“That sounds like a plan, but how would we even get in?” Angie asked. “The place is locked right now.”
“Doesn’t one of us have keys to it?” Johnny asked. “I could have sworn one of us worked there during the summer.”
Kevin snorted. “Yeah. Bert. I’m betting his keys are in the middle of that,” he said, pointing at the fire.
“I know how to get us in,” Rudy said. “Sometimes when Bert would get drunk he would lose his keys, so he kept a second set around just in case. He told me once.”
“Fine. Then that’s where we’re going, unless anyone else has a better idea?” Angie asked. No one answered. That settled it, then.
Before they could move, though, they needed to figure out what to do about Megan. There was still some grumbling from a few of them that keeping her with them might be dangerous, yet Angie said she was staying and everyone else at this point had, without actually discussing it, decided she was well and truly in charge. Occasionally, Megan would moan and move around, making Angie think that she might fully wake soon and be able to walk, or at least she might walk with some help, but for now they still needed to carry her. Despite Kim’s insistence that she wanted to be the one who did it, Angie knew the woman wouldn’t be strong enough to carry her daughter by herself. Hell, Kim was so willowy and malnourished-looking that she didn’t look like she’d be able to carry much at all.
Angie also took a moment before they got going to check the states of both Bert’s pistol and Jasmine’s revolver. Jasmine’s had three bullets, but Bert’s was empty. In his panic, he had used the last of his bullets in a meaningless last second volley. Angie was loath to just toss the gun aside, though. In a town like Mukwunaguk where they loved themselves the Second Amendment, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to think that they might come across more ammo. Angie wanted to keep the gun just in case and stashed it in the tip pocket of her waitress apron right along with her smokes.
Boris and Kevin took Megan while they quietly made their way behind Main Street’s buildings, running between them quickly just in case Archie and the others were still out front in a position where they could see them. Angie couldn’t even be certain that those four had escaped the inferno, but she thought it likely. For all their slow shambling, they had been quick enough when it counted.
That alone puzzled and disturbed Angie. There was something very weird about this whole situation. Or, at least, weirder than a sudden invasion of zombies on her small hometown should have been. What she had seen of the dead people so far – and she had no doubt by now that they were in fact dead – didn’t quite seem to jive with what anyone would expect of zombies. Oh sure, in some ways they met expectations. They were usually slow and they couldn’t be killed by conventional means. They even seemed to make more of themselves through bites. But in other ways, they were too normal for zombies, like they had been created by someone who’d watched way too much zombie media and didn’t have enough creativity to add anything to it. After all, if zombies did spontaneously come into existence in the real world, what were the chances that they would actually follow any of the rules arbitrarily given to them in fiction? Did it actually make sense that a walking corpse could be killed again with a shot to the head? Who had decided these were the rules, anyway?
Of course, she had to remind herself that they didn’t follow every rule, though. She’d never heard of a fire zombie before, after all. Still, all of this felt strangely formulaic so far. That might have been fine for fiction but the real world shouldn’t be that easy to classify.
The museum was a couple of blocks down from the café and across the street. Angie decided it would be best to go those few blocks first, hopefully leaving the zombies close enough to the café that they wouldn’t see the group crossing the street. The problem was she couldn’t be certain where the zombies were now, or even how many currently roamed the streets. It could have just been the four tourists, or their numbers might have swelled enough that Kevin and Beth wouldn’t need to argue anymore about exactly how many zombies it took to make a horde. Once they were behind the Sand Bar, Old Bert’s former favorite place to get drunk and complain about the outsiders, they all stopped. The Sand Bar was directly across the street from the museum.
“One of us should go out front and see if anyone is out shambling around,” Boris said.
Kevin put a finger on his nose. Beth immediately did the same. Angie, while recognizing the childishness of it, couldn’t help but following suit. Johnny was next followed by Kim, who didn’t seem to understand why she was doing it didn’t want to be left out. Rudy and Jasmine were last, although they at least finally seemed to realize why they were doing it. That only left Megan, who obviously didn’t count, and Boris, who looked thoroughly confused.
“Did I miss something?” Boris asked.
“You said one of us should go poke our head out front,” Kevin said, making sure not to remove the finger.
“And? So?”
“So this means I’m not it.”
“Me either,” Beth said.
“Wait, are you people serious?” Boris asked.
Angie just shrugged. Not a one of them removed their fingers.
“Jesus Christ. What are you people, twelve?” He made no further complaint, however, just stooped low and moved slowly around the building to the front. Whether he thought it was stupid or not, even he had to respect the ancient mystical power of being Not It.
Once he was out of sight for the moment, they all put their hands down and waited. Angie still had her coat on so she didn’t feel the wind digging into her bones quite as keenly as some of the others. Beth had also never gotten around to taking her coat off so she shared her warmth with Kevin, even if he looked distinctly displeased with huddling in a Detroit Lions coat. Rudy and Jasmine, neither of which had more than their diner uniforms, held each other tight in a hug that was somehow equal parts friendship and something more. Angie had never pried into their relationship, knowing they were closer maybe than they wanted to appear. Jasmine had least always had a very open idea of sex and relationships, making no apologies that she still had a very active love-life despite being on the older side. Rudy was probably even older still, but Angie wouldn’t have been surprised to find out they had, at some point, been more than just boss and worker.
Johnny tried to get close to Megan and Kim for warmth, but Kim immediately pushed him away, citing the number of blood-borne diseases he might accidentally smear all over her in his current state. Angie took pity on him and gave him her own coat. Had Boris not been inspecting the front, she didn’t think she would be as generous. Not because she didn’t want to share, but because if Boris had seen her shivering, he probably would have used it as an excuse to make a move on her.
She tensed as she thought she heard something moving nearby. She wasn’t the only one, either, since Jasmine had her gun in hand and ready in under a second. The others noticed and all went preternaturally quiet. After listening for a few more moments, though, she relaxed. She’d heard that noise plenty of times and recognized it for what it was. The click-clack of little nails on the pavement.
She bent low and whispered out into the snowy darkness. “Doug, is that you? Come here, boy.”
A pause, then the clacking got louder and Doug trotted into view, his tongue lolling and his butt wiggling happily. The cold didn’t seem to affect him, nor did he seem particularly troubled that her usual place to meet him several blocks away was burning to the ground.
“Good boy,” she whispered to him. She put a hand out to pet him as usual, and just like always he backed away until he was just out of arm’s reach. When she pulled her hand away, he came forward again, knowing full well that this was the point where she was supposed to give him a treat of whatever bacon or hamburger might have fallen on the floor.
“Sorry, Doug. I don’t have anything for you.” She sighed. “It doesn’t look like I’m going to have anything for you ever again.”
He plopped
his butt down in the flurries accumulating on the ground and began to lick his balls, a clear sign of the disapproval he felt for that nonsense.
“It’s really not safe for you out here,” Johnny said. He probably wasn’t as familiar with Doug’s peculiarities as Angie was, because he tried to reach out and pet the dog himself. Doug appeared confused about whether he should run away or get closer, probably because he wasn’t entirely sure if the blood all over Johnny’s hands was supposed to be something good to eat.
“Yeah, probably not a good idea,” Angie said, indicating the blood. Johnny sheepishly pulled his hand back. Doug stood back up and trotted off into the gloom. Angie figured that was the last she would see of him tonight, possibly forever if the rest of this night continued to be as catastrophic as it had begun, except after a few seconds Doug came back, sat just outside her reach, and whined.
“What is it?” Angie asked him.
“Yeah, is Timmy stuck in the well again?” Kevin asked.
“You know that never actually happened, right?” Beth asked him.
“What never actually happened?”
“On Lassie. Timmy never actually fell in a well.”
“Bullshit he didn’t. Everyone knows that happened, like, every week.”
“No it didn’t. As usual, you’re wrong again.”
“Not the time for foreplay, you two,” Angie said. She reached out to Doug again. He still wouldn’t let her pet him, but this time when he pulled away it looked like he wanted her to follow him.
“Yeah, no. I wouldn’t do that,” Johnny said.
Beth nodded. “Following a mysterious dog away from the rest of the group is a sure fire way to have your skull cracked open and your brains scooped out.”
“Relax. I’m not going that far,” Angie said.
Johnny’s reply was choked and forced. “Yeah. That’s what Becca thought, too.”
Angie paused, fully aware that he was right. Doug looked like he was starting to get impatient, though, walking away a few feet and then coming back. He probably wouldn’t stick around much longer for her to make a decision.
“Okay then. Someone else should go with me.” She realized saying that was a mistake when several of them started raising their hands to their noses again. “Kevin. You’re coming with.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Because I said so.” Jesus, it was just like leading a group of children. “Everyone stay put. I don’t think this will take too long.”
She actually wasn’t sure of anything of the sort. Angie just said it more out of wishful thinking. With Kevin by her side, she followed Doug, still keeping low and in the shadows as much as possible. Thankfully, she had been right. Doug led them around a building not even a full block away and stopped. He set his little butt down in the snow again and looked for all the world like he was having a grand old time, yet a low growl emanated from the back of his throat. Angie walked a little ways past him, trying to see whatever the dog wanted to point out. The side street they were facing was completely empty.
“I don’t get it,” Angie said.
“Uh, I think maybe he has a problem with that,” Kevin said, pointing at something on the sidewalk just ahead. Angie took a few steps closer but stopped at an inexplicable wall of steaming heat in front of her.
“What the hell?” she asked. Kevin joined her as she moved closer to investigate. Doug gave one short and yipping bark before running as fast as his tiny little legs could take him. Angie didn’t bother to try following him. This was obviously what had spooked the dog so much. Now she just needed to figure out what this even was.
They were footprints. That much was obvious just from the size, shape, and spacing. The footprints of what, though, she had no idea. Whatever it was, it certainly walked on two legs, so it was more likely to be a human than any animal. They weren’t shoeprints, though, but actual bare feet. Five toes, a heel, an arch. They were strangely thin and elongated, though, especially at the ends of the toes where they looked like they might just end in points. The footprints formed a relatively straight line down the sidewalk heading toward Main Street and vanishing out of sight between two street lights.
None of that, however, was the most startling detail. What gave Angie pause and made her doubt her own senses was the fact that the footprints had actually been burned into the sidewalk. How hot would someone’s feet even need to be to cause that? Probably hotter than anyone should have been while still able to survive. And judging from the dull red glow that some of them still had farther down, whoever had made them had only passed by a minute or so ago.
“Was…was that maybe… I don’t know, Becca?” Kevin asked. The tone of his voice made it obvious that he knew it definitely hadn’t been her.
“We need to get back to the others,” Angie said. “Now. Then we’ll go hide out in the museum and see it we can come up with some kind of plan.”
“Yeah, you don’t need to tell me twice,” Kevin said.
Eight
Angie led the way back to find that Boris had returned. He looked impatient.
“What the hell you two? Main Street is clear but I don’t know for how long. We don’t have time for whatever…” Something on their faces must have given him pause. “What? What is it?”
“We’ll tell you once we’re safe inside the museum,” she said. She gestured for him to lead the way. Megan was still groggy and incoherent, but she had apparently come to enough in the meantime that two people standing on either side of her could coax her into something that sleepily resembled walking. Angie paused at Main Street, looking both directions for any sign of the zombies, but everything was quiet. Eerily quiet. There were apartments on the second stories of some of these shop buildings, but she didn’t see lights shining out of a single one of them. She didn’t know what that might mean, nor did she care to speculate just now. They could discuss all these things together once they were inside.
With a name like the Mukwunaguk Historical Society Museum, an outsider might have expected something grander, or at the very least slightly flashy. In truth, it was an old converted Piggly Wiggly built in the seventies and, despite a number of paint-jobs and add-ons over the years, still had a blocky and outdated vibe to the design. Not that it was dilapidated by any means. A lot of local funds had gone into preserving both this place and the lighthouse at the edge of town. They were Mukwunaguk’s main attractions, after all, when the tourists wanted something other than Lake Superior itself. Through the glass door facing the parking lot, Angie could see into the vestibule with a rack of brochures for various attractions around the Upper Peninsula right next to a series of quarter-operated dispensers that ejected plastic bubbles full of cheap trinkets for the kids. The inside was completely dark as it had been for the last couple weeks, the only people typically going in and out during this time being the exterminators, making sure mice didn’t make nests of the various “exhibits” within. There was a locked garage near the back of the parking lot that got Angie to thinking, but before she could dwell on the beginnings of an idea, Boris spoke up.
“So Rudy? How are we supposed to get in?”
“Simple,” he said. In a planter ridden with dead weeds next to the door, Rudy rifled through some of the stones around the bottom until he came up with one that was very clearly plastic.
“A fake rock?” Johnny asked. “You mean to tell me that the only thing keeping people from getting in and stealing everything from the town’s history has been a piece of plastic this whole time?”
“Come on, kid. You know better,” Rudy said as he slid the bottom of the fake rock open and pulled out a key. “There probably isn’t a single thing in this entire building that anybody would actually want to steal for real.”
Angie wasn’t sure if she would go that far. There might be some things that out-of-towners might find interesting enough that they might try to walk away with them shoved under their coats, but when it came to Mukwunagukers he was mostly right. To the people who had seen it
all a thousand times before, the precious artifacts of the museum were little more than trash, not even worth the effort of trying to hide them on the way out. It was even a time-honored and somewhat tolerated tradition among local teenagers to try taking things out and then sneaking them back in. The couple that usually ran the museum was aware of this, just as they knew damn well when some bottle or tattered book was hidden in some teen girl’s purse. They knew who took each item by name and would give them a whole week to keep the item and brag about it. If it wasn’t back after that, well, everyone knew that particular kid’s parents, and that teen would forever bear the stigma of being the one asshole who didn’t return what they took.
As Rudy opened the door, Angie took one last look around outside to see if anyone or anything might have seen them come this way. She was still greatly disturbed by the weird burning footprints, although she was more worried about the zombies at this point. She had no idea where Archie and his friends had gone. It was possible, she supposed, that they hadn’t all escaped the fire at the café, which she could still see casting dancing light and shadows down the street. Even without the intervention of firefighters, she was certain by now that it wasn’t going to spread, so at the very least they didn’t need to worry about being overtaken by an inferno. At least not yet. If something happened again like in the café then she supposed that was still a possibility.
“Nobody turn on the lights,” she said as they entered the museum.
“Then how the hell are we supposed to see in this maze?” Kevin asked.
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