Chapter 33

 

Trinity House

 

Rose was standing in the kitchen, eyes glued to the monitor, one hand worrying a damp dishrag. In one of the monitor’s multiple panes, a newly arrived zombie stood in the center of the cul-de-sac, lips drawn over yellowed teeth, jaw constantly moving. Like a big cat searching for prey, it panned its head left and right and back again.

“Biters can’t smell, right?”

Tara seated a fresh magazine in her Glock, chambered a round, and holstered it. Regarding Rose, she said, “Huh?”

“The dead … can they smell us?”

“Never gave it much thought,” Tara replied. “I’ve always acted on the assumption that they hunt by sight and sound.”

Rose pointed to a pane on the monitor. She said, “Looks like this one is sniffing the air.”

Tara watched the thing for a beat or two. Then, turning so she faced the rear of the house, she said, “You hear that?”

Startled, Rose followed suit, whipping around and craning her neck. With a slight rearward tilt to her head, listening hard, she said, “I don’t hear it.” She took a step toward the hallway, where Dozer was lounging on the wood floor.

Tara said, “I was just testing a theory.”

Rose returned to the kitchen wearing a quizzical look.

“Care to share?”

Pocketing a bottled water, Tara said, “You looked just like that thing on the monitor.”

Brows lifting, Rose said, “I don’t get it.”

“When you were trying to hear what I pretended to hear, your body language mirrored that thing on the monitor.”

Rose shifted her attention to the monitor.

The “thing” had moved a few steps closer toward the driveway gates.

“Keep watching,” Tara advised.

“What are you planning? You’re not going out the front door, are you?”

“Just watch.” Tara swiped a pitcher off the kitchen counter, filled it to the top with water from the sink faucet, then padded off toward the front door.

Rose did as she was told, but first, she quickly walked her gaze over the other eight panes. Nothing was moving around the rest of the perimeter. The camera focused on the perimeter wall door was broadcasting a macabre scene. The zombies Tara had put down earlier were still there, sprawled out in various death poses. From the looks of it, one of them—a woman in her twenties—was nearly headless. Next to the woman, lying flat on its back, an arm bent to a peculiar angle, was a kid-sized zombie. It, too, had been shot in the head. Clumps of what could only be brain tissue lay in a pile beside its ruptured skull.

The third zombie had fallen close to the wall. Due to the camera angle, all that was visible were its lower extremities. Its feet were bare, the pads worn to the bone. On one ankle, Rose saw a deep wound oozing some kind of fluid.

Zombie number four looked fairly fresh. If there wasn’t the bullet wound on its forehead, it would appear as if he were taking a nap alongside a bunch of dead bodies. While Rose had heard the gunfire that caused this scene, she had averted her eyes from the monitor at the time.

Wishing she hadn’t broken down and looked now, she focused on the zombie near the front gate.

Calling out from the direction of the foyer, Tara asked, “You watching?”

“Yes,” Rose called back. What are you trying to prove? she thought, when a single gunshot-like bang of a door slamming had her nearly leaping out of her skin. Coinciding with the sudden noise, the zombie turned in the general direction of the front door, repeated the head-tilt thing, bared its teeth, then resumed the back and forth pan of its head.

Still watching the monitor, Rose saw Tara creep the length of the curved path connecting the front door to the circular parking pad. She flicked her eyes between panes and noticed nothing new in the zombie’s behavior.

Tara didn’t stop at the gate. Instead, she made her way to the pair of rolling bins pushed up against the garage. She gingerly lifted the lid to the bin dedicated for garbage, removed the bloody towels she had used to clean the pavers of Raul and Benny’s blood, then threw them on the ground by her feet.

After emptying the pitcher on the towels, Tara scooped them off the wet pavers and lugged them to the wall.

A lightbulb went off in Rose’s head. “Oh,” she exclaimed. “Pretty damn smart.” She watched Tara walk around the house. It was kind of strange how she jumped from pane to pane, blipping from one corner to another, seemingly at random, until she was in the back, by the perimeter wall door, and lifting the ladder off the ground.

As Tara retraced her steps, her image bounced from pane to pane in reverse order, until she was picked up by the camera covering the front entry, where she wasted no time erecting the ladder and arranging the bloody towels on top of the wall.

If Tara had exited Trinity House like a lion, she came back in like a lamb, closing the front door at her back with all the care of a teenager sneaking in after an unapproved nocturnal excursion.

Traversing the hall between the foyer and kitchen, Tara said, “Hey Luuucy. I’m hoooome.”

The obscure I Love Lucy reference drew a queer look from Rose as Tara entered the kitchen. Placing the empty pitcher on the counter, Tara said, “What’s Biter McBiteyface doing?”

“Nothing much. Still just standing there. I bet it’s waiting to catch sight of something to eat. Or chase.” She shook her head. “I hate biters. I’ve had enough of them to last ten lifetimes.”

“You and me both,” Tara said. “Did it do anything different after I put the bloody towels up there?”

Rose shook her head. “Not a thing.”

“After I wet the blood dried on those towels I smelled that coppery fresh-blood odor coming off them. You’d think if the zombie hunts by smell, he’d be reacting to it by now, right?”

Nodding, Rose said, “You’re going back out to work?” She bit her lip and worried the dishtowel she’d been holding.

“I’m going stir crazy in here. Plus, if Flyboy actually shows up and the pad isn’t ready, I don’t know where he’ll land his helicopter. Especially if it’s the same one Lee rented to take us to Niagara Falls.”

Brows hitching, Rose said, “Why Niagara Falls?”

Tara sighed. “It’s a touchy subject. I’m not quite ready to rehash it right now.”

Rose said nothing.

Tara said, “I’m going to spend another hour or so cutting back saplings. After that, all that’s left to do is trim back the bigger trees.”

“You have both radios, right?”

Tara nodded. “Right here in my pocket.” She tapped the monitor. “When I’m about ready to go out the back, I’ll make an X with my arms. OK?”

Rose said, “OK. Then what?”

“I want you to create a diversion for me. Slam the front door hard, like I did. That should keep Bitey occupied while I slip away.”

Face tightening, Rose said, “Should I try to get Lee on the radio? Find out when they’ll be back?”

“Why? He’s a grown ass man. He’ll call when they’re back in range.”

Again, Rose bit her lip.

“Ohhh,” Tara said, eyes widening. “You’re worried about Benny.” Before Rose could respond, Tara continued, saying: “You shouldn’t. Lee has a knack for getting out of scrapes. Oh, the stories I could tell you.”

Rose forced a smile. “Tonight, then. When they’re all back. Storytime by the fire?”

Plucking the set of keys off the counter, Tara said, “Deal. You’re going to be”—with her free hand she pantomimed fireworks erupting over her head—“mind blown.”

Dishtowel clutched tightly in both hands, Rose said, “I want you to check in with me every fifteen minutes.”

Sensing a reluctance on Rose’s part to remain alone in the house—especially after finding the bunker and all the questions raised by its existence—Tara said, “Deal. And I’m leaving Dozer with you.”

“Sounds good.” Rose patted the radio in her pocket. “I promise I’ll have this on me at all times.”

“If Lee calls,” Tara said, “I want you to pick it up. If he needs to talk to me, have him drop off and call back. I’ll hear the second chime and pick it up.”

Rose said, “Be careful.”

Patting the Glock on her hip, Tara said, “Always.”