by Guy James
Sven had to turn away for a moment, on the verge of being sick in his surgical mask. The sucking and slurping noises were getting deep under Sven’s skin, making him nauseated in the core of his bones.
He didn’t have to listen to it much longer, however, because the zombies perked up and seemed to forget about the meat as soon as he turned back.
They turned to him, blood-stained faces splattered with bits of raw meat and gristle and bone, their mouths hanging askew, still full of half-chewed pieces of meat that were apparently forgotten in Sven’s presence.
There was a tall one at the front of the pack, closest to Sven—it had to be over six and half feet tall. It slowly lowered a shrink-wrapped piece of meat from its lips. The meat looked like a pork chop that had been gnawed in the middle, through the shrink-wrap.
The towering zombie’s arms jerked downward, hands losing their grip on the packaged meat. The pork chop plopped to the floor, meat-side down. Then the zombie’s head cocked to one side with a crunch, setting itself at an inhuman angle. Its eyes snapped open wider to gaze at Sven.
Ivan hissed and began to claw urgently at Sven’s shoulder. Sven barely felt it. There may have been shouts from behind him—from Brian and Milt maybe—but Sven could barely hear them now. It was just him and the zombies…all those hungry zombies, slurping at the bloody meat, drinking the—
Sven jerked his eyes away from the tall one at the head of the pack. He looked at the rest of the zombies, now watching him with the intensity of a collective predatory being. Their black eyes seemed to open even wider to take Sven in, to the point where he thought the dead eyes were so loose in their sockets that they would tumble out. But the eyes flopped in place, held there by some rotten fleshy wire that Sven didn’t want to imagine.
The zombies began to move toward Sven, lurching and bobbing like a floating mess of rot. He could smell them now, the gut-wrenching, overpowering, nauseating, mesmeriz—
He pulled the trigger. The shot ripped through the air, shotgun jerking backward into Sven and sending pain into his chest.
Holes appeared in the tall zombie, the focal points of suddenly visible fissures in the zombie’s t-shirt. Then the tall one’s midsection seemed to cave in on itself and the zombie toppled forward, jaw snapping shut for the last time.
Two of the zombies behind their towering leader had also been hit by the scatter, but they continued in their dogged shamble toward Sven.
Sven took a deep breath through the stifling surgical mask, stepped back, and pumped the shotgun. He shot, pumped and shot, pumped and shot, pumped and shot, pumped and…nothing.
He pumped again and pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
And he pumped again and pulled the trigger.
Still nothing.
From where his mind was, he couldn’t understand what was happening. Why wasn’t it shooting? Why weren’t the zombies being ripped apart anymore?
Sven began to stagger backward, still pumping the shotgun and pulling on the trigger. Nine of the zombies had fallen to his five shots, ripped apart by the scattering Wolf Power pellets. Sven didn’t have the presence of mind to count how many zombies remained, but there were at least as many as were down, still standing, still advancing.
He finally understood what was happening—the shotgun was empty, he had to reload. He fumbled for the cartridges stuffing the pockets of his pants. He picked one out with a trembling hand, checked that the business end was facing away from him, and…fumbled it.
The cartridge bounced on the floor, plinking away from him, and began to roll.
Sven didn’t watch to see where it would go. He reached in his pocket for another cartridge, trying to keep his hand steady. He glanced up as he withdrew the cartridge and his hand began to shake again.
The zombies were gaining ground, their faces sickening masks of blood and gristle. Sven turned the cartridge the right way and dropped it too, cursing the spasms of disquietude gripping his body.
I can’t do this, he told himself, I mean, damn, I can do this. I can, come on Sven, come on.
He glanced to his left and saw that he had retreated deeper into the dairy aisle. He got his bearings, and reached for another cartridge.
This one’s the one, Sven told himself, and it was. He successfully loaded the cartridge into the chamber, and shot it.
Two zombies in the front of the pack fell backward in a mangle of zombie flesh, landing in the path of the undead behind them.
That gave Sven the moment he needed to load the shotgun all the way—four plus one.
When he was done loading, Sven pumped and shot, ripping the five cartridges of Wolf Power pellets through the air, and through the zombies’ putrefying flesh.
They fell in twos and threes, crumpling in on themselves and deteriorating into a mash of what Sven interpreted as pus-covered, clothed leather.
It only took eleven cartridges worth of Wolf Power to take out the contagion feeding on the meat section.
When the zombies all lay still, Sven made his trembling hands relax a little, reloaded the shotgun, and let the weapon hang down to the floor.
“That’s quite a device you got there,” Brian said, coming up from behind Sven. “You didn’t need any support from us at all.”
Sven turned around to face them. “I’ve never shot one of these before. It’s...it’s...loud.” He looked down at the Benelli SuperNova in black synthetic, and wondered where it had been all his life.
Then he felt a rustle on his back and heard Ivan meow as the cat clawed his way out of the backpack, and regained his perch on Sven’s shoulder. Sven figured Ivan must have hidden himself when the shooting started, and thought it unreal that the cat hadn’t run away during all of that loud noise.
Sven turned his head and looked into Ivan’s gleaming eyes. “You’re a very brave cat, you know that?”
Ivan meowed. Apparently, he knew exactly how brave he was.
Abruptly, Milt trundled past Sven and toward the carnage in the meat section, then stopped amidst the destroyed zombies. He seemed to linger there a little too long, and Sven thought he saw the man inhaling deeply as he stood over the carcasses, as if enjoying the odor...but that couldn’t have been right.
Then Milt waddled back to Sven and Brian, a strange look of wonderment on his face.
“Yes,” Milt finally said. “Fine, fine...all well and good, but I am allergic to felines.”
Ivan meowed.
He would be the type to be allergic to cats, Sven thought.
“That’s too bad,” Sven said, turning away from Milt and wondering why the man didn’t try harder to fit in.
“And, not only am I allergic to those wretched animals,” Milt waggled a well-padded finger toward Sven’s shoulder at Ivan, “but I am afraid that I must inform you that I am a sufferer of felinophobia, which is a clearly demarcated subset of zoophobia…I assure you that my condition is well-documented. I have a copy of my diagnosis in my home. That thing you have on your shoulder cannot remain with us. Please release it into the wild, where it belongs.”
Feeling livid with rage, Sven looked Milt in the eye. “Don’t you point your fat finger at my cat. He’s not going anywhere.”
Then Sven turned to Brian, deciding to ignore the fat man’s continuing inanities—he was now going on about his metabolism, probably trying to shift the blame for his obesity away from himself and onto some uncontrollable, albeit nonexistent genetic factor.
“Let’s scour the rest of this place,” Brian said, then nodded toward the pile of rotten gobbets, “and then I guess we gotta...”
Sven caught Brian’s drift. “Take out the trash. Yeah.”
Sven reloaded his shotgun, hands still trembling as he did it, and then he paused. “Why are these wet? The ones we’ve come across so far today, they’ve all been dry, coming apart like paper…these—” he pointed to the pile of pellet-ridden zombie parts, “—didn’t explode into dust and fragments like the other ones. They’re bloody and moist…more
like people.”
“Maybe it’s the meat,” Brian said. “They’ve fed, so they’re healthier. Maybe it’s the rain too. Who knows?”
Sven felt a growing sense of unease. “What if that means they’re getting stronger?”
Brian shrugged. “We fight harder then, or try to figure out what’s causing it. Maybe we can stamp it out at the source.”
“I suggest,” Milt said, “that we conference on that issue once we have secured the immediate area. There will be plenty of time for uninformed conjecture once we have removed the zombie threat from what is to be our new living quarters.”
“Okay,” Sven said. “You’re right. Let’s go.”
The three of them set off to check the rest of the Wegmans.
Their inspection of the rest of the supermarket was for the most part uneventful. Sven followed close behind Brian and Milt as they searched the aisles, stockroom, and various back corners of the large store.
There were only four zombies that they could find apart from those that had been snacking in the meat section.
Three of the four were wandering up and down the water and sports drink aisle, two stumbling side by side in one direction and one by itself stumbling in the other direction.
Milt cut up the group of two with panting, diagonal slashes of his sword, and Brian took out the lone one with his baseball bat.
The last zombie was the worst of all.
They found it in the pet food aisle…in the cat food section.
Ivan alerted them to the zombie’s presence with an unusually vehement hiss that startled Sven. After looking up and down the length of the aisle and almost walking past it, Sven finally saw what it was that had so unsettled Ivan.
In the middle of the aisle, the lowest shelf was moving intermittently, as if emitting sudden, fitful gasps. Sven hadn’t noticed it until he stood by it for a few moments, then he jumped backward in disgust.
“What is it?” Brian asked.
“Look,” Sven said, pointing down, “there’s something in there.”
“Like an animal? How could anything fit in there?”
As if in answer, a stack of Classic Salmon & Shrimp Feast, by Fancy Feast, turned over at them, sending cans rolling down the length of the aisle. Sven picked up a can that was rolling toward him and examined it. It was one of Ivan’s favorite flavors. Sven pocketed it and refocused on the task at hand.
Another stack of cat food cans turned over. This time, the cans flew in a somewhat coordinated formation toward the opposing shelf.
Under the clatter, Sven thought he heard something else. “Did you hear that?”
Brian nodded gravely.
Milt squeezed by Sven and Brian and turned to face them, turning his back on the clattering cans. “Enough of this protracted cowardice. Obviously there is something lurking beyond these wretched feline victuals.”
Milt stood there, looking back and forth between Brian and Sven, like he was expecting them to do something about it.
“If you think it’s so obvious,” Brian said, “why don’t you take a look?”
“I was going to extend that courtesy to you—”
“No,” Brian said, hopping backward to avoid another tumbling can. “It’s all you. You got it.”
Sven wasn’t too hopeful for what they might find beyond the stacks of wet food, but he was now curious to see how Milt would go about this task, and if he would balk.
Milt looked uncertain. He glanced at Sven, then Brian, then back at Sven again. Then he straightened, harrumphed, and waddled over to the source of the commotion. Another can shot out, hurtling down the aisle away from them. Sven imagined that Milt would’ve jumped in surprise if he was a little lighter...but he wasn’t, and he didn’t.
Sven instinctively took a step backward as Milt stopped in front of the jangling cat food cans. Sven began to raise his Benelli, then lowered it, reminding himself that it wasn’t a precision weapon, and shooting at whatever was lurking amidst the cat food would reduce Milt to a mishmash of shredded, fatty gobbets. Sven shuddered and wondered if that was a sight worse than the zombie carnage they had all witnessed so far. He didn’t want to find out.
Milt bent over with some difficulty, and peered into the spaces between the stacks of cans.
“See anything?” Brian asked.
It seemed to Sven that Milt didn’t, but the fat man didn’t answer.
After peering into the low shelf for a few more moments, Milt straightened and turned to look at Sven and Brian with a look of annoyance. “I have completed my inspection. I conclude that there was a small animal hidden there, no doubt harmless, and we should proceed with—”
“You’re just tired from all the bending over,” Brian said.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me, you weren’t even low enough to take a good look.”
“Well if you so firmly believe that you are capable of performing a better inspection, I suggest that you—”
A hand shot out through a jumble of cans and took hold of his scabbard.
Milt didn’t finish his sentence, but he did scream.
89
Evan looked on as the men walked into the large supermarket and the door slid shut behind them. Then he put his palms on the pavement behind him for support and turned to Lorie and Jane. They were talking about something—probably about guns and weapons and other things that Evan didn’t like.
He wished it was yesterday again, and he was back at home, safe, and far away from all of this. He was a little more than halfway through the first Harry Potter now, and he knew that he was way late to the Hogwarts party. His friends kept teasing him about how he hadn’t yet caught up with the rest of them in Harry’s wizardly adventures. Evan had avoided picking up the books for a while, because he’d thought the series was just a dumb fad, but had finally given in two days earlier, and found that he couldn’t put the first book down.
It really was very good. He was up to the chapter about Nicolas Flamel, and he wished he could go back to the safety of his room, close the door, and finally learn who this Nicolas Flamel character was.
Evan sighed. He could just ask Lorie, she knew—she was one of the kids that teased him about being so out of the Harry Potter loop—but that would take the fun out of reading it himself. Maybe the Wegmans had some Harry Potter books, and he would read them there, and then he would go back home, and everything would be fine—the same, just as it was before. The adults would fix whatever was going on. It was probably just some flu or something, nothing—
He remembered how his dad and Lorie’s mom had behaved that morning, and he knew nothing would ever be the same. It wasn’t just a flu, and for some reason, Evan hadn’t remembered any of what had transpired earlier that day while he daydreamed about Harry Potter. He’d felt like that all day—floating in and out. And he was feeling even more loopy now.
Maybe this whole thing is a dream, Evan thought, and I’m sick in bed.
But he couldn’t convince himself of that, because everything felt so real. Remembering that morning, and running away with Lorie—that made Evan not care about Harry Potter or Nicolas Flamel anymore. Not one bit. He wanted the nightmare to end...maybe the doctors could help his dad and Lorie’s mom, and then everything would go back to how it was before, and—
Evan felt very thirsty all of a sudden. It was no ordinary thirst, either. It was a gut-wrenching dryness that he felt no amount of water could satisfy.
He struggled, tottering, to his feet, as if compelled by some primal drive, and began to lurch his way over to Jane and Lorie.
Jane was showing Lorie one of her guns, pointing to the different parts and saying something that didn’t register in Evan’s mind.
They looked up as Evan staggered closer, and he saw an expression of alarm travel across Jane’s face. Then she set her jaw and all traces of the expression were gone.
“Can I have some more water?” Evan asked. “I’m so thirsty.”
Jane nodded and went to t
he car. She retrieved Evan’s water bottle and handed it to him, and it seemed to him that she was standing a little too far away from him, as if she didn’t want to get too close. But maybe that was just the dehydration. Then again, she had pointed the gun at him in the car. Maybe she thought...the same thing that the fat man...
Feeling his insides cry out for water, Evan let his mind float away from that terrible encounter.
Even the pile of zombie parts in the parking lot had gotten the benefit of being soaked in the rain, he thought with envy, wondering if that was a strange thing to think. It seemed such a natural idea to have.
He eagerly unscrewed the cap and drank the water down in furious gulps. It helped to unglue the insides of his mouth, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted more.
Evan asked Jane for more water, or rather, he tried to. His second request for water came out as a series of garbled hisses and splutters. His own voice sounded alien to him. He was finding it very difficult to coordinate his lips into the right movements, and then the wooziness hit him again, and there was a sharp pain in his gut, the world reeled, and—
He lay on the pavement, his head on something soft, not remembering how he’d gotten there. The fuzzy images in front of his eyes resolved and he saw Jane and Lorie looking down at him. One of them was giving him water to drink, and that was good, but it wasn’t helping the thirst.
“Did I fall?” Evan asked, not sure if he had said the words, mouthed them, or just thought them.
Jane nodded, her lips in a horizontal line.
“The fat man,” Evan whispered, “with the sword...he thinks I’m turning into a...” Evan trailed off, his mind dipping. Then it was back on track—on some track. Evan wasn’t sure it was the right one. “I can see it...in the way he looks at me...like you...I think he’s...”
Jane and Lorie began to turn fuzzy again, and he tried to get them back, to make the fuzziness stop, to—
