"Del, stand back," said Bungee, his voice dark and stern as he sidestepped over and formed a barrier between Mercedes and I.  "If I say to run, I want you to sprint as fast as you can through the fields without looking back.  Go to the commune and get..."

"Bungee," said Mercedes with a playful smile and a shake of her head, "are you worried I'm going to do something to her?"

"You've been gone for almost a month, Mercedes," said my bodyguard, his body hunching slightly as his muscles flexed.  Unfortunately, despite having gained some weight, Bungee still hadn't had a regular diet of human flesh.  Even though he towered over the petite Mercedes, his figure wasn't as nearly as imposing as it could be with some meat on his bones.  "Food isn't that easy to find even without the limitations of the Whisper Valley treaty.  If the hunger's gotten you..."

"Does it look like the hunger has gotten me?" she asked with a roll of her eyes.  "Take a look for yourself.  I've got nothing to hide."  She lifted her arms and did a slow spin before us.  I wasn't sure what we were looking for, but Bungee must have seen it because his stance loosened.  "See," she said, crossing her arms over her chest and flashing a victorious smile, "I don't even have bruises, much less decaying flesh.  The virus is at bay."

"Fine," he said, stepping out from between us, though he did come over to my side of the stump, where he kept guard beside me.  "You can't blame me for being cautious.  You left without telling anyone."  He paused, turning his eyes to the ground as he toed a patch of grass.  "Raid's missed you."

"That's why I left like I did," she said with a sigh.  "He's so intense all the time and he's so stressed out about the hunger problems in town.  I knew he'd make a big deal if I said I wanted to leave town to find another solution for our problems."

"As if he wouldn't make a big deal if you left without even leaving a note," said Bungee with a growl in his voice that was so low, I wasn't sure Mercedes even heard it.

"What can I say?" she said with a shrug.  "I've always had a flair for the dramatic."  She giggled to herself, before turning her eyes to me.  "I was a Hollywood actress, you know?  I was quite a star back in the day."  She then struck a pose, tossing her long blonde hair as she pouted her lips.  I assumed that was her best camera ready pose, but I wasn't sure what cameras she was expecting out in the middle of Killian's farm.

"Okay," sighed Bungee as he turned to our makeshift table, "whatever is going on here, Raid is going to want to hear it."  He then faced me with remorse pulling at his lips.  "I'm sorry, Del, I think I'm going to have to put our dinner on hold for now."

"That's okay," I said, smiling up into his green eyes.  "It was very sweet of you to put this together for me.  You're a good friend."  A small smile twisted his lips before he gave me a nod and headed over to the table.  He blew out the candles and then set to work on boxing up our food.

He really was a good friend and I really did appreciate him doing this for me.  However, I couldn't deny the relief filling my chest.  Mercedes actually did me a huge favor by stumbling upon us.  Now I'd have the chance to properly sort out what was happening between the two of us and figure out if this was something I wanted.

"That's so darling," said Mercedes in a low voice as she joined up beside me to watch Bungee wrap the tableware up in the tablecloth.

"Oh?" I stuttered, surprised to find her standing so close.

"He's such a sweetheart and you two are so cute together."

"Cute...together?" I mumbled, heat rising to my cheeks.

"Oh yes, the whole town is talking about it," she said, biting her lip in a vain attempt to contain her smile.  "It's nice that the town is speaking positively about zombies for once."

"They are?" I asked, thinking of what I'd done in the past couple weeks to deserve such gossip.  Then something occurred to me.  "But you've been gone for weeks, how do you know about what people are saying?"

"Oh, well," she said with a bright, sharp laugh that pulled Bungee's attention away from his work, "the way you two were working together on the whole River murder thing, it was already a topic before I left."

"Oh..." I said, looking at Bungee from the tops of my eyes, only to turn away when he caught my gaze and smiled.

"Anyway," Mercedes continued, "I should apologize.  I ruined your date..."

"Oh, I don't know if..."

"And," she said, cutting me off as I felt a panic attack grab hold of my chest, "this is simply a terrible way to make a first impression.  Why don't we do things properly?  I'm Mercedes, it's nice to meet you."  She held out her hand, her smile wide.

"Oh, well, I'm Delilah," I said, taking her hand, "and, um, well I've already met you, but it's nice to see you again."

"You what," muttered Mercedes, her grip tightening around my hand.  "I, oh yes, I remember now."  Her grip loosened as she released my hand.  "It was at the, um..."

"Commune," I said as I glanced towards the warehouse not too far from where we stood.

"Right, I had been working the, uh, fields then."

"Yeah," I said, looking back to find Bungee finished with his clean up.  "It was only for a minute, so it's not a surprise that you don't remember."

"Still," she said, her voice softening, "it's just not polite to forget a first meeting."

"Come on," said Bungee, interrupting us as he handed me a take out box marked with the Brew and Stew logo.  "Let's get a move on.  I predict Raid is going to have us up well into the night on this one."

We headed back into the soy bean field, careful not to step on the sprouting plants.  I waited to see if Bungee had more to say on the matter since Mercedes' disappearance was a zombie issue and the town had an unspoken rule that clans be left to deal with their own business.  However, when it became clear that Bungee's frustration had his tongue tied, I decided to allow my curiosity some room to breathe.

"So Mercedes, did you end up finding anything during your trip?  You must have since the hunger didn't take you?"

"Oh yes, I did!" she said with an enthusiastic cheer.  "I found another clan of zombies that have learned to survive without meat!"

"You have got to be kidding me," growled Bungee who came to a stop and shifted the weight of his pack to his other shoulder.  "Mercedes, you've been around long enough to know these fad diets never work out."

"Clearly this one does," said the effervescent zombie with a wave of her hands, showcasing her healthy body.

"Raid is really, really not going to like this," grumbled my friend before setting back out across the field.

"Well, I'm at least curious," I said, hoping Bungee wouldn't stop me from learning about this new corner of zombie culture.  "What kind of diet is this?  How does it combat the virus?"

"Oh, you see, the problem with previous generations is they didn't have the technology we do.  Human ingenuity and modern medicine has opened up the door for new possibilities."

Bungee responded with a snort of laughter, but didn't say anything else on the matter.  Mercedes watched his back with pinched lips and a raised eyebrow, however, she also decided to hold her tongue.

"I think it's an interesting idea," I said in Mercedes' defense.  "I've been hearing a few problems around town recently from some of the other clans and it sounds like taking new technologies and medicines into consideration might be a good exercise."  When Bungee glared at me from over his shoulder, I offered him an apologetic smile and continued.  "And I suppose there's no harm in at least giving it a try since Tuck is open now and you can always fall back on that if things don't work out.  You know, if you had just waited a few more days, Mercedes, you might not have had to go out looking for answers at all.  You would have heard Calista's announcement that she'd be opening a market with freshly harvested human meat!"

I thought offering up this convenient safety net would ease tensions on both sides.  However, instead, the female zombie tensed with a look of disgust twisting her soft, round features.

"It won't come to that," she said, her voice lower than normal.  "The way to the future is through our diet and our medicine.  We won't need to be vultures anymore."

After that, I decided it best not to continue that line of conversation and we finished the remainder of our trek in silence.

***

See, she was just on vacation, doing a little touring of the area. Everything is fine.

This chapter begins Act 2. I haven't totally outlined this act yet, but I've got the general picture and things are going to be getting interesting for Del.

Have you ever done a "fad" diet? Did it actually work out for you? As someone who has struggled with weight issues almost my entire life, I've sadly tried lots of different things. About a year ago I started doing Weight Watchers and it actually was helping. My mom lost an insane amount of weight on it in less than a year. I'm not great at keeping up with it, thanks to the stress of work and parenthood, but I'm hoping I'll get it together some day so I can actually get to a healthy weight.