“Well, we could have used it to escape to Florida,” Gerry said dejectedly.
“Oh yeah,” Jed stated sarcastically. “They didn’t hand out ANY flu shots in the retirement capital of the world.”
I had missed the news broadcasts that were still operational. They had decisive evidence that the flu vaccination was the culprit and not voodoo mysticism, as many of the more superstitious types (me) had reckoned. At this point though, what’s the difference. A zombie’s a zombie, I don’t care how it got to the point of wanting to eat my brains, I just wanted to make sure that didn’t happen. Gerry didn’t make any more interjections. He pouted as best he could with an oxygen tube coming out of his nose.
“Okay, now that that matter is closed,” Jed said, as he looked straight at Gerry. “I’d like at least four people at the bus gate. I’m worried about the clearance. The zombies that showed up last night showed no inkling that they even noticed there was a way in under the bus. I’d say let’s flip the bus too.”
Gerry loudly harrumphed.
“But I want it mobile in case we need to get it out of the way quickly, plus we’re going to have cars coming and going all the time,” Jed added, with a stern glance in Gerry’s direction.
One of the residents, an older lady with white hair that I always saw walking her Corgi asked, “why don’t we just seal it up and be done with it?”
I thought she answered haughtily for one that lived so close to the fringes of lower class society. Maybe her rich husband took off with a young floozy and only left her with that ankle biting little pecker Welsh Corgi.
“…Need to…” Jed had brought me back from my little inward detour. “Get supplies and food. And we might need it if we have to leave in a large group in a hurry,” he continued. “Now I know nobody is going to like this part. I want to assemble teams of five to scour all the unoccupied townhomes. This is going to be a lot of work but we need to figure out where we are at. So grab all the food, gas, weapons, ammo, batteries, whatever you think we can use. Bring it here to the other smaller conference room and we’ll go from there. Also look for a couple of larger stepladders. I want to use those as guard towers.”
I stood up to ask a question. Jed didn’t look happy about it.
“The floor recognizes Michael Talbot,” Jed said, wiping his hand over his brow.
“Jed, fellow survivors,” I started. Some winced at that, maybe because they hadn’t thought of it that way or maybe they just didn’t want to. “I’ve got a couple of questions.”
“We figured that Talbot, or you wouldn’t have gotten up,” Jed sarcastically stated. I was going to take back my offer to kiss him if he kept this up.
“What’s our stance on interlopers?” Jed had thought of everything but this issue. “I mean,” I continued. “What are we going to do with…” I thought for a second, the word still didn’t sound right when it came out of my mouth. “… refugees?” (This wasn’t Grenada.)
Jed thought for a second. He didn’t want to come to a snap decision. “I guess that’s unavoidable,” Jed stated to no one in particular. “On one hand it will ease up the load of responsibilities and burdens we will have to bear.”
Miss White Hair with the canine ankle biter spoke out. “Responsibilities? Burdens? Guard duty? I want no part of that,” she said frostily.
‘Wrong answer,’ I thought.
Without missing a beat, Jed said, “Mrs. Deneaux, when will you be leaving then?”
Her face lost more color than her hair. Even her dog looked like he had been pistol-whipped. She didn’t respond in any fashion. I took that to be she was agreeing to Jed’s will.
“Back to the refugees,” Jed said. I could tell that even he was having difficulty with that word. “Eventually it will become more and more problematic to house and feed them. We’d be all right for the first hundred or two until it began to tax our resources. But if we start taking people in we can’t get to a point and then start turning them away. I mean we could, but I don’t want to be that person that turns a family away because we’re out of space. If we open the doors for one, we open it for all. We may get to the point where we will run out of empty homes and will have to open our own houses too.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Mrs. Deneaux interjected. “I will not open my doors to any strangers, especially if they’re not the right color.”
Mr. Hernandez stood up, angry as all get out. Even Tommy would have been able to tell where this was going.
“Sit down, Don,” Jed said sympathetically to Mr. Hernandez. “Is it really worth arguing with her?”
Mrs. Deneaux glowered. This wasn’t one of those touchy feely moments like in the movies, where Mrs. Deneaux reluctantly saw the errors of her ways and eventually accepted a black family into her home as they overcome all obstacles set in their way. She lived as a racist bigot bitch and she would probably die as a racist bigot bitch. C'est la vie. Mrs. Deneaux was happy Don hadn’t said anything. She liked it a lot better when they stayed quiet and mowed the lawns.
I sucked in my breath as I watched Mr. Hernandez do his best to control the rage that was threatening to boil over.
Jed didn’t like Mrs. Deneaux any more than anyone else at the meeting. He was probably wondering if she had become this ‘difficult’ before or after her husband left her. Tension mounted, the pressure was palpable. That was of course until the nightmare began again. Where someone had dug out an old WWII siren, I don’t know, all I know is when the siren went off I got to taste my scone a second time, and believe me it wasn’t better this go around. Most everyone got up, unsure of what we should do next. Eyes invariably shifted to Jed.
“Just hold off until the siren stops and then we should hear some directions,” he stated.
Just how many air raid sirens had this man lived through? The siren cut off as if it was placed under water. Then we heard, faintly at first and then with more vigor as the message passed on from sentry to sentry, “Zombies at the gate, zombies at the gate!”
“You idiots,” Jed mumbled. “Which gate?”
As if in answer to his question, “Northwest and northeast gate, all hands!!”
Gerry, Mrs. Deneaux and a few of the older folks didn’t move. Hell, I thought darkly, most of them already look like the walking dead, without the walking part. I wanted to pull Jed aside and tell him that we had already been infiltrated, but I somehow didn’t think he’d find the humor in it.
I grabbed Jed’s arm. “Do you want me to go get the boys?” It would delay my arrival by ten minutes but I’d be bringing more firepower with me.
“How many rounds you have for that fancy gun of yours?” he asked, looking down at my M-16.
“Four full clips, so a hundred and twenty rounds,” I said as I began to shuffle my feet. Adrenaline had started to surge, I needed to direct this energy and quickly.
“Ants in your pants Talbot?” Jed mused. (When was the last time I’d heard that? When I was ten?) “Go to the gate and see how bad the threat is, they’ll either come running when they hear the shots or I’ll have a runner sent.”
I was halfway out the door, when I turned. “Thanks Jed,” I told him.
“For what?” came his grizzled reply.
“For a chance,” I finished before dashing out the door.
I ran as fast as I could to the northern end of the complex. I knew this wasn’t the proper approach. My slamming heart was going to make it difficult to steady my gun. There was no need for the rush. There were no more than twenty of them and half of them had been cut down before I got there. I saved my rounds. Well at least the question of what to do with refugees was answered. The zombies had been chasing a small family, a mother, father and two kids that didn’t look much past two years old. As we let them past the barriers, relief was imprinted on the father’s face. Fear and worry had corroded the mother’s features. At one time she had been a very attractive lady, but the events of the past night had gnarled everything about her. I felt sorry for her and would have liked to have comforted her, but I was having a difficult time stretching the boundaries of my altruism; I only wanted to get home to my own family. I wasn’t sure how much time I had left with my family and I didn’t want to squander one precious moment.
CHAPTER 8 
