“She came in here with us,” Beth said. “I saw her.”
Angie cursed under her breath and looked over the divide again. Sure enough, she saw the woman creeping closer to Megan. She was keeping well hidden, though, using the tables and booths as cover from anything that might look in. In this case, the woman’s paranoia was to her benefit. Angie saw a couple of ragged-fleshed fingers clawing at the glass, their state suggesting their owner had been worrying at the hole this whole time they’d been arguing. At least these zombies didn’t seem to be the super intelligent kind, or else they already would have come pouring in. As it was, though, she didn’t think the remains of the window would hold them back for much longer.
Jasmine came back in with her phone in her hand, but the look on her face already told everyone that no one had answered. Boris was right. Bob and Louis and every other person who had gone out to the cabin was likely dead right now and walking down the streets of Mukwunaguk. There were probably still plenty of people holed up in their homes or apartments, maybe even still oblivious to what was happening as the storm started to amp up outside. Most of them probably wouldn’t be much help. Those of them who were stuck here had to come up with some other plan.
“Okay, so what do we know about zombies?” Angie asked. “Other than we need to shoot them in the heads.”
“Well, they’re slow,” Johnny said groggily.
“No, not all zombies are slow,” Kevin said. “The ones in 28 Days Later were fast.”
“Those weren’t real zombies, though,” Beth said. “Not like the ones in movies like Night of the Living Dead.”
“Hey, news flash, kids,” Rudy said. “None of those are real zombies. They’re fictional. What we’ve got out there is not. We can’t just make an assumption that they’re going to be like things we’ve seen. We don’t even know what’s causing this.” He paused. “Besides, everyone knows Romero zombies are the only one’s that count anyways.”
“Okay, before that note sends us back to ridiculous squabbling, let’s just figure out what we do know for sure,” Angie said. She thought about it for a second. “One, they can take a bullet without noticing it. So why are we assuming that a head shot will kill them anyway?”
“Because that’s just always the way it works,” Old Bert said, his tone clearly implying that this might the stupidest question he’d ever heard in his life, or at least the stupidest thing he hadn’t heard from a tourist.
“Fine, fine. We’ll let that assumption stand for now,” she said. Looking over again, she saw Kim quietly dragging Megan away from the window. The fingers that had been groping at the hole were gone again, although she couldn’t guess what that might mean. “Two, they can spread whatever they are to other people.”
“Through bites,” Boris added. Kevin shook his head.
“We can’t prove that. We haven’t actually seen them do that yet.”
“But we’ve seen the marks, haven’t we?” Boris asked. “They’re all over the zombies, including Becca.”
“Those don’t look like any bites I’ve ever seen,” Beth said.
“No, they’re bites,” Angie said. “I saw them closer than any of you, including the one on Megan. Definitely teeth marks.”
“But why would they look burned, then?” Kevin asked.
“Don’t know. But since those are the only really noticeable marks on any of them, let’s go ahead and assume that’s how it spreads. So far, it’s a lot like the movies and stories.”
“But that means that girl out there is going to turn, isn’t she?” Old Bert said. “They always turn in the movies. There’s no way to stop it.”
Everyone else tensed at this thought. Angie herself wasn’t so sure, but she didn’t know quite how to voice her reservations. She didn’t know how long it had been since Megan was bitten, but Becca hadn’t been gone for more than ten minutes before she’d come wandering back as the apparently walking dead. Megan had been with them for longer than that, and not only had she not been getting worse, she’d looked for a while like she was getting better.
Old Bert looked around for, Angie assumed, Kim coming back. When he didn’t see her, he dropped his voice low and said, “We need to shoot her.”
“Nobody’s shooting anybody else,” Angie said. “I think we pretty well established that a couple minutes ago.”
“Just think about it. They always turn. Every time. And there’s always some schmuck that doesn’t want to admit they’re really dead and wants to keep them around, and then whammo! That person gets bitten and infected too. Keeping her around in this state is just a guaranteed way to get all of the rest of us killed.”
“Bert, just shut it,” Angie said. “No one is—”
“Maybe we should do it,” Kevin said.
“Please don’t start taking his side,” Angie said.
“Look, we all know Bert is batshit crazy. Sorry, no offense,” Kevin said.
“Plenty taken,” Old Bert mumbled.
“But we do all agree that we’re dealing with zombies here. And we all know the rules for how zombies work.”
“But that’s what I’m saying,” Angie said. “We don’t. We can’t just go assuming—”
They never got to finish their argument, because that was when Becca came crashing through the remains of the window.
Six
Angie wasn’t looking when Becca came through, so she had no way of being certain, but from the way she was spread-eagled on the floor when Angie popped her head up to see, it looked like she hadn’t jumped through so much as she’d been thrown through. This theory was supported when she looked out the now completely open front of the building and saw the four other zombies in two lines as though they had been using Becca like a battering ram. That by itself didn’t match what most of them thought they knew about zombies. They weren’t supposed to be smart enough to coordinate attacks, and yet somehow they had.
There was no time to contemplate that, though. The outside four were approaching the window while Becca was getting to her feet. Her face was now a bloody mess of lacerations, yet she gave no indication that she noticed. The people in the kitchen probably only had a few seconds before the zombies came for them.
“The back door, everyone,” Angie said. “Hurry!” No one had to hear that twice. They all stood up and ran, although Old Bert hung back for a second as he first looked at the gun in his hand then out at the approaching zombies.
“Bert, no!” Angie said.
“I’m telling you, I can do this. I can end this all right here.”
Archie and Jughead started climbing over the window pane with Betty and Veronica exhibiting a curious patience as they waited behind. The zombies lost all hints of intelligence once they were inside and on their feet. Becca, leading the way, shuffled along in typical zombie fashion. A little too typical, Angie decided. There was something noticeably familiar about that walk. Then Angie realized what it was.
That foot-dragging motion. It looked exactly like one of the dance steps to the video for Thriller.
What the hell?
Kim had managed to drag her daughter part of the way through the dining room without being seen, but there was no way she was going to get Megan to safety all by herself. One last time, Angie considered leaving her behind, seeing as she had already been bitten, but Angie’s instincts told her there was something there she needed to know, some key difference that might help all of them in the long run.
“Fine then, Bert. Cover me,” she said, then raced out the kitchen door to the dining room. Bert laughed and stood up in the serving window, taking aim at the nearest zombie.
“Let’s see how you handle this, you undead bastards,” Bert said. Even in her panic, Angie rolled her eyes. She reached Kim and grabbed Megan under her shoulders, directing Kim to take her feet. Kim was significantly less helpful in moving the girl than Boris had been, but Megan no longer seemed like nothing but dead weight. She moved slightly in Angie’s hands, not fighting her but almost trying to h
elp her. Any help she provided was minimal, though, and Angie knew this might take time they didn’t really have. If she wanted to save herself, it was possible that there was no other way than to leave Megan behind.
Three gunshots went off in quick succession, and Angie looked up to see one hit Becca in the chest, one hit Archie in the crotch, and the third went wild. The zombies took no notice of their damage, although the shots did manage to get their attention more on Bert than on the three women struggling to get to the back door. The first three zombies shuffled right for Bert, completely oblivious to the fact that there was a counter and a partial wall in their way. Betty and Veronica finished climbing through the window and proceeded slowly toward Angie, Kim, and Megan. All the zombies had their arms out in that typical “walking dead coming to eat your brains” pose, although Betty and Veronica’s arms were curled slightly, their fingers tensed into claws that swayed slightly to a beat that only they could apparently hear. Again, just like Thriller.
“I thought you were supposed to aim at their heads!” Angie yelled. She probably didn’t actually need to yell, but her ears were ringing from the gunfire and that was the only way she could hear herself.
“I was aiming at their heads!” he yelled back. He seemed to realize he had some time now to aim, though, as he held the gun steady in front of him and took the time to make sure that this next bullet found its mark. With a softly muttered, “Sorry, Becca,” he fired. The bullet went right into Becca’s forehead.
All movement in the room seemed to stop for several seconds. Kim and Angie stopped to see what would happen. Old Bert stopped with a look of surprise on his face like he hadn’t actually expected to get his target. The zombies all stopped and, in a decidedly un-zombie-like manner, looked at Becca as though they were expecting something.
Becca stumbled back, what little focus that had still been in her eyes going away as her eyes rolled back in her head. For a second, it looked like she was about to collapse. Bert even had a small smile on his face, as though this moment by itself justified every crazy thought he’d ever harbored about outsiders and he was just waiting for the moment when he could hoot and holler in triumph.
But instead stopping and falling, Becca burst into flames.
“Oh crap!” Bert screamed, his voice significantly higher than Angie thought possible. In a panic, he fired three more shots into the woman coming towards him, but despite the bullets and despite the fact that her entire body was engulfed in fire, Becca still kept coming. She moved faster now, jumping over the counter and reaching through the order window to grab Bert by the sleeve before he could pull away. Angie and Kim had managed to pull Megan most of the way to the back door by this point, which was open to allow everyone else to see the bizarre scene taking place inside. Angie directed Boris to take her place carrying Megan, then ran back into the kitchen in a last ditch effort to save Old Bert. Already things looked grim for him, though. After only a few seconds of being on fire, Becca was completely immolated, her clothes falling off in charred rags and making everything else they touched smolder. She seemed reduced, like the fire had made her physically smaller, and as Angie tried to pull Bert away from her, she held on, her rapidly dwindling body now light enough to get pulled right through the order window with him. The flames caught on his shirt and Bert continued screaming as the fire rushed over him with a speed that defied conventional wisdom. He dropped the gun on the floor as he fell back, Becca’s charred body falling on top of him.
Angie instinctively ran for the fire extinguisher, but by the time she got it off the wall, it was obvious to her that there would be no saving him. Becca had quickly become little more than a blackened skeleton and some charred meat, yet she still held on to him as he batted at her. The flames rising up from them were so hot they burned blue, and everything else they touched caught fire right along with them. The small fire extinguisher wouldn’t be enough to put them out anymore. Nothing short of a fire department could stop this now. And the fire fighters, Angie remembered, were most likely zombies by this point as well.
Her initial panicked thought was to simply drop everything and run out the back door, but she still had enough rational brain working to realize she needed to act smartly. She saw Bert’s gun on the floor and went for it, making sure to stay away from the growing fire spreading throughout the entire kitchen. The blue flames from Becca had subsided in the more ordinary red and orange ones, but those had quickly spread to any flammable substance and surface around the two bodies. Bert still tried to scream, although the noise coming out of him was now more of a hoarse croak. Once Angie had the gun, she took enough stock of her surroundings to realize the four remaining zombies had made their way back to the front window. When everyone else made their escape, they needed to make sure they didn’t go that direction or else they might all suffer the same fate as Bert.
With Bert’s gun in one hand, Angie ran once more to the back door. Before she went out into the freezing storm, however, she took one last heartsick look back into the Gitchigumi Café. There would be nothing left of this place in just a few minutes. Everything she had done with her life, as insignificant as it might seem to others, was symbolized by this building. For a couple seconds, she looked at all her work going up in smoke and wondered if this made her a failure.
Then she remembered Oh right, zombies, and got the hell out of there.
Seven
Once they were all out and huddled next to a dumpster several doors down, Angie did a quick head count. Nine people here including herself. Most of them still looked pretty fit considering the situation, although there were a couple that made her worry. Megan was obviously the worst off, but Johnny also seemed to be fading thanks to a loss of blood. A few of them had their coats with them but most had left them inside the café. As native Mukwunagukers they all knew how to deal with the cold, but even people as hardy as them would need to get inside soon if they didn’t want to freeze. Ironic, Angie realized, considering the blaze they were currently watching.
The Gitchigumi Café was currently a spectacular sight. It had only been one story and not attached to any of the other buildings around it like some of the older structures on Main Street, so it didn’t immediately take anything else with it. The snow that was whipping itself into a fury around it probably helped to keep it from spreading. But even with these factors, the flames reached high into the early night sky. Angie wondered idly if that was just the way buildings burned or if it was because of the peculiar nature of how it had started.
“We need to get farther away,” Angie said. “It still might spread to other buildings.” And most of these buildings were old, after all, probably conforming to fire codes only by the most lax definitions. Without the growing storm all of downtown, Mukwunaguk probably would have joined it in less than half an hour.
“You’d think other people would notice one of the most famous places in town burning down right in front of them,” Kevin muttered. No one else responded, although Angie had a guess why they weren’t seeing too many gawkers. Partly it might be because they were still behind most of the main buildings and anyone watching would be in front on Main Street. But the zombies they had just encountered would not be the only ones roaming tonight. Others had probably been turned during that brief time where they had been holed up in the café. Maybe others had come across the zombies and thought to do exactly what Bert had. If this situation was typical, though, that would only result in more fires popping up throughout the town very shortly.
“We need to get somewhere out of the way,” Angie said. “Anyone got any ideas?”
“We could go to my place,” Boris said. Angie tried to pretend that she hadn’t heard the not-so-subtle come-on in his voice, as though he honestly thought this was still a situation where he might get what he wanted from her.
“Maybe we shouldn’t go to any of our homes,” Rudy said. “For all we know, some of the zombies roaming out there might know where we live.”
Kevin snorted
. “They’re zombies. They don’t know anything. They’re just the mindless dead.”
“Yeah, well, zombies also aren’t supposed to burst into flames when you shoot them in the head,” Angie reminded him. “We can’t make any assumptions about what they can and cannot do at this point.”
Kevin murmured. “It kind of isn’t fair, is it? The zombie apocalypse finally shows up and they don’t have the decency to follow the traditional Romero rules.”
Beth smacked him in the back of the head. “Is that really all you care about? Whether or not they’re traditional enough? Remind me again why I married you?”
“Because I’m great in bed.”
“Oh, right. There is that.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Jasmine said. “What about the museum?”
“Really? That’s, like, a horrible place to hide,” Boris said, although his voice didn’t sound entirely convinced. Most likely he actually did think it was a good idea but didn’t want to admit yet that he wouldn’t be introducing Angie to his bedroom tonight.
“I don’t like it in there,” Kim said. “It’s too…smelly.”
No one could exactly argue with that point. The Mukwunaguk Historical Society Museum may have been one of the better known among the town’s “charming” tourist attractions, but the word “museum” had never seemed like an appropriate term for it to Angie. It would be better to call it Mukwunaguk’s musty attic, a place where the town’s many curios and curiosities found their way to eventually and then sat in loosely organized piles, waiting for someone to come along and puzzle over them.
It was also, Angie realized, the ideal place for them to hide at the moment. It was large enough to comfortably fit all of them inside, and it probably wouldn’t be the first place anyone would look for people at this time of night, or even this time of year, since it was pretty well shut up whenever there weren’t enough tourists to justify keeping it open. It was also surrounded on all sides by streets and parking lots, meaning that if the fire from the café did spread to other places then the museum might be distant enough that stray embers wouldn’t set it ablaze like everything else. Of course, if it did catch on fire, it could probably go up quicker than the café had. The place might as well have been a tinderbox, considering its collection of old newspapers, forgotten books on the history of the town, cardboard dioramas, and other easily flammable knick-knacks. Still, it was a better option than others.
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