“What’s going on, Mike?” BT asked, picking up on my now good mood. It was hard not to. I had just been holding a gun to his head and now I was smiling like it was Christmas day and I was seven years old.
“I’ll explain it to you when we get in the house. Come on, my friend.”
Within a few moments, we were at the door having a rather heated, one-way discussion with Mary. She was doing most of the yelling and we were doing most of the listening.
“Was he bit?” she asked for maybe the umpteenth time.
“Well technically, yes,” I answered her in kind.
“Well then, didn’t I already tell you that you cannot bring him in?” Her pitch elevated each time she asked the question in the hopes that it would finally register with us on some level.
“His name is BT,” I told her.
“Don’t!” she yelled even louder. I can’t imagine how it must have echoed in that small house. She was making my ears ring and I was on the other side of a thick steel door. “I do not want to know what his name was.”
“I’m telling you, I’ve stopped it. He won’t become a zombie now.”
“Holy shit!” she yelled. “Do you see that?”
BT and I looked around, thinking there must be some new threat.
“I think I just saw a fat pig flying!” she continued.
“Hilarious, Mary. I’m telling you he isn’t in any imminent danger of turning into a zombie.”
“Imminent?” BT asked quietly.
I shushed him with my hand. “I’ll explain later.”
“Imminent?” he asked again.
“Gary, could you please tell her?” I asked my brother through the door.
“Tell her what, Mike? I wouldn’t even know what to say, and besides this is her house.”
“Come on Captain Fix-It, tell me how you stopped a virus once again with your mind control.” Mary was taunting me with a sneer in her voice.
“Did you see the zombies by your bedroom window?” I asked her.
“She’s nodding her head,” Josh said for his silent mother.
“Why do you think they just stopped attacking?” I asked, trying a different avenue.
“They’re just asleep or something. Zombies sleeping doesn’t mean that you’ve learned how to cure people from a zombie bite,” she said.
“I never said anything about a cure,” I told her.
“I’m not cured?” BT asked quietly.
“Mary, please, I need to get his wound cleaned out and a quiet place to think about this.”
“Why don’t you just fix his germs along with the virus, or whatever the hell it is?”
“Mary, I’m not a doctor.”
“But yet, you’ve somehow managed to stop zombieism.”
There was that sneer again; it was infuriating. “It’s not like that. I told you. I was given some sort of link to them and I have some moderate control, if they are nearby.”
“How nearby?” BT asked. “I mean, do I have to go into the bathroom with you now?” BT asked, looking completely mortified.
“I shouldn’t have even let you in! You jeopardized my entire family.”
She was right, anyone around me was in more trouble just for being in proximity. I couldn’t argue that point.
“What if I can guarantee you that I can control a zombie if it is around me?” I asked, but Mary didn’t respond.
“She’s listening,” Josh said.
“Meet me back by the bedroom window.”
“What are you going to do?” Gary asked.
“Just hand me some rounds through the windows,” I told him.
The six zombies were right where I had left them. Gary dropped the rounds out the window, not wanting to expose any part of himself, I couldn’t blame him.
I loaded my rifle up. “You guys might want to cover your ears and turn away.” Nobody immediately moved to do either of those things until I placed a round dead center in the forehead of the closest zombie. Mary was shouting something, but I couldn’t hear anything, at least not until the fifth zombie fell, leaving one zombie standing.