by Nick Cole
The strangers were stumbling across the parking lot. Cory watched them and felt that Scarecrow fear wanting to get him again. Just like the Scarecrow had tried to get Batman.
“Hey!” said Bob again.
I’m Batman, thought Cory, pushing the fear off and away from himself.
“I need you to help me push this van right now. Can you help me?”
“Bob, maybe we should just all go back inside the store. The manager said we’d be safe there.”
“We’ve got to make it down to the boat. It’s our only hope, Tabby.” Then Bob, the father of the two beautiful little blond girls and the husband to a wife he loved, surrounded by the end of the world and the living dead, looked at Cory in a way no one had ever looked at Cory. A look that said, “I need to count on you right now, man!”
No one had ever counted on Cory.
It just wasn’t done.
Y’know, because he was Cory.
Bob pleaded, “Batman, can you help me push... like this?” He leaned against the back of the small van.
Cory nodded. They both pushed.
Nothing happened.
“Stop,” said Bob breathlessly. “Tab, go up and put the van in neutral.” A moment later, they began to push again.
“Daddy, can we look now?” shouted Ollie.
“NO!” grunted Bob as the van began to roll forward, slowly.
“Daddy! Finn’s looking!” shouted Ollie from the floor.
“Bob, they’re getting closer!” shrieked the woman.
“Push... Batman!” grunted Bob.
The van was slowly picking up speed, rolling across the front of the pharmacy. The fence and the freeway loomed ahead.
Bob knew he’d only get one chance to push-start the old van. There would be no second chance this time. In that moment, he was afraid as only a father of two beautiful young girls and the husband of a soulmate can be. The fear of no second chances. In that last “nothing else left” moment, he felt more exposed and in more trouble than he’d ever been in all his wild life.
Soundlessly, effortlessly, Cory pushed with all his strength alongside Bob. The van was beginning to get away from them.
“Keep pushing, Batman! Don’t stop!” yelled Bob and lunged away, flip flops pounding across the parking lot as he raced up to the driver’s seat and leapt in.
“I’ll get it started and come back to get him,” he told everyone inside the van.
The van picked up speed even though Bob’s immense weight had been added to it. In fact, it had literally rocked downward on the driver’s side when Bob had jumped in. But Cory was still pushing with all his strength.
Just like he’d seen Batman do. Jaw set. Muscles straining. Determined no matter what.
“I am the night...” gasped Cory from underneath his hot and sweaty mask.
And the van rolled out of his grasp and Cory stumbled but didn’t fall and then watched the van pull away from him.
Whrrr... whrrrr... whrrrr, went the starter.
“Whrrr... whrrr... whrrrr,” gasped Cory.
Then, Whrrrr whrrr.... Raa Raaa Raa Ruuuuuuuunnnnnn.
The red taillights of the tiny van suddenly swerved as the lone headlight played across the mesh fence at that end of the parking lot, revealing swarming zombies crawling through the ice plants along its length.
Bob swerved toward another mass of zombies tumbling after the van in the middle of the parking lot and the van died...
... or almost seemed to die as Bob put in the clutch, gunned the engine and then let it leap forward.
The zombies chased after the van and a few began to lurch toward Cory who stood watching the van race for the far edge of the parking lot. Now there were too many zombies between Cory and the van. A moment later, the van reached the exit and disappeared onto the dark road, heading south, heading “thatway”, heading for the marina and the beach.
In the silence that followed, Cory remembered the reason he had come all this way, remembering Mrs. Sheinman and the bag he was to pick up. Cory turned and ran into the pharmacy.
Chapter Twelve
A woman pushed past Cory without even taking a moment to regard his Batman costume. Her eyes were wild and rolling. She was covered in a thick sheen of greasy sweat. Her hand was bandaged.
“I’m sorry Sir, we’re closed now!” yelled a heavyweight manager type racing forward, wildly waving at Cory. He had a red bloody scratch across his cheek. A large dangle of keys shook from one of his beefy swollen hands.
“I need to pick up a bag for Mrs. Sheinman.” Cory halted the recitation of his mission orders as though interrogated and awaiting further questioning. As though the large, beefy man might ask Cory to next produce papers before proceeding across some imaginary checkpoint. But the manager only raced past Cory, muttering curses as he reached the main automatic sliding doors to the store.
“Awww hell...” he groaned, fumbling with his keys as he inserted one into a small hole near the main entrance and watched the undead mob careen across the parking lot for the store. A moment later, a steel security door began to lower itself from a thin slot in the ceiling. Outside, the undead shambled across the parking lot, stumbling into the bright light cast from the front of the store, slamming into the windows at the entrance as the security door slowly continued to close behind the already shattering glass.
Zombies crawled across the jagged wounds in the glass doors, slithering, down into the foyer in front of the security gate in dripping pools of blood.
Cory stood still, waiting for the interrogation to continue.
The fat manager ran by him again, racing off to the back of the store. “I’m sealing the whole store, Dan!” he shouted out over the clean well-stocked aisles.
The sounds of glass breaking from behind the security shutters grew muffled and distant as the descending door reached the floor of the store. Then a sudden rain of haphazard thuds sounded out like summer thunder as a chorus of fists began to slam into the rolling metal door.
“I need to pick up a package for Mrs. Sheinman,” stated Cory above the chaos. Alone and still standing near the front entrance.
No one answered back.
Cory began to shift from one foot to the next. Almost a little dance. Cory’s dad knew the dance meant Cory was nervous. Uncertain. Worried about what was to come next.
A moment later, a girl in a maroon shirt, feathered hair with a pink streak falling off to one side, appeared from the aisles. She was holding a price gun.
“I think we’re closed, sir,” she said, snapping some bubblegum as she took in Cory’s costume. Then she noticed the security door, rolled down and in place. She took the earbuds out of her ear and now she could hear the violent impacts against the security door. Each one a tiny eruption of summer thunder.
“What the...” but the sentence died between her braces. She walked forward, standing next to Cory. “What’s going on out there?”
Cory shifted.
“I need to get a bag from... Dr. Liu,” he stammered, remembering more details as if that might help him continue on with his mission. Or get someone to help him continue on with his mission. “... for Mrs. Sheinman. She’s sick.” Cory bounced back and forth. Dancing. Still worried.
“What’s going on out there?” said the girl. A teenager. She was looking up at Cory now and there was terror in her eyes. Eyes that reminded Cory of a cat he liked to play with sometimes. The cat was gray and it never said anything.
“I need to...”
“Yeah, I get it. Are you stupid or something? What the hell is going on out there?!” she shouted at him.
At that moment the pharmacist, Dr. Liu, came running up the aisle. He was slight. He was middle aged with tan skin and sun spots.
“Heather, where’s Tony?” he said in a deep baritone voice.
“I have no idea! Do you h
ear... do you hear that out there?”
A brief look of exasperation crossed Doctor Liu’s face. Cory had seen that same look on many people’s faces. He didn’t know exactly what it meant but he knew he didn’t like it. He’d found, in his nineteen years, that it was best just to ignore the look and keep doing what you were doing and in time they would stop the look they made with their faces, all pinched and hard, and let Cory do what Cory needed to do.
“There’s a viral outbreak of some sort, Heather,” said Dr. Liu. “I’ve been getting emails from the Center for Disease Control, but I didn’t see them until just a few minutes ago. This flu everyone’s been complaining about seems a little more serious than first reported.”
Something loud smacked into the roll down door, dimpling it inward.
Heather turned back to Dr. Liu and said, “Uh yeah, that ain’t no flu.”
A sudden buzz and then a pop followed by an electronic squeal and the store speaker system came to life.
“Danny. Heather!” It was the voice of the unseen manager, Tony. “Do not open the front doors or any of the other doors to the store. Corporate just called and told me there’re riots going on everywhere. We’re to lockdown the store and sit tight.”
“It’s a riot?” asked Heather.
“Apparently,” replied Dr. Liu. “Or that’s what corporate would like us to think at this very moment.”
“I need to pick up... a bag...” mumbled Cory, feeling overwhelmed. Feeling very... not Batman. “I need to go right home to Mrs. Sheinman.” Cory shifted from oversized shoe to oversized shoe. He squeezed his eyes shut behind his Batman mask. He didn’t like the loud sounds being made against the metal door.
No, he didn’t like them at all.
An hour later, the noise coming from the front of the store was getting worse as more and more impacts resounded off the steel-shuttered door.
Dr. Liu, Heather, and Cory stood near the pharmacy counter at the back of the store. Cory continued to rock back and forth. At least now he was holding the bag of medicine for Mrs. Sheinman, but the nice Asian man had told him he couldn’t leave. Not just yet.
“Where’s Tony?” asked Heather who’d been texting non-stop. She’d only managed to get a hold of one other person. Her friend Tracy. Two texts. The first stated that Tracy was trapped in her car. The second was unreadable.
“I’ve got to go home,” Heather whispered to herself. She already had her jacket and backpack on.
Doctor Liu had been studying his smartphone, reading all the emails from the CDC.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea right now, Heather.”
“You’re not the boss of me, I’m...” she shouted abruptly and waved her smartphone at him. “I’m outta here right now!”
She raced off down the aisle heading for the back door and the loading dock. Doctor Liu vaulted the counter and dashed after her, easily overtaking her by the time she reached cosmetics where he tackled her and she screamed.
Cory winced.
Doctor Liu hauled her to her feet as she continued to scream and then began shouting, “Rape!”
“Heather!” he shouted back into her face.
“Rape!” she screamed, repeating the word, this time adding, “You rapist, pervert creep!”
Dr. Liu slapped her.
She stopped, staring at him in disbelief.
Then, “I’m gonna sue! My parents are going to sue you for everything you own!”
She began to hyperventilate as her tirade spun further and further out of control and then her legs folded and she fell on the ground crying and gasping for air. Dr. Liu let go of her.
“It’s not a flu, Heather,” said Dr. Daniel Liu as he bent down near her face. “It’s some sort of... insanity. It’s gone viral, or at least that’s what it appears to be to the CDC as of three hours ago, but... “Dr. Liu wiped the sudden sweat from his forehead. “There are reports of dead people getting up and walking around out there. Biting people, Heather. Infecting them.”
She stops.
She sobs once.
“If you get bit, you turn into one of those freaks out there, within the hour,” finished Dr. Liu.
She looked up at him. Her eyes are filled with tears. Her mouth agape. Braces shining from the inside of her tiny bitter mouth.
“I think,” said Dr. Liu, trying to slow his breathing. “It would be best if we all just waited for the authorities to establish some kind of control.”
They stared at one another.
Heather mumbled, “That lady bit Tony before she left the store.”
They both turned to look at the manager’s office up near the ceiling on the back of the far wall. The windows up there were dark.
“An hour ago,” whispered Heather.
“C’mon” said Dr. Liu immediately. “Get up now! We’ll lock ourselves in the pharmacy.”
“I have to go home to Mrs. Sheinman,” said Cory.
“I’m sorry, Batman.” Dr. Liu had already determined who Cory thought he was. “But we need to lock ourselves inside my office for safety.” He paused. “The Joker’s coming to get us and we’ll be safe there, okay Batman?”
Cory thought about this.
“Stranger Danger,” said Cory.
Dr. Liu scratched his head. “What strangers?”
“The ones outside.”
Dr. Liu thinks for a moment longer as Heather rises from the floor. She seems much older than her fifteen years.
Then, “They work for the Joker.”
“Okay,” said Cory and followed Dr. Liu and Heather into the back of the pharmacy. A moment later, a steel mesh gate begins to lower from the ceiling, cutting off access to the pharmacy.
Later that night, Heather’s cell phone died. She’d forgotten to bring a charger to work with her. Dr. Liu gave her a sleeping pill and she curled into a ball and passed out on the floor of the pharmacy. An hour later the manager, Tony, came shuffling up the aisle. Passing the pharmacy. Dr. Liu, hidden, watched him from behind the stock shelving inside the pharmacy.
Tony was gray. His eyes glassy. His pants stained. His lips crusted with vomit. He wandered toward the front of the store and Dr. Liu hoped Tony didn’t retain enough of his former self to actually open the front door to the store. Dr. Liu had read all the CDC briefs. Dr. Liu knew more than most about what was really going on. He knew Tony was dead. He knew all those people banging on the door out there were dead also. Technically. He knows the emails from the CDC stopped coming two hours ago.
They’re probably dead too.
The last one had said they were switching to an emergency command bunker and would be unavailable for the next twenty-four hours.
The missing “if ever” was obvious.
Right there, Dr. Daniel Liu made a plan. He would hold the store for thirty days. By then, the authorities would have a better handle on the situation and he would know what to do. Most Pandemic scenarios hypothesized a thirty day window in which the local population would need to care for itself. A pharmacy was the perfect place to wait out the downfall of society.
It was secure.
No windows.
State of the art consumer security due to access to drugs and medicines.
There was food and water.
Hundreds of bottles of water and juices.
Dried snacks.
Medicine.
There was even a chemical shower in the janitor’s closet. They could ride out thirty days here no sweat, thought Dr. Liu.
Cory spun back and forth in the doctor’s office chair. Then he put his head down on the desk and seemed to sleep.
Dr. Liu looked at his two fellow survivors. His companions for the next thirty days
They would depend on him. He couldn’t count on them. He couldn’t decide which of them was the bigger liability. He knew Heather, in
time, would try to leave, jeopardizing the building’s security. His security.
A thought crossed his mind.
He was amazed in that moment at ever having had it. It was sudden and then gone, but the memory of having such a terrible thought was like a painful wound and he was stunned by it. Amazed really. Amazed that life had reached a point so quickly in which he would have ever even had such a thought.
He could kill Heather with a small combination of medications.
He was ashamed of himself. He closed his eyes, trying to think of peaceful times and family. He thought of his grandmother’s garden in Hawaii. It was his favorite place. The gardenias and their aroma. The warm breeze. The heavy salt air coming in from the sea. The sound of bells. His grandmother shelling peas.
He fell asleep...
... and woke to dead Tony looking at them, his mouth open and closing with a snap as he bumped into the mesh gate. The dead manager screamed silently, his voice now just a rusty guttering whisper emitting from pale flesh.
It was four o’clock in the morning. Just after. Heather and Batman were still asleep.
Dr. Liu watched the undead fat man rattle the mesh gate weakly.
We can’t have the store to ourselves until we clear him out, he thought.
“Destroy the brain of the infected subject to terminate post-mortem function.” That’s what one of the final CDC bulletins had instructed anyone still on the advisory net to do. Dr. Liu rose and went to a drawer near the register. He selected a key from his ring and inserted it into the lock on the face of a drawer.
DrugCo Company policy strictly forbade the use of firearms, or for employees to carry them while at work, or keep them on the premises. But after reading one particularly horrific account of a violent pharmacy takeover entitled “Drugstore Cowboys Gone Psycho” in a trade journal, Dr. Liu had purchased a gun.
He still meant to take a firearms safety class.
He just hadn’t gotten around to it.
He picked up the gun and held it. He looked for the safety and thumbed it off. He aimed it at Tony’s head, aiming through the wide decorative gaps in the wire mesh security fence. He lined up the small white dot between the two closer dots on either side of the gun sight. Just like the man at the gun store had shown him how to do.
