
“That’s alright. I feel like doing something.”
“Helping me move all these zombies would have been helpful.”
“Probably would have,” Gary said as he headed back to the house to go and grab a few supplies.
I dropped the gloves on top of the last zombie I moved. I swear I could feel microbes crawling around on top of my skin, looking for a particularly large pore to gain access into my system so that they could wreak their havoc. Nothing short of a bath in bleach was going to make me feel any better.
“You alright?” Gary asked, coming back a few moments later.
He handed me a bottle of liquid, anti-bacterial hand soap. I contemplated kissing him.
“I’m with you if you want to go, but are you so sure this is a good idea?” Gary asked.
I knew what he meant, we were low on ammo, it was nighttime and we weren’t really sure what we were walking towards. “Nothing else going on.”
“That’s the spirit,” he said sarcastically. “Why did BT think staying with you was a good idea?”
“Beats me. Let’s go and be careful.”
“Did you really think you needed to add that last part? Were you afraid I might start singing or something?”
“Sorry, it’s just something I added with the kids all the time, it’s second nature, kind of like saying ‘bless you’ when someone sneezes.”
“It’s nothing like that,” Gary said huffily. “It was commonly believed in the middle ages that when a person sneezed that they could potentially let a demon into their body and corrupt their soul, that was why people responded with God bless you. It would keep the demons from taking hold inside.”
“Okay,” I answered confusedly. Gary still looked peeved. “You still believe in the demons part?” I asked him cautiously.
“It was rooted in some truth!” he said heatedly.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Can we go check the noise out now?”
“Just make sure you say God bless you and not just bless you or you are not conveying the true meaning of the message. That shit really infuriates me.”
“And yet I’m labeled as the crazy one. I demand a recount.”
“Just go. I told Josh I’d read him a story when we got back.”
“He’s a good kid,” I said absently.
“So’s his mom,” Gary said.
“A good kid?” I asked, turning to face him as we came to the end of Mary’s backyard.
“I meant good person.”
“Oh no, you’re falling in love. I’ve seen that look before, we’ve known them less than two days.”
“The heart cares not for such trivial matters as time.”
“Gary, her ex-husband could still be alive and even if he is zombie chow, he’s only been gone a few months.”
“Time is less significant now, Mike. Nobody’s planning their summer vacations anymore, they’re planning out how to get their next meal or where the safest place to sleep is. Nobody gives a shit about the Monday morning commute anymore. It’s all about the basest of all human instincts.”
“Sex?” I asked.
“Survival,” he corrected. “Could you please get your thoughts to a loftier perch?”
“But our survival depends on sex, procreation.”
“What possessed Mom to have a fifth kid?” Gary asked the heavens. “How can you take something so beautiful as love and debase it?”
“You’re like the sister I never had,” I told him. “You can cook AND you have feelings.”
“Feel this,” he said as he smacked me upside the head.
“Can we maybe get going again?” I asked as I rubbed my head. “You even hit like a girl.”
We crossed through Mary’s neighbor to the back and then through their yard and onto the street.
“It was further away,” Gary said as I turned to him.
“Man, it’s quiet,” I said, turning back around. “I wish we could hear gunshots. At least, we’d know where to go.”
“Or where to avoid,” Gary added more prudently.
“Or that,” I said to him, not really agreeing.
Chapter Eighteen
Paul slowly moved down the roadway, constantly weighing his decision. More than once he had stopped and pondered going back.
“How dangerous is she really?” Paul asked himself on more than one occasion. “She saved my life. But she shot Brian and somehow got him bitten. She’s a snake that lies in the grass, waiting to strike her unsuspecting victims.” That was usually enough to get him moving.
Mrs. Deneaux was not worried in the least about her secret getting out. Paul was a dead man stumbling, she thought. She even allowed herself a laugh at her pun. Still, she was not fond of loose ends. More than once, they had come back in her long and storied life to add some disruption to her plans. She reasoned with herself that she was down to four rounds and why waste one on him when the zombies or something equally as deadly would save her the much-needed bullet. “A ferocious hamster could take him out right now.” She laughed again, and long- buried, stale lung smoke ventured out her nose as she chortled.
