by Strand, Jeff
Liz found a parking space so far out into the outer edge of the lot that the mall seemed to be on the distant horizon.
“You know,” Randy said, “that’s not a bad idea. It might work.”
They got out of the car. Natalie wanted to hold Kirk’s hand. He refused at first, but Randy said, “Hey, it’ll help her to blend in.”
Finally, Kirk took her hand and they started walking toward the mall. Kirk walked beside Randy and leaned toward him to whisper, “This is disgusting.”
“What is?” Randy said.
Pale vapor puffed from their mouths in the cold when they spoke.
“Holding her hand. It feels so… I don’t know, so…” Kirk started laughing.
Randy laughed with him.
The Vicodin had kicked in.
“What’re you guys laughing at?” Liz said on the other side of Randy.
They were too busy trying to stop laughing to tell her.
Inside, the mall was busy and noisy. They wandered past the food court, which was to the left of the entrance, and soaked in the atmosphere. Christmas music played over the sound system and there were bright holiday decorations everywhere. Santa sat in an enormous red-and-gold throne in the center of the mall surrounded by toys and children stood in line to sit on his knee.
Kirk had almost forgotten it was the Christmas season. Losing Natalie had knocked all the holiday spirit out of him. But suddenly, there in the mall surrounded by decorated trees and garlands of plastic holly, with the Christmas music playing and the lights blinking, in the company of his two best friends, holding the hand of Natalie’s walking corpse, it somehow felt like Christmas.
Kirk turned around and said they should head back to the food court. They were almost there when Liz said, “Oh, let’s go into Hot Topic!”
Hot Topic was a popular store, but it was very small and cramped with merchandise. It was crowded with teenagers, as always, and Randy, Liz, Kirk, and Natalie had to shoulder their way through the store. They were browsing the t-shirt selection when they began to hear the comments.
“What the fuck is that smell?” someone said.
“Jesus Christ, what is that?” someone else said.
They heard someone gag.
Kirk realized Natalie was stinking the place up fast. He met Randy’s eyes and Kirk jerked his head toward the front of the store. He turned to Natalie. She was staring at her right hand. He tugged on her left and said,
“Hungry,” she said, and Kirk felt panic blossom in his chest.
On their way out of the store, moving as quickly as they could, they heard other remarks mixed with laughter.
“Shit, did you see that chick?”
“She looked dead!”
“What was I thinking?” Kirk said once they were out. “We never should’ve gone in there.”
“That was close,” Randy said.
They went across to the food court. It was a cathedral of fast food in which voices echoed off the cavernously high ceiling. It was a clash of aromas: Chinese food, Italian food, Mexican food, Greek food, hamburgers, hotdogs, donuts, Coco, and rotting flesh, all in one place.
“I want an apple fritter,” Liz said.
“Okay,” Randy said. He turned to Kirk. “You want a donut?”
Kirk shook his head.
“Uh… does she?” He nodded toward Natalie, who was staring at the ceiling.
Kirk rolled his eyes. “That’s not what she eats.”
Randy’s eyes widened and his cheeks paled. “Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. Fuck. I was gonna have a donut, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Well, go get mine and we’ll find a table,” Liz said.
All the tables in the food court were occupied. Liz spotted two women and three kids leaving one of the tables near the front, by the tall windows, and they quickly claimed it.
Once they were seated, Liz said, “Jesus, I can really smell her, Kirk. The Vicks worked pretty well for awhile, but I think mine’s worn out, because she’s really getting to me.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll go as soon as Randy comes back.”
“Where’d he go?”
“To get your apple fritter.”
“I can’t eat an apple fritter now. She’s making me sick to my stomach.”
“But,” Kirk said, “thanks to the Vicodin, you don’t really care, do you?”
Liz grinned. “No shit.”
Natalie was staring out the window looking more stoned than the three of them combined when Randy came to the table with a white bag. Kirk stood and nodded at Liz, who got to her feet. Together, they walked away from the table and left Natalie alone in the food court.
- SIX -
1.
It’s not Natalie. It’s only her body. Kirk had to keep telling himself that as he walked away from Natalie. He looked over his shoulder. She was looking around slowly now. She looked confused, but she did not look confused in the way Natalie used to when she looked confused––there was no resemblance. This Natalie looked confused the way a mentally handicapped child might.
Outside the food court, Kirk led them to one of the banks of plastic molded chairs. Kirk and Randy sat down with Liz between them and they both sat forward with forearms on thighs.
“She’s nothing like Natalie, is she?” Kirk said.
Randy shook his head and Liz said, “No, she’s not. But there were times… I don’t know, like, for a split second, there were a couple times when it was Natalie. But it happened so fast, it could’ve been my imagination.”
“Why are we still here?” Randy said.
Kirk shrugged. “I don’t know. We should probably go.”
But they did not leave their seats. They liked sitting there, and they felt so good. All three of them wished Natalie could be there with them. The smelly, purple-lipped corpse in the sunglasses and watch cap was a small piece of Natalie, and they were reluctant to leave her behind. They sat there and watched her.
Natalie scooted her chair away from the table and stood, looked around. She did not seem to notice that they were gone––if she did, it did not appear to matter to her. Her lips moved. She was talking to herself.
“What’s she saying?” Randy whispered.
Kirk said, “I think she’s saying, ‘I’m hungry,’ over and over.”
“Oh, shit,” Liz said.
Natalie struck with the speed of a snake. She threw herself on a very fat woman in her thirties carrying shopping bags in both hands on her way out of the food court. Kirk, Liz, and Randy shot from their chairs and ran through the crowd toward her as the fat woman shrieked. Fortunately, the fat woman dropped the bags and struggled while Natalie took great bites out of the air in the general area of the fat woman’s neck. When she screamed the second time, there was horror in the sound, and Kirk realized she must have gotten a good look at Natalie, or maybe a whiff of her, or both.
Kirk and Randy each grabbed one of Natalie’s elbows from behind and pulled her off the fat woman.
“Let’s get out of here fast,” Kirk said, and they turned and hurried out with Liz in the lead and Natalie stumbling between them, her sunglasses askew.
2.
“Are you sure nobody’s looking?” Kirk said.
“I don’t even see anybody at this end of the parking lot,” Liz said.
They stood at the rear of the Camry with the trunk open.
“Okay,” Kirk said to Natalie, “get in there. Go on, get in.”
Natalie clumsily got into the trunk.
“Head down,” Kirk said. As soon as her head was down, he slammed the trunk.
Before they got into the car, Liz sprayed the cab with the air freshener. Instead of masking the smell of Natalie’s decay, the potpourri aroma simply combined with it to create a new odor that was no less offensive. Inside, Kirk sat forward in the backseat with his head between the two front seats, and they looked at each other in silence for a long moment. Liz started laughing first, but Kirk and Randy caught it almost immediately, and it took a
few minutes for them to stop.
“Fuck, I love Vicodin,” Randy said.
“Where do we go next?” Liz asked.
Kirk frowned. “I don’t know. That was my back-up plan. I don’t have any more ideas. I can’t just… turn her loose on people. Not if she’s going to try to eat them.”
“And what if it’s contagious, like in the movies?” Randy said. “We’d have a zombie plague on our hands.”
“I have a plan,” Liz said. She started the car, backed out of the parking slot, and started driving.
“What’s the plan?” Kirk said.
“You’ll see.”
She drove them to Baskin & Robbins. “I’ve got an ice cream craving,” she said.
“That’s your plan?” Randy said.
“Hey, as long as we’re high, we might as well enjoy it.”
They went inside and ordered bowls of ice cream. They sat at a table in the back corner.
“We need ideas,” Kirk said.
They ate in silence for several minutes.
“Oh, shit,” Randy whispered.
“What?” Kirk said.
“What if Natalie’s banging on the trunk and calling for help? If somebody hears her, they’ll call the police.”
Kirk sighed. “I almost wish someone would call the police. I’d like to get it over with.”
Liz said, “I say take her back to your place and let her eat the other weasel.”
“Ferret.”
“Whatever. Those fuckin’ things give me the willies.”
“Maybe I can keep her in the pool-house one more night. If I can feed her. But what do I feed her?”
“Raw meat,” Randy said. “Got any steaks at home?”
“Yeah, probably. But will she want that? She seems to like her food a little more… well, alive.”
When they were done with their ice cream, they went back out to the car to find that Natalie was making no noise at all.
“The Vicodin’s wearing off,” Randy said.
“I’ve got twenty bucks,” Liz said. “You guys got any money?” They said they did. She said, “Let’s go see Dicky.”
Kirk and Randy agreed a visit to Dicky Parks was in order. Dicky had gone to Anderson High School a couple years ago. He’d gone through his junior year twice when he finally dropped out. Everyone they knew got their drugs from Dicky, or from Dicky’s father Wyatt, with whom he lived.
Kirk had known Dicky and Wyatt as long as he’d known Natalie, or most of his other friends at school. Natalie had tried to help him find a job after he dropped out of high school, but he had no ambition, and the fact was, Dicky wasn’t very bright. Then they learned why he wasn’t interested in a job––Dicky was selling drugs with his dad, and making good money at it. He always gave them a discount. Dicky had once told Natalie that they were the only people from school who treated him like a human being. “Most of ‘em,” he’d said, “they’ll buy my shit, but they won’t even look at me to say hi at the mall.”
Natalie had a way with people, all kinds of people. She was friendly to everyone and anyone. She belonged to no particular clique at school, but was accepted by all of them. She hated the way everyone grouped up socially at school and turned their backs on others, and she refused to participate. Thinking of her made Kirk’s chest ache. He thought of the stumbling creature in the trunk and missed Natalie all the more.
Dicky and Wyatt lived on a spot of land at the end of a long road––it was paved, but far too narrow for more than one vehicle at a time––in an area known as Churn Creek Bottom just north of Anderson. They lived in a couple double-wide mobile homes that had been patched together. Their nearest neighbor was three-quarters of a mile away. Wyatt’s shiny white 1965 Mustang was parked under a rickety-looking carport. The Mustang was Wyatt’s most prized possession––sometimes it was a little creepy how much he loved that car. But Dicky’s pickup truck was not there.
Wyatt came to the sliding glass door and smiled. “Hey, you guys. Come on in. Dicky’s not here. I don’t know when he’ll be back. Could be any minute, could be midnight.”
Wyatt was in his forties. He kept his head smoothly shaved and wore a goatee of black and white hair. He had a gut, but his tattooed arms were muscular. His voice was coarse and loud, which some people interpreted as anger––it was just the way he talked. He wore a white T-shirt, a pair of baggy blue sweatpants and sandals.
Kirk was surprised when Wyatt gave him a hug and slapped him on the back a few times. “Man, I am so fuckin’ sorry about Natalie. I’ve been sick about it since I heard. She was a hell of a girl and I’m gonna miss her.”
“Thanks, Wyatt,” Kirk said.
“Now, here’s what I wanna do.” Wyatt disappeared down a short hall for a moment and came back with a baggie filled with marijuana. “You know how, when somebody dies, all their friends bring gifts of food to the house? They bring casseroles and spaghetti and fried chicken and macaroni and cheese and potato salad and pies. Well, I can’t fuckin’cook, so here’s what I’m bringin’.” He handed the baggy to Kirk. “That’s a gift from Dicky an’me for all three a ya, so be sure to divide it up evenly, no favorites. That’s the premium Wyattweed, too. Enjoy it in good health.”
“Wow, Wyatt,” Kirk said as he took the baggy taut with buds.
They spent the next ten minutes thanking him. They decided to have some, so Kirk opened the baggie and they smoked a little in one of Wyatt’s bongs. Liz declined and said, “I’m driving, and I can’t drive if I’m smoke weed. Got any Vicodin?” Wyatt said he did, and gave her two with a diet Coke.
“Have they found Natalie’s body yet?” Wyatt asked. “I read it got stole.”
Kirk said, “I don’t know.”
“Neither do I,” Randy said.
“Me, neither,” Liz said.
“We didn’t have anything to do with that,” Kirk said.
“Well, course ya didn’t,” Wyatt said. “I’s just wonderin’if they’d found her yet. That’s a terrible thing, her gettin’stole like that.”
Kirk nodded. “Yeah, we think it’s pretty… sick.”
They talked with Wyatt awhile longer, but Dicky never showed up. Kirk said they were planning to see a movie.
“Good idea,” Wyatt said. “Get your mind off it all. Have a toke with your popcorn.”
They spent another five minutes thanking him for the pot, then he walked them out to their car. They were just getting in when they heard the thumping.
“Hungry! Hungry!” The word was muffled, but Kirk recognized it.
Wyatt said, “What the fuck was that?”
3.
Liz dropped into her seat, pulled the door closed, slipped the key into the ignition, and started the car. Wyatt knocked a knuckle on Liz’s window. She pressed the switch and sent the glass humming down.
“Who’s in your trunk?” he said. Kirk started to get into the back seat on the other side of the car, but froze when Wyatt shouted, “Kirk, Goddammit, who ya got in that fuckin’trunk?”
Kirk stepped away from the car and ran a hand through his hair.
“Tell him,” Randy said. “Wyat’ll keep it to himself.”
“Keep what to myself?”
Liz rested her forehead on the backs of her hands on the steering wheel and said, “I wanna go home.”
“What the fuck’s goin’on here, guys?” Wyatt said. “Is Dicky involved in this, whatever the fuck it is?”
“No, no,” Kirk said, shaking his head. He went to the rear of the car and said, “Okay, come on, Liz, open the trunk.”
Thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump. “Hungry! I’m hungry!”
Liz killed the engine, got out, and joined Kirk. She unlocked the trunk and it popped open.
“Natalie wasn’t stolen from the funeral home, Wyatt,” Kirk said. “She walked out.”
Natalie swayed a moment, then stood straight, her sunglasses crooked. Kirk took the sunglasses off her face and revealed her milky eyes sunken deep in their sockets.
Wyatt’s reaction was almost comical. He slapped his right hand to his chest and staggered backward. He coughed for awhile, then laughed, then he stood still and stared with naked horror and disgust at Natalie, who kept tugging on Kirk’s arm and saying, “Hungry. I’m hungry.”
Kirk began to tell Wyatt the whole story. As Kirk spoke, Wyatt slowly came closer to them, a step or two at a time. Kirk was explaining what had happened to one of Mom’s ferrets when Natalie pounced like a jungle cat.
She hit Wyatt and wrapped her arms and legs around him, and he stumbled backward. He fell hard on the rough lawn that grew in patches around the mobile home. Wyatt grunted when his back hit the ground, then gurgled and kicked and tried to pry Natalie off his body. A bright arterial spray arced in the air and spattered over the clumps of grass. Again and again and again.
It all happened so fast, but when Kirk moved to react, he felt as if he were moving slow, so slow. The blood continued to spurt from Wyatt’s throat. His kicks slowed down until his legs were barely moving, and his arms fell still at his sides.
Kirk and Randy and Liz were rushing toward Wyatt and Natalie, but Kirk stopped suddenly and said, “No, wait. We shouldn’t go near the body.”
