***
BT lifted his chin to Gary as Gary walked in the room, as if to ask ‘Well?’
Gary shook his head side to side and looked down.
“We’re going to need wheels soon,” BT said, trying to plan out there escape.
“Mary has a car in the detached garage,” Mrs. Deneaux said. “We could take that.”
“No,” Gary said forcibly. “She’ll need it eventually.”
“She’s not going anywhere. Poor damn thing has lost her marbles,” she said as she spun her cigarette laden hand around the right side of her head, the cherry leaving tracers in the murkiness.
“What is wrong with you?” BT asked. “Gary’s right. At some point she’s going to realize she needs to get out of here. Her maternal instinct will kick in eventually.”
“Let’s hope it isn’t like that poor lass that lined up her children against the truck like they were targets. That was horrible,” she added at the end like an afterthought.
BT shook his head. “I’d trade a thousand of you for Mike.”
“But yet here I am,” she smiled.
“I’d leave you here to fester in your own corroded soul, but that wouldn’t be fair to Mary,” BT said. “Ten minutes and we’re leaving.”
Gary started grabbing their meager possessions and loading the guns. Deneaux continued smoking.
BT kept staring out the window. It was still night time, but the sky was lit up from the blaze of at least a hundred houses. Smoke was drifting lazily across the front lawn.
“Yeah…that’s not too fucking eerie,” BT said as he watched the swirls of smoke pass by. “A thousand zombies could be hiding on the other side of that mist.”
“You say something?” Gary asked as he tried to jam a sixth bullet into a five-bullet cartridge.
“You were the fastest sperm?” Deneaux questioned Gary. “Must not have been much to choose from,” she laughed.
Gary stood. “I rue the day I ever met you,” he said as he put the backpack Josh had given him on. He strode over to BT to see outside. “Wow, the city is burning.”
“Rue?” BT asked as an aside.
“It’s all I could come up with.”
“I guess it works. You alright?” BT asked seriously.
“No, I’ve now had two brothers die, neither of which I was able to bury. My father expected me to bring Mike back and I failed.”
BT placed his arm around Gary’s shoulder. He knew Anthony Talbot had actually demanded that Mike bring Gary back, but he wasn’t going to correct him…not now…not ever.
“This is war, Gary. There aren’t promises you can always keep. People are going to die, good men are going to die,” he added for emphasis.
Gary broke down for a moment, silent tears dropped from his face as his throat constricted.
“Don’t you say a fucking word!” BT said, pointing a meaty finger at Mrs. Deneaux.
She placed her hands up as if to say ‘I’m innocent.’
Mary was standing where Mrs. Deneaux had been moments earlier.
Gary turned to see her; his heart momentarily lifted when he thought she may have changed her mind.
“My neighbor across the street left his second car. He gave me the keys when he left, said I could have it if I wanted. They’re hanging on the peg in the kitchen.”
“Mrs. Deneaux said you had a car,” BT said.
“I do, but it doesn’t run and he knew it,” she said.
“You keep it, Mary. I’ll give you my father’s address, come up there when you have to,” Gary said.
“I’ve already told you we’re not leaving. We’re never leaving.”
BT shivered at her use of the word never, it left very little room for doubt.
“You don’t know that,” Gary intoned. “Things change.”
“It’s too late anyway,” she said in that far away voice.
“Too late for what?” Gary asked as alarm began to spread throughout his body.
“The whelp,” Mrs. Deneaux said blandly.
“What did you do?” BT asked. Gary was already heading up the stairs. BT was following.
“Too late,” she repeated as she sat down heavily on the couch.
“Josh!” Gary yelled. “Josh!” he yelled again as he ran into Mary’s room. The boy was in virtually the same position he had been when he first came up to ask Mary to leave with them. Gary took in the whole scene before him, an open bottle of pills and an empty glass of what appeared to have contained chocolate milk judging by the residue around the lip.
“Josh!” Gary said running to the side of the bed and grabbing the boy.
“What happened?” BT yelled.
“Pills,” Gary said, feeling the boy’s neck for a pulse. “BT, I can’t feel anything.” Gary was panicking.
“I know CPR, put him on the floor.”
Gary quickly did as BT said. BT had been around enough death to know when the Angel of Darkness had already come and gone. Josh had departed long moments previous, but he still tried for fifteen minutes before his arms and lungs burned from the effort.
“I’ll try now! Just show me what to do,” Gary pleaded as BT sat up against the wall, his hands tightly clasped together to keep them from shaking.
“It’s too late, Gary, he’s gone,” BT said while lightly smacking the back of his head against the wall.
“What? He can’t be. That’s impossible. Just show me what to do!” Gary yelled.
Gary started pressing on the boy’s chest, mimicking BT’s earlier efforts.
“Gary stop,” BT said calmly. “Put him on the bed, let him rest in peace.”
Mary had at some point come back upstairs and was leaning up against the door frame; heavy tears were dropping. “Don’t you see it’s for the best,” she was telling them.
“You’re insane!” Gary said, advancing on the woman who was shrinking back. BT stood quickly and grabbed Gary. “He’s the future!” he spat.
“There is no future,” she sobbed quietly.
Gary shrugged away from BT who cautiously let him go. Gary brushed past Mary without glancing at her. “I’ve got to get out of here,” he said as he headed down the stairs.
“It’s better this way,” Mary said pleading her case with BT.
“I’ll never agree with you, Mary. You just killed something beautiful in this world. I hope your God forgives you, because I won’t,” BT said as he left the room, Mary was still sobbing on the hallway floor when the trio departed.
***
“Do you think Mike will show him the way?” Gary asked as they quickly crossed the street to get to Mary’s neighbor’s garage.
“What makes you think Mike knows the way?” Mrs. Deneaux asked. “It was a joke,” she said when both Gary and BT looked at her crossly.
“Good thing you didn’t have to survive on your comedic talents, good looks, or disposition,” BT said.
“Done?” she asked.
“Shhh,” Gary said, holding his hand up. “I thought I heard something.” He was pointing into the smoke-enshrouded street. Sounds were simultaneously dampened and enhanced in the density of the choking smog. It was becoming more difficult to pinpoint what they were hearing or where it was coming from.
Gary was having difficulty breathing through the waves of smoke and haze; his eyes beginning to water under the assault. Mrs. Deneaux seemed unfazed as she plowed through another coffin nail. It seemed they had at least protected her from this toxic soup.
She pulled the hammer back on her revolver and spun. She had no sooner brought the barrel up when she let loose a shot. A zombie dropped no more than two feet from where they stood.
“Move!” BT yelled. “I think we’re surrounded!”
Another shot rang out from Deneaux’s pistol and another zombie fell with a crisp, clean hole drilled through its skull. Gary had his rifle up but hadn’t found a target yet.
Deneaux seemed almost precognizant with her shots, Gary was wondering if it was because, with her advanced a
ge, she was so close to death herself, that she could sense its approach.
“Try to act more like your brother and shoot something,” Mrs. Deneaux said to Gary as she was shuffling along while dropping the spent shells out of her gun and reloading.
Gary wanted to shoot her to start with but she seemed to be the only one that could spot the zombies around them.
“I can barely tell if I’m going the right way,” BT said as he kept them close. The smoke was rolling in like high tide. Mary’s neighbor’s house was merely an object that appeared somewhat more solid than the surrounding gray smoke.
A small wind kicked up from the super-heated air of the burning town. It was just enough for Gary to catch the nightmare heading their way.
“We need to move faster,” Gary said. His eyes, which had seconds earlier been squinting, where now nearly bugging out of his head. Hundreds of zombies were advancing down the street towards them. He didn’t get the feeling they had been spotted, but they’d be found just by the sheer number of invaders.
“We go any faster and we’ll miss the garage.” BT kept his attention focused to the front.
“Any slower and we’ll be food,” Gary said.
BT turned to look as the small clearing in the smoke rapidly closed. “Shit.”
“Back to Mary’s?” Deneaux asked.
This was the most scared Gary thought he’d ever seen her, it almost made her seem human, but even reptiles have a strong will to live.
“Closer going forward,” BT said, urging them along quicker; the threat of tripping and falling rising with their increase in speed.
“There’ll be nothing left here in an hour anyway,” Gary said, the loss of Josh affecting him deeply. “I couldn’t go back there anyway,” he said softly.
“Shit, I’m bleeding,” BT cursed.
“You alright?” Gary asked, alarmed that BT may have been bitten.
“Got hung up on thorns,” BT answered.
“Really not the time to stop and smell the flowers,” Deneaux chortled.
“Are the roses orange or pink?” Gary asked, his back to BT as he scanned the area. The sound of so many moving feet was unsettling.
“Who gives a shit! This is one time I agree with Deneaux.”
“If they’re orange, they are grandiflora, if they’re pink they are climbers,” Gary said,
“Gary…come on, man, am I losing you?” BT asked.
“No, the orange ones were on the left side of the house and the garage was right beyond it, the climbers were on the other side.”
“I’m not going to ask right now about how you knew the names of the roses, but we’ll talk later that’s for sure. They’re the orange ones by the way,” BT said as he skirted around the bush and towards the garage.
“Gary, just start firing,” Mrs. Deneaux said to him.
“I can’t see anything clear enough,” Gary told her.
“Doesn’t matter you won’t miss,” she told him calmly.
Zombies were nearly within reach of grabbing Gary’s rifle barrel as he fired. BT had him by the waist and was steering him in the right direction as Gary watched their retreating back. “I’m out!” Gary yelled, thinking that their end had finally broken through and found them.
It was then that Deneaux began to fire. She had strategically waited for him to expend his ammo so that she could keep them alive while he reloaded. Gary realized quickly her tactic and began to throw rounds into his magazine. Her shots were more measured than his, but even so, he only had about fifteen seconds before she was out. The signal from his brain to his fingers was getting fouled through the panic of nerves. He dropped at least three of the precious rounds, foregoing precision for haste.
“Gary?” Mrs. Deneaux asked as she was pulling the hammer back on her final shot.
“We’re at the garage!” BT said triumphantly.
Deneaux’s last shot punctuated the momentous occasion. Phantom zombies raced by in the shadows, some drawn to the sound of the gunfire others heading to unknown destinations. Gary finally drove the full cartridge home as a zombie came out of the murkiness into Mrs. Deneaux’s blindside.
He tried to pull the trigger, but it was frozen in place he had yet to chamber a round.
“Duck down!” BT bellowed as he brought his arm up. He shot the heavy caliber hunting rifle one-armed, the weapon not even braced against his shoulder. Even in the desperation of the moment Gary was able to appreciate the strength of the man as the recoil did little more than ripple his shirt.
“Get in!” BT yelled as he physically picked up Deneaux with his free hand and put her in the side door of the garage. Gary was quick to follow along with BT after two more shots.
“Twit,” Deneaux said to Gary, her hands shaking as she placed another cigarette to her mouth.
BT propped up a small step ladder against the door as zombies began to run into it.
“I’m sorry,” Gary said. “I thought I was ready to shoot.”
“You could have got me killed,” she spat.
“Would that have been so bad for us?” BT said, making sure his makeshift barricade was going to hold.
Mrs. Deneaux was silent for a moment before she began to cackle.
“Oh no.” BT turned around, confident the door would hold. It appeared that the nearby zombies had already departed for greener pastures. Why hunt when a buffet was laid out? Somewhere there were people in much more dire straits than themselves.
“What’s the matter?” Gary asked, fearful that something had found another way in or was already laying in wait.
BT pointed towards the car. “Besides the flat tire, it’s a lime green Pinto.”
“I had a servant that drove one of these,” Mrs. Deneaux said.
“Should we see if it starts before we change the tire?” Gary asked. He was afraid the engine noise would attract more zombies.
BT was thinking along the same lines. “Let’s change the tire first. It’s not like we can go anywhere if it doesn’t work, and those zombies will come back if they hear this piece of shit. I bet it idles as loud as a howler monkey.”
Gary noticed that the dome light was very dim as he opened the driver side door and popped the hatch to the rear so that he could get to the jack.
“What do you think?” BT asked as Gary placed the jack on the frame of the body.
“Well if this thing isn’t so rusted out that it could support its own weight I’ll be able to put on that spare tire that is barely better than the one I’m replacing. And once I drop the car back down and the tire seems to have some air pressure, we have to contend with a battery that may or may not give us three engine cranks before it craps out. We might need more than that because of any condensation that may or may not have got into the gas tank,” Gary told him.
“And if all of that goes our way?” BT asked further.
“Well, then at that point, the worst of all possible scenarios happens.”
“And what’s that?” BT asked, thoroughly concerned.
“We find ourselves in a lime green Pinto.”
“Should have known I was being set up, you are a Talbot. Do what you can. I’m going to see if there is anything in here that we can potentially use,” BT said, clapping him on the shoulder.
Mrs. Deneaux had found a small stool and was flicking her ashes within inches of a red gas can.
“You know that’s gas right?” BT asked grabbing the small container.
“A dehydrated ant could piss more than is in that can,” she answered as she took a pull from her smoke.
BT unscrewed the top. She was mostly right, there was at most a half gallon of fuel; and by the look and smell of it, it had some motor oil mixed in. “Must be for a weed whacker,” he said aloud, Mrs. Deneaux paid him no attention.
“Twit,” she said again looking in Gary’s direction.
***
Gary had just tightened the last lug nut and was setting the car down when the shed shook. Even the slumbering Deneaux looked up.
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“What the hell was that?” BT asked, looking up from the hatch where he was placing anything that could be used as a melee weapon.
Gary quickly dropped the car, and when he was confident the tire would hold, he threw the jack in the back just as the shed again shook. He would have sworn it moved on its slab foundation. Dust and debris began to rain down from the rafters.
“Shit,” BT said looking up. Flimsy sheets of plywood held up storage boxes; some labeled, Christmas, Halloween and even one ominously named Bowling. BT didn’t want to be anywhere in this garage when those boxes began to fall.
“Get in the car!” BT urged them as the wooden garage door splintered from another assault.
“What’s going on?” Gary asked as he stared in horror at the large bay door that was beginning to buckle.
“Pretty sure it’s not the cavalry, Gary,” BT said pushing him into the car.
“Get that piece of shit started. I’ll hold off whatever it is,” BT said. His words held more conviction than the tremor in his voice.
Deneaux was already seated in the back of the car.
Gary turned the ignition and was rewarded with—at first—nothing. Then came the slow wind of an under-powered starter, then three loud clicks before Gary turned the key back to off.
“Gary?” BT asked tremulously as the garage door was rapidly becoming wood scraps.
“Trying,” Gary said as he pumped the gas and turned the ignition…this time only receiving the loud clicking noise.
“Oh, God,” BT said softly as he began to back up.
Gary looked up from the dashboard. “Oh shit,” he said as he began to furiously pump the gas in a fervent hope that the friction from the action would somehow send power to the dying battery.
“Shoot it!” the usually reserved Mrs. Deneaux shouted.
The beast struck again, the only thing holding it back now was the thin strips of metal that had been part of the door’s support. BT had seemingly forgotten about the firearm in his hands.
“Shoot it!” Deneaux screamed again.
Her shrill voice seemed to awaken something in BT. He raised his rifle and pulled the trigger and the behemoth on the other side barely moved as its head rocked back an inch or two. White bone shone through on its forehead for a moment before it was covered in a brackish black goop.