Jacks Magic Beans

by Brian Keene

  “Well,” Angie said, “the power’s still on.”

  Marcel gagged. “I wish it wasn’t.”

  Jack tried to respond and found that he couldn’t. He just reeled instead. The stockroom seemed to spin and his vision blurred. He knelt on the floor, leaned over, and vomited. Marcel did the same a moment later. Sammi and Angie stood guard until they recovered, looking around nervously. The room remained deserted. Both men slowly rose, unsteady, wiping their mouths.

  “You okay?” Jack rasped.

  “Yeah,” Marcel said. “I will be. Getting a killer headache, though. Probably from all this stress.”

  “Might be dehydration,” Angie said. “Like you said before.”

  “Or stress,” Sammi offered. “Tension. Maybe you should rest.”

  Marcel shrugged. “Don’t worry about me. I’m all right.”

  Jack turned to Sammi and Angie. His cheeks turned red with embarrassment. “Sorry about doing that in front of you.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Angie said. “Happens to everybody. If it makes you any happier, I feel like puking, too.”

  Sammi giggled. “Nice to see somebody other than me throwing up for once.”

  “Girls rule,” Angie whispered, “and boys drool.”

  Marcel scowled at the comment, flicking a thread of saliva from his chin.

  “You sure you’re all right?” Jack asked him.

  Marcel nodded. His expression was one of annoyance.

  “You girls ready?” Jack asked.

  “Yes,” Sammi whispered. “Let’s quit stalling. The smell is getting worse back here.”

  “Okay,” Jack whispered. “Let’s see what is what.”

  He led them forward, trying not to look at the carnage, trying not to hear the sounds their shoes made as they stepped through a glistening tangle of stripped flesh or intestine, or the slow drips of blood falling from the stains on the ceiling. Jack wondered how the blood had gotten up there. He could read nothing in the splash patterns. They were everywhere—a crisscross of crimson.

  At the end of the warehouse was an employee restroom. The door was slightly ajar. Although it was dark inside, they could make out the form of a woman crouched in front of the toilet. The seat was up. Her shoulders rested on the rim. Her head was deep inside the bowl. Water dripped from the faucet, and the mirror on the wall was shattered. The edges of the white porcelain sink were splashed with red, just like everything else in the warehouse. A sign on the wall next to the bathroom admonished all employees to wash their hands before returning to work. The irony filled Jack with a sick sense of dread.

  He turned back to the others. “So far, so good.”

  “Maybe they’re all dead,” Sammi whispered.

  “Let’s hope so. Just stay quiet and stick together. Okay?”

  Angie and Sammi nodded in understanding. Marcel appeared distracted. His eyes were shut and his expression was pained. One hand clutched the length of wood. The other rubbed his right temple, fingers probing deep into the flesh.

  “Marcel?” Jack reached for him. “What’s the matter? I know you said you were okay, but you don’t look so hot.”

  The older man glanced up at them. His eyes were red and watery. When he spoke, he sounded tired.

  “What’s up?” he rasped. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. What did you ask?”

  “What’s wrong with you, dude?”

  “My fucking head hurts. That’s all. I think Sammi’s right. It’s just the stress. Exhaustion. Just need to get some painkillers.”

  “You okay to keep going?” Jack asked. “We can stop if you need to.”

  Marcel nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Lead on, kemosabe.”

  “Kemo-what?”

  Marcel frowned. “You never saw The Lone Ranger?”

  “No,” Jack said. “I think my grandfather used to watch it when he was a kid.”

  “Never mind.”

  They approached the large double doors that led out into the grocery store. Jack and Angie peeked through the windows, while Sammi and Marcel hung back.

  “Holy shit,” Jack moaned.

  FOUR

  The slaughter in the stockroom paled in comparison to what awaited them in the store. They smelled the carnage even through the closed doors—a noxious brew of blood, piss, shit, bleach, ammonia, and other chemicals from the household cleaning products aisle. The stench made their eyes water and their throats and sinuses burn.

  “I don’t see anybody moving,” Angie whispered after a moment. “Maybe they all left. I say we make a run for it.”

  “What do you guys think?” Jack asked Sammi and Marcel without turning around.

  A loud crack rang out behind them. Sammi breathed a long, drawn-out sigh. Marcel laughed—a bubbling, high-pitched croak.

  Jack and Angie turned around. Sammi stared at them, her head cocked to the right, her eyes glassy. A thin ribbon of blood trickled down the side of her face. Marcel stood behind her, gripping his club with both hands. The other end—the piece with the nail in it—was embedded in the top of Sammi’s skull. The mop-handle spear slipped from Sammi’s fingers. Her knees buckled. Marcel released the weapon and Sammi toppled to the floor. She thrashed on her side, arms and legs jittering, mouth agape.

  “Fuck!” The razor knife shook in Jack’s trembling hands.

  “She was stealing from me,” Marcel explained, his voice calm and self-assured. “She was stealing my thoughts. I had to teach her a lesson. Had to curb that shit.”

  “Sammi?” Jack whispered, hoping she’d respond. Her convulsions grew weaker.

  “You guys would have done the same thing,” Marcel said. “She was inside my head, stealing everything I thought about. If you’re taking her side, then I have to assume you were stealing from me, too. And that means I’ll have—”

  Angie’s scream cut him off. “You son of a bitch!”

  She lunged at him, swinging the pack of steaks. The frozen meat collided with Marcel’s head, stunning him. Jack heard the crack, even over Angie’s cries. Marcel’s head rocked backward. Grunting, he staggered to the side. Already his ear had begun to swell. Before he could recover, Angie hit him again, breaking his nose and driving the splintered cartilage up into his brain. Marcel made a gulping noise. His eyes fluttered and his hands clenched, then unclenched. A single tear slid down his cheek. He fell forward, his body jittering on the floor next to Sammi. As they watched, Sammi’s movements ceased and Marcel’s slowed. A dark stain spread across his pants. The sharp smell of urine filled the air, mixing with the store’s miasma.

  “He’s still alive,” Jack said, watching him flop around.

  “No he’s not.” Angie dropped the steaks and checked Marcel’s pulse. “He’s dead.”

  “But he’s moving. And he pissed himself. Look at him.”

  “That’s just the last few electrical impulses from his brain. It will stop in a minute.”

  Even as she said it, the convulsions slowed more, just as Sammi’s had. Marcel’s limbs twitched a few more times, and then ceased. Jack watched with a mixture of awe and revulsion.

  “How did you know how to do that?”

  Angie shrugged. “I didn’t. My grandfather was in Vietnam. He served in the First Cavalry and went through all that hand-to-hand combat training. He told me once that if you hit somebody in the nose just right—and hard enough—it would kill them. I was never sure about it until now, though. Guess he was right.”

  “Jesus . . .”

  Angie knelt by Sammi and felt her throat, checking her pulse as well. Jack watched with trepidation.

  “Is she?”

  Angie nodded. “Yes. She’s dead. Poor kid.”

  “Damn.”

  “Were you friends?”

  “Not really. I mean, we knew each other. But that was all. She dated a friend of mine for a little while.”

  “Yeah. I kind of got that impression while listening to you talk in the freezer.”

  Jack tried to swallow. His throat
felt tight, his breathing constricted.

  Angie picked up Sammi’s spear. “You okay, Jack?”

  “Yeah. I just . . . I’ve never seen anything happen like that before. Never saw somebody die.”

  “Neither have I, until today.”

  “It’s not like in the movies, is it?”

  “No,” she agreed, “it’s not. Not at all. But we’d both better get used to it. I’ve got a feeling that’s the new world order.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think you were right. Your theory—the magic beans? The beanstalk?”

  “Seriously?”

  Angie shrugged. “Why not, Jack? I mean, shit, it’s not like I’ve got any better ideas. None of this makes any sense.”

  “But if the Prozac protected us, then why did Marcel snap like that?”

  “He said he’d missed a dose. Maybe that was all it took. One missed dosage and you go nuts like everybody else. Perhaps it just took a while to catch up with him. Maybe the Prozac had to leave his system first.”

  Jack glanced back out at the store. “If that’s the case, then we’d better stock up on meds before we leave. God knows when we’ll find some again.”

  Angie leaned against the wall and sighed. She closed her eyes. Her body shook slightly.

  “You cold?”

  She shook her head, sliding down the wall until she crouched.

  “Depressed?”

  “No. Yes. Look . . . Jack—I’m not a commando. I’ve never killed anybody before. Just give me a few minutes, okay?”

  “Sure.” He turned back to the window, granting her some privacy. “I’ll keep watch until you’re ready.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  Jack looked out the smudged glass, staring at the carnage. From his vantage point, he had a view of the freezer aisles and part of the dairy aisle. He knew them well. He worked them several nights a week and most weekends—rotating the milk, yogurt, and sour cream; restocking frozen pizzas and vegetables, TV dinners, ice cream and a hundred other items. He barely recognized the aisles now. The glass doors in the frozen vegetables section were shattered. Mist curled out of the freezer, lazily rising towards the ceiling. Dead bodies littered the floor, sometimes three high. The few areas without corpses were littered with pieces of them. Blood and scarlet handprints covered the other freezer doors. Somebody had removed the popsicles from their shelves and replaced them with dozens of severed heads—men, women, and children, young and old.

  People-sicles, Jack thought.

  He stifled a laugh. It scared him. Was he cracking up, too? Would he be turning on Angie next? He didn’t feel crazy, but would he really know if the illness was starting to set in? All his life, he’d had to deal with people picking on him about his mental illness. Cruel taunts and jokes from classmates who had no fucking clue. He’d been called crazy a thousand times, but now . . .

  He glanced over his shoulder at Angie. Her eyes were still closed, her face serene.

  No, he decided that he wasn’t crazy. He was just scared. They both were.

  He heard movement behind him. Jack turned, and saw Angie climbing slowly to her feet.

  “You ready?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Ready if you are.”

  Angie made a seesaw motion with her hand. “Not, really. But I sure as hell don’t want to stay here.”

  They crept into the store. The double doors creaked on their hinges. Jack had never noticed them doing it before, but now, the sound seemed to echo down the aisles. Both of them braced for an attack, but the store appeared deserted. Muzak still played over the loudspeakers—Elton John’s ‘Island Girl’. Even though he hated the song, Jack knew all the words. It always came on at least once during his shifts. It used to be an annoyance. Now, the song filled him with dread—and a strange, surreal sense of longing. It was familiar in a world that was anything but. It reminded him of home.

  Home. The word ran through his head, looking for something to connect with. His parents—he hadn’t thought of them since this whole thing began. Were they okay? Both of them worked during the day. Chances were good they’d been sitting in rush hour traffic when everything happened. Depending on how far the illness had spread, they could be okay. Maybe they were out of range.

  And maybe not.

  Elton John continued wailing. “You feel her nail scratch your back just like a rake. He one more gone, he one more John, who make the mistake.”

  Jack shivered.

  “That music’s creepy,” Angie whispered, echoing his thoughts.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “Why don’t grocery stores play stuff like the Foo Fighters or Dave Matthews or The Mighty Mighty Bosstones?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “It could be worse.”

  “What could possibly be any worse than Elton John?”

  “Fergie. The Pussycat Dolls. Fall Out Boy. Kanye West. Take your pick.”

  “You fight dirty, Jack.”

  He grinned, despite his fears. “So do you.”

  She reached out and took his hand, giving it a squeeze. Jack squeezed back.

  “Don’t get the wrong idea,” Angie said. “This doesn’t mean we’re gonna hook up. You’re a little too young for me.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “This is just because I’m happy to be alive and because I’m scared. Understand?”

  “No worries,” Jack said, trying to project confidence. “Don’t be scared. I’ll protect you. My doctor didn’t call me Jack the Giant-Killer for nothing.”

  “You’ll protect me? So far, I’ve been covering your ass.”

  “I know,” Jack admitted. “But I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.”

  Despite their efforts to stay quiet, both of them giggled. Then they moved on, still holding hands. They moved slowly, picking their way around human wreckage. Angie slipped in a pile of intestines. Jack accidentally dropped his knife and bumped into a bloody shopping cart full of severed feet—most of them still wearing shoes. Elton John gave way to Christopher Cross, singing about being lost between the moon and New York City. Jack and Angie knew how he felt.

  “Notice something?” Angie asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “I think we’re alone in here. They’re all dead. Each and every last one of them. It’s like they butchered each other until there was nothing left.”

  “Well, we should still be careful. Somebody had to be the last one standing. He or she might still be around. Or there may be others like Marcel, that didn’t change until now.”

  What he thought to himself but didn’t say out loud was that they should probably be wary of each other, too.

  They made it to the pharmacy without encountering trouble. Angie paled as they approached the counter. Her grip tightened around Jack’s hand.

  “What’s wrong?” he whispered. “Did you hear something?”

  “No,” she said. “Just brings back bad memories.”

  “Well, wait here. I’ll try to hurry.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To get us some meds. If my theory is right, then we’re gonna need them.”

  “Did you ever work in a pharmacy?”

  “No.”

  “Then how the hell do you know what you’re looking for?”

  “Prozac is really fluoxotine, so that’s what they should have it labeled as.”

  The pharmacy’s employee door was locked. Setting his box-cutter aside, Jack vaulted over the counter. There were two corpses behind it. One of them, a woman, was missing her eyes. The other, a man, lay on his stomach. His head had been bashed in with a coffee maker. Jack knew because the bloody appliance lay next to the corpse.

  “Is it bad?” Angie called.

  “Not as bad as out there, but it ain’t pretty either.”

  He stepped over the bodies and went to the back. Then he searched through the shelves and bins until he found what he was looking for—a drawer full of fluoxotine.

  “Bingo!”


  “You found some?”

  “Yep. Grab me a bag, will you?”

  “Paper or plastic?”

  “Plastic. Easier to carry.”

  Angie retrieved a plastic bag from one of the registers and handed it to him over the counter. Jack returned to the shelf, yanked the drawer out of the cabinet, and dumped its contents into the bag. Then he returned to the counter and smiled.

  “Do you have your insurance card with you?”

  Angie gave him a puzzled look. “No. Why?”

  “Oh, well.” Jack chuckled nervously. “What the hell. Prozac’s on the house today. Can I interest you in some free samples of Oxy-Contin, as well? Or how about some high-grade pharmaceutical marijuana?”

  “Just the anti-depressants, please. Thanks.”

  “Angie . . .” Jack shook his head. “You should never turn down free weed.”

  “We should probably divide up the meds,” Angie suggested. “In case we get separated or something.”

  “Okay,” Jack agreed, “but I think we should take them at the same time. That way, we can sort of remind each other. Less chance of forgetting a dose.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So what now?” Angie asked. “Do you think we should leave?”

  “That depends. You’ve probably got people you want to check on. So do I. We need to at least determine if the whole city is like this. The power is still on. Maybe we can find a television or a radio—check the news and see if we can learn anything.”

  “Something tells me we’re not going to.”

  “That’s crazy talk,” Jack teased.

  “I just think we just need to prepare for the worst possible scenario. You and I might very well be the only two sane people left in this city. What if we find our loved ones and they’re like everybody else? Or what if they’re still alive—and they try to kill us? Could you defend yourself against your family? Do you have what it takes to stay alive? To kill them?”

  Jack’s expression soured. “I don’t want to think about it.”