“She was…” I started, but Gary cut me off.
“Found a safe!” he said louder than he needed to.
“How big?” Paul asked from the doorway of the now crowded room; especially since none of us wanted to be any closer to Twitchy than we had to be.
“I never noticed them twitching so much. Do they always do this?” BT asked, looking down at her legs.
“It’s not like we usually hang around to find out, but I don’t think so,” I said.
“Do you notice something strange about her head?” Paul asked, leaning a little over the body.
“Besides having a bullet in it?” came BT’s wise-ass remark.
Paul was leaning a little closer.
This seemed like one of those moments in a horror movie where something jumps out of somewhere and scares the hell out of all the watchers.
“Something’s wrong, man, don’t get any closer,” I told Paul.
He looked at me questioningly, but he did as I said. “Wait a second. I’ll show you.” Paul rooted around in the nightstand until he found something he could use. Ended up being a wooden ruler.
“You going all Catholic nun on us.?” Gary asked from the entrance to the closet. “You guys heard that I found a gun safe, right?”
“Two seconds,” Paul said handing his small rifle to BT. He straddled the dead zombie and extended his hand with the ruler as close as he dared. “Gut check time,” he mouthed, unwilling to suck up any air through his mouth. He moved a five-inch section of hair still attached to the shattered skull underneath. It slapped wetly against the top of her head as he turned it over.
“That’s gross Paul, is there a point to this?” BT asked.
“Look at how thick her skull is. I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think the average skull is about a quarter-inch thick. Hers is at least double that.”
“Can they thicken their skulls?” BT asked, turning to me in alarm.
“Oh yeah, good first choice, BT, I’m the one with all the answers,” I told him.
“I don’t think she’s dead,” Paul said. “Damaged, for sure, but not dead. I think by the time the bullet got through this thick-ass skull, it ran out of steam.”
“I hate to get all obvious,” I said, donning my captain’s hat. (Get it?)
BT finished her off. Once the smoke cleared, he spoke. “Any chance she’s some sort of anomaly, like a throwback to Cro-Magnon, you know?”
I was trying desperately to remember almost as quickly as I tried to forget how the scene with the baby unfolded. If I wasn’t over-thinking this, the baby was still moving after my first shot. I might have completely missed with my second shot, but the third shot hit home and the baby stopped moving. The fourth shot was mostly involuntary. I didn’t give a shit though. There was no way I was going back into that room to see if the baby’s skull was abnormally thick. Even if that were the case, it could just mean that genetically, Mom had passed that defect down to it.
“I don’t know for sure, but we’re going to have to keep this in mind, going forward. Let’s check out this safe and get out of here. The longer we stay, the more I wish we had all just gone to Maine and let the chips fall where they may.”
“The safe is open!” Gary said excitedly. “What’re the odds of that?”
“Pretty good,” Paul said from the far side of the room. He was looking out the window, keeping an eye on the street around us. “They were getting ready to leave and all.”
“Makes sense,” Gary said, continuing the conversation.
“Brother, just check out what’s inside,” I told him. I would have smacked him upside the forehead if BT hadn’t got past me and was now in my way.
“Damn!” Gary yelled.
“Grenades! Please tell me grenades!” I said, almost jumping up and down like a schoolgirl that found out the captain of the football team liked her.
“Yeah. Joe Homeowner in suburbia North Carolina has a secret stash of grenades. Get a hold of yourself, Talbot,” BT said. “Is it grenades?” BT asked Gary softly.
“Rossi Circuit Judge .45/410 revolver rifle!” Gary said as he held it over his head.
“Zombies could have on Kevlar helmets, it wouldn’t stop that thing,” I said.
“Big gun?” BT asked.
“Shoulder-mounted cannon,” Gary finished. “Only twenty rounds though.”
“Those bullets are probably a couple of bucks each, not something you go plinking with,” I said.
“No name 12 gauge and a snub nose .38, decent amount of rounds for each,” Gary said as he pulled stuff from the safe and around it. BT was shuffling it to the larger room. I grabbed a small duffel bag full of clothes and baby toys that was perched on top of the dresser. I spilled the contents onto the bed, careful not to spend too much time thinking about what the things were or who they belonged to. The pacifier, though, almost dropped me to my knees. I went back to the growing pile of bullets and gun-cleaning supplies and began to stuff them into the bag.
“Cats!” Paul said a little louder than I think he intended to.
“Is that some sort of new expletive?” BT asked him when Paul didn’t elaborate.
“No,” Paul answered, looking at BT questioningly. “There were cats running by.”
“Running?” I asked. Paul nodded.
“How many?”