“Sure. You know me. My lips are sealed.”
“That hot piece of ass, Fergi, wants to form an expedition to get some supplies,” I say, lowering my voice. “I intend to be part of it, and to make at least one stop at a Pharmacy so I can get what I need for my rash.”
“You don’t even know what you need, though.”
“I’ll swallow as many pills and smear as many creams as it takes to figure it out.”
We fall silent for a moment. Faintly, I can hear the sound of hands clawing on glass. Teddy hears it too. “Can you believe there are actually zombies outside? Real fucking zombies?” Teddy says, his lower jaw trembling. He takes another swig.
“I guess I don’t have a choice.”
His mouth opens but no sound comes out for a moment. And then he whispers,
“Are we gonna die, Danny?”
I shake my head. “You see those fucking things wandering around the house.
They’re stupid, and slow as shit. They’re way slower and dumber than they are in the movies.”
Teddy laughs hollowly, but then his forehead creases in worry. “What about your Nana? She was slow and everything too, and she still was kicking the shit out of you for a while. If she’d had her fake teeth in, you might be dead right now.”
“I did just fine against her,” I tell him, a little angrily. “Sure, she got in a couple shots, but I totally controlled her with my jab and footwork.”
He nods, but I can see he’s unconvinced.
I throw my arm around him. “Listen, we’re going to be fine. Once we get some supplies and hunker down, this shit will be over before you know it. Eventually the goddamn National Guard is going to bust into town with tanks and shit, and they’ll absolutely stomp these pathetic zombies into the dirt. Give it a few days, I promise you this whole thing will be over.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. I mean, look how fast they fixed shit after Hurricane Katrina.” He sips his brew again and burps. I can smell his burp—it’s a mix of scents; stale chips, rotten meat, wet fur.
What a gross human he is.
We head back to the living room, where Fergi and Verne are in the middle of a heated argument.
“Because it’s not safe,” Verne is saying.
I really wish she’d waited until I was back to start this conversation.
“I know it’s not safe,” Fergi tells him. “That’s why—“
He points at Fergi. “You’re just trying to get me killed because I broke up with you.”
“I don’t give a shit about you, asshole,” she says. “I want to get some supplies so we don’t starve to death.”
Verne starts pacing around the room. “I bet right now there are people congregating at the high school.”
“Do you realize how easy it will be for zombies to penetrate a school? Windows everywhere. Multiple sets of doors. That’s like the worst place to try and set up camp,”
Fergi says.
Nips is tapping on the window, while one of the zombies—a fat black zombie I like to think of as Professor Klump—is staring inside, his tongue making circles and his big white teeth pressing against the window.
“Look at this fucker,” Nips says. Tap, tap, tap.
“Will you stop teasing them?” Casey pleads. “You’re getting that one all riled up.”
“I’m not scared of this fat retard.”
“Well I am,” Casey says.
Verne’s face is still red from arguing with Fergi. “I don’t understand why you’re all refusing to listen to reason.”
I walk over to Verne and put my hand on his shoulder. “Hey, buddy. You need to chill.”
He shrugs me off. “Why should I be chill? Take a look outside and tell me one good reason.”
“Listen, for the record, I think Fergi is right. I think we need to get out of here, get some supplies and then come back and wait this out.”
He snorts. “And who cares what you think? You spend eighty percent of the time in the bathroom doing god knows what.”
“No need to be disrespectful. I’m just saying—“
He pushes a finger into my chest. “You think I didn’t see you and Fergi go off into the bedroom together? What’d she do, suck your dick? She loves to give head, I know it personally.”
“Fuck you!” Fergi shouts, jumping at him. I get between them and try to keep them apart.
Verne laughs and shakes his head as she tries to swing on him. “Stupid whore.”
“What did you call me, little limp-dick motherfucker?” she screeches.
She’s a feisty one. I turn away from Verne and place my hands on Fergi’s shoulders. I look her in the eye. “Calm down. Calm the hell down or nobody is going to want to go anywhere with you.”
Fergi wipes the back of her hand across her mouth and then blows a strand of hair off her face. “Forget it. He’s not worth the spit in my mouth.”
“That’s not what you said when you were slobbing my nob,” Verne replies.
She turns back to say something and I whisper in her ear. “Listen, he’s just trying to get you upset so that he can win this argument. He wants everyone to go run to the police station or a fucking elementary school. That’s all. Just let him run his damn mouth, nobody’s going to follow him.”
“Okay. Thanks.” She gives me a quick smile. “He’s such a jerk. And he really does have a tiny penis. It’s less than three inches, hard, I swear.”
Shep has his head in his hands, sitting on the couch. Over by the window, Nips is still tapping at the glass like a lunatic. Suddenly he looks up at us. “Damn, we got company. Another five zombies just joined the party.”
Everyone rushes to look out the windows. Now there are a bunch of them out there, stumbling around the house, pushing against the glass. Sticking their faces up and trying to lick or bite their way inside. It really is weird when you see them. A couple of them have obvious wounds, too. Like one guy has no arms at all, and another is missing the entire lower portion of his jaw. He’d have a hard time eating anybody.
Casey’s crying now, sobbing into her hands. “Ohhhhh….Ohhhhhh…..Ohhhhh…”
People are starting to panic.
“What if they get in here?” Martha asks.
“They won’t,” Shep says, finally getting off the couch. “They don’t know how to do even the simplest tasks. They’ve never even tried to get in through the front door or heaved a rock at one of the windows.”
Nips jumps back from the window as if shocked. “Oh, shit! They got somebody!
They got somebody!”
Looking outside, we can all see it.
A car is stopped in the middle of the road, and a few of the zombies have surrounded it. They pull an old man out of the driver’s side and an old woman out of the passenger’s side of the car. The woman actually gets away and starts for one of the neighbors’ houses. She’s moving slowly because of her age. She seems like she probably needs a cane.
“We should help her,” Fergi says. “We’ve got to help her.”
“Hell no,” Teddy says. “I saw Danny fighting one of those things and it kicked his ass. It was an eighty year old zombie, he still barely got out alive.”
“I took it easy on her,” I say, trying to explain myself even though nobody’s really listening. “It was my Nana, I had to hold back a little.”
“We can’t just let them just die,” Fergi cries.
I’m more on the side of letting them die, personally. The thought of running outside right now with all of those creatures stumbling after me—chasing me down—I can’t really justify it. No matter how much of a coward I might be.
The zombies have the old man on the ground next to his car. One is eating right through his coat and burrowing into his stomach. Another latches onto the top of the guy’s skull and starts tearing at it.
But the old woman has reached a neighbor’s house. She’s knocking on the front door, probably screaming to be let in. The zombies are a few feet away and there’s still time for someone to let her inside. But the people inside won’t open the door. I can see them standing there, right at the window, just like us. Watching the old lady pound and scream and beg.
“Jesus, this is fucking awful,” Shep moans.
“I feel…I feel kind of…” Verne turns and pukes on Martha.
It looks like he just spilled a can of creamed corn down her shirt. “Ugh! You fucking puked on me!”
“They got her,” Nips says. “Fucking hell, they got her.”
And it’s true. The first zombie catches up to the old lady, pulls her off the steps and drags her down to the lawn, where it instantly begins devouring her face. Before I turn away, I see her legs and arms kicking and fighting like a beetle that’s been turned on its back.
That’s an image I won’t forget anytime soon.
People move away from the window in stunned silence. We just witnessed something that is beyond comprehension. And no one wants to admit how frightened we really are.
I’m struggling to hold my shit together. Especially when my balls start itching again and I feel like I can’t scratch them with everyone around me. God, I really need those antibiotics.
“Most of the zombies are eating the old woman now,” Nips says, doing a running commentary now as if he’s the Howard Cosell of zombie cannibalism. “They’re feeding on her like a bunch of goddamn hyenas.”
“Do they even have hyenas in Japan?” Teddy asks.
Nips turns away from the window and glares at Teddy. “What has Japan got to do with it?”
“Well, you’re from Japan, right?”
“Yeah, my parents were from there. I was born here, just like you.”
“Oh. I see.” Teddy nods.
“No, you don’t see. You think I’m a fucking foreign exchange student like that kid in Sixteen Candles or something?”
“I’m more of a Breakfast Club kind of guy,” Teddy says. “The part where the principal gives Bender two months of weekend detention is so badass.”
Fergi looks at all of us. “You guys are being idiots, you know that?” She points outside. “People are being eaten out there!”
“We know that,” Verne says, wiping the puke off his chin with the bottom of his shirt. “I’ve said over and over what we need to do.”
Martha’s gone to the kitchen to clean the vomit off her.
Casey’s still sobbing. “Ohhhhhh….Ohhhhhh……Ohhhhhhhhhhh…..”
Shep’s back on the couch, head in hands.
Teddy’s still sipping his beer. Burp. Burp. Burp.
“Right now, we have a chance to get to a store, find some supplies,” Fergi tells everyone, looking for some sign that people understand what we’re up against. “Maybe even some weapons.”
I clear my throat. “We should go. We need to go and get supplies or we’ll end up dead of starvation before we get killed by those zombies.”
But puke face Verne’s still shaking his head. “If we just start running around to shopping centers, we’re going to die. I guarantee it.”
“Okay then,” I tell him. “How about we make two expeditions? You can lead one, and you can go to the police station or the nearest kindergarten or whatever.
Everyone who wants to try that can follow you.”
He smirks. “Thanks, big guy. Like I need your stamp of approval.”
I continue. “Me and Fergi are going to try and get some supplies, maybe a few weapons to defend ourselves. Anyone want to come with us?”
Teddy raises his hand. “I’m in.”
“Isn’t this jackass called Foreskin or something?” Verne says. “You can have him.”
Shep drops his hands and looks up at me. “I’m down too, brother.”
Eventually everyone else says they want to go with us. Verne stands there, his face red as they all defect to our side. Even old puke shirt, Martha, decides she wants to be in our expedition.
“You still going to the police station?” Fergi asks him.
Verne rolls his eyes. “If you all want to kill yourselves, I guess I can’t stop you.
So I may as well come along and try to be the voice of reason.”
“Great,” I mutter. “I was hoping we’d lose this clown.”
“We better get out of here,” Nips says, the only one still staring out the window at the gruesome scene. “These zombies are eating fast. I think the buffet’s going to close down soon and then they might come back over here again.”
“Okay, let’s do a head count,” Fergi says, scanning the room. She counts nine of us. “We should take two cars, tops, because we have to stay together.”
Verne raises his hand. “I’ve got my minivan. It seats six people easily.”
Now all of a sudden this guy is Mr. Helpful. I don’t trust him.
“Well if six people go with Verne,” I say, “then I can drive me and Teddy and Fergi.”
“I’m scared to go out there,” Casey says, having finally stopped her incessant wailing. Her whole body is trembling. Verne walks over and hugs her dramatically.
“Now, now. Everything’s going to be fine,” he says. “I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”
You get the feeling he thinks someday we’ll all be telling Barbara Walters what a fucking hero he was during the big zombie crisis.
“So, is everyone ready to go?” I ask.
“Yeah. But wait. Where are we going, exactly?” Shep says.
Teddy snaps his fingers. “Let’s hit the Super Shaws over on South Main Street.”
“Is there a pharmacy in that one?” I ask.
“Yeah, definitely,” Shep says.
“Good thinking,” Fergi tells me. “We should stock up on medical supplies, drugs, antibiotics, everything.”
“Great minds,” I say, pointing at my head.
“And then we should try and get to Dick’s Sporting Goods,” Fergi continues.
“They should have some rifles and ammo, unless they’ve already been looted.”
“Shep, you got any baseball bats, tire irons or anything?” I ask. “To use against the zombies?”
Nips peers outside again. “Yuck. It looks like someone broke open a bunch of piñatas out there, only there was raw meat inside of them instead of candy.”
Shep starts for the hallway.
“Where are you going?” Vomit shirt Martha shouts.
“I’m going to grab my toolbox from the garage. That should give us something to fight these things with.”
“Hurry!” Fergi says.
We all wait for Shep to come back.
“How much…uh…food is still left for the zombies to eat out there?” I ask Nips.
He shakes his head. “Not that much. By the way, I don’t think I’m ever going to want another bowl of chili for the rest of my life after seeing this shit.”
The room has broken up into different groups. Fergi and Teddy and me stand in one corner, while Verne’s hanging with vomit shirt Martha, crying Casey, and this other girl who I think’s named Elisa. She barely talks—maybe she’s in shock or something.