How to Hold Your Head and Your Heart

Are We There Yet?

"God, he smells," Bea complained as she tugged ZomBenny along with a rope. It had taken quite a bit of effort (not from me, obviously) to bind his arms to his sides and gag him so he couldn't bite down on anything, but we (a loose we) had managed.

"Well he is a walking decomposition of human flesh," I pointed out nonchalantly. "What did you expect?"

"Well at least he smells better than normal teenage boys," she shrugged and let her eyes scan ahead.

I placed a hand over my heart and gasped, "I feel offended."

"As you should be," she said with a smug look.

"I'll have you know I died as an adult," I replied proudly.

"Oh yeah?" She asked with an arched brow. "And how long were you an adult?"

I cleared my throat subtly and muttered, "Five days."

Bea snorted, which was very unladylike if you asked me.

"Five days?" She repeated, a smirk crawling up the side of her lips.

I crossed my arms over my chest indignantly and asked, "Well how old are you then?"

"Nineteen, I think," she shrugged.

"You think?"

"I don't know. What month is it?"

"Do I look like someone with access to a calendar?"

"I'm going to go with nineteen then," she replied, glancing back at ZomBenny. "Where do you want me to tie him up at?"

"Excuse me, but you are not tying him up anywhere," I stopped walking and crossed my arms over my chest again.

"And why not? I do have places I need to be," she replied impatiently.

"Because we're coming with you," I told her matter-of-factly.

"Excuse me?" It was her turn to look at me like I was insane. "I'm thinking not!"

"You're the first person I've been able to talk to in years," I told her with a pointed look. "You can't just expect me not to come with you."

"And what if I just leave... ZomBenny... tied up somewhere? What are you going to do about it?" She arched her golden brow in defiance.

"If you do that, I will annoy the shit out of you for the rest of your life," I threatened with a glare.

Bea narrowed her eyes at me skeptically. "Why do I have a feeling you're already going to do that?"

She started walking again, and much to my amusement and triumph, she still tugged on ZomBenny's leash.

"Soooooo... Where are we going?" I asked once I'd caught up with her again.

"Austin," she deadpanned.

"What's in Austin?" I asked curiously.

"My brother," she said as she looked ahead again. I almost didn't catch it, but she muttered under her breath a quiet, "Hopefully."

Brushing it off, I continued. "So that's why you're wandering the Wastelands?"

Back in the initial plague, the government thought it would be a grand idea to nuke the most infected areas of the country to kill off most of the zombies. It didn't work, of course, and now the Wastelands were where most of the zombies thrived. Most of the radiation has died off years ago, but most people still didn't want to take the chance to venture out unless they had to.

"Yep," she replied, popping the p.

"Where are you coming from?" I asked curiously.

"San Fran," she said in an uninterested tone.

A California girl. Sweet.

"You've come quite a ways," I commented.

"Yep," she said again.

Frowning slightly, I tried to think of some way to get her more animated in the conversation, but could think of none. So instead, I settled for silence.

After a while, my boredom got the better of me and I blurted out, "Are we there yet?"

Bea groaned aloud and raked her fingers through her golden curls in frustration.

I knew I shouldn't push my luck with her, but she was just so darn fun to aggravate.

"So it's going to be one of those trips."

I smirked, "It was an honest question."

"Does it look like we're there yet?" she asked, gesturing to the vast expanse of nothingness.

"Decidedly not," I frowned.

"Then no. We are not there yet," she pieced it together for me slowly.

I waited a few more silent moments before smirking and asking, "What about now?"

"I swear I will kill you," she glared at me with those mesmerizing chocolatey brown eyes.

"I'm already dead," I pointed out cheekily. "It's all just empty threats, Darling."

"Where there's a will there's a way," she grumbled.

As she walked ahead of me again, I couldn't help but notice her slight limp. I looked down at her right calf to see it bandaged tightly with a bit of blood seeping through the cloth.

She was injured.

Frowning, I came to the conclusion that it was probably just some small cut or something, else she wouldn't be putting so much pressure or strain on it.

Either way, I'm sure it was nothing, and to be honest, I was just glad I finally had some decent company.

ZomBenny was great and all, don't get me wrong, but the ability to engage in an actual conversation is severely overlooked, in my opinion.

"Stop checking out my ass," Bea called back to me without even turning around.

I smirked and caught up to her again, neither denying nor confirming her suspicions.