“Could we look at the clothes?” Noah asked.
“No,” I answered at the same time that Lawson nodded.
Noah looked between us both, her brow creasing with confusion.
“You don’t need clothes, you’ve got enough. Anyway, there’s not enough room in your pack for any more shit.”
“Shy!” Noah whisper hissed my way, and I rolled my eyes.
“Christ Boo, you really gonna keep busting my ass for cursing? After all these years? In the middle of a fucking zombie apocalypse?” I growled, coming to a stop with my hands on my hips. Damn, I was grumpy. There’d been too many consecutive hours without coffee to sooth my cranky soul, which reminded me, I needed to look for coffee. And so help me, if Noah was going to give me grief every time I swore for the rest of this journey my mood was going to stay pretty damn shitty.
“Shy!” Noah gasped. “Don’t take the lords name in vain.”
“Fuck the lord!”
Noah flinched as if I had physically slapped her.
“Come on, Noah, does it look like the Lord really gives two shits about us right now?”
“We’re alive, aren’t we?”
Noah’s face flushed red with anger as she peered through her glasses with narrowed eyes. She was a good few inches shorter, but she still somehow managed to look down on me.
“Oh yeah, we’re alive and having the time of our lives, road trip vacation with rotting zombies and inbred rapists. All we need now is Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey to come flying down an aisle singing I’ve Had The Time Of My Life…”
I couldn’t dance, I sucked at dancing. I hid behind a guitar, so I didn’t have to dance, but right now I raised my hands and began dirty dancing, badly, while singing the iconic song from the movie, Dirty Dancing. Noah stood watching, hands on her hips and fury in her eyes.
A hand on my arm caught my attention, and I paused my mocking tirade to take in the amused twinkle in Lawson’s eyes. He gave a little shake of his head and raised a finger to his lips to shush me, which was really beginning to piss me off, then he pointed in the direction he wanted to go.
Flipping him off while his back was turned, I whisper hissed to Noah, “Go with Lawson, I need a time out.” Even though moments ago I wasn’t ready to leave her with him, right now I needed some alone time. Lips pursing with restrained anger, Noah spun on her heel and walked toward Lawson who was watching me with eyes full of curiosity and still a little humor.
“Go find your damn bullets. I’m going to look around.”
He pointed to his lips, then to me. Was he shushing me, again? Realizing I didn’t understand, he repeated the action.
“Call if you need him,” Noah translated, her attitude one hundred percent pissy.
Rolling my eyes, I waved them both off and spun on my heels. If I had a hope in hell of adjusting my shitty attitude, I needed coffee, and a cigarette, which was another reason I was so moody. Nicotine withdrawals. My intake had dropped dramatically since those assholes stole our car. I had two packets stashed in my backpack, and I was trying hard to make them last. Pulling my bandana down, I reached for one of the crushed packets from the pouch on the side of my backpack, and drew out a cigarette with my lips. Lighting up I sucked back hard, enjoying every tangy moment of the bitter smoke in my lungs. It had been a long time since I’d ever felt so lost in my own skin. My emotions were bouncing around like a high-bounce ball trapped in a small box. One minute I felt like singing and smiling, the next I felt like punching something, which would be quickly followed with deep sorrow. My empty hand clenched into a fist, and I swung my trusty golf club back and forth. The weight of my backpack on my shoulders felt oddly comforting, a reminder that I was alive, and we were okay, for now. My compulsion to pilfer was riding me hard, a nervous kind of energy that pumped through my blood as I walked past shelves of useless stuff just waiting to be stolen. I could take whatever I fancied as there was no way I would get caught, yet I had no room for the extra items in my pack. At a full length mirror I stopped, cringing at the sorry sight that greeted me. My greasy hair was piled in a high top knot, and my skin looked ashen. My makeup free reflection was really fucking depressing. Pulling my backpack off I rummaged through until I found my toiletries bag. In quick efficient movements I gave my eye lashes some mascara, my cheeks a little rouge and my lips a lot of La Bouche Pop Art red matte lipstick.
“Much fucking better,” I whispered, pressing my lips together and putting my makeup away before heaving my heavy pack back on my shoulders.
Turning down another aisle I realized I’d found the liquor, and grinned. Most of it had been cleaned out, many bottles smashed and left in broken pieces on the floor. The full bottle of Grey Goose Vodka I spotted at the top of one shelf was almost hallowed with heavenly reverence.
“Hello there gorgeous,” I whispered as I reached up on my toes and pulled the bottle down. Breaking the seal, I opened the screw top and inhaled the divine scent of alcohol with a long sniff. Bringing it to my bright red lips, I drank. The burn was familiar and the warmth in my chest welcome. “I missed you, baby,” I crooned to the bottle, holding it close to my chest. I was confident in saying I wasn’t an alcoholic, but being a rock star meant partying hard, and being the only female in a four-piece band meant I had to step it up a notch to keep up with the boys. So, I drank hard liquor, and I drank it like a pro. I hadn’t indulged since the two-week pity party I threw after stumbling upon Cullen and Sylive fucking in our hotel suite a month ago. I’d tried to wash that sight from my memory with many bottles of champagne and enough shots to stop my heart from beating. It didn’t work. I could still see his hips thrusting into her spread-eagled legs. Damn I hoped that scrawny bitch was a zombie now.
As I continued to wander around the store, Lady Goose to my lips, and my club hanging at one side, I began to feel better, my temper drowned beneath vodka. Maybe this end of world bullshit wouldn’t be so bad after all. Even though I loved music, being in the band had sucked the happiness from my one true love. Becoming successful, topping charts, filling stadiums, it all came at a personal cost. Some days, I felt that personal cost was simply too high. The thought of not being stuck in a studio for the next six months and forced to produce something I wasn’t entirely enjoying was kind of exciting.
With another healthy gulp from the bottle in my hand, I stepped around a corner and came to a grinding halt. So absorbed in my own little world, I’d missed the sharp tang of death that invaded my lungs and pushed bile up my throat. My hands were occupied, which meant I couldn’t reach for the bandana around my neck, so I tried desperately to breathe through my mouth and ignore the taste of Red Rage. There were two zombies, a man and a woman, their bodies slack as they stooped heavily forward, their backs to me. If I could just back away from them quietly, they might not notice me. It would give me the advantage to find Lawson and Noah and get the hell out of here without blood and zombie guts having to be shed. Turning slowly, I went to take a tentative step away when Maybelle knocked the shelves at my back. The silence was torn away with the deafening tumble of glass, and I dropped my beautiful bottle of Grey Goose to the floor.
Track Eleven: Obie Trice featuring Dr. Dre and Eminem, Shit Hits The Fan
CHAPTER 11
Raw, unadulterated panic consumed me, freezing my limbs in place as I watched the infected swing around to face me.
“Holy, mother-fucking karma,” I swore, my eyes wide.
It was Amanda and Richard, the douchebags who stole our SUV at gunpoint. The transformation they’d undergone courtesy of Red Rage gave them the distinctive appearance of the infected. The webbing across their skin almost gave their flesh a cracked appearance, like broken porcelain dolls. Dry blood was caked around their lips, nose, eyes, and ears. They were bleeding from the inside out. Both their chins dropped as their menacing bloodshot eyes rose beneath furrowed brows and set upon me. There was no recognition in those bloody depths, no humanity, just rage…Red Rage. The
attack was instantaneous and terrifying as Richard shoved Amanda aside with a brutal elbow. He wanted to eat my fucking brains like I’d never seen before, his shoes squeaking on the tiled floors. There was no way I could take them both on, so the flight portion of survival kicked in and I turned and ran. A large display set up in the center of the aisle fell with little more than a gentle nudge and I hoped it might slow down the freakishly fast undead at my back. My panic demanded I scream and call out to Lawson for help, but if there were more zombies in this Walmart tomb, I didn’t want to garner their attention. Turning down another aisle, my foot slid across something scattered across the smooth flooring. It sent me sprawling ungracefully across the tiles, but I was quick to spring back to my feet, and I ran as if the hounds of hell were on my ass. The animalistic growling from behind me urged me forward, fear making it feel as though I were running through sludge down a never-ending corridor. Peeling around the sharp corner at the end, I found a row of waist high counters sitting before me, a cash register at each station and frozen conveyer belts sitting unused and abandoned. Pushing my legs hard, I ran toward them and at the last moment I leaped, the souls of my boots gripping the edge of one register. Without stopping, I launched myself to the next register, then the next, before finally chancing a look over my shoulder. Richard was struggling to climb over the first counter, but Amanda had used what was left of her brain and had simply run around them, gaining on me fast. Holding my club high over my right shoulder, I bent my knees and tensed. As soon as she was within reach, I swung hard. Her head caved in instantly, brain and blood splattering across the bottoms of my legs. She crumpled to the floor, her body twitching. Richard had stumbled over the first register and was scrambling to his feet atop the second. As a normal, uninfected man he had seemed so small and insignificant, even with a gun to my head. Now though, he looked like a beast, blood seeping through his clothing, crazed eyes, disheveled hair, and saliva dripping from his mouth as he snarled and hissed in my direction.
“Come on you ugly bastard, come and get me,” I growled, raising my driver again which was dripping with Amanda’s infected blood. “Ever hear of karma, you stinkin’ shit for brains?”
With a deafening roar, he lunged across the space between us. The noise within the dark store was broken by a loud crack, and Richard’s body fell before he could reach me. His face caught the edge of the counter as he went down, caving in his forehead as he collapsed into a heap right on top of Amanda. Breathing hard with my club poised ready to attack, my mind finally registered that Richard wasn’t moving at all, his body lifeless as blood pooled across the dirty white tile.
My shocked gaze moved slowly across the registers to find Lawson standing with his gun raised, his eye steady down the site. Noah shook with fear behind him, her back to the shelving, Lawson standing protectively in front of her. It had to have taken one hell of a shot to hit the zombie from that distance, and not hit me. My body was vibrating with tension, but I still managed to lower the club and walk to the end of the counter, where I jumped down, maintaining a safe distance from the two infected bodies.
“I told you this was a bad idea,” I muttered shaking out my sweaty palms.
Lawson grabbed Noah by the elbow and escorted her out of the building, and I followed, shock and adrenaline still pumping through my veins. Lawson stopped me with a hand on my shoulder and began checking me over, turning my head one way then the other, checking my arms, then legs. Glancing down at him on his haunches in front of me I shook my head.
“I’m fine, just a bit of splatter but nothing reached my face.”
“Shy?” Noah’s terrified voice caught my attention. She was standing beside us, her gaze held gripped by whatever she was looking at. Following the direction of her rapt attention, I found what had her so scared. Infected…lots of them. They staggered across the wide parking lot like fast jerking puppets on marionette strings.
Lawson reached over and grabbed Noah, tugging her away from the zombies and pushing her in front of us as we began to run. We passed by the cursed Walmart store, and down a road that ran behind it. Shops and stores lined the street as the sound of our shoes on the asphalt filled the otherwise quiet morning. As we turned down another street, Lawson used the stock of his rifle to smash in the head of a lone infected that scrambled hastily into our path. The smell of death was so rancid I could taste it on my tongue. The moans and screams of zombies at our back hadn’t disappeared, they were still back there, somewhere, following us. There were so many of them, if they caught us we’d never survive. I glanced at the rifle Lawson held in a sure grip and wondered if he’d use it on us. I’d rather die by bullet then become infected. Reaching a car abandoned in the middle of the road, Lawson paused, his gun raised as he swept the barrel across the front and back seats. The driver’s side door hung wide open and finding the vehicle empty, he jumped in and used the keys still hanging in the ignition to start it. The sound of that engine purring to life was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.
Throwing open the back-passenger door I all but tossed Noah in and quickly followed behind her. With screeching tires, we were speeding down the street while I tried to pull the door closed. Narrowly missing my booted foot, I slammed it shut and shrugged out of my backpack. In a most unlady-like display, I scrambled between the driver’s and passenger seat to the front of the car. Lawson’s face was set in fierce concentration as he pressed hard on the accelerator, before breaking and sliding around a sharp corner. Noah rolled across the seats and my side slammed hard into the door.
Tugging at his seatbelt, he wordlessly told me to buckle up, which I quickly passed on to Noah. Two more infected stumbled out into the street, headed straight for our vehicle. They moved quickly for mostly dead assholes. Lawson gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. The car gained in speed, and he drove it straight into the infected. Their bodies bounced over the hood with a crunching thud, then tossed to the asphalt in a mess of tangled limbs. The further we got, the less zombies we saw, and the adrenaline of the last hour began to crash, leaving me to feel completely drained.
“Did you get more ammunition?” I eventually asked. My body was shaking, the tremor in my hands uncontrollable. Clutching the dash in front of me, I watched the world outside race by in a blur. Glancing at Lawson, he shook his head, no.
Well shit, we went through all that for nothing. The bitch in me wanted to point that out, but I kept my mouth closed. After several minutes we found the highway, and the wide open space of the desert made me feel instantly better.
Tapping at the gage on the dash, Lawson offered me a frustrated look. His lips were pinched, hands tight on the steering wheel. Glancing across the dash, I found the gas light lit up with an orange glow. It was just my luck to find a car with the keys hanging in it and no gas. Sighing, I collapsed against the seat and brushed my knotted hair out of my face. Patting my backpack I almost shed a happy tear for the shampoo inside I’d grabbed, along with the toothpaste and tampons. At least we had something. My protested Walmart adventure hadn’t been entirely in vain. Yet, I’d almost become a buffet breakfast snack for Richard and Amanda, then the biggest fucking horde of zombies I’d ever thought possible stumbled across us. They were like fucking ants. Swarming, angry ants. Ants that were trying to eat us. The enclosed space in the car began to feel tight, my chest constricted, and the adrenaline dump began to feel like something that resembled an anxiety attack. A whimper from the back seat broke through my own fear, and I spun around to find Noah’s freckled face leached of color. Her light brown hair was stuck to her face with sweat and big tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Boo,” I whispered. Snapping my seatbelt undone, I climbed between the seats once more until I flopped down beside her. “We’re okay, Boo,” I crooned, wrapping my arm around her shoulder as I unfastened her helmet and threw it to the seat beside me. Scrambling to reach for my hand, she pulled it tight against her chest. The wild beat of her heart thumped under my fist as I watched her
struggle to gain back her composure.
I began to sing Don McLean’s American Pie. I sang it a little slower than the original. It was one of Noah’s favorites and as I made my way through the poignant words I kept my hand against her chest, feeling her heart hammer away beneath. Slowly the chaotic beat became more regular as she breathed deeply through her nose and out through her mouth, over and over again. Color returned to her cheeks, and her tears dried. By the time I reached the end, her head had flopped back against the rest behind her, and she watched me through tired eyes, her glasses low on her nose.
“I’m sorry I got mad at you,” she murmured.
It was just like Noah to apologize. She was always the first, and she did so without any hesitation. Unlike me, whose apologies were ripped from my heart kicking and screaming.
“I had my bitch-tude on, Boo. I’m sorry too.”
The corner of her mouth twitched and soon enough she was smiling.
“Shy…” she drew my name out in a long whiny tone.
“Yeah, yeah…but you know me, Boo.”
“Yeah, Shy, I know you.”
Slumping against the back seat of the car, I looked up and found Lawson’s extraordinary eyes on mine. The color reminded me of a snorkeling trip I once had in the Bahamas. The water there was such a crystalline blue it kept me mesmerized for hours on end. His gaze could probably hold me captive in just the same way. There was impassioned heat in that stare, but there was also something else…something more. It was as if he was trying to see deeper inside me, pushing away the darkness and muck that made me the cynical bitch I was, and trying to find something better. He wouldn’t find it, the industry that was entertainment had all but snuffed out the flame that once lived inside me. I was the first to look away, even though he was driving. I didn’t know what do to with the kind of emotion he was offering me. So, I did what came natural and I ignored it. Noah’s head fell to my shoulder, and I nuzzled her greasy hair. I didn’t care that it was matted with dirt and sweat, all I cared about was the life blazing from within her. Resting my head against hers, I allowed my eyes to drift shut.
Zombie Playlist: A Rock Zombie Romance Page 9
