by Javan Bonds
I parked the Humvee in front of Foodland in the fire lane. I could imagine the earful I would be getting from The Expert had she tagged along. My brother’s former classmate exited the vehicle with the same graceful gymnastics as always. He reached behind him to open the passenger door to the rear bench and lifted his chair. I was watching, but I wasn’t even sure how he got the chair around the door to his other hand, close the door, and let the chair fall to the ground onto its wheels. He then grabbed the top of his door with his right hand, the top of the cab with his left, and gently dropped himself into the seat.
Mary had done this so many times, she remained relaxed and I was afraid she was going to fall asleep during the moving process. After Bradley completed his routine, his monkey looked up at me. She cocked an eyebrow. “Bet you can’t do that.” her eyes said. I sucked in through my teeth every time he performed this dance. I would seriously injure myself if I attempted that with a lawn chair, but talk about impressing women at a beach party. Maybe I could get him to teach me later.
We moved to wait at a sliding door that didn’t open as if this was just a normal day and we didn’t have to worry about infected demons ripping us to pieces. It was so peaceful, it took me a moment to remember that there had been a fucking zombie apocalypse and I stepped forward to pry the doors open. I really don’t understand why I did this, The Old Friend could definitely have done it with more speed. I suppose I was just doing it because I subconsciously felt the need to be polite around the guy in the wheelchair. The fact that I attempt to not be an asshole sometimes makes me come off as more of an asshole, and worse yet, it set a precedent for the day that I now deeply regret.
The two of us stopped in the light at the front of the store, surprised that everything in the darkness appeared untouched. Sure, bugs and rodents had devoured the overwhelming majority of the fresh meat and dairy, but there appeared to be no zombie shit in sight. I was thankful nature had done its job, since I didn’t have to smell rotten food for however long I was there. I was already acquainted with the fact that the peevies did not infest wide open buildings like this, but it still set my teeth on edge to be so vulnerable. I still couldn't believe zombies or evil humans weren't stalking us around. I would have to be sure to stop by Big Lots and a couple of the other larger stores in the shopping center to solidify the fact in my mind. It was still creepy as hell going into one of these giant businesses even if they were empty of infected. I’d rather leave the grocery scavenging to people that are not pussies when possible. I was going to have to remember to ask my dad for ship detail.
I grabbed a buggy and Bradley pointed at two hand baskets for Mary to grab. Before hitting the aisles, we took our time looking down each, sniffing hard for peevie poop. Bradley’s familiar didn’t appear to sense danger, so we decided to take a stroll down the chip aisle. It had been several days since our Pringles raid on Walmart, so we needed to stock up.
☠☠☠
I turned to The Old Friend. “You think they got any hard cider?” That stuff was pretty good and I didn’t want it to go bad. Especially that Woodchuck or maybe the Angry Orchard. That’s the reason I have stolen every single tube of salt and vinegar Pringles. Because I’m not wasteful. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
He made a disgusted look. “Alcohol? I’ll pass.” Mary also looked at me disappointed, like a parent that finds their child watching a dirty movie. I’m not speaking from experience or anything. I’m sure that story will come up later.
I shot back, “Come on Bradley. Live a little!” I could tell by his unwavering headshake that he wouldn’t cave under peer pressure.
I thought I would give it one more try. I would try the same thing that always worked on me back in high school. “Come on, dawg!” His blank stare told me I wasn’t working the lingo well enough. “Fuck it, more booze for me!”
☠☠☠
Years ago, one of my best friends was the king of effective peer pressure when it came to drinking. He was a short and scrawny white kid that called everyone “dawg” when he’d had one too many. The fact that he was so short may have caused our intoxicated brains to have some sort of pity for him and do what he said, even though the mean little bastard didn’t deserve it.
He would get drunk and it would be, “Come on, dawg. Take another shot, dawg!” We would shoot whiskey until we passed out, all because our dwarf buddy told us to.
Being so small, when he was really shitfaced, sometimes we were afraid he was going to die. We actually thought about taking him to the hospital once and just dropping his ass at the door, ringing the bell, and leaving him there. He drank so much once that I held him like a baby on the porch for hours, praying he wouldn’t die and that I wouldn’t have to tell his mom. He couldn’t throw up because of some surgery he’d had when he was a kid, so he could only dry heave and gag foamy spit. It was scary as hell.
After several long hours of possibly singing nursery rhymes to him, he woke up. I was shocked he could regain consciousness. “Cory?” I asked excitedly.
He looked around for a second, turned his eyes to me, and mumbled one word. “Cory.” Then he was gone again. I’m guessing that he wanted to make sure any stranger that found a midget passed out on the street knew his name. Not that it would really help, but at least he gave a response.
He could convince a preacher to become an alcoholic. I saw him nearly drive someone to alcohol poisoning, just by calling them dawg.
☠☠☠
The beer cooler had tons of Steel Reserve and Keystone Light for the taking, but nothing worth drinking could be found. Just my fucking luck. It just figures that after the end of the world there would be no flavorful alcohol, only stale urine. I’m sure I could always find some Smirnoff Ice if I wanted stomach cramps and painful bowel movements.
When we finished our circuit around the completely clean and uninfected store, we took note of the gathered supplies. A buggy full of chips, a few boxes of protein bars, a case of bottled water, and I had to get a bag of Chips Ahoy just because that’s how I roll. I don’t think anyone could’ve done a better job raiding a grocery store if they tried.
“What about in there?” Bradley through a thumb over his shoulder to the bathrooms.
“I’m sure as hell not going in there.” I was content being a pussy, and I wasn’t going to volunteer myself for what would surely be action. I didn’t even speak, I just looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
“Come on! Be adventurous, Mo.”
“No.”
The Old Friend dropped his chin and let out a mournful sigh. “But I need to go to the bathroom.”
“You clean it out, then!”
“I’m in a wheelchair,” he nearly whimpered.
My polite asshole kicked back in. I had to be nice to the guy in a wheelchair who can throw himself around like an olympic athlete, lift easily three times what I can, and has a complete arsenal strapped to his chair, but, yeah, he can’t walk; that obviously makes him a kind, honest person that wouldn’t lie about needing to go to the bathroom in a dark room where the water had stopped running, and needs my sorry ass to help him. I rolled my neck. “Okay, just this once.”
He looked up and smiled from ear to ear. “Thanks, Mo!” I would never be played like that again.
☠☠☠
I cracked a glow stick and threw it in the door as I opened it with the barrel of my rifle. A peevie with his back to me was making a drop off from the Hershey highway—right there in the middle of the room and not even squatting or anything, just letting it slide and squirt and sputter while standing in the upright position. I didn’t believe anything could be more stomach turning than watching a former human lose a few pounds on the floor. Then, the smell hit me. I almost fell down in my hurry to back up. The zombie noticed the light coming from behind and turned to rush at me, flinging wet feces as he spun around.
I backed out of the door and it closed in my face. I thought for a moment about how the monster would run into the doo
r and bounce off since it didn’t open out. Right as I thought that, the ghoul impacted the door and in that millisecond I realized that this bathroom featured a swinging door. I don’t know what it was made of, but it somehow didn’t knock me unconscious or break my fucking nose as it smashed into me.
Of course, I landed on my back and so did the monster on the other side. It goes without saying that it was quicker than me and was on its crusty feet before I could even raise up onto my elbows. It threw itself onto me and tried biting through the vest. Thank God for Kevlar or mithril or whatever the hell these things were made of. I think I heard a few teeth crack as it tried in vain to get to my shoulder. Coming up with no meat, the animal decided to go for a softer part: my neck. I put one hand on his chin and shoved my left thumb into its eye. I’m pretty sure I will have hearing damage from the painful screech emitted by this banshee. I almost said “sorry” as I heard something pop in the ocular cavity under my thumb.
I wasn’t sure if it was trying to pull away or lift me up by the thumb jammed in its eye socket, but it would repeatedly start to lift itself before screaming in pain then coming back down, nearly head butting me.
There was no way in hell my laughable upper body strength could have allowed me to keep my grip on the zombie. My thumb had somehow gotten stuck in its eye. I don’t even know what the hell would be in the eye socket to get anything stuck on, but I couldn’t pull my finger out if I tried! I was in no danger of being bitten, the peevie was too engrossed with getting my thumb out of its face to bother with the helpless piece of food below it.
After what felt like hours, Bradley finally realized my naked friend and I were not playing a game of Twister. He put a handful of pistol slugs through its center mass before it collapsed onto me, slowly bleeding out from multiple holes through its torso. Maybe it was just the angle its head fell, but my finger was immediately free and the first thing I wanted to do was wash my hands, then punch Bradley in the face.
Which would be worse, taking a bath in undead diarrhea or having a part of your body inside one of the things as it died? Well shit, that sounded even weirder than it was. I feel more disturbed now than when I was touching its brain.
Maybe because it had just cut a sloppy, wreaking log, but there was no ammunition left to fire. Its asshole made a faint sigh as it gave up the ghost.
I could hear a smirk in Bradley’s voice. “Did you two have fun?”
“Oh, we had a blast! I almost became a fucking carnivorous ape because this jackass was checking his BMI or something.” Bradly laughed out loud; even Mary made a little chittering sound.
“You’re a bastard.” I began pulling myself out from under the dead body and looked up at him. “So, are you going to the bathroom?”
“I think I’ll hold it. We need to stop by the pet store and Big Lots.”
“What the hell for?” He was ready to move on, and I suddenly doubted he had ever even needed to piss.
“To make sure I have everything I need for Mary.” He gave me some pretty well practiced puppy dog eyes, as if the fact that he’s crippled wasn’t enough. “Oh! And I want to get a beanbag chair!”
Motherfucker.
☠☠☠
I remember going in pet stores when I was a little kid. Even though I’ve always lived in the sticks and been around animals, it was cool seeing snakes and parrots and all that. This was nothing like what I remembered from childhood.
It was heartbreaking to see the pens full of dried up puppies. I cringed as I walked by little hamsters in their cages with their feet sticking up. Every fish in every aquarium was floating at the top. Then I came around the corner.
“Holy shit. Bradley. Come here!”
He raced to my side faster than I could run. “What’s—” He looked up in amazement.
If there were cockroaches in the store, I’m sure they’d be alive as well. But we were staring at the only other animals that could be expected to survive this long without food—terrariums full of snakes.
I was never really much of a snake guy, but I didn’t detest the things. “Should we let them out?”
Bradley pondered the question and finally answered. “Nah, let’s just feed them. I’ll come over here every once in a while and check on them; ten bucks says Gene wants one.” Well, we did already have a monkey onboard. Having a couple of snakes wouldn’t be any stranger.
I nodded and went to the back to find whatever the hell snake food is. I added as I moved, “Got everything Mary needs?” I’m a sucker for animals except, you know, cats.
“I’ll throw some extra blankets in the truck, but I think so.” I started to the back room as he rolled out of the building.
☠☠☠
They actually have something called Tarantula Bites. Little pellets that you give spiders. News to me.
I was looking through the shelves of various foods for different animals when I realized the room I was currently in was not large. The ceiling was no higher than eight feet and I had not even checked all the dark nooks and crannies before casually scanning through the food with my rifle over my back. It seemed perfectly normal, like I tossed glow sticks into a completely dark enclosure and searched through animal feed every day of the week.
Finally! Little packets marked with the word “snake.” Just as I pocketed a handful of the things, the ultrasonic screech of a panicked black guardian angel (or something like that) suddenly popped into my head: “Hit da floor, mufucka!” I complied without question.
As soon as my knees banged to the ground, a body slammed into the shelf above me. Food for ferrets, rats, fish, and every other small pet you could think of rained down on me. I was thankful the dog food was over in the corner. I didn’t want to deal with fifty pound bags falling on my head.
I slid out from under the downpour to prop myself on an elbow and begin to stand as the former pet store employee rose and turned to me. It hissed and stepped onto a large round bottle of fish flakes. The female creature lost its footing and its feet shot out from under it, higher than its head. The ravenous animal panicked as it went vertical and a stream of black shit shot from its sputtering rectum.
The demon came up; I was surprised the fall had not knocked it unconscious. It looked at the floor around its feet, making sure there were no more bottles or banana peels to step on. Amazingly, I had raised my rifle and was able to put a few rounds through its torso before the peevie could throw itself onto me. It collapsed into a heap of its own blood and shit.
From around the corner of a shelving unit, I heard screaming any human could immediately recognize—babies crying for their mother. I moved just enough to see at least three blue babies making their way to their fallen parent. I’m not even going to begin to speculate on whether these creatures were actually related before turning, but they certainly saw the now dead female before them as their mother.
They screamed an unreal animal baby wail before turning to me as one. These were not just former children, these were infants too young to form teeth or walk securely. Each tiny monster squealed before coming at me as fast as it could crawl. There was no way in hell I could shoot the things and just pushed each back with the barrel of my rifle as they came close.
It was a task keeping three rabid infants away, and they were slowly gaining ground. One of them latched onto my leg below the knee and started gumming my jeans. Another leapt up and attached itself to my right forearm to get zombie spit dribbling down to my elbow. The third went up my other leg to coat me in slobber. You know on those mornings when you wake up and your breath smells so bad it makes your stomach hurt? You have to brush your teeth three or four times just so the smell is tolerable? Yeah, undead spit is worse than that. I don’t know if mama zombie had been chewing a rotten piece of meat and giving them the sloppy seconds or if they had been eating her already digested leftovers, but it was pretty fucking bad.
I can’t forget to mention that the infant cannibals were constantly shitting as they tried softening my skin up with putrid
saliva. I was not only getting an extra helping of the nasty goop coming out of their mouths, they were spraying baby diarrhea like they had an endless supply. I was afraid I was going to drown in this room before I got these things off me.
I really wasn’t even sure how I was going to get myself out of this; it was a horrifying nightmare however you looked at it. I didn’t simply want to sling them off. I know they were ravenous ghouls, but come on, they were baby ravenous ghouls, and one does not simply shoot baby anythings. I walked stiff legged to the back corner of the room. I raked the one on my arm onto the floor and pinned it down with my rifle. The two on my legs were easier to fling off with side kicks, and thankfully landed on bags of dog food. I turned and raced out the door, hearing the little monsters screaming and crawling after me. I closed it and realized I couldn’t just leave them in there to just starve to death! That would be more inhumane than shooting them.
I closed my eyes and knew what had to be done. I opened the door to see the tiny blue babies rushing at me as fast as they could crawl. I pulled a frag grenade from my pouch, pulled the pin, tossed it in the direction of the three, and closed the door. I heard the sharp pop inside the room and tried to convince myself I had done the right thing.
I wouldn’t open the door for any reason. I didn’t want to see eviscerated blue babies and tiny destroyed organs littering the walls, but I had no doubt they would visit me in dreams.
☠☠☠
I came out of the pet store, soaked with zombie spit and diarrhea. “We’re leaving!”
The Old Friend looked up from behind the Humvee, completely unaware of what had happened. “But we still have to go in–“
“No.” I pointed a finger at him.
“But I can’t wal–“
“Don’t you fucking dare! Guilt somebody else to bring you up here later.” I looked down at my drenched form.” You have no idea what I just went through. I’m done for today.”
