Darlin. Steph’s cheeks turned hot when he said that. Not for any regular reason, but because it sounded, well, private-like. Intimate, that was the word.
“He’s a goner,” Phyllis said, casting a single glance over her red-jacketed shoulder. Her grin was electric, white perfect teeth and full, beautiful lips. “They been like that the whole trip?”
“Not so much.” Steph fell into step beside her and watched how the model moved. Head high, chin set, with your hips doing a funny wiggle instead of walking natural. She tried a few steps again, hoping the woman wouldn’t notice. “Was—were you ever in a magazine?”
“Not so much.” Miz Phyllis smiled, a wry flash of perfect white teeth. “A couple catalogs. I was doin beauty pageants when I was younger than y’all, though. Learning all the tricks, like double-stick tape and superglue.”
Wow. Pageants, like that show about the little girl who got all dolled up and earned her family money that way. Mama had hated that show like fire. It’s trash, she’d said over and over, white trash, but Steph had sneaked a few episodes. “Superglue? What’s that for?”
“Keeps your nails on.” Miz Phyllis laughed, a carefree chuckle falling dead against carpeting and shelves. “Among other things. Not gonna be much use now, but still, there’s good lessons in that.”
This was the most interesting conversation in days. Steph’s ears were perked so far they’d probably fall off her head. “Like what?”
“Oh, like holdin your head up no matter what. Like believing. Sounds corny, but it’s true. I could tell when I was gonna win, because I felt good, you know? Like a badass.” She cupped her free hand over her mouth, her velvety eyes sparkling, then flicked her fingers like she was shaking off water and wriggled the bat on her shoulder. “Also, how to swing one of these at a jackass.”
Wow. She cussed. Did all models do that, or just the grownup ones? “Did you ever have to? Before, I mean?”
“Well, I’ll tell you. Lot of men think that because you enjoy dressin up, you must be wantin their hands on you.” Miz Phyllis sobered a little, slowing down, and her straight-line walk became a little less confident. “Lot of them thinkin that way now, too, if you catch my meanin.”
“I do.” It was Mr French Steph thought of, with his mean blue eyes and his sneakin’ around rattling at doors. And Carty, too, thinkin’ he could put his tongue in her mouth because he was popular, then calling her…what he did. “But Mr Harris ain’t like that, is he?”
“Doesn’t look like he is. But that’s the thing.” Miz Phyllis slowed, giving her a sidelong look. “You can’t ever be sure, with men. I like Duncan just fine, but I’m prepared.”
Well, that was just good sense, as far as Steph was concerned. Miz Ginny hadn’t said as much, but she would no doubt agree. And what else had Mr Juju meant when he said don’t be alone around him, after Mr French did that awful, nasty stuff and wanted a fight?
Mark wasn’t like that. But still, even he’d been a little nasty when Steph wasn’t all lovey-dovey with him after Mr French’s meanness. Maybe Miz Phyllis was right, and you couldn’t ever tell. A funny squirrelly sensation bloomed behind Steph’s breastbone, something refusing to sit down and stay.
Phyllis stopped in front of the long magazine racks, playing her flashlight over glossy covers. “Oh, mama, I’m home.”
Steph almost, almost asked what about your mama, where is she, but decided not to. If Miz Phyllis started tellin’, Steph might have to talk about bashing her own mama’s face with a cast iron skillet full of cooked-on egg, and that wasn’t anything she wanted to think about ever again.
Instead, she looked at the covers. Girls with full-lipped pouts and skinny arms, girls half-naked but not cold, girls…well, they were all brushed or something, to look way younger than they were. The paper was shiny, the dresses were pretty, they were painted dolls.
Even the boy magazines were full of shiny, fake things. On the one hand, it was kind of silly with zombies roaming around. On the other, pretending everything was normal and you could get a coffee and look through some slickpaper magazines was a nice thought. Comforting.
Thump. Scritch-squeeeeeak.
Steph jumped and whirled; so did Miz Phyllis, unlimbering her bat with a quick, reflexive, graceful movement.
A zombie in a frayed, slush-soaked green camouflage uniform bumped against the windows. A streak about shoulder-high followed him, and now that Steph looked, she could see the streak wasn’t new. Was he just circling the building, or did other zombies come and drag their shoulders along this glass too, sensing something warm or at least unspoiled inside?
They couldn’t stand to see something pretty without ruining it. Just like the still-living.
“Oh, God,” Miz Phyllis said, softly. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” Steph heard herself whisper. It was kind of ridiculous to even ask, since the zombie was on the other side of the glass…but still. “You?”
“Yeah.” The older woman let out a soft exhale, lowering the bat.
They watched the embroidered stripes on the dead man’s arm patch drag along the glass, smearing fluid too dark to be just-plain-melt. The zombie’s jaws worked and his eyes had collapsed into their sockets, dried-up like raisins. Livid branching veins crawled over his cheeks and hands and forehead, little blue lines painted with hair-fine brushes. It looked like a bad special effect.
You could get distracted, thinking about how this was like a movie, and get the stares. Steph shook her head, the feeling of unreality swaying inside her skull like her brain was on a tetherball string.
“It can’t get in,” Miz Phyllis said. “Right? It can’t get in.”
Mr Lee had studied the front door for a short while and pushed a couple bolts—one at the top and one at the bottom of each swinging wooden half—into their homes, making sure they wouldn’t be disturbed. He was good at things like that. “Yeah,” Steph said. I don’t sound like I wanna throw up. Huh. “He bolted the doors. Better go tell ’im, though.”
“Yeah.” The model exhaled, shakily. “You want to, or should I?”
“It don’t matter,” Steph realized, dreamily. Her fingers brushed the gun butt at her hip. That would just break the glass and make a big noise; it was a bad idea. “Long as we tell him before we leave.”
“Good point.” Miz Phyllis didn’t sound too steady. “Lord, look at that.”
I don’t want to, Steph realized. She’d rather look at the magazines, at the darkened coffee counter past the racks—Miz Ginny would probably like some of the teabags from there—or the ceiling. Anything, really, other than the dead man rubbing against the window. “What?”
“His nametag says Phillips.” A tiny, colorless laugh. Maybe the older woman wasn’t as calm as she wanted to look. “Like Phyllis, a little.”
“Hey. It does.” Steph took a deep breath. “I’ll keep an eye on him, if you want to look for magazines.”
“Okay.” But Miz Phyllis didn’t turn around until the zombie’s slow, splashing, shuddering steps vanished at the corner where glass window met brick wall.
Neither of them screamin’ or losin’ their heads over it, just watching a rotting corpse walk around like it was normal. The new normal.
Go figure. Steph’s arms rash-bumped with prickling goosebumps. They felt the size of oranges. It ain’t like a movie at all, now.
Pow
“Pow,” Mark Kasprak whispered, his breath making a small white cloud. He didn’t put his finger on the trigger, though. He just peered through the scope, finding targets and pretending, playing out each shot from the rooftop. It was like a video game, except if he fucked up there were actual consequences.
There weren’t any respawns out here.
Not that he’d really played a lot, since Dad drank away most of every paycheck. If Dad had brought home a system in one of his fits of drunken generosity, it would have been smashed within a month. Still, Mark watched enough online videos to know what it was like, and sometimes played at other p
eople’s houses. Like Bobby Malone’s, or Jed Krasenberger’s. They were all right, even if they only wanted to hang with him when nobody else was around.
They were probably zombies now too. Along with Carty Shellack and everyone else. If they’d stayed in Cotton Crossing, how many of his classmates would he have shot or head-bashed? The trouble wasn’t that he could imagine it so vividly, especially in Shellack’s case.
No, the trouble was he found out he sort of enjoyed the notion.
The roof of the RV dealership’s main building was a wasteland of melting snow and wind-fluted, slumping ice. Vents and hoods stood silent, watchmen just like he was now. Watch the RVs, if you’ve a mind to, Lee had said before he left. Right casual, like it was no big deal, but Mark thought it over and decided he knew better.
It was a big job, maybe a test. They didn’t want to come home to a bunch of walking dead. From here he could see the highway, the turn-off, tracks in the sloppy afternoon melt where the ATVs had taken off and Juju’s chained 4x4 had turned a different direction. Don’t get ’er stuck, Juju said at least four times to Lee, who nodded each time and finally said if you don’t want me to take ’er, I won’t.
But Mr Lee had a mind to give Miz Ginny a surprise, and Mr Juju thought it was a good idea if the melt got going a bit. Which it had, and off Lee and the ladies went across the highway to where a green and white sign proclaimed a chain bookstore.
Mark had enough of books in school. They were dry, heavy things, with letters that turned around while you weren’t looking, like his daddy’s moods. It was better to study machines, he thought, even halfway simple ones like guns. Compression, ignition, motion—that was better than trying to decode a damn book any day.
It was nice to have some time to himself, he decided, with not even the dog hanging around. Traveller, worn out from a squish-splashing game of fetch, was safely napping in Ginny and Lee’s RV. Mark wasn’t lonely at all, just…quiet, and it was soothing even if it was cold and there was no power and every plop or drip turned into a shuffling zombie sneaking up on you.
Like in a movie, where one of the stars—not the hero, maybe, but the rookie kid who saves the day—is just playing around, or watching the horizon, and sees the bad guys approaching. How many movie stars were left these days? They were all rich in California, and the rich folk had ways of surviving.
Maybe Mr Lee would move them all out west after Miz Ginny saw to her folks.
Sometimes Mark had thought about finishing high school, loading his truck—he’d been working and saving for that bastard for a long, long time—and just lighting out. Sleeping in the cab if he had to, picking up whatever work he could, just being…well, free and easy. Later, thinking about it included Steph Meacham, but he’d pretty much figured that was a pipe dream.
A girl wouldn’t want to live in a truck.
Sometimes, he thought about making it big somehow in California. The details of just how didn’t matter. What mattered was imagining the coming back, Steph working as a waitress still, sweeping her off her feet…and driving past his father’s trailer in a brand-new fancy car.
Not stopping. Just drivin’ on by.
Thinking of Dad threatened to put his finger on the trigger. Mark took his eye away from the scope and stretched, catlike. It wasn’t even that cold up here, except for the wind on his cheeks. His skin had cleared up, even the nest of zits on his right temple where he rested his head on his hand while sleeping. His coat was good, his boots were better, layers and wool socks—everything was better than he could ever remember wearing, or being.
Except for the zombies, of course.
Mark finished stretching and unfolded halfway, handling the rifle just the way Juju had taught him. Just in case, he kept doubled over as he threaded across the roof, checking each vista. It wasn’t as easy as the movies made it seem, but that was fine. He expected as much, and it was kind of cool to figure out how to move without showing anything to anyone on the ground.
Nothin’ moving on the lot, the RVs everyone had chosen marked by trails of footsteps to their door and Lee’s truck sitting in the shelter of the big hangar-garage’s overhang. Nothin’ moving between the other outbuildings—a smaller showroom for the ATVs, a gift shop, a waste lot behind a chain-link and razor wire fence, its expanse full of hummocks and hillocks of glittering snow. That view was actually kind of pretty.
Mark looked down the freeway, not across, and a thin thread of buzzing rose as he settled into position.
Looked like Mr Harris and Mr Juju were on their way back. Mark rubbed at his eyes—the snow-glare got to you after a while. He peered again, closing first one eyelid, then the other. Yep, it was them.
He stood for another few breaths, his eyebrows coming together, and finally, dreamily, lifted the rifle. The buzzing got louder.
They was bringing company, too. At least half a dozen zombies lolloped four-legged through the snow, throwing up chunks and clots, an irregular semicircle almost—but not quite—keeping pace with the ratchet-sounding ATVs.
Mark’s breath left him in a short huff, as if he’d been punched. He put the rifle to his shoulder and peered through the scope. The guys were ahead of the zombies, but there was another string of the shuffling things silhouetted against the snow, comin’ in from the side to cut off the ATVs. They hadn’t dropped to all fours yet, but when they did and started movin’ quick, things might get ugly.
In the movies, the rookie knew what to do, or at least had an idea. Some sort of plan.
“Fuuuuuuuuck,” Mark Kasprak said, a long low word ending on the sharp-cut consonant, and kept his finger alongside the trigger-guard. He was glad the dog was safely locked up.
All he could was wait for them to get in range.
Observe
“I got me Vogue, and I got me W, and I got me Architectural Digest,” Phyllis said. “And a paperback or two. You?”
“Word search.” Steph blinked several times, squinting against the sudden glare. “Miz Ginny found me whole books of em.” The girl also had a couple romances tucked at the bottom of her bag, and a slightly furtive expression.
“Almost as good for your brain as crosswords,” Ginny said, pushing the bookstore door closed. “Though it’s my dad who likes those. He works the Times one daily.” For once, the thought that there weren’t going to be any more Times crosswords didn’t occur to her right away with a sick thump in her stomach.
Instead, it took a full five seconds before arriving. Progress, maybe.
Lee, scanning the side of the building and the parking lot, ushered them along with a few short chopping motions. “I don’t see the critter,” he muttered, and his boots crush-crunched heavy snow.
“He didn’t see us neither.” Steph held her bag to her chest, coltish and deerlike, hopping from one footstep to the next. Phyllis waded, every once in a while kicking a clod of snow to the side with a quick toe-flip that spoke of ballet class.
Ginny was occupied with wrangling her own bags. Walking through knee-high, melting snow was savagely tiring; her quads were never going to be the same. Maybe she shouldn’t have gone quite so crazy in the medical reference section.
The sound froze them all except Lee, who hunched defensively and almost dropped into a crouch. Ginny stiffened, head high, and Phyllis let out a small, strangled sound, casting around wildly and unlimbering her baseball bat.
“That’s a rifle,” Lee said, softly. “Let’s go.”
“Uh—” Steph’s mouth fell open as she glanced over her shoulder. “Lee? Lee!”
He swung around, and his right hand blurred for the gun at his side. “There you are,” he said, conversationally, and Ginny half-turned since he was looking past her, that yellow-eyed glare deadly in its intensity. “Get to the car, ladies. It ain’t locked.”
The zombie Steph and Phyllis had described—military uniform, face threaded with blue veins—lurched in their wake. Its jaw worked, a rusty sound as dried-out tendons scraped against each other, and Lee pushed past Ginny
, his shoulder brushing hers. “Move!” he barked, and she scrambled to obey.
Phyllis got there first and held the back passenger door, waving frantically at Steph, whose boots slid a little as she pitched forward. Ginny shifted her bags, her newly freed hand shot out, and she righted the girl with a quick push. Steph clambered in, almost clipping her head on the doorway, and Phyllis chucked her single bag in as well. She didn’t hurry either, but waited for Ginny, who fumbled with the front passenger door and jerked it open just as another rifle shot cracked in the distance and Lee’s gun spoke almost at the same moment.
“Get in!” Lee barked, again, and her door slammed. Phyllis pointed, and let out a short screeching cry of warning. “I know, get the fuck in!”
There were two more zombies coming around the corner of the minimall, both dropping to all fours and shuffling forward with that eerie, darting speed. The human body wasn’t really meant to move that way—evolution had closed off that avenue a while ago—but they did their best, and it looked like they didn’t mind about pulled muscles or frostbite.
Ginny’s door slammed. Her heart was in her mouth, adrenaline laying thin singing copper over its thud-gristle as Phyllis yanked her own door shut. She hit her lock as Lee glided around the front of the vehicle, keeping a bead on the lolloping zombies. “Get in,” she whispered. “Oh God, get in.”
“Shit,” Steph Meacham breathed. “Look. Look over there.”
Ginny’s head snapped around. More zombies boiled up from the snow at the other end of the parking lot.
Lee wrenched open the driver’s door and threw himself inside, handing his rifle to Ginny. “Got it?”
“Yes.” She swallowed bitter copper terror, tried to will her heart to stop pounding. “There’s more over there.”
“Figures.” His jaw was set and his eyes blazed. You could imagine him barking orders and wearing fatigues, when he looked like this. “We’re gonna lose em on the highway and loop back, aight?”
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