Realizing his mistake belatedly, Zach kind of wished he hadn’t conjured that image up. “Sorry, Mads.” He gave his sister and apologetic smile. “We would all be doomed if they actually existed, but I don’t think they do.” At least nobody had ever mentioned seeing Smasher-sized dogs, so he was going to try and be optimistic and say they just didn’t exist. Really though, he was just attempting to reassure Maddie, he didn’t need her worrying about Smasher-sized anything while they were out and about.
“Hey now! I have my moments.” As few and far between as they were, Zach wasn’t a complete pessimist about things. He preferred to call himself a realist, and really every place needed a couple around just to keep things balanced.
He had stopped believing Maddie was innocent of anything a long time ago. But he thought it was amusing how she still tried that look on him, as if he didn’t know what actually lurked behind it. Which was the mind of a very devious twenty-two year old, a mind that he was positive was going to get his baby sister into serious trouble at some point – and he would of course be there to attempt to bail her out of whatever that trouble may be.
Moments like this Zach almost slipped back into old habits, or ‘soldier mode’ as Sasha had once called it a long time ago, or not that long ago – but it felt like ages. His focus was on what lay ahead, and he trusted Maddie to keep an eye out for anything that might sneak up on them from behind. He just hoped there wouldn’t be any reason for either one of them to have to use the weapons they had with them.
Empty houses like this always kind of set Zach on edge. Maybe it was a morality thing, but he still struggled with taking other people’s things – even if they weren’t using them anymore. But that was his own little issue, one that he was mostly able to ignore or rationalize the whole thing with the thought that they wouldn’t be needing any of this anymore. Although this place looked like it had been gone through once or twice before, so who knew if they would manage to find anything here; he hoped they would though, because the idea of moving around Ossining too much still made him incredibly uneasy.
“Or what kind of stuff he would need, I mean Charlie ransacked a Target it looks like with all the stuff she has for him already,” Zach added, his mind flashing back to all the stuff their sister had had littered around her cell. “So what’s left to get him, really?” That didn’t mean that he wouldn’t try and find something for the kid, because even if he had no idea how to be an uncle and still struggled with that concept at all, he knew what the right thing was to do – and that was to give the kid a gift.
Maddie was right, the house appeared empty and he counted that as a small blessing. “Probably should see what’s lurking back there, especially since you spotted zombies earlier,” He didn’t like the idea of zombies being anywhere near the neighborhood, but he couldn’t change that fact. The idea of checking out the fenced in backyard wasn’t an appealing one, either, but it was better than being surprised if for some reason there was either an animal or a zombie making it’s home back there. “Do you want to come along, or just wait while I check it out?”