Free Well Fed - 05 by Keith C. Blackmore Page B

use duck and deer calls? To lure critters in?”
    “Yeah?”
    “I think that’s Benny. Think Donald’s keeping him alive long enough to use him as a fuckin’ morbid duck call.”
    “To draw the gimps away from the door?”
    Talbert nodded. “And to sucker us into going after Benny.”
    That straightened Gus up on the bed. “Jesus.”
    “Yeah. It’s like that.”
    Benny wasn’t one of Gus’s favorite people simply from association with Talbert, but knowing the man might be being used as bait soured his sensibilities.
    “So then,” Talbert said. “You’re all caught up. We’re stuck here until we can figure a way out or we both starve. Wouldn’t hold out on the starving, though. Donald knows we’re up here, so I expect he’ll be along shortly.”
    “Then it’s two against one.”
    “Maybe,” Talbert acknowledged, but his expression wasn’t so confident.
    “You don’t seem so sure.”
    “Well,” he said after a bit, “thing is––”
    “ I trust you gentlemen are resting up ?” a gravelly voice inquired eerily through the walls, causing both Gus and Talbert to jump as if icy hands had cupped their testicles.

7
    The disembodied voice paused for a moment, allowing Gus and Talbert to creep to the main door of the bedroom.
    “Step out into the hallway where I can see you,” the voice continued with crisp, cultured enunciation. The speaker volume lessened.
    “Fuck that,” Gus muttered. Talbert nodded agreement.
    “I applaud your resilience, gentlemen. Most succumb to the zombies of the house. Otherwise, Donald cleans up. One of you, the one wearing the military-grade armor, has actually broken the record for longest period of survival on the first floor. That’s quite an achievement, considering the history. You’ve been duly noted in my journal—an honorable mention, if you will.”
    Gus cracked open the door to the dimmed hallway and scanned the ceiling, feeling the moody oppression of the place.
    “Who are you?” he yelled.
    “Ah,” the voice sighed. “I’m the owner.”
    “Mortimer?”
    “Ahhh, you know of me.”
    “Heard a few stories.” Though the voice sounded clearer, Gus couldn’t locate a camera.
    “Are you from Digby?”
    “Annapolis.”
    “I see. I actually visited that small city once, unannounced. Incognito. One benefit of electing a recluse’s existence––the common folk fail to recognize you upon making appearances. Annapolis. What a miserable, self-indulgent mash of second-tier industry and misplaced elitism, sprouting from soil drenched in weekend alcoholic binging, academic malaise, and an eroding military presence—an unlikely economic synergy that refused to perish. Astonishing, really. Even more so when all those quaint little towns amalgamated. Town pride and all that.”
    Talbert’s what the fuck? expression said it all.
    “Well, in any case… gentlemen, you’ve forced me to play my hand.”
    “Why?” Gus demanded, scanning the hallway.
    “What do you mean ‘why?’”
    “Why are you doing this?”
    “ Why ?” the voice repeated, incredulous. “Why not ? In the absence of a police body, one must defend one’s property. To be perfectly blunt, you’re trespassing. And neither you nor your surviving companion have been the first to violate my home. If being besieged by the undead wasn’t deplorable enough, you can’t possibly imagine how… displeased I felt to discover that the remnants of humanity had, in effect, taken some self-deluded high moral ground and believed anything was up for the taking—especially a self-contained, self-sufficient dwelling such as my manor and the lands surrounding it. This piece of honeyed real estate drew clouds of human flies, who weren’t at all responsive to my attempts of dissuasion. In fact, like petulant children, they couldn’t fathom why I refused them entry into my domicile. Can you believe it? I never associated with any of them during the preceding, lethargic juncture reached by