Cecilia rolled her eyes. “It’s nice to know you’re this critical of everybody, not just me,” she muttered.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Doug turned on Franklin Avenue, Colby’s main downtown street, which wasn’t saying much. Only a few shops lined Franklin between 3rd and 4th Street; two stores were for rent—and had been for seven years.
“Never mind,” Cecilia whispered, turning away from him.
Pain seized Doug’s heart. He hadn’t been there for her like he should’ve been after the divorce. And he hadn’t been to Lawrence to visit her in three years. He wasn’t winning any Dad of the Year awards that was for sure.
But I’m doing something now, he reminded himself. Better late than never.
Doug bristled and tried to make his voice sound resolute. “Well, I’ll, uh, work on that.”
When Cecilia didn’t reply, Doug looked out the window and eyed the shop to his left.
“Hey, let’s grab some donuts, for old times’ sake.” He forced a smile, pulling into a parking space in front of Daylight Donuts.
“It’s two in the afternoon. They’ll be stale.”
“They’re still good! Marge makes one helluva bear claw. Remember how much you loved those? You could eat two in one sitting when you were nine.”
“Mom doesn’t let me have sugar,” Cecilia said sadly. “Or gluten.”
“I don’t know what the hell gluten is, but no meat and no sugar? This is still America, isn’t it?” Doug flicked the door handle impatiently. “So does this mean ‘no’ on the donuts?”
“No, no, no. Let’s get some bear claws!”
The way her face lit up at the mention of their old favorite made Doug smile. Maybe this trip isn’t going to be hopeless after all.
Doug opened the door to the donut shop, letting his daughter enter first.
A mechanical bell chimed. Sweet, sugary dough-smell stuck to the walls and the baby-blue padded seat cushions of the Daylight Donuts. A fluorescent light flickered just above the cash register on the counter.
“This place hasn’t changed a bit,” Cecilia said, somewhat unimpressed.
“You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve offered to change that bulb for her,” Doug whispered to his daughter, nodding up to the flickering light.
He straightened, then cleared his throat. “Hello? Marge?”
After a few moments of silence, Doug shrugged, lifted the partition, and crossed the threshold to the other side of the counter.
“She must’ve gone out for a bit and forgot to put up the sign.” He snapped a sheet of wax paper out of a box on the counter and opened the sliding glass door that guarded the donuts.
“Doug! What are you doing?” Cecilia shrieked.
He straightened and pointed the wax paper at Cecilia. “What is with this ‘Doug’ stuff, Ceil? Cut it out!” He hunched down and continued to look over the donuts. “Now, tell me what you want. We’ll leave some money on the counter.”
“This is so embarrassing.” Cecilia covered her face with both hands.
“Calm down, calm down, I do this all the time. Bear claw?”
“Two, please,” Cecilia whispered through her fingers.
Doug smiled and picked out the four biggest bear claws from the rack and slid them into a white paper bag. He handed the bag to his daughter, who pinched the rolled top with her thumb and forefinger, as if she hated being an accessory to his crime. This city girl has been away from a small town for far too long.
He pulled his wallet from his back pocket and threw a five-dollar bill on the counter. “That’s more than enough. Includes a tip.”
“Sure, whatever, can we get out of here now?” Cecilia begged.
Doug came around the counter and lowered the partition. “We have to stop by the movie theater. I need to grab a few things from my office.”
As they walked toward the door, Doug heard a growl and looked up.
“Jesus! Marge! You damn near gave me a heart attack.”
Marge stood in front of the door, blocking it. Sunlight streamed in behind her, blinding Doug and Cecilia and shadowing Marge’s features.
“Uh, we just stopped by for some donuts.” Doug motioned to the white bag Cecilia held. “I put a five on the counter for you.”
Marge said nothing.
“You doing okay, Marge? I can’t see you too well.” Doug’s voice was friendly, but he felt a ripple of concern under his calm demeanor.
Marge took a stumbling step forward, then another. As she lurched closer, the fluorescent lights caught her features.
“Oh, Marge, you aren’t looking so good. Oh my god, is that blood on your neck?” Doug walked to the old woman’s side. Her flesh sagged on her body like a wet rag on a drying line. She looked deathly pale and had dark circles under her eyes. Her movements were stilted like a body rife with arthritis.
“Doug …” Cecilia said from behind him.
Doug turned. “Ceil! What do I have to do for you to call me ‘Dad’? Huh?”
“Doug!” Cecilia screamed as Marge lunged for Doug’s neck.
Doug easily avoided Marge’s bite. “Whoa, Nelly!” he yelled.
The old woman threw her weight at him, gnashing her teeth in front of his face.
Doug held her back with his meaty forearms. “Marge, what the hell is wrong? What has gotten into you?”
“She’s a—she’s a—she’s a—” Cecilia stuttered. Her eyes were wide and terrified.
“She’s sick with something is what it is.” Doug easily pushed Marge back, but panic starting climbing up his spine. “Maybe she has the rabies.”
“That’s not rabies. She’s a zombie.” Cecilia finally got the words out.
Keep it together, Doug. Keep calm for Cecilia. Don’t panic.
“What’s that even mean?” Doug’s forehead wrinkled. “Zombies? Like the stuff you read in your books?”
“Vampires, Doug. I like vampires. Paranormal romance. I told you that like a million times.” Cecilia’s voice was harsh, as if she had temporarily forgotten about Marge.
Since when did she get so sensitive all of a sudden? About vampires, of all things!
“For heaven’s sake, Ceil.” Doug pushed Marge back again and gritted his teeth. “I mean, I’m sorry I forgot.” He hoped he hadn’t sounded too sarcastic.
Baking sheets banged to the floor in the kitchen, and a low growl followed. Doug swallowed his fear.
“Sounds like more. What do you say we blow this popsicle stand?” Doug pushed Marge back so hard she fell onto a table and rolled off to the side. “Uh, sorry, Marge,” he apologized to the undead woman. He took Cecilia by the arm. “Thank Marge for the donuts.”
“Thanks,” Cecilia said breathlessly as they ran out the door, making the mechanical bell ring again.
Just outside, a group of people milled about in the middle of the street. As the door chimed, they stopped and turned toward the donut shop.
Doug and Cecilia hadn’t paid any attention to the people before, but after Marge, they looked at the group more closely. Blood splotches smeared parts of their clothing, and their eyes were lifeless, and they quickly began running toward Doug and Cecilia with bared teeth.
Lesson Two: Do Your Research
“Quick! In here!” Doug yanked his daughter’s sleeve and rushed them into the store next door to the donut shop. He slammed the glass door behind them and switched the lock. The small group of former Colby citizens attacked the glass, scratching as if they were animals separated from their prey.
“That should keep them out for a while.”
“Oh my God. Is that Shanda?” Cecilia shrieked, looking at one of the zombies pounding against the door. Shanda had been Cecilia’s best friend growing up, and the only person she’d remained in contact with since moving to Lawrence with her mother three years ago.
Doug looked at the zombie, then studied her riding pants and purple boots. Every Monday, Shanda would ride her horse Shelby into town in her unmistakable
purple boots.
“I can’t be sure,” Doug lied.
“Look at her face! It’s Shanda. You’re just trying to make me feel better,” Cecilia raged.
She’s yelling at me like I was the one who turned her into a zombie!
“Well, if it is or isn’t Shanda, there’s nothing we can do about it right now.” Doug tried to sound comforting, but it came out sounding defensive.
“Well then, what are we supposed to do?” Cecilia demanded.
“Okay. We have to think. They’re zombies, so we need to …” Doug’s eyes flashed to his daughter. Feel free to cut in any time, dear.
“Haven’t you seen any zombie movies?” Cecilia asked.
“No. I can only play family-friendly stuff at the theater. And action movies. No horror. No zombies.”
Cecilia sighed. “Well, they want to eat us, and we have to shoot them in the face, that’s about all I know.”
“In the face?” Adorable.
“Yeah, right in the face! Wait. Is this a bookstore?”
Doug huffed. “Kind of. It’s Laverna’s shop called Books and Sweet Things. It’s more like a place people get cheap candy to sneak into my theater.” Doug scowled at the thought of the empty wrappers littering the floor—candy he did not sell at the concession stand—after the movies had ended. Damn you, Laverna.
Cecilia rolled her eyes, then went to the seven rows of books on display. “There are some good books here,” she said excitedly, touching the first few on the shelf. “They’re all paranormal romance!”
Leave it to Laverna to carry the worst literature available.
“Wait. If she has these, maybe she has something about zombies. Help me look.”
Cecilia quickly scanned the shelf in front of her while Doug ran to the back shelf. “We’ll meet in the middle,” he said.
The undead outside pounded against the glass
“Got one! No, two!” Cecilia called out, crouched by the lowest shelf.
Doug hurried to her side. “Okay, what do we got?”
“There’s this one called World War Z, and this other one called The Zombie Survival Guide, both by the same guy.”
“Let me see them.” Doug grabbed the books and quickly flipped through them while Cecilia looked over his shoulder.
“I think we should start with this one,” he said confidently, holding up The Zombie Survival Guide.
“I knew you were going to choose that one.”
“How?”
“It’s shorter and has pictures.”
Before Doug could utter a rebuttal, Cecilia grabbed The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks from his fingers.
She really is too smart for her own good.
Cecilia flipped the first few pages and began reading. “Introduction.”
“Skip that, nobody reads those,” Doug interrupted.
“Fine,” Cecilia sighed, turning ahead. “Okay, let’s see. It says it takes twenty-three hours for someone to turn into a zombie once they’re bitten.”
“Okay, what else?”
“They can see like us. They have excellent hearing and sense of smell. Oh, here’s something: it says they can’t feel anything. Their nerve receptors don’t work anymore.”
“How interesting,” Doug said sarcastically. He winced as soon as he said it.
“Look, Doug, I’m doing my best over here!” Cecilia’s eyes began welling with tears.
Doug cringed and held up his hands in front of him as a sign of surrender. “Hey, hey, I know. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get snappy.”
This moody teenager is going to be the death of me.... If the zombies aren’t first, of course.
He put a hand on Cecilia’s shoulder. “Why don’t you skip ahead to the part about how we can help them?”
“There is no helping them,” Cecilia snapped. “They’re zombies, Doug.”
Count to five. Just let it go. Maybe she’s just on her period.... No, don’t think about that.
Doug smiled, clenching his teeth. “Okay, then. How do we kill them?”
“Disposal,” Cecilia read. “It says: ‘The head in particular possesses the most serious hazard, given its concentration of the virus. Never handle an undead corpse without protective clothing. Treat it as you would any toxic, highly lethal material. Cremation is the safest, most effective way of disposal.... Any virus is unable to survive intense heat.’”
Glass shattered in the front of the store, and the zombies reached in through the shop window, completely disregarding the slashes the cut glass made on their arms.
“We have to get out of here,” Doug said. He laid two twenties by the cash register. “Bring those books, and let’s go out the back. We need someplace that has everything we need—True Value.”
Lesson Three: Get Thee to a Hardware Store!
Much to Doug’s surprise, they had no trouble slipping out of the back of the store and making their way back around to Franklin Avenue. The zombies still crowded the front of Books and Sweet Things, fumbling over each other to get inside.
“I’ll tell you one thing that Max Brooks got wrong. He made those zombies sound so smart and dangerous,” Doug whispered as they crossed the street and approached True Value, which was right next to his movie theater. “But these zombies seem really stupid.”
Doug and Cecilia cringed when the front door of the hardware store creaked, then chimed. They stopped, held their breaths, looking around for any sign of the walking dead. When none showed, they let out a collective sigh.
“Which aisle?” Cecilia asked.
“Hmm. Barry doesn’t carry guns, last time I checked. What did that book say, again?”
“Hammers, saws. Anything sharp.”
Doug’s gaze fell on a stack of firewood and liquid ethanol on the end of the first row. “And fire. Lots and lots of fire.”
He piled the wood and ethanol into a shopping cart, then led them down the second aisle.
Cecilia picked up some white picket fence posts with sharp, metal spikes at the ends and put them into the cart.
Don’t say anything, Doug. The kid’s into vampires. Maybe it’s a vampire thing.
“Hammers, here.” He pointed to various hammers hanging on a pegboard.
Cecilia tentatively picked one up that had a hot pink handle.
Doug sighed.
Cecilia glared at him, as if waiting for a critical comment.
Doug quickly looked to the hammers and picked out a wood-handled Hardcore with a price tag of $79.99. “Maybe we should practice,” he suggested, biting the inside of his cheek while he watched his daughter daintily swing her new makeshift weapon. “Try hitting that shelf.”
“This one?” Cecilia pointed to the taupe-painted metal shelf in front of her.
“That’s the one,” Doug said gently.
“Like this?” Cecilia patted the shelf with the face of the hammer.
“A bit harder, sweetheart.”
Tap.
“Harder.”
Bang.
“For Pete’s sake, Ceil, that thing’s got to penetrate a skull! Smack that thing and make a dent!”
Cecilia’s eyes widened as she looked past Doug’s shoulder.
A guttural growl snarled behind him.
Doug felt fear shoot up his spine and tickle the back of his hair. He slowly began to turn around.
Cecilia screamed wildly and sprang onto the undead man who wore a plaid shirt and overalls. She knocked it down with her body weight, then slammed the claw of her hot pink hammer into its forehead. Over and over, Cecilia stuck the fork of the hammer into its head until blood covered the floor and the zombie stopped moving.
Cecilia looked up, horrified, at her father.
“Well, uh, I’d say you’ve got that down.”
If it weren’t for the overalls, Barry, you would’ve been barely recognizable. Teen angst is real, and it is real brutal.
Cecilia rose to her feet, fixing a few hairs that had gotten into her face. She wiped the blood off her chee
ks with her shirtsleeve.
“We have to burn them. It’ll be too hard killing them all like that,” Cecilia said numbly.
“Okay, I agree.” Doug nodded quickly. He bent down, took out his wallet, and tucked the last of his bills into Barry’s overall pocket. “That’s not quite enough, Barry. I owe you about forty dollars.” Doug rose and turned back to Cecilia. “What should we do?”
“We need to draw them in with noise. Maybe some place with a loud PA system?”
Doug eyed his daughter suspiciously.
“Like … the Duplex.”
The Duplex was Doug’s baby, his pride and joy, his life. The only movie theater in Colby. And it was one of the two reasons Doug hadn’t been to Lawrence to see his daughter in three years: He didn’t trust anyone with the Duplex.
“Oh, no. Out of the question. No, no, no. Think again, ’cause it’s never going to happen.”
Lesson Four: Mind the Animals
and
Lesson Five: Kill It with Fire
Doug bit his lip while he poured liquid ethanol fuel all over the red, plush seats in theater one. The fumes burned his nose and made him feel light-headed. The watery eyes must also be from the fumes, he reasoned.
When he finished dousing theater one, he quickly emptied two containers into theater two, paying special attention to the red velvet curtains, which he had spent hours—no, days—of his life cleaning and vacuuming.
He collapsed into one of the squeaky red seats. The old springs dug into his butt, but he didn’t care. He studied the horrid flower-printed carpet he never liked, but had been too busy to replace. He gingerly scraped a piece of gum off the seat in front of him with his thumbnail.
Finally, Doug got up, wiped his eyes, and exited to the lobby.
“Ceil?” He called when he didn’t see his daughter.
“In here!” He heard her shout from his office.
When Doug entered his office of twenty years, he stopped, suddenly embarrassed. Cecilia sat in his chair, staring at the walls, which were covered with every letter she had ever written him, every school picture she had sent him, and every photograph of her Doug had ever taken.
Cecilia’s content smile beamed right through him, and he felt his eyes grow wet again.
A Game of Horns: A Red Unicorn Anthology Page 4
