Existing Dead

by Lyle Perez-Tinics

  “Check under the counter. It’s usually attached to something big, like a hub cap.”

  “Okay, I’ll be right back,” Kyle slowly walked to the front of the store. He pulled on the door handle toward him and poked his head in. “Hello?” he called out. He slowly walked into the store and turned right toward the counter. A smell of death hit his nose. He quickly turned and began to search in every direction. He continued walking toward the counter and spotted the keys attached to a plastic squeegee. They dangled on the side wall. Kyle reached for them and yanked them down. When he turned there were two Existing Dead slowly creeping up on him.

  Kyle quickly fired, one shot after the other. The dead didn’t even have time to blink before their heads exploded in a shower of bloodshed. Kyle looked around the store, but couldn’t see any more of them. He was surprised that they were able to hide in such an enclosed area. He knew he might never fully understand how the dead could disappear, but he was hoping that someone out there would figure it out. Soon.

  He walked back outside and headed for the restroom. Victor was standing by the door. “I heard gunshots,” he said.

  “Yeah, two of them snuck up behind me. I brought them down. Okay, stand guard while I go number two.” Kyle opened the door and walked inside.

  *

  Fifteen minutes passed. Victor had not seen any other movement in the area, other than a couple of rustling leaves. He banged on the door impatiently. “Come on, dude.”

  “I’m almost done,” Kyle replied, still perched on the seat.

  Victor heard a flush and a few seconds later the door swung open. He began to cough as the smell of Kyle’s processed food gassed the oxygen around him. “Ahh,” he said pinching his nose. “It smells worse in there than in Angel’s room.” Victor looked into the dark restroom, but then pulled his head back. “I have to go too, but I’d much rather hold it.”

  “You should go now, ’cause who knows what the future holds? Next time, we might have to dig a hole.”

  “Like cavemen?” The boy laughed at his horrible joke.

  Kyle laughed along with Victor as he stepped out. “And the funny thing is, I couldn’t wash my hands,” he said as he put his hand on Victor’s face.

  The boy jumped back in disgust. He began rubbing his face with his filthy shirt. Kyle’s laughter grew wild. There was something about moments like these that made both of them feel better. Yes, they where in the middle of the apocalypse, but they still enjoyed laughter. Maybe Kyle would have thought differently if he hadn’t met Victor. He didn’t want to think about not having the boy around anymore.

  “We need to find some new clothes,” Victor said. “I can smell the crap from my shirt all over my face.”

  “Yeah, I know. I have a change of clothes, but even they aren’t fresh. Come on, let’s go siphon some gas, and then we’ll see what we can find in the market,” Kyle said.

  They searched the back of the truck for Kyle’s hose. They couldn’t find it anywhere. Victor climbed into the back and began rustling things around, carefully avoiding the bucket with the head. Thinking back, Kyle wasn’t sure if he’d put the hose back into the truck the last time he used it. It was probably burned to ashes now, but somehow the five-gallon jug had made it into the truck’s bed. Kyle and Victor searched behind the building for a water valve. Victor said that his gas station had kept one in case of a fire. They were in luck. A green hose was connected to the back of the building. Kyle disconnected it and walked it back to his truck, where he used a pocket blade to cut it to size. Victor carried the gas can to the green Sonata parked at the pump.

  The car had a safety lock to prevent people from opening the gas lid. There was a button inside the car where it could be opened. Victor tried the door handle, but it was locked. Kyle noticed the problem and grabbed a stick of rebar from his truck.

  “Step back,” Kyle said before swinging the rebar at the tinted driver’s side window. It shattered and Kyle reached in to unlock the door when the hand of an Existing Dead hurled toward him from inside. Kyle jumped back, raising the rebar into the air. He brought it crashing down on the creature, causing a sickening thud. He raised his arm up again and used the sharp point of the bar to pierce the back of the creature’s neck. He forced its head down. The creature struggled to get free and fell out of the car in the process. Kyle raised his boot up and brought it crashing down on the creature’s head. He continued until there was nothing more than a stump and a puddle of goo.

  Kyle’s heart raced, and he knew Victor’s was doing the same. Neither of them had thought to check the car for movement before breaking the window. Kyle thought Victor had already looked and the coast was clear. That was a lesson to both of them. Kyle reached through the window and unlocked the gas cap.

  Kyle showed Victor how to siphon the gas. The boy learned quickly. The Sonata had almost a full tank. They managed to cap off the truck and fill the five-gallon jug. Kyle tied it with a bungee cord to the bed of the truck. Before they knew it, the two of them were both standing in front of the store’s entrance. They looked around the area for any movement. There was still nothing, just the same rustling of leaves from the storm that was definitely rolling in.

  “Are you ready?” Kyle asked.

  Victor nodded as they walked toward the store. Kyle went in first, his shotgun pointed forward. “Watch your step,” he said as he motioned toward the bodies on the ground. Victor walked into the store and lodged it open with a decent-sized rock. A light rain began to drizzle down from the sky as he walked in.

  “It’s sprinkling,” Victor said.

  “That’s what we fucking need right now, right?” Kyle replied. “Let’s just get what we can and get back on the road. We’ll need to cover a lot of ground before it starts pouring.”

  Victor walked behind the counter. He took slow and careful steps. He didn’t want anything to jump out at him. Under the counter he found an iPod Touch. The battery was dead, but sitting on a display case was a car charger still in its package. He put the iPod and the charger into his pocket and searched for some more good stuff. He didn’t find anything useful.

  Kyle walked down the snack aisle and began grabbing anything he could. “Victor,” he said. “Grab some of those bags so we can take this stuff.”

  Victor walked toward Kyle with an open plastic bag in his hands. Kyle began to toss anything he could inside, mostly medicine and supplements. In a world that demanded they continue moving, they would burn hundreds of calories a day. Without the proper nutrition they would collapse in the middle of a battle and give in to the dead. He looked down, and sitting there were two cases of Dasani water. Kyle knelt down and picked up both cases like they weighed nothing. “Let’s go back to the truck,” he said.

  They carefully walked out of the store and headed toward the truck. The storm kicked up a little bit, but it didn’t seem like much for them to worry about.

  “This is good enough,” Kyle said. “Let’s get inside the truck and take off.”

  Victor opened the passenger door and jumped inside. Kyle put the cases of bottled water on an open spot in the bed. He poked the plastic wrapping with his finger and took a few bottles out. He tossed one toward Victor when he got into the vehicle.

  “Drink up,” he said. “You need to worry more about dehydration than starvation. Remember that.” Kyle took a bottle of medicine out of the bag and dropped a tablet into his water.

  Victor looked at him questionably. “What was that?” he asked as Kyle threw the medicine bottle at him.

  “It’s like a power supplement. It’s supposed to keep me alert and awake. Let’s hope it works.”

  Victor opened the bottle, dropped a tablet into the water and drank its contents in a few gulps. The rain gradually increased as Kyle started the truck. The engine rubbed a little, but caught. He drove toward the street slowly and then turned right. Victor took the iPod Touch and the car charger out of his pocket. He opened the packaging and plugged the charger into an available socket.


  “What do you have there?” Kyle asked, taking gulps from the water.

  “I found this iPod. I started working so I could buy myself one. Now that the world is ending, I figured I might as well have this one,” Victor answered.

  He waited a few minutes until the device turned on by itself.

  “Do you know how to work that thing?” Kyle asked.

  “Yeah, my cousin James had one. He’d let me borrow it from time to time.”

  “What do you do with it?”

  Victor looked at Kyle skeptically. “Really?” was all he said.

  “Yeah. I’m a construction worker, a freaking welder; I work with hot metal all day. What do you want from me?”

  “It plays music and does a bunch of other stuff too,” Victor answered, looking through the previous owner’s playlist. “They have a lot of good music on here. Mind if I put some on?”

  “Go ahead,” Kyle answered. Victor seemed excited and Kyle didn’t want to get in the way of that.

  Victor pushed “Play” on a song, and it started playing out of the device’s speakers. Metal wasn’t really Kyle’s music preference.

  “Who is this?” Kyle asked.

  “This is Fear Factory, the name of the song is ‘Replica,’” he said, then banged his head along with the music.

  “This is pretty good,” Kyle lied as he began banging his head with the music as well.

  The rain continued to fall all around them as they reached the end of town. They were now in the process of making the turn that would lead them back into town and toward Victor’s house. Kyle decided that if the rain stopped they would continue on the road until they reached Victor’s house. If the storm got worse, though, he’d stop for the day until the rain subsided.

  Chapter Eleven

  The rain did not quit; instead the storm grew to something that resembled a hurricane. It became hard for Kyle to see out of the window as rain pelted the glass. The windshield wipers were old, and they did nothing more than to make the situation worse; he was in desperate need of new gear.

  “We’re going to have to stop until the rain calms down,” Kyle said as Victor turned down the iPod. “It’s getting harder to see anything outside. The freaking windshield keeps fogging up. It’s not safe for us to drive with so many Existing Dead and cars on the road.” He turned the defrosters on. “This might help a little.”

  “Where are we going to stop?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Kyle said, thinking. “I’ve never really been on this road; I just know it leads us out of town. Eventually we’ll connect onto a main highway and that will take us to the 15 freeway.”

  The rain gradually got worse as they continued pushing forward through the storm. Kyle remembered that there was a high school not too far from where they were, but he quickly thought against going there. When the news broadcasters first reported the dead walking, they told people to head for their local schools. The gymnasiums were where a lot of people had been hiding. If even one infected person had gotten inside the high school, the place would certainly be swamped with Existing Dead by now.

  There weren’t that many other public places to go. They would have a better chance just turning around and staying at the gas station. Kyle hated backtracking, but it looked like he was going to have to do it until they passed the perfect place to hide.

  “There,” Kyle said, pointing. “We’re going to go in there ’til the rain stops.”

  Victor tried to stare out of his window to see, but the fog and rain weren’t letting him. Kyle quickly turned right and headed for the building.

  “What is it?” Victor asked as Kyle pulled up and parked next to a sign that read, United States Postal Service.

  “It’s a post office,” Kyle answered.

  “Why are we holding up here?”

  “Think about it, no one in their right mind would go to a post office when a disaster happens. When shit starts going down people don’t say, ‘Oh, I need to go get the mail from my PO Box. It’s the perfect spot to be. Look at it. It’s isolated from the town and it’s fairly big. Come on. Get your stuff and we’re going to run for the door. I’ll break the glass and we’ll get in. Go!”

  Victor opened the door and ran up the steps. He carried the basket of food and his newly acquired iPod. It wasn’t fully charged, but he’d use it until it died. Kyle ran right behind Victor carrying the Winchester and the robot backpack, which he’d flung over his shoulder.

  Kyle tried pushing the door open, and to his surprise it was unlocked. When he took a step inside and saw the PO boxes he realized that the front door would never be locked. How else would people be able to get their mail? he thought.

  Victor took a few steps inside; he was soaking wet. The rain was really coming down hard. Kyle saw this as an opportunity to do something.

  “Victor,” Kyle said. “Take off your clothes.”

  Victor looked at him. “Hell no, what are you, a fucking kiddy lover?”

  Kyle realized how that sounded and quickly said, “Fuck no. Just take off your clothes, take this bottle of shampoo and run your ass outside and shower. It’s really coming down, I’ll be right behind you. Leave your undies on if you’re uncomfortable.”

  When the opportunity of a shower came into the conversation, Victor was more than eager to comply. He practically ripped the shampoo out of Kyle’s hands and stripped down to his underwear. He ran outside and drenched his head with shampoo. Kyle was right behind in his boxers. They quickly washed themselves the best they could and rinsed with the rain water.

  Victor came back in looking refreshed, but shivering. Kyle came in soon after, feeling the same. Clean and freezing.

  “Maybe … that wasn’t such a … good idea …,” Kyle chattered as he dripped water onto the ground.

  “I hope … I … don’t get … sick,” Victor replied.

  “We should have found you a change of clothes. You have nothing dry to put on,” Kyle said as he looked into the robot backpack. He grabbed the fresh pair of clothes then looked at Victor. He was standing there shivering and dripping water all over the tiled floor. For the time being, Victor was Kyle’s responsibility. He would look after him like he was his own. Kyle tossed the clothes over to Victor, who didn’t think twice about accepting the garments and put them on. Kyle laid out his clothes so they could semi-dry before he put them back on.

  “Thanks,” Victor said.

  “They’re a little big, but it’s better than them being wet,” Kyle assured. “Fuck, it’s cold in here.”

  “What are we going to do here?” Victor asked as he climbed into Kyle’s clothes.

  “I don’t know,” Kyle said looking around the area. There were two long halls that connected to a smaller hall that led toward the exit. A glass door was to their right, which led into the shopping area of the post office. In a corner next to a counter was a medium-size steel trash can. It was chained to the wall. “We could make a fire in here to keep warm.”

  Victor looked at him surprised. “A fire? Indoors?”

  “Yeah, it’ll be easy. I can cut the chain on that trash can and we can use all the priority boxes they have behind the counter. I’m sure they have wooden chairs to burn too.” Kyle searched his jean pockets and pulled out the lighter fluid bottle that Victor had given him. “There’s not a lot left, but we can get something going with this.” Kyle tossed the bottle to Victor. “I’m going to go back outside to get my bolt cutters and a welding torch striker. Unless you have a lighter or matches?”

  Victor shook his head: No.

  “All right then, I’m going to go grab that, you empty the trash can and only leave paper or anything that will burn.”

  Victor nodded and walked toward the trash can. He began looking through it, taking out everything that would smell if burned. Kyle walked to the gun holster he’d left on the counter and grabbed his Glock. The handgun was more reliable wet than the shotgun. He checked the magazine. Ten rounds left. He put the magazine back in and was
ready to go.

  Kyle pushed the door open and stepped onto the wet concrete floor. The roof extended out, still above his head. There was a fifty-foot gap between him and the truck. Kyle ran as fast as his bare feet could take him, stepping on sharp loose gravel that was scattered on the ground. His feet were numb, so he didn’t feel the pain. The rain continued to pour down even harder than before. It was hard for him to see ten feet in front of him.

  Kyle reached the truck and began looking in the toolbox for the bolt cutters. He found them in the mess of tools and took them out. The welding torch igniter was inside his glove box. He opened the door to the truck when an arm came out of nowhere and grabbed his shoulder. He instinctively shoved his shoulder toward the arm. When he did, he was face to face with a human.

  The person maneuvered back to avoid getting hit by Kyle’s massive shoulder.

  “Wow,” the person said.

  Kyle snapped back and pointed the gun at the figure.

  “Don’t shoot,” the person said, raising his arms up to cover his face.

  He’s alive, was Kyle’s first thought. “Don’t move,” he said.

  The two looked at each other for a second through the rain. The man looked down at Kyle’s body. Fuck, I’m in my boxers, Kyle thought as he turned back to the truck door and grabbed the welding torch starter.

  “I … I … I’m not infected, I’m just lost,” the man pleaded.

  “Come on,” Kyle said as he began to run back to the front door, one hand pointing his gun toward the man the other clutching the cutters and starter. Kyle pushed the door open and stepped inside, instantly turning to point the gun at the stranger.

  “Who are you?” Kyle asked as the man stood at the doorway awaiting entrance.

  He was wearing a long dark trench coat that was tied at the waist. The man was soaking wet, as if he’d been outside since the rain started and hadn’t been able to find cover. He wiped water off his bald head, then worked his way down to rinse his bushy goatee.