“Great.” She didn’t have to work to sound heavily underimpressed. Just like Nonna, when she was too polite to tell his granddaddy he was full of something smelling like a bull’s rear end. Which wasn’t often, really—by the time Lee was old enough to understand sarcasm, Nonna had decided she wasn’t going to hold back much when Big Q was a fool. “You know, I wonder…”
“What?” He decided keeping her talking would keep her calm, too. If another critter showed up, he’d rethink the tactic. Fast.
Ginny cleared her throat, and when she spoke again, it was in something approaching a normal tone. “I wonder if they have a cricket bat.”
Huh? “A whatnow?” He decided things were calm enough, and took a smooth, gliding step forward.
She didn’t crowd him, but she did back up hurriedly, almost tripping over the threshold. “A cricket bat. You know, for playing cricket.”
What the hell? Was she cracking up? “I know what a cricket is, but I ain’t never played one.” Was it a fancy word for a fiddle? Why would she be thinking of music, for God’s sake?
“It’s a British game.” Much steadier now, she bumped into him, a butterfly touch. “Sorry. I just wondered. It seems like it would be useful if one of those…those things got close.”
“Okay. Well, we’ll look in the sportin half once I eyeball the ammo. You ever shot a gun before?”
“No. Of course not.”
Three little words—of course not, like he was silly to even ask. “Well.” He straightened a little, decided it was clear enough, and eased his piece back into the holster. They would have flashlights in here, not to mention batteries, and his old MagLite was due for an upgrade. “I figure now’s a good time to get started. We’ll find you one.”
So Were the Living
It was warming rapidly, even in the shadows of concrete city towers. If it froze again, they were looking at some disgusting times on the road. The supermarket—it was a fancy-dancy one, big, brick, and new with a parking lot full of the trimmed ghosts of ornamental bushes in concrete holders—was dead and dark as everything else. Juju stopped for a moment to scan the lot, and realized both the goddamn teenagers had fallen behind, holding hands like it was prom night or some such foolishness, their heads close together as they ambled.
Juju considered counting to ten, but his nape itched at being out of cover for any longer than necessary. “Lee said to stay together and keep alert.” It was like herding cats, only cats had the God-given sense to keep their heads out of nooses. “You can’t be stoppin to play grabby-face with each other.”
“We wasn’t,” Steph bridled, but Mark Kasprak at least had the grace to look ashamed.
“He’s right,” the boy said, untangling himself from Steph’s hand and casting a guilty glance at the slush-choked parking lot. His dark hair, combed down, was no longer a bird’s nest, and the shadow of acne in the crease between his lower lip and chin was an angry red.
Juju restrained the urge to roll his eyes. Next time he was goin’ off with Miss Ginny, who at least had some damn sense. He peered through the darkened windows, cupping his hand to block out thin grey winterlight. “Thank you, son. Now. Steph, you can shoot a .22, but I ain’t sure that’s enough to stop one of those things.”
“I ain’t sure either,” Mark weighed in gravely, the hood of his parka flopping a bit as he shivered. “Mr Meacham was still goin even after the truck hit him.”
“Don’t…” Steph, halfway between scandalized and breathless, hugged herself. At least her lips weren’t blue, like they’d been yesterday. Her arms tensed, and she swallowed hard. “And Mama,” she continued, determined not to be outdone. “She was still goin’, even though Mark…”
“Don’t think about that, Steph.” Kasprak, awkward, tried to reclaim her hand, but Steph, her baby-fine changecolor hair piled atop her young head in a red scrunchie, shied away.
“I got to, now.” Her shoulder almost hit the plate glass supermarket window, and Juju suppressed a sigh. Goddamn kids. Steph had good boots, but Mark’s were busted-down puffy-top numbers that looked at least a size too small. Lee had taken the kids’ sizes with him to the sporting goods store Ginny said she remembered, but if Juju saw anything reasonable along the way, he’d liberate it for the cause.
He decided to keep them in the here-and-now instead of thinking about home. “Your daddy ever let you use a shotgun, Miss Steph?”
“Nosir.” Her cheeks and nose both reddened, she continued to hug herself. “He did let me shoot off his .45, though. Had a kick.”
“.45’s good. That’ll stop one of those bas—I mean, one of them critters.” Lord, he was about to swear a blue streak right in front of the children. Things were indeed in a fix, as his grandma used to say. “Might find one somewheres, after we finish here. Now, listen. You stay close until we know it’s clear. Don’t go runnin off to find a bathroom, y’hear?”
“Yessir,” they chorused. “Mr Thurgood,” Steph added, for good measure.
At least they were good kids. Juju suppressed another sigh, scratched at his forehead under the blue pompom hat Tip always said made him look like a goddamn Canadian, and tried the door. Locked, of course, so he limbered up the crowbar and worked its business end into the slight gap, back-and-forthing it. It was a fine time to wish he’d done real breaking and entering in his younger days. He could have busted the damn thing with little trouble, but making a shit-ton of noise was not the best way to go about this.
Especially since the critters worked off sonar. Wasn’t that a kick in the pants.
“Are we really supposed to…” Kasprak swallowed the back end of that question when Juju glanced at him. The teenager hunched his shoulders, miserably. Boy was gonna be tall and lanky, a string bean like Lee instead of a fireplug like Tip.
Juju winced. As long as he kept thinking of the next thing, and the next, he wouldn’t have to dwell on the sound a skull made when it crushed under a lamp, or a grinding noise from the chest of his best friend. “Well, unless’n we wanna starve to death, we ain’t got no choice,” he said, for the third time that morning. All the same, if they police shows up, y’all can stay and talk to them, but I ain’t gonna.
He decided not to say that out loud, and monkeyed the door a little further. It gave with a squeak, a ping, and a rattle, lost in the vast amphitheater of outside-sound. Wind, dripping water, bird-twitters. Juju realized he was damn spooked, and it took him a second to figure out why.
No traffic noise. Nothing but air moving, the faint noises of animals getting ready for a winter-bed-down, snow melting, and the two kids breathing right next to him. Well, at least they’d hear the goddamn foaming, grinding critters when they started growlin’.
Wasn’t that a pleasant thought.
“Never been in one of these before,” Steph breathed, rubbing her pink-gloved hands together to warm them or with glee. “Look at that.”
The floor was concrete, but dyed a weird smooth russet. The checkout counters looked brand new, each with a skirting of varnished wood, and the signs in the aisles all matched. It was the kind of place where slick-haired housewives brought their own bags, standing dark and deserted—it didn’t smell too bad, though any grocery was gonna get rank after a while. Juju edged inside, his sidearm pointed down just in case, and strained his ears.
“Fancy.” Mark Kasprak laughed, a bona-fide teenage-boy sarcastic snort, and Steph giggled. The two of them mugging for each other was enough to give a man the old acid burps.
He decided it was safe enough for the moment, and holstered up. “All right, seems clear enough. Miss Steph, you be lookin for things you and Miss Ginny might need, girl-like, and first aid supplies. Kasprak, you’re on canned goods and dry, things that’ll keep a long while. I’m gonna sweep what’s left and look for necessaries.”
“Yessir,” Kasprak said.
That covered everything he could think of, except the most important thing. “And make a little noise, but not a lot, so I know where you are.”
> “Yessir.” Steph, this time, her hands clasped like a schoolgirl’s in pink camo gloves. Well, it was truth in advertising. Both of them were too goddamn young for this.
Mark’s hands were bare, and raw with the cold. Juju added that to the list. “And if you see one of them things—”
“Sing out once and run,” they chorused, good bright-eyed little students.
“That’s right.” Juju didn’t like sending them off, but he also didn’t want to be in here all damn day. “Get yo’ lights out.” They produced their flashlights, and switched them on without needing to be told. “Good. Take a basket and bring everything up here for us to pack it, y’hear? And be careful.”
“Yessir.” Kasprak scrubbed at his nose, already red and full from the sound. Steph set off, playing her flashlight beam over the aisle signs. The boy watched her, and Juju wondered if he knew what was written all over his young face. Something between hunger and bafflement, with a good helping of want thrown in to spike it with napalm.
Lord, to be that young again.
As usual, when shit went sideways, it didn’t stop to take a breath first.
Juju made a circuit of the outside of the store, half to get the layout and half out of curiosity. He’d always wondered what it looked like when one of these was closed up, and now he knew. The produce section was bare except for potatoes and the like; when those turned to rot it would get root-cellar fragrant. The bakery was empty too, its wire shelves turned into sad hungry teeth. The meat counter’s glass hutch was bare and clean, chilly white. The place was locked up tight, so it was likely to be clear. All the perishables were no doubt in coolers behind the swinging employee doors, and with the cold even tomatoes would probably keep for a while.
That was what he was thinking when he heard a low, nasty noise, a burr caught in a grinder.
Shit. He cleared leather, the flashlight’s beam swinging wild, and Jesus but it was too damn dark. Instinct fought with training; training won, driving him into a crouch that saved him as the thing blurred growling from behind the gleaming, empty meat counter.
It was a heavyset man in a short-sleeved white button-down, now torn along the hem and bibbed down the front with a dark, spreading, gleaming stain. His suspenders and tie were both red, and his khakis had once had a sharp crease in front. Sensible brown loafers and a nametag finished the picture of a manager, maybe the last one to lock up or the first one in on a chill winter morning even though he wasn’t feeling too good. A close-set pair of grey-filmed eyes rolled behind horn-rimmed Coke-bottle glasses somehow still attached to the critter's head. The mouth worked, teeth snapping, and Juju’s hand came up nice and smooth, the gun barking almost on its own. Muzzle flash painted the scene, lightning at the same time as the thunder.
Shit shit shit. Juju duckwalked sideways as the thing fell, its head steaming. Brain and bone splattered, and the thought that some of it might get on him brought up the oatmeal and coffee he’d had for breakfast, pressing hot acid against the back of his throat. It always happened like that; Juju Thurgood’s stomach, despite a lifetime of practice digesting the unpalatable, was nervous when the killin’ was over.
Every goddamn time. I hate puking. His back hit an endcap full of wine; glass chimed, bottles rubbing together. None of them fell, thank God and all the saints. Sweat prickled all over him. Shit. The kids. Where are the kids?
“Steph?” Mark Kasprak, his voice breaking, from somewhere in the store’s middle. “Steph!”
“I’m right here.” Irritable. “Where’s Mr Thurgood?”
God damn you both, shut the fuck up. He cleared his throat. The corpse on the floor twitched a little. The critter’s glasses had flown free, and the uninjured half of of the corpse-face stared reproachfully at Juju when the flashlight beam touched it.
“Stay where you is,” he rasped, then repeated it a little louder. “Kids, just stay where you is.”
“Yessir,” Steph squeaked. She sounded scared to death. Which meant she had some sense after all. Wonders never ceased.
He was gonna have to check where the goddamn critter—oh, hell, might as well call it a zombie like the kids did—had come from, just to be sure. Behind the fucking meat counter. In the dark.
The corpse’s nametag said Jim. Right below, in heavy type: STORE MANAGER—LET ME HELP YOU! The cracker motherfucker wasn’t gonna be helping anyone anymore.
A flicker of motion to his right, and afterward, Juju didn’t know why he hadn’t squeezed the trigger. Maybe he’d heard a rustle of cloth, maybe it was the boy’s flashlight beam, or maybe he’d just frozen. Whatever it was, he almost filled Mark Kasprak’s narrow chest with 9mm bullets, and the goddamn idiot, standing there with his mouth fish-open and his hair springing back up in unruly spikes, stared.
“Sonofabitch!” Juju hissed. “I told you to stay put!”
The kid just gaped. Juju decided his legs would work if he told them to, and swayed upright.
“Is it dead?” Mark whispered. His dark eyes were big as saucers, and Juju was very, very glad the kid didn’t have a piece on him. Soldiers with that expression were just as liable to shoot their buddies as the enemy. Once a man started lookin like a deer, you took his weapons away and got him behind the lines right quick for a hot meal and something to loosen up the spring in his chest.
“Pretty sure.” A thin trickle of sweat slid down Juju’s spine. Jesus Christ. Even his bowels felt loose, and that hadn’t happened in a long, long while. “I coulda shot you, boy. You gotta be careful.”
Something flickered in Kasprak’s pupils for a second. He swallowed, twice, Adam’s apple bobbing, and nodded. “Don’t call me boy,” he said, flatly. “What we gonna do now?”
You’s goddamn lucky I didn’t callya shit for brains. Juju swallowed it, though. A lifetime of keeping what he thought of stupid white boys behind his teeth was a hard habit to break, even if he wanted to. Bottling that shit up kept you alive, though, like yessir and nosir and going on leave with a pale buddy each time, just in case.
Just-in-fucking-case.
Here it was the end of the world, and he still had to watch what he said. Especially since Frank Kasprak was a bigot with a mean streak. Would’ve joined the triple K if he could stay sober enough to attend meetins, was Juju’s private estimation of the man, and probably taught his tadpole plenty. Apples falling next to trees, it was a goddamn tragedy.
The world was full of fucking tragedies, even after the Pocalypse. Juju exhaled a sharp, bile-scented breath. “Imma check that backroom, make sure there ain’t no more of ’em.”
Kasprak eyed him. “Okay.” A single, colorless word. “Want help?”
Nah. I don’t think having a jumpy-ass kid behind me is a good idea. “Go stay with Miss Steph. One of you watches, t’other one shops.”
“Aight.” But the kid just stood there. “You sure you don’t want some help, sir?”
So it was “sir” now. That, Juju decided, was a good thing. Thank God I didn’t shoot you, kid. “I’ll be all right. You just keep with Miss Steph and sing out if another one shows up, you hear?”
“Yessir.” Mark turned around and shuffled past a display of corn chips, vanishing into the dimness.
Juju sagged on his feet. His hands jittered like they heard music, and his mouth was full of sour dry heat now. Yeah, the zombified assholes were dangerous.
So, James Unwin Thurgood decided, were the living.
Goodbye to Old Friends
The bell over the door jingled its usual merry chime; Ginny could have cried with relief at the sane, familiar sound. Even though the entire place was damp and chilly, even though the only light was through the front windows, it still smelled of paper and dust and the faint vanilla tinge that said books.
And books meant safe.
Schaply’s New and Used was tiny, because the people around here liked their tee-vees more than the effort of reading. It was a wonder the place stayed open at all. The owner Paul, a cranky heavyset man with an ancient NRA baseball
cap and John Wayne-sized suspenders, was nevertheless very gentle when you placed your purchases on the counter. You learned to take your change from said counter because he would not hand it to you, no sir, and you also learned to have your library card—not your ID—out if you had to write a check. He wouldn’t take one from someone who didn’t have a library card, and forget using your debit or credit cards. Nosir, he’d repeat, balefully, or no ma’am, I don’t hold with that credit foolishness.
On the other hand, his stock was always interesting, and you could order just about anything through him at a discount. His nephew was a computer whiz, and liked the challenge of tracking down cheap books for his old crotchety uncle. She’d only caught glimpses of the kid—gangly in flannel shirts and jeans, black hair pasted down over his forehead and a pair of black cat’s-eye glasses, bent over a laptop balanced precariously on Paul’s paper-piled desk—but he seemed like a nice one. She suspected the store was what they called a “boondoggle” in this part of the country, gently going to seed, or maybe Paul had some savings and a pension he used to keep it running. You could invent all sorts of stories about a stocky liver-spotted man who ran a bookstore and whose coffee cup invariably carried a strong alcoholic tinge.
There was a Barnes & Noble on the other side of Lewiston, but she’d always preferred to come here. A shorter drive, easier to get back on the freeway, and patronizing a local business, right? Only now she was hoping they wouldn’t find grizzled, ill-tempered Paul and his red suspenders, gone zombified and chewing on empty air. Or his nephew, quick and skinny and rotting.
It was silent, the welcoming silence of worlds resting behind covers, waiting patiently to be opened, profligate with their magic once you parted their pages. Ginny took three or four steps in, closed her eyes, and inhaled the beautiful, wonderful smell of refuge. When she turned to check on Lee, he was peering at the top of the doorway, digging in his back pocket. He produced a serious-looking multi-tool, and a few moments later was unscrewing the metal piece holding the bell.