They had done the best they could on short notice. The front display windows had been boarded using shelves and plastic tables. The tables stood on their ends, and Kevin had used sheetrock screws to drill through the tough plastic into the metal window frames. They had shoved the glass display counters up against the tables for additional support. The keys to Kevin’s Neon were on top of one of the glass display cases, looking useless.
It was 5:17 P.M.
There was an inch gap between two of the boards, wide enough for them to see that the sunlight was fading. They tried to ignore the ceaseless pounding outside. The tables fell several feet short of reaching the ceiling, and Kevin had used the ladder from the backroom to stand on while he secured them into place. Through the tops of the windows, he had seen the zombies swarm, the gang of teenage zombies growing as more zombies joined them.
“There’s so many of them,” Rhonda said. “It’s like they’re flocking here.”
“Following the brains,” Derek said.
“If that was the case, I think they’d steer clear of you,” Kevin said.
“I have to go pee.”
Kevin said, “So go pee.”
“I can’t,” Rhonda said. “
She’s
back there.” After growing tired of having to look at the woman’s corpse, Kevin had taken bubble wrap from the backroom and wrapped the woman in it. He and Derek had dragged her body into the back, shoving it into the bathroom and closing the door.
“She won’t bother you,” Kevin said.
“That’s okay, I’ll hold it.”
The zombies pounded on the tables and boards incessantly. By now, all the glass had been shattered from the windows and front door. As long as everything held, Kevin believed that they were relatively safe; a case of waiting it out. He tried not to think about what must be happening with the rest of the town. They couldn’t stay cooped up in the store forever. They needed to
eat
. There were several candy bars and fun-sized bags of chips in the storeroom, and a partial case of Dr Pepper, but that was it.
“Couldn’t we slip out the back?” Derek asked. “Those things are busy up front, so we could sneak out the back door.”
“Our cars are parked out front,” Rhonda said.
“Oh. Right.”
The TV was on in the background. The same thing was on every channel: a message from the Emergency Alert System warning people to stay indoors. Every few minutes the annoying attention signal would blare from the TV’s speakers. The message hadn’t been updated in hours.
“Try calling 911 on your cell,” Kevin said.
“I did. Busy signal.
“Well, try someone else?”
“I’ve tried everyone in my contacts. Nobody picks up.”
“Did you try Ryan?”
“I already told you, I don’t have his number. Maybe you shouldn’t have left your phone in your car.”
“No shit, genius,” Kevin said, cursing under his breath for being so stupid.
Any other day,
he thought,
I would have brought it in. The one day I leave it on the seat…
“Can’t we email him or something?” Derek asked.
“Internet’s down.”
“That’s convenient,” Rhonda said. “Who knew that when zombies attack only landlines and the Internet go out, but cell phones still work. You should have memorized his number.”
“I don’t even remember my own number most of the time.”
Derek sat down in one of the chairs, shuffling his
Magic
deck in his lap as he pondered their situation. “You don’t think we could outrun them? They seem slow. Definitely
Night of the Living Dead
variety.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Rhonda said. “That bitch that tried to eat your face off was talking. So
ROTLD
.”
“She only said the one word.”
“Okay, so they have a limited vocabulary.”
“All right, they know baby talk, but they still walk slow. We could go out the back, sneak around the side, and then bust ass to your car.”
“You wouldn’t make it two feet,” Kevin said. “There are at least thirty of those things out there, maybe more, and you’re fat.”
“She could make it,” Derek said, pointing at Rhonda. “She’s skinny. We could distract them. Give her enough time to get to her car, and she could go get help.”
“Wait a minute, you don’t just get to volunteer me. I’m not going out there by myself. When has splitting up ever turned out well in the movies?”
Kevin and Derek couldn’t argue with logic like that. Splitting up was a basic B movie mistake; without fail, someone always ended up dead.
“We should stay here. At least we’re safe,” Rhonda said.
“All we’ve got is Dr Pepper and candy bars.”
“What kind of candy bars?” Derek asked.
“Milky Way. Maybe a Twix or two,” Kevin said.
“You two practically live off pop and candy bars,” Rhonda said. “You’ll survive.”
Rhonda’s mind kept going back to the dead woman stuffed in the bathroom. Seeing the woman on the floor had been traumatic, but the thought of her encased in bubble wrap and wedged up against the wall under the bathroom sink was worse. The world was falling apart.
But
is
it the world? Or is it just Trudy?
Given the circumstances, Rhonda didn’t know if it mattered. Trudy was the only world she knew. Maybe when she was younger, before she had dropped out of high school and gotten her GED, before she had started working shifts at Jackie’s because she had moved out of her parent’s house at seventeen and needed to pay rent – maybe prior to all that she had envisioned more to the world than a small Iowa town where nothing ever happened. Shit, she had had plans like everybody else; dreams of leaving Trudy behind, moving to LA, being discovered, and recording her own album. She had been able to picture the money, the lifestyle, the world tours. She had even known what the name of her band would be:
Small Town Girl
, which was meant to be homage to the Journey song and not the more recent Kelli Pickler album.
Even at twenty-three, life had managed to dull those dreams. Trudy was like a time capsule that had been buried deep in the Earth; the contents stayed the same while the rest of the world moved on. It was a town waiting to be dug up, and, Rhonda thought, if that ever happened, it would have a helluva lot of catching up to do.
And another thing: she didn’t respect herself anymore. There were girls like Janelle who were perfectly content to make minimum wage, do the drunk dance on the bar every Saturday night, and eventually marry the first sleazebag that got them pregnant. As much as it disgusted her, Rhonda saw herself on a similar path. Girls like Janelle could talk smack about guys like Kevin all they wanted, but at least Kevin had had the sack to follow his dream, even if it was a humble one. The thought of turning out like Janelle made her want to throw up.
A zombie apocalypse was just the next logical step,
she thought.
“About that date,” she said to Kevin.
“Yeah?”
“How about right now?”
“You’re serious?”
Rhonda nodded. “
Dead
serious.”
Kevin disappeared into the backroom and came back carrying two cans of soda and several candy bars. He had also grabbed a cloth banner with Spider-man swinging over the rooftops printed on it. He unfolded it and spread it out on the floor. “Short notice,” he said.
“It’s perfect,” Rhonda said, sitting down on one end of the banner.
“Derek,” Kevin said, “go play with your deck.”
Derek, although dejected, obeyed. He walked into the backroom, and a moment later came the slapping sound of him shuffling the cards.
Kevin handed Rhonda a can of Dr Pepper. “Twix or Milky Way?” he asked.
“Twix,” she said.
Kevin popped the tab on his Dr Pepper and clinked his can against Rhonda’s. “Here’s to not having our brains eaten,” he said.
“You really know the way to a woman’s heart.”
Rhonda couldn’t think of a worse way to spend a first date, but as the zombies pounded and the last traces of daylight faded away, she realized she hadn’t felt so alive in a long time.
Becky stared at the revolver in her lap as though it was a tarantula crawling up her leg. It felt heavy sitting on top of her upper thigh, and she would have thrown it back in the glovebox where it belonged if she hadn’t been too afraid to touch it. There was a one person pep rally going on inside her head.
You can use it,
she told herself.
If it comes down to it, you can force yourself to use it.
Ryan started to pocket his cell phone, changed his mind, and dialed a number instead. He held it to his ear, listening to it ring. After four rings, he got Kevin’s voicemail. “Dammit,” he said and tucked the phone in his shirt pocket.
“Who did you try calling?”
“Kevin. No answer.”
After they had fled Becky’s apartment, Ryan had insisted on driving downtown; he wanted to check on the girls in dispatch. That had been a mistake. Downtown Trudy was utter chaos. The zombies ruled the streets.
Overnight,
he thought.
I don’t believe it, but this all happened in less than eight hours.
They had navigated the streets slowly, and when they reached the Sheriff’s Department, he had parked in the back lot because it was less conspicuous. There was an alley two buildings over, which would have hidden them better, but Ryan was afraid of getting blocked in. He didn’t think the walking corpses were particularly intelligent (at least not the ones he had encountered at Becky’s apartment), but Branagan had seemed damn talkative for a dead person. Most of the zombies were dumb, like in most of the movies, but Branagan had been different; almost like a man possessed than a rotting sack of flesh. Ryan hadn’t put that together yet, but it nagged at the back of his mind. Over the years, he had learned to compartmentalize his thoughts; knew how to push certain thoughts out, shove others to the back, and focus on the important stuff. When he was on the job, he had learned to clear his mind of needless distraction. The last thing a guy needed was to come up on a messy accident and be more worried about a spat he’d had with his wife or girlfriend than the people he was pulling from the wreckage.
Ryan had told Becky to wait in the car. She had appeared reluctant, but he had assured her it would only take a second. Rushing into the building and slamming through the door to dispatch, he had been surprised to find it empty. Cindy and Peggy were gone.
Had the good sense to get out while they still could,
Ryan thought and returned to the patrol car.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. Nobody home.”
As they had pulled away, Ryan had called Peggy on her cell phone. It rang three times and then she answered. “Ryan?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Where are you?”
“The convention center,” Peggy said. It was hard to hear; her voice was drowned out by people talking in the background. “Alan Bishop showed up at the office driving one of the district school buses. He picked us up and brought us to the convention center. He’s still out there, bringing people back. They’ve got the place sealed up. We couldn’t leave if we wanted to, but I think we’re safe for the time being.”
“That’s good,” Ryan said. “I’ve got to hand it to Alan, he’s quick on his feet.”
“Where are you?”
“Just left the S.O.”
The line was silent until Peggy, her voice wavering, said, “Greg?”
“I’m sorry, Peg. No joy. But I’ll keep looking. He’ll turn up.”
The silence that followed said everything.
“Really,” Ryan said, “your husband’s a good cop. He knows how to take care of himself.”
He had hung up after that. Becky had looked at him quizzically.
“People are holing up at the convention center. It’s safe. I’m going to drop you off there.”
Becky shook her head. “I want to stay with you.”
“Safety in numbers.”
“What about you?” Becky had asked.
“I’m going to get as many people to the convention center as I can. I figure most people have the good sense to stay in their houses, and anyone stuck out in the cold…I’m going to find them and bring them in.”
“Then I’m going with you.”
Ryan had glanced at her and had known there was no use in arguing. “All right. You can come. On one condition.” His eyes had dropped to the revolver in her lap then. “Pick it up. Get used to the weight in your hand. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you looking at it like you’re afraid it’s going to bite you. I want you to be prepared to use it, because you won’t have time learn if shit hits the fan. Go ahead, pick it up.”
Becky had hesitated, but after a moment she had slid her hand around the revolver’s curved handle and felt the weight of it, thinking it was heavy for something so small.
“It’s loaded. All you have to do is squeeze the trigger.”
All of that had been hours ago. They had scoured the downtown area, checking Jackie’s Diner, the hardware store, Trudy City Bank (which led Becky to mention her mom and dad were vacationing in Florida for the next two weeks), Bateman’s Foods, and most of the other shops that lined Main Street. Everywhere they had checked had been deserted. Except for the zombies.
Becky still had the revolver gripped in her hand. “He’d know what to do, wouldn’t he? He’s in the club.”
“Yeah, but talking and doing are two very different things,” Ryan said. “Knowing Kevin, if he’s anywhere, he’d be at the store. We’ll look for him there, but I want to go by Fred’s place first.”
Becky slid the revolver between her legs long enough to wipe the tears from her eyes.
“It’s going to be okay,” Ryan said.
Becky said, “I keep thinking I’m dreaming. One of those terrible nightmares that feel so real, and when you wake up you don’t realize it was only a dream at first, but when you do it’s a huge relief. The best feeling in the world.”
Ryan grabbed her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “If you’re dreaming,” Ryan said, “then I wish like hell you’d wake up.”