The boy was now pulling on the rear door handle, without success.
Jane turned to Sven, making no effort to hide her frustration. “Can you unlock the back door please?”
“Okay,” Sven said, and clicked something.
The boy opened the door and climbed into the backseat.
Jane turned back to the girl, who was still standing in the road.
The girl walked a little closer.
“What’s your cat’s name?” she asked.
“Him?” Sven asked. “That’s Ivan. Ivan Drago.”
The girl let out a quick laugh, then put her suspicious face back on.
“Those things are getting pretty close,” Sven said, and put his hand on the gear shift.
“Sven!” Jane snapped, and slapped his big caveman hand.
Jane turned back to the girl. “What’s your name?”
“Lorie.”
“Jane!” Sven yelled. “We have to go, now. Just get her in the car already.”
What was wrong with that man? He knew nothing about sensitivity.
Jane turned to Lorie. “I’m Jane, it’s very nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too,” Lorie said shyly, “and your cat.”
Ivan meowed.
Then Jane felt a jolt, and heard the slam of the rear door. She looked backward, and saw that the pack of diseased humans behind them had overtaken the back of Sven’s car. They were walking into it repeatedly, shaking it in its suspension. The boy in the back must have snapped the door shut when he saw them get closer. Damn, Sven had been right, they did need to get out of there, and fast.
Jane turned to Lorie again, and it looked like Lorie was beginning to forget her fear of strangers. She came all the way up to Jane’s door, and Jane began to open it for her to get in, but then a diseased, rotten-looking arm reached out, clenching and unclenching its hand.
Lorie ran.
Chapter 40
Lorie ran, cursing herself for not getting into the car when she had the chance. The woman seemed nice enough, and the man was scary, but he had a cat, so how bad could he be? Lorie liked the cat’s name. Ivan was a good name for a cat, and she totally got the Rocky IV reference.
Lorie glanced behind her. The car was driving after her, a sick person now attached to the back of it. Lorie felt like it was all her fault. She had let those things get too close, and what if the one on the back got in and got the cat, or Evan?
But they were strangers, and she knew not to jump into cars with strangers. Maybe today was different, because of what was happening, but maybe it wasn’t. Lorie’s mind flashed to all the kidnapping stories her mom had told her, to teach her by example she called it. Did kidnappers have cats? Some probably did, but the people in the car didn’t seem like kidnappers, and Evan was in there now.
That sealed it. Lorie had to help Evan, so she knew she had to get into the car.
Then Lorie heard the screech of brakes.
She stopped running, turned around, and stared. Lorie watched as the big man got out of the car and had a look at the thing hanging onto the back. He ducked his head back inside the car and pulled something out.
Panting, Lorie walked a little closer to get a better look, careful not to get too close to any cars with the flailing sick in them. The woman—Jane—opened her door just enough to peer out, then stepped out onto the street. She was saying something to the big man, but Lorie couldn’t hear what it was. Evan wasn’t budging, as far as Lorie could tell.
Lorie walked a little closer, walking around a few stopped cars with trapped sick people inside them. They were chomping and thrashing about, but they still had their seatbelts on. Lorie tried to look away, but it was hard not to look. They barely even looked like people anymore, how could this be happening?
She turned back to the big man. He was like an elephant. All muscle, but surprisingly fast and agile. Lorie could see what he had taken out of the car now. It was a jump rope, the leather kind. Lorie had one of those…back home.
The man was whipping the sick man on the back of the car with it. He was jumping forward, whipping, then jumping back and looking thoughtful, over and over. After one especially hard whip at the sick man, who did not react at all, the big man stood back and rubbed his chin.
“Don’t come too close,” Jane said, snapping Lorie out of it. “Just wait until Sven gets that thing off.”
The man’s name was Sven? What kind of a name was that? He did look like a Sven though, even though Lorie had never met a Sven before, she had a feeling that was what they all looked like. All muscle and brawn and jump ropes.
“I won’t,” Lorie said. “But how’s he gonna get it off with that rope? Doesn’t he have anything bigger?”
Jane shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll figure out a way.”
Lorie considered this, and turned back to look at Sven, who looked to be in some pain, seemingly thinking about how to get the sick man off. Why was the sick man still clinging to the back of the car, instead of trying to get at Sven? Maybe that’s what Sven was trying to puzzle out too.
Then Sven made a loop with the jump rope. Lorie thought she knew what he was about to do, and she was right. Sven lassoed the sick man’s head with the loop of the rope, careful not to get too close, and began to pull.
The sick man wouldn’t loosen his grip, and Sven pulled harder. There were some ripping sounds, and then a pop, and the man’s head went flying into the air in an arc toward Sven.
Lorie tensed in shock.
Sven stared the head down, backed up into position, and gave it a good, hard kick with his right foot. The head sailed away into the other side of the road—the southbound side.
Lorie was both horrified and impressed. That had been a pretty neat trick. She wanted to clap, but thought better of it. That probably wasn’t appropriate just then, what with it being disrespectful to the sick man. She gave Jane a weak smile instead. Maybe these people were alright after all. They were protecting Evan and—
“Look out!” Jane yelled at Lorie.
“What?” Lorie said, startled.
“Behind you!”
Lorie half-turned, but then it was too late.
One of the sick—a woman—had come out of nowhere, and now had taken hold of Lorie’s arm, and was bringing it up to her open, dribbling, broken-looking mouth.
“No!” Lorie screamed. “Get away from me!”
Then Jane was there with her, trying to pull Lorie away, to no effect. Then Sven was there, and he was pulling at the woman’s head to keep her from biting Lorie. Sven was even bigger up close, all muscle.
The woman’s head came off, with an odd, faint fizz instead of a pop.
Lorie made herself look away from the woman’s headless body.
Relieved for only a moment, Lorie’s body went rigid again. “Get it off, get it off me please.”
The woman’s hand still gripped Lorie’s forearm tightly, and it took both Sven and Jane working together to pry the fingers away.
Then they all ran into the car. Sven got in on his side and Lorie got in with Jane into the passenger seat. Sven shifted into drive and off they went, Lorie climbing into the back to join Evan, who was sitting still, looking pale and frightened.
Chapter 41
A thought dawned on Milt as he crouched in front of the Commodore 64. This was to be a day of change, and he had to be brave. He stepped over the ruined relics on the floor, shuffled into his dim lair, and found a rag with which to wipe his sword. Milt held the rag in his hand and wiped the congealing crud off his weapon. He almost cut himself while he was doing it; the sword went through the thick rag like tissue paper. He had done a good job with all that sharpening.
Milt carried the filthy rag back into the store and threw it on top of the zombie, grimacing in disgust. He looked at the mess long enough to content himself that the zombie was no longer twitching, then went back into his lair to wash his hands with Star Wars disinfecting soap. When his hands were clean, he got two Snic
kers ice cream bars out from his emergency supply, sat down on his mattress in the basement, put the sword down next to him, and munched.
When he had finished eating, Milt got out the sheath and belt for the sword, sheathed the sword, and put it in the belt, which he then fastened around his belly. He had some trouble coordinating this, and the sword belt clattered onto the floor a few times before he got it right. The belt was tight around his big-boned middle, even on the last hole of the belt.
They don’t make sword belts for real men anymore, he thought.
In sheathing the sword and affixing the belt to himself, Milt had begun to notice that hefting the heavy, ten pound sword around was hard work.
He took two deep puffs of his inhaler, found his spare, and stuffed both into his back pocket. He put on his black trench coat and marched back up to the store.
Milt emerged from his store, a spongy, trench-coated, gargantuan would-be vanquisher, the sword dangling between his legs.
He had to shield his eyes from the bright light with a fat forearm, and he hissed a belch. He hated being outside in the light, but there would be so much to do now that the zombies were here, now that Milt’s time had come.
After a few moments, his eyes began to adjust, and Milt lowered his arm. He shifted the sword belt so that the sword wasn’t dangling between his legs but jutting out from his side.
Milt hunched over and began to creep, putting the soggy slipper-clad foot carefully in front of the dry slipper-clad one.
No, Milt decided, he wasn’t going to creep. Milt stood up a tad straighter—as straight as his atrophied back muscles would allow—and decided that he was going to stalk. Yes, he was going to stalk his zombie prey.
So resolved, Milt began to stalk, to hunt. He channeled his video game mindset into reality. He would be the hero of this world, he told himself, just as he was the greatest, most ingenious hero in the World of Warcraft virtual world. In the World of Warcraft, Milt could do anything he wanted. He could kill, and steal, and loot and plunder. Now…now that the real world had changed, he could do all of those things in real life.
Milt had one hand on his sword and the other on his back pocket where his inhalers were. He was thinking about how good it had felt to dispatch the zombie in his store, notwithstanding the remarkable bout of hurling that it had brought on. Milt decided that he would rule this new apocalyptic world, and that he would reward himself for each of his kills with his favorite movie watching, sword-sharpening, and Snickers ice cream eating ritual. Maybe he would even have to branch out and think of some new rituals. There were so many options now, so much to do.
For the first time in years, Milt didn’t miss his computer, although he was starting to thirst for some Coca-Cola.
Then the sword belt unfastened and fell, Milt’s feet tangled in it, and he fell into a sweaty, belching heap on the strip mall sidewalk.
Chapter 42
Sven kept checking the rearview mirror as he drove. The headless man or zombie or whatever he was still clung to the back of the car, but at least he wasn’t trying to get in anymore.
It had been a close call with the girl just now. Sven didn’t like that. He wanted to avoid situations just like that one. But there was no one to blame. Jane was right that they had to help the kids and the girl must’ve been scared out of her mind. It wasn’t her fault that she hadn’t jumped into the car with them right away. She seemed to have snapped out of it now, and it looked to Sven like she was in higher spirits than the boy.
“So what are your names back there?” Sven asked, trying to be friendly.
“I’m Lorie.”
“She already told us her name,” Jane said. “Remember?”
“What?” Sven asked. “Sorry, I must’ve been distracted by all the zombies trying to kill us. My fault.”
“They’re not zombies,” Jane snapped.
“They seem like zombies,” Lorie said.
Sven nodded. “Zombies it is, or infected, or whatever, so long as we get away to safety, it doesn’t matter.”
“My name is Evan.”
“Cool,” Sven said, “I’m Sven. Nice to meet you both.”
Lorie giggled at this, and Sven thought he saw the queasy-looking boy suppress a smile. Sven hoped the boy wasn’t going to puke in the car. Sven didn’t like to clean puke, and seeing as how the car was their only safe place right now, he didn’t want kid puke in it. He sighed. He would deal with that when the time came.
“Let me guess,” Sven said. “You think I have a funny name.”
The kids shook their heads, grinning broadly now. Sven looked over at Jane, who seemed happy too, all things considered. There was still a clinging decapitated zombie on the back of Sven’s car, there was that to consider.
“It’s Norwegian,” Sven said.
“He’s from Norway,” Jane added. “They like to work out a lot there.” Jane shot a smile at Sven.
“That’s right,” Sven said. “In Norway we lift weights six hours a day, starting in kindergarten.”
Lorie frowned. “No you don’t.”
“Yeah,” Sven said, “it’s true.”
“I don’t like to lift weights,” Evan said.
“Well,” Sven said, “if you lived in Norway, you’d learn to like it. You’d have to.”
Evan coughed and looked thoughtful.
“So do you kids go to school together or something?” Sven asked.
“Yeah,” Lorie said. “We just started high school together.”
“Oh,” Sven said, “that’s exciting. Is there a good gym in your school? Good sports program?”
“Sure,” Lorie said. “I run track.”
“I’m on the chess team,” Evan said, chiming in.
“That’s not a sport,” Lorie said.
“Sure it is,” Evan said.
“Is not, you’re just sitting down the whole time, how can it be a sport? There’s no running or anything.”
“It doesn’t have to be running for it to be a sport. There’s someone you’re playing against, an opponent. It’s a mental sport.”
“There’s no such thing. What do you think Sven?”
Sven knew that chess was no sport, but why hurt the kid’s feelings?
“I don’t know that much about it,” Sven said, “but maybe it is.”
Lorie shook her head, “He’s just trying to be nice.”
“Hey,” Jane said. “Are you guys hungry?”
“No,” Evan said.
“Kinda,” Lorie said.
“What kind of delicious treats have you brought on this trip?” Jane asked.
Sven was fine with sharing his and Ivan’s rations, but now they would definitely need to stop and pick up more along the way. It made him nervous.
“Well,” Sven said, “I’ve got jerky—elk and beef, granola bars, cat food, and protein bars.”
“Let me guess,” Jane said, looking back at the two kids. “You want the granola bars right? Definitely not the cat food.”
They nodded. Sven liked that Jane was good with kids, and that she was there. He probably would have picked the kids up if she hadn’t been there, but what would he have done with them? Jane was good with stuff like that.
Jane got some granola bars out and handed them back to Evan and Lorie. They thanked her, and proceeded with their munching.
Sven’s mind wandered back to the clinging zombie. When would that thing fall off? Would it ever fall off? Was it infecting them just by being so close? It had no teeth left now that its head was gone, at least there was that.
“Do you guys know what’s happening?” Lorie asked. She wasn’t smiling anymore.
Jane turned around to look at Lorie. “We don’t know yet, honey. It might be some kind of virus, like a flu. We’re just gonna try to avoid infected people and sooner or later this will all clear up…I hope.”
“Will the sick people get better?” Lorie jerked a thumb backward, at the shadow of the headless zombie clinger.
?
??I don’t know,” Jane said. “I...” she trailed off.
Sven knew the decapitated zombie was beyond help, but it was probably best not to focus on that. Sven saw that Lorie kept looking back at the headless creature, and he wished he could have gotten the thing off, but its grip was too strong, and Sven hadn’t wanted to get too close. The shaking and rattling of the moving vehicle was doing nothing to dislodge the zombie either.
They came to a traffic light and Sven stopped out of habit. The traffic light was off, and there was nothing to wait for. Sven looked left and right, and in all directions for any movement, but all he saw were scattered, stopped cars. They were yet to come across any other moving vehicles, after that first one that had ignored them.
Sven slowly pulled out into the intersection.
All of a sudden, Ivan let out a loud hiss. Sven looked over and saw that Ivan was up on the back of Jane’s seat, hissing in Lorie and Evan’s direction.
The brief moment that Sven had looked away from the road was enough.
They hit something.
Chapter 43
There was a shaking, and Ivan skittered back down into the woman’s lap. He remembered the woman from before. She was a nice woman, and she belonged with him and Sven. Ivan knew that, and it was good. Ivan liked the girl in the back too. He didn’t know her very well, but she smelled nice, and maybe she could stay with them too. But the boy, the boy was bad. Ivan couldn’t understand why Sven and the woman had let the boy come with them—to come into the moving safe place. Why would they do that? Couldn’t they smell the bad smell? Ivan could see the smell, it was coming off the boy like the heat out of a radiator. Ivan liked radiators. They were warm. But the boy was rotten, and Ivan didn’t like that. The smell was so bad that Ivan didn’t even want a treat at that moment—not even a fish treat. He was a boy to run from, and to warn others to run from. Ivan bared his teeth and loaded up another hiss in the back of his throat.
Chapter 44