“That’s all you need to remember,” she said, then taking a large drag from her smoke. He also noted that she had not so much as a quiver in her hand as she did so.
“You’re one cool customer, aren’t you?”
“How do you mean?” she asked as she exhaled her smoke.
“All I’m saying is you put a bullet into the brain of one of our traveling companions and you look as calm as if you were watching Lawrence Welk re-runs.”
“Oh I loved him.”
“Brian?”
“Lawrence Welk, you twit. That was before television began to cater to the masses and we ended up with drivel like Charlie’s Angels.”
Paul didn’t see the reason to argue the merits of TV, but anything with Farrah Fawcett fueling his young hormones was okay with him.
“What about Brian?”
“What about him? He was a zombie. Should I have allowed him to eat you? Would that make you feel better?”
“No, and thank you for saving my life, but I find your lack of compassion somewhat startling.”
“I killed a zombie, like I’ve killed a dozen times before. I feel the same as if I killed a pheasant, maybe less. At least we ate those.”
“I guess I don’t understand it.”
“Tell me what should I feel?” Deneaux asked coolly taking another drag. “Should I go tell my therapist about my touchy-feely feelings, about how I’m all broken up about Brian’s death? It is a survival-of-the-fittest world out there and he succumbed and now he’s dead; it’s as simple as that.”
Paul didn’t think it was quite that simple, but she held the gun and he didn’t think she’d have any problem using it on him. “I’m just coming over to get my shoe.”
Mrs. Deneaux tensed her hands on the rifle. “Let’s not have any accidents.”
Paul couldn’t help himself. “Is that what you’re calling what happened to Brian?”
“I don’t know what you think you know, but I saw him get bit by a zombie. I didn’t stick around to see the ending to an event I already knew the conclusion of.”
Paul bent down to grab his shoe. Deneaux was mostly showing indifference, but Paul knew it was an act. And then she struck deeply and cruelly.
“Maybe if you weren’t so busy being inept and shooting yourself, you would have been able to get back and prevent the whole thing.” Her cold eyes remained on his the whole time.
“You really are a bitch,” he told her, but her words cut deep. He had been feeling exactly that, but to have them spoken from someone else, even someone he couldn’t stand, hurt.
The fight was out of Paul and she knew it, she focused her attention away and to somewhere deep within her own dark thoughts.
“I’m going to try and find Mike.”
“Not with this rifle,” she told him.
“It’s mine, Deneaux.”
“It was, but it belongs in the hands of someone who knows how to use it.”
“Whatever. Keep it, I hope you shoot yourself with it,” Paul said angrily.
“Oh sweetie, I’m not you,” Deneaux laughed as Paul pulled the front door shut behind him.
He hobbled to the driveway, sprained ankle, shot foot and no weapon, but he liked his odds more now than he did inside the house.
Chapter Seventeen – Mike Journal Entry 10
As worked up as BT was, he still fell asleep rather easily. His legs were hanging off the large couch, but he didn’t seem to mind too much. I had gone outside to pull the dead zombies around Mary’s house away. I was pulling the last disgusting wretch away when Gary showed up beside me.
“Need some help?” he asked.
“How long you been watching?” I asked.
“About half an hour.”
“Nice. I think I can finish this off on my own.”
“Did you hear that?” Gary asked as the body I was pulling was making excessively loud squishy noises. I did not dwell on what could be causing it.
I stood up straight, I wanted to cup my ear to get a better grasp on any incoming sound, but I’d be damned if I was bringing those gloves anywhere near my head.
“I didn’t hear anything. What was it?”
“Gunshot.”