Dead (A Lot)

by Howard Odentz

  Jimmy clenched his fists and flared his nostrils. “I can do things, you know.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said as she leaned into him. “I want you to be around to try.”

  Barf.

  I quickly recovered. “Jimmy—you and Stella check out the situation from the deck and windows up here. See if you can scout out some transportation for us.”

  “And watch Sanjay?” he sighed.

  “That would be great,” said Prianka.

  “Yeah, great,” he echoed.

  Frankly I was getting a little tired of his pity party. Yo, Dude. You’re in a wheelchair and have testosterone issues. We all get it. We really get it. Be satisfied that one of the only two girls around, not counting Stella, is into you.

  I reached for Stella’s keys and endured an indignant squawk from Andrew. Bird-brain gave me a crow’s version of a dirty look when I lifted them off the table. He hopped back over to Sanjay who was sitting quietly flipping through a copy of Urban Green.

  Good, I thought. That might come in handy someday.

  Stella reluctantly explained to us where the main doors were throughout the building. We were on the third floor. Like the bookstore, each of the other three stores had ceilings that were two stories high with lofts on the second floor. Each of the lofts had a metal door for which Stella held the key. Each of those doors led up to her living space.

  There were fire extinguishers at the bottom of each stair case, at the front of each store, and at the back doors to the alley.

  Each of the stores also had access to a common basement near the alley doors.

  I weighed the keys in my hand. Not only were they labeled, they were color coated. Red was for the used clothing store.

  We went there first.

  34

  “GROSS,” YELLED Prianka as she doused burning poxer chunks with a fire extinguisher. We had found three zombies in the used clothing store. Two of them appeared to be a mother and daughter combo pack. Mom was on the young side and definitely beaten with the ugly stick. Sissy was equally blessed in the looks department. It didn’t help that she was wearing knee-highs, a party dress, and pigtails.

  They were in a dressing room in the middle of the store. Between the two of them, there wasn’t enough brain wattage to figure out how to use the door handle. Instead, they had amused themselves over the past few days by taking bites out of each other.

  I held the flashlight. Trina torched. Prianka extinguished.

  The third poxer was a woman who looked like my health teacher, Ms. Dealey. Even in death, she still had that smug, superior expression on her face and a pair of librarian glasses perched on her nose.

  She seemed enthralled with a mannequin dressed way too preppy even for New England. No wonder the poxer wanted to bite its head off.

  Trina lit her up, and we all waited for the high pitched squeal and the pop. Too bad she fell back into a rack of clothes and exploded. Everything in a ten foot radius that wasn’t flame retardant went up pretty fast. Putting everything out took the rest of the fire extinguisher and part of another one. The smell of burnt plastic lingered in the air.

  Amidst the smoldering heap of hand-me-downs and OshKosh B’gosh, we made our way to the front of the store, checked and locked the entrance and closed the security gate.

  Outside I could see the Hummer—so close yet a million miles away. The streets were filled with poxers—not like Times Square on New Year’s Eve, but definitely overwhelming. I didn’t even want to think about how we were going to get out of there. I just focused on securing the building.

  After we locked the back door and the basement door we made our way up the stairs and back down into the health food store. We were lucky. There was a sign on the front door that said ‘Closing at 4 for Fall Fest.’ The place was empty, and locking all the doors was a piece of cake.

  It was at the Agricultural Cooperative where things got dicey.

  At first we thought we were going to be lucky again. There didn’t seem to be anyone in front. We locked the door and shut the gate. I guess Stella forgot to mention the back room. This is where they did all their loading and unloading. There was a big bay door that was wide open. There were also five poxers, all dressed in overalls, and all focused on us. What’s worse was that we were all surround by bags of grain, farmers’ supplies, and about a hundred bales of straw.

  Straw burns. I learned that from the Wizard of Oz when the Wicked Witch of the West gave a little to the scarecrow. Fire was out of the question.

  “We have to shut the bay door,” said Trina.

  “Do you think it’s electric?” That’s the last thing we needed.

  “Better hope like hell it’s not,” she said and made a mad dash through the Red Rover poxer line. One of the dead made a goofy grab at her with both arms as she passed. I supposed I could have laughed if the whole situation wasn’t so freaking scary.

  Next to the bay door was a ladder. At the top of the ladder was a rope-pull used to open and close the door. Very farmy, don’t you think? Trina sprinted up the ladder just in time. The poxers had turned and surrounded her, but not one of them could figure out how to make one foot go in front of the other to climb up after her.

  Next to Prianka was a row of wheel barrows, all bright and shiny and ready to be sold.

  “I have an idea,” I said and grabbed the one closest to me. I threw a bag of horse grain in the blue plastic to weigh down the wheel barrow before running full steam ahead and ramming the closest poxer closer to the bay door. He growled and turned to me, so I backed up and rammed him again until he fell backwards out of the bay and down the five-foot drop to the ground.

  Prianka got with the program, too, and pretty soon we were chasing after the poxers and herding them toward the big opening. One by one they dropped out the door until we got all five of them. Trina dropped the counter weight on the rope-pull and the bay door came crashing down.

  Of course, we had to be all gross in the process. One of the poxers had his hand on the cool cement, trying in vain to pull itself back up through the bay door.

  The hand separated neatly from the body with barely a sound.

  “That’s disgusting,” Trina said as she pointed at the writhing thing.

  “Not for long,” said Prianka and threw a match on the wriggling fingers. The hand lit up pretty quickly, so she blasted the whole thing with the fire extinguisher before we had to deal with another explosion. Together, we all twisted the huge manual handle on the bay door and pulled the lock into place.

  “That was easy enough,” I said as we all leaned our backs against the door, breathing heavily.

  “No. That was dangerous,” said Prianka.

  “Okay. Dangerous and easy. I’ll even throw a little scary in there.”

  Trina kicked the burnt hand, sending the severed palm spinning into the middle of the floor. “I’m not scared of them anymore,” she said. “I’m just really, really annoyed.”

  Hell hath no fury like my sister annoyed, which was a useful emotion to have. Still, when we came to securing the basement, we all lost our nerve.

  The basement door of the Greenfield Agricultural Cooperative was wide open. Steep, wooden steps led down into darkness, and who knows what could be lurking down there? We told Stella we would secure the building, and that’s exactly what we did. I pushed the door closed, stuck the key in the tumbler, and twisted the lock. Tada! Whatever was down there could rot for all I care.

  Just like that, we were done with our clean sweep.

  The three of us made our way back up to the third story and Stella’s place. Stella and Jimmy were sitting at her kitchen table, and Sanjay was lying on the floor with a pile of books in front of him. Poopy Puppy was at his side. Andrew was perched on his back

  “Did you find any . . . were there any of those things
in the building?” Stella asked.

  “Not anymore,” said Trina and blew on the edge of the lighter she was carrying as if she just let loose with a barrage of bullets from a six shooter. “We didn’t risk the basement, though,” she explained. “It’s off limits to you, okay.”

  “I never went down there anyway,” Stella said. “Spiders, you know.” Great—she was agoraphobic and arachnophobic.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “What’s down there isn’t going anywhere. Those are heavy duty doors. Nothing can get through them.” I had to hope I was right. Of course I was right.

  I’m sure I was right.

  “How many in the shops?” asked Jimmy.

  “Three in the used clothing store and five in the agricultural cooperative,” said Trina. “They all went bye-bye.” She walked over and nestled into his lap again. This was seriously going to take eons of getting used to. I turned away and focused my attention on the plate of carob cookies that were still set out for us. Frankly, I couldn’t think which was grosser—my sister and Jimmy or the prospect of eating another one of Stella’s organic confections.

  “What about you guys?” I asked without making eye contact. “Any ideas on how we’re going to get some wheels and get out of here?”

  Stella and Jimmy exchanged glances.

  “Well, we might have an option, that is, if Stella agrees,” he said. “There’re no guarantees that what we’re thinking will even work, but we can try.”

  “Try what?” said Prianka.

  “The chickens,” explained Stella. “Maybe what we’re thinking will work. But remember, I can’t afford to lose even one of my hens.”

  I was getting confused. “Maybe you’re thinking what will work?”

  Jimmy said, “Here goes,” and explained their plan.

  35

  “IT’S JUST CRAZY enough to do the trick,” said Trina and hugged Jimmy hard.

  I shook my head in utter disbelief. “So let me get this straight. You want us to tie a rope to a chicken and lower her over the roof in front of the bookstore like some demented form of zombie fishing? Then, when the poxers come you want to dump hot coals on them and watch them burn?”

  “Essentially . . . yes,” said Stella.

  “The whole building could go up in flames,” said Prianka.

  “No, dear,” said Stella. “Not when we’re made of bricks.”

  She had a point. Everything inside was flammable. Outside? Not so much. I guess we were in the right little pig’s house.

  Still, what I couldn’t figure out was how to tie a rope to a chicken

  While my thoughts were focused on various knots and how to tie up a hen, Sanjay, who had been quiet for quite some time said, “Early thermal weapons were used in warfare during the classical and medieval eras, particularly during sieges. Sometimes, substances were boiled or heated to inflict damage by scalding or burning. The simplest and most common weapons were poured over attackers. Then smoke was used to confuse or drive them off.”

  I shook my head at Prianka. “Does he know everything? What did he do all day long—read the Internet?”

  Sanjay didn’t move. He lifted the book he was reading over his head. The cover was dark and brooding with big read letters that said Medieval Warfare.

  Jimmy shrugged. “We thought we would put him to work while you guys were out zombie hunting.”

  “That book is part of my personal library,” added Stella. “One can never be too prepared.”

  Sanjay put the book back down and continued flipping through the pages. Prianka bent down and looked at the rest of the pile stacked next to her little brother. On the top was Survival for Dummies. The next one down was the 2008 Boy Scouts of America Handbook. The rest of them were more of the same.

  I thought Prianka was going to explode. Instead, she came back to the table and sat down and muttered, “I wish I had thought of that.”

  I looked at Stella’s clock. It was just past four. There was no way we were going to get to my aunt’s house today. Even if we were able to get out of the building and find suitable wheels without getting bitten, I wasn’t willing to risk the dead roads at night.

  “About this chicken and rope trick,” I began. “How exactly would that work?”

  Stella straightened her back and folded her hands in front of her.

  “Well, to be perfectly honest, I was thinking of using one of the roosters instead. You see, I have two of them, and one of them, well, one of them I don’t like very much.”

  I never really thought in terms of likes or dislikes when talking about chickens other than what flavored sauce I wanted to go with my nuggets at the drive-thru.

  “He’s a Cuckoo Maran,” she said.

  “A cuckoo moron?”

  “Cuckoo Maran,” said Sanjay without tearing his eyes away from the book he was devouring. “Known as chocolate egg layers for their very dark brown eggs, the breed was developed in France in the mid eighteen hundreds. The Cuckoo variety displays feathers that are crossed with irregular slate colored bars. It is a dual purpose bird for both eggs and meat. Poopy Puppy says so.”

  I glanced over at Prianka. She just shrugged and very bravely reached over to take one of Stella’s cookies.

  Stella smiled. “Your brother is really rather remarkable.”

  “Yes he is,” said Prianka as her eyes grew wide and round. “Wow, these cookies are great.”

  I didn’t even know what to say to that. Great was about the last word I would use to describe Stella’s cookies. Maybe I just had junk food taste buds.

  “So this moron bird—what’s your beef with him?”

  Stella cleared her throat. “Too much testosterone, I suspect. I don’t like the way he treats my hens.” She pursed her lips. “Frankly, he could do with a little dose of humility.”

  “So we thought we could use him as bait,” added Jimmy.

  “In a cage, of course,” said Stella. “There are plenty of them down in the agricultural cooperative.”

  Of course there were, along with rope, chains, and probably anything else we might need to lower the cuckoo bird to his probable death.

  “I don’t want him hurt, mind you,” said Stella. “I have a feeling that I am going to be in this building for quite some time, and two roosters are better than one if I have a chance of hatching a replacement flock.”

  “Ooh, chicks,” gasped Trina. “I love chicks.”

  Jimmy opened his mouth to agree but caught my ‘don’t say it, man’ glare, so he shut his trap.

  “We’ll need fire,” I said.

  Prianka swallowed the rest of the cookie and said, “Lighter fluid.”

  “What?”

  “You know, lighter fluid like you use for a barbeque. You do know what a barbeque is, don’t you?”

  Well, yeah, I knew what a barbeque was, but I thought you just pushed a button and the flames started up. I didn’t know that you had to use special fluid. Trina and I exchanged befuddled glances.

  Prianka licked the last crumbs off her lips. “There was a fall special in the front of the agricultural store with a bunch of grills. There was also a display of lighter fluid. I thought about stocking up on some before we left.”

  There we had it—our basic plan. The only thing left to figure out was how we were going to get a new ride.

  “What about wheels?” I said. “We still need a car.”

  Again, Jimmy looked at Stella. She smiled weakly. He gently pushed Trina from his lap and rolled forward until his own clasped hands were sitting on the table.

  “Yeah, um, about that,” he began.

  With that, he proceeded to ruin the rest of my day.

  36

  “A MINIVAN?” I cried and threw my hands up in the air. “You want us to drive a minivan?” Even though the
Hummer had its fallbacks, Chuck’s big, yellow, gas guzzler was pretty beast as far as transportation goes—but a minivan? You got to be kidding me.

  “Obviously, I don’t drive,” said Stella. “Even if I did, the last thing I would be driving is a minivan. I would be driving a hybrid of some sort. Be that as it may, I own a minivan that belonged to my late mother. She left it to me in her will as a joke. Now, said joke has been sitting in my garage, unused, for over two years.”

  Prianka tensed. “You have a garage?” she said. “Did we miss your garage in our sweep of the building?”

  Stella shook her head. “No, Dear. The garage is in the alley, and I have the key. She picked up the key ring we used when we went through the building. There were two identical keys marked ‘van’ and two more that read ‘garage.’

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “Mr. Embry, who owns the health food store, starts her up for me weekly and makes sure she’s fed and watered, or whatever one does to an automobile. Mother’s minivan should be in good working order with a full tank of gas.”

  Everyone was quiet. I wanted more than anything to close my eyes and not be hyped up on adrenaline for a couple minutes, but I didn’t think that was likely to happen. When I opened my eyes, I found everyone staring at me.

  “So, are you in, Dude?” asked Jimmy. I saw each of their faces—Trina, Jimmy, Prianka, and Stella. Sanjay, however, was in his own little world absorbing SAT knowledge like a sponge. Why were they waiting for me to give the thumbs up? Who died and made me leader of our happy little band?

  Oh yeah. Everyone died.

  “This is whacked,” I began. Trina rolled her eyes and curled her lip at me. “But it’s the best we’ve got so, yeah, I’m in.”

  “No alternative,” said Prianka, which was probably true. The next thing I knew, Pri and I were downstairs in the agricultural cooperative picking out a small, square cage that looked about rooster-sized, along with some heavy duty rope and as many bottles of lighter fluid as we could carry. We dumped everything by the stairs to Stella’s place before sneaking back up to the front of the store.