by Guy James
As luck had it, Milt’s belly broke his fall, and he didn’t even so much as scrape his hands on the hot pavement—surprisingly hot for the late spring morning.
Milt floundered on the sidewalk for a few moments, as he struggled to untangle himself from his flowing trench coat and the sword belt. Maybe the trench coat had been a mistake, he thought. Maybe sunglasses would have been a better option. But the trench coat was good, Milt reminded himself, for protecting his tender flesh from the sun’s harmful rays.
There was no time to go back and change now anyway. Milt gathered his strength, and with a mighty heave, he rolled himself over, got to his knees, and stood up. He picked up his sword belt and refastened it.
By the time Milt caught his breath, his eyes had adjusted to the sunlight, allowing him to take in the state of the strip mall for the first time since he exited his shop.
It was a post-apocalyptic strip mall if ever Milt had seen one. It was like a virtual reality zombie apocalypse. Milt made himself blink. Except that it wasn’t virtual. It was real.
Zombies staggered about, bumping into cars and storefronts and each other. What idiots, Milt thought. They didn’t look or act much differently now that they were zombies than they had when they were people. They weren’t great warriors, that was for sure. Milt saw that there were many zombies still in their cars, turning from side to side and pointlessly flailing their limbs. They weren’t getting out. Had the idiots forgotten how to unbuckle their seatbelts and open their doors?
There were no walking zombies close to Milt. The closest ones were several storefronts away, and they weren’t reacting to Milt’s presence. Milt scanned the area until he spied the closest zombie. She was an old woman zombie, and she was in her car.
Milt looked down at the hilt of his sword and saw that his knuckles were white around it. He loosened his grip and watched as a bead of sweat squeezed itself out of his palm, slid down the hilt and then down the sheath of his sword. It dripped onto the pavement without a sound, leaving a tiny wet mark. Milt took a deep breath and waited for the droplet to evaporate.
It didn’t take long, and when all signs of the droplet were gone, Milt wiped his right palm in his hair and unsheathed his sword. He lost his balance as he drew it and had to step sideways to keep from falling. It was a heavy sword, as Milt noted each time he wielded it, and Milt was starting to feel a soreness in his forearm from handling it.
He plodded over to the car with the old woman zombie in it, licking his lips nervously as he went. The sword wobbled in his hand as he took heavy steps toward the car, and he sliced a wisp of hair off his head and almost cut himself before he regained control of the sword. Milt stopped when he was a few feet away from the driver’s side door, and peered in through the half-lowered window.
The old woman zombie looked back at Milt and moaned: “Bahhh.”
Milt jumped backward and dropped his sword. The clatter of the sword scared him even more than the old woman zombie’s moan, and he had to take a puff on his inhaler to recover his composure.
Before picking up the sword again, Milt pulled a miniature Snickers bar out of his back pocket and tried to pop it into his mouth in one swift motion, as he was accustomed to doing. The bar wouldn’t cooperate. Milt looked into his hand, confused as to why his deft Snickers popping hadn’t taken effect and the candy wasn’t in his mouth, calming him down. In his hand was a distinctive Snickers goo, with bits of wrapper mixed in—the unseasonably hot spring weather wasn’t helping Milt’s cause.
Milt brought his Snickers-covered hand to his mouth and licked off all of the Snickers goo and wrapper pieces. He sucked on the warm chocolate, nougat, and caramel until all that he could still feel in his mouth was the plastic wrapper. Then he reached into his mouth and pulled out the wrapper pieces, scraping the remaining globs of sticky peanut matter off the outgoing wrapper bits with his teeth. Milt felt much calmer then. The molten candy bar had worked its magic.
He took a deep breath, tugged on his pony tail in triumph, bent over, and wrapped his hand around the hilt of his sword.
“Ow!” Milt yelped, and a quarter of a peanut spluttered out of his mouth, landing on the hot pavement next to the sword. The hilt had heated up in the sun, and it was hot to the touch. Milt wondered what to do next. What could he do?
He considered taking off his shirt to handle the sword, he considered going back into his shop for some water to pour on it, and he considered urinating on the thing. A warrior must do whatever is necessary to get the job done, he reminded himself.
But Milt wasn’t going to go the way of a shirt, or water, or even urine. He reached into his back pocket, and withdrew a warm, squishy miniature Snickers bar. He squeezed the bar between both of his palms until the sticky paste was all over his hands, then he rubbed the paste on the hilt of the sword, feeling the goo get warm and melt more completely as he did it.
It worked. Not only did the chocolate glop cool the hilt of the sword so that Milt could pick it up, it also enhanced Milt’s grip on the sword nicely.
With the sticky-hilted sword in both of his hands, Milt turned back to the old woman zombie trapped in her car. He raised the sword up in front of his body, pointing it toward the zombie’s head.
“Blah,” the old woman zombie said. But Milt didn’t drop his sword this time, he didn’t even flinch.
He focused a glare on the zombie’s throat and stabbed with the sword. He missed the first time, hitting the half-lowered window, but recovered his sword and stabbed again. It hit home this time, producing a faint ripping sound as it disappeared into the back of the zombie’s throat.
The old woman zombie stopped moving, and she didn’t say, “Blah” anymore.
Milt looked at the length of the sword that was still exposed. There wasn’t any blood running down it, as would be the case in the Conan movies. The zombie was dry as far as blood went, and that made sense to Milt. He wasn’t sure why, but it did.
He pulled the sword out of the zombie’s neck, and the zombie slumped forward in its seat, coming to rest on the steering wheel. The car let out a brief honk, and then was silent.
Milt took a puff of his inhaler, proud of himself for not upchucking this time. He felt like something had been lifted from him, and he knew he only wanted one thing. He wanted to slay another zombie. He could see now that zombie slaying was his destiny. And he was going to achieve his destiny.
The trench-coated, self-proclaimed warrior, one of his hands glued to the hilt of his sword and the other glued to his inhaler, set a course for the nearest wandering zombie.
Chapter 45
Sven jerked his head back to look at the road, but whatever they had hit was gone.
What was left was a disgusting black and green residue, like slime that had sat out in the sun for too long, coating the hood and bottom portion of the windshield.
Satisfied that the car’s integrity was intact, Sven turned on the wipers and went back to weaving through the stopped traffic.
He shot a quick glance at Ivan, wanting to keep his mind from wondering about the nature of the crud now spraying from his wipers. “What were you hissing about Ivan? Those are our friends back there. Lorie and Evan are our new friends. Be a nice cat.”
Ivan hissed at the backseat again, but the hiss was more subdued this time. Then he settled back in Jane’s lap and looked up at Sven.
“Bad Ivan,” Sven said. “No more fish treats for you if you keep that up.”
“I think something has him spooked,” Lorie said, pointing to Ivan’s fluffed-up tail.
“I don’t blame him,” Jane said.
“Cats don’t like me much,” Evan said sadly. “Dogs either...or ferrets. Do you think it’s because I play chess?”
“No,” Jane said, “of course not.”
“Hey,” Lorie said, “what did we hit back there? Was it one of them?”
“Could be,” Sven said. “Whatever it was splattered pretty good huh?”
Jane grumbled som
ething under her breath.
“Yeah!” Lorie said. “Take that zombie monster!”
Sven agreed. “If they keep taking it, we’ll keep giving it to them. We’re gonna get through this, we’re gonna survive.” Sven looked at Lorie in the rearview mirror. “You with me kid?”
Lorie gave Sven a conspiratorial grin. “All the way.”
“Okay,” Jane said. “That’s enough of that. This isn’t a game.”
Then Sven’s alarm went off again.
Evan screamed. Ivan bared his claws and hissed.
“Protein time,” Sven announced. “Has it been two hours already?”
“Sven…” Jane said, her voice accusing.
“Oh,” Sven said. “Sorry Evan, it’s just my protein alarm. It reminds me to get my protein so that my muscles keep away from catabolism—from breaking down, from eating themselves.”
“Oh,” Evan said, “like the zombies are trying to eat us I guess.”
“Exactly right,” Sven said.
“So now we’re all calling them zombies?” Jane said. “Just like that?” Jane sighed and turned to the backseat. “It’s okay Evan. I screamed a lot worse than you did the last time his stupid alarm went off.”
Evan looked relieved and puzzled at the same time. “How does that small watch make so much noise?” he asked.
“It’s a high-protein watch,” Sven said, and gave Evan a grin in the rearview.
Jane turned to Evan, shaking her head. “Never mind him,” she said. “He’s nuts. Here, look, I’ll give him some protein, and he’ll stop bothering us.”
Jane reached into Sven’s backpack, took out two protein bars, unwrapped both of them, and thrust them into Sven’s open mouth at the same time.
“See?” Jane said. “That shut him up pretty good.”
Evan laughed, nodded, and went back to looking out the window.
Sven bit a piece off both protein bars at the same time, gave them a contented chew, and considered.
“Can I have one?” Lorie asked.
Jane shook her head. “You don’t want one of those. They’re terrible. They taste like sand, and are impossible to chew up properly.”
“Here,” Sven said, handing one of the bitten protein bars to Jane, “break her off a little piece so she can try it.”
Jane took it, and looked back at Lorie. “It’s really not any good, you sure?”
Sven saw Lorie nod in the rearview mirror, and Jane broke a piece off for her to try and passed it back. Sven heard sniffing sounds, then chewing.
“So what do you think?” Sven asked.
“It is hard to chew,” Lorie said, “but I kinda like it.”
“You’re probably just starved,” Jane said. “I didn’t have time to grab any real food, what with…” she trailed off. “We’ll pick something up on the way, right Sven?”
“Yeah,” Sven said. “We’re getting there, it’s just gonna be very slow going, already is.”
Then Sven saw a break in the stopped cars and clear road in front of him.
“Looks like I spoke to soon,” Sven said, and hit the gas.
Speeding up, they took a half-blind turn. Sven had on a grin, happy not to be zigzagging at 10 miles per hour in and out of stopped cars.
“Maybe we should keep taking it easy,” Jane said. “We’ll get there in the end.”
“But this way,” Sven said, “we’ll get there a hell of a lot fas—”
Sven hit the brakes as hard as he could. The car fishtailed, and then began to skid. Because they had been in the midst of a curve in the road, two of the car’s tires came off the road for a moment, and Sven felt the car unbalance.
After a moment of perceived weightlessness, the car wobbled back onto all of its tires and resumed the skid.
Brakes and tires cried out for mercy.
The car was fast approaching a large group of zombies, who, by all appearances, were crossing the road.
Chapter 46
Lorie held on to the seat in front of her while the car skidded, her eyes glued to the road ahead. She knew that Sven wouldn’t be able to stop in time, so she braced herself for the impact, but made sure to keep her eyes open. Lorie was right, Sven was unable to stop in time. They came to a halt within the zombie pack, knocking a dozen over, and setting the rest to banging and scraping against the car.
The car was suddenly dim, all but a few shape shifting patches of sunlight blocked by the churn and flail of zombie limbs.
Breathing hard, Lorie let go of the seat in front of her. She spun around to look at the mass of walking dead that now surrounded them.
What were they going to do now? How were they going to get out of this? The mass of zombies or monsters or whatever they were was so thick that Lorie couldn’t see past it to any kind of safety.
Then Lorie’s field of vision began to swim, the zombies’ banging and rubbing against the car disorienting her.
“What are they doing in the middle of the road like this?” Sven asked.
“What are they doing?” Jane repeated angrily. “What are they doing? Who cares what they’re doing? What are you doing driving so fast? And what are they going to do to us now?”
Sven turned around to look in the back of the car. He nodded at Lorie, who now had Evan burrowing into her back to get away from the monsters outside. Lorie nodded back at Sven, put an arm around Evan, and turned back to watch the staggering figures circling the car. Evan’s face was pressed into her shoulder, and it felt very hot. It felt wet too, like Evan was crying.
“You’re right,” Sven said, and to Lorie his voice sounded shaky. “I really messed this one up.” The zombies’ moaning and scraping were growing louder, and the car began to shake.
Lorie slid herself and Evan away from the windows so that they were huddled in the middle of the backseat. The figures outside were clawing at the car, but none of them reached for the door handles. It was like they didn’t know how they should be trying to get in, even though the doors were locked.
“Can you drive through it?” Jane asked. She was breathing hard, but Lorie saw hard eyes behind the panic, and it was reassuring.
“Yeah,” Sven said, “okay, let’s try that. Okay.”
The big man eased his foot off the brake and the car inched forward. The monsters became more frantic in their clawing and banging, and their moans became more agitated. The moans were dry, like chalk on a blackboard—not the point of a piece of chalk on a blackboard, but the broad side of a piece of chalk on a blackboard, like when you wanted to fill in the outline of a picture. That wasn’t how people were supposed to sound, all dried up like that.
The car stopped, settling into place.
“What’s wrong?” Lorie asked.
Sven looked confused for a moment as he looked down at the steering wheel, the gear shift, and back outside. Then he began to jerk at the key, apparently trying to turn it. He shifted the car into park, then tried to turn the key again.
“It’s dead.” He tried the key again, still nothing. “It must have shut down when we were out of control.”
Sven turned the key to the left, then to the right.
Still nothing.
Lorie understood what was going on right away—the same thing had happened to one of her friends in the middle of a driving lesson. The engine had automatically shut off after her friend spun out. Then Lorie remembered the worst part of the story. Her friend’s engine hadn’t turned on again for several minutes. It didn’t look like they had minutes to spare.
“No, no, no,” Jane said. “Why won’t it start? This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening!”
The car was shaking harder now, and Lorie was starting to think that she might be at the end of the ride. It was no good to think like that, but she couldn’t keep the thoughts out. Those monsters would get in, and they would bite and tear and—
Ivan hissed at Lorie, and swiped a clawed paw in her direction. Lorie ducked out of the way, and Ivan hissed again.
; But he wasn’t hissing at her, Lorie understood, he was hissing at Evan. Hadn’t he hissed at Evan earlier? Lorie wasn’t sure.
Lorie pushed the overheating Evan gently away from her and propped him up against the middle of the backseat.
Then she suddenly found herself entranced, watching the keychain that hung from the ignition, jangling in time with the car’s rocking.
Lorie began to feel faint, as if she were floating away, up, up, and—
The door was ripped open, and Lorie saw a gnarled, shriveled hand—no, it was more a claw than a hand—reaching for her feet.
Chapter 47
Lorie screamed.
Jane couldn’t believe the engine wouldn’t turn, and now one of the sick people had ripped the door open, and it was getting into the car with them. As hopeless as she thought their situation was, Jane had to help the kids. She wasn’t just going to let those things grab Lorie and Evan. She was going to go down fighting, and she was going to see to it that they all would.
She frantically glanced around the car for some kind of weapon, but found none. Before Jane realized what she was doing, her body was in action. She threw herself into the backseat between Lorie and the intruder just as its shriveled hand closed around Lorie’s ankle. Another one of the sick people was trying to push through into the car, but with the first intruder blocking most of the door, there was only room for the second one’s grasping arms.
The grasping arms were in Jane’s face, and Lorie was being dragged across the floor of the backseat, toward the flailing crowd outside.
“No!” Lorie shrieked as she struggled. “No! Help me!”
“Sven!” Jane yelled as she yanked on the girl, trying to keep her inside the vehicle. “Start the car, start the damn car!”
Lorie was trying to wriggle away, but even with Jane trying to keep the intruder out and Lorie in place, the girl was still being dragged out.
Then a grasping arm caught hold of Jane’s hair and pulled.
The pain was sharp, causing Jane to grit her teeth. She saw one of the grasping arms with some of her hair in its hand, then the hand opened, the hair fell, and the hand was grasping for her once more.
Ignoring the pain and the grasping hands, Jane made herself focus on Lorie. She had to save Lorie.