Do nothing?
There was no other way. Not with the time we had.
I had to do something.
Yes, it was way above my pay grade, but so was everything else that had gone down so far. If I did nothing, Tony and Dax would surely wind up dead.
And that—that I couldn’t think about.
“Are we set?” I asked, my voice thin.
“Go change,” Renati said. “Take your backpack. I’ll meet you at the arena at noon.”
What do you do before staging a coup and walking into your own death?
That was the sort of question I never contemplated before.
I took the dog for a walk. I cleaned up the mess she’d left in the corner while we were locked up. I brushed her for a good twenty minutes, using a brush tucked away in the downstairs bathroom. It still had long brown hairs in it; relics of some previous owner, long gone.
I didn’t dwell on it.
When I finished up with her, Evie looked ravishing. Well, as ravishing as a dog can look. She placed a paw in my lap when I stopped, her soft brown eyes seemingly boring into my soul.
“Damn if you don’t seem more human than poor Alyssa right now,” I said. “Am I going to hell for saying that?”
Her tail thumped on the floor. Maybe it was an affirmation (Yes, Vibby, you’re going to hell) or maybe she just felt I needed some reassurance.
I had never spent this much quality time with her, but damn if I couldn’t see what Dax and other dog people were raving about. She really did seem to know I was upset.
Holy shit, who was going to take care of her if things went badly? My hand froze while petting her. I also couldn’t just cut her loose; she’d follow me to the park and make a mess of things.
I would have to leave her in the house.
I took a deep breath and looked around.
Tony had left his belongings scattered all over the living room. I dug through his stuff in search of our neighbor’s little pistol, but I couldn’t find the damned thing; he’d either hidden it away or simply taken it with him. I did come across his much-loved copy of Dead Mennonite Walking, which he had probably hadn’t finished yet.
I plunked it down next to the The Iliad—Renati had sent me home with the version we had all sworn over as some weird token of our conspiracy, I guess. I had tried to read it the night before. Tried being the key word. Why didn’t I have gods helping me with everyday tasks? It’d make life a lot easier.
“Renati uses his books for inspiration,” I said to Evie. “I don’t have any Shakespeare and I’m just not feeling Achilles. The second shit goes south with Agamemnon he goes and whines to his mother.”
Not that I could really blame him. If my mother had been around when all this went down, you can bet I would have gone crying to her about my various zombie encounters. I could only imagine what sort of advice she’d have given me before this particular situation. Some variant of Murder isn’t nice, dear, I’m sure.
I picked up Dead Mennonite Walking and flipped it open to a random page. “Maybe Zeke can give me a hand.”
Thrash Johnson beheld the fiery column of death reaching into the heavens. “Lo, Zeke, behold the tower of flames!”
I lowered the book. I didn’t have a tower of flames, and I wasn’t about to say behold to anyone.
I went to the next page, skimming over its contents. Ezekiel and his companions faced a seemingly insurmountable foe: a wall of zombies coming at them, attracted to the tower of flames. Within a few short moments, it might all be over.
If we must part in this unhappy manner, Ezekiel said to Thrash and the rest of his scrappy group, then I am most pleased that I end my days here, in these blood-soaked fields of ill-begotten corn, with thee, my most questionable companions.
Briefly, I wondered how one obtained ill-begotten corn. He’d had a run-in with a demonic sack of barley earlier in the book, but corn?
For truly I cannot imagine facing this world or the one beyond without you. And now, by Ezekiel’s Scythe, let us do battle!
“What better way to go,” I said aloud to the dog, “than in the presence of such questionable companions? And did he just refer to his own weapon in the third person?”
It was as ardent a declaration of friendship as Ezekiel had ever made.
I tossed the book aside. “Fine, I get it,” I said. “Worse things to do than die for your friends. Or fight for them. Or at least get maimed for them.”
Man, I hoped I didn’t get maimed.
Evie wagged her tail, then shoved her head into my lap.
I gave her ears a last rub, gathered up my belongings, and made one last scan of the house.
Nothing.
I locked the front door and took myself next door.
Our neighbor opened his door before I had finished knocking. He stared at me, the whites around his eyes showing clearly. He thought I had come here to kill him or something.
I held out the house key. He leaped backwards, clearly expecting me to brain him with it.
“Hey,” I said.