Dead (A Lot)

by Howard Odentz

  “Trina, hurry.”

  “I am. I am,” she cried.

  “We’ve got a lady poxer incoming, and she’s not looking pretty.”

  Jimmy was already through the door and out on the porch. “Burn her,” he yelled. “Light her up.” I know he was just trying to help, but when he yelled, the three girls down the street heard him and started toward us too.

  Prianka ran out past Jimmy and jumped the few steps to the ground. She already had a lighter and paper in her hands. She looked at the girls heading toward us and then at Mrs. Demetrion. Mrs. D. was closer.

  “I can’t get the stupid clip in,” yelled Trina.

  I made sure that both clips on my side were fastened tight before running around the Hummer to her. I didn’t need to see Prianka light up the poxer behind us, but I heard the screaming as the thing burst into flames. In seconds, Prianka was at our side. She reached through our octopus of hands and deftly slipped the clip into place.

  “I was going to go to Harvard,” she cried with a mouthful of venom. She headed toward the poxer girls. “I was going to go to Harvard, and I was going to get a scholarship,” she shrieked at them. “I was going to get a scholarship to Harvard, and I was going to be famous. Do you hear me through your ugly, dead heads? I was going to be famous.”

  We didn’t need to look. The rage machine was pumping full steam in Prianka, and I knew that she could handle the poxers no problem. Trina and I ran for the door, bolted past Jimmy who wanted nothing more than to get up out of his chair and help Prianka, and grabbed the guns, the ammo, and everything else.

  When the girls started to burn and squeal, poor Sanjay put his hands over his ears and started wailing, too. Andrew flew off of his shoulder, out the front doorway and landed on Jimmy’s head.

  “Time to fly, Buddy,” he said to the bird as I ran past him with an armful of rifles. I remember thinking there was no way he was going to get down those stairs in that chair without becoming sidewalk pizza, but after I threw the guns in the back seat of the car and turned around, I knew I’d never underestimate Jimmy’s determination again.

  Jimmy was already out of the chair and sitting on the porch. He grabbed a wheel with one hand and heaved the chair down to the ground then scooted down the three steps on his butt and hoisted himself back into his seat. He did it all in just about the time I would have taken to walk down the steps on two legs.

  Prianka didn’t even wait for the girls to pop before she was back in the house and kneeling in front of Sanjay trying desperately to calm him down.

  “Poopy Puppy said it’s time for all of us to go,” she said. “Really, Sanjay. He said it’s time for all of us to go.”

  Sanjay relaxed a little and rocked nervously back and forth. “But where’s Andrew?” he said. “Where’s Corvus brachyrhynchos.”

  Prianka held out her hand to her brother. “He’s coming with us,” she said. “You, me, Tripp, Trina, Jimmy, and Andrew.”

  Fresh tears leaped from her brother’s eyes. “What about Poopy Puppy?”

  “And Poopy Puppy, too.”

  Sanjay got up, the dog hanging from one arm at his side. “That makes seven,” he said. “Like dwarves or Double O.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “That makes seven.” She took Sanjay’s hand.

  Trina and Jimmy were already in the car. Andrew was sitting on the roof. When Sanjay appeared in the doorway, Andrew flew to him and landed on his head. In the middle of the street I could see the fires burning. Was this what it was going to be like from now on? Were we just going to burn them all?

  I got in the front seat and looked at Trina. There was fear in her eyes—that and determination. Maybe she was scared of the poxers, or maybe she was scared that we weren’t going to find Mom and Dad.

  Maybe she was just scared, like me, that this really was what it was going to be like from now on.

  This, and nothing else.

  19

  I WAS STARVING. All I had eaten in the past two days were potato chips, frosted flakes, and some mediocre coffee. We all agreed we needed real food, and we needed to find some in a place where there weren’t any poxers. Jimmy first suggested raiding Mrs. Demetrion’s house because, well, she was dead, but ultimately we just wanted to get out of the neighborhood and to a place where lots of corpses weren’t staggering around.

  Jimmy volunteered a back way out of town that passed by a service station and a convenience store. We could stock up on food. After, if we were lucky, we could get to Aunt Ella’s in a couple of hours.

  The plan sounded easy enough, but nothing ever goes smoothly. Amherst is a college town, and during the school year, the population swells. The dead were everywhere, and it freaked us out.

  All along the route there were poxers—poxers in the streets—poxers on the lawns—poxers gorging themselves on bloody things that I didn’t even want to speculate about.

  On the far side of town, up behind the University campus, we spotted an old white sedan moving in the opposite direction. I slowed the Hummer down and the other driver slowed, as well. When we reached each other, we stopped in the middle of the road with driver side windows facing.

  I lowered our window, and he lowered his. He stared at me first before his gaze passed me and found Trina.

  “Um, hi,” I said.

  “Who’s that with you?” he barked at me. He was old. Like really old.

  “Just my sister,” I said. That was all. I remember once my father telling me that if you want to get someone else to talk, just stare at them and don’t speak. They’ll get uncomfortable, and they start to babble.

  “Who else?” he growled. “In the back. Who else you got?”

  Prianka lowered her window and glared at the man. “Listen, we don’t want any trouble,” she said. “We’re just looking for some food.”

  “I don’t have any,” he said.

  “That’s fine. We’re thinking we might find a convenience store.”

  “They’re all closed.”

  “We understand that,” I said. “We don’t think anyone will mind.”

  “You’re looters, aren’t you?” he spat out. “The lot of you. You’re all damn looters. Well you can’t have my lunch, no siree Bob. It’s my lunch, and you can’t have any.” Before I could say anything he pointed a little pistol right at me.

  The first living person we find since yesterday and he had to be a nut job? For the moment, I was speechless. Thankfully Jimmy took over the conversation.

  “Excuse me, sir,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any reason for that.”

  “Says you.”

  “We have a little boy with us. You don’t want to frighten him, do you?”

  “I don’t give a crap about your little boy,” the old guy said. “I don’t give a good God damn about any of you. I’m probably dead, anyway, and this is some sort of purgatory.”

  He lowered the gun a little and let it rest on the side of his car door. My heart was thumping a mile a minute. Other than paintball once when I was eleven, no one had ever seriously pointed a gun at me. Being on the muzzle end of a pistol was a ‘make you pee in your pants’ moment for sure. Thankfully, I didn’t.

  The old man pulled the gun back into his car and looked straight ahead with an odd sort of smile. “I’m going to Maine,” he said. “I’ve always wanted a beach house on the coast of Maine, but I could never afford one.”

  “I don’t think that’s an issue anymore,” said Jimmy from the back seat.

  “I think I’m going to find the nicest, cleanest one I can with whitewashed floors and big open windows. Then I’m going to shoot myself in the head and make a mess of the whole thing.” He laughed and held up the handgun and pointed it at us again like he was going to pull the trigger.

  “Wanna join me?”

  “Stop
that,” cried Prianka. “You’re scaring my brother.”

  The old man snorted and put his gun down. “I’m scaring your brother? I’m scaring your brother? I’m not even one of the scary ones,” he cackled. “But you’ll see. You’ll all see soon enough.”

  Then he just closed his window and left.

  “Freak,” I whispered under my breath as I watched through my side window as the white car faded in the distance.

  “It’s going to be like that from now on,” said Jimmy. “People are going to be crazy or shell shocked or are just plain not going to trust each other.”

  “So the living are going to turn into monsters just like the dead?” I said as I started down the road again. “That’s just great.”

  “Who knows?” said Jimmy. “After all, we’re all just dumb animals, anyway. We’re all just dumb animals that ruin everything we touch.”

  “Enough,” said Trina. “Really. Things are already about a b’zillion times worse than our worst nightmares. We don’t need you two adding more fuel to the fire.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Jimmy, mostly because he knew she was right.

  “Sorry,” I muttered. “I just want some food.”

  Jimmy directed us down a few side streets and out on to a main road that was mostly rural. Off in the distance I saw the gas station and convenience store. The road was blessedly free of poxers, and in a minute we were in the parking lot.

  The convenience store said North Amherst Sundries on the sign. There were a few other cars in the parking lot, but they all had ‘for sale’ signs on them, which made us think that there was no one around.

  “Food first,” said Trina. She had a one track mind. “After that, a little bit of gas syphoning is in order.” The Hummer’s gauge hadn’t budged much from when we had to steal gas yesterday morning, but we were going to need to fuel up soon.

  The memory of gasoline mouth from yesterday made me grip the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. “The hose is in the back. Be my guest.”

  “You syphon gas?” said Jimmy. “Who taught you that?”

  “Poopy Puppy says you stick one end of a hose in a gas tank and suck on the other end until the gas starts to flow out. Then you fill up a gas can and dump it into your own tank,” said Sanjay, which was exactly how Prianka had described it yesterday.

  Jimmy laughed.

  “What?” said Trina.

  “You’re like some rich kid’s gang,” he said. “Like the Littleham Marauders or maybe the Little Looters of Littleham.”

  “Yeah, that’s us,” I said as I opened the door. “We’re the Little Looters of Littleham. We’re the Triple L gang. You help us loot, or you get the boot.”

  I walked cautiously up to the storefront. There weren’t any poxers around. I tested the door and thankfully found it was unlocked. Everyone else got out of the car, including Andrew, who had made a comfortable new home on Sanjay’s shoulder.

  Together, we went inside North Amherst Sundries and found paradise.

  20

  YEAH, I KNOW we were looking for real food, but there was so much junk food I couldn’t ignore it.

  Sadly, we found the cashier behind the counter. He was dead. A lot. Dead, like in the half eaten sort of way, so we made sure to steer Sanjay clear of him.

  Each of us grabbed one of those little, red handheld baskets and started filling them up with what we determined were essentials.

  Trina was all about the potato chips. Jimmy was all over anything organic in the case next to the register. You know, the pretend junk food that tastes a little too much like hay? He was really psyched about the fruit juice and the carob flavored cookies.

  Ever the practical one, Prianka took two baskets and filled them with loaves of bread, peanut butter, and jelly.

  I zeroed in on the chocolate, because, well chocolate is awesome. Sanjay stuck with me. I made sure to grab a bunch of little packs of sunflower seeds and nuts from the peanut rack for the bird. It’s not that I was getting fond of the flying rat or anything like that, but, well, whatever.

  We loaded our loot into the back of the car. After that, we went back and took as much bottled water as we could fit.

  Since the gas pumps weren’t working, I took the hose and the gas can out of the back of the car, but this time Prianka snatched them out of my hands. Trina didn’t object. We all watched as she expertly syphoned gas out of an old Volvo, followed by a pickup truck that had definitely seen better days. Only after the gas gauge was on the F for full did we allow ourselves the chance to take a break and eat.

  “Where do you suppose the poxer is who got the cashier?” I said to no one in particular as I shoved a powdered doughnut into my mouth.

  “You’re disgusting when you eat,” said Trina, so I smiled at her with a pie hole full of powder.

  “Wandered off,” said Jimmy. “Who cares as long as it isn’t here?”

  “Poxer,” said Andrew, and flapped his wings a few times. Sanjay held out his palm, and Andrew delicately picked roasted sunflower seeds out of it.

  “Andrew learned a new word,” said Sanjay and stroked the crow’s feathers.

  “He’s a smart bird,” said Jimmy. “Been my best bud for four years now.”

  “Yeah, about that,” said Trina. “What’s with the pet crow?” She guzzled an energy drink and tore into a bag of pizza flavored chips. She might have prom queen looks, but my sister could never be called dainty.

  “Andrew? His nest blew down in a rain storm in front of my foster home. He wasn’t even old enough to fly. There were three of them all together. My foster mom at the time, Mrs. Emrick, was pretty cool, and she helped me set up a box with a heat lamp for them. We went to the library and read about how to take care of young birds, and we just sort of, you know, raised them.”

  “What happened to the other two?” I asked.

  “Flew the coop,” said Jimmy. “Andrew here decided he liked the easy life and stayed.”

  I never even thought about foster kids before. For that matter I never even knew someone in a wheelchair before. I barely even knew what autism was and pet crows were what wizards had in fantasy books. Throw in Prianka Patel who vacillated between mega bitch, teen genius, and, well whatever, and we were a pretty odd group.

  “Poxer,” Andrew squawked again, and I was just about to tell him to shut his beak when I saw a zombie coming around the corner of the building. He was a young guy about Jimmy’s age with a University of Massachusetts sweatshirt on that was covered in dark, bloody splotches. He made a beeline right for the Hummer.

  “Now I guess we know who got the cashier,” I said and turned on the ignition.

  “Poxer,” repeated Andrew.

  “Poxer,” said Sanjay as he held up Poopy Puppy in front of his face. “Poopy Puppy says Poxer, too.”

  “I think that’s our cue to leave,” I said and backed out of the North Amherst Sundries parking lot. Jimmy pointed to the right, so I palmed the wheel and pulled the Hummer onto the road.

  The poxer watched us go. I bet he had been hungry, too.

  21

  CAN SOMETHING suck so badly that the light from normal sucking would take a million light years to reach this new level of sucking? Yes.

  Jimmy directed us down the road and told us that there was an exit to Route 116 coming up on the left. If we went down 116, we would eventually find a ramp to the highway up to Greenfield and on to the Mohawk Trail.

  Piece of cake, right?

  There were a few cars on the exit to Route 116 and one accident that I had to maneuver around. When we got up to the main road my jaw dropped.

  “Are you serious?” said Trina. It’s doesn’t happen often, but my sister covered her eyes with her hands because she knew she was going to cry.

  “Tatti,” whispered Prianka under her br
eathe and Sanjay stared at her like she had just said the worst word ever.

  Well, I later found out that tatti was Hindi for what I was thinking, too.

  Sprawled out in front of us as far as we could see were cars. Some were still lightly smoking because they had been in accidents. Some were turned sideways. Some were even on top of each other.

  “They must have been leaving the University,” said Jimmy softly. “They must have been leaving the University when everything hit. Route 116 goes to the highway, and the highway goes north.”

  “Don’t we have to go north?” I asked.

  “Right now, we have to go back,” he answered. “Look.”

  All along the grassy sides of Route 116 were poxers—literally thousands of them. They were in groups and pairs, and some singles, staggering back and forth, probably looking for scraps.

  There were more here than we had seen anywhere, and they were definitely aroused by the movement of our car, because they were acting as though someone had just rung the dinner bell. They all started marching toward us, if you could call what they were doing a march. Old ones, young ones, hippy freaks and professor types—all dead, all ravenous, all infected with Necropoxy.

  Their faces were riddled with bite marks. I think they were so hungry that they were taking bites out of each other. That was the grossest part. Clotted blood and bits of flesh hung off of them like victims of piranha attacks who refused to lie down and admit they were dead.

  Open bone and muscle spilled out of them because there was no skin to hold it back.

  The one I remember most—the one that is burned into my mind—was a guy with a red flannel shirt and a baseball cap that said “Mechanics do it with grease”. He staggered toward us with both hands up and his shirt wide open. Beneath his tattooed chest was an angry, jagged cavity, and out of it, in loopy sausage rolls, came his intestines. They were wrapped around one of his arms, and he was eating them.

  Trina squawked, “Go back,” but the fear had knocked reason temporarily out of my head. “Tripp, go back,” she shrieked again and jabbed me in the arm.