Loose Ends: A Zombie Novel

by Jay Wilburn

  The third one with the sword through its bloated belly lumbered toward Doc. He shoved the creature back using the end of his pole above the hilt of the sword. Doc grabbed hold and yanked the sword free. A wash of gore followed it out on to the ground. As the zombie wobbled forward again, Doc pierced the point of the sword through the head where it belonged. The corpse folded up onto the ground. The sword stayed impaled and the head fell to the side making the fine craftsmanship of the hilt ring against the concrete.

  Doc left it and kept walking.

  Short said, “It’s a shame zombies don’t all come with their own weapons sticking out of them like that.”

  After getting my knife stuck in the zombie’s hand, I disagreed, but didn’t say anything.

  “Where is he going?” Chef asked. “Doc, they’re coming up behind us!”

  I looked back and saw the mob approaching. It was at least as many as the first night they surprised us, but more densely packed. Doc was walking into the gas station. He started fumbling around the racks inside.

  “Hurry,” Short yelled.

  Doc came out carrying several folded papers. I thought about the cards in my pocket and the folder he had brought out of the mystery house.

  He stepped over the last body and pulled out the sword. He held the sword and bar in one hand and the paper in the other. He stopped again and knelt down.

  “Hurry, Doc,” Chef yelled.

  Doc stood back up and looked at us. Short was waving franticly. Doc held up the jacket and Short froze. There was a stenciled motorcycle on the back with The Riding Dead over it.

  We could hear the corpses moaning behind us. He started to drop it and then stopped again. He brought everything to the truck. He dropped the jacket in the floor and set the bar and sword under his seat.

  Chef was already driving before Doc had the door closed.

  “What were you doing in there?” Short asked.

  Doc passed him the papers. Short looked at them.

  Chef asked, “What are they?”

  Short answered, “Maps.”

  Doc answered, “Local maps … we need to start looking for something instead of just wandering. We need to find where people would go to live permanently. We need to search.”

  “What about the jacket?” Short asked.

  No one had an answer.

  Chapter 6: The Morning We Lost the Shopping Spree

  We started driving west and stopped more often. There were a number of locations that were worthy of searching. We covered less ground in a day. Each warehouse we searched was abandoned, each stronghold was burned to the ground, and each site was thick with zombies.

  We went by a prison, but the fences were down and it was overrun. They were built for keeping people in, but did a poor job of keeping the corpses out. Also, they had used a bunch of high tech gadgets to keep the prisoners contained which did not work without power and were not effective against zombies.

  The raider’s jacket revealed nothing. It had the same stencil on the back as the one in the Complex. The shoulder bar read, RD Nomad. There was nothing in the pockets, but a plain, silver lighter. Short kept the lighter and we eventually dumped the jacket. We didn’t like looking at it. We came up with a hundred stories of how the lone raider ended up out alone, but they were all guesses.

  Short Order looked for a town called Nomad, but he didn’t find one listed in the atlas or in the site maps that Doc had picked up from the gas station.

  The sword was intricate and Doc was sure it was some sort of museum piece or from a private collection. None of us knew enough to interpret any of the details. We developed stories wherein the raider had the sword and also where it might have come from somewhere else.

  Then, we arrived at the diner.

  The Silver Bullet Diner was on the main road outside the next town. It wasn’t that far from where we had been, but we were taking longer and stopping more as we searched out specific locations along the way.

  It had a neon sign that was off, clear, and cracked above the curved, sliver siding of the building. There were several orange cones washed into a pile near the storm drain on one side of the parking lot. Yellow tape flapped from a stake in the grass at one end of the diner.

  Doc insisted we stop and search inside.

  “Why,” Short Order asked, “You think there is a colony inside? That’s their thin, yellow flag flapping in the breeze over there.”

  Doc said, “No, but there could be cooking gear better suited for travel meals than our high end stuff. We left a few utensils behind at the mansion of doom. There might be something in the grease trap we could use for fuel. We don’t know unless we look. There might be commercial sized cans of food still in storage. Also, this place is isolated and I don’t see it swarming with zombies.”

  Chef said, “I guess we’re stopping then, aren’t we?”

  He pulled us up backward to the door. Doc opened the storage door to the truck as we walked by the back. Chef pushed on the door to the diner and it didn’t move. He pulled and it came right open. A tiny bell over the door rang as a clip at the top pulled over it.

  “Welcome to the Silver Bullet,” Doc yelled.

  Chef shook his head and we walked inside. Short Order stood by the door and watched outside. Chef pushed open the doors to both bathrooms and shined the flashlight around. He gave the thumbs up after each one.

  Doc looked in the jukebox as Chef was checking the bathrooms. He pushed a couple buttons, but it was dark and nothing happened. Doc went around behind the counter. He lifted cast iron skillets and a couple spatulas from the grill and set them out on the counter.

  He said, “Let’s start loading this stuff up.”

  Chef said, “We haven’t checked the back.”

  “I’ll check the back,” Doc said.

  I walked behind the counter and saw Doc standing straddle over a mummified body wearing a Silver Bullet work shirt. There was a black bullet hole in the center of the emblem. I wondered if that was part of the symbol or if it was an actual bullet hole. It was hard to tell on a dead body. Its blackened skin was drawn tight causing the mouth to stretch open in an eternal scream. It looked like the body was getting ready to sit up and bite Doc in the crotch. That wasn’t farfetched in this world.

  Doc was still standing over the body as he felt through the plates in a green, plastic rack sitting in the dish washing basin. The plates clinked quietly as he looked. He took hold of the handle to the hood for the dish sanitizer. He lifted it open to reveal it was empty and then slowly closed it back again.

  He was smiling.

  “Doc?” Chef said as he picked up the skillets off the counter.

  Doc nodded. He started walking toward the back of the restaurant leaving the worker’s body in the floor. He pushed the swing door open to the darkened back room. He immediately looked down to his left. There was the receiver to an old phone lying on the floor with a coiled wire coming up from the end. He picked it up and hung it up on the wall inside the back room. It made a long, pinging noise.

  Doc said, “Sorry, boss, your call cannot be completed as dialed. I will tell them you rang though.”

  He walked back into the dark. The swing door rocked back and flapped a few times before it went still again. Chef and Short both looked at each other and back at the door. We all waited. Chef walked around the counter and back to the grill. He stopped at the body briefly. He stepped over and continued toward the swing door. I stepped aside and let him go by me.

  Before he reached the door, it burst back open toward him. Doc seemed surprised to see Chef standing there. Doc was holding two large cans. He held them out. One was navy beans. The other was succotash.

  Doc said, “There’s a lot back there. We can pick and choose. I couldn’t see real well, but it is clear of zombies. There’s another body by the door, but he is ‘dead’ dead. I’m not opening the freezer.”

  We began moving cooking gear and various cans to the truck in boxes. Chef was going through the she
lves in the backroom with a flashlight. There wasn’t enough room to take everything.

  I passed Doc going out to the truck as I was coming back into the diner. I went around the counter and then stepped back into the backroom for the first time.

  I looked to the left and saw it in the combined light of the dining area windows and the back light of Chef’s flashlight. The body was slumped in the tiny closet that served as an office. There was money scattered around the counter and floor where the body was propped beside an overturned cash tray. This body was in a little worse shape than the worker out in the main room. The skull was showing through the bits of blackened skin still clinging to the bone. The long phone cord dangled down over one of its straightened legs.

  The office body’s Silver Bullet emblem did not have a bullet hole in the middle. The center of the shirt was blotted out with dark muck.

  I walked by the body and over to Chef.

  He said, “I think we are about full out there. I’m going to take this last box. If you see anything that catches your fancy, Mutt, grab it. I want you to lead out on more of the cooking here soon, so consider this a shopping spree challenge.”

  He patted my back and handed me the flashlight. Chef picked up the box and headed out of the backroom. On the way, he passed by the bank of lockers. The top locker fourth from the end was open and he elbowed it closed. He kicked a piece of plastic that was lying in the floor near the base of the lockers.

  I looked over the cans. I pulled one marked dumplings and another marked cabbage. I wasn’t confident in what I was going to find when I opened them. I stacked them on one arm so I could carry the flashlight.

  I shined the light out on the work shoes sticking out of the cash closet. I shined it up on the lockers as I walked by them. It was like reading the tombstones again. Each one represented a dead soul. Some might still be walking around or even stopping by to eat, but they were just as dead as the two Silver Bullet employees lying on this floor decaying. Maybe they were not just as dead, but they were still decaying for sure.

  The lockers read, John Burgess, Alan Campbell, Sherri Campbell, Tobin Donavan, Bubba “Big Boss Man” Doyle, Carrie Falk, Allison Hadder, Tori Simpson, Collin Trasker, Cory Ward, Donna Williams, and Xaria Zimmerman. I didn’t read the set along the bottom.

  I kicked the plastic along the floor just like Chef had. I shined the light down and saw the empty package. The torn paper attached to the inside read, Pretty Pony – Ms. Lavender.

  I stopped over it and pictured Doc coming out of the woods with the toilet paper and a purple, girl’s toy pony that looked like it had just come out of the package. I shined the light back up on the locker that Chef had elbowed closed. Collin Trasker was on the card.

  I tried to pull it open, but it was a combination lock. There seemed to be a lot of Traskers on our trip. This combination lock had been left open or had been reopened. Whatever had been in here might not be any longer. I wondered if someone could open a combination lock in nearly full darkness.

  I pulled the card off its dry, Scotch tape from the nameplate rectangle. I added it to my pocket of cards and papers.

  I walked back out with my two cans, Chef’s flashlight, and another secret. I expected Doc to be staring at me like an evil wizard searching my soul. He was walking out of the bathroom with rolls of toilet paper.

  Chef was stepping back in to check on us.

  Doc asked, “Anyone need to drop a possum before we leave?”

  “I’m good,” Chef said, “Let’s go.”

  “Mutt?” Doc said holding out a roll to me.

  I shook my head and walked around the counter.

  Doc turned back to Chef, “You sure you don’t want to leave a Chef Sharp special or two?”

  Chef laughed. “No, Doc, I’m good.”

  Doc followed Chef out the door. He held the door for me as I came out too. Doc looked back inside one last time.

  He said, “Thanks for the grub, Bub. Take it easy, Toby. The Silver Bullet satisfied its customers once again.”

  He let the door close on the hydraulic arm. It gave under the pressure and closed more quickly than designed. The bell gave a strangled clank as the door slammed.

  We drove away without attracting attention. It occurred to me as we were driving away that we had not actually looked in the grease traps like Doc had said. I wasn’t exactly sure what the real reason was for stopping there. Despite the mysteries within the Silver Bullet Diner, I really wish we had stayed there that day.

  ***

  Chef pulled off the road again as we crossed over a single set of railroad tracks that curved across the road in front of us. The red and white striped cross bar was in the down position, but most of the wooden plank had been broken off and splintered along the side of the road. It was rotting away, but there were still striped splinters on the dirt shoulder.

  We drove into the parking lot of a large building that looked like a warehouse. The sign said Super Max. There were tall, lamp posts hanging over the empty spaces. Straight lines of thin grass were growing through cracks in the lot that seemed to outline square segments under the pavement that were splitting apart.

  We pulled around to the empty metal frames of the bank of doors on one side. Chef circled by and then backed up to them.

  “That is an unfortunate name for a store,” Short Order said.

  Doc laughed. “Maybe for the people that had to come here to work every day.”

  I didn’t get it.

  Chef said, “I’m thinking about a shopping spree challenge. We can use anything in the truck for dinner tonight, but we get ingredients from here too.”

  Doc pursed his lips. “Oh, I think I’m going to cook a moldy sofa, a bloody smock, and a zombie biting my ankle out from under an overturned shelf.”

  Chef continued. “We should team up. Doc, I enjoy kicking your smartass too much to team up with you. Do you want Short Order or Mutt?”

  Doc said, “Mutt for sure. He doesn’t bitch nearly as much as you two … or me either, I guess. Also, it would be better trash talk if you had said my ass was dumb instead of smart.”

  “What if we only find moldy sofas and ankle biting zombies?” Short Order asked.

  Doc said, “Don’t cook them or sit on them.”

  We got out of the truck. Doc considered the sword, but took his aluminum bar instead. He took a rifle. Chef got a machete and a pistol. Short shouldered a rifle too. I just took the hunting knife. Chef and Short grabbed boxes. Doc dumped utensils out of a pack and took it.

  As we were walking in, we heard moans behind us. Everyone turned. Doc looked up. It was a row of geese in the sky calling and flying on the rise over the parking lot above us approaching the building. As they came toward us, Doc lifted the rifle sight to his eye and started tracking them.

  He whispered, “The honking dead.”

  Chef said, “We may not want to fire a shot off if we’re-”

  The gun reported loudly and one of the birds fell out of formation. It tried to fight for air with its good wing until it vanished over the top of the building.

  Doc lowered the rifle and cursed.

  There was a sound of shattered glass out over the building. Inside through the opening, we heard the glass raining down on the tile floors.

  “Good, Doc, real good,” Short Order said, “We were on our way to a zombie-free morning for once.”

  “This sort of talk is why I stuck you with, David,” Doc said.

  “Why?” Short snapped again. “Why risk it?”

  “I want goose,” Doc said, “and I want to kick your dumb asses in this challenge. The bird fell inside, so I count him as an ingredient.”

  Chef said, “Well, I guess whoever gets it first cooks it since it is inside for the shopping spree.”

  “You wouldn’t,” Doc said.

  Chef ran in.

  He yelled back, “You fired the starting gun.”

  Doc ran after him.

  Short looked at me and said, “I ho
pe that shot wasn’t the dinner bell.”

  We walked in after our partners.

  Carts were piled next to the doors. They were smashed and crumpled in ways I couldn’t explain. The registers sat silent and empty. They seemed to go on for a mile. I couldn’t imagine that many people shopping at the same time.

  Deeper into the store we saw food had been on the right and moldy couches had been on the left. The coolers were smashed open down the line. Tables and platforms were stripped bare. There was the open carcass of a deer lying in the middle of the floor where the produce would have been.

  We walked up a few aisles and saw empty and partially collapsed shelves. We didn’t see Doc or Chef.

  There was shouting to the left. I turned and looked between empty pegs and cracked, cardboard shelves. I couldn’t see them. There was a broken skylight above the area.

  Short Order tapped my shoulder and waved me toward them. We walked over frayed carpet and stepped over yellowed papers glued to the floor. We came out in an open section that still had a few items wrapped in plastic and the broken shells of other things I couldn’t figure. There was broken glass below the sunlight coming in from above us.

  Doc had the goose’s body by the neck and was stuffing it in his pack. Chef was looking up at the dirty panes that were still in place.

  Doc said, “Good luck on the challenge, Chef. You get to choose from rotten deer and broken glass.”

  “Yeah,” Chef said, “Let’s just get out of here.”

  The bird suddenly started flapping and Doc dropped the bag. Chef laughed and backed up from the flailing bird. Doc held the bird down by its neck with one boot. He lifted the heel of the other and stomped down on the goose’s head crushing it. Chef stopped laughing. The bird began twitching and flopping under Doc’s boots.

  Doc said, “Huh, that normally works great with zombies.”

  “Jesus, John,” Chef said looking away from the scene.

  The bird finally stilled and Doc started stuffing its decapitated body into the bag. I couldn’t stop picturing it with duct tape over its beak even though its head was mostly gone. He picked his aluminum bar back up off the floor as he stood.