“Is that Deneaux?” Gary asked, placing his hands over his ears.
“I guess she found the cigarettes,” Crotchety said.
Brian was shaking his head, walking around in small circles. He was mumbling to himself. “No guns! The world is caving in on itself and this crazy old bastard doesn’t even have a gun.”
“What’s wrong with your friend?” Crotchety asked. “He looks like he has distemper.”
Deneaux pushed past the old man, her arms stacked high with cartons of varying smokes. She looked like a schoolgirl that just got a fully paid shopping spree to the mall.
“He’ll be fine,” I said. “Would you happen to know where we could get some guns then? So that we can be on our way.”
“You look like you’re planning trouble,” Crotchety said with scrutinizing speculation. “I don’t like trouble. It tends to get people killed.”
“Listen, old man!” BT bellowed. “See this man here?” BT said as he placed his hands on my shoulders. “If trouble were the rarest element on the planet, my good friend, Michael Talbot,” BT tousled my hair for effect, “would have the entire market cornered.”
“Thanks, man.” I appreciate that.
“No, this man needs to understand. If trouble were a fine thread, Mike could weave it into a three piece suit.”
“I think he gets it.”
“No, I’ve got one more.”
“Fine, go ahead.”
“If trouble were a drop of water, Mike could fill a swimming pool.”
“Oooh, that was the best one,” Gary said.
“Hilarious, guys.”
“And you stay with him. Why?” the old man asked.
“Because for some damn reason, he always finds a way to stay one step ahead of it,” BT said proudly.
“One step isn’t a lot of cushion, son,” Crotchety said.
“I’d be six feet under, if it wasn’t for him.”
“Understood. Three doors down, dipshit named Greg Hodgkins, Nascar fan and all that implies was shooting through his window for hours it seemed when the zombies first came. That very same night, I heard his screams for help. The more he shot, the more zombies came. Now I’m no genius, but it almost seems that if you leave them alone, they tend to do the same.”
“Yeah? We haven’t had that kind of luck,” I told him.
“No,” Gary said over-exaggeratedly as he shook his head.
I looked over to where this great battle had waged, but except for a few splotches on the curb, I didn’t see much evidence. “Where are the bodies?”
“We waited a few--” he started.
“We?” I asked.
“Sonny, do you really think I’m stupid enough to answer my door in my sleeping gear without a little back-up?” he asked as he pulled a small walkie-talkie from his pocket. He must have seen the look on my face. “Relax, no one has you in their sights, just yet. We just kind of keep an eye out for each other.”
“I completely understand.”
“So we waited a few days until any of the zees that could move on their own power left, and then we piled up the rest of them and had a huge bonfire. We gave Greg a proper burial, although I’m not sure he deserved it. He was kind of a prick, you know the type. Has two pit bulls and lets them roam the neighborhood. Kids were scared to go out and play.”
“Nobody else wants anything?” I asked trying to be as nonchalant as possible as I did a three-sixty trying to ascertain where his “friends” might be. It was possible he was bluffing, but the situation didn’t necessitate me seeing his cards.
“Those of us that are left want for nothing.”
“Thank you…” I wasn’t sure how to address him.
“Occupant works just fine, and just so we’re clear, you’re welcome to rummage all you want in his house and no other on this street. Are we clear?”
“Not a problem, thank you for your hospitality.” And for once, I meant it, not a note of sarcasm in my voice. I’d like to say I’d help a stranger, but I think I’d be fooling myself.
Deneaux was busy opening multiple cartons of smokes, smelling individual packs as if they were fine wines, while the rest of us walked down to Greg’s former abode. Except for a few busted out windows, his home looked in fairly decent shape. Two rusted-out hulks of cars sat on cinderblocks on the side of the driveway.
“Holy shit,” BT said, “it’s the living embodiment of a cliché.”
“Okay, to make this perfect, he’d need to have an old school, giant, television box, but it has to be broken and have a small, thirteen-inch black and white sitting on top. I answered him. “First gun choice bet?” I asked him.
“You’re on,” BT said, fist-bumping me.
“Dammit,” I said as I walked into Greg’s den and found myself staring straight at what appeared to be a mammoth, sixty-five-inch flat screen TV mounted to the wall.
“Now I might not be the most intelligent man, but my guess is that isn’t thirteen inches. Do you want me to round up a tape measure to make sure?” BT asked, smiling.
“Find the guns, ass,” I told him as I went into the kitchen, where an H&K 9mm sat on the kitchen table. “How do you feel about 9mms?” I shouted to BT. I was thinking this was going to be a treasure trove and I wanted his first dibs selection off the board.
“That is a weapon of choice of the common thug and I want no part of it, especially since I am looking at a fully auto AK with a drum magazine.”
I ran out of the kitchen to see what BT was holding. It was a sight. And I would have loved to have gotten it, that was of course, until we figured out that that was what Greg had been using before his demise and he had not saved even one last round to take himself out.
“Hard luck,” I told BT, smacking his shoulder as we tore apart the house for fifteen minutes, looking for anything to change the gun from its status of dangerous looking paperweight.
“I can still swing this thing,” BT said. He was pissed because after that, I came across a riot shotgun, which I laid claim to, plus about a hundred deer shot rounds. Besides the other arms we found, he had an AR, but it looked like he had run over the lower receiver with a tank. There would be no rounds going down range in that thing.
“Not bad, it’s a start,” Brian said as we loaded the truck.
“I don’t care what old Occupant Seventeen said, but that house was ransacked,” BT said, still completely irked about his lack of rounds.
“Maybe if you just wave it around aggressively, people will get scared,” Gary suggested.
“Talbot you had better rein your brother in,” BT snarled.
“He’s my older brother, BT. He isn’t going to listen to me.”
“Nice pistol,” Paul said as I was looking it over, trying to figure out the cocking mechanism, safety and every other moving part. “You should give it to Deneaux.”
I looked at him like he had just snorted some weed.
“No man, I’m not kidding. The lady can shoot the balls off a gnat from across the room,” he told me.
“Paul, I love you, man, but I think all those years of drug use finally caught up with you.”
“Well, if they caught up with me, they sure as hell snagged you too.”
“Fair enough, but I’m not the one suggesting we give Deneaux one of the few guns we have right now.”
“Listen I know you’re a great shot with the rifle, no doubt. But she’s unshakeable with the pistol. I watched her, man, she was like the pistol champ of 1908 or some shit.”
“1908 huh? What’s that make her? Like one hundred and thirty?”
“She could be,” Paul said, looking over to the cab. “Doesn’t matter though, she’s freaking amazing with that thing.”
“Fine. I’ll take your crazy ass word for it.”
“You are not giving that old bat that pistol are you?” BT challenged me.
“She has to guard her smokes somehow,” I told him.