Zombie Fallout 5: Alive in a Dead World (30 page)

Chapter
Nineteen – Mike Journal Entry 11

“It couldn’t have been much further than
this,” Gary said as we came to our fifth street.

“You know the way back?” I asked, just now
thinking about that small fact.

“I’ve been leaving bread crumbs,” he answered
quickly.

“Okay, Hansel.”

“Don’t worry, I know the way.”

“I was more concerned with me. If we have to
run, I want to know which way to go because you obviously won’t be
able to keep up.”

“I guess you’d just better not leave me
behind this time.”

We had been walking up the road, my guess
would have been in a northerly direction, but that would have been
merely a guess. I always feel like whichever direction I’m walking
is north. When we saw a bloody body in the road, Gary grabbed my
shoulder to keep me from getting closer.

“That’s probably what I heard,” Gary
whispered.

My heart was sinking, the clothing looked
familiar. We were edging closer, keeping a close lookout for the
shooter.

Gary had stopped his forward progress.

“What’s up?” I asked him softly, looking
around. We were both in crouched positions, trying to make
ourselves as small a target as possible. But we were in the middle
of the road, so we were pretty much fair game if someone were so
inclined.

“I think that’s Brian,” Gary said trying to
suppress some gagging.

“I think you’re right. Stay here and cover my
back.”

Gary nodded, his mouth closed tightly.

I moved closer, trying to get into as small a
ball of humanity as possible. I could see the bullet’s entry into
the base of the skull. I dreaded what I had to do next. I mean the
body had, I think, the same clothes on as Brian, but I wasn’t
completely sure. It’s just not something I pay all that much
attention to. I placed my boot under his left hip and kept my rifle
aimed at his head. I then turned the body over. The left side of
Brian’s face was missing, the only way I knew it was Brian was
because the right side was in remarkably good shape.

“Fuck,” I said. It really seemed like the
only fitting thing to say.

“Is that him?” Gary asked from his vantage
point.

I nodded.

“Shit,” he said.

I agreed wholeheartedly.

When I could tear my gaze away from his
destroyed face, I began to take in other details. The one remaining
eye was opaque and his skin was gray. Yes, I knew he was dead, but
there was a difference to the skin tone of the dead and the undead.
I had been around enough of both to unfortunately become a resident
expert.

“He was a zombie,” I told Gary as I came back
to where he was standing.

“Shit,” Was all Gary had to say again. I’m
thinking that if he said more, he would have to keep his mouth
open, and any longer, and more than words would come out.

I wondered what happened to Paul and Deneaux?
“How the hell am I going to tell Cindy this?”

“We’re still not out of the woods ourselves;
you might not have to,” was Gary’s dour reply. He was not accepting
this new wrinkle very well and far be it for me to blame him.

“Michael?” I heard from further up the
road.

“Deneaux?” I asked, as Gary turned
around.

He pointed to a lady standing on a porch step
about three houses up.

“Is Paul with you?” I asked as I
approached.

I could see her head shaking as I got
closer.

“What happened?” I asked as I got to her.

She related her story about how Brian was
shot during the initial ambush and that Paul had left them to go
get antibiotics. While they were waiting, they had been attacked by
zombies, Brian had been bitten and she had run for her life. She
had not seen Paul since she had found this house. She had been
staring out the window when Brian had come. She had called to him,
but when she realized he was a zombie, she had shot him.

***

Her story had holes and the house she was in
just about screamed “liar,” but I couldn’t figure out why and I
didn’t want to yet call her on it.

“Big fan of peanut butter?” I asked her
innocently as Gary and she sat at the kitchen table. I was walking
around looking at the counter.

She was playing the part of a grieving woman,
but it did not fit the true Deneaux I had come to know and
loathe.

“I can’t really stand it, gets stuck in my
bridge work,” she said as she turned to look at me, holding the
near empty peanut butter jar and oversized spoon.

“Previous occupant,” she said without missing
a beat, turning back to Gary.

The spoon was still wet with the saliva of
the previous occupant. She was spinning a web and I was willing to
let her until she wrapped herself up in it and choked.

I could see the necessity of shooting Brian.
He was no longer human, but if she had called to him like she said,
she would have had to shoot him in the face, not the back of the
head. Why lie about that part? It made no sense.

“You haven’t seen Paul since he left to get
the meds?” I asked her again.

“Really, Michael, how often do I need to keep
explaining myself? If you weren’t going to listen the first three
times, maybe you should have just saved us both some time and told
me that,” she said, never turning to face me. She was holding
Gary’s hands for comfort.

Something reeked here and it wasn’t even a
zombie.

“Gary, will you help Mrs. Deneaux get her
stuff and then we’ll head back to Mary’s?”

“Sure what are you going to do?” he
asked.

“I want to do a quick once-over through the
house and see if there is anything worth grabbing.”

“We should just get going,” Mrs. Deneaux
said. “There have been zombies around all night. We might not get
away from here if we stay much longer.”

Gary looked over to me. “I’ll risk it,” I
told her.

For the briefest of seconds, she sneered at
me. If I had blinked, I would have missed it.

I went through the house. It had been
ransacked. Someone had been here before, but there wasn’t anything
to substantiate whether it was Paul or Deneaux; and besides a few
hypo-allergenic pillows, there really wasn’t anything we could
use.

“Isn’t this Paul’s rifle?” Gary asked as he
handed her the rifle and we got ready to leave.

“He gave it to me when he went to look for
the medicine,” she said as she grabbed the gun.

I couldn’t help myself. “Bullshit! He left
giving you his only means of defense?”

“I offered him my pistol; he said he was more
apt to hurt himself than anyone else,” she said.

“Let’s go,” I said, not wanting to question
her anymore. Now we both knew I had my suspicions about her. The
question was, what was she going to do about it?

Gary led the way, Deneaux in the middle, and
me at the end, more to keep an eye on her than anything else.

We saw one band of five speeding zombies,
which we did not engage; we stayed hidden behind a motor home. They
were running at a full sprint, in the opposite direction from which
we had come. They very much looked like they had dinner
reservations and they were running late, I saw absolutely no reason
to alter their dining plans.

Within twenty minutes, we were back at Mary’s
stoop, once again arguing with her over whether or not she should
let us in.

It was actually a good showing from Deneaux
that got the door open.

“Oh dear, I feel rather faint,” she said as
she began to fan herself with her hand. “I haven’t eaten in days
and I’ve just been so scared,” she said, shivering.

She was actually quite good at the
grandmother card, although I’m almost completely sure nothing could
have survived in that frozen womb of hers to be born, hatched
perhaps, but not born.

“You poor thing! Come on in,” Mary said,
opening the door and ushering the woman in. “What kind of savages
are you two that you would make her carry this heavy rifle?” Mary
said, grabbing the gun from an unwilling Deneaux’s hands. I
suddenly felt much safer.

Josh, who had been watching from the kitchen,
went upstairs when he saw Deneaux come in. I knew the kid was
smart; this just proved me right. Deneaux made a great show of
sitting down heavily on one of Mary’s chairs.

“Oh you poor thing! Let me get you some
food,” Mary said, retreating to her pantry.

“He’s here?” Deneaux asked, pointing to the
slumbering BT.

“Does that somehow interfere with your
plans?” I asked.

“Relax, Michael. I was merely asking a
question,” Deneaux said, smiling, I think happy that she was making
me so upset.

“Listen, I know you’re covering something up,
and if I find out that something happened to my friend because of
you, I’ll leave you on the side of the road. Do you believe me?” I
told her, now standing over her, my finger pointing directly at her
face.

“Oh, I do believe you would, but I’ve already
told you, I have not seen your precious friend since he left
us.”

“What’s going on?” Mary asked as she came
back, with a tray, an MRE and some utensils.

I walked away, heading up to where Josh had
safely retreated.

“Just a misunderstanding,” Mrs. Deneaux said,
warmly thanking Mary for the food.

I heard Gary ask Mary how BT had been and her
reply that he had slept the whole time, before I made it to the top
of the stairs.

“She’s fucking scary,” Josh said, peeking his
head out of his bedroom.

“Yes, she is, and I don’t think you’re
supposed to be swearing.”

“I’d rather face that Eliza lady than
her.”

I thought about it for a second. “No, you
wouldn’t. Close, but no, you wouldn’t.”

Chapter Twenty

“Mike, where the hell are you?” Paul asked as he hunched down by
some trashcans. He had heard something moments earlier and nearly
wet his pants when an angry raccoon came out from a row of hedges
to claim its trash barrels.

“Sorry, fella. These yours?” Paul asked as he
grunted to get away from the large animal. A rabies bite from the
raccoon would be just as fatal and more painful than a zombie bite.
Paul backed away carefully, making sure the animal did not crazily
charge him. He fell over a long-unclaimed bag of trash. The smell
of old diapers and moldy cabbage assailed his nostrils.

“Couldn’t be an old florist shop. No, had to
be a damn daycare or something,” Paul said as he began to stand up.
His eye caught something moving on his peripheral, but it was not
the raccoon. The animal had taken off, sensing a greater predator
than Paul in the neighborhood.
It sucks not being on top of the
food chain anymore,
Paul thought as he looked past the trash
cans to five rapidly approaching zombies.

He knew if he so much as clenched his
asshole, he would wrinkle the trash bag under him and the zombies
would come his way. He wasn’t yet sure that they hadn’t already
seen him.

The zombies passed by less than twenty feet
away. Paul relaxed somewhat as they began to head off. The small
release in tension caused his arm to slip, pushing his elbow down
onto a soda can. Paul held his breath as the can popped. He could
still hear the zombies’ footfalls heading away and felt like he had
dodged a bullet until he craned his head to find the best way to
get up and saw one lone zombie staring straight at him. Its head
tilted like a dog’s does when it’s trying to figure out what it is
looking at.

The zombie started to approach. The
blending-in-with-garbage trick was not going to work anymore. Paul
thought about turning to run, but right now, he wouldn’t be able to
out distance a deader. He once again adopted the pose of the
fighter as he got on his tender feet. “What are the chances that
another bullet saves my ass?” Paul asked the heavens as the zombie
ran towards him.