I jerked in surprise as the back door cracked open. I caught a quick glimpse of Ed as he tossed a plastic bag inside and quickly slammed the door closed again.
A guttural snarl came from my throat at the smell of him, but before I could lunge for the door, I caught sight—and scent—of the packages in the bag. Shuddering in relief, I tore open the box and into the brain-covered pizza, scraping the toppings off to shove into my mouth. I didn’t need the crust right now. That would only get in the way.
Sensation began to return, and the hunger settled into something manageable. I reached for the curry chicken next since I knew there wasn’t any chicken in it. A tingle in my cheek told me that my face was putting itself back together. I knew that Ed knew I was a zombie, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to see me rotting and falling apart.
I waited until the hole in my face was completely closed up before I called out, “It’s okay now. It’s safe.”
He eased the door open, eyeing me cautiously. I peered at him in the gloom. “I take it there’s no electricity?” I asked.
“Nope. This is a foreclosure,” he told me. “Been empty for close to a year. And best not to have any lights until we can seal around the windows.” He held up a large plastic bag. “I have a lantern and duct tape. We should tape the curtains down around the windows before we turn on any light. This place is pretty secluded, but no sense taking any chances.”
Well, now I knew where he’d been staying the past couple of weeks. I gave a nod toward the gun in his other hand. “You planning on shooting me again?”
“Only if you come after me,” he replied.
I nodded and kept eating. “Understandable. Did you happen to grab any of the plastic containers? Those have more brains in them.”
Disgust flickered across his face, but he didn’t voice it. He continued in and shut the door behind him. “I picked up a cooler. I brought as many containers as I could fit into it. What’s the stuff that looks like spare ribs?”
“Spare ribs,” I said. “I didn’t have room in my freezer at home.”
“That’s disgusting,” he breathed.
“Really?” I said through a mouthful of brain and cheese. “I’m pretty fond of spare ribs, myself.”
He winced. “No, I mean that you have it in the same freezer as all the…” He gestured toward my little picnic. “Remind me to never eat at your house.”
I grinned. “It’s all wrapped or sealed up. I doubt that any brain bits could possibly get on anything else.”
“It’s still freaky,” he muttered.
I wiped my mouth, did a careful physical assessment. My various wounds seemed to be healed up, and my senses were back to normal. Perhaps a little higher than normal. I was well and truly tanked up right now, which I figured was a smart move considering whose company I was in.
“No,” I said calmly, “what’s freaky is that you’re having this polite and friendly conversation with me, and just a few weeks ago you called me a monster and shot me. Twice.” I gave him a hard look. He had his gun, but I knew how fast I could move right now if I wanted to.
Apparently, so did Ed. He set the gun and bag on the folding chair before he sat heavily on the floor. “Yeah,” he said in a low voice as he leaned back against the couch. “I did.”
I stood, brushed myself off. He watched me warily as I moved to the folding chair, visibly relaxed when I pulled the duct tape out of the bag instead of going for the gun.
“Okay, help me try to figure something out here,” I said as I moved to a window and started taping. “What happened to your parents?”
Grief and horror skimmed across his face. “The official report said it was a boating accident. But that’s not what it was. I saw it.”
“Saw what?” I prompted.
His eyes lifted to mine. “I saw a zombie eating my dad’s brain.”
I kept my face immobile though I wanted to wince. I knew zombies sometimes killed people for brains, especially when they were hungry enough. I’d been that hungry once—okay, twice, including tonight—and had barely held on to my humanity until I could find brains. “Your mom too? It killed them both?”
“My mom was shot,” he said in a flat voice. “In the chest. Twice. I could see the…the wounds. The gun was lying on the deck. Then I saw my dad…his head was bashed in. The boat anchor was all bloody and…” He took a shaking breath. “I figure it shot her, then my dad tried to save her, and it turned on him…” He trailed off and squeezed his eyes closed.
I continued to tape down the edges of the curtain as I turned over what he’d said. “Wait. I’m confused. Were you all on a boat? Where did the zombie come from? How did you make it out alive?”
“No, no,” he said. “They were out on the dock behind our house. We lived on the Tchefuncte River, and my folks had a pontoon boat that they liked to take out in the evenings. I heard a gunshot, then some yelling and ran out and saw…saw the zombie.” He swallowed. “I didn’t know it was a zombie. I just thought it was some psycho.”
“Uh huh. And how did the story become a ‘boating accident’?”
He closed his eyes for a moment. “I ran back to the house and called the cops. Shit, I was seventeen, and I knew no one would believe me if I said a monster was eating my dad. I just told them my parents were dead, that something awful had happened.” A shudder ran through him. “I was hysterical, but still, I knew I couldn’t tell them the truth.” He stood suddenly, though to my relief he left the gun on the chair. “I ran back out with a baseball bat, and…” His hands clenched into fists. “I came out just in time to see the boat going full speed toward a pier on the other side of the river. Saw it crash and burst into flame…”
“And your parents’ bodies were recovered on the boat?”
He nodded.
I scratched my head. “Look, it’s real possible that the zombie did kill your parents, but just on first sniff, I’m seeing some weird stuff about all this.”
“Of course it’s weird,” he began, but I waved him silent.
“No, wait, hear me out. First off, why would it shoot your mom but not your dad?”
His forehead creased. “Maybe it was out of ammo.”
I shrugged. “Maybe. But the next thing is bigger: I don’t see how it could have put them on the boat and sent it crashing into the bridge.”
Ed leveled a frown at me. “What do you mean? That wouldn’t have been hard at all. Drag them on board, set a fire, jam the throttle, jump off.”
“No, I get that part. But here’s something you don’t understand about zombies.” I smiled thinly. “I guess I’m sort of an expert witness about this shit now.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Go on.”
“Any zombie that was hungry enough to kill someone wouldn’t have had enough…mind to be able to figure out all of that—the getting rid of the evidence stuff.” I moved to the other window and began taping those curtains down as well. “So either someone else did the stuff with the boat, or a rogue zombie was killing people before he was crazy hungry—which I admit is possible, but it seems like he would have done a better job picking his victims. Or, there wasn’t a zombie at all.” I watched him as I said this last one. “Ed, how on earth did you know about zombies back then? What made you seriously consider that as a possibility?”
“I didn’t. Not really,” he admitted. “After the accident and the investigation, I managed to convince myself I’d imagined it. Shock, hysteria. That sort of thing. After a while I simply accepted that it had been a horrible accident.”
“What changed?” I asked, frowning.
Ed grimaced, rubbed at his eyes. “About six months ago I got a package in the mail. It was a notebook—a personal journal of my dad’s.”
I pressed the tape down on the bottom of the curtain, then got the lantern out of the bag and flicked it on. It wasn’t a lot of light, but it was better than pitch darkness, and enough for me to see what Ed was wearing—black and grey striped pants tucked into studded boots, black shirt with dark red skulls. It also looked like he’d picked up a few more piercings somehow. He definitely didn’t look anything like the Ed I’d known before. “Okay,” I said, “and something in that journal convinced you that zombies exist?”