Better off Undead

Chapter 29: Lies and Secrets

The next day, to Eli's surprise, it was Paul who brought him breakfast. He stuck around while Eli ate, occasionally pacing this way or that and making generally nervous conversation. At one point, he noticed the binoculars and lifted them to his face. He looked out to the forest across the road, to the same area where thousands of zombies had been stumbling through only hours before.

After a moment he put the binoculars down and turned to Eli. "So," he said, and then paused, as though weighing the value of each and every word, "what did you do before?"

Eli paused in mid-bite of his jam filled kolache. "Before?" he muttered through the pastry.

"Yeah, you know. Before the zombie outbreak. Marshall said that you mentioned something about computer skills?"

Eli nodded absently as he munched on the last of his kolache. Images of slow days in the computer closet at the university flickered through his head. "Yeah, I guess. It was I.T. You know, computer support stuff. Turning computers on and off. Downloading updates. Plugging in mice that had come unplugged. That sort of stuff."

"Were you good? Or were you one of those I.T. guys that sat around and did nothing and pretended that was work?"

For a moment Eli assumed a defensive posture. He felt rather as if he had been attacked. He had his mouth open and one finger poised in the air, a lecture preparing for a dive off the tip of his tongue, but then the moment passed and he realized there was no point. So he leaned back in the chair and offered a non-committal shrug. "A little bit of both, I guess."

Paul did not seem to notice Eli's brief fit of rage. He continued, unperturbed, "So if I were to come to you with a computer problem, something kinda basic, do you think you could fix it?"

"Yeah, probably."

Eli fell silent and poked around at the leftover crumbs on his plate. He looked up after a minute to see Paul watching him expectantly. "Well who's to say?" Eli added, not sure what the man was waiting for, or even why he was asking. "I mean, what's it matter now, anyway? It's not like there's a working computer anywhere within a hundred miles, so who cares, right?" Eli waited, but Paul did not respond.

"Right?" Eli repeated, a little more emphatically. He learned forward and stared harder at the other man.

A thin smile began to spread across Paul's lips.

Minutes later, they were standing in a room in the main building Eli had never seen before. A wave of excitement was washing over him, smothering him, threatening to drown him. He clenched and unclenched his hands over and over without even realizing it. He felt like a fat kid in a candy store. He felt like a poor kid invited to the Christmas morning of the richest family he knew.

Before him was a wall lined with computers.

"So, these all work?" he asked. The excitement tightened his chest so much he was barely able to get the words out.

Paul was busy messing around behind one of the computers. "No, just this one," he answered, nonchalant, completely oblivious to Eli's demeanor.

"Oh," responded Eli, his heart and shoulders immediately sinking.

With a flicker and hum the screen to the computer Paul had been working on sprang to life. "Excellent," he muttered to himself as he sat down in the nearest chair. Then, to Eli, he said, "I didn't want to use up too much power at once by letting a bunch of computers I didn't need run all at once."

"Yes, that would be awful." Eli's voice was flat and emotionless, as though he were no longer able to work up the energy to be expressive.

Paul's fingers blazed across the keyboard in clearly familiar patterns. The computer beeped some noises as it loaded up the operating system. "Here, come take a look at this," Paul continued, waving Eli over. Despite his resentment, the young man complied. Paul grabbed the mouse and moved the pointer over to a folder. He clicked and the folder opened on the computer. Paul tapped the screen with his finger. "See?" he said, as though his issue was abundantly clear. "My file is gone."