by Eli Nixon
Chapter 8
JANET HAD a silver Mazda four-door in her garage. Like us, it was gassed to the rim and ready go. For us, a round of Percs had done the trick. I set the alarm on my phone for six hours later, 7:30 PM. If the voices didn't come knocking before then, it was the signal for dinnertime.
For our other dinnertime, we had a duffel stuffed with canned goods, a pile of frozen Lean Cuisines, and a twelve-pack of Coke, plus our personal gear. It was bizarre how quickly we'd adapted. I don't think we really knew what was happening back then, like it hadn't sunk in yet. For Rivet, and to a lesser extent, me, it felt like we were at the beginning of an adventure. Jennie's always been the efficient type, and that hadn't changed, but I couldn't tell what she thought about the whole thing. She took Titan.
At the last minute, we decided not to take the Mazda. It was Jennie's suggestion that we go in the green Ford pickup out front. There was more space to store supplies, she said, and it would probably have an easier time getting past...
She had trailed off, not quite ready to give voice to the thought. Rubble, destruction, bodies, Armageddon. I didn't know what she'd meant to say, but I knew what she meant by it all the same. At that point, we'd only seen one halfy—a half-changed person—and none of the full-fledged zombies. Definitely no stags at that point, a word Rivet coined for staggerers. Those wouldn't come until much later. Stags, rotters, walking agents of stinking putrefaction—the zombies that had already begun to decay and slow down. I think we were riding pretty high on what we thought was going to be a walk in the park. My chest still smarted, but I'd bandaged it up and thought I looked pretty fucking swag in my bloodstained shirt. Weren't we cool, making up witty names for dead people.
We had no idea.
So here's how our gear stacked up, all tidy and packed away in three backpacks, plus one extra duffel:
Jennie—Six cans of food (peaches, red beans, black beans, asparagus, kidney beans, peas). Four bottles of semithinthetic opioid narcotics (outer pocket, for easy access). One large steak knife. One bag of dry kitty kibble (salmon). One flashlight. One pair of scissors. One black cat (asleep).
Rivet—Nine cans of food (sweet corn, pears, carrots and peas, sweet corn, black beans, sweet corn, asparagus, tuna, sweet corn). Two flashlights. One pack of D batteries (seven). One first aid kit. One steak knife. One shovel. One fireplace poker. One roll of duct tape (reflective orange). One length of twine. One cigarette lighter. One magnifying glass. One James Rollins paperback. One bandana (pink). One can opener. One fork. One spoon. One cooking pot. One water bottle. One miniature trowel. One pair of plastic safety goggles.
Me—Six cans of food (coincidentally, identical to Jennie's stash). One meat cleaver. One axe. One cigarette lighter. One bottle of cabernet sauvignon (dusty).
Duffel—Seven frozen Lean Cuisines (various flavors). Twelve cans of Coca-Cola. Twelve cans of food (pears, sweet corn, asparagus, asparagus, black-eyed peas, okra, sweet corn, peaches, black beans, tuna, black beans, olives). Scotch tape. Masking tape. One coil of braided rope. Three steak knives. Three forks. Three spoons.
Rivet groaned as he hefted his bulging backpack and slid his shoulders into the straps. We were at the front door, gathered around Janet's body. An eggy, sulferous smell had already begun to work its way into the air around it, and a few black flies were buzzing at its perimeter. Jennie kept swatting them away from where they were landing on her blood-tinged head wrap.
"Why'd you need an extra fork?" I asked Rivet. He looked at me through the safety goggles. They were that old-fashioned, boxy kind with a white elastic strap. He'd stretched the pink bandana over his scalp and tied it in the back. Just a safe, gay pirate.
"In case we get separated." Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. I grunted. Sure.
"Everybody ready?" Jennie asked. She was in front, her hand poised over the doorknob. We'd already moved the shovel that Rivet had wedged behind the door. I shifted the axe in my hand. It felt good, solid. I nodded. My other hand held the duffel.
Rivet raised his shovel over his head and tapped it against the ceiling. "Onward and upward."
Jennie cracked the door a smidge. We crowded close, pressing our faces to the hair-fracture aperture. Rivet bumped his safety goggles into the doorjamb and cursed.
"Dammit, move over, Jen," he said, and flung the door wide. Sunlight streamed into our dark world. Jennie flinched, and so did I. In a little over an hour, we'd become earthworms, albino denizens of a deep cave. The sunlight hurt us. I squinted, looked around the empty yard, and the moment passed. Just another beautiful day in Joshuah Hill, the hemorrhoid scrunched down America's ass.
I fingered the jingling key fob we'd unearthed from Janet's back pocket, hoped again that one of the keys on it matched the Ford, took a deep breath. "Let's go."
I pushed open the glass storm door and sprinted across the yard, feeling Jennie and Rivet behind me. We reached the dusty pickup and I swung around it to get to the driver's side while Jennie and Rivet fiddled with the handle near the house.
"Locked!" Jennie called.
"Working on it." In the house, I'd singled out three keys that looked right for the Ford. I tried the first one. It wouldn't even go in. Second one. It slid into the keyhole below the handle, but wouldn't turn.
"Lock and load, Rayman," Rivet hissed on the other side of the truck. "Get us in there."
I thrust the third key into the hole and tried to turn it. Nothing. I pulled. Shit. It was jammed. I yanked again, and the key snapped in half, its front still wedged in the lock.
"Shit!" I yelled.
"That better be triumph," Rivet returned.
"I broke it."
"Broke what?" said Jennie.
"The lock, the key. Shit!"
"Back to the house," said Rivet. "We'll take the other car." He and Jennie started across the lawn.
I ran around the back of the truck to catch up and saw it. God, we were idiots. "Guys!" I yelled. "Come back." Without waiting, I vaulted the sidewall and landed in the bed of the truck. Rusty springs squealed as the truck shrank under my weight. I slipped in the thick covering of dust, but I caught myself and reached the back of the cab.
On these older Fords, there's a sliding window in the rear windscreen. They've got little plastic latches that lock in place when you slide the window all the way shut.
This window wasn't all the way shut.
I dropped my pack and the duffel and the axe into the bed and, worked my fingers into the narrow opening, slid the window all the way open, then wormed through headfirst. The small cab was hot and stuffy from sitting in the sun, but I was in. My cheek pressed into the hot vinyl seat cushion, then slid across it as I pulled my legs through the window. My head left the cushion and thumped the floorboard; my foot kicked the ceiling.
"Like a swan!" Rivet cheered. "Way to go, Rayman. Open, open, open."
I reached over and pulled the inside door handle, disengaging the lock. While Jennie gently placed her pack into the bed beside mine, Rivet hauled me right-side up, and then we were all in the cab and Jennie slammed the door shut and locked it.
The gunshot echo of the door died in the stuffy air faster than a dream, leaving us in breathless silence. I scanned the street, the yard, the neighbors' yards, the intersection, the road beyond.
"Not a single fucking zombie!" Rivet exclaimed. "Come on!"
Jennie laughed, the sound loud and genuine. I looked at her and caught the bug. For the first time today, she looked happy. The chuckle caught in my throat at first, as if unsure of its destination, then burst free all the louder because of it. My laugh spurred Jennie into hysterics, and I joined her. We were way too fucking high for this.
Rivet made a show of being nonplussed, but Jennie threw her arms around him, giggling, and he finally cracked a smile. I realized he still had his bulging pack on his lap and, Jesus, the shovel! Sticking straight up between his knobby legs in the tiny cab. I lost it again.
"Har har." Rivet calmed down first, like usual.
Jennie and I finally tapered off, Jennie wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.
"Sorry," Jennie said, smiling. "I guess I just expected...I don't know. More zombies. After all that. I mean, it was intense, guys. Running all the way to the car. I was scared." She raised her hand as if she were voting as a member the "scared" group.
"Me too," I said. "I had this idea that they were all around us. When that key broke," I laughed again, "I thought we were goners."
"Speaking of keys...," Rivet prodded.
After two tries, a key slid smoothly into the ignition and turned. The engine coughed to life. The gas gauge read half full; a minor miracle, since I don't think Janet had driven this truck in months.
"Onward?" I glanced at Rivet.
"And upward," he said, peering straight ahead through the goggles.
A left on Bloomingdale and then a right on River Street had us motoring along the back way to downtown Joshuah Hill, three and a half miles away.
As we passed Mrs. Winters's house, I swear I saw her pull aside a curtain and wave. She looked just fine.
