The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set

by Macaulay C. Hunter

  Zaley was almost annoyed enough to walk out of the room. “Probably the comedy. My life has too much drama already.”

  “Why didn’t you say that? I didn’t care what we saw.”

  “I wanted you to be happy. To have fun.”

  “Why wasn’t it okay for me to want the same thing for you? I was happy to go to the comedy. Our relationship had no back and forth. It was all about me.”

  “Most guys would like that,” Zaley mumbled.

  “I don’t. You treated me like your king and I just wanted to be your boyfriend. You changed when you were with me-” The foil of the granola bar crackled in his hand. The dog galloped down the hallway.

  They broke up the bar into three pieces, picking out the chocolate chips from Bleu Cheese’s portion since she shouldn’t have them. The sweetness of the chocolate stung on Zaley’s tongue. That was lunch, there was a little for dinner, and tomorrow they had nothing. Sulky at their conversation, she said, “You did the same thing with Sally.”

  Corbin ate his portion and said ruefully, “Yeah.”

  “Did you love her?” Zaley asked, thinking did you love me?

  “No. I guess I thought if I could make her happy . . .” He caught himself and grinned. “We both suck at relationships, Zaley. Goddamn, I’m hungry.”

  Tomorrow they absolutely had to get to Salmon Park, despite the weather, and she needed to buy supplies. Zaley said, “I wish I didn’t have to go there alone.”

  “You can take the Cheese,” Corbin said. He rubbed his arms, which were dimpled with goose bumps.

  “I’ll buy the wrong things and piss off Micah.”

  Putting his head close to hers, he whispered, “Micah is a bitch.”

  “She got us this house.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. She’s wonderful, but she is still a bitch. Just buy it and don’t listen to her. Or make a list so she has nothing to complain about.”

  A list. They could count every cent they had, estimate how much everything cost, and what the priorities were for purchases. It was such a wonderfully civilized task to have after lurking under a bridge like a troll for so long. Zaley wanted to work on this project immediately.

  The cold of the room drove them back to that delicious fire. Austin was fast asleep by the screen, his head propped up on his crooked arm. Elania had gone outside to pee around the side of the house. They had had to go to the bathroom in the woods, which Zaley hated. Fortunately, her body was no longer raging about the pain medication. She had no idea what poison ivy leaves looked like and was sure that she would have picked them to wipe.

  Micah was turning over the clothes on the screen to dry the other sides. The glass door slid open and Elania came in. Zaley said, “We should make a list of what we need.”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Micah said.

  “I’d feel better with a list,” Zaley said firmly. She would feel better with something concrete to hold onto in the store or stores she came across.

  “Let’s make a list then,” Elania said. “First off, though, let’s not buy clothes until we check out the Waste Less donations. That’s just money thrown away if we can get things for free.”

  “So the priority is food and water,” Zaley said. Micah tossed over a pencil from Brennan’s backpack and Elania had a scrap of paper in hers.

  “Not water,” Micah said. “Or not much. We can fill up the bottles we have at a drinking fountain or in that stream.”

  “If we end up walking to Charbot, we’ll need a lot more water than a few puny Super Robo-Man and plastic bottles can hold,” Corbin said.

  “Then we can pick water bottles out of the trash and fill them. It’s dumb to spend money on that. Food is more important.” Micah poked socks into the holes of the screen. “We can save a little money by helping ourselves to food pantry donation cans. We need a map of this city, dammit! And an Internet connection that can’t be traced, and-”

  She was thinking too fast to follow. Zaley wrote FOOD as a heading on the scrap of paper. What was cheap? Rice and pasta and lentils, but they didn’t have any way to cook it. A container of yogurt wasn’t much, but they couldn’t refrigerate it. Cans of tuna and refried beans were good, but they needed a can opener or a knife. Loaves of bread didn’t cost much, and the cheapest peanut butter brands didn’t have to be kept cold. Some cereals were very inexpensive. She and Elania worked quietly and quickly together, just like they’d once done their schoolwork in harmony.

  “The grocery stores,” Corbin suggested. “When I worked at Mr. Foods, we always threw perfectly good stuff into the dumpster at the end of the day.”

  Although he’d looked asleep, Austin said dreamily, “What kind of stuff?”

  “A lot of bread that was too old to sell, but it wasn’t moldy. Dented or expired cans; old or bruised vegetables and fruit. Some places lock their dumpsters so no one can steal, but we didn’t at Mr. Foods. Fast food restaurants like Shor-Bee’s dump the excess at closing.”

  Gross, Zaley thought. Her stomach rumbled. Bleu Cheese sniffed with hope at their backpacks and Corbin called her off. God, Zaley couldn’t believe that she’d eat French fries out of a Shor-Bee’s trash. But she would, every last one and topping it off with guzzling the soda from a stranger’s discarded cup.

  In the morning, they woke to the guttering fire. All of them had slept in the living room for the warmth. Their clothes were dry if not clean, and they took turns peeing outside. Austin didn’t want to get up, insisting from the floor that he was half-dead from starvation and they should just leave him there to die.

  “I’ll kick you in the nuts until they come off,” Micah said threateningly. “Then I’ll spear them on a stick and fix up this fire to roast them. That will give all of us something to eat.” Zaley winced.

  “There’s food in this world,” Corbin said. “We just have to go and get it.”

  “Okay,” Austin said miserably.

  Dizzy from hunger, Zaley couldn’t quell her nervousness as they left their weird haven and set off down the driveway. The rain had quit. The only drops to fall were from leaves in a chilly wind that pulled away the heat of her clothes from a night by the flames. Even with all of the tops she’d packed upon her person, it was still cold.

  Walking warmed her in time. The faint sounds of faraway traffic filtered through the trees along the driveway, which curved from north to east to north once more. No one spoke, every ear attuned to any sound that was not their feet on the road, birds, or wind.

  The driveway curled east again, rising up a slope and widening. Zaley climbed it alone and looked down the crest to a two-lane road. There were no signs labeling it, or braces set up to catch zombies. The others waited as she descended to the shoulder for a better look at their surroundings.

  The dizziness was getting worse. It had been too little food for too long, and her stomach clamored for anything remotely edible. Telling herself to suck it up, she checked the road. Going south, it vanished into trees. More trees lined the road going north, but her heart jumped to see the edge of a sign high in the air. Hurrying back up the slope, she motioned. They walked through the trees together and kept the road at a distance but in view.

  The sign belonged to a We Got Gas. Past the pumps was a puny minimart. No one was filling up a tank at the pumps, and no one could be seen through the windows. Zaley blinked, the world swimming in front of her eyes. Corbin put his hand on her back. “Okay?”

  “Hungry. And dizzy.”

  “You’ve got this. We’ll wait in the back.” They melted into the trees. The list and money were in her pocket and Micah had braided her hair neatly. Her sling was in the backpack. She couldn’t wear it here. It made her too easily remembered.

  There wasn’t anything to be afraid of, but Zaley couldn’t shake her trepidation. She took a deep breath that only made her more agitated, and stepped onto the pavement. The gas station was the sole structure on this side of the road. A small strip mall was across the street. The architecture looked new, but the
stores were empty and the walls were covered in graffiti.

  Two of the four pumps at the We Got Gas were out of order. A handmade NO ZOMBIES sign was in the window. She wanted to stop and gather her courage to go into the minimart, but that looked weird. It shouldn’t take courage when she belonged to this world.

  The doors slid open automatically when she pressed a foot to the welcome mat, and then she was looking down the double barrels of a gun. It lowered instantly and the cashier said, “Sorry, miss, I didn’t see a car and can’t be too careful out here.”

  Her heart was racing. Having a gun pointed at her just for entering a minimart was a first. “I was walking and worked up an appetite.”

  That surprised the cashier, who had a paunchy belly and a skull earring. “Walking? Alone in the woods? Honey, that’s not safe.”

  Zaley lifted one of the baskets. The doors slid shut behind her. The minimart sported one aisle, sparse of goods on both sides. A refrigerator and freezer hummed along the back wall. On the counter by the register was a basket piled with fresh fruit, and a stocked hot dog roller grill. Her mouth watered. The sign by the grill said that Big Fat Dogs were a dollar each. As she walked down the aisle, she called, “Could I get six of those Big Fat Dogs?”

  “You’re hungry.”

  “My friends are going to pick me up soon. They never eat breakfast.”

  The man went to the grill. “That’s not good. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

  Most of the food on the shelves was candy. Everything looked appetizing, even things she didn’t normally care for like almond caramel chunks. The smell of those hot dogs was making her insane. They’d probably been sitting there on the grill for a month and she didn’t care.

  Picking through boxes of macaroni and cheese mix, she wished that the house had come with some cooking utensils and a pot. Some of the baked goods were cheap, miniature doughnuts and cookies. She dropped those in the basket along with the most inexpensive candy and walked further down the aisle.

  A lot of the shelves in the refrigerated units were empty. There wasn’t much juice, just a lot of Pizoom soda, diet Pizoom, and flavored water. This wasn’t the place to stock up for a long walk, if that was what it came down to. “Hey, do you know where the Mr. Foods is?”

  “Sure, it’s clear on the other side of town. Hyler and Fourth. Just go straight north from here until you hit Fourth and swing east. You can’t miss Hyler.”

  “And the library?”

  “You new here?”

  “Yeah. We just moved from San Francisco.”

  “Library is square in the middle of the downtown area. I can’t remember the cross streets. It’s a big yellow building.”

  On the other side of the aisle were things they didn’t have use for, like diapers and cat toys, and also things that couldn’t be afforded like toothpaste. Glancing over the contents on the shelves one more time, Zaley pulled out a lonely can of dog food. They could break it open on a rock. She went to the counter and set down the basket. The cashier tallied up her purchases and she added a newspaper. Her list! She had forgotten about it.

  Lined up by the register, the hot dogs were wrapped in aluminum foil. Only willpower kept her from unwrapping one and shoving it in her mouth. It took too long for him to count out her change and load everything that had been in her basket into a plastic bag. Without thinking, she took it in her right hand. The weight of it made her upper arm tweak, so she transferred it to her left and pushed it up her wrist.

  The hot dogs were dropped one by one into another bag. She pinched the handles between her thumb and forefinger and lifted it to her left hand. “Thank you.”

  “No problem. Hey, be careful out there. Shepherds got us on high alert.”

  “I will be,” Zaley said, and walked with deliberate casualness out the sliding doors. She swung left around the building like she was going into town.

  Once past the window behind the register, she hurried for the trees. The others appeared and the weight was taken from her. They were talking but she couldn’t really hear them, and she sat down on the wet leaves feeling too dizzy to stand.

  Someone unwrapped a hot dog and pressed it into her hand. Corbin’s face swam into view and Zaley said, “It wasn’t that I thought you were weak. I just didn’t want him to hurt your feelings. Ching-Chong Chinkie Corbin, that’s what he’d call you.”

  “Zaley, that’s so stupid and ignorant that it’s almost funny, and it wouldn’t have hurt my feelings what that old asshole thinks of me,” Corbin said. He lifted her hand to her lips. “Eat. You’ll feel better soon.”

  “It would have hurt you,” Zaley insisted, and bit down. Her body screamed to have food and she swallowed the first bite with barely a chew. Elania and Micah ate with deep, silent concentration. Austin was wolfing his down, not even dropping it from his lips between bites. With two foil tubes in his lap, Corbin unwrapped one and ripped it into chunks for the dog. She engulfed them as he peeled open his hot dog last and ate feverishly. Even starving, he took care of his dog first. Zaley loved that about him.

  She was three-quarters of the way through with her hot dog when she could finally slow down to savor it. The dizziness had settled simultaneously with the food hitting her gut. Suddenly, the world was brighter, and she sank back against a tree to relax. Austin licked the foil clean on his and Micah said, “You ready to stop acting like a pissy, pissy princess?”

  “Piss off,” Austin said with more cheer than he had shown in ages. He investigated the contents of the second bag. “Wow, slim pickings.”

  “Candy and bare shelves mostly,” Zaley said. “And Pizoom. Lots and lots of Pizoom.”

  “I’d rather die,” Corbin said. “That stuff is sick. Look, Cheesie! An ancient can of dog food.” She wagged her tail and licked the leaves upon which her hot dog chunks had been placed. One stuck to her nose and she shook her head.

  “Oh, I feel better,” moaned Elania. “Thank you, Zaley.”

  “You’re welcome. I got a paper so we can figure out what’s going on.”

  “Because that’s a good way to spend our money,” Micah said.

  “Fuck off and I love you for that house,” Corbin said.

  They couldn’t resist one package of the chocolate doughnuts, everyone taking a share except for the dog. Corbin threw her a little piece from the last of his bun so she wasn’t left out. Micah and Elania drew in the dirt with sticks what little they remembered of Salmon Park’s particulars from maps and visits. The best guess was that they were in the southwestern point of the city.

  Zaley pulled out the local section of the paper. The front page had three articles, one about budget cuts, the second of a nasty fender-bender in their downtown, and the last a happy adoption story. She turned the page awkwardly and stared at a picture of Shepherds waving from a brace. “Yeah, this place is still netted.”

  “Shit,” Corbin said, looking over her shoulder to the picture. “Read it to me?”

  “It’s short. The roads and on-ramps in Salmon Park are under Shepherd surveillance. It encourages people to unwrap scarves and pull down collars to speed processing. Trunks will be searched. Random house searches will also be conducted, and if asked for your identification on the street, you have to provide it.”

  Corbin was agape. “You can’t do that! Shepherds aren’t any real kind of authority and what happened to civil rights?”

  “Oh God! Here it says to turn to page B-12 for a list of stamped people from the area yet to be apprehended. You can go online and see their pictures . . .” Zaley flipped the page and exclaimed, “Shit! Here are your names!”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? I got my name in the paper for that?” Micah said in annoyance. They huddled around to look.

  “And you and I have stars after our names for being dangerous, Micah,” Elania said in dismay. “They knew whose car that was. Look how many names aren’t there of Sombra Cs from Cloudy Valley. I hope Quinn didn’t come back.”

  “Baez,
Jemini. Underdown, Gregory. Ruiz, Nevara. Oh, and there’s Quinn,” Zaley read. Those were the only names that didn’t belong to people standing and crouching around her.

  “Check obituaries,” Corbin begged. Zaley flipped back, the paper creasing, and he flattened it down. She skimmed over the pictures of old people, and slowed to check the names of those who didn’t have pictures.

  “No,” Zaley said at the bottom of the page. “She’s not here.”

  “She could have been yesterday.”

  “But she’s not here today.”

  “So it’s Charbot,” Micah said. “Then we need supplies, and we have to get them fast. We should split up.”

  Zaley felt better with all of them together. “Is that safe?”

  “Nothing is safe. You’re the only one of us who can walk into the middle of town, so you have to get to the library. Look for any of those free brochures about the area’s wilderness preserves and trails. Rip out pages in local travel books if you have to, print off the Internet, whatever. We have to know how to get to Charbot without using roads. If there’s a Goody-Goody in this city, get blankets and more backpacks for cheap. I’m going to follow the woods all the way to that Mr. Foods to see what clothes are in the donation bin and I’ll check out the dumpster. Oh, and give me some money, Zaley, I bet there are roach coaches around this place at night that won’t ask to see my neck.”

  “What about the rest of us?” Corbin asked as Zaley divided the money.

  “You do whatever the fuck you want. Find food if you can. If I’m not back to the house in two days, you guys split. Assume I’m caught.” Unzipping her backpack, Micah dropped one of the packs of cookies inside.

  “I’ll come with you,” Elania said. “If there’s a lot of food and clothes, you can’t carry it all yourself.”

  “Take the gun,” Zaley said, breathless even at the word. She pressed the money into Elania’s hand and went into her backpack for the weapon. “We’ll have the dog.”