by Bryan Mosier
“REALLY! Sometimes I think you just don’t have a clue. Let’s go find something more useful.”
“I have everything I need right hear. You go on if you want.”
“No, I don’t wannaleave you alone.”
“Go on, I’ll be fine. We’re the only ones hear and if I need you all I gottado is yell.”
“Well, I guess I could just go over a few aisles. I think I sawa bunch of nails and stuff. Maybe I can find a board and make some kind of spiked mace or something.”
“Ooooh, if you find any twisted sixteen gauge, grab me a box says Brandon as Alex starts to turn the corner to the next aisle. “Galvanized would be best!”
As Alex meanders down one aisle and then the next, he starts to think that maybe he should get Brandon and go meet back with the other guys before long, but he would hate to goback empty handed. They surely wouldn’t let him get by with that without some serious attacks on his manhood. Talking out loud to himself Alex says“I can just hear them now…What, big bad warrior man can’t even make himself a decentweapon. I thought you had a plus five proficiency in crafting.” Surely there is something here that I can use he thinks. “Hey what’s this?” Coming upon a rack of various sized spools, Alex finds an assortment of ropes and chains. Ranging from an assortment of small, pencil thin types to the large, heavy duty kind used by the loggers that come through town on their way to the saw mill in the next town over Alex carefully weighs the possibilities. “Hey, this could be handy. I mean any respectable adventurer should always havea good length of rope, right?”
As he carefully unspools a length of medium gauge nylon rope that he figures should surely be able to support his weight if need be, Alex suddenly realizes that it’sbeen a while since he left Brandon in the plumbing aisle. “Hey, bub, you okayover there?” he yells but gets no immediate response. “Bub, you alright?” Again no response. Feeling a familiar panic starting to fill his chest, Alex drops the rope letting it fall in a tangled heap on the tile floor andstarts to fast walk down the aisle again yelling“Brandon, where the hell are you?” As he nears the aisle where he left his little brother he starts to say“I swear I’m gonna hurt you if you’re messinwith me…” As he turns the corner he is confronted with a metal pipe rapidly coming toward his head. Managing to move at the last second, the pipe glances off the side of his forehead sending him staggering into the rack of metal pipe fittings to his left, causing them to spill out onto the floor in a loud chorus of clattering metal on tile. Hearing a hushed voice nervously say“Crap, I only grazed him”, followed byanother voice saying“I got him I got him” he feels another jolt of pain catch him on the back of his head. Then comes the darkness.
Sitting amidst a pile of barbeque grill parts and propane tanks, Brandon hears a loud commotion coming from the area of the plumbing aisle where he last saw his brother.
“Crap, I can’t leave him alone for a minute”
Grabbing his beloved katana lying by his side Brandon leaps to his feet and runs down the aisle about twenty feet before turning to cut up the next aisle. With his dollar store sneakers squeaking on the hard tile floor Brandon is abruptly stopped in his tracks. Standing at the far end of the aisle he spies a solitary figure standing silent, its small frame silhouetted by the bright fluorescent glow of a lighting display. Squinting his eyes, he can see that the figure is slightly shorter than himself with the lower half of the face obscured by an ugly, multicolored knitted scarf. As he surveys the situation the figure slowly reaches over its shoulder and carefully drags a curved bladed sword from the hilt strung over its back. A twin to his own blade, the katana shimmers in the radiance of the flickering fluorescent light overhead. Mirroring the actions of his would be opponent, Brandon slowly unsheathes his own sword. Taking one step forward turning his body sideways to his foe, Brandon lifts his sword over his head and, doing his best Keanu Reaves doing his worst Bruce Lee impression, he reaches out with his other hand and gestures for his opponent to bring it on. In a low muffled voice,the solitary figure standing before him mutters five ominous words“There can be only one.” With a dramatic flourish of spinning steel, the figure starts to run down the aisle towards Brandon who reciprocates in kind. Leaping into the air the two swords meet, the metal of their razor sharp blades sparking against one another, ringing loudly through the stillness of the abandoned hardware store.
Chapter 10
The first thing that Alex is aware of as he slowly regains consciousness is the loud pounding filling his ears that apparently seems to be originating from deep within his own skull. With a slight moan, he lifts himself to an upright seated position and begins to take stock of his situation. Lying on the floor of what looks to be the hardware store’s main storage room he sees Justin and Bryan both lying on the floor next to him unconscious. The large pump knot protruding from Justin’s head draws a little sympathy as he thinks to himself“Man, that’s really gonna hurt when he wakes up.”
Looking around, the room is dimly lit with the only light coming from the small rectangular windows in the large double bay doors at the far end of the room that, if he had to guess, most likely lead back out to the main floor. The only other notable feature of the room is a steady, barely audible clicking sound. Barely able to make out his surroundings, Alex starts to get to his feet but when he tries to stand up the room starts to spin and he promptly plants himself back on the ground next to his unconscious companions. Trying to shake off the weird fuzziness in his head Alex is suddenly startled into alertness when a voice asks“What are you doing here?”
“Um, uh nothing, we...we were just trying to find…”
“What is yourobjective” asks another voice from the darkness.
“Objective? What do you mean” replies the confused Alex.
Hearing a slight groaning from Bryan, Alex starts to shake his companion into awareness.
“OW! What happened….ooooh my freakinhead”
“Dude, be quiet, we gottasituation here”
“Whatayamean a situation” replies the confused Bryan. As he looks around in the darkness he can barely make out the shape of two people standing about fifteen feet away, standing in the darkness like a pair of sinister inquisitors from one of those old films his dad used to make him watch.
“What are your intentions? Why did you come here?” asks the second figure.
“Our INTENTIONS were not to get our asses eaten by a bunch of flesh eating freaks” yells the now obviously perturbed Bryan.
“Ungh, dude can you not yell so loud” groans Justin as he starts to regain consciousness.
Their eyes starting to adjust to the low light, the three boys can see that the figures are both of average height, if not a little small the tallest being somewhere around five and half feet or so. Bothseem to have a fairly small build but it’s hard to tell with the bulky clothing they seem to be wearing. As they are studying their interrogators one walks over to the wall and seems to pick up a cord from the ground. Kneeling, the figure reaches over and inserts it into a wall outlet and suddenly a bright red light comes on over the boys, illuminating their immediate surroundings more clearly.
Feeling the warmth of the lamp radiating over his exposed skin Alex takes stock of their situation, and with a tremble in his voice states the obvious“Oh shit fellas, this ain’t good.”
Looking around the boys see that they are surrounded by a make shift fence consisting of barbed wire affixed to metal fence posts that have been propped up by inserting them into a bunch of concrete cinder blocks. Completely imprisoned, the boys come to the startling realization that they are prisoners of their unknown captors.
“OH SHIT, THEY”RE GONNA EAT US!” yells Bryan.
“What the fuck? Why would you say that” asks Alex.
“THEY GOT US HEMMED UP LIKE A BUNCH OF CATTLE, WE’RE GONNA BE FOOD” cries Bryan, the desperation in his voice becoming clearly apparent.
“They arenot going to eat us” says Justin.
“Yes they are, that’s how i
t always goes in these types of situations”
“These types of situations” asks Justin,“How many of“THESE SITUATIONS” have there been. I think we arein uncharted territory here”
“I’ve seen it in movies, once civilization breaks down, people start going all crazy and they start doing sick stuff like…like..”
“Like eating people?” asks Justin.
“LIKE EATING PEOPLE!” exclaims the frazzled Bryan,“They’ll be crapping us out by this time tomorrow”
“They are not going to eat us, there is still plenty of food available. It has only been like three days since the world went to shit. Food will still be good for a long time.”
It’s at this point that a strange, yet familiar sound starts to fill the room. A sound that echoes in the boys’ collective memories like a bad dream that keeps coming back, night after night, no matter how many times you try to force yourself to dream about the hot chick on the cover of your mom’s Esquire magazine. The sound you heard in gym class when you caught that soccer ball with your face or when you were playing basketball and managed to make a perfect three-pointer only to realize you made it on the other team’s goal. The sound you hear in the school cafeteria when you accidentally drop your lunch tray at the exact moment the entire room inexplicably goes dead silent. It’s the sound that haunts all socially awkward, athletically inept teenage boys of the nerdly persuasion. Giggling. But not just any giggling. Girl’s giggling. The sound that says that no matter what you do, what greatness you achieve, what riches you might accrue, you have no chance at ever being considered masculine in the eyes of any woman, anytime, anywhere.
“What the hell” asks the confused Bryan.
With that the lights come on and the boys finally get a good look at their captors. Doubled over, grabbing their mid sections as if in pain, two teenage girls are laughing hysterically at the conversation they just heard.
“Huh, huh, you guys are pathetic” says the taller of the two as she tries to catch her breath. Brushing her wavy orange hair out of her pale green eyes, revealing a heavily freckled face accented by aflush of pink in her cheeks, she says“I mean really, how did you guys even make it here without getting eaten by those stumble bums?”
Feeling his manhood being questioned, Alex gets to his feet and decides to end the farce by breaking free of this prison. Walking over to the fence he reaches out to grab the wire to pull it down when he hears“Nodon’t, the wires…”
An instant of hesitation is all he would have needed but his pride had been hurt and he was determined to show these girls that he was in fact a man. Grabbing the wire with confidence Alex smiles. With a firm grip on the wire he hears that ubiquitous click from earlier. The click comes first then the faint smell of ozone and then comes the pain. The pain of an electrical shock shooting through his fingers, up through his arm and into his chest, knocking him backwards until he finds himself staring up at the light overhead.
“…are electrified!” finishes the girl with the orange hair.
“I think I’m dying” he says to no one in particular.
“Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, is he dead?” asks the orange haired girl as she runs over to the wall and pulls a cord from the outlet.
“What the hell was that” asks Justin”
“That was a shot from a two-hundred mile Red Snap’r low impedencecharger” says the other girl with the slightly less orange hair and even more freckles.
“Yep, definitely dying” mumbles the still prone Alex.
“Dude, you just got zapped like seriously. That kinda jolt shootin through ya had to fry something. You gotta at least be sterile or somethin” says Bryan in mock sympathy.
“Not that he was ever really goingget the opportunity to reproduce anyway” adds Justin.
“He’s lucky if all that did was fry his…his you know whats” says the second girl. “They use them type of chargers to keep in elephants and hippos at the zoo.”
Hearing that Bryan runs to Alex’s side. With excitement he asks,“Dude! Dude! How do you feel? Do you feel like you can run really really fast? Ooh! Point at that pile of stuff over there. See if you can shoot lightening out of your fingers or something!
Holding out his shaking hand, Alex tries to concentrate but finally concede,“Nope. Nothin.”
Trying to lift himself up from the floor Alexmanages to ask“Who the hell are you people?”
“Oh, well” begins the firstgirl,“My name is Carla and this here is my sister Darla”
Figuring them to be about their same age, Alex continues“I don’t recognize you from school so you’re not from around here are you?”
No, we’re from…” begins Carla when she is abruptly shushed by her sister.
“Don’t be tellingthem anything, we don’t know these guys, they could be homicidal murderers or something”
“Really? Did you hear them?they were about to crap themselves thinking we were gonna eat them just a few minutes ago. I’m pretty sure they’re harmless.”
“Um, I would like to point out that we’re not the ones sneaking around hitting unsuspecting people over the head and locking them in anelectrified fence” says Justin.
“He’s gottapoint” adds Bryan.
“They do have a point. I mean we took them all three down with no trouble before. If we need to we could do it again” says Carla.
“Well, I guess so” concedes Darla.
As Darla begins unhooking the wires from the metal poles,“So where are you from and why are you holed up in a hardware store” asks Alex.
“We’re from down south in Tennessee. We had been up north visiting family and were making our way back home on the Greyhound when everything went crazy. The bus driver stopped in town here and said that everybody had to get off, that he had to head back northor something.”
“He just left you stranded here?” asks Justin.
“Yeah, I guess, but it’s just until mom and dad find us” says Darla.
“I don’t mean to be a pessimist, but how in the hell would they be able to find you, they don’t even know where you are? I mean you’re in a hardware store in a little B.F.E.town in Kentucky.”
“Because we stuck to the plan” says Darla, her emotions starting to show with tears welling up in her eyes.
“And what plan would that be?” asks Alex with a disbelieving petulance in his voice, still smarting from his earlier electrocution.
“The plan that if the world comes to an end and we’re somehow separated that we find a place and secure it, and wait for them to come find us.”
“And this, the end of the world, is something that you all planned for?” asks a bemused Alex.
Noticing the slight smirk on Alex’s face, Darla feels a familiar rush of warmth creep up her neck and into her cheeks. From years of feeling defensive about the lifestyle imposed on her and her sisters by their parents she reacts and goes onthe offensive“I know what you’re thinking that we’re some sort of psycho doom’s day preppers like you see on TV. Just because somebody is prepared for a bad situation doesn’t make them crazy.”
Seeing the situation starting to get out of control and feeling his ownface flush red with embarrassment, Alex quickly tries to change the subject,“How much food did you have stashed?”
With a reflexive response from having checked this statistic on a weekly basis, Darla responds“A solid six months, eight or nine if we stretch it”
“No, that’s not weird at all.”
Frustrated at having her pre-apocalypse survivalist lifestyle ridiculed, Darla erupts“Well whose laughing now. While everyone else out there who didn’t have a plan is either already dead or soon will be. We survived because we were ready!” With tears full on streaming down her face creating rivers across her freckled cheeksshe continues“At least we know that we got somebody coming for us, what do you have?”
With a pained expression coming over his own face, Alex turns his back to the girls to hide his emotions. The other boys just stare at their
shoes in silence.
Realizing the hurt that she has inflicted Darla begins“I, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”
“No, you’re right,” says Alex. Taking a deep breath and straightening himself up he turns and continues“Maybe we don’t have a plan and maybe we didn’t spend our every waking moment trying to prepare ahead of time forsomething that may never have happened but we got one thing that you girls don’t have. We’ve got purpose. We’re not just gonna sit around hereand just hope to not get eaten. We’re on a mission, a mission that’s way bigger than any of us.”
“What kindamission is that” asks Darla
“We’re gonna save a hot cheerleader!” blurts out Bryan.
“Oh” says Carla,“Sounds like a real noble goal you got yourselves there.”
Shooting Bryan a look of annoyed frustration, Alex tries to qualify the comment by adding“She’s alone and trapped in her house across town.”
“How do you even know about her? The phone lines are out and electricity is already pretty spotty?
“My dad’s CB radio. We talked to her and she told us where she was.”
“You guys have a CB radio. That’s awesome, where is it?”
“It’s in the…” begins Alex but then he remembers the flaming zombies, the fireworks exploding and the house being set ablaze,“It was in the garage but that went up in flames this morning”
“You guys really are morons you know that.”
After a few moments of awkward silence Justin tries to break the tension by asking“Why did you all pick a hardware store as a meeting point? I figure a mall or the All-Mart up on the hill would be a much better place with all the food and clothing and stuff”
With a roll of the eyes and a muttering of“Such a rube...” Darla explains. “While malls do have a lot of stuff you would need for survival, what else do malls have a lot of…..entrances. Big glass entrances. And with all the different stores, it would be easy for a bunch of stumble bums to lurk around unseen. Mall’s are just two difficult to fortify and maintain surveillance on.”