Zombies Earning Their Hunger

by Brian S. Wheeler

  Chapter 4 - Charity

  A week passed since Rose discovered the death of her final freezer and found her pantry spoiled and ruined. She did not go anywhere near to those steps that descended into the basement. She swore she would not return to that underground. Rose spent her days sitting in her parlor, thumbing through old magazines and longingly gazing at the models dressed in the fashions of four decades lost.

  And each morning, Rose rose at the coldest and darkest hour of the morning to warm a mug of water and to stand at her window to peek through her curtain upon the zombies who shambled down the street that ran in front of her lawn.

  “I just can’t suffer it for one morning more, Connor. I just can’t.” Rose spoke once again to the memory of her husband as she stared at another bowl filled with soft cat food. “My stomach shudders at the thought of another breakfast shared with my cats. I know how you warned me over and again not to visit that store when you were sick. But I have to go. There’s nothing left to eat in this old house. I’ve looked under all the boxes I could find. I looked until my knees and my back ached. There’s just nothing left.”

  The errand that waited that Rose would tax her, but Rose remembered how Connor would tell her that hard times gave the strong the opportunity to rise above the common field. She would meet her errand head-on. She would show the old pluck that used to be in abundance in Beckmire before the zombies appeared to ruin it all.

  Though the autumn continued to be unusually warm, Rose dressed as if preparing for a face-scraping winter. She pushed her legs into snow-pants. She wore a sweater beneath her heaviest coat. She wrapped a scarf several times around her throat, and she pressed a wool cap over her ears. A pair of mittens hid her hands, and she finished her attire by stepping into the heaviest pair of rubber galoshes she could find in her home’s disorder.

  First grabbing one of three coffee cans recycled for a bank for loose change, Rose stepped out of her home’s front door and grunted in the heat. Moisture instantly rose upon her forehead, but she did not second-guess her choice to wrap herself in such attire. Rose was too afraid that some stray zombie, late from assembling with his or her peers during the dark morning, might at any time appear in the street to recognize her. She hoped all that clothing would disguise her from such zombie eyes. If nothing more, she hoped the warmth would help keep her arthritic joints loose and warm, and so alleviate a bit of the pain she was sure to feel as she stepped down the road.

  It did not take long for that dreadful pain to arrive, first screaming in her knees and then spreading through her back to occupy every joint in her body. Rose winced. It was as if pieces of broken glass filled all the places where bone met bone.

  Rose had many blocks to go when a car, with a hood painted in primer gray, slowly pulled alongside her.

  “Do you need a ride, Mrs. Pilger? Looks like you’re limping pretty badly.”

  Rose squinted into the open driver’s side window. She didn’t recognize the man who smiled at her. She didn’t appreciate the pity that smile expressed. How had he recognized her through so many layers of winter clothing?

  “Do I know you?”

  “Of course you do, Mrs. Pilger. It’s Ryan Edwards. I’m Tucker’s youngest son.”

  Rose paused in her steps. She was tempted to accept that young man’s invitation, but she remembered that her husband had considered Tucker Edwards to be a dim an lethargic man. Tucker had for the span of several years run the only gas station in Beckmire, and though that station’s three pumps were the only ones in town, the only ones before a driver had to travel almost twenty miles further down the county highway to the nearest neighboring town, Mr. Edwards had run the station into insolvency. How could any reason other than waste and mismanagement force Mr. Edwards to shutter his station when there was no competition for miles? How long ago had it been since Tucker Edwards passed? Had he died from the cancer, or was it from a failed heart? How long had it been since his wife Jessica had been lowered into the grave?

  Rose winced as she lurched her gait forward. “I thought you moved away a long time ago, Ryan Edwards. What’s pulled you back to Beckmire? Didn’t think our little town had anything left for the young folks who escaped beyond the city limits.”

  “I’ve come for my brothers. I’m hoping to convince them to come with up north. There’s work up north for anyone willing to take it.”

  “If you say so.” Rose didn’t believe such a claim. Nor did Rose believe the prospect of work would do any good for Ryan’s brothers. She didn’t know those brothers’ names, but she recognized their faces each morning among those gathered in the zombie walk. She had watched those brothers push wheelbarrows and carry toolboxes down the street. The Tuckers hadn't raised motivated children. “I’m afraid you’re going to need a bigger and stronger engine if you hope to carry that lot of brothers out of town.”

  Ryan frowned. “I only asked if you needed a ride, Mrs. Pilger.”

  “No thank you. I do not.” Rose turned her head away from the window and settled her eyes again squarely upon the road in front of her. “There’s so little left of Beckmire that I don’t need a ride anywhere anymore. My bones aren’t as helpless as many you’re going to find shambling around here.”

  Connor would’ve been proud of her self-reliance. That thought gave her the energy she needed to cope with her joints throbbing in pain. She paid Ryan Edwards no more attention as the car distanced itself from her. A little more than ten minutes of suffering passed before Rose arrived at the general store covered in wooden, shake shingles. A wooden sign, spray-painted in capitalized, black letters, proclaimed the building housed Turner’s General Store. Rose gathered her breath. The concrete steps that lifted from the street to the store’s screen door never looked so daunting.

  “Give me a little magic from your grave, Connor. Tell me that Ollie Turner has his air-conditioning cranked up real high. Tell me he has that store as cold as he keeps it throughout the summer.”

  Rose rarely frequented the general store. Connor had always believed that a cruelty resided between the skull and the skin to explain why Ollie Turner’s face was twisted so ugly. All of the glowing, neon signs mounted to the walls and hung in the windows seemed to verify the suspicion to Rose. Bulletins advertised cheap packs of beer and lottery tickets. A digital placard promoted pizzas and soft drinks in tiny and blinking red lights. A few signs stapled to the screen door even offered fishing licenses and windshield wiper blades. Rose thought Ollie Turner had to realize that such signs were meaningless to Beckmire. The vast majority in that town had nothing to spare for fishing poles and basketballs, no matter the deals for those items Ollie Turner posted. Who was Ollie Turner trying to fool?

  Still, a cornucopia of goods assailed Rose as she pushed herself through the store’s screen door. No matter where she looked, Rose counted bags of potato chips and bins brimming with candy bars. She smelled the coffee brewing from Ollie Turner’s island counter topped by a fancy cappuccino maker. Her stomach rumbled as she peeked at the display case filled with twisted cinnamon donuts and cream-filled éclairs. She couldn’t deny the urge to stare across the tops of the aisles towards the coolers built into the wall, laden with ice cream sandwiches and ice cream cakes. Her route to the front register counter passed warm, salted pretzels and chocolate-covered cherries.

  Rose’s stomach ached, temporarily letting her forget the pain that throbbed within her joints. Ollie Turner was a terribly cruel man for filling his store with so much temptation.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Pilger,” lifted a voice from above a cardboard display advertising spicy salsa and tortilla chips. “I’ve been expecting you for some time.”

  Rose didn’t yet look up from the tile floor to meet Mr. Turner’s face. “Why’s that?”

  “People all over town have been having all sorts of problems with their refrigeration. It’s just ruining all kinds of foods and sending customers through my screen door. Luckily, my freezers keep running, though for some strange reason
I’ve lost power to my air-conditioning.”

  The heat suddenly swarmed Rose, who remained dressed in so many layers of winter clothing. She felt the dampness increase on her brow, felt the moisture cling to her armpits, felt how her palms turned clammy inside of her gloves. Yet Rose refused to remove that thick wool cap though her head itched. She refused to unravel the scarf no matter that it felt like the heat was squeezing upon her throat. If she didn’t wish to allow any of the zombies to look upon her, then she certainly had no desire to expose any more of herself than was absolutely necessary to Mr. Turner.

  “It’s not so bad in here,” Rose answered. “There’s still a lot of cool air coming from your wall of coolers.”

  “I’m happy to hear it, and thank goodness I didn’t loss my stock of food like so many folks have, Mrs. Pilger. It’s a shame your husband is no longer with us. He always had such a knack for fixing small motors and appliances.”

  Rose resented that Ollie Turner brought her husband’s dear ghost into the conversation. Connor had never trusted the shopkeeper. He had always favored driving the almost twenty miles down the county highway to the neighboring community so that he didn’t have to buy a jug of milk from Mr. Turner’s general store.

  Rose winced as she lifted her gaze up from her boots and looked into that proprietor’s face. Many in Beckmire believed Ollie Turner’s face must’ve been ruined by fire when that shopkeeper had been young. Some thought his face had been beaten to a pulp in some terrible robbery in some other general store the man may have managed before setting up shop in Beckmire. Some even believed that Ollie Turner’s face must’ve been stitched back together after his features were mauled by a wild pack of dogs. Each gaggle of the town’s thin children who loitered at the general store’s front door possessed a story of its own as to what may or may not have happened to Ollie Turner’s face. But everyone agreed - men, women, boys and girls - that Ollie Turner’s ugliness was terrifying.

  Rose winced as she looked into that face. She could tell no better than anyone else in that community if the welts of flesh that contorted that man’s expression was the damage of burn scars, or simply bumps of skin that grew naturally among the features of Ollie Turner and his kin. One eye looked far too high upon the brow, and the other eye looked far too close to the mouth’s upper lip. The nose ran crookedly, and the tip of its shape looked formed more by two empty caverns of nostrils than by any structure of cartilage or skin. And the mouth was worse still, a pair of thin, meagre and pale lips that locked into a hateful, mocking smile. Patches of hair extended, like patches of poisonous weeds, from a balding, conical crown of a head. The weak whiskers that formed the shadow of a mustache over the man’s mouth grew no thicker.

  Ollie Turner regarded Rose with that ugly face. “Oh, I hope I haven’t said something that I shouldn’t have, Mrs. Pilger. You look disturbed. Forgive me. How can I help you?”

  “I’ve come to purchase some food,” Rose’s voice cracked.

  “You’ve come to the correct place,” even Ollie Turner’s wink looked painful. “I’ve a good bit of food around here.”

  Rose sighed. She felt ashamed, and she did her best to remind herself to be proud, that she was not like those listless zombies who shambled each morning down the street. It didn’t matter if on that day she needed to pay for her goods in copper and silver.

  “I was hoping you might need some spare change for your register, Mr. Turner. My freezer seems to have broken along with everyone else’s. It really caught me by surprise, so I didn’t have the time to scrounge up any cash. I know it’s likely a terrible inconvenience, but I was hoping I could pay with this coffee tin of change.”

  Ollie Turned laughed, and the knot of his Adam’s apple bounced in his throat. “Oh, it all spend the same, Mrs. Pilger. One should never underestimate the fortune to be found gathered in a coffee tin of nickels, dimes and quarters.”

  “So you’ll accept it?” Rose sighed in relief. “I haven’t counted any of it. I’d be happy to wait while you counted it. I would’ve counted it all myself, but my fingers ache so bad. My fingers would’ve screamed in pain if I had tried stacking those coins into those small, paper rolls.”

  Ollie Turner remained silent for a couple of heartbeats. “Come to think about it, I don’t need to count any of it. I would only ask you to do one thing to help me with those coins.”

  Rose held her breath. Connor had never shared with her any specific reason behind his distrust of that shopkeeper, and Rose feared she was about to learn why her husband had so worried every time he looked upon Ollie Turner’s face.

  “What is it?”

  Ollie Turner swept his pale, thin arms across the counter, pushing his plastic tins of smokeless tobacco to the tile floor.

  “Dump it all out.”

  Rose’s hands trembled upon the sides of her heavy coffee tin. “Excuse me?”

  “Pour it all out onto the counter,” winked Ollie Turner. “We won’t let any of those coins hide beneath their neighbors in that can. We won’t let anything hide while we do our business. Don’t you worry, Mrs. Pilger. Take your time if you need to summon a little strength into your hands. Lift up that can and pour them all over the counter.”

  “Really?”

  Ollie Turner’s filmy eyes glowed. “That’s it.”

  Rose grunted and struggled to lift the coffee tin of change over the counter. Her wrists ached, but she was proud of her strength when she turned that can of change upside-down and dumped all of her coins onto the shopkeeper’s counter. Coins danced and spun, and many tumbled to the floor. Her offering of silver covered the register counter, and Rose smiled to see that her offering was substantial.

  “Oh my,” and Ollie Turner clapped his hands. “You did bring a lot of coins, but I must say most of them look like they’re pennies.”

  Rose shook her head. “I thought there were mainly nickels, dimes and quarters.”

  “Truly, Mrs. Pilger. Look more closely.”

  Rose swooned when she gazed back upon the counter. Bile lifted into the back of her throat. Dozens of small and brown bugs, unlike any pest she had ever seen, squirmed and wiggled in the small spaces between the coins, crawled over shining quarters to smear a trail of mucous along their path. Rose gasped as she watched the bugs hunch upon their glistening abdomens and wave there filigree of antennae, smelling the air to discern who stood before Ollie Turner’s register. Rose yelped. She cringed and closed her eyes, expecting those bugs to leap onto her shoulders before burrowing into the layers of her clothing.

  “Is something wrong, Mrs. Pilger. You look terrible. Do you need me to call for some medical help?”

  “Don’t you see all the bugs?”

  “Bugs? Good heavens no, Mrs. Pilger.” Ollie Turner’s alarmed eyes scanned his surroundings. “I take great pride in keeping my store clean. I assure you there are no bugs.”

  Rose slowly reopened her eyes. Not a single insect remained on the counter. There were only coins. Pennies again occupied the spaces between their more valuable, silver brothers. She wondered what was happening to her mind. Was dementia claiming a foothold upon her thoughts? She stared at the coins, but nothing squirmed out from beneath that pile. Ollie Turner, she was disappointed to discover, was correct. There were far more pennies in her coffee can than she had thought.

  “How much would you guess is there?” Rose asked.

  Ollie Turner shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I trust you, Mrs. Pilger. I know how your husband took great pride in his work. He was nothing like most people who shamble about this town. Take what you think is appropriate from my shelves, and I can provide you with a receipt. There’s no reason to add it all up to the last penny. I trust your judgement.”

  “Oh, thank your, Mr. Turner. Thank you.”

  Rose ignored the pain in her joints and nearly ran through the store’s aisles. In some small, compartment of her heart, Rose remembered what it had felt like to still be young, how it had felt before the pain arrived to torment
her bones. She thought of so little as she tossed items into her basket. She only knew her stomach hungered. She worked quickly, fearing that Ollie Turner was playing a cruel hoax upon her, certain that her husband owned a very good reason to mistrust that shopkeeper, and so she piled all she could before the proprietor changed his mind.

  If Rose still trembled when she brought that basket of goods to register counter, Ollie Turner gave no indication of noticing any of her unease as he considered the goods she took from her basket to set upon the counter. Rose was surprised when she saw that the shopkeeper’s fingers never pressed any of the register’s keys. Instead, he withdrew a sheet of paper from the other side of the counter and began tracing shapes with blunt stick of black charcoal. Rose dizzied as she watched the man’s hand work across the paper. Vertigo pinned upon her shoulders as she watched Ollie Turner sketch strange shapes of ellipses and triangles, rectangles and ovals, diamonds and stars. The geometries shifted and morphed as Rose stared, until she finally ripped her eyes away before she stumbled onto the floor.

  “Please, Mrs. Pilger,” Ollie Turner’s voice snapped Rose out of her trance. “Take this receipt back to your home for your records. I know that receipt must look strange, but it’s only a shorthand my grandfather taught me when as a boy I watched him manage a general store much like this one. Bring it back with you the next time you come to my store, and that receipt will help you get more worth out of your dimes and quarters.”

  Rose hobbled out of the screen door as quickly as her legs would carry her. Her knee hurt worse than it ever had, but she was motivated by the desperate want to increase her distance from Ollie Turner’s store, to reach her home and get off of the street before a zombie might shamble from around a corner to stare at her. Sweat poured across her skin beneath her layers of clothing. Her feet throbbed with each step. Pain electrified her spine with every jolt against the ground. But she pushed herself onward, frantic to rediscover the safety she might find behind that curtain draped across her parlor’s large window.

  And Rose, once she was finally back among the cheap popcorn makers and food processors that had caught her eye upon one of her home’s last working televisions, swore she would never again step foot into that awful general store.

  Only her mind and a stomach seldom consented to the same convictions.

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