“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.
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.