“Huh what? That your plan worked? That we found a zombie who doesn’t heed your command, like the ones we encountered in the stadium?”
I shook my head. “No, that the breadcrumb is down there and we’re three stories up and away from it.” I turned her way. “So much for glass half full.” And so much for thinking these things through. Sort of like doing a split on stage and then realizing that there was no way to gracefully get out of it. Or that you tucked your junk and doing a split on stage hurts like a motherfucker. Okay, so maybe I’m speaking from experience here. “Plan B?” I asked.
She scratched beneath her wig before glancing my way. “Got one, but you’re not going to like it much.”
I shrugged. “I wasn’t too thrilled with Plan A either, but try me.”
She pointed to the street below. “Think landing on a few dozen of them will hurt?”
“You’re kidding.”
“Not without—”
“Never mind. In any case, we’ll kill them.”
“Technically speaking . . .”
I sighed. Then I looked at the breadcrumb, who was, thank goodness, somewhat trapped by all the halted zombies, and they, I figured, wouldn’t remain halted for all that long. “Technically speaking, they’re already dead and we’re already dead, so no one, technically, is going to get hurt,” I said, finishing her train of thought.
“Technically, no.”
“And not so technically?”
“The breadcrumb and his ilk will kill more of the humans on Liberty Island.”
“You don’t play fair, dearest.”
She smiled. “Never have, never will. Now then, care to do the honors?” Again she held the bullhorn aloft, my lips soon pressed upon it.
I groaned, and not the good kind of groan either. “Everyone directly down below, fall on top of one another!”
Lo and behold, topple, topple, topple, and we had ourselves one instant zombie mattress. Take that Sealy.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Not even close.”
In any case, I leaned over and fell and she leaned over and fell, and mid-flight I realized that this, too, wasn’t such a swell idea—which Plan B’s rarely are—but the laws of gravity being what they are, well, we kept on falling before we heard a few dozen brittle bones crunching and breaking beneath us, our own bones, miraculously, all still in one piece.
The rest of those next few minutes I chose to wipe clear from my memory as best I could, which, suffice it to say, wasn’t as successful an endeavor as I would’ve liked, but at least we were no longer on the roof and the breadcrumb was barely a block away.
So, newly righted, which wasn’t nearly as easy to accomplish as simply falling three stories down, we again picked up the trail.
“Well then,” said Dara, when the crumb was again in sight, roaming ever onward, “do we simply follow?”
I paused and considered the question. “He’s probably just ambling nowhere in particular. Doubtful he has a destination in mind, such as heading to his master. But he also doesn’t heed my commands, so following might be all we have for now.”
She nodded her head. “And maybe they congregate with one another. Maybe they’re told to report back. Who knows?”
Once again I touched fingertip to nose, which took a few minutes, and still I missed, but made the point just the same. And then we picked up the pace, which was about like adding grease to a slug’s, um, feet. Foot? Well, whatever. At least, slow as we were, we were gaining ground, especially since he had just as many zombies to contend with as we did. Plus, we could sidestep, while he, in turn, got slammed like a pinball on one bumper after the next.
Thirty agonizing minutes later, give or take, and we were right up on his ass.
“Any ideas?” Dara asked.
“Well, we know when we have to be back at the ferry and we know, approximately, how long it’ll take to get back there, so, just to cushion it a bit, let’s follow for another few hours. If this turns out to be the only crumb, then no harm, no foul. But, fingers crossed (as if we could manage something like that), he leads us, as we said, to the bakery from whence he sprang or, better still, to the baker him- or herself.”
“Sounds like yet another plan.”
I shrugged. “Sounds like all we have.”
And so we followed. Every so often I’d bark out a “Halt!” to see if the crumbs were amassing, but all we came across were halting zombies and our lone ambling one.
“What do you think his name is?” asked Dara, a couple or so hours later.
“I don’t know. Charles?” She shook her head. “Max?” The shake repeated. “Lester?”
The shaking stopped. “Mmm, how about . . . Ricky.”
The zombie was mostly gray with a bit of mottled purple and a hint of green. His clothes were tattered, dusty and considerably torn, his shoes mere straps of leather barely hanging on to his shuffling feet. In other words . . . “Sure, why not.”
“Ricky Shea it is then!”
I grinned. “Another drag queen you used to know?”
“Nope,” she replied. “Sometimes you just gotta go original. Besides, look how well he bumps off the other zombies like he does.”