Brian sidled over a few inches. Milt looked over, and saw that his squire’s eyes were wide with what seemed to be horror, staring intently at the spot where lightning had struck moments before.
Milt thought about saying something to reassure the simpleton, but before he could formulate an uplifting speech, the rain began.
The sky opened up, and great sheets of rain hurtled downward as if catapulted to the earth by a great, water-launching giant.
“Now that,” Brian said, voice trembling, “that’s something else.”
Milt didn’t say anything, because he was watching the kind of deluge that he had only read of in comic books. Though he had told Brian the storm was only a coincidence, Milt knew that it wasn’t. It was another sign telling Milt that his destiny was coming for him, and he had a feeling that at that very moment, his destiny was gathering itself up to draw closer.
He gripped the hilt of the sword. The blood was washing off it now, made wet by the droplets that passed through the thick tree cover above. The droplets cooled Milt’s overheating flesh, and he felt overjoyed and more rejuvenated with each little plop of cool wetness.
He hadn’t known it before, but rain was quite a pleasant thing.
Milt closed his eyes, belched, and understood that he was a flesh and blood comic book hero.
Chapter 67
“Would I?” Lorie said, her heart leaping up into her throat. “You pretty much read my mind! I’ll get some matches.” Lorie walked back to the restaurant’s entrance, thinking that this muscle guy really got her, picked up a few packs of matches, and put them in her pocket, but not in the same pocket as the firework.
Sven nodded. “Okay, let’s check to make sure we have a way out of here first, then we’ll turn the gas on.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What’s that?”
“Your one hundred pound hammer for one thing, and that second chef zombie.”
“Right.”
Lorie watched Sven pick up the hammer, his legs flexing, and flexing and rippling even more when he lifted it over his head and smashed the second zombie chef’s head.
Maybe that’s how you’re supposed to do it, she thought, put your legs into it.
Lorie told herself she would remember to lift with her legs—she had heard the boys at school say that before—the next time she had to use a sledgehammer, if there was a next time.
The zombie with the crushed head fell against a wall and onto the ground. Lorie felt a tinge of regret at that. She had really enjoyed stabbing that first one. Or was it more appropriate to call what she had done skewering? It had been a long knife…a very long knife. She smiled.
Oh well, she thought, it was nice to watch too.
“So what do you reckon that’s called?” Lorie said. “Hammering? Sledging? Or sledgehammering?”
“Uhh, I’m not sure.”
“I like sledging. Can we call it that?”
“Yeah, okay, you got it.” The big man paused. “I need some pants.”
Chapter 68
Sven pushed open the set of saloon-style swinging doors at the back of the restaurant and found himself staring into the kitchen. There was a CD player on, playing Asian-sounding background music. The music was complemented by the sound of simmering water and a soft, dull clanking noise. At first glance, the kitchen looked empty.
Lorie brushed passed Sven and strode into the kitchen.
“There’s no one here,” she said, tilting her head and throwing up her hands. Then she went around the kitchen island.
“The noise is coming from here.” She pointed to a pot. “Just a ladle boiling away in some soup. Guess they were in the middle of cooking up lunch.”
“Guess so,” Sven said, and heard a click. “What was that?”
“Just turning it off. No need to boil it too long. And we’re gonna blow the place up remember? Don’t wanna do it with us inside.”
“Right,” Sven said. The girl was a step ahead of him.
“That looks like the back door over there, come on.”
“Wait, shouldn’t there be more people back here—inside the restaurant I mean? How could there only have been the two chefs? Who’s running the place?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they all stepped out to smoke and they’re the zombies outside. Maybe they didn’t all make it to work. Maybe the two chefs always get the place ready by themselves. Who knows? Who cares? Let’s see what’s behind door number one.”
“It’s the only door. So I hope it’s something good.”
Sven put his hand on the doorknob, turned it, and waited, readying himself to jump backward at the slightest sign of the undead. He was holding the sledgehammer up and to his right, and he was starting to feel his muscles wearing out from lugging the thing around. Sven was a power athlete who focused on explosive strength in short bursts. Though he did his cardio, he wasn’t used to carrying heavy objects for that long, especially injured as he now was. Sven shook his head, and made a mental note to devote some more of his training to muscular endurance...if there was ever to be any more training.
“Come on,” Lorie said. “Open it already. I bet Jane is getting really worried about us. She was pretty worried about you before I went over here, and I don’t think she was thrilled that I went after you. If there’s something waiting for us behind the door, I’m ready for it.”
Sven glanced over at Lorie and saw that she had picked up a cast iron skillet and was holding it like a baseball bat, ready to strike.
“It’s a lot lighter than that thing,” Lorie said, gesturing at the sledgehammer, “and the girls at school would be proud.”
Sven laughed, turned back to the door, and pulled. The door opened a few inches, letting in some of the warm, moist, outdoor air, then caught. There was a thump, and the sound of wood scraping against the kitchen’s tiled floor, and Sven thought he heard something else, like the sound of another door, but somewhere farther away, behind them. He thought of the shoddy barricade they had set up in front of the entrance.
“Did you hear that?” Sven asked.
“Yeah. All the more reason to hurry. You want me to see what it is?”
“No. Stay here, I might need your help with whatever’s on the other side of this door.” It was half-lie, and he said it in part to keep her in the kitchen, away from whatever was now shambling about the restaurant behind them, but it wasn’t all lie, because Lorie really could help, she had proved that already.
Sven pulled on the door, scraping its bottom along the floor, cutting it into the tile.
“Guess they don’t use this door much,” Lorie said. “Or maybe those things have been messing with it today, trying to get in.”
“You trying to make me feel better?”
“Sorry.” Lorie changed her skillet hold, lowering the skillet and readying it behind her as if she were about to swing at a tennis ball with it.
Sven pulled on the door again, and not making much progress, he stepped to the side and peeked out through the five inch gap into the outside world. He couldn’t see any zombies, just gravel in some shade and a piece of the fence. He didn’t see any sign of Jane or the car, but then he didn’t see the gate either, so he figured they were too far over to see that part.
There was another thump from somewhere in the restaurant behind them, and then the sound of something clattering. Then silence again.
“I guess I should stop being so gentle.”
Sven looked over at Lorie, and she nodded. She looked like a funny little animal with that mask on her face, like a raccoon or something. On second thought, the masked face made him think of Ivan, and he felt a pang of worry. He wanted to know that Ivan was alright, and soon.
He lowered the sledgehammer and stuck its head around and behind the bottom of the door. The door was not a door. It was ajar. Sven hated that joke, but it always made its way into his brain, and for once, it came at an appropriate time. He thought about bringing it up to Lorie but rec
onsidered. It wasn’t the best time for jokes.
He pulled on the sledgehammer. There was a rending, grazing sound and splinters came off the bottom of the door and powdery bits of tile were scraped off. The door opened all the way.
Looking through the open door, Sven still saw no sign of zombies.
Lorie came over to stand at his side. “Looks like we’re good. But…but we should probably peek out some more.”
Sven nodded and raised the sledgehammer up, resting it on his shoulder. That made him remember his injury, and he realized how tired he was, how wound up.
“You ready?” Sven whispered. “We might have to make a run for it and forget about blowing the place up. If they see us and start coming, we need to get back to the car.”
Lorie dropped her head a little. “Yeah, that’s true.” She seemed to be considering something, then stretched her fingers and renewed her grip on the skillet. “Okay, I’m ready.”
Sven stuck the sledgehammer outside, waved it around in a circle, pulled it back inside, and listened.
Nothing.
Then he stuck his left foot out, wiggled it, pulled it back inside, and listened.
Nothing.
Then he took a deep breath through his mask, which was now moist, and poked his head out.
He looked to the left, to the right, and ducked back inside.
“We’re good,” he said, but something outside had been off. There were no zombies, but it was like something was missing, like—
There was a loud clatter from behind Sven and he spun around to find that a plump, female Asian zombie had wandered into the kitchen and was now shambling through some pots on the floor, oblivious to their rattle.
“We have to shut her up,” Lorie said. “She’s gonna attract more zombies.” And then the girl ran up to the plump zombie and swung the skillet.
There was a ping, a shallow pop, and the zombie fell to the ground on top of the clattering pots. Lorie stood over the Asian zombie, her arms and the skillet she held trembling.
“Like a tuning fork,” Lorie said. “Pretty cool huh?”
Sven swallowed and looked at Lorie.
“You...when I...I...I’m not sure who’s chasing who anymore,” he stammered.
“Let’s go turn that gas on. You promised.”
Lorie placed the skillet down on top of the dead zombie’s stomach, went out of the kitchen and into the dining area.
Sven followed, feeling unsure of himself—unsure of everything. He glanced back at the open door and saw the fence, but he wasn’t sure what he was trying to find there.
There were no more zombies in the restaurant that Sven could see. There were a good number gathered around the front entrance, staring in through the windows and slits in the front door. They alternately stood and milled about, peering in, walking around in a shambling circle, and then peering in again. It was as if they were waiting to be seated, waiting to be served.
Sven looked away and walked to the cooking table closest to him. He put the sledgehammer down and began messing with the gas knob. Once he was satisfied that the table was spewing forth gas at full blast, he moved to the next table, and visited each of the cooking tables in the dining room, turning up the gas all the way. He glanced at Lorie as he went, and though he couldn’t see all of her face, her eyes were hungry. The girl had been reluctant to get into Sven’s car just an hour or so earlier, and had seemed shy. Looking at her now, as he prepared to blow up a hibachi restaurant, he wondered what he had gotten himself into.
But he was glad she was there. She was cool, and as long as her bloodlust was focused on zombies, on the undead, how could he blame her for it? It was a survival situation, and she was being as cold and realistic about it as he was. So what if she was enjoying it? So what if she was enjoying it a lot? Was that wrong?
“Come on,” Sven said. “Let’s get out of here before we pass out from the fumes, and become zombie lunch.”
“I’d rather be caught by the gas fumes than that other smell. Their smell.”
Sven looked at the girl’s eyes. “Yeah. Me too.”
He gathered the remaining surgical masks and the pills, and followed Lorie, already blazing the trail, back into the kitchen. He watched as she turned the knobs up on the stoves like a pro.
“How we gonna light this all up?”
“I’ve never blown a place up before,” Sven admitted. “But I know we’ll have to do it from a distance. Let’s go.”
Sven stood at the open door, waiting for Lorie to join him. She looked unsure of something, then found a butcher knife, walked over to the zombie she had taken care of earlier, and picked the skillet back up.
Lorie turned toward Sven and he saw her eyes widen, and then she was springing forward and yelling, “Look out,” and Sven instinctively moved toward Lorie, away from whatever it was that she was reacting to, and stuck out the sledgehammer in the opposite direction.
He turned in the direction of the door in time to watch four zombies yank the sledgehammer from him. Two tried to bite it, breaking their teeth, and then all four let it slip from their collective grasp.
They were falling over each other to get in, and then they were inside.
Chapter 69
Jane drove through the field, sniffling, tears streaming down her face. She was trying to make herself stop, but she couldn’t.
A voice in her head kept saying, “They’re dead. They’re not coming back.”
But they can’t be dead, she told herself, I can’t deal with all of this by myself.
Even as she thought it, she knew it wasn’t true. Though she was wiping her eyes and nose and that infernal voice kept talking in her head, she knew that she could deal with this by herself, and that if Sven and Lorie were gone—if they really were gone—she wasn’t going to die without a fight.
The car dipped and rocked a few times as Jane drove over some unseen divots hidden in the tall grass. She slowed down, preparing herself for the jolt, it came, and then she was over the curb dividing field and street, grateful that Sven had an SUV.
The street in the back of the field was almost completely empty. It felt deserted. There were only two stopped cars, and she figured the road was only lightly used, probably just by the locals. She was a local, and she couldn’t remember ever driving on it. From what she could see, it seemed that part of the road looped back onto Route 29 North, and another part branched off into some eastbound, wooded back road that Jane was sure she had never seen before.
As she felt the drying of tears on her cheeks, she decided that the coast was clear. She accelerated gently, turned onto the part of the road that she thought led back to Route 29, and pulled into the Exxon that was not more than a few hundred feet after her turn. Jane slowed after she pulled in and took a careful, deliberating look about the place, trying to see if there was any visible movement on the property. She saw none, and pulled up alongside one of the two pumps that were closest to the road.
She turned the car off and pressed the unlock button on the driver’s side door, hoping that would unlock the gas door, and slowly, quietly, pushed the car door open, listening hard for any noise.
Not hearing anything, Jane stepped out on her tiptoes. Her brain was going a mile a minute, and if she had made any mistakes, she didn’t know it. So far, so good.
It had been a short trip. From where Jane stood, she could see the field and the fence to which she had to return as quickly as possible.
“They’re dead. They’re not coming back,” that sadistic voice said again.
She almost responded to it out loud, then caught herself.
They’re not, she told herself, God help me they’re not.
The voice made it harder, because it had made Jane wonder. Was the voice sadistic, or was it the voice of reality? And was there a difference?
“They’re dead. They’re not coming back.” It came at her again, and Jane felt her head begin to spin.
Ivan meowed. He was looking at her,
tilting his head in that curious cat way that Jane couldn’t resist.
Thank God for that, Jane thought, and almost started crying. The cat seemed to have snapped her out of the depths.
“I’ll give you a treat when everyone’s back safely in the car,” she whispered. “You’re a very good cat you know that?”
And everyone will be back safely in the car, she told herself. They will be.
“They’re de—” the voice began again, but Jane cut it off.
“No,” she said out loud in a hoarse whisper. “No they’re not.” And they would need gas for their escape, and it was best for her to get it now, while she could. They might not have another chance like this one.
Jane tiptoed two small steps over to the pump, took the nozzle, and pressed, “Pay Inside.” There was no sense in charging her credit card or paying for the stuff. Not on a day like this. And she didn’t have her bag with her anyway, and no bag meant no wallet.
She turned back to the car, holding the nozzle, and realized that she had forgotten to open the gas door. She didn’t even know if unlocking the doors had unlocked it.
Jane looked at the gas door for a moment. It looked like the kind you had to press in for it to pop up and out so you could open it. She bit her lip and pressed. The gas door popped up, and Jane sighed with relief.
At least something’s going right, she thought, and then she heard the moan.
She didn’t know how to react at first, so she just stood there, nozzle in hand, staring at the open gas door and the gas cap that she had yet to unscrew.
The voice in her head came back, and it had found something new to say.
“They’re dead. They’re not coming back. And I’m dead too. Actually, we are all coming back…as those things.”
Jane resisted the urge to cry out, forced her muscles to unclench, to relax a little, and unscrewed the gas cap with frantic turns of her free hand. She stuck the nozzle in and squeezed the pump handle.
“Come on, come on,” Jane said, looking at the fuel reader on the pump’s base. There was another moan, and Jane wasn’t sure if it was her imagination or if the sound had in fact gotten closer. Then the numbers began to tick away the fuel, and the gas was flowing…or rather, trickling. Jane gritted her teeth when she saw the absurd slowness with which the numbers on the pump were turning.