by Gear, Dick
“How are we going to handle this?” I ask. “Stick together or split up?”
“We should split up but make sure to meet back at the entrance with our stuff in fifteen minutes,” Fergi says. “And for god’s sake—we don’t leave anyone in there.”
“No. No way in hell would I leave someone.”
“Good.” She looks at me. “And don’t be stupid with your supplies. Get shit that we need.”
“I’ll tackle the pharmacy.”
Teddy smirks. “I bet you will. Any items in particular you’re planning on acquiring?”
“A little of this and that.”
“Oh, sure,” he says with dripping sarcasm. “Just this and that. Hopefully they carry Valtrex.”
I don’t bother to respond. Teddy loves to use shit like this to his advantage, but if the situations were reversed he’d do nothing but whine and cry about me busting his chops.
Besides, Fergi’s not paying any attention to us. She’s deep in thought. Her dark eyes stare at the ground, and for a brief moment, I actually have something stirring in my gut that I haven’t felt in years. Do I actually have a crush on this girl?
Impossible. That part of me broke a long time ago—eighth grade to be precise, when Jenny Clark broke up with me after giving me the best hand job of my young life.
“Let’s do the buddy system,” Fergi decides, after some thought. “Shep and I will go together, and you two take a cart and go together. See you in fifteen.”
Shep and Fergi dash into the store, pull out a cart, and disappear through the entrance. That leaves me and Teddy together, as always. “Come on,” I say, getting out of the car and looking around.
“This place is completely dead,” Teddy mutters.
“Just as long as it’s not undead,” I grin, walking inside and grabbing a big green shopping cart.
“Haha, very funny.”
“Don’t lose your sense of humor, Ted.”
“There’s not much funny about zombies eating people and us running around with hammers and wrenches to defend ourselves.”
I have to agree with him there.
We enter the supermarket, and its eerily silent, with gleaming floors and all the lights on. In the vegetables section, mist is still spraying over the carrots and lettuce and celery to keep it all moist and fresh. Everything’s normally functioning—but nobody’s here. No one stocking fruits, nobody behind the deli counter, no one at the registers.
“Man, it is creepy in here,” I whisper.
“Let’s hurry the fuck up,” Teddy says.
We discuss what to get as we head for the Pharmacy. It’s to the far left, in the front of the store. “Definitely penicillin, amoxicillin, codeine, all that stuff,” Teddy says.
I look at him as if for the first time. “You know your shit.”
“My dad was always sick with different stuff when I was a kid and I remember all the different meds he took.”
As we continue to make our way through the store, we hear people yelling to each other from various isles, and occasionally we see Martha go by carrying an armful of food, or Verne pointing and directing somebody to pick up a particular item.
I try the door to the pharmacy and find it’s locked. So I kick it open, the handle actually pops off and rolls in circles on the floor. We go to the shelves and start rummaging around. I have no idea what I’m doing in here. There’s stuff everywhere, it looks like someone else has already been messing around. Maybe staff robbed the place on their way out.
“How the hell are we going to find anything we need?” Teddy says, turning around and around, his eyes wide and confused. “I don’t recognize any of these names.”
“That’s because they’re being listed by generic name instead of the brand name,”
I explain, as I knock various bottles of pills around on the shelves, looking for stuff I recognize.
Teddy just keeps looking around, paranoid and jumpy. “Let’s just dump everything we can into the cart.”
“You do that, I’m going to find shit for my balls.” I start rummaging through everything else while Teddy sweeps bottles and ointments and random junk like diabetes kits into the cart.
I’m not even sure what I might have going on with my rash, but just in case—I get medicine for fungal infections, staph, syphilis and herpes. I figure I can just take a course of each medication, one at a time, until my rash clears up.
Finally, we’re ready to go. “I think it’s been close to fifteen minutes,” Teddy says.
“Okay, come on—“
Suddenly we hear a high-pitched shriek. I can’t even tell if it’s a man or woman who made that noise. All I know is I jumped about three feet off the ground when it happened.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Teddy whimpers. “Let’s go! Come on man!”
We start running.
“Help me push the cart, for god’s sake,” Teddy huffs at me as we run. “I’m falling behind, Danny!”
I go back and the two of us push the grocery cart together, our legs pumping in unison. There’s a chorus of screams coming from one of the isles, but neither of us can tell exactly where it’s coming from.
But whatever it is, I know it’s nothing good. “Someone’s becoming dinner, I think.”
Teddy lets go of the cart and turns to look back inside the store. “We got to load this shit in fast, then get the fuck out of here.”
“Definitely,” I agree. I open the trunk and the two of us start grabbing handfuls and armfuls of medicine, tossing it into the back of the car. Beads of sweat are forming on my head.
There’s more shouting from inside the store. Screams. Howls even.
“I’m going to piss myself,” Teddy cries.
“Just stay calm. If we see any zombies, we’ll get in my car and bounce faster than a check from M.C. Hammer.”
“You mean leave Fergi behind?”
I turn to him. “You want to risk your life for that chick?”
He stares at me. “We gotta wait for her, Danny. We said.”
“I know what the fuck we said. But I kind of like my intestines in one place, thanks.”
“What do your intestines have to do with anything?” He throws the last armful of medicine into the trunk and slams it shut.
“You never saw the original Dawn of the Dead? When the bikers get dragged off their motorcycles by the zombies, and the one dude gets his intestines pulled out of his stomach and eaten?”
Teddy shakes his head. “I only saw 28 Days Later.”
“Dawn of the Dead is like the classic zombie film.”
“I think 28 Days Later was the shit though.”
“Point is, we’ve seen what these fucking zombies do to people for real. I’m not putting myself in that position for some chick I barely know. As hot as she is.”
“We can’t leave her, though,” Teddy insists. He’s a stubborn fuck sometimes. “I think we should go in and make sure Fergi’s all right.”
I stare at Teddy, wondering if he’s one of those regular nitwits who suddenly becomes a fucking hero during wartime. “You’re serious. You want to go in there, knowing there might be a horde of zombies waiting to turn your head into mashed potatoes?”
His face is set as if in stone. “I say we go get her man.”
I’m in awe of him right now.
And now I’m getting pumped too. “Okay. Fuck it.” I take a few deep breaths, steadying myself for battle. “What do we have for weapons?”
Teddy opens the door to the backseat and grabs a large mallet. “This.”
“Not bad. But that’s it, right?”
“This was all Shep brought for our car.”
“Fucking Shep. So Verne and his group got all the weapons.”
We head back into the store, Teddy in the lead, me right behind him. For the time being, neither of us sees or hears anything.
Whatever the commotion was before, thing have totally quieted down now.
“Where do you think they are?” Teddy squeak
s.
“Fucked if I know. This is stupid. I got a bad feeling about this.”
We continue creeping along the isle, past the first set of registers. And that’s when we see it. Verne, Martha, Shep and Nips are all running full speed toward us, their eyes as wide as human eyes can get.
“It got her!” Nips screams. “It fucking got her!” In my head, all I can think is how Nips is always telling us that a zombie “got” somebody. He seems to be the town crier for zombie attacks.
All of them race past us and out the door without another word. I look at Teddy and he looks at me, hefts the mallet in one hand. “Keep going,” he says, his face set and grim.
For some reason, I trust him. It turns out, life really can be like those dopey war movies where the regular dumbass becomes a hero and everyone starts following him.
I’m following Teddy Motherfucking Foreskin like he’s Malcolm X all of a sudden. Like I actually believe he can protect me from zombies with that stupid mallet.
Suddenly Teddy has become Thor in my eyes, but I suppose I’m desperate enough to follow anybody at this point.
We keep walking, slowly heading towards whatever awaits us.
Another person comes running, turns the corner and bolts past us. It’s that girl, Casey. She’s got snot pouring out of her nose and her mouth is wide open. She doesn’t even glance at us as she flies past.
“Christ, this must be really bad,” I whisper.
“Don’t be afraid. We’re going to kick their asses,” Teddy growls.
“I think whatever or whoever it is, they’re in isle six.”
He nods. “Okay. Come on.”
We reach isle six but Teddy holds up a hand like a military sergeant, motioning for me to stop and wait for his signal.
Now I hear something. Noise. My ears can’t seem to identify what the noise is, something so strange, so foreign that I don’t want to comprehend it. Guttural sounds, chewing, savage sounds, of flesh being torn and rendered. And the thing tearing and eating that flesh is smacking its lips in delight, with a constant chewing mouth that can never be satisfied.
I want to turn and run away just like everyone else did. Whatever they saw, it must have been horrible—so horrible they didn’t slow down for a millisecond when they saw us.
But Teddy is a soothing, calming presence. He holds the mallet up as if ready to swing it at any second. And now he’s beginning to peek around the end cap of the isle so as to see what’s going on.
And that’s when Teddy screams. “Oh…oh…oh fuck…oh fuckitty, shitting, fuck.”
“Teddy, what’s going on?”
He spins, his mouth open, eyes rolling like pinwheels. “Fuck me, I can’t take this shit anymore Danny—I gotta go. I gotta…” Ted drops the mallet and a dark wet spot spreads down his pants.
The motherfucker pissed his pants.
Some leader he turned out to be.
And then he’s running away, leaving me standing by myself. I consider following him, but now I’m a little curious, and kind of mad too. I’m not running away like everybody else.
I bend down, grab the mallet, and peak around the end cap to see what’s going on that’s so damn horrible.
And I do see. One of the people from Verne’s expedition—that quiet chick, Elisa—is being torn apart by a pair of zombie teenagers. I think they were Goths before they became undead, because they’ve got the dark clothes and Marilyn Manson look going on. Dark boots, black lipstick and jet black emo hair.
But whatever they were before, now they’re just zombies. And they’re trying to take Elisa’s legs off her body. Already her arms have been torn clean off her torso. Her breasts have been chewed off, and her organs are strewn across the isle, floating in a pool of blood.
Unfortunately, right near the feasting zombies, Fergi and Shep are crouched behind their shopping cart as if trying to remain invisible. I motion them to run but they just shake their heads.
They’re in a position where if they move, the zombies will likely take notice and come after them too. And unfortunately, the cart they’re hiding behind is only a couple of feet from Elisa’s dismembered body.
I’ve got a decision to make. I can do what the others did and run out of here, out to the relative safety of the parking lot, get in my car with Teddy Piss-pants, and drive away from this nightmare as fast as possible.
Or, I can be the movie hero.
And now that I’ve got all those medications in my car, I’m fairly certain I can get rid of my crotch rot and be ready to go to town on Fergi in a matter of days. If I save her life right now, she’s going to owe me big time. Beyond that, she’ll worship me. She’ll suck my dick every day at the top of the hour if I want her too.
This is my time. I raise the mallet over my head and utter a war cry. The two Goth zombies look up from their kill, startled. Their eyes fix on me and my blood goes cold.
It’s the scariest moment of my life, bar none. Those eyes are so evil, so filled with hunger and craving for my flesh—I’ve never felt anything like it. They stand up, quicker than I gave them credit for, and start to move towards me.
Once I’ve distracted the undead Goths, Fergi and Shep grab their cart and start running with away.
Thanks, guys. But I don’t blame them one bit.
I turn and run too. The problem is, there’s another few zombies here now. I’m not sure where these things came from. Maybe they have telepathy and call one another when a nice bite of food arrives on the scene. Maybe there’s so many that they just keep wandering until they happen across the human equivalent of a cheeseburger.
Which in this case means me.
I’m surrounded. The two Goths are behind me, and in front of me are two other zombies. One has a huge chunk taken from his cheek and neck. He’s wearing an apron as if he was working the deli counter here when he died. The other looks like a mechanic or something. He’s got only one hand.
I swing the mallet in a high arc over my shoulder, as if I were trying to nail a railroad spike into the ground. It crashes down on the zombie in the apron, just as his hands reach out to grab me. It hits his head perfectly—spot on—and there’s a heavy CHUNK sound as if I’ve just wacked a pumpkin.
His head practically explodes—at least two or three pieces of his skull and brains fly through the air—and his body topples to the side, lifeless. That was easy, I marvel.
But then again, I was able to hit him perfectly in the head at full strength.
A hand grabs the back of my shirt and I spin around. The two Goths are nearly on top of me now, lunging forward and trying to bite me. I’m not completely sure, but if this is anything like the movies, one bite and I’m going to be just like them.
My Nana only had that tiny little bite on her finger, come to think of it. A few hours later she was a goddamn nightmare—so I can’t let these things lay a tooth on me.
I swing the mallet again, crunching against the hand that’s grabbing my shirt. I can’t get proper leverage though, and the zombie won’t let go of me. The bigger Goth snaps within an inch of my face, and I retaliate with another sweep of my mallet, crashing into his jaw. Teeth and jaw pieces fly into the air and the dark haired teen falls backwards like a mannequin that’s been pushed over.
However, unlike the other zombie, this one begins clamoring to his feet again immediately. His jaw’s hanging at a strange angle but he’s still hungry and he might be able to bite me even with the injury I’ve given him.
I start to run, stutter stepping as I try to shake the mechanic zombie in front of me.
I think I’ve scooted by him, but his hand reaches out and snags me by my shirt at the last second.
I turn and swing the mallet yet again and it crashes into his shoulder. Part of him seems to cave in, but it doesn’t slow him down. He reaches around my shoulder with his other arm and leans in.
Suddenly I feel a piercing shock of pain as his teeth sink into the upper bicep of my right arm. I scream like a little bitch. And then I
pound him with the hammer again, cracking his nose so hard that it plows into his face, cartilage turned into jelly, blood spraying everywhere.
He drops to his knees.
“You fucking bit me, you dick,” I cry, as I feel the pain from the bite on my arm.
I’m in shock. I smash the mallet across his skull, and a quarter of his brain flies out the back of his head as he slides to the floor. I stumble backwards, as the last two zombies continue to hunt me.
They’re too slow though, and with nothing else in front of me, I’m able to run and outdistance them easily.
I’m crying as I make my way to the exit of the store. At least I don’t have to worry about being left here, since I’m the driver. Fucking Teddy fucking Foreskin. He led me to my death and took off with piss running down his leg.
Why did I trust him? Why did I think he’d suddenly gone from being a complete fool to John F. Kennedy in the blink of an eye?
It doesn’t matter, though. Recriminations aside, I’ve been bit. The end is near.
When I get to the exit, Fergi and Teddy are still there, waiting for me. They look absolutely terrified.
“We were hoping you’d get out,” Fergi says.
“Shep took off with that asshole Verne,” Teddy explains. “They refused to stay and make sure you got out of there alive.”
It’s dark outside and my shirt is navy blue, so they don’t see the blood on my sleeve. I decide then and there not to mention my injury. God only knows what they’d do if they think I’m contaminated. Probably find a way to push me out of the car and steal it. They sure as shit wouldn’t want to be around me much longer, and I can understand why.
I’m going to be a goddamn zombie.
“We better get in the car,” I say, trying to gather my scattered thoughts. “More of those things were still coming after me.”
“What about the other girl?” Teddy asks. “Were you able to rescue her?”
I stare at him. “Elisa? The girl being attacked in isle six?”
“Yeah.” He stares dumbly at me.
