“Isn’t that un-American? Not liking S’mores?” BT asked.
“They make his hands sticky,” Gary said, adding his two cents.
“Think of how many more germs you can pick up with sticky fingers!” I said, trying to defend my position. If making my opponents laugh was victory, then I had defeated them all.
“Didn’t you ever think to lick your fingers off?” Mrs. Deneaux asked.
I shuddered at the thought.
“Wash them off in a stream maybe?” Brian asked, trying to be helpful.
“Ever hear of giardia?” I answered.
“Come on, as a kid you were thinking about a parasite in water that came from the refuse of wildlife?” BT asked.
I nodded. “I read a lot as a kid.”
“Poor bastard,” he said, smiling. “I’ll take first watch. Won’t get much sleep thinking about your S’mores issue anyway.”
I didn’t tell him that since Tomas’ bite, I didn’t feel like I’d ever need to sleep again and could pretty much take every one’s shift without an issue. I decided I’d take the other watches after his. That’s what he gets for making fun of me.
Chapter Six – Mike Journal Entry 5
BT finished up his watch. The sun had long since departed. We had a small flashlight going in the corner of the ten by thirty foot-shed, but it did little to shield us from the darkness within. Every time I even contemplated shutting my eyes, images of the infant from earlier today crept in. I should have just let sleeping zombies lie, so to speak. BT raised the door as quietly as he could, which was still as loud as you would expect a metal rolling door would be. Paul and Brian immediately awoke, Deneaux slept on, snoring like a sailor, (which I guess is an unfair comparison to sailors everywhere because I don’t really know what they sound like when they’re asleep.)
Paul started to get up. “I’ve got it, bud,” I told him.
“You sure, man?” he asked even as his head was traveling back down to its resting spot.
“Can’t sleep anyway. No sense in both of us being up,” I said. He grunted something about thanks, in return, or he belched, sounding just about the same.
“Anything?” I asked BT, who was eyeing my bed longingly.
“I think I heard a couple of cars off in the distance and maybe some gunfire, but it was so far away, I can’t be sure.”
“Thanks, man,” I told him. “Enjoy your beauty rest.”
“You have any phobias about other men sharing your bed?” he asked.
I didn’t answer, I wanted to hold onto some secrets.
“Okay, so I know it’s not because I’m black. Is it because I’m a man?” he asked solemnly.
“BT, I don’t like my kids in my bed,” I told him truthfully.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“Why would I? Like you need some new and improved reason to think I’m nuts?”
BT just shook his head and grabbed the scant bedding remnants not presently being used.
“No retort?” I asked him.
“Talbot, I am so damn tired and I really think I’m beginning to realize the depth of your illness.”
Oh, I doubt it, I thought. “BT, seriously, I’ll be lucky if sleep comes at all tonight, sleep in that bed (I couldn’t, as hard as I tried, say it was “my bed”.)
“You’re cool with that?” he asked. “You’re not going to try and slip in there with me later tonight, are you? I mean, Tracy did leave today.”
Was that just today? Seemed like a sanity ago.
“I think I’ll be able to restrain myself,” I told him.
“Even with this pretty face?” he asked, smiling as he got down onto the sleeping bag. “You’re alright with this?” he asked as he placed his head on my pillow. “Because you look like you’re regretting your decision.”
“I’ll be fine,” I told him as I tried to shut the door more quietly than he had opened it, with far less success.
The night had a distinct chill to it. I could register that fact, but I felt slightly removed from it. I was comfortable and I had the feeling, I could be running around naked or wearing seven different layers and I would feel the same. And for some damn reason, Pop-Tarts kept leaking into my thoughts, which was disturbing, but still better than splattered, baby zombie brain. (Unless, of course, we were talking about cherry-flavored Pop-Tarts because that might be the singular, most disgusting thing left on the planet.)
I walked the entire perimeter of the storage facility. But after thinking about it, I don’t think I ever looked out beyond the chain link fence. My head had been down and I was deep in thought or shallow in disregard. Either one works just fine, but I was paying absolutely no heed to the outside world. I could have walked into the waiting arms of a zombie and not realized it until he or she had bitten me.
My next lap I vowed to pay more attention, but I didn’t make it halfway around before I began to daze out again. It really does suck having the attention span of a coconut-laden swallow (whoever picks this journal up may or may not get that reference; it will be a slightly better world if you do). I started to think about life, a normal life, mortgage, taxes, death, pretty much everything that I would never experience again. How the hell is it possible that I’m now missing any one of those things? And then I kept circling back to arriving at Ron’s and seeing Tracy and the kids again. Was Nicole showing yet? And what the hell is in Ron’s false floorboards in his closet? After kissing my wife and hugging my kids, that would be my utmost priority. I was going to have to be careful though, I wouldn’t doubt it if he had a security system in place.
I would have completely missed the zombie pressed up against the fence if he hadn’t spoken.
“Eat,” it repeated over and over in my head.
“Why don’t you kiss my ass,” I told it back. It actually stopped for a beat or two, processing where that info had come from. I would bet the thing in front of me hadn’t had a real thought in its head since it became infected.
I had established that we could talk, but would it listen? “Dance, fucker,” I said aloud. It licked its lips. Okay zero for one, Talbot. What the hell are you trying to prove? I asked myself. Okay, so if I’m asking myself the question, what are the odds I’m going to know the answer? Not aloud, gotta get into its head. Dance, fucker! I screamed in my thoughts. I wouldn’t bet any substantial amount of money on this, but I would swear it picked up its right leg and dropped it back down. Maybe he couldn’t dance. It used to be a white guy, after all. “Where the hell is a black zombie when you need one? I really shouldn’t be left unsupervised for too long,” I said aloud and started to laugh.
I had effectively blocked the zombie’s repeating message, otherwise I would have just shot him in the forehead and ended this whole experiment. I was already a little antsy that I was this close to one of them and hadn’t dispatched it. I was pacing a few yards up and back trying to decide what, if anything, my being able to hear zombies could do to help us. Re-Pete (I named him that because of how he was following my every move; it seemed fitting) kept following, albeit a second or two behind, as whatever was left of his mind caught up and sent the appropriate message.
I walked to the left, Re-Pete followed. I turned and came back to the right, so did Re-Pete, his eyes never leaving mine. Re-Pete was starting to freak me out a little bit, STAY! I said in my most authoritative “in head” voice. As I turned to go back to the left, the only part of Re-Pete that followed were his eyes. I was looking over my shoulder the entire time, wondering when he was going to follow, but he never did. I did my complete small circuit and he never moved.