by Guy James
76
Sven walked in quickly after Jane, slinging the backpack with Ivan in it onto his back. Jane had begun to move a little too fast for Sven’s liking, and he was trying to keep up with her to make sure she wasn’t walking into a zombie-infested store, while also keeping Lorie and Evan in sight.
The gun shop looked deserted. It would be a huge bonus, a huge relief if it was, but there were aisles, and Sven could see a corridor behind the counter leading somewhere—probably to a storeroom, and there was likely a basement—so there were lots of unhappy possibilities lurking in the unknown.
Then one of these unhappy possibilities emerged into Sven’s field of vision. Evan gasped and Jane stopped in the midst of her mad dash to the gun display. The zombie had appeared from behind an aisle, and it was wearing plaid and overalls that did little to contain its immense belly. The face looked dry and misshapen, and Sven guessed that the thing’s belly had been even more massive before it got infected and dried up. As if to confirm that it was drying up, a piece of the zombie’s earlobe fell off as the zombie lurched toward Jane, who stood watching it, frozen in her tracks.
Ivan hissed, and kicked Sven in the back a few times through the backpack.
Then Lorie was running, and she left Sven’s field of vision.
“No,” Sven said, “where are you going?”
But the girl was gone. She had left Evan standing close to the store’s entrance, still wearing his shocked, pallid expression.
The zombie was getting closer to Jane, and she must have snapped out of it, because she climbed over the counter and began to rummage through the guns in the display. When Sven saw her do this, he noticed that most of the display was empty, and there was a lot of empty space behind the counter too, as if people had gone through the place already and cleaned it out. Sven and his gang were late to the party.
Then Lorie was back. She ran out of the bow and arrow aisle wielding her butcher knife. She made straight for the plaid zombie’s left, overall-covered leg and swung hard. The knife cracked something and stuck deep into the top of the zombie’s calf, but it didn’t go through. The plaid zombie lurched to the side, off-balance, and then was overcome by the weight of its great belly. It fell sideways, thundering to the ground with a terrible crunch as the leg that Lorie had chopped bent sideways below the knee.
On the floor, the zombie floundered back and forth around the mass of its belly, then lay relatively still, though it still made small flailing, clutching motions with its hands. The hands looked tiny relative to the rest of its body, making Sven imagine a tyrannosaur in its death throes.
It was such an odd sight that Sven had trouble looking away, and Lorie’s eager ferocity to dispatch the plaid zombie hadn’t broken Sven’s curiosity at the thing, because he’d already been exposed to her overactive fighting spirit.
What did break his concentration, however, was the gunshot.
He had been watching the great, undead flailing beast on the floor of the gun shop, when, all of a sudden, a black hole formed under its eye and the top left side of its head fell away, as if its skull were a misshapen fortune cookie. The movement of the tyrannosaur-like arms stopped, and the zombie lay still.
Sven turned to the counter, where Jane stood, holding a gun in both hands, still aimed at the plaid zombie’s body. Lorie and Evan were watching Jane too, and their looks were somewhat apprehensive behind their masks. Sven was surprised that Lorie looked apprehensive after she had just sunk a butcher knife into a zombie. Maybe he was wrong, and that wasn’t Lorie’s apprehensive look. Maybe it was her admiring look. It was hard to tell behind the mask.
“I see you’re still a good shot,” Sven said.
Jane began to do something with the gun, then she picked up a shoulder holster from somewhere behind the counter and put it on. She holstered the gun and gathered up some boxes of ammo and a few magazines.
“Do you shoot a lot?” Lorie asked, wide-eyed.
“A couple times a week,” Jane said. “Sometimes more. Are there any bags back there Lorie? Good ones? We’re gonna need some durable packs to carry this stuff.”
“I’ll go look,” Lorie said, and disappeared into the aisle from which she had run like a crazy mini-butcher.
Sven looked around the store, but he had no idea what to pick up here. He wasn’t into guns, and knew next to nothing about them. People always assumed that because he lived in Virginia he went hunting or at least shooting all the time, that he owned guns, and that he took pride in owning them. But none of those things were true, and he knew he’d have to defer to Jane’s expertise on the matter.
“Any advice on what I should pick up?” Sven asked.
Lorie came back with three sturdy-looking, camouflage duffel bags and two travel backpacks—the kind with water reservoirs connected to drink tubes with bike valves.
“Are there any more of the camel water backpack things back there?” Sven asked.
“Yeah, plenty,” Lorie said. “They’re kinda heavy though. I’ll get the rest.” Lorie disappeared back into the aisle.
Jane began filling one of the duffel bags with the boxes of ammo and the magazines. “Well, if you still shoot the way I remember, we need to get you a shotgun.”
“Thanks,” Sven said, then added, “I wasn’t that bad, was I?”
Jane raised a dubious eyebrow at him. “Let’s find you that shotgun.” Then she reduced her voice to a whisper, “Of course, this is the zombie apocalypse, so if you want to try some of these handguns, I’m not gonna stop you. Just warn me before you try to shoot them.”
Sven harrumphed. He could shoot a gun if he wanted…kind of. But Jane was right, a shotgun was a better idea, so he began to look for one.
“What about me?” Evan asked. “What should I do?”
Sven was about to tell the boy to look for some granola bars and water, but before he could say it, Jane said, “Why don’t you help keep watch at the door? That’s really important right now and we’ve been neglecting it already.”
“Okay,” Evan said. “I can do that.” He walked toward the front of the store.
“Psst,” a voice whispered.
“Psst,” it came again. Sven turned around and saw that it was Jane, motioning for him to come over to her.
Sven walked over to her. “I thought I was supposed to be finding a shotgun.”
“And you will,” she whispered, “but I want to talk to you about something…in private.”
“Alright.” Sven looked down into the display case and saw that it hadn’t quite been picked clean—not all the way. There were a few guns left, and there was a very long knife that caught his eye. Jane began to say something, but Sven kept looking at the knife. The metal was mottled, like it needed a good shining. That made Sven wonder if the knife was sharp. He peered down into the case, and saw that the label under the knife said, “Machete, dating back to—”
“Are you listening to me?” Jane asked, looking annoyed.
“What? Oh, sorry I…sorry, what were you saying?”
“The boy! I think he’s got it, the sickness.”
“You mean…you mean he’s turning into—”
“Not so loud!”
“Sorry.” Sven lowered his voice. “You mean he’s turning into a zombie?”
Jane nodded. She wasn’t packing anymore, and she looked dead serious.
Sven couldn’t believe it. “Evan?” he asked.
Jane nodded again.
“No,” Sven said. “That doesn’t make any sense. He just has a cold or something. It’s been too long for it to be that.”
“I thought you might say something like that. Yes, okay, it’s been a long time, but maybe it’s just taking longer in him.”
“Lars turned very quickly, and I haven’t seen any sick people out, just zombies. I don’t think he has it, but even if he does, what are we supposed to do? Leave him behind?”
“No we can’t leave him, and maybe he doesn’t have it. Of course I hope he doesn’t have
it, but he’s very sick, and we should be careful.”
“Did you tell Lorie about this?”
“No. Maybe it’s better if we don’t.”
“Yeah, it’s probably better that way. What do you mean by being careful, tying him up?”
“No, nothing like that, maybe just not getting too close to him, not sharing his food and water, watching him closely.”
“Okay. Sounds reasonable enough.”
“Okay,” Jane said, and went back to peering behind the counter.
“What are you looking for?” Sven asked.
“The right kind of ammo, there’s not too much left to choose from.”
“Okay.” Sven was glad she knew what to look for, because he certainly didn’t.
Then Sven was peering into the display at the machete again. There were two of them, each lying on top of a leather sheath. They both looked old and authentic to him, the blades stained by age and use, even though he didn’t know how old and authentic machetes should look. He came around to the counter to join Jane and knelt behind the case where the machetes were. The sliding plastic panel was unlocked, and whatever knives or guns had once kept the ancient machetes company were now gone. Whoever had been through the display earlier that day must not have thought the big knives were worth the trouble.
Sven pulled out the machetes and their sheaths, stood up, and lay the treasure on top of the counter. Then he was holding a machete in each hand and looking at them, turning from hand to hand, feeling wonder sweep over him.
***
All of a sudden, Sven was in a jungle, with vines, and a tiger, and a beautiful, sun-tanned woman clad in animal skins. She had a strong, lithe body that had an unmistakable power to it…she was the most alluring woman that Sven could imagine. She winked at Sven, then disappeared behind a wall of vines. Sven stepped forward, and then he was opening the wall of vines with the machetes, and she was—
***
The sound of a throat clearing brought Sven out of his reverie. His heart sank to find that the jungle had gone. He turned and saw that Jane was watching him with a concerned look on her face, arms crossed.
“Is there something you want to tell me Sven? You’re on the verge of slobbering.”
“I…uhh…sorry, I…” Sven stammered, feeling confused. The jungle had been real—much more real than this.
“I like them,” Sven finally said when he got his brain back on track. That was an understatement. He liked them a lot. He may have loved them. He felt about the knives the way he had felt about his basement gym when he had first set it up, like there had been a hole in his life until that moment, except the feeling about the knives was stronger.
Sven looked up to see that Jane was now watching him with a puzzled look on her face, no longer looking as concerned as before.
“Okay,” Jane said, “fine, keep them, just don’t hurt yourself.”
“I won’t,” Sven said, and looked down at the knives again. He liked the weight of them, the way he could feel the muscles in his forearms and biceps flex when he held them. They felt like natural extensions of his hands, and Freddy Krueger with his knife hands popped into Sven’s mind. Freddy’s gloves had always made Sven think of garden shears. But the machetes he now held...those would never be mistaken for garden shears. They were so glorious and full of character and—
“Why don’t you go see about some pants?”
“What?” Sven looked up at Jane again.
“Pants. Pants. Maybe there are some lumberjack pants in the back or something.”
“Oh,” Sven said, and he looked down at his bare legs and understood. Pants were a good idea, that was true.
“Nice knives,” Lorie said, appearing out of nowhere. “And yeah, there are some pants back there. I think there’s a pair that’s just for you actually.” Her eyes twinkled, and Sven got the feeling he wasn’t going to like these pants one bit.
“Well,” Lorie said. “You gonna let me show you your new pants or what?”
Sven nodded, reluctantly sheathed both machetes, and placed them on the countertop. Letting go of them was uncomfortable, like there was pull of electricity that he felt in his wrist from the knives’ handles when he let go. It felt like something was being wrenched from inside of his forearm. It didn’t feel good.
“Are you coming?”
Sven looked up to see that Lorie was already walking away from him, motioning for him to follow. He tried to figure out what to do with the machetes—he wasn’t going to leave them on the counter—and when he realized that he couldn’t fasten the sheaths to his boxers without his boxers falling down, he took both machetes in his left hand and followed Lorie.
Lorie led Sven down an aisle and around into another one, until she stopped and pointed to a shelf that was full of garments. Sven glanced around and saw that the aisle was dotted with hunting jackets, boots, hats, backpacks—all kinds of outdoor gear. But there wasn’t that much of it. Whoever had been through the guns had also been through this part of the store, and had made a mess of the place. Hats and mismatched boots were strewn about the floor, and there were bare spots on the shelves that Sven assumed hadn’t been bare earlier in the day. Then again, he hadn’t been to the store in a while, and maybe the bare spots were now a fixture.
Lorie pulled something off a shelf and offered it to Sven.
“Here they are,” Lorie said.
“What is it?” Sven asked.
Lorie rolled her eyes. “Pants, remember? The pants. These are the pants.”
Sven thought she sounded frustrated—probably picking it up from Jane. That was all he needed—a mini-Jane on his hands poking fun at him. He remembered the pants now, and of course he did need some, he was just getting a little distracted, that was all.
“Are you sure these are the rights ones?” Sven asked, looking at the pants dubiously.
“They have to be.”
“Why?”
“Well, they’re totally you, and they’re the only ones left. So it works out.”
Sven looked at the pants that Lorie was holding and took a step backward.
“How do you figure that they’re totally me?” Sven asked. The pants were a dark green—it seemed that all the hunting gear was either camouflage or dark green—and they were decorated with ducks. Sven saw the pants’ label and had to correct himself—they were mallards.
“They’re ducks!” Lorie cried, as if that explained everything.
“They’re mallards,” Sven corrected her, feeling very witty indeed. He had acclimated to Virginia life enough to know what a mallard was, though his first instinct was to call all ducks, “ducks.”
Lorie frowned. “Whatever, they’re...protein! And you love protein, so there you go.”
Sven nodded. “Duck is delicious,” he had to admit, “fatty and delicious.”
“See?”
“Okay, okay, I’ll take ‘em. If they’re the last ones what choice do I have?”
He took the pants from Lorie, unfolded them, and without letting go of the machetes, began to put them on. That didn’t work because Sven hadn’t taken his sneakers off, and his left foot got caught in a pant leg. After he shook off the pants and his stuck shoe, he removed his remaining shoe and put the pants on properly, all the while keeping a firm hold on the machetes.
The pants felt puffy and ridiculous, but Sven couldn’t deny that the mallards were making him hungry. They looked happy and delicious swimming around on his pants. The pants were especially loose on Sven at the waist, but they had a drawstring at the top, and after Sven tightened it, the fit was workable.
Sven attached one machete to a belt loop on the right side of the pants, and one machete to a belt loop on the left side of the pants. Then he checked the buckles on the sheaths and the belt loops to reassure himself that they were solid and that the machetes wouldn’t come off. He thought about jumping up and down a few times to make sure the knives didn’t fall off, but he didn’t want to aggravate his injured, and now somewhat
-singed body.
He looked up and saw that Lorie was watching him approvingly. “We’ll call them Sven’s duck pants,” she said. “Maybe it’ll start a trend.”
“Mallard pants,” Sven corrected.
Lorie looked suddenly upset, so Sven said, “No, no, we’ll call them duck pants, like you want, okay?”
“No,” Lorie said, “it’s not that. I mean, will there be anyone left to follow in your duck pants trend, to even know about this, or about us? What if no one’s left? What if we’re the last ones and even we don’t make it?”
“We’ll make it. Don’t worry about any of that right now. We’ll make it and we’ll find others and this whole thing will end. It’s bad, but there’s a way out of it. There’s gotta be.”
“What if it’s the end of the world?”
“Well then we’ll go out in style.” Sven pointed down at the pants, and Lorie looked. “Right?”
“Right.”
Then the girl hugged him, and he hugged her back.
“Sven,” Jane’s voice called from behind him. “I’m about ready, let’s see about that shotgun and go.”
Lorie let go of Sven and walked away, turning left at the end of the aisle. Sven thought he heard a sniffle.
He walked back to the counter, where Jane was going through the bags and kits Lorie had brought up.
“I’m trying to make sure we don’t have anything we don’t need,” Jane said. “We need to bring as much as we can that’s as useful as possible, and doesn’t weigh us down too much.”
“You’re right,” Sven said. She was very right, and seemed much less distraught then before, except that she was patting the gun in her shoulder holster every so often as she spoke.
Then her eyes dropped to the floor and she picked something up from behind the counter.
“Here,” she said, “I’ve got one for you. The shotgun stand was about empty, and this was the only pump-action left. I hope it’s not damaged or anything. Looks new to me.”
Jane turned the shotgun over in her hands, checking it over for something. She made some of the moving parts click, then nodded.