So, House was just startled enough to lose his favorite cane. We're reverting now, for the explanation of his outburst in Russian, among other things.

Unless Those Brains Are Piggish And He Just Wants A Good Lay

"So. . ." The masked man had brought out a pitcher of tea and was sharing it with Wilson and was listening quietly up to that point in House's and Wilson's recollection of meeting Ann. "You left the diner to go south with Ann."

"No." Wilson made a face, remembering. "House said we needed the news. He hotwired Fat Lou's truck and Emma's car. He drove one in front of the broken window and one in front of the other. He took handle-ties from a few garbage bags, tied them to his cane, and got in the driver's seat to yank it out of the door. He smashed the dead between the two vehicles as they came out, pinning them so Ann could step forward and disable them. It was pretty upsetting."

"Very. They nearly broke my cane before I got the first car moved." House's misunderstanding made Wilson blink hard.

"And that left you with five?"

"Six dead bodies with moving heads."

House shrugged. "Counting them wasn't my top priority. I had to stop them all with my favorite cane and a bent screwdriver. He's counting the one with a bun near the oven."

The masked man looked at House, cocking his head. "Bent screwdriver?"

"Emma? She had her hair in a bun. She wasn't dead yet. Near the oven? Anyway, they'd walked right past her. Maybe because she was so quiet. Barely breathing." House rolled his eyes. "All right. The screwdriver I pounded into the ignition to twist it and start the car. I DID have to hotwire Fat Lou's truck. Security feature in the ignition lock."

Wilson nodded. "We took turns watching Emma while the news stations were shutting down. He pointed out the local anchorwoman, an Elsie Crusher. She was six foot five. He was showing me that that was the height needed to kill Wilma Peters when Emma's fever spiked. Emma stroked out despite everything we tried. The hospitals were shut down, evacuated. Then the phones were dead. The cell towers were dead. The internet wasn't reachable by my phone, at least."

The masked man looked back at House. "You watched the news to solve a murder?"

"I watched the news for information. I'd already solved the murder. Crusher Khrushchev'ed the woman and left her in a mud puddle of a grave."

The masked man looked back at Wilson, nodding. "High-heeled shoe as a blunt object."

Wilson nodded. "We didn't know the locals well enough for House to narrow down a motive."

"Yes we did!" House looked at Wilson funny. "She broadcasted live from her main sponsor?"

Wilson looked blank.

"The other bar! You know, where Wilma's ex worked. Obviously Elsie was getting rid of some competition."

"For jealousy or business? I mean, for love or money?"

"Who cares?" House shrugged.

Wilson rolled his eyes. "Fine. Anyway, the population was already decimated, and we obviously needed to prepare for our survival." I bleached the kitchen while Ann helped House remove and package the heads for study, including the pig's head. Then I helped Ann move the rest of the pig into the kitchen while House pilfered whatever was in the cars."

"So she butchered the pig, and you packed it up and left then?"

"Actually, no. We got two more people right away. House found Pete trying to open the safe in the convenience store. He and the manager had arranged to meet and use the money to buy their way away from what they imagined was a local epidemic."

"Not a really bad idea, if they'd been nearer an airport. I imagine a few Rockefellers tried it." House shrugged again. "Obviously, it was the manager's idea. Pete was just going along with it. He'd watched us put down the dead and was terrified of us till I convinced him to come join us. He started cooking fresh pork right away. He was very enthusiastic about cooking in Fat Lou's kitchen. Apparently he'd applied to work there a few times. I got Wilson to go up on the roof of Fat Lou's—"

"And I saw the dead trucker in the semi. It was trying to get into the sleeper compartment. At first, I didn't realize what that meant. It turned out that Ann Gee had been with her client in the sleeper cab. The trucker left at some point, and apparently had a heart attack."

"Probably watching us, having slept through all the news." House shrugged.

"I'm sure it looked alarming to the uninformed." Wilson grimaced. "I mean, it looked alarming to ME, and I knew it was forgivable. Ann Gee noticed him gone, woke up, started out of the sleeper, and went back in as it came after her. When I remembered that the dead only seemed to have interest in eating the living, I came down and told House. He put down the trucker and rescued her. House put me in charge, declaring himself my advisor.

I posted a guard rotation on the roof and watched about half a shift more than anyone. House took up with Ann Gee. She worked sentry and did some dishes. Mostly she shacked up with House, so House wound up doing a lot of other things. Working a lot more than he normally does so he could say their shares of the work were being done." Pete talked us through fueling up all the vehicles and every suitable container except the diesel semi with the manual pumps at the station. We all but Ann Gee took turns doing that at first. She joined in, mostly to seem busy when House was working, I think. The propane tanks out back of the diner were nearly empty by the end of the month. We'd managed to load and prepare three vehicles with salt pork and every useful thing we hadn't already used up. We almost got trapped right as we were leaving."

"A herd of dead came?" The masked man nodded.

"Nearly two weeks had gone by. Not a single other person, living or dead, had come. Then they all came at once. More than a hundred. House saved us again." Wilson gestured at House.

"Those were the 'other things' I was doing." House stuck his chest out and made a lofty expression. "Wilson puts such things as 'saving the day' and 'prognostication' under the 'miscellaneous' category."

"House—"

"Well, you do!"

"What were his escape preparations?" The masked man refilled Wilson's tea glass.

"Oh, thank you. He'd parked our three preferred escape vehicles behind the semi with Ann Gee's old client hanging half out of it. He said living people would look there last. He took all the fishing line he thought we could spare and wove it just under average neck height back and forth through the branches around the wooded side of the lot. That did actually take the heads off a dozen or so dead ones when they came and snarled up a few others. He scattered loops of about three hundred feet of rope and extension cords and jerry-rigged a winch from my motorcycle engine. He wired it to start from inside the kitchen. He had set the propane tanks to blow, all but the last big one we were still using and the two portables in the vehicles. He'd given all the ammunition that fit Ann's gun to Ann already and packaged the other bullets—"

"The convenience store sold bullets?"

"Yeah, I wasn't used to that either. A lot of hunting went on in the area, though. Anyway, when the herd started at us from the side with the escape vehicles, Pete had fallen asleep at his post. I came to with Ann shooting the rifle through the left shoulder of the dead guy grappling with Ann Gee and into the two dead coming through the door. Ann Gee did some close-quarter fighting—I didn't really see what she did, but it involved twisting the falling body of one to knock down another while bashing the third's head into the doorframe. Ann Gee got the door shut with her left go-go boot crushing the still-snapping jaw of one dead guy she'd knocked over. It only had one working arm at that point. I had the bar on the door just in time for the dead state trooper to smash through the window and cover us both with broken glass. He was still holding his empty gun.

That's when House reached us. A cane blow to the wrist knocked the cop's gun to the floor. Another on the back of the skull knocked it down for good. He shouted at me to take the gun and set fire to the booth he'd just been in and tossed me a disposable lighter. I—forgot the gun. By the time we realized we needed to leave, Ann was almost out of the bullets she was firing through the door to hold them off. We followed House to the kitchen, jamming the homemade doorstop—"

"Made of spare tires!" House beamed.

"Yes. We called Pete down from the roof, who was just panicking up there, useless, and House started up what was left of my motorcycle. The tightening loops tore feet loose, then some entire limbs and a few heads. He and I and Ann Gee had boots on. He had saved thick cardboard from foil containers we'd used up and, well, probably the trash. He duct-taped those around Pete's legs and lashed deep stock pots to Ann's belt with long lengths of cooking twine. It made crude homemade boots. With nothing standing right outside the kitchen, he sprayed something out the door and lit it. He'd poured something flammable on the lot anyway, I think."

"All the Windex and diesel and cooking oil we could spare," said House, "Who needs their windows done these days, right Mr. Clean?"

"The fuse he hadn't told us about touched off the propane tanks on the vehicles at the other end of the lot. We walked out behind him, crushing heads and necks with our feet all the way to safety. I've never thrown up so much in my life. I'm a doctor!

—We reached the cars. House and Ann Gee and Ann drove. Ann Gee and Pete and I were in the middle car. House had left written instructions to the police station, where we stopped next. He wanted to go to Winchester, but—"

"You had to detour around the interstate junction areas. Quite a long way from them, no doubt."

Wilson nodded. "We wound up finding a drug manufacturer in Maryland that used their delivery service. It had maps to that office you found us at."

House snorted. "Give it up, Wilson. I know we haven't been moved."

Wilson shrugged apologetically at the masked man. "Sorry. What gave it away, House?"

"The installation of Lexan in the wall here was the final piece of evidence." He pointed with his cane. "The fittings I recognized from the bakery in town. The water-stained concrete floor threw me at first. I thought it was a basement. I remember Christmas didn't have a basement—"

"Christmas?" the masked man cocked his head again.

"House's nickname for Corporate Somatic Material Solutions."

"Ah. Go on."

"Well, even though it's been cool enough, it hasn't been damp enough. The air is very dry in here. What did you do, Mr. Fixit? Tear all the carpet off the floor and find some old water stains?"

"The carpet was weighted by cubicles, rather than fastened down. As for the stains, I happened to have a minor corrosive. There was no need to apply it to anyone's skin."

Wilson shuddered.

House waved his hands dismissively for Wilson's benefit. "Johnny Appleseed here has been rather busy. You tacked this whole room together from old drywall? Isn't construction a bit loud in this day and age, Mr. Springsteen?"

"Not when it's indoors and sound-insulated. Four floors' worth of ceiling tiles is enough."

House shook his head. "Freddie the Freeloader? You were going to tell us about Pete."

"A simple catch-and-release went differently than expected. It's a tactic I use to learn about local politics. I've marked maps with details ranging from Vermont to Texas. I am preparing to move westward in hopes of locating NORAD. There are a few locations in old bases in these coastal states I need to be sure of first. Pete didn't come off as completely honest. But he did say he was working for Negan. I'd taken him when he was out scavenging as punishment. Apparently he ate too much of his own cooking to satisfy them. He described your old camp and gave vague directions to it after I recognized your names.

House isn't the most common name to begin with. Then being a doctor, searching for Vicodin, having a doctor friend named Wilson, keeping company with a hooker, and being thought of as a genius and a jerk . . . I figured it had to be you. I released him within a quarter mile of a patrol point I'd noticed Negan's people frequent. Negan is unusual. He has a wider territory than any other little tyrant I've run into. You have a worse enemy than most, House. He killed his last doctor."

Wilson nodded. "From there you tracked us somehow."

"Yes."

"Mr. Funt probably wishes to insist on the germ front now."

Wilson squinted at House. "Mr. Funt?"

"Candid Camera?"

The masked man waved a hand dismissively. "I've used cameras and everything you could name on my quest to cure the animation germ."

"IT'S NOT A GERM, YOU IDIOT!" House bellowed.

The argument continued.

For me, it's always been relative when House called someone an idiot. It was when they missed something he was sure they should have been able to catch. In this case, House was only moved to insult the masked man that way within known aptitudes (tactics of battle or technician's evaluation of machine design or repetitive non-acceptance from the expert.) I get this specifically from House's famous line, "You ruddy jackass." Sorry, I can't remember the episode, but it was the one where he met a couple and figured out who had been unfaithful. Husband looked a lot like the actor who played Taub.

Please read and review. And let me know if you like: "The Nose Knows: Worthy Attempts" or "I No Longer Pay For My Tea" also posted on this site.