by Gear, Dick
“Fuck you!” Fergi shouts, jumping at him. I get between them and try to keep them apart.
Verne laughs and shakes his head as she tries to swing on him. “Stupid whore.”
“What did you call me, little limp-dick motherfucker?” she screeches.
She’s a feisty one. I turn away from Verne and place my hands on Fergi’s shoulders. I look her in the eye. “Calm down. Calm the hell down or nobody is going to want to go anywhere with you.”
Fergi wipes the back of her hand across her mouth and then blows a strand of hair off her face. “Forget it. He’s not worth the spit in my mouth.”
“That’s not what you said when you were slobbing my nob,” Verne replies.
She turns back to say something and I whisper in her ear. “Listen, he’s just trying to get you upset so that he can win this argument. He wants everyone to go run to the police station or a fucking elementary school. That’s all. Just let him run his damn mouth, nobody’s going to follow him.”
“Okay. Thanks.” She gives me a quick smile. “He’s such a jerk. And he really does have a tiny penis. It’s less than three inches, hard, I swear.”
Shep has his head in his hands, sitting on the couch. Over by the window, Nips is still tapping at the glass like a lunatic. Suddenly he looks up at us. “Damn, we got company. Another five zombies just joined the party.”
Everyone rushes to look out the windows. Now there are a bunch of them out there, stumbling around the house, pushing against the glass. Sticking their faces up and trying to lick or bite their way inside. It really is weird when you see them. A couple of them have obvious wounds, too. Like one guy has no arms at all, and another is missing the entire lower portion of his jaw. He’d have a hard time eating anybody.
Casey’s crying now, sobbing into her hands. “Ohhhhh….Ohhhhhh…..Ohhhhh…”
People are starting to panic.
“What if they get in here?” Martha asks.
“They won’t,” Shep says, finally getting off the couch. “They don’t know how to do even the simplest tasks. They’ve never even tried to get in through the front door or heaved a rock at one of the windows.”
Nips jumps back from the window as if shocked. “Oh, shit! They got somebody!
They got somebody!”
Looking outside, we can all see it.
A car is stopped in the middle of the road, and a few of the zombies have surrounded it. They pull an old man out of the driver’s side and an old woman out of the passenger’s side of the car. The woman actually gets away and starts for one of the neighbors’ houses. She’s moving slowly because of her age. She seems like she probably needs a cane.
“We should help her,” Fergi says. “We’ve got to help her.”
“Hell no,” Teddy says. “I saw Danny fighting one of those things and it kicked his ass. It was an eighty year old zombie, he still barely got out alive.”
“I took it easy on her,” I say, trying to explain myself even though nobody’s really listening. “It was my Nana, I had to hold back a little.”
“We can’t just let them just die,” Fergi cries.
I’m more on the side of letting them die, personally. The thought of running outside right now with all of those creatures stumbling after me—chasing me down—I can’t really justify it. No matter how much of a coward I might be.
The zombies have the old man on the ground next to his car. One is eating right through his coat and burrowing into his stomach. Another latches onto the top of the guy’s skull and starts tearing at it.
But the old woman has reached a neighbor’s house. She’s knocking on the front door, probably screaming to be let in. The zombies are a few feet away and there’s still time for someone to let her inside. But the people inside won’t open the door. I can see them standing there, right at the window, just like us. Watching the old lady pound and scream and beg.
“Jesus, this is fucking awful,” Shep moans.
“I feel…I feel kind of…” Verne turns and pukes on Martha.
It looks like he just spilled a can of creamed corn down her shirt. “Ugh! You fucking puked on me!”
“They got her,” Nips says. “Fucking hell, they got her.”
And it’s true. The first zombie catches up to the old lady, pulls her off the steps and drags her down to the lawn, where it instantly begins devouring her face. Before I turn away, I see her legs and arms kicking and fighting like a beetle that’s been turned on its back.
That’s an image I won’t forget anytime soon.
People move away from the window in stunned silence. We just witnessed something that is beyond comprehension. And no one wants to admit how frightened we really are.
I’m struggling to hold my shit together. Especially when my balls start itching again and I feel like I can’t scratch them with everyone around me. God, I really need those antibiotics.
“Most of the zombies are eating the old woman now,” Nips says, doing a running commentary now as if he’s the Howard Cosell of zombie cannibalism. “They’re feeding on her like a bunch of goddamn hyenas.”
“Do they even have hyenas in Japan?” Teddy asks.
Nips turns away from the window and glares at Teddy. “What has Japan got to do with it?”
“Well, you’re from Japan, right?”
“Yeah, my parents were from there. I was born here, just like you.”
“Oh. I see.” Teddy nods.
“No, you don’t see. You think I’m a fucking foreign exchange student like that kid in Sixteen Candles or something?”
“I’m more of a Breakfast Club kind of guy,” Teddy says. “The part where the principal gives Bender two months of weekend detention is so badass.”
Fergi looks at all of us. “You guys are being idiots, you know that?” She points outside. “People are being eaten out there!”
“We know that,” Verne says, wiping the puke off his chin with the bottom of his shirt. “I’ve said over and over what we need to do.”
Martha’s gone to the kitchen to clean the vomit off her.
Casey’s still sobbing. “Ohhhhhh….Ohhhhhh……Ohhhhhhhhhhh…..”
Shep’s back on the couch, head in hands.
Teddy’s still sipping his beer. Burp. Burp. Burp.
“Right now, we have a chance to get to a store, find some supplies,” Fergi tells everyone, looking for some sign that people understand what we’re up against. “Maybe even some weapons.”
I clear my throat. “We should go. We need to go and get supplies or we’ll end up dead of starvation before we get killed by those zombies.”
But puke face Verne’s still shaking his head. “If we just start running around to shopping centers, we’re going to die. I guarantee it.”
“Okay then,” I tell him. “How about we make two expeditions? You can lead one, and you can go to the police station or the nearest kindergarten or whatever.
Everyone who wants to try that can follow you.”
He smirks. “Thanks, big guy. Like I need your stamp of approval.”
I continue. “Me and Fergi are going to try and get some supplies, maybe a few weapons to defend ourselves. Anyone want to come with us?”
Teddy raises his hand. “I’m in.”
“Isn’t this jackass called Foreskin or something?” Verne says. “You can have him.”
Shep drops his hands and looks up at me. “I’m down too, brother.”
Eventually everyone else says they want to go with us. Verne stands there, his face red as they all defect to our side. Even old puke shirt, Martha, decides she wants to be in our expedition.
“You still going to the police station?” Fergi asks him.
Verne rolls his eyes. “If you all want to kill yourselves, I guess I can’t stop you.
So I may as well come along and try to be the voice of reason.”
“Great,” I mutter. “I was hoping we’d lose this clown.”
“We better get out of here,” Nips says, the only o
ne still staring out the window at the gruesome scene. “These zombies are eating fast. I think the buffet’s going to close down soon and then they might come back over here again.”
“Okay, let’s do a head count,” Fergi says, scanning the room. She counts nine of us. “We should take two cars, tops, because we have to stay together.”
Verne raises his hand. “I’ve got my minivan. It seats six people easily.”
Now all of a sudden this guy is Mr. Helpful. I don’t trust him.
“Well if six people go with Verne,” I say, “then I can drive me and Teddy and Fergi.”
“I’m scared to go out there,” Casey says, having finally stopped her incessant wailing. Her whole body is trembling. Verne walks over and hugs her dramatically.
“Now, now. Everything’s going to be fine,” he says. “I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”
You get the feeling he thinks someday we’ll all be telling Barbara Walters what a fucking hero he was during the big zombie crisis.
“So, is everyone ready to go?” I ask.
“Yeah. But wait. Where are we going, exactly?” Shep says.
Teddy snaps his fingers. “Let’s hit the Super Shaws over on South Main Street.”
“Is there a pharmacy in that one?” I ask.
“Yeah, definitely,” Shep says.
“Good thinking,” Fergi tells me. “We should stock up on medical supplies, drugs, antibiotics, everything.”
“Great minds,” I say, pointing at my head.
“And then we should try and get to Dick’s Sporting Goods,” Fergi continues.
“They should have some rifles and ammo, unless they’ve already been looted.”
“Shep, you got any baseball bats, tire irons or anything?” I ask. “To use against the zombies?”
Nips peers outside again. “Yuck. It looks like someone broke open a bunch of piñatas out there, only there was raw meat inside of them instead of candy.”
Shep starts for the hallway.
“Where are you going?” Vomit shirt Martha shouts.
“I’m going to grab my toolbox from the garage. That should give us something to fight these things with.”
“Hurry!” Fergi says.
We all wait for Shep to come back.
“How much…uh…food is still left for the zombies to eat out there?” I ask Nips.
He shakes his head. “Not that much. By the way, I don’t think I’m ever going to want another bowl of chili for the rest of my life after seeing this shit.”
The room has broken up into different groups. Fergi and Teddy and me stand in one corner, while Verne’s hanging with vomit shirt Martha, crying Casey, and this other girl who I think’s named Elisa. She barely talks—maybe she’s in shock or something.
Nips is the lookout guy, kind of his own clique.
“We need to lose Verne,” Fergi whispers to me. Her breath against my ear is kind of turning me on. If my dick didn’t feel like it was an ant hive right now, I’d for sure have full wood.
“How do we lose him? He’s going to have everyone with him. In his minivan.”
Teddy giggles. “What kind of asshole drives a minivan?”
Fergi shrugs. “If we keep him around, he’s going to get us killed. I can promise you that.”
“I don’t like the guy,” I tell her. “But I don’t see how we lose him. I mean, we need to come back here, right?”
She shrugs again, watching me closely. “I don’t know. Do we?”
“I thought so…”
“We could go absolutely anywhere,” she says.
Wow, she is one devious chick. And then I think about it some more. Once my balls and penis have been fixed, I’ll be tearing her pussy up like nobody’s business. And if we’re alone somewhere, I can just fuck her day and night. I’ll try out every goddamn sex position I’ve ever heard, seen, or even conjured up in my wildest imagination.
As if sensing my thoughts, Teddy grins at me. “Tell you one thing. You aint losing me, buddy. Friends til the end.”
***
We’re all huddled by the front door, nervous as shit. “Who’s taking point?”
Verne says.
“Point? What the fuck is point?” Teddy asks.
“It’s a military term,” Verne explains, as if to a child. “Forget about it.”
“All it means is the guy who goes up front. The first position,” Shep says.
“And the most dangerous,” Verne retorts.
“Maybe you should go first,” I tell Verne. “Since you seem to know the most about this stuff.”
He makes a face. “I mean, I would do it. But I think I could lead better from the middle of the pack. That’s what they do in the military. The captain doesn’t sit out front.”
“Oh, right. Silly me.” I exchange looks with Fergi.
Douche.
Is it wrong that I want to see Verne get his fucking head torn off by a zombie?
Maybe. But we’re all under a lot of stress, so maybe that explains the intense hate I feel for this dude.
Nips raises his hand. “I’ll take the lead.” He’s got a big claw hammer in his right hand. “If one of those fucking zombies tries to get me, I’ll smash his head like Gallagher does with watermelons.”
“Okay, then,” Shep says. “Let’s make a run for it on three.”
“One…”
“Two…”
“THREE!”
We open the door and start running. It’s just total chaos. The groups split in two, everyone trying to keep up and not get left behind. The zombies are pretty much all across the street, finishing off the old lady’s carcass. But when they hear noise, their heads lift up like dogs startled from picking at trash. Their creepy dead eyes stare at us, and a few of them slowly climb to their feet and start toward us.
“Shit, they’re coming!” Casey shrieks.
Now all of the zombies are moving toward us, like a herd of animals. Luckily they’re not very fast, but it feels fast enough if you’re only twenty yards away from the suckers.
I run around the driver’s side of my car and get in. My hands are shaking and my heart’s pounding. “Get in!” I scream.
But Fergi and Teddy and Shep are shouting back at me.
At first I can’t hear them because people are shouting all over the place. But then I realize I didn’t unlock the passenger doors. Shit. I hit the unlock button and they all scramble inside, slamming the doors shut. Huffing and puffing with total and utter fear, we all stare at one another. “This is fucking horrifying,” Shep says.
“I thought you were going in the other car,” Teddy says to him.
“What?”
“You were supposed to go in Verne’s expedition.”
“Like I give a flying fuck,” Shep says. “Have you seen the living dead out there?
I just wanted to get in someone’s goddamn car before those things ate me.”
“Let’s go.” I turn the ignition and put the car in drive.
“Shouldn’t we wait for Verne?” Shep asks.
“Fuck Verne,” I say, and we peel out onto the street, swerving to avoid a couple of zombies in the road.
Why did the zombie cross the road?
I feel like laughing hysterically, but am afraid they would all think I was losing my mind. And since I probably am losing my mind, best not to laugh.
I look in my rearview mirror and see that the others are now all in Verne’s van and it’s pulling into the street, following behind us.
Nobody says a word as we drive slowly down the street and keep our eyes peeled.
We have no idea what we’re going to encounter out here, but if we somehow get in an accident or get stranded, we could be literally eaten alive. Knowing this is keeping us pretty damn focused and quiet—especially me. The last thing I want is to be the equivalent of zombie road kill.
Turning onto route 27, on our way to the Super Shaws, we see a mass of people congregating around a gas station.
; “Hey look, there are people at that gas station,” Fergi cries out, pointing.
“Maybe we should go there…” Teddy’s voice fades.
As we slow down, it becomes apparent that the people outside the gas station are just more zombies—probably a couple dozen of them. They’ve managed to break one of the glass windows of the gas station and now they’re streaming inside. It looks like some people had holed up in there when the crisis hit, but the zombies penetrated somehow.
Faintly, we can hear the screams of the dying. I speed up and get the hell away as fast as possible.
That broken window in the gas station is frightening for any number of reasons, not the least of which is because we assumed they didn’t know enough to break into Shep’s house. But maybe, eventually, they figure it out…
In the passenger seat beside me, Teddy’s shaking. Crying softly. “Fuck man.
Everyone’s just eating everyone else. Why is this happening?”
My hands are sweating on the wheel now. “Hey Fergi. Maybe this expedition wasn’t such a great idea.”
“Don’t go soft on me now,” she says, leaning forward in her seat.
“If we run into a big group of those things, they’re going to turn this car over and pull us out like opening a can of sardines.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Fergi says. “Just watch the road. We’re going to be fine.”
A man runs into the road as we pass by, waving a shotgun in the air and shouting something unintelligible. He’s dressed in long underwear, but his cock is hanging out the flap. He starts shooting the gun into the air. The booming sounds echo as we get further away.
Verne’s car manages to swerve by and just miss the crazy old coot by inches.
“They missed him by a cock-length,” I whisper, giggling to myself. My eyes go back to the road in front of me. We get to the Super Shaws without further incident. The lot is almost empty but for maybe five or six cars sprinkled across the lot. I pull up right to the entrance and park the car.
Verne’s van pulls up behind us and they all start filing out, like kids going on a field trip. Verne leads them inside, not even stopping to wait for us.
“What an a-hole,” Teddy says.
“He’s not that bad,” Shep says. Shep’s definitely not been himself since everything started. Usually he’s happy-go-lucky, like Vince Vaughn in Wedding Crashers—that kind of thing. But now he’s just pasty and his eyes are haunted. More like Vince Vaughn in the Psycho remake, the one that everyone hated.
