“Here it comes, dead, dead, dead. Just like in the movies. You’ll be famous. What a treat!”
No, she didn’t look down, and she didn’t loosen her hold on the nozzle, if anything, she was squeezing harder than ever.
The first thing she did was to look back at the base of the pump.
The ticking number read 8.12 gallons. That was better, but still not good enough. She was not going to fail at this task, she was not. The voice was wrong.
Then Jane looked down at her foot. She tried not to focus on the hand itself, but it was hard not to look at it in wonder—in horrified wonder. How could this be happening?
The flesh of the hand was ripped and torn, and there was dry blood caked across it. The fingers looked too thin to be those of a person, like the fingers of a skeleton that had been crudely wrapped with flesh-covered pieces of paper. The bone of the forefinger peeked through, the flesh that should’ve surrounded it scraped off. The jutting piece of bone winked at Jane, and she shuddered with revulsion.
There was another moan, possibly one of triumph.
“No,” Jane said, “you’re not gonna get me.” She didn’t understand how the thing had snuck up on her like that, but it must have come from the next row of pumps, and gotten under the car after she stopped. But she had been so careful, so discerning, that she couldn’t help but get angry at herself for not checking just around the next pump—not that she could know that was where it came from, but it seemed the most likely possibility.
Jane braced herself against the car with her free arm and pulled her foot back. It inched back, revealing some of the zombie’s wrist and forearm from under the car. But the zombie didn’t let go.
She looked back at the ticking numbers. 10.19 gallons. 10.23 gallons. 10.27 gallons. 10.31 gallons.
She looked back down at the grotesque hand. Its fingers were gripping the toe of her foot more tightly, and it hurt, like the sides of the front of her foot were being squeezed together and there wasn’t much give left.
Jane looked back at the ticking numbers. 10.91.
That would have to be enough.
In pain and overcome with a sudden surge of fury, Jane jerked the nozzle, gas still flowing out of it, from the car. She bared her teeth and thrust the nozzle down, stabbing the monster’s forearm above the wrist.
There was a moan that Jane interpreted as a whimper, and the torn fingers around her foot released their disgusting, excruciating grip. Jane pulled her foot back at once, and watched for a few seconds as the gas seeped from the thing’s forearm and hand, through small ruptures in its skin. Its flesh really was like paper, like ruffled paper, and in the moment that Jane watched the forearm with the nozzle sticking out of it fill with gas, she thought she could see the texture of the zombie’s skin change. Then the back of the hand and a spot above the wrist burst, churning out gas and small bits of crusty flesh.
Trembling, Jane opened the door and jumped back into the driver’s seat. She looked over to see Ivan curled up on the passenger seat, resting his head on his paws. On hearing Jane approach, Ivan picked his head up, meowed, then let out a resigned hiss aimed at the back of the car. He then put his head back down on his paws and closed his eyes.
A slight moan came from the back of the car.
Jane spun around, straining her neck a little, and saw that Evan was looking a little better.
He blinked his eyes and said, “Where’s Lorie?”
Filled with a renewed resolve, Jane turned back around, started the car, and pulled out of the gas station. She was sure she could feel the crunch as she drove over the nozzle-stabbed zombie.
It was a day for stabbing, she thought, and it had gone from fork-stabbing to nozzle-stabbing. She cringed, then remembered Evan’s question.
“We’re going to get her,” Jane said. She turned the car around, and hoped that the words she had spoken would come true.
72
“It looks like it’s about to rain,” Lorie said. “Let’s get this lit up while we still can.”
Sven watched as the girl took the firework out of her pocket and fiddled with it, propping it up on its built-in stand. She set it up so that the front part of the rocket peeped through the fence, pointing a direct course to the hibachi restaurant’s open back door.
“It’s nice this fence is here, huh?” Sven asked dumbly. He didn’t know what else to say, he felt a little scared of Lorie after what she had done back in the restaurant. It was a good thing she was on his side—was she on his side? He hoped so.
Sven’s ankle hurt, and his foot was numb. The zombie hand’s grip must have cut off all blood flow to his foot and toes. He was surprised that he hadn’t noticed it before, probably on account of all the adrenalin, and not having a moment to stop and do a self pat-down.
He wiggled his toes in his shoes and felt some movement, but it hurt to walk on the foot, like it was asleep. Sven put a tentative finger on his chest and pressed. It was getting worse, as was his strained neck, and the way things were going, he wouldn’t be surprised if the benching accident had popped some important blood vessels. He was racking up injuries that day, and that didn’t bode well for him as the day wore on.
Lorie looked up from her task. “Yeah, so what are we gonna do if Jane doesn’t come back?”
Sven didn’t know what to say. She had to come back. Why had she left in the first place? She wouldn’t just abandon him and Lorie like that, would she?
“Something must have happened, but she’ll come back, I know her.”
“It doesn’t look it,” Lorie said. “I mean it doesn’t look like anything happened. There aren’t any zombies here, what would she have been driving away from?”
Sven looked at Lorie, who was crouched behind the firework, making her visual measurements. She turned around and looked him in the eye, and he was sure they were both thinking the same thing. Jane had been driving away from
them,
not away from the zombies, but from them.
Lorie confirmed his thought. She said, “You think the fewer people are together the better their chances? You think we should be striking out on our own?”
“No. No, I think the group can get too big and get in trouble that way, but it’s probably better not to be alone. Then again, what am I relying on? I’ve never been in this situation before, and it’s not like we can really use what we’ve seen in the movies as examples of how to behave.”
Lorie gave a nod and smiled wanly. “Thanks.”
“What? For what?”
“For giving a real answer. I don’t know either, how can we, right?”
Sven shrugged. “I could use a steak right now, and a nap.”
“Maybe this’ll all be over soon enough.” Lorie turned back to adjust the firework, then back to Sven. “Okay, you ready to get in on this?”
Sven took a deep breath and sighed. “You bet.” He crouched down next to Lorie. She dug in her pocket and withdrew a book of matches. She ripped one out, folded the top of the packet back to wedge the match in the lighting strip, and, with a pull and a crack, expertly lit the match. She looked at the flame for a second, and Sven could see she was grinning. Sven felt he was grinning too, and was amazed that Lorie could make him feel a little bit like a kid, even while they were in the midst of an infection that might claim their lives.
She lit the rocket’s wick.
“Alright,” Sven said, “let’s back up a little.”
But Lorie didn’t react. She looked up at the sky, then down at the lit wick, then at the match that was slowly burning its way down to her thumb and forefinger. Then her grin grew into a broad smile. She brought the match to the rocket’s wick again, this time lighting it as far in on the exposed part of the wick as she could.
Then she moved to the side opposite Sven, giving the rocket about ten feet of clearance. At least she was moving backward with him, to get farther from the restaurant’s explosion. The fence was a good distance away from the restaurant, and Sven wasn’t sure how far they really needed to back up to be safe. Would there be a fireball? Would there be flying glass and cooking pots and shrimp? Would there even be an explosion?
“Why don’t you back up a little more?” Sven asked. He was giving the rocket at least fifteen feet of clearance. He didn’t feel comfortable around exploding things, but Lorie obviously did. She didn’t hear his request, and he figured she was far enough away…so long as she stayed put.
Then the rocket exploded off its stand with a loud pop, kicking up a clod of smoking dirt behind it. Sven saw the fire of the explosion glint off the blade of the butcher knife Lorie was clutching, and then he turned to follow the rocket.
It flew straight into the restaurant’s open back door.
“Bull’s-eye!” Lorie cried, and Sven couldn’t help smiling.
He resumed backing up, and he was glad to see out of the corner of his eye that Lorie was backing up too. He was bracing himself for an explosion, for the loud bang, for the rattling ground, for the shattering glass.
But nothing happened.
Lorie crossed over to Sven, eyes still locked on the building.
“I guess we messed it up,” she said.
To his own surprise, Sven felt disappointed. “Nothing in real life works the way it does in the movies.”
“Guess not.” Then Lorie’s face brightened. “We’ll have to try again.”
Lorie began to walk toward the gate, swinging the butcher knife in her left hand as she went.
“What? No, not—”
Thunder erupted from inside the restaurant, and for a moment, it lit up like an unimaginative, rectangular jack-o-lantern. Then the building was gone, and a dark cloud was moving up and out toward the fence.
Lorie tottered backward, dropping her knife, and Sven grabbed her and pulled her around. It seemed like it took forever as he tried to keep his balance on the shaking ground. Then he put his arm around her and pushed her down onto the grass as gently as he could, covering her with his own body. With his free hand he reflexively covered the back of his head.
Then it began to rain. But it wasn’t rain. Little bits of something stung at the backs of Sven’s bare legs, at his back, which wasn’t so bad because it was covered, and at the back of his hand covering his head.
He lay there, terrified, expecting to feel a big piece of something land on his back, or on his head, and end his day. He wondered if he should have picked the girl up and run, but falling on the ground had been his instinctive response.
No big piece of anything came, and the falling bits sputtered to a stop. Then Lorie and Sven both rolled over and sat up, coughing in the dust. Lorie helped Sven up, and they retreated toward the road, distancing themselves from the expanding dust cloud. They stopped at the edge of the field, and Lorie narrowed her eyes at where the restaurant had been.
“It looks like we got it pretty good,” she said, then coughed.
Sven wiped at his legs and the back of his neck, trying to get the coating of dust off and trying to avoid the small burnt spots on his skin. “I don’t want to blow anything up anymore.”
Lorie laughed. “You have to admit, that was pretty awesome. Look—” Lorie was poking in the grass with her toe, “—there are roasted zombie pieces all over.”
Sven looked, and when he saw that she was right, he shuddered in disgust. He disgusted himself further when he noted that the charred zombie bits reminded him that he needed to get some protein into his body to heal faster—definitely not zombie protein though, that was surely contagious.
“I don’t mean to ruin the mood,” Sven said, “but we need to start thinking about finding some shelter. Food and shelter.”