“Finally,” he sighed. “Can we go?”
“It’s only eight now,” Christine said as if he had accused her of making them late.
He let his head fall to the side to rest on a shoulder pad. “I was up all night…” The pained look in his eyes gathered the sympathy of everyone around him.
“Still nothing?” Liam asked, resting a hand on Zack’s shoulder.
Zack shook his head and looked at the ground. Silence. He’d been staying out longer each day to search for Anita. No one had the heart to tell him it was probably a waste of time, that she was already dead. Nobody wanted to see what that would do to him.
The guys turned to head down the stairs and Christine followed behind with a bounce in her step. She sniffed in through her nose and closed her eyes to savor the crisp morning air. Something touched her face and her eyes sprung open.
“Where are
you
going?” Zack asked with his hand held out in front of him. He looked to Liam with his brow furrowed and then to Jerry, as if to ask him if he’d invited Christine to take watch with him.
Jerry sipped his coffee and shrugged his broad shoulders.
“I’m going with you,” Christine said. She looked to Liam, but he was looking away at the sky. “You did tell them, didn’t you?”
He reluctantly met her increasingly hostile gaze. “I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.”
“You hadn’t gotten around to it?”
“Well, hey, welcome aboard,” Zack jumped in. “I think it’s badass. Way to go, Chris.” He thrust his hand up in the air and she slapped it with a resentful smirk.
“No way,” Ralph said, shaking his head. “We can’t trust her. She’s never been out there before.”
Christine wanted to tell him off like she constantly did with Zack, but something held her back. She didn’t know Ralph that well. In that moment she realized that Zack was the closest thing she had to a friend with Allison gone. She snorted through her nose at the thought, causing Ralph to glare at her with narrowed eyes. “You’re going to get us all killed,” he said with disregard.
“We were all new to this at one point,” Zack said. “What do you think Jer?”
They all turned to the old man as he lowered the steaming mug from his lips. Ralph waited with a confident grin plastered onto his narrow face. Jerry took a deep breath of contemplation. “I think she can take care of herself.”
Ralph’s mouth dropped as he let the axe fall from his shoulders to swing back down to the ground. “Oh, come on!” he whined. It was one of the rare times he showed his true, young age. “There’s no way you actually believe that!”
“That’s the way the world works now, kid. If it makes you feel any better she might get herself killed, maybe Liam, because he’ll do anything to protect her, but that’s about it.” With that, Jerry walked off down the stairs and back to his apartment to sit on the porch with his shotgun and coffee cup.
The air was electric as Ralph glared at the thin blonde. He snorted and shook his head before bounding down the stairs two at a time, his axe clanking against the wrought iron railing.
Christine’s face turned red and she struggled to take in a full breath. What if Ralph and Jerry were right? Maybe she shouldn’t go. She looked to Liam and, without a word, could tell that he was concerned about the same thing. His face was steady, but his eyes always gave him away. They wouldn’t meet hers.
Zack was the only one who wasn’t fazed by what Jerry said. He waved the comment off. “Pft,” he pushed out from his mouth. “Don’t listen to him. You’ll be aces.”
She took the same steadying breath as when she released an arrow from the longbow, just like she practiced. “We’re all going to be fine,” she whispered to herself as she exhaled. “We’re all going to be fine.”
“It’s easy for Jerry to say,” Ralph came around once the others caught up to him. “I bet his back doesn’t even hurt anymore, the lying bastard.”
They all forced a chuckle as they walked down the stairs and out of building six. There was a slight overcast that day as billowy gray clouds drifted in front of the sun. The wind kicked up and pushed against the group with blustery force before dying down again. The leaves on the trees clung to the branches for dear life until the next gust of chilled air blew through.
Once her feet touched the pavement of the parking lot, Christine’s heart began to race right out of her chest and up into her throat. She looked around in search of the cause for the rapid onset of panic, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Everything around her was calm and they were alone.
She took a few more steps and all at once she realized what it was that made her heart pound. It was the farthest she’d been away from the apartment in two months. She used to think, when locked in the apartment, that that moment of revelation would uplift her spirits, but instead she cowered at the expansive grounds. It felt unnatural to be outside, exposed and vulnerable. She tried to steady her wobbly knees as she watched the guys walk ahead without her. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her hoodie so no one would see them shake.
Ralph Sherman walked along in a casual manner. He slapped the back of his hand against Zack’s bulging shoulder pad. “Hey, man, can we go out again after this? I have to make a run for something I don’t think we’ll find.”
“Sure, but we’ll have to go further out this time. Walmart’s cleared out and so’s the one in Valpo. We might have to take a car if we can get one to start.”
They continued their conversation as if they were talking about something as simple as a stop at store on the way home from work. Christine was engrossed by their casual planning over Ralph’s mysterious item.
“We’re almost completely out,” he continued as Christine listened in. “There’s not even enough to make it through the night so I have to find more today.”
“We’ll find it, man. Don’t worry. We always do,” Zack said, looking at Ralph with a tilt of his head, his brown eyes soft and caring.
“Why don’t we all go?” Liam suggested.
Ralph and Zack looked at each other from the corners of their eyes. They’d never gone out at night with Liam before. With how heavily Liam had prepared for the apocalypse, they’d barely gone out with him at all. They were a two man team and Liam saw this in their eyes as they stared at him silently.
Christine noticed too and jogged a few steps to catch up. She nudged her fiancé with her shoulder. “Actually, I have something planned for us tonight.”
There was no plan and he knew this. He smiled back at her and nodded with gratitude.
“Here. You should take this,” he said to her as he held out his longbow. “I don’t want you to have to get close to any of the dead.”
“If we see any,” she said, hopeful.
Liam didn’t say anything. His eyes shifted down to the pavement. The heavy crossbow hung from his back.
Christine took the longbow and shoved several arrows into her empty backpack, the tips showing from the top. She breathed in through her nostrils and out through her mouth. Over and over again, she prayed she wouldn’t have to use them.
XIV.
Christine’s black boots pinched her feet with every step she took, but she refused to complain. None of the guys complained, but they were all used to it. She should have worn the combat-style boots around the house to break them in more. The leather was stiff and rubbed at her heels. They walked for miles through downtown Chesterton, keeping close to the buildings along the sidewalk.
There was no one else outside, no movement inside any of the abandoned buildings. Windows were busted out of storefronts and blood was smeared across the doors. Christine looked at these familiar buildings and her eyes watered over. It was hard to swallow seeing them in such disarray.
The diner she used to go to on the weekends with her grandmother was burnt to the ground. Ashes and garbage blew in the wind. She tried to picture the details of her grandmother’s face as she had so often seen it from across the table, a plate of biscuits and gravy in front of them both. But her face had faded over the years. It’d been ten years since she’d seen her.
Christine’s eyes scanned the line of buildings in search of a distraction. Anything would do. They stopped by a dilapidated storefront with a sign hanging crooked over the door. “Isn’t that your comic book store?” she called out to Zack.
Ralph spun around and shushed her, his eyes ready to burn her alive.
“Sorry,” she whispered bitterly.
Zack kept walking as he mumbled a quick, “Yeah, that’s mine.”
“Shouldn’t we go in, check it out? Or have you guys already done that?” She tiptoed around the subject, unsure where her place was with them. She felt like the odd man out in a close group of friends—the tag along girlfriend who nobody wanted there, not even Liam.
Zack stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “No, we haven’t.”
“Well, come on!” Christine said with a grin. They hadn’t searched a single place in the hour they’d been walking. What was the point? They were supposed to be collecting supplies, not sight-seeing. If they entered somewhere commonplace it would be a nice transition into the new terrifying world. Maybe they could pop in and pop out again unscathed.
“If I’m lucky it’s been trashed and burned,” Zack said with a laugh.
He doubled back and opened the thick glass door. The bell above didn’t sound as it had for years. He looked up and saw a bloody handprint on the top of the door frame where it had been secured. He rubbed at his beard with the palm of his hand and ran it over his mouth.
His eyes lowered to take in the state of his store as everyone else stood behind him, still on the sidewalk. Shelves were turned over on their side, comic books lay torn and scattered on the dirt covered floor. A pair of legs stuck out from underneath an overturned bookcase along the back wall, a ring of blood around it.
Zack inhaled a sharp breath, but it caught in his chest and the intake was fragmented. He wanted to look over his shoulder to see if the others had noticed, but he didn’t. Instead he moved forward, deeper into the dark, bedraggled store.
His sword hit the counter with a clank as he hoisted himself up to lean over. The register was wide open and had been cleared of all its money, not that that mattered anymore. Still, he felt his stomach drop. What little he had was completely gone. He turned around to look at the wall of video games near the door. His vision blurred as he stared.
“That was where I first saw her,” Zack said softly, more to himself than to the others huddled in the doorway. “Anita.” He sniffed and released an anguished sigh. It was impossible not to picture her standing there, smiling at him while she pretended to browse the Wii games.
XV.
Zack looked around his bright, empty comic book store and then out the darkened windows to see if it looked like there was anyone headed toward his shop. He thought about closing early. It wasn’t like anyone was going to come in anyway and even if they did, they wouldn’t buy anything. He walked to the front door with a set of keys connected by a Superman keychain, but the door opened before he could lock it.
He gawked at the woman standing in front of him, keys still held outward. He didn’t say a word. Anita was too beautiful to talk to, he’d decided that months ago, with her shoulder-length warm brown hair, her too cute freckles that speckled her nose, and those high waist shorts that made her legs look like they went on for miles. There was no way a girl like that would ever be interested in a comic nerd like Zack, but there she was, smiling at him in the doorway.
“Hi,” she said, her cherry red lips contrasted with her snowy white teeth.
Zack tried to talk, but his words got caught in his throat and he made a guttural croak instead. His entire face turned bright red as she tried not to laugh. He cleared his throat and attempted to speak again. “Hi.”
She looked around the empty store and back at Zack, who blocked the entrance. “Are you still open?”
Zack had been staring at the many tattoos that littered both Anita’s arms. He blinked a few times to bring himself back. “Oh, yeah, I’m open. Sorry. Come on in.” He walked quickly back behind the counter and left her to browse in peace.
Anita had come into his store a few times before. She’d meander around, look at the games, toys, and comics before leaving again. She never bought a thing. Her high heeled, red shoes clicked on the tile floor as she strolled around.
Zack picked up a small stack of receipts and shuffled through them. He looked up at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. When she whirled around to face him, it caught him off guard. The receipts he held loosely in his hands fluttered down to the floor. He left them there and looked at a spiral notebook on the counter, as if he’d meant to throw the receipts to the ground all along.
“I’m Anita,” she said and smiled again as she took a few steps closer to the counter.
“I know. One of the guys who was in here when you came in last week told me. Said you work over at that used bookstore a few blocks away.”
“That’s right,” Anita said. She lifted her head upward. “I’m the manager.”