"It's not racist if it's the truth," she said looking up. "Why you black people like to smoke them is beyond me."

"First off, I don't smoke."

"Oh I was just using generalizations. Help me find something for a more civilized palate."

BT walked away. He went into the service bay looking for something that would help him get some gas out of the ground. I wonder? he thought as he unscrewed a hand pump from a fifty gallon drum of what appeared to be waste oil. He found a large-throated hose that screwed on to the a.s.sembly. "Glad no one else thought of this," he said, going out the garage door instead of going back past Gary and the vitriol spewing Deneaux.

He silently cursed himself when he walked past the window and looked in. Gary had thought better of keeping the underwear on and was now completely unclothed except for his untied boots.

"Well there's something I'll never be able to unsee," BT said, heading towards the tank.

He dropped the hose into it and then unfurled the rest so that he was sitting at the tank of the truck before he started pumping. He was twenty cranks in and was about to call his idea a 'flub' when he felt the diesel pulsing through the line.

"Sweet!" He said as he quickly got the spigot into the tank opening.

After a few moments, Gary came out wearing a pink 'Virginia is for Lover's' t-shirt and a pair of surfer shorts.

"Nice duds," BT told him.

"Better than what I had on."

BT could only agree.

"I'm gonna grab anything I think we can use," Gary said. "Do you need anything?"

"Deneaux still going nuts in there?" BT asked between hand cranks.

"She seems to have calmed down since she started smoking. She keeps saying something about black people and their uncouth tastes. I'm going to grab some cleaning stuff, too, and see if I can get the back of the truck clean enough to get back into."

"You're going to leave me alone up front with Deneaux?"

Gary shrugged and headed back into the store. "Better you than me."

BT pumped as fast as he could, he was waiting for something to happen; Zombies, gangs, rednecks, evangelists, or even rogue cats. It was unnatural to be in one place for so long and have absolutely nothing happen. He wasn't complaining...he was just vigilant.

Deneaux was shuttling small plastic bags full of smokes to the truck. Gary had found a dolly and two five gallon jugs which he was using liberally to get rid of the majority of gore in the back of the vehicle. When BT had finally finished topping off the tanks, he went to the back of the truck to put the hose and pump up. Gary was in the back sweeping the human debris onto the ground. BT could not help notice-although he wished he hadn't-that the ground behind the truck looked like the world's largest afterbirth. He skirted around the worst of it and handed the hose up to Gary.

"You alright?" BT asked.

"Fine," Gary said through tight lips.

"This seem strange to you?" BT asked Gary.

"Which part?"

"The part where we're not under attack."

"Helps break up the monotony of survival."

BT walked away. He could imagine Mike having delivered that line, although it would have been more dry pan and less serious. He could not shake the feeling that this was too easy. Nothing they had done since the zombies had come was easy and he just couldn't fathom why, now of all times, they were getting a break. It was welcome to say the least, and he hated to look a gift horse in the mouth-not that he had ever received one-but he understood the saying.

If this is a trap they sure are taking their time springing it, he thought as he again walked around the truck looking for signs of trouble.

Deneaux was now shuttling some food and bottles of soda that she was able to recover. "Going to eat well tonight." She held up a can of macaroni and cheese. She was smiling around a cigarette. "These really aren't so bad once you get used to them. Maybe you colored folks are on to something," she said as she took another puff of her menthol smoke.

"I told you already, I don't smoke and menthols aren't a 'colored' thing," BT said angrily.

"I'm sure you don't eat watermelon either." She laughed as she threw her booty into the cab.

"You old bat, who doesn't eat watermelon?" BT asked.

"I love watermelon," Gary said behind the canvas.

"See?" BT said, pointing towards Gary.

"Coloreds and white trash...I guess they're close enough to be the same," she said as she was trying to reason out this new information.

"I can't believe that you even a.s.sociate with us." BT said to her.

"Zombies make strange bedfellows." She laughed at her own take on the old cliche.

"Could we not mention Deneaux and beds while I'm in the back of this nasty truck cleaning up?" Gary nearly gagged.

"Let's finish up here. I haven't seen so much as a fly, but this place gives me the w.i.l.l.i.e.s. I'm ready to go," BT said, extracting himself completely from the conversation.

Deneaux made one more trip into the store. She thoroughly searched every nook and cranny lest any pack of cigarettes go unsmoked. Gary poured the remaining water in the jug onto the bed of the truck, the bigger pieces of anatomy had already been pushed to the ground. All that was left was to sluice out the remaining blood which drained down the open tailgate. The pink fluid looked more like something that would be dispensed at a Sonic restaurant than the diluted remains of life-giving blood.

"I'm ready when you are, BT," Gary said as he tossed the red-stained broom out the back of the truck. He shut the tailgate and laid down on the hard wooden bench as BT pulled out of the station.

BT still couldn't get over the fact that they had got just about everything they needed and hadn't had to fight even a mad mosquito to do it. He shuddered when he finally came to the realization of why.

"Calm before the storm," he said prophetically.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

Mike Journal Entry 7 "Any idea where we are?" I asked John as we sat at the end of a tree line. I was looking at a single-wide trailer not ten yards from our location. I didn't see any signs of life, but even before zombies, walking up on a trailer unannounced was a good way to get shot or at least yelled at by a two-fist, bearded hag. Or quite possibly you could end up on Cops.

"Weren't we just up in the air?" John asked me as he looked to the tops of the trees.

"We crashed about two miles ago," I replied to him, not taking my eyes off the back windows.

"Why do all the houses look the same?" John asked, trying to stand. I pulled him back down.

"We're in a trailer park. White trash capital of the world by the looks of it," I told him as I looked at no less than five Chevys on blocks. Sixteen clotheslines, replete with wife beater t-shirts and-I kid you not-used, washed, disposable diapers. The diapers smelled and looked relatively new; well, as new as a used diaper can anyway.

"Maybe we should go somewhere else," John said.

It was one of the few lucid things he had said since I'd met him and I would have heeded his advice if I saw anywhere else even remotely close. But it was getting dark and I didn't want to be out any longer than I needed. Between the two of us, all we could offer in the way of defense was some marijuana. So unless our adversary stopped and smoked the majority of John's offering, then immediately fell asleep where we could throttle him out of the picture, we were in a little bit of a pinch.

"Let me think," I said as I sat with my back to the trailer leaning up against a relatively large oak.

"You do that, I'm going to light a fattie."

A small bird, maybe a sparrow, was a couple of branches over me. It was looking down, his head bobbing as he kept us in his line of sight, probably curious as to what we were. Not many of us running around anymore-at least not the living kind.

"Do I smell nuggets?" a voice drifted out from the trailer, the bird looked in that direction then alit from its spot.

John got up before I could stop him. "Not only is this nugget...it is coated with a proprietary blend of hashish oils."

I fully expected John to be blown back towards me riddled with buck shot.

"Well then come on inside," the voice said with a distinctive Southern lilt.

I swore I could hear toe-strummed banjos playing in the background.

"My name is Luke," a gap-toothed smiling man in his mid-thirties told us as he held his door wide open. The mullet he sported harkened back to the early '80s, much like his felt paintings on the walls. There was a whale, an Indian, and of course, what trailer wouldn't be complete without a smiling ta.s.sel-laden portrait of Elvis smack dab in the center. "That there is my wife Mirabelle," Luke said as he closed the door behind us.

Mirabelle looked the part of an older Sissy s.p.a.cek minus any good looks and make-up. But she was smiling almost as broadly as Luke and somehow that put me at ease. John seemed perfectly content with our new surroundings. A black dog roughly the size of a standard pony walked over to me, took one pa.s.sing sniff, and got up on the couch.

"Hercules, we have guests now...get off the couch," Mirabelle said to the dog.

Hercules looked over at me and growled. I'd had freight trains pa.s.s me by that produced less tremble. He did, however, get off the couch.

"Sit, sit." Mirabelle motioned.

I kept looking over at Hercules who was mean-mugging me.

"What about him?" I asked Mirabelle.

"Hercules? Oh, he's fine. He's just a big old teddy bear." She laughed.

If by teddy bear she meant, psychotic, rabid grizzly then we were in agreement, I thought.

I sat, Hercules growled again-or a fissure had opened up in the earth-I figured both would sound the same.

Luke and John were sitting at the small kitchen table, alternating hits on a Jamaica envious-sized bone.

"Wowee, that'll make your toes curl and slap a turtle!" Luke said as he leaned back in his chair.

"That's good stuff, right? Got it from that guy over there," John said, pointing at me.

"Mister, you want a hit? 'Sidering it's yours and all," Luke asked.

"I'm good," I told him.

"You want some possum pie?" Mirabelle asked me from the kitchen.

I thought about taking a couple of hits from John's weed, thinking that would be the only way I would get strong enough munchies to actually try possum pie.

"It's not really possum," she said when she saw my face. "We ain't been able to find them since the zombies came."

My stomach was roiling a bit. I tried my best to cover up its gurgling sound. I changed the subject away from food in the hopes I wouldn't have to pretend I was on some hillbilly version of Fear Factor. "Thank you for taking us in."

"It's what G.o.d-fearing people do," Mirabelle said. "They help other G.o.d-fearing people. Are you G.o.d-fearing folk?" she asked.

"Um I don't really fear him per se. Is a healthy respect okay?" I asked back.

She thought about it for a moment. "I s'pose that'll do. What brings you folks around this way?"

"We're trying to get to John's wife in Philly, then I'm trying to get home," I told her.

"Without weapons?" she asked astutely.

"We've had a few hardships along the way."

"Fell out of the d.a.m.n sky!" John shouted after taking another hit.

"Get outta here?" Luke asked incredulously.

"Unfortunately it's the truth," I told Mirabelle.

"What is?" John asked.

"You been dealing with him long?" she asked me.

"Long enough."

"And he hasn't got you kilt yet?"

"I figure the score is about even. Every time he tries to kill me, he saves me."

"Hey, Poncho, Luke wants to know if you have any of this killer weed you can sell him?" John asked me as he started to laugh.

"Fresh out, man, check your pockets. I gave you the last of my stuff," I said as I shrugged to Mirabelle.

"Whoa, man!" John said as he pulled baggies of stuff out of his many pockets. "Thanks, Poncho!"

"Any time," I told him. "Have you been here the entire time?" I asked Mirabelle, wondering how a trailer could possibly hold up to a zombie invasion.

"We have." She looked at me a little guiltily. "Our neighbors all either left, were turned, or were kilt. We've been foraging from their stuff."

"There's no shame in that."