“So you’re telling me that you and BT both felt Paul?” Gary asked as they walked away from Mary’s house. Josh watched them from his bedroom upstairs, eagerly awaiting their return. Deneaux was watching them from the living room window, with what appeared to be the exact opposite expression.
“Paul’s passing,” Mike said. It sounded a lot stranger in daylight like maybe he had imagined it, but it was a pretty powerful feeling this morning.
“I hope you’re wrong,” Gary said.
“Me too,” Mike said in earnest, but his words rang hollow. He might have some doubts about what he felt, but not enough to overcome them.
They walked in silence for a little while longer. Gary, for some reason, just couldn’t seem to let the quietness of the day hold. Maybe he also did not want to dwell on the fact that they were more likely heading out on a body recovery than a rescue.
“Sure aren’t many zombies for a zombie apocalypse,” he said, looking around.
“And that’s a problem for you?” Mike asked sarcastically.
“I’m just saying, that you’d think they’d be everywhere. And here we are, just strolling down the middle of the road, like we own the place.”
“I, for one, am not complaining, brother. I would much rather be strolling than running for my life. You should be thankful too, because we both know I can run laps around you.”
“Not if I tripped you.”
“Nice, you tell Tracy when you get back what happened.”
“Forget it, I’d rather get eaten.” He laughed for a sec.
They had been criss-crossing streets with no real objective. They were just looking for something, anything. Mike thought about calling out or maybe even shooting a round into the air and then he thought a little harder about sounding the dinner bell. Just because there were no zombies here right now, in no way meant that they weren’t around in big bunches.
“I don’t know about this, Gary.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know how long we should just keep walking around, aimlessly looking for him.”
“Aimlessly?” he asked questioningly. “You mean you’re not using your Spidey-sense or something?”
“Spidey-sense?”
“Yeah, don’t you have some special powers or something?”
“I wish, maybe we should just get some wheels.”
“The noise will attract them.”
“I know, but we’ll be able to cover more ground, and maybe Paul will hear us.”
“I thought you said...”
“I know what I said, I’m trying not to believe what my Spidey-sense is telling me.”
“Spidey-sense sucks.”
“I agree.”
“Whoa! What do we have here?” Gary said, his attention focused ahead of us.
A lone zombie was standing on a small stoop. It did not, at first, pay them any attention as its gaze was fixated on something small in the side light window to its left.
“That a cat?” Gary asked softly as they got closer. The zombie still not privy to their existence.
“Looks like a small dog. Nope, that’s a cat. I can tell by that funky tail-twitching thing they do.”
“Someone must be in there,” Gary said as we stopped about twenty-five feet from the house. “No way that cat could have survived so long without some help; and it looks pretty fat.”
Another cat came up next to the large gray cat; they both seemed to be staring at the men. But this wasn’t with imploring, “help us” eyes; this was more like something predatory. “Do they look like they want to eat us?” Mike asked Gary. Their zombie friend finally turned around. Mike would swear its eyes got big as it noticed them.
“I don’t know about them, but he sure looks hungry.”
“You want the honors?” Mike asked Gary, as the zombie headed towards their location.
“I’ll shoot it, but you have to go into the cat house first.” Gary blew a hole through the back of the zombie’s head before Mike could even utter his response. It wasn’t like they had a choice anyway. Zombies would come running. They, however, would not stay out long if they could not find anything worth their while.
The zombie was still twitching as Mike made his way up to the porch. A third cat joined the other two who disturbingly had not moved even after Gary took his shot.
“These cats are freaking me out.”
“Get in the house. I swear I hear running feet,” Gary said with a wide-eyed expression, doing a quick three sixty of their area.
Mike knocked quickly on the door. “Hi, we’re friendly and we’d like to come in. Please don’t shoot us.”
“That wasn’t very convincing.”