“Paul?” I asked. I had to blink and rub my eyes, how cliché is that?

“Hey buddy,” Paul said, his voice strained. He was feeling extremely guilty for his part in this progressing drama.

Paul and Mike had talked occasionally, usually in drunken stupors, about what they should do in the event of a disaster. Now in Paul’s defense, most of these scenarios involved terrorist attacks, not zombie infestations. But after much debate and loud obnoxious rants, it was agreed upon that Mike’s house was easier to defend and had more supplies including armament. At the first sign of trouble, Paul was supposed to get his ass over to Mike’s, but he had let indecision rule and that had threatened the lives of his nephews. He knew Mike would have a hard time ever forgiving him this transgression.

I was torn between figuring out why and how Paul was here and the health and welfare of my son.

Paul saw my distress and eased at least one burden. “We’ll talk later, it’s a long story,” he said as he waved me away to the front of the crowd huddled around the bathtub.

Tracy didn’t look up from Justin as she sought out my hand for comfort. Words didn’t seem necessary. I could see the jagged groove of flesh missing from Justin’s right cheek. His face had swollen to almost double its proportion. If it had been caused by a bee stung, it would have been hilarious. As much as his cheek stuck out, his eyes had sunken in. He looked more like a caricature of himself than the real article. Red lines of infection radiated out from the unsightly wound.

I would have already thought he was a zombie if not for the next few moments.

Justin’s eyes gained a measure of focus as they found mine. His next words were strained and choked as he tried to force air over his tortured tonsils.

“I’m s...sorry Dad,” he cried.

I took a big intake of air as I sobbed. My heart wanted to leap out of my chest. Paul stifled his own keening. Tracy didn’t hold anything back as she let loose as only a grieving mother can. Her sobs racked her body; she released my hand in order to cover her face with both of hers.

In the back of my mind I heard Tommy speak, but I wasn’t cognizant of any particular word he spoke.

“He didn’t get bit,” Tommy said.

I wanted to lash out. I wanted to smash things. I wanted to swear to the heavens for this hell thrust upon me. But what would it accomplish? It wouldn’t make my son any better. It wouldn’t restore order to the universe. I didn’t know what had happened, but from the hangdog expressions on Travis and Brendon, it wasn’t a difficult puzzle to put together. Paul, being Paul, had procrastinated his departure from his house until his window of opportunity had closed. My boys had somehow got the half-assed idea to go and save their uncle. I loved Paul with all my heart, but never would I have sacrificed one of my kids for him. I wanted to lay into Paul and scream ‘How dare you!?’ But the guilt that he had already placed on his own shoulders was more than I could ever hope to achieve, and again to what end? My son was infected with the deadly virus, and berating Paul would do nothing, absolutely nothing to save Justin. I felt hopeless, no, scratch that, for the first time in my life I felt impotent. Okay the second, there was that one time in college when Paul and I had bought some incredible sensamilian herb and for some reason I couldn’t achieve the ‘full vigor’ of manhood with my girlfriend. But this was worse, much, much worse. I stroked Tracy’s hair as tenderly as I could. She bristled from the contact. I told her I had a quick meeting at the clubhouse and I would be back soon. She never so much as looked up at me; I can’t say I could blame her.

I looked at the crowd in the bathroom and demanded, “Keep his fever down, and Travis come get me right away if he gets worse. And whatever you do, don’t anyone let word of this get out. They’ll put him down like a mad dog.” I ignored Tracy’s flinch at my words; they were nothing but the truth. I hesitated for a moment, then knelt next to my waxen-faced son and tenderly kissed him on the brow. As I turned and left the room, my shoulders shook as I tried to restrain my own heart-wrenching sobs.

Ten minutes later, there were six people including myself present at the impromptu clubhouse meeting. Alex, who looked like he had no sooner hit the pillow when he got the call, Jed, and Tim Tinkle, (no, I did not make the name up). He was head of the new “Security Department.” He was a good-looking guy, about 6’2”, 185 pounds, in great shape. He had blue eyes that were striking next to his prematurely silver hair. But he had the look of someone who has had to constantly defend himself, and with that name he probably did. I had my doubts about Tinkle. He looked like he had a short fuse. Next, there was Wilbur Heathrow, an older, heavyset guy, with wide spaced eyes on a narrow face that gave him the look of a salamander. He was head of the Guards. I don’t know what went on while I was gone, but it looked like there were a whole lot of new posts. Maybe the titles made these people feel more self-important or more likely made them feel like they were in control of the situation. It was my personal belief it did neither. Why did we need a head of Security and a Guard Warden. It was the same thing, like saying, ta-may-to, ta-mah-to, what’s the difference? Whatever, if it made people feel all warm and fuzzy inside, then why not? And to round out the six, Carl had showed up.

When it looked like all the movers and shakers were present, I pulled away from Jed and asked for everybody to be seated. Tim Tinkle remained standing. “Gentlemen,” I began. “I’m sorry to have taken you away from whatever you may have been doing.” I looked at Alex especially, knowing he was way short on sleep.

He gave me a slight nod. “De nada,” he said, acknowledging my apology.

“We’ve got some problems,” I stated.

“Why are you wasting our time with the obvious, Michael?” Tinkle intoned self-importantly.

Why was this guy starting already? And I hated being called Michael, it always reminded me when I was young and in trouble.

“Um, okay,” I looked questioningly at Tinkle. “What I wanted to finish saying…”

“Are you implying that I interrupted you? The mighty Michael Talbot?” Tinkle sneered.

“Uh, Ti… Tim, I’m not sure what’s going on here. I’m just trying to pass on some information I think is vital to our safety and security,” I put forth, doing my best to rein in my anger at this idiot.

“Are you saying I’m not doing my job right?!” Tinkle yammered, taking a step forward and thrusting his finger at me.

“What the hell, man, I didn’t even know there was such a job until Jed told me five minutes ago. Listen, I’m not trying to get into a pissing contest with you.” Ooops, wrong adjective, he blew like Vesuvius.

“What does that crack mean, Talbot? You making fun of me? You got a problem with me? I’m gonna kick your ass into Tuesday.”

Which I thought was kinda hilarious, considering it was Tuesday, unless of course he meant next Tuesday and then it would suck. He was approaching fast, veins sticking out of all sorts of unnatural places.

“Tim, please,” Jed stood up, trying to thwart the hostility.

Tim pushed him aside. Luckily Carl was able to grab him before Jed hit the deck. Tim swung with a roundhouse that a zombie would have been able to dodge. I dropped low and struck with all of my force into his solar plexus. The wind couldn’t get out of his sails fast enough. I felt the force of the super-exhaled air as it traveled with velocity over my head. I was thankful he hadn’t eaten any jalapenos for dinner. It might have melted my hair. He immediately doubled over, trying his best to gasp for the elusive air. I was a millisecond away from finishing him off with an uppercut when Jed finally righted himself.

“Enough you shitheads!” he yelled.

I felt like I was five. I pointed at Tinkle. “He started it!” I blustered.

Tinkle couldn’t talk yet but he had the presence of mind to point at me and shake his head.

“I don’t care!” Jed raged on. I didn’t know the old coot had that much fire in him. “Tinkle, sit your ass down. Talbot, continue.” Tim did as he was told, by small degrees he was able to retain more air, but luckily the firestorm had died down.

“Okay,” I stated again. “Where was I before I was so rude…” Jed pointed a finger at me. “Um right, uh I think we’re in for a bit of a mess.”

“Mike,” Alex said exasperatedly. “You know that I came here because you had something important for us. But if you woke me for that, I’ll be the next one up there taking a swing.”

“All right, sorry,” I held my hands up. “I was just thrown off-track for a sec. We’ve all been wondering where the zombies are? Why aren’t they attacking? Are they dying? Did they move on? Now I’m not saying this is fact, these are just my observations. I think these zombies are a little more advanced than we give them credit for.”

Everyone stirred a bit except for Carl.

Wilbur spoke up. “This is ridiculous, they’re brain-dead, flesh eating parasites. They have all the brainpower of Tim over there.” Everyone laughed, even Tim.

I related the story about when we had gone to get Justin and how the zombies had just up and left us for easier prey. “Listen, I know it’s just conjecture, I have as much knowledge about this as you guys. But I think the zombies know we’re here.”

“That’s preposterous!” Wilbur yelled out. “They’re not even self-aware.”

“Since when do predators have to be self-aware, does a wolf KNOW it exists?” I shot back.

Wilbur withered a bit.

“I thought about this the entire way home from the armory after our encounter with the zombies.” The news of the sighting of so many zombies had seemingly beat us back to Little Turtle “I think the zombies have exhausted the easier food supply.”

Wilbur was like a pit bull; he just wouldn’t give up. He must hang around a lot with Tinkle. “Those are our family and friends that you so casually call food.” He clearly wanted to continue with his scathing diatribe, but the only place this was heading was another confrontation resulting in a punch to the abdomen and I’d probably lose my fist in his massive midsection.

“Wilbur.” I said solemnly as I carefully interrupted his harangue. “I’m not trying to make light of the situation, I’m calling it like I’m seeing it. Those people the zombies have hunted down were the infirm or slow or those caught unawares. I think that the reason we have been so ‘relatively’ safe is because we are a much tougher prey.”

Wilbur was about to unseat his great mass again.

“Hold on Wilbur, just let me finish. Lions go after gazelles and zebra and only occasionally water buffalo and even then only the smaller ones. But if desperate enough and hungry enough they will attack a full-grown elephant, I watched it on the Discovery Channel. I’m willing to bet the pickings have gotten real slim outside these walls and we’re the next available source of food.”

Wilbur finally got his bulk up. His chair sagged in relief. “Oh come on, are we really going to listen to this?” he said, addressing the rest of the gathering. “He’s telling us zombies are smart and that they know we’re here. He’s drawing parallels between them and Wild Kingdom for goodness sake. Why are we wasting our time with this, or him for that matter. He’s just pissed he’s not in charge and this makes him feel more important.”

I felt defeated, “I have no desire to be in charge of this three-ring circus.”

“So you say!” Wilbur said fiercely