Princess ran to the restroom and came out complaining. “When did they replace the tampon machines with condoms? Really?” She stalked down the paper towel aisle and grabbed a box of Tampax. “Who in the hell makes these decisions?” She stomped back to the bathroom.
I laughed and I’m pretty sure Highland and Rotten blushed, but Moonshine was too busy stuffing his face to have a response. I went to the aisle Princess had stomped down and grabbed the rest of the tampons. How was it tampons never came up in our apocalypse plans? Hell, I grabbed all the pads, too, and went behind the counter and stuffed them into the bags I found there. It was hitting home now. I mean, I know, the dead bodies and stuff should have done it, right? But the idea of an unstoppable monthly flow messed with me. I know it’s nature and stuff, but for just a moment the idea of not having a tampon was suddenly worse than dead folk outside of a church.
Sully grabbed wine from the small display in the corner of the store, while Highland started stacking cases of water. Moonshine was tearing through the candy aisle, shoving in more sugar than a body needed in their lifetime into his pockets. Rotten grabbed batteries, duct tape, cheap flashlights and for some reason, air fresheners.
Princess came out of the bathroom, carrying the box of tampons and I met her with the bags. She dumped them in and then grabbed some Midol, Tylenol, and Excedrin off the shelves. “It’s gonna suck being a woman during the apocalypse, Dove.” She grabbed a few six-packs of sugary drinks.
“Yep.” I bagged her selections. “A real freaking bitch.”
“You know we’re fucked, right?” Moonshine said, snatching a bag from my hand and tossing in boxes of Twix bars and M&Ms. “Totally fucked. Everybody is dead and we’re gonna have to start the new world. Us!” He laughed. “Can you imagine? Us? Shit, we’re the biggest bunch of losers that ever came from Washington High School and we’re going to have to restart the world? I’m the most normal one of us, I’m the only one with a real job, and I’m still the most screwed up person I know other than y’all. Princess lives and looks like a homeless person, Rotten believes that aliens are going to appear any day, and Dove spends more time in bed than in school and then there’s Highland. Hell, if it wasn’t for Highland, none of us would’ve graduated.” He laughed harder. “And if it wasn’t for us, Highland never would’ve gotten laid. How are we going to restart the world?”
“He’s lost it,” Princess muttered.
“Yep,” I agreed.
“Wanna flip a quarter?”
“No, I got it. You’ve had a rough day.” I stepped up to Moonshine. I stood tall, using all four inches above the five-foot mark. “Stop it,” I said softly. “Just shut up,” I whispered. I didn’t want to embarrass him, but we were all scared. “Quit being a dick.”
For a moment I thought he was going to hit me and that would have been bad. Not just because he could knock me out, he’s a very big guy, but also because the others would stand up for me. It would be chaos, as though there wasn’t enough insanity happening all around us. I felt the rage swell through him and it seemed even his eyeballs expanded with the emotion. And then he dropped to his knees and sobbed.
“There’s nobody.”
We descended on him. “We’re gonna make it, dude,” Rotten said, his hand on Moonshine’s shoulder.
“Yeah, Moon, it’s gonna be all right.” Highland touched Moon’s back briefly and pulled away.
“Moon Man!” Princess wrapped her arms around his neck. “You and me, you know.” She whispered something in his ear and kissed him on the cheek.
“I love ya’, Moon,” I said. “We’re gonna be okay.” I rubbed his head and kissed him on the cheek.
As I stood I caught sight of Sully standing behind the counter and double-bagging bottles of wine. Our eyes met for a moment and I suddenly understood why girls my age chased a man old enough to be their father. His hair was longish, wavy, and still dark, his beard was just beginning to gray, and his jeans still fit as they would on a much younger man. Whatever the girls went for with Sully, it wasn’t his curly dark hair or his nice ass, it was his eyes. I’d heard the word golden brown since I was a child, but I’d never actually seen it until those few moments. Sully’s eyes were golden brown. Not yellow, not brown, and certainly not green, but somehow they were both bright and dark.
“I’m good,” Moonshine said, sniffing and wiping his nose on the sleeve of his shirt. “I’m sorry, guys, I shouldn’t have said that stuff.”
“It’s okay, Moon Man, we’re all freaked out.” Princess handed him a box of Kleenex and then started stuffing packs of toilet tissue and paper towels in bags.
“We should go,” I said.
“Yeah, let’s load up, guys,” Highland said.
And that’s what we did. We loaded up our unpaid purchases and climbed back into Sully’s Escalade. Rotten took over driving and Highland sat beside him. Princess and I settled in the back seat and then Sully climbed in beside us. Moonshine took the rear, stretching out as best he could and covering his eyes with his arm.
As we passed the elementary school Rotten slowed. “Look,” was all he said.
“Jesus, dude,” Princess barked.
He stopped the car. “No, look. Highland, look,” he said.
And we did. The schoolyard was littered with the burned out husks of children. They covered the playground and the sidewalks and were piled up outside the double doors that allowed entrance to the building.
“Why?” Princess said. “Why were they at the school?”
“It’s a weekday, a school day, I think they remembered that they were supposed to be in school. Like the church, I think the zombies still remember pieces of being human. The kids went to school because that’s what they do and I think the other people went to the church because they were seeking hope and peace. And those folks outside of the coffee shops, restaurants and donut shops were seeking their regular morning pick me up. They still remembered something about being human,” I spoke what I had been thinking earlier when I saw the husks outside of the church.
“Weird, I don’t remember that from zombie movies.” Rotten pulled away from the curb.
“This could be a good thing,” Highland said. “Or at least it gives us an advantage, if they have a memory, we can figure out what they’re going to do next.”
“The school and Starbucks make sense, they’re remembering their schedule, but a church on Friday morning? And not even a Catholic Church?” I smiled with tears in my eyes, thinking of my mom and her church friends. Yes, they were at the church every morning it seemed, but a Baptist church? They were different than us Catholics. They never covered this stuff in zombie movies. “Maybe the folks outside of the church were remembering God.”
“God!” Sully sneered and unscrewed the top off a bottle of wine. “To steal you guys’ vernacular, what the fuck, dude? God?” He took a long swallow of cheap red wine. “So what you’re saying is that church is where the retards go to die?”
“Hey, man!” Princess punched him in the arm. “Shut up. Folks believe in God and it damned sure doesn’t make them retarded. You’re about the only retarded one here.”
“Dove’s right, some are remembering their schedule, off to school, off to work with a cup of coffee and a donut, and others might be seeking God or safety or something. Okay.” Highland rubbed his head for a moment. “Pull over, Rotten. Where else would people gather in the morning, a weekday morning?”
Rotten stopped, not bothering to pull to the curb. “The bank,” he said. “People get paid on Friday and go to the bank.”
“Go to the corner and turn left. There’s a bank a block up.”
Rotten pulled forward and turned at the next corner. We were silent, nearly holding our breaths as he passed a florist, a funeral home, and then slowed at the corner and there they were, a small pile by the ATM and a larger pile by the front door.
“Turn right,” I said.
Rotten glanced at me through the rearview and cautioned with one word, “Do
ve.”
“I know, just turn.” Our Lady of Peace was on the next corner, my mom’s church, and the church I grew up attending.
Princess put her hand on my arm. “Are you sure?”
I nodded. “Just do it, Rotten.”
Rotten turned and Princess gripped my arm. He stopped in front of the church and I saw the pile of burnt out dead in the front of the building. I jumped from the vehicle, with Princess, Highland, and Rotten following, and approached the pile slowly. I saw hints of pink plaid, green checks, and the familiar yellow dress. I didn’t speak, what could I say? That was Momma. I knew that dress, had seen it easily hundreds of times since I was twelve-years-old. Momma never threw anything away. I dropped to my knees.
“Dove!” Princess wrapped around me. Rotten grabbed both of my shoulders and kissed me on the cheek and Highland reached down and rubbed my back for a moment. No one knew what to say, and I least of all. There was my mom, a bit of yellow fabric over a dried carcass.
“Shit!” I threw them off and stood up. I walked over to the gate that led to the cemetery and stared inside. “Shit!”
“We could bury her,” Rotten suggested.
“There must be shovels and stuff in a cemetery, right?” Princess said.
“No! We don’t have time.” I tried to settle my breathing and the numbness hit me. If it hadn’t hit before with all we’d dealt with in the last hours, it certainly hit me then. Yeah, I knew Heather and Penelope, but I didn’t love them. My mom … I loved. “We go on. Let’s go.” I turned back to the vehicle and I felt how uncomfortable the others were with my emotions, but I didn’t know how to change it. That was my mom.
Rotten put his arm around me before I reached the car. “Remember what you said, Dove. It was God who brought her here, even if she had changed to something not human, it was God, hope, and her memories that brought her here.” He kissed me lightly on the temple and pushed me toward the backdoor.
I crawled in the backseat and Princess crawled over top of me and pushed Sully against the other door. She reached into the back and Moonshine woke up enough to hand her a box of tissues. I cried. Princess petted my hair, hugged my neck, and handed me tissues to blow my nose.
I gathered myself and sat up straighter when we turned into the old neighborhood. We all did, except Sully, he stared out the window and sipped wine from the bottle. We didn’t reminisce in words, but we all looked at the old familiar places where we played as children. My mom had since moved into a smaller house on a golf course, Rotten’s parents lived in Arizona when they weren’t traveling the world, Moonshine’s parents had bought a trailer and land in a rural area beside the river, and Princess’s foster parents disappeared from the neighborhood shortly after she dropped out of high school. Highland’s mom was the only one left in the old neighborhood, the place where we once regularly planned for the zombie apocalypse.
We’d never asked about Highland’s dad and he never spoke of him. It was just he and his mom. Mrs. Williams is a kind lady, old fashioned in her demeanor. She’s a bit out of step with the world and upon first meeting her you may assume she’s ditzy or shallow, but then she say something profound, totally blowing your mind, and smile and hand you a cookie she’s just pulled from the oven. Frankly, Mrs. Williams is an enigma, just like Highland.
Over the years we had discussed many times that Mrs. Williams probably knew what we were doing in the basement, especially after the night Moonshine puked peach moonshine on the wall. But she didn’t say a word as she cleaned it up, and then she called our parents, and put us all to bed. She had to know, but she told our parents it was a terrible case of food poisoning and refused forever after to go the Pizza Hut on the corner. She had to know because what Moonshine puked up totally reeked of alcohol, and then Rotten puked. The rest of us kept it down, but she had to know.
Rotten slowed and turned onto Cardinal Lane. I straightened and grabbed my golf club and noticed that even Moonshine was alert and ready to slide over the seat with his two-by-four. Rotten stopped in front of the house and we observed three husks in the yard, one by the garage door and the other two at the front door. “What do you think it means, dude?” he whispered.
Highland rubbed his face. “It’s Friday, right?”
Rotten nodded.
“Mr. Keppler from the shelter is at the garage to collect recycling and at the front are Miss Lily and Mrs. Eddy, quilting every Friday morning for the last fifteen years.”
“What do you want me to do, man?” Rotten said.
“Turn in.” He reached in his backpack and pulled out a control for the garage door. Rotten started up the drive slowly and we watched the door begin to lift. “Guys, get ready.”
Moonshine slid over the backseat, settling between Princess and me and then lifted me and set me in the middle of the seat. “I’m going first,” he said.
“He’s back,” Princess whispered in my ear.
“It’s dark in there.” Rotten stopped right outside of the opening.
“Just do it,” Highland said, rolling down his window and picking up the gun. “Just do it.”
Rotten pulled forward slowly, thumping over what used to be Mr. Keppler, and stopped when the tennis ball hanging from above tapped the window and marked the parking spot.
“Flashlight!” Highland snapped.
Rotten fumbled on the space between the seats and grabbed one of four. He hit the switch and scanned his side of the garage. Highland grabbed another and slowly panned it around his side. “It’s clear here.”
“Looks good here, too,” Rotten said.
“All right.” He hit the button on the control and the engine engaged, shutting the daylight out. Highland sighed. “Okay,” he whispered, “we go slow.” He handed a couple flashlights to us. “Moonshine, you check on the other side of Mom’s Jeep and Princess and Dove, crawl over Sully and check out that side. We’ll all go out together.”
Princess and I crawled over Sully and pushed him to the middle of the seat.
“Ready,” I said and Princess turned on the flashlight.
“Go,” Highland said and we fell out of the SUV.
I grabbed Princess’s shoulder and Moonshine screamed as he ran behind the Jeep, his two-by-four raised high.
“Well, it’s about time you got home.” Mrs. Williams stood in the doorway with a shotgun in her hands and wearing an apron over jeans.
I’d never seen Mrs. Williams in jeans. She always wore dresses, skirts, skorts, or pedal pushers, and truth be told, some great vintage fifties garb that she found down at Princess’s gallery, but never jeans. And a shotgun?
“Come in, come in,” she opened the door and smiled. I noticed that even though her hair was not in its perfect style, she still wore lipstick. And then the scent of bacon hit me.
Moonshine caught it next and laughed. “I love you, Mrs. Williams!”
“Love you too, Michael.” She smiled. “Come on kids, we have a lot to do.”
Highland smiled and grabbed his backpack from the seat of the car.
As we piled into the back door and introduced Sully, Mrs. Williams pulled out plates of sausage and potatoes from the oven and then set a platter of sliced tomatoes, mushrooms, cucumbers, and chucks of cheddar on the table. “Sit down,” she said, sliding a pan of biscuits in the oven.
As we took our old familiar places around the table she set down three different juices and a gallon of milk. “You guys need your energy, help yourself, and the coffee is brewing.” She glanced at Sully as he settled at the head of the table, a place we’d never seen anyone sit. “No alcohol at my kitchen table, young man.”
I had to give Sully credit; he nodded his head, stood up, and set the bottle on the counter. “I lost the lid, ma’am,” he said and I nearly laughed. Ma’am? They were about the same age, but there is something about Mrs. Williams that just demands respect.
Mrs. Williams nodded and poured him a glass of orange juice. “Sit down and drink your juice.” She patted him on the shoulder.
She went to the stove and poured a huge bowl of eggs into a giant black skillet and began stirring. “Help yourselves, kids, the eggs will be done in a minute.”
I grabbed a slice of tomato and Princess a slice of cucumber.
“Protein, girls,” Mrs. Williams said, her back to us. “You’re actually in the zombie apocalypse now, you need protein. Plus, we have to bury some bodies.” She stirred harder and checked the biscuits.
“What?” Highland jumped from his chair. “What bodies?”
“Well, Midget for one. I didn’t know dogs could get infected, Wayne, I’m sorry.” She set the spoon on the side of the stove, gave him a hug, and then returned to the eggs. “And Lydia Cane and her mom, Eden.” She stirred harder. “I didn’t know it was happening. I mean how many times have you kids sat around this table plotting and planning? Hundreds? I always thought I should encourage it, it’s imagination - I shouldn’t discourage that - but I certainly didn’t believe it.” She turned off the heat under the iron pan and continued to stir.
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