It wouldn’t go out.
“It is best to throw it,” Milt said. “I have soaked the end in lighter fluid, so
that piece of kindling is to be thrown,
unless you want to catch the whole supermarket on fire, which would be consistent with your series of actions thus far. However, I must insist that you do not light us all on fire. It seems even more unpleasant than your ongoing solicitation of zombies to join our unfortunate troupe.”
Reluctantly, and not wanting to catch himself on fire, Sven picked up the burning piece of wood and threw it off the roof. It landed on top of the sea of zombies gathered outside, lighting up the clothes of several.
The uneven throng stretched out from the woods where Evan was buried, through the parking lot, and to the entrance of the Wegmans. The crowd of zombies in the immediate area before the entrance was punctuated with lit up patches, where burning pieces of firewood glimmered and caught the zombies on fire. Sven looked for evidence that the zombies were succumbing to the burning, but he saw none.
“You’re attracting all of them here, there weren’t this many earlier! They’re gonna overpower us. And what the hell are you talking about? What zombie solicitation, what are you saying?”
Milt licked at his front teeth. “What am I talking about? I am talking about the zombie boy that you so fervently insisted on introducing into our attempt at a controlled environment, and—”
Brian interrupted. “Where’s Randy? He’s not up here Sven, and he’s not downstairs. I looked everywhere.”
Feeling a chill grip him, Sven looked down into the throng, convinced that Randy was down there.
“You have the right idea, bodybuilder man. The perpetual arsonist has left the building. I may have been too quick to judge him, however, at least in the arson aspect. I have discovered that it is quite an alluring pursuit. Of course, roasting the zombies bestows a certain additional…
je ne sais quoi, but then I imagine you would not know anything about such things.”
Sven ignored the portion that was incoherent ramble. “What do you mean he left? To go where?”
Then Sven noticed the ground around Milt’s furry-slipper-clad feet. There were wine bottles in rows, set up like dominoes, bundles of firewood, and a dripping can of lighter fluid. All the wine bottles looked closed. What was Milt doing with the wine?
“A toast,” Milt said. He picked up a bottle of wine and chucked it down into the throng. The bottle hit a zombie in the head, sending the zombie staggering backward. The bottle then bounced off another zombie’s arms before hitting the ground without smashing.
Milt huffed. “An unfortunate toss. I have been successful in shattering most of the bottles so far, and frankly, I must say that I am surprised you did not come up here earlier to investigate. Did you not hear the noise, or are you so used to cavorting among bottle-breakers that the sound did not raise any concerns?” Milt went on, not waiting for an answer, “They do not sell any liquor here, as you no doubt are aware, so Molotov cocktails are out of the question, but I find that the wine gives the zombies a nice coating on their feet, and perhaps may hasten the burning from the ground up. Of course, I also find the sound of shattering glass to be comforting.”
Sven was becoming exasperated. “I don’t see that the burning is having any effect. Where’s Randy?”
“You are quite incorrect. Several have already crumpled in the flames. It is just a matter of expanding the incineration. They are quite dry and crumbly it seems, eager to be consumed by fire…on their way to the netherworld perhaps.” Milt picked up a piece of firewood and began to douse its end with lighter fluid.
“Answer my question.”
“You see,” Milt began, gesticulating and accidentally pouring lighter fluid on his slippers, “improvised incendiary devices are not solely the province of uneducated, mustachioed guerilla fighters and rampaging mercenaries, improvised—”
Unable to listen any more, Sven struck Milt across the face with the butt of the Benelli. “For the last time, where the hell is Randy?”
Milt recoiled, putting a hand to his face. “Very well, if you must resort to such barbaric rudeness. As I have already informed you, he has left the building. He is gone—gone to the zombie horde of which he is now a member…or perhaps he was just a late night snack, I couldn’t really tell in the gloom—that was before I began to light them up, you see.”
Brian stepped forward. “So Randy just walked off, into the night. That’s what you’re telling us?”
Milt began to respond, but Sven didn’t hear him, because Sven was now enthralled by another object he had spied by Milt’s feet.
“He was up here,” Sven said, cutting off whatever Brian and Milt were saying to each other, “Randy was up here.”
Sven pointed to the pack of cigarettes that was in danger of being crushed under Milt’s stretched and apparently-resilient slippers.
“Those are his cigarettes.” Sven turned to Milt. “You don’t smoke, do you?”
Milt turned red. “I most certainly do not, even if I considered taking up the filthy habit, my asthma would not allow it.”
“So he was up here,” Brian said. “Why? You said he left.”
“So he did.”
Brian brandished the baseball bat. “By his own free will? What is it that you’re hiding?”
“Very well, if you must know, he did require some…persuasion. He was turning into a zombie, just like the boy was. I simply helped him find his place in the zombie apocalypse, and simultaneously secured our own safety. What I do not understand is this extreme ingratitude. You are all acting as if I have wronged you in some way.”
Lorie spoke up. “You stabbed him, like you stabbed Evan?”
Milt shook his head. “No, nothing like that. I simply pushed him from the roof. It is what he would have wanted, anyway—to be with his kind.”
Lorie looked incredulous as her eyes filled with tears. “So you pushed him…off the roof…to the zombies, just like that.”
“Well, in a manner of speaking, yes.”
Milt beamed, looking proud of his deed.
108
Overcome by rage, Sven grabbed Milt by his trench coat collar. A machete appeared at Milt’s neck, the tarnished blade reflecting small spots of moonlight.
The machete drew droplets of blood that trickled part of the way down toward the haft before finding comfortable resting places on the metal.
Awestruck, Sven looked at the machete, realizing that he had drawn it reflexively, without thinking.
Then the dark feeling was there, tingling up Sven’s arm and into his body, running down his spine and back up it.
Then the jungle enveloped him.
***
It was nightfall in the jungle, and the sun-kissed woman’s eyes flickered at him.
The corners of her mouth curved downward with a knowing peril.
Then she disappeared behind a thick tree trunk.
Sven began to follow, but a blinding bolt of lightning ripped into the ground a few paces in front of him, and he stopped dead in his tracks.
A faint, metallic odor hung in the air, and in the distance was…the beating of drums?
Sven’s voice caught in his throat as he tried to call out to the woman. He had finally taken notice of his surroundings, and he didn’t know if the immobility in his throat was greater part horror or revulsion.
The trees and vines around him…they were spattered with…almost painted with…as if they themselves were…
***
Sven was back on the roof, utterly disoriented.
He was holding a pig-like man, and there was a blade at the pig man’s throat. Sven followed the blade down to its wooden handle, and the wooden handle down to the hand that was holding it.
My hand, Sven thought, feeling even more disoriented.
The thoughts didn’t connect to anything in his mind, and then they were gone.
The darkness was in his legs and his face, then it was running around his face and up his legs at the same time. It was focusing itself in the back of his neck, then in his back, then—
It took hold of him.
Sven continued to hold Milt, who was squealing something. Sven couldn’t hear what it was, because he was too far away, somewhere unreachable. He felt his face do something. It could’ve been a grin, or a sneer, or a grimace, but it was most likely a baring of teeth.
He took Milt by the neck and crotch, and lifted the pudgy man up over his head.
It was almost a record-breaking push press.
Almost.
Sven walked closer to the edge of the roof. He looked up and felt sheer disgust fill him when the pig man’s tears fell onto his own face.
Milt was wailing now, begging probably, but Sven was still too far away to make out the words.
Then something kicked on in Sven’s mind and he looked Milt dead in the eye.
“You’ll not be back,” Sven said.
He felt Milt’s body shudder as he held the gargantuan lard-ball overhead.
He had trained for this his whole life.
There was something about this moment.
Something fated.
Something.
There was someone behind Sven, outside of him, screaming.
Sven lunged forward and threw Milt as hard as he could, with more strength than he thought he had.
Sven barely felt the crunch in his shoulder as he tossed Milt down to the zombies.
Milt hugged his knees and fell, no longer wailing or shrieking or even shuddering.
It was a short drop, and then the zombies had their very own butterball to play with.
Sven backed away from the edge of the roof and saw Milt’s sword lying by his feet. He picked it up and tossed it off the roof, without a care to where it went.
He sheathed the machete, then stood there, still and unblinking, his mind working through the darkness that had taken hold.
In jerky, uneven thoughts, he understood that there was a purpose to the darkness, a structure behind it.
Then Sven rested each of his hands on the hilt of a machete, and his sense of self began to seep back into him.
109
Milt didn’t scream as he fell. It was a short drop, and then the zombies had him…were holding him…were carrying him off? Why weren’t they tearing him apart?
That strange feeling of kinship hit him again, of belongingness, of some deep understanding...and that intoxicating aroma was there, playing in and around Milt’s nostrils, fluttering deeper and deeper, seeping into his lungs.
He was awash with a kind of acceptance he had never felt before. It was a glorious feeling, and he had to confess that the smell was even better than the smell of his personal battle station. He was in a better place now. He had become an even truer warrior through this ordeal.