It was no surprise that he’d be the one leading the men.
“Washington?” I asked, blinking up at him rapidly.
He took me in his arms, the shotgun smashed between us, and I wept like a baby. I felt no shame for it. None at all. I cried for my friends and for the things I couldn’t unsee and the things I’d done.
I don’t know how long I cried or how long we stood there together, but finally my tears slowed to a trickle and I backed slowly away from him. He let me. But he had his hand out for the gun.
I shook my head. “Sorry, Washington, but this is mine.”
He looked at me and I could see him weighing the thoughts in his head and he finally nodded and shrugged, letting me keep the gun. Maybe he saw in my eyes that I wasn’t willing to give it up. I looked over to Fannie Mae, but she’d already hidden Thompson’s gun somewhere on her body and I don’t think any one of them had seen her do it. At least we were armed.
“You want to tell me what happened?” He asked.
I snorted and pointed at Jennings cowering in his little blanket. “I’ll tell you what happened. That coward over there got my best friend killed and shot Mr. Thompson.”
Washington glared darkly at Jennings and steered me toward a couple chairs. “Why don’t you tell me from the beginning?”
I hesitated and then glanced at Fannie Mae. The look in her eyes told me that it was my call what to tell. I skipped over most of what I’ve already told in these pages and picked up the story with the three of us sitting in my trailer this afternoon and seeing the foot-zombie attacking Donny Marsters and the subsequent issues. He nodded along with my story. I guess he’d been out in the crowd although I hadn’t seen him. Then I told him about Thompson and Jennings coming to my trailer and taking the three of us to the House and I filled him in on every single detail and laid all the blame entirely on Jennings.
I could have shot Jennings myself right then and there with no qualms whatsoever.
He nodded at the end of my story and looked at Jennings again, long and hard. Then he looked back at me. “I’m sorry about your friend, Duke. He sounds like a real stand-up guy.”
“Yeah,” I nodded sourly.
“I can’t fault Jennings for the shot he took at the zombie when it had Thompson. Any one of us would have done the same thing, although hopefully we wouldn’t have missed it. The guilt for that is on him and if we ever get out of this alive and everything goes back to normal then maybe he can face justice. Until then there’s nothing I can do about that.”
He paused but I didn’t say anything in reply to that. What was there to say?
“I can, however,” his voice deepened, “fault him for being a coward and abandoning three children to the zombies.” I opened my mouth to protest being called a child but he waved it away. He knew what I was going to say. “Don’t worry about him having another gun in his hands or having any kind of responsibility in here.”
“How about you give me five minutes alone with him?” I asked Washington seriously.
“And me, too,” Fannie Mae piped in.
He looked at us with a grim smile on his face. “I don’t think so, Duke. I think you’d kill him and we can’t risk any more of those things.” He shuddered. “We still don’t know what caused them or where they came from.”
I did, kinda. Fannie Mae did, too. We locked eyes on each other and I realized I didn’t want to take the chance to beat Jennings to a pulp and have something like Mason Smith happen again. Maybe it was a fluke or God knows what happened, but I knew I didn’t want to chance that again.
I nodded at Washington. “Okay, I’ll let it drop for now.”
He got up off his chair and sighed, rubbed his forehead with his hand. “Good. Thanks, Duke.”
I cleared my throat and sat up a little straighter. “Um, Washington?”
“Yeah, Duke?”
“Can you tell me what’s been going on here for the past few hours and what the plan is and everything?” I’d been in charge too long on that day to just trust handing over the mantle of leadership.
He sat back down and rubbed his forehead again. I think the pressure of the leadership was getting to him. It’s not too often that you get to practice your leadership skills in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.
“Well, we’ve got about 65 people here in the House. At last count there were about 312 people living in Rosie Acres. There’s no way to tell how many were out of the park when this all started. Some people were just out of town and some are stuck in town now that there’s a blockage in the road.” He threw his hands up in the air. “I hope that we got everyone in that we could before it got dark. Yours was the last search party out there. We knocked on every single door in the Acres. It’s possible some people were too scared to answer their door.”
He waved at the groups of people huddled around the meeting room. There were some people crying and some people just staring blankly in the distance. There were a few others who were on guard duty and trying to look out the windows. “At our best count we’ve got 20 people that we know were attacked. Most of them were seen getting right back up. We’ve got a few people that we know were missing before everything started; like Don Simmons and Tamara Rogers. Her body wasn’t found in the fire at her trailer. Simmons was seen this morning on his walk and then just disappeared.”
He leaned forward and locked eyes with me. “How many people – things – were in the group that you saw? The one that attacked you?”
I shrugged. “I honestly don’t know, Washington. I didn’t stop and take down their names. Probably at least 10 or 15. Maybe 20. It was dark. It was impossible to tell.”
He sighed and sat back, rubbing his forehead some more.
“Do we have any supplies in here?” I asked. “Food? Water? Phones?”
“We’ve got some canned goods and bottled water here. Fortunately the place is fairly well stocked up since it doubles as our tornado shelter. None of the land lines work and no one can seem to get a cell signal.” He leaned forward and whispered, “What’s going on, Duke? Why would the road be blocked, the power be off, and none of the phones work? Are they that smart?”
He had an insane look in his eyes.
“I don’t know, Washington. They didn’t seem that smart from what I saw, but I wouldn’t put anything past them. Hell, I couldn’t tell you how to kill the land lines so I have no idea how a zombie could.”
“Zombies,” he said, incredulous. “Is this the end of the world?”
I shrugged. “I hope not. It was my birthday yesterday.”
He wandered off and I went and sat by Fannie Mae on the floor. She had a blanket over her and offered an end to me. I sighed and accepted it and we scooted close to each other under it, sharing body heat. Regardless of the zombies and everything else going on, I certainly could not have imagined myself here 24 hours ago. Sitting next to Fannie Mae with my arm around her and not being too bothered about it? Being completely aware of her as a female and liking the idea?