by Sarra Cannon
“After you, my dear.”
“Why, thank you,” Parrish said with a curtsy.
Karmen giggled as they walked inside. She had started to think she might never make it to a mall ever again. After what had happened to her last time she’d tried to go shopping alone back home, she wasn’t sure she’d want to risk it, anyway. Knowing there was a safe place to shop right across the street from the compound made her even more convinced they’d made the right decision coming here.
“Where do we even start?” Parrish asked.
“Bags,” Karmen said. “I’m obsessed with bags, and they have all the best designers here. Stuff that costs hundreds of dollars. Come on.”
Her mother had only given her a small allowance, telling her it wasn’t healthy to be so obsessed with material things, but her mother wasn’t here, now was she? And everything was free for the taking.
She walked around like a kid in a candy store, running her hand along the leather.
Parrish walked around one of the sales kiosks and pinned a “Sales Associate” tag to her shirt. “Welcome to Saks, how may I help you?”
Karmen giggled and straightened her dirty clothes. “Ah, yes, I’m looking to purchase a bag.”
Parrish held her index finger to pursed lips and nodded her head, as if trying to decide on the perfect item for her latest customer. “What type of bag are you looking for?”
“Something big enough to hold a pistol,” Karmen said. “And a couple boxes of bullets.”
“Hmmm,” Parrish said, looking around the store. “Wait, I have just the thing.”
They walked to the back wall and Parrish pointed to an array of leather messenger bags and backpacks. Karmen spotted a gorgeous pink cross-body bag and pulled it off the wall. “Valentino,” she whispered.
“Yes, that’s an excellent choice,” Parrish said in her best snooty-sales-person voice, but as soon as she looked at the tag, she dropped back to her normal one. “Damn. Eight hundred ninety bucks? For a bag? Jeez.”
“You can charge it to my credit card,” Karmen said, pretending to grab it from her back pocket.
They looked at each other and burst out laughing.
An hour later, they had each picked out new bags for themselves and Lily, several changes of clothes, and shoes Karmen declared were ‘good for zombie killing’. It was the first time they had gone shopping together since the summer before they started seventh grade.
“Should we get something for the guys?” Parrish asked. They had moved over to the Gap outlet store, and were browsing through a rack of shirts.
“We can look,” Karmen said, thinking back to that summer long ago when so many things had gone wrong. She followed Parrish over to the men’s side of the store. “Hey, Parrish?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember that summer my parents took us to the Mall of America?”
Parrish threw the jeans she was looking at back on the table. “Sort of,” she said. “What size do you think they wear?”
Karmen ignored her question, wishing they could go back to the days when they’d been friends. “I guess we never really hung out after that.”
“Nope, I guess not,” Parrish said, her bitter tone threatening the fun atmosphere of the morning.
A tense silence followed, but Karmen didn’t want things to end like this. Today had stirred up so many memories of the past, when they were close. She wished she could make Parrish understand that she’d had no choice about what she’d done back then to destroy their friendship. “Do you ever wonder why?”
“If I’m remembering correctly, you were a complete bitch to me once school started back.”
Karmen folded and refolded the same collared shirt. “I wasn’t that bad, was I?”
Parrish moved the hangers on the rack of shirts next to her so fast a few of them fell onto the floor. “What fantasy world are you living in? You completely ruined my life that year. Don’t you remember telling everyone that I had lice? Oh, and then there was the fact that you threatened everyone who was having any kind of party that if they invited me, you and the rest of the junior varsity cheerleaders wouldn’t come.”
“I only did those things because... “ she sighed, her voice trailing off. She hadn’t meant to ruin the morning. She’d only wanted to talk.
“No, please, tell me what I did to deserve complete social outcast status.”
Karmen had pushed the conversation to this point, but now that the moment of truth had arrived, she was nervous.
“Tell me,” Parrish insisted. “Please tell me you had some reason for turning your back on your best friend, besides me not being pretty or cool enough for you.”
“Is that what you think? That I stopped being your friend because you weren’t pretty enough?”
“What else was I supposed to think, Karmen? We were best friends for years, then you get on the JV cheerleading squad and develop some boobs and all of a sudden I’m not good enough for you anymore.”
Karmen wanted to tell Parrish the rest of the story, but she was scared. Other than the other night with Crash, she had never told anyone about her father. She’d only sabotaged her friendship with Parrish to protect her. She’d seen the way her father had stood in the doorway of their hotel room, staring at her friend like he’d always stared at her. She would never have been able to forgive herself if she’d let him hurt someone else.
But if she told Parrish the truth, would she be able to forgive her?
Before she got the chance, she heard a shuffling noise to her left. Parrish started to talk again, but Karmen held up her hand and listened. Was there someone in the store with them? The woman in the red dress had told her the mall was totally clear of zombies, but what if she’d been wrong?
A low growl sounded from the shadows and before Karmen’s mind could totally register what was happening, a woman jumped at her from behind one of the clothing racks. Her decaying hands wrapped around Karmen’s throat and dragged her to the ground. She tried to scream, but she could hardly breathe.
Parrish pulled her sword from her back and cut off one of the woman’s hands. Karmen pushed away and crawled forward, kicking at the rotter who was still grabbing at her with her remaining hand.
Karmen turned onto her back and kicked again, watching as the sword in Parrish’s hand exploded in flames and came down hard on the woman’s neck.
The stench of burning flesh turned Karmen’s stomach. “Thank you,” she said, coughing and swallowing to get the tightness of fear out of her throat. “How did you do that?”
Above her, Parrish stared at her sword as the flames died down. “I have no idea,” she whispered.
“I thought your powers turned things to ice,” she said.
“I did, too.”
Parrish shook her head and offered her hand. Karmen took it, using the leverage to pull herself up.
“Thanks,” she said again, trying to control her wavering voice. The attack had come out of nowhere and she couldn’t fight the wave of emotions rushing through her. A sob escaped her lips and she covered her mouth.
“Are you okay?” Parrish asked. “You weren’t bitten or anything, right?”
“No,” she said between hiccup-like gulps of air. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath. It was all just too much. Every time she thought they were safe, something else happened to bring her back to the horror of the world. She wasn’t sure she could handle it.
She needed to know she wasn’t alone in this, and she hated herself for treating Parrish the way she had all this time. She’d been blind. She hadn’t realized how much she desperately needed a friend.
“I’m so sorry, Parrish,” she said. “I never meant to hurt you. You have to believe me. I was only trying to protect you. I didn’t want him to hurt you like he hurt me.”
“What?” Parrish asked, touching her arms. “What are you talking about?”
“My dad,” she said, sobbing. Wanting to get it out of her. Wanting to be able to let it go, once and for
all. “I pushed you away so he wouldn’t—”
Before she could finish, Parrish pulled her close and held her so tight, she could hardly breathe. Karmen’s arms wrapped around her friend and they cried together, the weight of their past pain and anger lifting for the first time in ages.
“I didn’t know,” Parrish whispered.
“We should probably get back to the others,” she said after a while, when she was finally able to speak without sobbing. She pulled away from Parrish and wiped her face and nose on a shirt from the rack.
Parrish smiled and raised an eyebrow at the shirt. Karmen shrugged and laughed, her lungs stuttering at the sudden intake of air.
“Hey,” Parrish said, touching her arm. “Whatever happened in the past can stay there. We’re here together now, that’s what’s important. And I promise, I’ll never let anyone hurt you again.”
Karmen nodded, her eyes filling with tears again.
“Come on,” Parrish said, picking up some of the bags they’d filled with clothes. “Let’s head back so we can try all this stuff on and make the guys insane with jealousy.”
Karmen smiled through her tears and linked arms with her old friend, feeling light and free for the first time in as long as she could remember.
“If you're looking for some real firepower, give this sucker a try.” Tank handed Noah a semi-automatic rifle. “This here's an AK-47. Russian military grade artillery. With this puppy, you could shoot the head off a zombie from half a mile away. Be careful, though, it’s heavy as hell.”
To Noah, it was light as a feather.
“Thanks.” Noah pulled the gun to his shoulder and looked through the sight.
“Woohoo!” Crash slapped him on the back and held his own gun up in the air. From the looks of it, Crash had chosen a high-powered rifle. Noah also noticed a couple of pistols in his waistband. Someone was enjoying the unlimited firepower of this armory. “Is this the coolest or what? Let's head up to the roof and get in some target practice.”
“What's up on the roof?”
Crash lifted an eyebrow and gave him a sly smile. “Why don't we grab the girls and go find out?”
“Don’t go far with those guns,” Tank said. “Meet me on the roof in five.”
Parrish, Karmen, and Lily were sitting on the floor in their temporary bedroom, going through a bunch of bags filled with clothes. Parrish had changed into a pair of tight black jeans and a black tank top. Her long hair was newly washed and fell straight down her back in a way that took Noah's breath away.
“I take it your shopping trip was uneventful?” he asked. When she looked up at him and smiled, his heart did a double-pump.
“Nice gun,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“Guns,” Crash said from behind him. “Plural. Now go out there and pick your poison. We're all heading up to the roof for some shooting lessons. If we're going to volunteer for any missions, we need to make sure we all know how to aim for the head.”
“There's no way I'm going to use a gun,” Karmen said, stuffing clothes into a tan backpack.
“Oh?” Crash leaned against the bedpost. “And how exactly are you going to keep yourself safe for the rest of your life?”
“I'll just use my mind thingy,” she said with a shrug.
“Okay, that's fine for one or two, or even a group when you’re inside the safety of the Humvee, but we never know what kind of situation we might end up in eventually. How many of those things can you control with your mind anyway? And for how long?”
Noah saw a look of concern cross Karmen's face as she considered this question. “I don't know,” she finally admitted.
“The other thing to consider is that if we don’t want these guys to know about our powers, you won’t be able to use your mind control for a while,” Noah said, glancing toward the door to make sure no one was standing in the hallway.
“Then it's settled,” Crash said, grabbing her hand and pulling her up from the bed. “Pick out a gun just in case. I’ll help teach you how to shoot it.”
A few minutes later, the five of them were up on the roof of the armory with Tank as their teacher. “One thing we know for sure is that the rotters are attracted to noise,” he was saying.
“Yeah, we learned that the hard way,” Noah said, glancing at Karmen. Had it really only been a couple weeks since her screams had attracted a huge group to them in D.C.? It felt like months had passed.
Tank pointed at a hand-crank siren set up near the edge of the roof. “We had this siren installed, gosh, about twenty years ago? Mostly, it was for emergencies like tornadoes or bad weather or whatever. Only used it a handful of times, really. But this baby's responsible for helping us keep the area clear of zombies. See, what we do is crank it up and wait. With the noise this thing makes, any rotters within a two mile radius will head this way, thinking they're about to get fed. Even the ones who were inside, hiding from the sun.”
"Then, when they get here, it’s like shooting fish in a barrell,” Crash said. “Brilliant, dude. That's awesome.”
“Crank 'er up.” Tank pointed to the siren and backed away. Crash jumped right in and cranked the handle. In seconds, a screaming siren blasted out across the parking lot below.
Noah lifted his hands to his ears. Dang, that was loud.
He scanned the surrounding area. A large warehouse was directly behind them. The mall was across the street. To his left, he could see a gas station and a housing subdivision beyond that. To the right, there was a grocery store. When the zombies started coming, they should be pretty easy to spot with all the open parking lots around. Tank had chosen the perfect spot for his compound. High ground. Easy line of sight. No trees to block the view.
He didn't have to wait long before he spotted the first one. A woman in tattered clothing stumbled toward them from the gas station. She had a terrible limp and her gray hair was matted to her head. Half of her face was already rotted away. Either that or something had been chewing on her.
“Why don’t you take this one out, Noah,” Tank said, pointing to the woman.
He lifted the AK-47 to his shoulder, lined up the woman's head in his rifle's sight, took a steady breath in then pulled the trigger on the exhale. A burst of bullets shot forth from his rifle and the woman's head exploded. Her body remained standing for a moment, and then slowly fell to the asphalt in a bloody heap.
“Sweet,” Crash yelled. “You got one.”
“Good shot, man,” Tank said, holding up his hand.
Noah slapped his hand and smiled.
“This one's mine,” Parrish said. She had also grabbed the same gun as Noah and was aiming at a middle-aged male lumbering over from the grocery store side. It took her a long while to take aim, but when she pulled the trigger, she was dead on. The zombie's face crumpled in a spray of bullets, knocking him back a few steps before he fell to the ground.
It was slow going at first, but Tank kept cranking the siren, and the rotters kept coming. Most of them seemed to wander in from the housing area to the left, which made sense. Noah wondered how many were stuck inside their houses, too stupid to open their own doors to get out.
They took turns with their shots. Karmen missed most of them, but Parrish impressed him with her aim and accuracy. The gun had some major recoil, but once she learned the feel of it, she rarely missed. Crash seemed to prefer the carpet-the-entire-area-with-bullets-and-hope-for-the-best style, sitting on his trigger and waving his gun around until most of the zombies were dead or unable to move. Not very efficient, but it worked most of the time.
Lily was completely out of her element. She had a hard time holding her weapon and couldn’t seem to hit her target no matter how hard they tried to teach her.
As for Noah, he was a natural. He never missed, landing a perfect headshot every single time. Tank was starting to take notice, and he wondered if he should miss on purpose, just to make it look more realistic.
“Your turn, Karmen,” Noah said.
She took aim and pulle
d the trigger. The gun kicked her shoulder back and the bullet missed by a mile.
“I can't do it,” she said, setting her gun down on the roof. “This sucks.”
"It takes practice,” Noah said. “Don’t give up.”
He was trying to give her some encouragement, but apparently Karmen had ideas of her own. A group of four zombies were crossing the street from the mall in a little cluster. Karmen stared them down, and before anyone realized what she was doing, the rotters stopped moving, as if their feet were glued to the ground.
What was she thinking? Not with Tank right there on the roof. Not after they'd all decided to keep their abilities a secret. Noah tried to distract him by pointing out an elderly man on the other side of the armory, but Tank had already noticed the strange behavior of the group.
“What the hell?” Tank asked, pointing at the small group that was now completely frozen in place on the sidewalk. “What are they doing?”
“Weird,” Noah said, trying to act like he had no idea what was going on. “Crank the siren again, maybe?”
He nudged Crash and looked at his friend with wide eyes, as if to say 'do something'. Crash took the hint.
“Hey Karmen, don’t get so discouraged,” Crash said, taking her hand. “I know what will make you feel better.”
He stood in front of her and pulled her close to him, planting his lips right on hers.
Noah and Parrish exchanged a worried look, but it worked. Karmen lost her concentration and slapped Crash across the face, leaving a huge red welt on his skin. The rotters started moving again, stumbling toward the armory as the siren wailed.
Crash winked at Noah, who lifted his rifle and took out the group of four with four very precise shots.
Keeping their abilities a secret from this group was going to be a heck of a lot harder than he’d thought.
“What the hell did you think you were doing up there?” she shouted. They were back in their room downstairs, and it had been hard to keep her mouth shut about it for the past half hour. Karmen had put everything in jeopardy for no reason.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Karmen said, sitting on the bed and crossing her arms in front of her chest.
