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.
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.
There was another moan, and Jane looked down the row of pumps, behind her, and at all the visible angles she could see behind the car. She took a quick glance back at the empty field. There was no one—no zombies, no Sven, and no Lorie—at least not that she could see.
Then the moan came again, along with a dragging sound, and it was unmistakable then, whatever it was
had
gotten closer. Jane put the pin on the pump handle in place so that she didn’t have to hold it while it pumped. That way she could walk around the car and assess the situation. If the thing was dragging along the ground somewhere, she might have enough time to fuel up, or maybe there was something she could distract it with and keep it away while the pump was working.
She took her hand off the handle and began to tiptoe up the driver’s side of the car, looking under it and around the front as much as she could. She had gotten as far as the front tire when she heard the click. She stopped, thinking that this couldn’t be happening, not on this day of all days. But then she turned to the base of the pump and saw that it was.
The numbers had stopped ticking away at 1.84 gallons. The pin had popped loose.
There was another moan, closer still, but Jane still didn’t see anything, and 1.84 gallons wasn’t going to cut it. She took a quick look back at the field—still no one.
She dashed to the nozzle—no use being stealthy at this point, she realized, the thing was clearly after her—squeezed the handle, and popped the pin back in place with a clack. She fixed it there with her thumb, willing the pin to stay this time.