Dead (A Lot)

by Howard Odentz

  “What are you doing?” I yelled after Trina. She ignored me and walked up one of the driveways. The house was tiny and dark with a couple of cars parked on the lawn and a motorcycle with a For Sale sign spelled ‘4 sail.’

  Plenty of brain power living here.

  The curtains were drawn, and the house looked empty. If anyone was alive inside, they certainly weren’t advertising for survivors.

  Trina didn’t go to the front door. Instead she went to the garage.

  As she bent to twist the metal handle and pull up the door, too many scenarios ran through my mind, like we were breaking and entering, or someone was alive in the house and was going to shoot us for looting, or someone was dead in the house and was really, really hungry.

  Or there were poxers behind that door.

  “Wait!” I yelped.

  “For what?” I caught up to her and pushed her hand away from the handle. She glared at me like she’s been glaring at me since the womb. What I wanted to tell her was that if a poxer was behind that door and had its sights set on my sister’s throat, the thing would have to come through me first. Something entirely different came out.

  “The door looks heavy, and, well, you’re just a girl.”

  She practically bared her teeth at me like a crazed chimp. “So are you,” she sneered as she pushed me away and pulled.

  Thankfully there was nothing on the other side except what you would expect to be in a garage. “We need a garden hose,” she snapped

  “To syphon gas?” said Prianka who was suddenly at my side with Sanjay in tow. “Perfect. We can stick one end of a hose in a gas tank and suck on the other end until the gas starts to flow. All we need to do is dump it into our own tank.”

  I mean, I knew that, but did the Girl Scouts have survivorship pins or badges or something?

  “I’m impressed,” I said.

  Prianka’s eyes literally scanned me over from head to toe. “I’m not.”

  Ouch.

  Sanjay pointed to a pile of junk in one corner. “Gas can,” he said. “Poopy Puppy says so.”

  Poopy Puppy was right. Trina grabbed the red plastic jug and continued poking around the garage.

  “Hose,” said Sanjay and pointed on the wall. A new hose with the price tag still hanging from it hung on a peg-board hook.

  “Where’s Waldo?” I said to Sanjay, but he didn’t respond. That’s fine. It was a lame joke anyway. I had to do something to keep my street cred, which was becoming tougher every time the two Amazons traveling with me showed how little they needed a guy around.

  Trina grabbed the hose and an axe that was hanging on the peg board, too. Out on the driveway she unrolled the hose and hacked off a piece that was about ten feet long. Next she chose the closest car, which probably hadn’t seen a carwash in, well, never, and unscrewed the gas cap.

  “You want the honors?” she said, handing me the hose.

  I sighed. “Why not? Just one more sucky job in a pretty sucky day.” I snaked one end of the hose into the gas tank and sucked hard on the other end. The gas filled my mouth surprisingly fast, and I gagged.

  “You’re not supposed to drink it, idiot,” she said and pulled the hose out of my mouth and transferred the flowing liquid into the gas can.

  “Now I’m impressed,” said Prianka. “That was very, um, impressive.”

  I spat on the ground to try and get the taste of gas out of my mouth.

  “But that wasn’t,” she said and turned away.

  Trina filled up the gas can and trotted back over to the Hummer and poured the contents of the can into the gas tank. She came back and syphoned some more from the car. Prianka, Sanjay and me sat on the front lawn. I was really tired. At this point we had been running on almost no sleep, and I missed my own bed and my own house and my own charmed life.

  Sanjay studied the grass for a while, murmured something, and shifted his gaze to the trees. Watching him was a little like watching a living, breathing computer.

  “Whatcha looking at, Buddy?” I asked him.

  “Buddy’s a nickname,” he said.

  “Yup. We established that.”

  He looked at the changing colors of one of the trees in front of us. “Four thousand and twenty-seven,” he said.

  “Four thousand and twenty-seven what?”

  “Leaves,” he said. A gentle breeze blew our hair, and the sky rained leaves for a moment.

  “Three thousand, eight hundred and ninety-two,” he said.

  I suppose I should have reflected on what he just did, but I was too beat. Prianka sighed and pushed her hair back. She looked tired, too. I couldn’t help but think about her parents in India. Was Necropoxy there, too? My guess was yes, which meant that there was virtually no way they were coming back to Massachusetts any time soon.

  Hell, who even knew if they were alive, although it was pretty right on of Prianka to notice that immunity was somehow genetic. Up until the last text, my parents hadn’t been infected, and for all I knew they were waiting for us less than an hour away at Aunt Ella’s.

  Prianka’s olive skin looked warm and smooth in the sunlight. She closed her eyes and leaned back against her elbows. I watched. Pretty soon Sanjay noticed me watching, so I turned away.

  Trina ran back and forth a few more times before checking the gauge on the Hummer.

  “I have about a third of a tank,” she said. “I don’t want to waste any more time.” She trotted over to us and held her hand out for Prianka and pulled her to her feet. She left me sitting in the grass.

  “Thanks, sis” I said.

  “Welcome.” She tossed the keys at me, and we begrudgingly filed down the driveway and back into the Hummer.

  “Sanjay, which way to 610 Pleasant Street in Amherst, Massachusetts?”

  He didn’t answer. He just pointed straight ahead. I took a look at the gas gauge and prayed Chuck’s fuel hog would get us to Jimmy James and my aunt’s house.

  As for me, I was running on empty.

  12

  THE CLOSER WE got to Amherst, the more zombies we saw. The worst batch was in the center of Bellingsfield. The town common was full of them, making everything look like some sort of demented farmer’s market, the green was already decorated with scarecrows, pumpkins, and bales of hay. The poxers added that much needed Halloween flavor to the whole scene.

  Also, the driving was getting worse because there were car-crashes all over the road. I had to weave in and out of some pretty nasty wreckage and ding a few poxers along the way. I don’t know why, but I thought hitting them was a little fun—probably courtesy of too many video games mixed with a healthy dose of adrenaline and lack of sleep.

  My phone rang as Sanjay blurted out directions, and we merged on to Route 9. We all jumped.

  It was Jimmy James. “Are you still coming for me?” He sounded desperate.

  “No worries,” I said. “We ran into a little gas glitch along the way, but we’re cool.”

  “That makes one of us,” he said. I heard him yell something in the background. He sounded fearful and a little desperate. “Hurry, please. I’ve got death knocking at the door, and I’m not broadcasting anymore. Not enough juice,” he said. “I had to choose between the radio and the lights. I voted for the lights.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment, but I could hear fear in the silence. I didn’t know what to say, so I blurted out, “I think we’re not far. Hang tight.”

  When I hung up I turned to Trina. “He’s scared,” I said. “He’s probably . . .”

  “Watch the road,” she yelped.

  I swerved to avoid a smart car that was playing dumb in the middle of the pavement. We were definitely getting close. Only in a college town like Amherst would there be a smart car, anyway. Driving an anti-environmental gas guzzler like Chuck�
��s ride was practically sacrilegious here. This was the land where granola bars grew on trees and everyone’s favorite color was green.

  The car wrecks were definitely worse here, and there were a lot of dead hippies staggering around. Prianka told Sanjay to count birch trees, the ones with the Dalmatian bark, to take his mind off of how bad everything really was.

  In between his counting, he managed to navigate us directly to 610 Pleasant Street—a low, white building with darkened windows. Thankfully, the radio station was also on the edge of town and away from most of the poxers. Still, when we pulled into the parking lot alongside an old van, a few of them staggered over to us, and they weren’t looking for donations to UNICEF.

  “Do you think Chuck is going to care about his English Lit book?” said Prianka, as she picked up a paper covered volume off the floor and pulled out her lighter. She ripped off the paper-bag covering. For some reason that made me think of my dad sitting at the dining room table and covering my school books for me. That was our yearly tradition. I guess this year was the last.

  Prianka opened the window, crumpled the paper into a ball, lit it, and threw the bag at the closest poxer. She was a girl about our age with braided hair and lots of make-up. In the world of twenty-four hours ago I might have looked at her more than once. But now, the word ‘ick’ came to mind. Her mouth kept opening and closing like a fish. The paper hit her and stuck to her poncho. Within seconds she was ablaze just the like the necropoxers back at Prianka’s house.

  Prianka pushed the close button on the window, turned away, and pointed out a couple of birch trees across the street to Sanjay.

  The poxer popped with a wet, dull noise and sticky fire hit the car and the other two zombies that were close by. One was an old man who didn’t even look like he should be walking. The other was a young guy wearing sandals and a t-shirt that said: Be careful or you’ll end up in my novel. Funny? Sure. The two of them torching up the parking lot and exploding? Not so much.

  The fire was short lived, and pretty soon there was nothing left where the poxers stood but grease marks and, oddly, one Birkenstock.

  I stared at the building. Jimmy said there were poxers inside. I wasn’t too worried about them, because they turned into ash pretty easily. I was more worried that the building would go up in flames before we could get out.

  “Game plan, anybody?”

  “Call him,” said Trina. “Find out where he is and what we’re up against.”

  When he picked up the phone he sounded half mad. “Please don’t say you aren’t coming,” he cried. “Please. Please.”

  “We’re here. We’re outside. I just need to know how to get to you.”

  “There’s a handicapped ramp around the right side of the building,” His words came in tattered gasps. “Go through the door. The broadcasting room is down the hall and to the left.” He took a deep breath and stifled what I can only assume was a sob. “They’re awful. Truly, they’re just awful. How are you ever going to get to me?”

  “Don’t worry about that. Just be ready to run.”

  Jimmy began to say something else, but I hung up before he had the chance.

  13

  “THIS ONE’S ON me,” I said.

  Venom shot out of Trina’s eyes. “The hell it is. I’m faster.”

  “Aw, that’s sweet, sis, but like I said before, you’re just a girl,” I thought her head would explode.

  While Trina was working out her feminist issues I turned and took the lighter and Chuck’s English Lit book from Prianka. She let me have them without hesitation.

  “Good luck,” she whispered.

  “Good luck, Buddy,” echoed Sanjay. He pushed Poopy Puppy into my face and made a smooching sound.

  “Lock the doors behind me,” I said to Trina. “And here’s my phone. You call Jimmy if we’re not out of there in ten minutes. If we don’t answer, you leave.”

  “Shut up,” she said.

  “Shut up yourself,” I said and opened the door.

  Somehow, I think I would have felt a whole lot better if I had a gun instead of a lighter and a copy of Chuck Peterson’s remedial English Lit text. But, as my dad always said, never underestimate the power of the written word.

  Around the side of the building was a long low ramp up to a door. As I slowly walked up the ramp, I ripped out about ten pages from Chuck’s book and shoved them in my pocket. They were part of a short story called “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. Now, I wasn’t much for English Lit, but I remember reading that story and liking it, even the creepy stoning-to-death ending which seemed fitting considering what finally ended up happening with Jimmy James.

  At the top of the ramp was a door with a small window. I cupped my hands around my eyes and peeked inside. The lights were on, but they were dim. All I could see was a hallway with doors on either side.

  I get it, I thought to myself. The station’s like a fun house at an amusement park. You walk down the hallway and hope like hell nothing pops out at you from behind one of the doors.

  Only in amusement parks, you get to get off the ride.

  I took a deep breath, gripped the handle of the door, and pulled. Quietly, very quietly, I stepped inside and let the door close softly behind me.

  Twenty, maybe thirty feet to the end of the hallway—that’s all. Twenty or thirty feet, turn left, and the broadcast room would be right there—except I couldn’t will my feet to move.

  I wasn’t scared. I knew I could handle this. The poxers lit up like Styrofoam thrown in a campfire, which you’re never supposed to do, because burning plastic is bad for the earth but everyone does anyways because it’s so cool to watch. No, what I hated was the adrenaline rush—like that feeling you get on a roller coaster right before going down the first hill. This was just like that—a roller coaster ride.

  I lit up Shirley Jackson’s first few pages and ran down the hall expecting terrible, ugly things to pop out of every doorway.

  They didn’t.

  Seconds later I was at the end, and I had to drop the papers because they were getting preciously close to my fingers. I stamped them out with my feet. No sense in burning up my only exit.

  To the left, about ten feet from me was a set of double doors. To the right was a blank wall. I looked back at the gauntlet I had just run. Nothing was following me. Any poxers in this place were probably trying to eat Jimmy James in his sound booth.

  With lighter in hand I gingerly walked the last ten feet to the double doors. There were muffled sounds coming from the other side, but I couldn’t make them out. I pulled another page of Shirley Jackson out of my pocket and stuck a corner in my mouth. For some reason, I really wanted at least one hand free.

  Gently I pushed the door open and looked inside.

  The broadcast room was big—bigger than I imagined, with dark walls and a high ceiling. There were several empty desks scattered with paper, overturned soda cans, and someone’s dinner in an opened carton, like the ones you get from Chinese food restaurants.

  The whole place smelled like death and Pork Lo Mein.

  At the far end of the room was a separate booth with a big glass window in the front. The lights blared, which seemed weird compared to the rest of the place. Surrounding the booth, like moths to a flame, was a whole host of uglies that probably occupied the desks and the rooms in the hallway until right after Jimmy James’s shift started late yesterday afternoon.

  They were banging on the glass windows with open palms—desperately clawing at the see-through pane to get inside at what, I’m guessing, was dinner.

  Dinner was Jimmy James.

  I could see his shock of red hair inside the booth. His face, I guess pleasant enough to someone as shallow as my sister, was twisted into a horror mask.

  With a gentle nudge, I pushed the door further and stuck my head inside. Th
at’s when the poxer who was sitting on the floor to my right with her legs straight out in front of her got a whiff of me and let out a snarl.

  ‘In for a dime, in for a dollar,’ is what my dad always said. I lit the paper that was sticking out of my mouth, grabbed one end from between my teeth, and dropped the flames on her. Then I slipped completely inside the broadcast room and ran left as far as I could. Within seconds I could feel the heat on my back. By the time I reached the end of the room and got myself behind a desk, I turned to see the poxer engulfed in flames and screeching.

  That caught the other poxers’ attention, and they all turned. Then she popped.

  Not one of the flaming bits of flesh got far enough across the room to hit any of the others.

  “Aw, come on.”

  I counted six in all, most of them probably college or grad students. There was one older guy wearing a bowtie and glasses who reminded me a little of my dad, a black guy with awesome dreads, a couple of non-descript twenty-somethings, and this girl who looked like she was going through a serious rebellious faze. She had plugs, more piercings on her face than I could count, purple streaks in her hair, and several pigtails where pigtails shouldn’t be.

  I wish I had time for Plan C, which means I would have already had a Plan A and a Plan B, but let’s face it, there was just me, a lighter, some old short story, and whatever else flammable I could find. That, and the determination of knowing that whatever happened, Jimmy and I were going to walk out of here alive.

  One of the non-descriptoids wearing an untucked oxford shirt staggered toward me.

  “Fire’s my friend,” I mumbled as I lit a piece of paper. When he was close enough, I flicked the flames at him. The burning wad landed on the ground just short of where he was standing. Like the brainless wonder that he had now become, he reached down to make friends.

  I heard the ‘whoompf’ as the flames danced up his arm set him ablaze. Ten seconds later a falsetto scream filled the room, so I ducked below the desk and waited for the pop, which came in record time.