Washington blew up at me. “What makes you the expert? Do you want to be in charge, Duke? Do you want all these people relying on you to keep them alive? I don’t want this, but everyone keeps looking at me to do all this. You don’t think I’d rather be hunkered underneath a blanket with the rest of you?”
I don’t really know what had happened to me this weekend. If a grown man had blown up at me like that two days ago I would have felt shame for talking back to my elders and wouldn’t have been able to look at him. In short, I’d have been scared shitless. But seeing your friend get eaten right before your eyes and killing a man has a tendency to make you grow up pretty fast. I met his eyes without flinching.
“No,” I said quietly, “I don’t want that responsibility at all. I wish we weren’t in this situation, Washington, but it is what it is. For some reason the dead are walking and trying to kill and eat us. We have to deal with that the best we can and these people look up to you as their leader. You’re a good man, Washington. There’s not one person out there who doesn’t know that.”
I put my hand on his arm, gripping it tightly. “But we need to be safe, Washington. I don’t know much about zombies. Barrett was the one who watched the horror movies, not me. But he taught me a lot after,” I paused, shifting through the lies, “after what we saw this afternoon. Ways to protect ourselves. You’re our leader and I just want to make sure you know those things. We have to make sure all the doors are covered, barricade all the windows, and protect ourselves with weapons. Zombies are like cockroaches: they will find a way in if there’s one to be had. They’re not smart, can’t think for themselves,” I hoped, “but they do have animal instincts and they’re relentless. They’ll just keep coming.”
He swallowed back his anger. Looked at the walkout and then back up at the stairs to the House. Then back at me. Finally he nodded, perhaps reevaluating my manhood. “Do you think we have any chance, Duke?”
I hesitated, wondering how honest I should be. Do you really want your chosen leader to be completely hopeless? I decided honesty was the best bet. Then maybe he’d take this seriously. “Not much of one, Washington. Very slim. Eventually all the lights we have blazing will attract them like moths to the flame and they’ll come. Maybe we’ll be lucky and they won’t find a way in, but I’m not holding my breath. Our only true hope is that we get help from outside and they blow all the zombies away and this will just go away.”
He barked a laugh. “And what do you think is the chance of that happening?”
“Um, slim to none? Then our hope at that point is that they get them all and this whole thing goes away. Then we can go back to normal.” Not that I ever thought I’d be able to get back to normal. “If not,” I shrugged, “then we’re facing the end of life as we know it.”
“Peachy,” he said as we began the climb back up the stairs.
“Yep.”
15.
I still couldn’t sleep. I could feel the dreams on the edge of my consciousness and could see them out of the corner of my eye. I walked around the House one more time and could feel every eye watching me. When I turned my head to catch them looking at me most looked away but a few actually returned my gaze. I could see doom and hopelessness in every eye.
Feel it in my gut. We were all doomed.
I tried not to disturb Fannie Mae as I sat back down next to her but my jostling back into position woke her up. She sat up, rubbing her eyes, and yawned. “What time is it, Dukey?”
I looked at my wrist, at the watch that was not there, and then looked around the room for a clock. I squinted at it. “Eight, it looks like. A little after.”
She sighed. “Where were you? I woke up once and you weren’t here.”
I debated on what to tell her, but we’d been pretty honest with each other today so I didn’t want this to be between us. I told her where I’d been and what I’d been doing.
“Are we safe?”
I shrugged. “As safe as we can be, I guess. Washington took me seriously and he’s upped the guards on the doors. I saw him send a couple guys to the basement a little bit ago and he even took Wilkinson off the back door. We might be okay, Fannie Mae.”
She took my hand in hers and tightened her fingers on mine. I looked at where our hands met and flashed onto seeing her in my dream. I shuddered. “But you don’t think so, do you, Dukey?”
“I don’t see how we can be, Fannie Mae. We’re talking about zombies here. All of our friends are dead or dying. We’re huddled in the House with no hope of rescue and a handful of bullets to protect us.”
She sighed and bit her lip. “Let’s not talk about it anymore. Change of subject.”
“What do you want to talk about then?”
“Us?”
I grinned. “I think that’s too heady of a subject for right now. Maybe we can do that when we get out of this mess.”
She grinned back. “So never then? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Pretty much.” A thought occurred to me. An even bigger grin crossed my face. It occurred to me that this wasn’t really being respectful to Barrett but then I realized that he would want us to go on with our lives.
She saw the look on my face and said, “What? What did you just think of?”
“I’ve got something we can talk about.”
“What?”
“Your name. Why can’t I ever just call you Fannie or FM or something like that?”
She shook her head. “I don’t really want to talk about that.”
“Please?” I fluttered my eyelashes at her.
She giggled. “Okay, then. I’ll let you in on a little secret. My name isn’t really Fannie Mae.”
“What?” This actually was news to me.
She frowned and looked down and played with my hand. “I was actually born Francine Mary Jennsen. My mom used to go around just calling me Francine when I was little.”
I had a feeling this wasn’t going to be a good story. I opened my mouth to stop her but she cut me off. “I never told you about my grandma, Dukey. My Mamaw. She was the best thing that ever happened to me. I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to run away from the trailer and live with her. She lived in town and I probably spent at least two or three nights a week with her. Even when I was little mom was just such a terror to me. She’d yell and scream and just be so hateful and daddy was such a wimp that he wouldn’t say anything. Mamaw was the only one who’d step up to her for me.”
She wiped tears from her eyes. “Mamaw used to call me Fannie, since its short for Francine. Or that’s what she always said, anyway.” She smiled at me through her tears. “She used to call me Fannie Mary and when I was really young I’d always go up to her and say ‘Mamaw, your Fannie Mary loves you,’ but since I was real little I couldn’t say it very well. It became Fannie Mae to me. So Mamaw started to call me that all the time and it kinda stuck.”
I’d never heard her mention any of this in all the years I’d known her. “What happened?”