by Megan Hart
What would it be like, he thinks, to go up into the stars? To look down at the earth from so far above it, so far the people don’t even look like ants. They don’t look like anything. Like the earth would be a giant blue marble for an alien to play with. Or God.
Denny’s mom says there’s no such thing as God, but Denny thinks she has to be wrong. Because if there’s no God, there can’t be a heaven, and then where do people go after they die? And they have to go somewhere, because they can’t all be floating around in the radio waves the way his mom says they do, and that’s why you have to turn the TV to the static channel every so often and try to listen to what they say.
Something shuffles in the long grass.
If Denny had a dog, or even a cat, he’d think nothing of a noise in the grass, but since he’s never been allowed to have a pet, that means whatever’s in the grass is something…not tame. And possibly not friendly. He hefts the flashlight in his hand, liking the weight of it.
When the black shape hurtles out of the dark toward him, Denny doesn’t think twice. He rolls onto his back, then his side, gets to his feet and swings the flashlight. Swings, misses. Swings again. This time he connects with the tall dark shape hard enough to crack the glass. Hard enough to make it stumble back with a grunt. When it hits the ground he’s on it, ready to smash its alien invader face, even if it has tentacles.
Instead, a hand comes up to hold him back. A voice says, “Good job, son! But next time, don’t give me the chance to even fight back. You should’ve been ready for me before I even attacked.”
It’s his mom, and she taught him all those things because she loves him.
That noise again. Shuffling and sly, slow. Scraping. Just beyond him, around the corner of the aisle.
Dennis moved, fast and silent, gun at the ready. Around the corner, leveled, aimed…
And blew apart a bird feasting from a spilled package of cereal.
Feathers flew. Blood spattered. There wasn’t much left after that, and Dennis let the gun slowly fall to his side. From behind him, he heard the whirr of the scooter.
“Well,” Kelsey said. “That’s one way to do it.”
32
Kelsey felt better with some water and food, her foot cleaned and bandaged and a first dose of antibiotics inside her. Her wrist, as it turned out, was only sprained and not broken. Wrapped in a tight bandage, she could even use it a little. She sipped now from a full-strength cola, relishing the sweetness and the bubbles and the caffeine.
“How long until all this stuff disappears?” She lifted the can toward Dennis, who was busy stacking oversized bags of basmati rice on one of the big pallet carts.
He looked over his shoulder, bared in a sleeveless flannel shirt, at her. “Depends on how many people are gonna eat it.”
“No. I mean…” She waved the can around, feeling light-headed and floaty. Sort of drunk. “All of this. Stuff. That’s made. By people.”
Dennis straightened. After blowing up the bird he’d done a complete circuit of the store, making sure there was nothing else in there. No surprises. This time, he’d insisted she stay behind, locking her in the pharmacy to keep her “safe.”
She was half in love with this guy.
Now he was loading up his fourth pallet cart. The other three, loaded high with boxes, bags and cartons, waited at the front entrance. He’d been working for a couple hours, working methodically down each aisle while she followed and watched.
“You talk like it’s the end of the world,” he said.
“Isn’t it?” She watched his muscles work as he hefted another twenty pound bag of rice onto the cart.
Dennis gave her half a smile. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Just seems like it, maybe.”
“The government was all over the over the place where I came from. But here, there’s hardly any sign of them. I think they gave up trying to keep it under control.” Kelsey sipped her cola and concentrated on making sense. She was still so tired. “I think they’re going to let us be overrun by…them.”
Dennis put another sack on the cart, then paused to swipe his hand across his forehead. He held out a hand for her can, and she handed it to him. He drank it to empty, then carefully put the can on the shelf. He could’ve as easily tossed it onto the ground, but his consideration impressed her.
“We’re not overrun. There’s lots of people still okay. You and me, for example.”
“Yeah?” She challenged. “Where are they?”
Another of those half-grins sent her stomach tumbling. He was charming, wasn’t trying to be, and didn’t know it, and that made him all the more attractive. Or maybe it was the drugs. Or the fact he’d saved her ass more than once already. Or that he knew how to handle a gun…
“They all got the hell out of town, that’s where they are.”
“But the ones who’re left…”
“Like I said,” Dennis told her, “you and me are okay. I’m sure others are, too. Which is why I need to get this stuff loaded up as soon as I can.”
She eyed the stack of rice. The other carts contained more dry goods, already enough to feed a hundred people for weeks. “When you said you were stocking up, you weren’t kidding.”
“Got to take it all, as much as I can. Don’t want to come back here if I don’t have to.” Dennis paused to swipe at the sweat again. He cracked his back.
“Because of those dead things?”
He shook his head and said hesitantly, “no. Not because of them. Because of the live ones.”
“But those zombies, those living dead —”
“They don’t eat. Least not food, that I can see. People who are alive, though. They’ll be wanting this stuff, and when people want stuff, they’ll do just about anything to get it.”
“And you don’t intend for them to get it.”
He looked at her assessingly. “That’s right.”
“Not much for sharing?”
He shook his head slowly, eyes cutting away from her gaze at the last second. “It’s not that. Just trying to survive, that’s all. The more I get now, the longer it will be before I have to come back. That means the safer I’ll be. I’m into surviving, that’s all.”
She understood that feeling very well. “Me too.” She wheeled a little closer. “You’ll take me with you.”
She’d deliberately made sure it was not a question. Dennis didn’t look surprised, but he did look a little guilty. He put another bag of rice on the cart. He straightened and blew out a breath.
“You will,” Kelsey said. “You’re too nice a guy to leave me out here alone. Injured.”
With a hot shower and some makeup she’d have been able to work magic, but instead she’d have to work with what she had. The clothes helped. They were dirty and probably smelling bad, but they were tight and torn and they clung to her in all the right places, revealing just the right amount of flesh.
She stood. She didn’t need to exaggerate her limp. Every step was still painful, though less now that her foot was properly bound. She did let her hips sway more than they might’ve otherwise, and she did dip her chin so she could let her gaze tilt up toward his. She bit her lower lip.
“You have to take me with you, Dennis. You have to. I promise you, I’ll —”
“You don’t gotta promise me nothin’,” he said, then hastily corrected himself. “Anything. You don’t have to promise me anything.”
“What if I want to?” The words slipped out of her a little lower than she’d intended. A little more slurred. When she wobbled a little and reached for him to steady her, there was no guile in the effort. Her fingers touched his warm skin and the softness of flannel.
She tipped her head back a little. Waiting. For nothing, as it turned out, which was exactly what he said she didn’t have to promise him.
Dennis put a swift distance between them, leaving her to stumble. “I have to get this stuff loaded into the truck. It’ll be dark soon.”
“Are you scared of the dark, Dennis
?”
“No.” He paused. “But it’s harder to see them coming in the dark.”
“I can help you.” She followed him, limping, as he started pushing the cart toward the entrance. “Dennis. Wait. I can help you! I really can! I’m not useless!” The words shot out of her, too loud. Echoing.
At last, he turned. “I never said you were.”
“You’re thinking it.” Kelsey lifted her chin, her voice raw but sharp, no longer slurred. “I can tell.”
He looked at her foot, the scooter, then her face. “You’re not useless, Kelsey. But you’re not in any condition to be much help. I can do this faster without you.”
“I can be a lookout, then. And I can shoot a gun.” This was only half a lie; she’d shot a gun a few times with Tyler. Missed the targets. Nothing made her think she had any chance of hitting one of those things that had once been people…but everything made her desperate for him not to leave her behind.
Dennis sighed, shoulders slumping for a moment. He shook his head a little as he turned back to the cart. “You can come with me. Don’t worry about it. Just stay out of the way, okay? I need to get this truck loaded up.” He didn’t look back, didn’t even turn his face over his shoulder. He sounded a little out of breath, but Kelsey didn’t flatter herself that it was because of her.
It had been a long time since a man had turned her down, especially when she was offering herself without subtlety, but it hadn’t been so long that she couldn’t remember how it had been. Before the surgeries and the hair, the teeth, the clothes. Back when she’d first changed her name but was still more a Kathy than a Kelsey. Oh yeah, she remembered being rejected all right, and if anything it felt worse now than it ever had because she’d ignored all the signs he wasn’t interested and pursued it anyway.
Without another word, she got back on the scooter and followed him as he pushed the cart to the entrance. She sat in silence, watching as he loaded another five carts with rice and beans and noodles, cans of soup and nacho cheese and cartons of yeast and salt and bottles of water. She watched him sweat and strain, the muscles in his arms and neck cording, until she had to look away.
Finally, when it was just dark enough that the lights in the parking lot came on, he was done. He’d loaded all the carts directly into the truck. He took the bottle of water she handed him and poured most of it over his face before drinking the rest. His throat worked. His skin gleamed, the water sluicing through the grime and leaving tracks she wanted to trace with her fingers. He crumpled the bottle but didn’t toss it to the ground. He put it in the recycling can, then stretched, crackling all his joints.
“Why are the lights in the parking lot on?” Kelsey pointed. It was the first she’d spoken in the past hour or so. “But not the ones inside?”
Dennis shrugged. “Not sure.”
She stood, wondering if he meant to take her with him the way he’d said or if he’d just get in the truck and drive away. If he’d want her to put the scooter in the back of the truck, or if she’d need it again. She tested her foot gingerly. Still painful. But she couldn’t ride around on the scooter forever.
He looked at her. “Kelsey…”
“Dennis,” she said before he could say more. “Please. Take me with you. I really can’t do this on my own.”
He looked torn, his upper lip tucked against the lower as though he struggled with words. His hair, damp with sweat, feathered against his cheeks. “No. I guess you can’t.”
That’s when the first light in the parking lot went out.
33
The sound of shattering glass kept Dennis from finishing what he meant to say, not that he had any idea what that was. Even though it couldn’t be anything good, he was glad for the interruption, turning his head. All he could see was a spot of dark that had once been light. Then the shadowy shift of something at the base of the light pole. A figure, moving.
Dancing?
It was far enough away that he couldn’t see what the figure was, exactly, or what it was doing, only that it didn’t move like one of the dead ones. Too graceful for that. The dead ones shambled and twitched. They could move fast and with purpose, but not like this. He heard the click-tap of something on the pavement, and a low whistle. Something familiar. He strained his eyes to watch as the figure swung around the next light pole. A minute later, that light too went out, accompanied by the crash of glass.
“What is it?” Kelsey asked from behind him. She’d moved up close without him noticing, but didn’t touch him.
“I don’t know.”
Another up-and-down trill of notes reached them. The figure twirled and tapped toward the next light fixture, pausing to bend down. Something moved and flew. More glass shattered.
“It’s…tap dancing,” Kelsey said.
“Shit. It’s Ray Carver.”
Ray ran the dance studio in town. He and his “assisterant” Darlene taught everything from jazz to ballet to baton twirling, with cheerleading clinics on the side. Ray stood about six foot five and was built like a quarterback. Had been, in fact, a local football hero who’d gone on to college on a scholarship and lost it due to a knee injury that had kept him off the field. Football was where he’d learned to dance, and he’d brought that home, started his business and flourished with it.
Now he tap danced, slowly twirling, and bent every so often to lift something from the parking lot. Then throw it. He hit the target every time, and there was more shattering glass. More darkness.
“Is that a football?”
“Yes.” Dennis leaped onto the back of the truck and stretched to pull down the sliding door. He secured it tightly as he jumped back to the pavement with another glance toward Ray to make sure he was still paying more attention to breaking all the lights than them. “C’mon. Let’s go.”
“What’s he doing with it?”
“Breaking things. Come on.” Dennis put a hand under her elbow to help her toward the cab of the truck. She was so small he could easily have lifted her, but he let her limp along instead. “Before he sees us.”
“You think he’s…?”
Dennis paused as Ray’s feet went into a spasm of tapping. He was two light poles away. If Ray looked up, there was no question he’d see them. As they watched, he jumped up and grabbed hold of the pole, swinging around it like that guy in that old movie who danced in the rain. Ray jumped down, shoes clicking. He bent and picked up the football that had fallen. He threw it toward the light pole closer to Dennis and Kelsey, and it broke.
“Yes. Get in the truck.”
It was too late.
“Dennis! Dennnnis! Dennis!” Ray jogged a few feet to grab the football from the pavement again. He tossed it from hand to hand as he moved closer. “Hey, son. Hold up.”
“Get in the truck, Kelsey.”
She did with a little boost from him, but Dennis was too busy keeping an eye on Ray to worry about where he was putting his hands. By the time he got her settled into the truck and closed the door, Ray was just a few yards away. He wore a pair of football shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt, and he looked immense.
He cocked his head. “Hi. Dennis. Conroy, right?”
“Yeah. Dennis Conroy. Hi, Ray. Look, I gotta run —”
“No. You don’t.”
Dennis swallowed slowly. The truck behind him was still warm from the sun where it pressed his flesh. He couldn’t remember where he’d put the gun.
Never lose track of your weapon.
His mom had been right about that part, but even during all the drills, all those times she’d surprised him, it was the one thing Dennis had been terrible about remembering. He’d put the gun down to load the carts. And where was it now?
“You never took lessons from me, did you?”
Dennis shook his head. “No, sir.”
Anything can be used for protection, son. Your hands, feet, teeth, your own damned skull. Keep your eyes and ears open if you’re ever caught without a weapon. Find something.
His mom w
ould’ve been ashamed of him for losing sight of the gun, but maybe she’d have found some pride in the way Dennis reached out casually and found the slim metal rod of the antenna. His fingers curled around it, but he didn’t snap it. Not yet. Ray was still a few feet away, still tossing the ball back and forth.
Ray’s grin got wider. “Why not?”
“I just…I guess I never had the money.”
“Bullshit. I offered discounts to families who needed them.” Ray moved closer. “Saw you around town, though. Haven’t I? You went to Clarkson High, right?”
“Yeah. Few years behind you though.” Dennis took slow, careful breaths. He widened his stance, centering himself. “Never was much of a dancer.”
Ray gave him another tilted-head look. “You got the body for a dancer. Wiry, like. You work out?”
“Some.” Dennis tightened his grip on the antenna.
Ray shuddered and stopped moving the ball from hand to hand. He pressed it against his gut as he bent a little with a groan. His giant shoulders heaved. When he looked up, his face gleamed with sweat and his teeth were bared.
Dennis snapped off the antenna. Ray straightened, eyes going to the thin metal rod. Then to Dennis’ face.
“What’s that?”
“I think you should step back, Ray. Just step on back.”
Ray’s expression turned dark, yet somehow gleeful. He did a swift tapping shuffle, his shoes making rapid-fire clicks on the pavement. When he stopped with one hand out to Dennis, it seemed for a moment he was going to back away. But just for a moment.
Instead, he opened his mouth wide and wider, his jaw stretching impossibly as his throat worked with horrible laughter. Then he stood and snapped the ball right at Dennis’ head. The only reason he missed was because Dennis had taken a step to the right to give himself more room to swing the antenna. The football hit and dented the truck hood inches from where Dennis’s head had been seconds before. From inside the cab came a muffled scream.
