“I can barely remember my name,” I said to Tracy.
“What?” she asked .
“You f—”
“Talbot!”
“…my brains out,” I finished.
“It’s stuff like this that makes me think twice and sometimes three times about doing anything with you. Get your clothes on before people start looking for us.”
“Oh, I don’t know, all this nudity is very liberating,” I told her, wishing I could just lie there a few years longer, even if we were in the horror book section.
“Yeah? Tell that to the zombies,” she said, looking at my rapidly deflating manhood.
“You really know where to hit a person.”
“I love you, Talbot. Now get your ass up. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
“Nice view,” I told her as she walked away.
She flipped me the bird, but I could tell she was smiling.
“I might die tonight, but at least I’ll go out happy.” I stood and began donning my duds. I had just finished tying my boots when BT rounded the corner.
“Ever hear of your inside voice?” he asked.
“What?” I could feel fingers of heat traveling up my neck.
“Acoustics are pretty good in this place,” he said, smiling. “The boys couldn’t get down in the basement fast enough to go and check it out, been down there the entire time. Even Henry looked a little embarrassed.”
“Shit. Does Tracy know? She’ll kill me.”
“Oh, from the sounds of it, I think she’ll be fine for the time being.” He was smiling ear-to-ear. “Always one for ambience I see,” BT said, pointing to the column of scary tomes.
When I caught up to her, Tracy seemed completely unaware that none of her kids would look her—or me for that matter—in the eye. Well this sucks, I thought.
“Anything worth noting in the basement?” I asked them, trying to change what they were thinking about. Talk about uncomfortable.
Justin was conspicuously looking off to his left. “There’s windows, but they’re small and don’t even open.”
“Yeah and the door is steel,” Travis added. “It’s locked and we stacked a bunch of furniture against it.”
“Big bunch,” Tommy said. I swear his face was a couple of shades deeper red than I’d ever seen.
Henry was at least happy to see me. He came over, tail wagging. I was happy to lean over and pet behind his ears. It gave me the chance to not have to try and ignore the six hundred pound gorilla in the room.
Travis had gone over to the windows. “There’s more coming. Should we start shooting them?”
“We’ll hold off for now. Wait for the cavalry to come, I’d imagine we’re going to need the rounds then.” I was looking around. With the appropriate supplies, we could hold out here forever. I was sort of amazed that someone else hadn’t thought of it. If books were edible we’d be set.
“When we get out of here, find Doc and get Justin and BT fixed, we should find a fort,” I blurted out.
“That’s a lot of whens and ifs,” BT said.
“The last military installation we went to didn’t work out so well,” Tracy said, referring to Camp Custer.
“I’m talking like that fort we visited in Bucksport Maine, Fort Knox. That place has like two-foot thick walls. We could stay there forever.”
“That place is about as comfortable as I suspect Mrs. Deneaux’s place would be,” she replied.
She was right; the fort was cold and dank, even in the middle of the summer, we’d freeze before winter ever set in. “I wonder what the battle axe is up to?”
We had searched for her body after the battle with no luck. I couldn’t imagine a zombie eating her, more like the other way around would be my guess.
“She can’t still be alive can she?” BT asked. “Eliza had to have killed her.”
“My guess is she scared Eliza, too,” I said.
“It would be just like that old bird to make it,” BT said.
“She’s a survivor for sure. Let’s just hope we’ve seen the last of her,” Tracy replied.
“More like a case of herpes, got a feeling she’ll be revisiting,” I said.
“Wonderful,” BT and Tracy said.