Zombie Girls

Chapter 45

    We loop around the crevice and follow the road again, making pit stops here and there to drink water hot out of the bottle.  I can’t help feeling a bit sad.   
    This isn’t what my life was supposed to be like, this isn’t who I am.  I’m not the type of person to go around killing things – dang, before this I had trouble killing the bugs that got into our apartment.  After a few years of this, what will I be like?  Will we even survive?
    God, years of this, years of this... tears are falling down my face, so I slow down to slip behind Cassie so she won’t see.

    After a few hours of riding we stop for lunch.  Cassie picks out a large tree on a hill not far from the road.
    “We can have a picnic,” she grins at me and races up the hill on her bike.  I try to grin but it doesn’t stay long on my face.  I follow her up the hill and rest my bike on the ground, then start rooting in my backpack for food while Cassie throws a blanket on the ground.  I set one can each of vienna sausages in front of myself and Cassie, and then open a large can of peaches in the middle for both of us to eat from.
    I get a couple of bites of sausage in when Cassie twists away so that her back is to me.  She fiddles with something, and then turns around.
    “Ta-da!”  she holds up a makeshift necklace – a thick black string that’s looped through a black thumb drive.  “That’s for you.”
    “Thank you.  What is it?”  I ask, taking the necklace.
    “It’s a copy of the lab data.”
    “Cassie,” I look at her, stunned.  “I can’t,” I try to hand it back to her.
    “No, go ahead.  I’ve got a copy too,” she reaches in her shirt and pulls out a necklace like mine.  “I just thought you should have one too, you know, just in case...” her eyes slide to the ground.
    I grip my drive.  “Nothing’s going to happen to you Cassie.  I’ll keep a hold of this one just in case you lose yours or get separated form it again.”  I slip the necklace over my head.          “Thank you.”
    “Okay,” she says.
    “Hey, who has matching necklaces?”  I ask, twirling mine.
    “We do,” she grins.
    We dig into lunch, eating messily but heartily, and as I get full I lean back against the tree.  I’m feeling better and I have Cassie to thank for it.  Giving me a copy of the lab data, yeah that was smart, but it also shows that she trusts me.  She trusts me to hang on to something important, something that if used right could change the world.  Looking at the little black USB drive, I realize that this is the first time that someone’s trusted me with something important like this.  I want to make sure that I live up to that.
    I’m savoring one last bite of peach when I notice a bird flying overhead.
    “Hey Cassie, what’s that?”  I point at the bird.
    “It’s a bird,”  she deadpans.
    I smile and shake my head.  “I know it’s a bird, goober, but what kind?”
    She grins and looks up, shading her eyes to try and catch a better look.  “I think a hawk, but I’m not sure.”
    It’s the first animal I’ve seen in weeks.  If animals can survive out here, maybe we can too.

    We spend the rest of the afternoon riding, without seeing any other beings, alive or undead.  We are seriously in the boonies.  Eventually, I realize that I haven’t seen any shelter for the night – not a car or a house or anything – so as the sun begins to set, I look for a hill or something.
    “How about there?”  I point to a large grassy hill that has three large trees at the top.
    “Sure,” Cassie agrees.  We eat dinner in the same way we did lunch, with a blanket on the ground and food in between us, watching the sunset.  Then Cassie starts to stretch out on the ground.  I look around us and I don’t see anything, just like I didn’t see anything all afternoon, but I’m still a bit nervous.  I glance at the tree behind me and notice large, strong branches.
    “Hey, Cassie, just to be safe, how about we sleep in the tree?”
    “Sure.  That should be neat.”
    She scales the tree like it’s as easy as walking up her staircase at home.  It takes me a bit longer, and I gain some scrapes and bruises, but eventually I get up there.  I shift around a bit, until I wind up facing a branch, wrapping my legs around it, and then kind of lying down.  It’s not very comfortable, but hopefully I won’t fall this way.
    “Goodnight,” I call to Cassie, and notice that she’s already fallen asleep.  I watch the night deepen, very black with no moon, and try not to think any thoughts.  I try to just empty my mind and think about the present – the bark beneath my cheek, the tree beneath me, the soft sounds of the night.  Eventually, I fall asleep.
    When I wake the next morning my cheek is scratched all over, but at least I’m still in the tree and so is Cassie.  This turns out to be a very good thing, because sometime in the night we’ve attracted four zombies.

Chapter 44

The glass explodes and I shoot twice more, until I’m out of bullets.  Then I quickly scooch back on the seat, shake myself a little, and look out the window.  Big and Meaty is gone.

I scramble forward and look over the side of the window.

He’s face down on the ground, still on fire, and he’s not moving.  It reminds me a bit of how I found Cassie’s dad.  I think I actually shot him in the head.

I sink back into the car seat.  I think he’s down for the count. 

Not wanting to think about anything, I shove the gun into my pack and throw the whole thing over the front seat.  I climb up front, slip my pack on, grab Cassie’s bag and I’m out the door.

I step on the ground outside of the car, making sure to be outside of Big and Meaty’s reach  - just in case - and I’m surprised at what I see.

The zombies didn’t stay inside the circle.

I’m not sure why; maybe they saw what Big and Meaty was doing and decided to follow.  But they weren’t as strong as he was, and the resulting smell is horrible.  As I try to look around, it feels like my brain isn’t working right.  I know there are zombies in various states of burning around me, all of them on the ground and some of them still crawling.  I know this, but I don’t really see all of it, it’s like my eyes bounce right over it.

It hits me that the fire thing had been a really bad idea.

Then I’m moving, ignoring the sick feeling in my stomach, neatly avoiding the outstretched hands of burning zombies, ignoring the voice in my head saying this is all my fault.  I know they’re dead, but they still look like humans, and seeing them move all around me, on fire...

I shake my head, then drown everything out, and I finally reach the side of the hill.  I tie Cassie’s backpack on the rope, and for a second I felt better.

The key to everything, the fix for the world, might be in that pack.

I tug on the rope, and then the world becomes just the slope, just the rocks and dirt, and the safest way to get up there without falling.

I reach the top dirty, and sweating, and tired.

Cassie helps me over and then pulls me into a hug.

Chapter 43

    I head down the slope, trying to run and slide my way down quickly, while Cassie’s reaching into her plastic bag and pulling out meat from the store and tossing it into the zombies.  The meat’s rotted, and not the right temperature, and not moving, but we’re hoping it will distract them enough.
    Out of the side of my eyes I see the zombies getting excited, moving around more, and unfortunately, when I’m still about half way down, I see one head swivel my way.  Of course it’s Big and Meaty.  Of course he would be more interested in moving meat then what’s in front of him.  I bet he was annoying in real life too.
    “Now!”  I shout to Cassie.  Without looking at her, I know that she’s reaching into her bag and pulling out a little plastic container of lighter fluid, perfect for a barbecue.  As I’m racing down, trying not to fall on the rocks, she puts a circle around the zombies, lights the match and tosses it.
    I’m almost at the bottom when she cries out – “It’s not working!”
    I stop and notice a couple of things.  The matches are going out before they hit the fluid soaked ground, and Big and Meaty is working his way out of the circle.
    “Light something like clothing and throw it down now!”  I shout in a panic and take off, because I can’t wait to see if it works out okay.
    Out of the side of my eye I see a big white flaming object fall to the ground, and a second later the circle catches fire. 
    I’m at the bottom and I race for the car just as I see Cassie throwing something on fire at Big and Meaty, who is now definitely away from the other zombies.  I jump in the car and slam the door shut.
    I’m in the front driver’s seat.  I ran a hand quickly along the dash.
    “I missed you.  Sorry about the accident.”  I know it’s silly to talk to a car, but my Mom did it all the time, so I’m not quite so weird.
    Cassie’s backpack is on the floor next to the passenger seat, so I grab that and put it on the seat.  Then I climb into the back and grab my pack, just as something slams into the side window.
    “Jesus,” I say, even though it’s a really bad to say it as a swear word.
    Big and Meaty is outside the car, his bloody hand is on the window right in front of me, and he’s on fire.  He stares at me like I’m the cream in the middle of the cupcake, and he doesn’t seem to care that he’s burning.
    “Oh God...”  I push myself as far away from him as I can, up against the far window.  I’m a lousy shot, but I struggle for my gun anyways.  Surely I can’t miss him from this close.
    “Oh God, oh God.”  I’ve got three bullets.  I crawl back to his window, even though my heart is pounding hard, and I know, I know I don’t want to get closer to him.
    I sit on my knees, right at the window, and he stares in at me.  Dear God, this is the closest I’ve gotten to one without them being able to bite me.  His eyes are tracking me and then his hand slams against the door again and I jump.  But so far he isn’t figuring out to make a fist and smash the window.
    How long will the window hold against the flat of his hand?
    I sit back on my haunches and raise the gun, pointing it right at his face.  The glass separates us, and I see no knowledge in his eyes that I’m basically holding a gun to his head.  He doesn’t know.
    This isn’t right.  This isn’t right to just shoot something point blank like this when it can’t reach me.
    But he’ll eat me.

    Dear God.  I say a prayer for myself, and for him, and for my soul, and then I turn my head away and I pull the trigger.

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Chapter 42

    In the morning we grab some more food, a couple of bottles of water and sports drinks, a couple of bikes, and then some supplies for our attack on the zombies.
    At the back door Cassie pauses.  “Should we say goodbye?”
    I shake my head.  “We’ll just close the door good and tight.  And Cassie, I know we have things to do and all, but I’d like to make a quick pit stop.”
    “Where?”
    “The bookstore.  I figure we go down the alley, I shoot the door, and we go in.”
    “Won’t the noise alert the zombies?”
    “I don’t think so.  She got in after all.”
    “Okay,” Cassie shrugs.
    So we go down the alley and get to the metal door of the bookstore.  Just for kicks I try the handle, but unfortunately it’s locked.  So, looking both ways, I back up and shoot the door.  Thanks to my bad aim it takes three tries, but I eventually get it open.  Cassie runs off to the music section – she’s apparently not into books the way I am - and I just stand there a few seconds.
    It’s quiet, and dark, but it’s just that wonderful feeling of being in a bookstore.  What will I find? But, unfortunately, even though I have all the money in the world, basically, at this point, I can’t spend two hours in here looking for books.
    Please, God, let us get civilization back, because I don’t want to reach a point where I’ve read every book available.
    Don’t laugh – it could happen – there are only so many books.
    But this time, since I’m on a time schedule, I head directly for the books I want.  I go down the aisles until I find the area that has the Laurell K. Hamilton books.  I pick up a paperback, the next one in the series, the one that my Mom said I needed to wait to read until I’m older to read, and I hold it in my hand. 
    Here it is, the next one in the series, now I can finally know what happens next.  But I hold it and I think of my Mom.  I’d already planned on reading this one – sneaking passes at it at the local library when my Mom didn’t know.  And I know she was just trying to protect me, but really what could be in this book compared to the world as it is now?
    But I put it back. 
    And then I run down the aisles to find the next book by Rachel Vincent instead.  I slip it into my plastic bag and find Cassie, and then we’re out of there.
    Okay, when we get set up, I’ll want AC, food and a local bookstore.

    I push open the back door, just to see out, and unfortunately Cassie was right.  The noise did bring some zombies.  Fortunately, they’re coming around the bend at the far end.
    “Cassie, be ready to ride fast,” I say and jump on my bike.  She pushes her bike out around the door, sees the zombies, and follows me.
    I know it’s stupid, but a part of me is starting to enjoy this.  I pedal my bike hard, under sun that isn’t too hot yet, with a slight breeze ruffling my hair.  I imagine I look super hot, even on a bike, like a young super model-to-be.  A heartbreaker.
    I glance over my shoulder and Cassie’s keeping up, and the zombies seem to be the slow kind.  This is so cool.  It’s like we just got away with boosting a store, and the fat old cops (zombies) can’t keep up.
    I grin to myself and then pedal extra hard to get up the hill in front of us.

    To be honest, even after an hour or so of bike riding, I really just want to pull over and read some of my new book, but I figure Cassie won’t go for it.  The trip back is a bit easier, thanks to pit stops where we have some of the sports drinks, and the bikes make it faster.      I’m trying to keep my good mood going because I know what’s ahead of me.  I’ll need to get down the hill, get our backpacks, and get back up the hill before any of the zombies get me, especially Big and Meaty.  If I think about it too much I can feel his hand closing around my ankle.

    We stop at the edge of the crevice and get down on our tummies again to look at the situation.  The zombies are still in a circle at the end, and Big and Meaty is back in the mix of them.  My car’s still at the other end, not blown up but unfortunately still broken.   

    “So I make a circle around them, and try to keep them in there – ”
    “While I run to the car and get out packs.  I can slip my on easily, and then I’ll run to the face, tie yours to a rope and start climbing.”
    “While you’re climbing I’ll pull up my pack.”
    “Sounds good.”

    Cassie smiles and heads over to the part of the crevice nearest the zombie circle.  I take off my shades and put them on the ground, then tie my shoes extra tight.  I take another swallow of sports drink, and try to ignore my sweaty hands.  I stop for a second, trying to make everything go quiet.  I block out the noise of the zombies, and the heat of the sun, and then I think of my path: down the slope, to the car, get the packs, up the slope.  I envision everything going well.  Then I open my eyes, put the drink down, and nod at Cassie.

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Chapter 41

    The adult that I see is not the adult that I expected.  I admit, I figured it would be a dusty stranger with a gun slung over one shoulder and a tough but kind attitude.  An adult that would grin and take on the responsibilities of a teenager and a child in stride.  Then I could relax.
    Instead, there’s a crazy woman sitting on the floor surrounded by food.  Lots of bad food.
    “Delilah, is she really talking to someone on the other end of the phone?”  Cassie whispers.
    “No,” I whisper back just as the the woman notices us.
    “You two girls go on and find your momma,” she waves a hand at us and then goes back to talking and eating.
    I turn and walk away from the aisle, stunned.
    “How do you think she got in here, unhurt?”  Cassie asks.
    “I don’t know.”  I shake my head.
    The one adult we’ve found, in all this time, is bug nuts.  What the hell?  Did all of the good ones die, protecting me and others like me?  Crap!
    I suddenly feel a lot less sure about adults.

    We walk deeper into the store.  I don’t know about Cassie, but even seeing that woman on a binge, I’m still hungry.  The frozen food is out, and the fresh produce has died long ago.  I would really love a peach, a nice juicy ripe one that I could eat over the sink like old times.  I sigh.
    “Hey,”  I turn to Cassie.  “If the lights are on, then I bet this place has an employee break room like the department store, one with a microwave.  We can have hot food.”
Cassie grins.  “Meet you there?”
    “Sure.  Thanks to crazy lady I don’t think there are any zombies in here – otherwise she’d be long dead – but still be safe, okay?”
    She nods and run off.  I walk down the aisles, collecting canned food, microwave meals and stuff to cook them in.  I also grab soda, napkins and forks, so we can eat like civilized people. 
    It turns out the break room is in between the restrooms and an area full of little lockers.  Cassie’s already in there, with a pile of good stuff, but nothing’s in the microwave yet.  Hey, I might not know how to really cook yet, but I know for sure how to cook in a microwave.  I pour stew into a plastic container, and follow it up with noodles, and that oh-so-pleasant hum starts from the oven.
    I sit at one of the tables while Cassie plugs in her PSP to charge, and she starts my phone charging as well.  Then we crack open some soda and sports drinks, drinking straight from the bottles.  The blue sports drink goes down smoothly, and I remember my dad saying once that if they taste good then you really need it.  I go through twenty ounces in under five minutes – I must have really needed it.  I sit back and enjoy the air conditioning blasting down on us.  I don’t know how that woman found the power, but I sure do appreciate it as I actually feel cool for the first time in hours.
    The microwave dings and I put the stew into two bowls, stopping only long enough to take a good long sniff.  Ahhh....  Then I drain the water from the noodles, split that into two bowls, and pour a can of tomato sauce over both – good, quick spaghetti.   I place a bowl of each in front of Cassie and then set a place for myself.
    “Delilah, what’s wrong with that lady?”  Cassie asks while we eat.
    I shake my head.  “She’s cracked.  She can’t handle it.”
    “Then how did she get here?”
    “I’m guessing she has periods of reality, and then periods where she’s gone.”
    “Why the food?”
    “You’ve never been around people that have been dieting, have you?”
    Cassie shakes her head.  “My family’s naturally thin.”
    “Be glad of it.  Don’t ever diet.  Now, here’s a question for you – how do we get our stuff back without me getting eaten?”

    We spend the night in the back of the SuperMart, and neither the crazy lady nor zombies bug us, or disturb our access to air conditioning and food.  I fall asleep so stuffed that my stomach hurts.  When we finally settle down somewhere, those are going to be my two top priorities: AC and food.

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Chapter 40

Before - Continued

   

    Melinda vomited over the iron railing, only stopping when nothing more would come up.  Still shaking from the aftermath, she gripped the railing and looked anywhere but at the body.
    That’s when she noticed her street.  There were cars all up and down the road, even though it was morning and everyone should be at work, and some of the doors to other houses were wide open.  Amanda, the neighbor who lived across the street, had her front door closed but there was blood all over the garage door in large streaks.
    When Melinda finally let her eyes stop here and there, she saw other bodies on the ground, some of them her neighbors.  Slowly other details flooded in, like the fact that overnight all the grass on the lawns had grown about a foot high and that Ted’s prize roses had bloomed but hadn’t been trimmed the way he liked them. 
    There was also the silence, the utter silence that she’d never heard before on this street...
    And then this thing came around the corner, this thing that should be dead, that oh God was somehow still moving, and then it moaned and raised a hand in her direction.
    She screamed, ran inside, and shut and locked the door behind her.
    She stayed like that for a few minutes, her hand still on the doorknob, panting.  Oh God Oh God Oh God.
    Then she went into her living room, curled up on the couch, and eventually fell asleep.

    When Melinda woke up she was on the couch, even though she hadn’t remembered moving there during the night.  It was also definitely past morning; the clock said it was midday.  She looked down and realized that she was already dressed in a pink shirt and white capris.  That was odd.
    Shrugging, she went to the bathroom, undressed and got on the scale.  Oh my God!  She’d lost five pounds!
    She started crying she was so happy.  Oh God, she’d finally made it!  Anthony would be so happy!  He would be so proud that he was going out tonight with a thin, hot chick!
    Squealing, she went and got her camera and took tons of pictures of evidence.  She decided to celebrate.  She would go to SuperMart first (get a small, small snack as a reward) and then go shopping.
    She couldn’t wait to call Crystal and tell her the good news!  Maybe they could get together for lunch!

    A little while later, she realized she was sitting on the white laminate floor of SuperMart’s frozen food section.  God, she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten here.  But she just giggled to herself and figured it was time to stop drinking so much – she was having way too many blackouts lately.
    “What are you laughing about girl?” Crystal asked.
    It was at that point that she realized she was on the phone, the lovely black phone resting in her hand like a good calorie-free treat.
    “Nothing, girl.  Just thinking I should slow down on the drinking.”
    “Oh, but what about Friday night?  I thought you wanted to go out and celebrate?  Ooh – I have this great little black dress to wear – ”
    She let Crystal talk, resting her back against one of the glass doors.  She was surrounded by food.   There were chocolate cupcakes, powdered donuts, cookie dough, nacho chips... dear God, not again.  Not another blackout caused by food instead of drinking.  She put her hand against her head, and then remembered the five pounds.  She grinned, put the phone in the crook of her neck, and started tugging open the box of donuts.
    “Hmmm – hmmm,” she said, idly wondering when the clerks from SuperMart where going to find her and scowl. 
    She heard something just then, and looked up expecting a frowning teenager, when instead she saw two little girls at the end of the aisle just gaping at her.
    “Hold on Crystal,” she put the donuts down and slipped the phone into her hand.  “You two girls go one and find your momma,”  she slipped slipped the phone back into its place and bit into a donut, letting the powdery, sugary goodness coat her tongue.  “Hmmm mmmm,” she said into the phone.

    God, she could swear she’d forgotten something from this morning.

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Chapter 39

Before

    The hunger was always there.  A fine friend, it was always close by her side and could be called easily.  Sometimes it was loud and chatty, demanding her attention like an annoying child that keeps tapping you with a finger.  At those times, she closed her eyes and wished that she could go back to the way she’d been eating before, back to not really caring about what she ate.  But then she would open her eyes and remind herself that she was eating a lot healthier now – if less often – and she’d snap the white hairband on her wrist.  Just a quick snap to focus her thoughts again.
    There were times that hunger went and stayed in a corner – well, besides when she was eating – and that was when she worked out.  Cardio could be exhilarating, reaching a pleasant period forty-five minutes after she started working out where she felt really strong, but a lot of times it was just so hard, and exhausting, and sometimes she had to stop form the nausea.  Strength training was better, even though it didn’t burn as many calories, and it never gave her that lift, but it was easier to do so she could routinely do it.  Sometimes her muscles even burned afterwards, feeling warm the rest of the day, and that was great.
    Melinda had done all of this for years, trying to lose the same five to ten pounds.  The problem wasn’t so much the weight, as where the weight existed – the large thighs and big butt that hadn’t existed when she was eighteen. 
    The obsession had all started innocently enough.  Her then-boyfriend, Rob, had grabbed her butt during a hug and said  - “You have such a nice, big ass baby.”
    And then later he’d dumped her for that young blonde swizzle stick, and her obsession began.
    She wanted to look great again, she wanted to look hot again.
    And she wanted all thin blondes to drop over dead.  Ooh, and instantly gain two hundred pounds while they were at it.
    Over the years she’d had other boyfriends, but her friends hunger and exercise were always close by.
    Her current boyfriend was a sweetie, with a good job, average interests, good solid marriage material.  He seemed like he would be a good father too, and he was totally hot.
She just wanted to get down by maybe five or ten pounds, really knock him out with her hotness, and then they could get engaged and married. 
    God, he was so hot.  He deserved a thin hottie too.  She wanted to look good for him.
So she beckoned her old friends over and started the process again.
    It was so easy, so easy to fall back into the obsession.  The workouts morning and night, the constant searching for a true pill or supplement that would help speed things up.
    He had no idea how good she was going to look.

    Then this morning she’d woken up, gone to the bathroom, undressed and stepped on the scale.

    “Woo-hoo!” she shouted.  She’d lost one pound.  One pound!  (And don’t talk to her about tiny weight fluctuations, or water weight, or anything like that – this was real!) 
Four more pounds and she’d be there!
    Oooh, girl, she was going to look so hot for her date with Anthony tonight!  She decided to splurge and reward herself with getting her hair done, and maybe her nails done too.
    Excited, she put on a pink t-shirt and white capris, then slid on her white platform flip-flops so she could get the mail.  She opened the door, her mind ticking through the things she needed to do before she could reward herself, and then screamed.

    Anthony was dead at her feet, on her doorstep.  There was blood all over her stoop, and as she peered carefully over the body, she noticed – oh dear God – that his head was cracked open.  There were parts of him... missing... it looked like he’d been eaten.

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Chapter 38

    We skirt around to the back, moving very slowly so none of the zombies catches sight of us.  Thankfully none of them have wandered to the back – I guess it’s as boring to the undead as it is to the living.
    The SuperMart is the huge box store in the middle, and I jog at a neat pace until reaching that area.  It maybe empty back here for now, but I still don’t want to get caught.  The heat blazes down on me, made worse by the black road and the  pale walls of the stores. 
All of the doors are dark grey and look heavy and solid from the outside.  I go up to one of them, Cassie right by side, and notice something odd.
    “It’s open,” Cassie whispers.  The grey door is damaged - this wasn’t left open by a fleeing employee – it’s been forced open by someone.  I don’t think a zombie could have done this; it had to have been a living human, but then why did they leave it open?  Had they gotten it open only to be eaten right after they went inside?
    I slip my knife into my hand and whisper to Cassie – “Be careful.” 
    I slide around the open door and take a step to one side so Cassie can fit inside too.  I wait for my eyes to adjust, fearing that there will be a body at my feet and a moaning zombie on the other side.  But as the room reveals itself I see only a room full of shelves and boxes.  I motion Cassie behind me, and then shut the door as quietly and firmly as I can to try and keep out any zombies that might have followed us.  As much as I don’t like having the known way out blocked, I really don’t want to let a zombie in here.  As quietly as we can, Cassie and I move some of the boxes in front of the door, so any hungry zombie will have to push very hard to get inside. 
    I then lead the way out of the room, out through giant plastic strips hanging from the ceiling, through more storage areas, and finally out to the main part of the store.  I’m five steps into the store before I stop cold.
    The lights are on.
    “Delilah,”  Cassie whispers at my side.
    “I know.  The lights are on,”  I whisper.  “Someone’s here.”
    “No shit,”  she rolls her eyes.
    “You said a cuss word!”  I grin at her.  I hold my hand down low and she slaps it.
    “Let’s go find them,” she says, and takes off running.
    “Cassie,”  I hiss.  “No!  They could be dead now.  They could be zombies.”
    But does she listen?  No!  She runs through the store, her sneakers slapping on the linoleum so loudly that I’m sure the zombies outside can hear her.
    As I race after her I notice the sports section to my left.  I take a quick detour, thinking that since I’m bigger and faster than she is that surely I can catch up.  I run down one aisle full of hockey gear, do a quick turn and then thankfully get the baseball aisle.  I grab a nice aluminum bat, enjoying the feel of it in my hand, then I cock my head to the side to try and figure out which way she’s running.
    It sounds like she’s headed to the left, to the far side of the store, so I take off in that direction.
    When I catch up to her we’re in the grocery section, and it reeks to high heaven.  Fortunately, she’s back to walking.
    I shake my bat at her.  “Don’t do that again.  For God’s sake at least walk next time if you can’t wait for me.”
    “What’s that stench?”
    “I’m guessing rotting food.  Definitely rotting vegetables and fruit – probably the fresh meats as well.”  I don’t mention what else it could be.  It could be a bunch of the good kind of dead, possibly massacred on the day everything hit, or it could be zombies.  If it’s zombies then we’re totally screwed, because this amount of decay means that there would be more of them stuck in here than the amount out in the parking lot.
    Cassie makes a gagging sound but thankfully doesn’t throw up.  She quickens her pace a bit, hitting the frozen food section a few steps ahead of me, and then stops in her tracks, her mouth falling open.
    I follow her eyes and almost walk into her out of surprise.

    About halfway down the aisle an adult is sitting on the floor - a living, breathing, human adult, sitting on the floor and surrounded by food.

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Chapter 37

   

    I am sticky hot, my feet hurt and I’m tired. That bright blue sky sure looks pretty until you’re stuck under it for hours.  Hours!  The sound of cicadas has become annoying.  There isn’t any shade at all, just miles and miles of baked grass, sometimes on a flat surface and sometimes gently rolling hills.
    The only good thing is that we haven’t seen any zombies along the way.
    I just want to lie down in a room pumped full of air conditioning and fall asleep.
    “Are we there yet?”  Cassie jokes.
    “No,” I snap.  It would have a funny question to ask if I wasn’t frigging hot and fed up with this whole walking thing.
    We head up a small hill that I don’t even remember from our trip out here.  As I top the rise, there, finally, I can see the start of town.  I stop at the top of the hill and hold a hand out to tell Cassie to stop.  I collapse to the grass.
    “We’re here, let’s look at it a minute.” 
    Cassie nods and sits beside me.
    We get lucky in a way.  The first thing we hit is a shopping center, one of those huge ones that’s basically an outdoor mall.  There’s a SuperMart, a large hardware store, a big box bookstore, a discount clothing store, a pet store, and the non-chain clothing stores in between them.  At various spots in the parking lot are chain restaurants and fast food chains.
    Oh and did I mention there’s like a thousand frickin zombies down there?
    “What weapons do we have?”  I ask. 
    It turns out that we each have a knife, and I have a gun with six bullets in it, which I’m not very good at shooting.  Boy, do I wish I had a bat.
    “So, what first?”
    “I would kill for a soda, chips and a hamburger,” I grin at my own joke.
    “Yeah, right,” Cassie says.  “Do we go for weapons or for food first?”
    “How about both?”  I point to the SuperMart, that currently has at least twenty zombies milling around just outside. 
    Some of the zombies are clustered around the openings of the stores, as if something reminds them that those doors might open and people might pour out.  Handfuls wander among the dead people and the dead cars, looking for food or other zombies or whatever.  Then, away from the stores, there are clusters of zombies, almost like they’re camping out, waiting for some huge zombie event.
    I spot a female zombie carrying a huge plastic bag from the shoe store that was in the complex.  Sometimes it’s like when they zombify that they forget themselves so totally that they don’t even notice that they’re still carrying things that they can put down, and those things become like a weird extra body part.  Imagine that, going through the undead life carrying a bag of shoes that you would never remember to wear.
    I wonder if she’d been excited about the shoes, if she couldn’t wait to get home and wear them with her favorite outfit.  She must have been one of the first killed in this area though – I can’t imagine anyone going shoe shopping in those final days.
    I wonder what day had been the tipping point, when they day before it had perfectly reasonable to buy shoes and the next it would have beeen outrageous because you were now running for your life?  I don’t remember which day exactly had been the transition.
    “Delilah?”
    “Yeah?”
    “So are we going to go?”
    I snap out of my thoughts.  “Sure.  How should we get there?”
    “Let’s just go,”  Cassie starts to stand.
    “No,” I shake my head.  “We have very few weapons.  Let’s plan.”
    She sits back down and I look at the situation.  “What about the backside?  You know, where the deliveries come in?  Surely there won’t be a lot of them there?”
    “Don’t those usually have solid doors?  How would we get in?”
    I pick up the gun and shrug.  “I shoot the lock.”
    “Okay,” Cassie agrees, and we’re off.

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Chapter 36

   

    I pat Cassie’s arm.  “You did a fantastic job.”
    She moves her arm off her face, and I can see that’s she’s stopped crying.  “Thanks.  Do you think we’re safe?”  She motions her head towards the pit.
    “I think so,”  I turn over onto my stomach, and then slide back to the edge and look down into the crevice.
    Big and Meaty stands at the bottom, still looking up at the top with the patience of an undead.  He’s given up on getting up the slope, but he hasn’t given up on us.  The rest of the zombies, however, are already back in their odd little circle at the other end.   
    “We’re fine.”
    Cassie wiggles up next to me and we look at the zombies from a safe distance, for once.
    “How do you think they got in there?”
    “Don’t know,”  I shrug.  “I’m wondering if someone drove them in there.”
    “How would you herd a bunch of zombies?”
    “I don’t know.  It just seems like it would be neat if someone had gotten an extra twenty zombies out of the way.”
    “Yeah.  They probably just fell in though.”
    “Wouldn’t they know to avoid a gaping hole?”
    “We didn’t,” Cassie grins.
    “Hey, we were going eighty miles an hour when we hit that gap.”
    “Exactly,” she giggles.
    “Hey, if you can achieve speed, then why not?”

   

    We watch the zombies for a while, feeling creeped out but safe.  Then I get thirsty and reach for a bottle of water out of my backpack.
    “Crap.”
    “What?”
    “Everything we have – my backpack – your backpack – is down there, with the zombies.”
    “So.  We’ll just get more supplies in town.”
    I think of the picture of her mom and dad in her pack, but instead I say – “Like the research?”
    “Crap,”  Cassie frowns.
    “Unless you have one of the drives on you?”
    She shakes her head.
    I stare at the broken mass of my pretty car.  “I’ll go back down and get just the packs.  We can pick up new bikes somewhere else.”
    “I’ll go,”  Cassie says, and she’s actually got a leg over the side before I grab her arm in panic.
    “No, Cassie, I can get up the slope quicker.”
    “But I know what I’m doing now.”
    “No.  I have a bigger reach and I’ll be quicker.  Plus those backpacks are going to be heavy.”
    She thinks for a minute and then sits down again.  “Okay.”
    I look at the situation.  Big and Meaty has gone back to the zombie huddle, but even if I slide all the way down he’ll probably be able to meet me at the car.  I’ve got my gun and my knife, but Cassie’s gun is in her pack, and mine only has a small number of bullets.
I’ll be dead before I can get back to the slope.
    “We passed a town right before we hit the pit.  How about we go there, get some supplies, and then come back and get the packs?”
    “Supplies?”
    “Well, like lunch, and water, and new bikes, and maybe something like a rope or a bucket, and then something to distract the zombies.”
    “Sure.  How far away was it?”
    “Beats me.  Can’t be far though.”
    So we head back, along the same road that I once raced so grandly on, just at a much slower pace.
   Screw the bikes, I want my car back.

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