Keep Busy

52.

Emily emerged from the barn to find Roy standing 20 feet away, the barrel of his 9 mm pressed against the side of Tristen's head. Tristen was a blubbering mess, crying and shaking his head, mouthing the word sorry.

While Frank and Jane had been fraternizing in the barn—while Emily had found a Jeep and tracked down the keys, Roy had discovered Tristen. He'd been hiding out under the helicopter, hugging his knees to his chest and trembling. Roy startled him as he knocked a few times on the side of the metal panels with his gun. He tried to smile when Tristen looked over—but judging from Tristen's horrified expression, the smile didn't translate without a lower jaw and came off looking completely ghastly.

Tristen had tried to crawl away, but Roy managed to get a hand around his ankle. He pulled the skinny kid out, clawing at the dirt and kicked him hard in the stomach. Tristen doubled over, wheezing, his arms folded across his midsection.

This is convenient, Roy thought. This is the same kid we tried to kill on the lawn. I think. Hard to tell without the mask. But I think this was the kid that managed to escape.

Apparently, God was still showing him the way—providing in Roy's greatest time of need.

Roy had wrenched Tristen to his feet and forced him to walk forward, prodding him in the ribs and spine with the barrel of his gun. After a few minutes of traversing the grounds, stepping over corpses and avoiding small fires, they arrived at the front of the barn. And now, they were face to face with Emily.

Frank peered out around the corner of the barn door and took a tentative step forward.

"I got this," Emily said sensing Frank's presence.

"He's got Tristen!" Frank took a few more steps, clutching Bundy's rifle.

"I can see that."

"Nnnngghhhh!" Roy bellowed.

"Jesus, look at his face," Frank said, scrunching up his own.

"He sounds the way Tristen did back at the Target," Emily reflected.

"Nnnnggghhh!" Roy said again.

"We... can't... understand... you," Frank said in a slow deliberate voice. Then to Emily, "Jesus, what's he thinking? He wants to trade Tristen for Jane? We're not doing that."

"I know," Emily scowled.

Roy was losing his mind listening to the two talk about him like he wasn't standing right there. He pressed the gun harder into Tristen's head and tried to say, "Fuck you guys." It sounded the exact same as when he'd tried to say, "Don't move," and "Where's Jane?"

As Roy's luck would have it, his question pertaining to Jane's whereabouts was answered in the next second. Once Emily had mentioned that asshole zombie's name, she'd armed herself and exited out the back of the barn, come around the side and crept up behind Roy and Tristen. She was holding the shiny fire axe they'd discovered, which she'd lifted above her head and was currently bringing down into Roy's right shoulder. The side with the gun. The heavy axe rend tissue from bone, splitting open like an overripe watermelon, levering Roy's gun hand up and sending a bullet into the treetops.

Tristen crumpled to the ground at the sound of the gun firing, leaving Roy confused and lopsided standing unguarded. Emily depressed the trigger on her machine gun which she'd had perched on her hip, sending an angry swarm of rounds into Roy's chest and abdomen.

Jane launched herself to the side, staying low and reached out, grabbing Tristen by the collar of his filthy shirt. She pulled him hard, getting him out of harm's way as Emily continued to fill Roy's shredding body with bullets.