He drew a bead on one of the shufflers. Looked like Patsy Beaucannon from down the street, the hag who ran the Neighborhood Association and was always on people about dragging their trashcans in toot-sweet. Sometimes she tried to waylay neighbors by the mailboxes, but most put their heads down and hurried away when they saw her pink curlers on the horizon.
Those curlers hung off her skull on thin grey strings now. She moved barefoot in aimless shuffling circles, her cream-colored housedress fluttering in the sleet-melting breeze. More crapheads gathered, lurching and bobbing in irregular loops. If you watched long enough you might be able to find a pattern to their wandering.
One thing was for sure, Patsy’s jaws were still working. They all chewed, every single one of the crapheads. Their mouths cracked at the edges, and all afternoon he’d watched as stronger turned on weaker, stumbling ones, blundering close to tear at chunks of flesh.
Even the weak ones were quick when attacked, though.
When the level of gin in the bottle—liberated from a burning Piggly Wiggly’s liquor aisle the day he closed his hotel up safe and sound for the duration—reached the halfway mark, he got the box out of the closet, loaded the gun with fumbling fingers, and opened the master bedroom window—Mama’s room, still, because he slept in the small one. It just didn’t seem right, otherwise.
It took him two tries to get the screen loose, and he set it prissily aside before taking aim.
At first they didn’t seem to know they were being shot at. The gunshots fell flat into the curtains of sleet, and the herd milled around in smaller circles. Kenny couldn’t seem to aim straight, but he kept reloading, sighting Peggy’s pink curlers.
When the crapheads finally figured out they were under attack, they shuffled together in a mass, like wildebeests bunching up on a National Geographic show. It struck Schmitty as funny, and he took another potshot. This time the gun bucked wildly, and he swore, casting a half-guilty look over his shoulder when he realized the words had bounced out the open window.
Mama would have called that strong language.
He aimed again, carefully, sticking his tongue out a little. The fuzzy-sharp smell of gin, like potatoes in a dark corner for too long, rose in shimmering veils. It was a good aroma, a happy one, full of his mother’s loose warmth when she’d had “a few cocktails.” She was never a mean or loud drunk. Just happy, slow, and soft even when she had a hangover.
His next shot was a beauty, one of those fabulous happenings that follows around the god who looks after drunks and small children. Peggy Beaucannon’s craphead evaporated, chunks flying in every direction, pink curlers bouncing.
“Woooo!” Kenny yelled, braced against the windowsill. “TAKE THEM CANS TO THE STREET, BITCH!”
That may have been a mistake. The gun squeezed out of his plump, sweating hand, landing with a clatter on the ice-rimed front walk. He realized, dimly, that he was lucky he hadn’t shot himself with the damn thing, and a great pointless rage swelled up inside him.
“MOTHERFUCKERS!” he bellowed out the window.
They were dead, and walking the fuck around. The idea of driving out to Haggard County Cemetery and seeing if everyone had decided to come up, his Mama among them, was powerfully attractive one moment, and just as powerfully repellent the next. Kenny wavered in the window, only hazily aware of the crapheads finally noticing his existence.
The gin ignited, filling his skull with the kind of drunk that hits when you slide off your barstool for the first time and move, tacking unsteadily for the bathroom. Except Kenny Schmitt didn’t know about that.
It was, you see, the first time he’d ever touched booze. When he lost his balance and toppled out the open bay window over his front walk, the sound of him hitting pavement was lost under the soft, persistent shuffling of bare or indifferently shod feet as the crapheads circled. The caving-in of his skull and subsequent hematoma would have killed him if exposure didn’t, but neither had time.
The creatures, now quick and savage, scented blood.
Right as Rain
Lee touched the brakes, softly. His Chevy coasted to a stop in front of Bateley’s Sporting Goods, the shop’s long glass front reflecting ugly grey melt. He didn’t like the way the sky looked, a flat nasty iron pan. At least it was warmer, the winter’s inaugural snowfall turning to slush and drips running off building corners. When it froze again, things were gonna get dicey. Maybe they had some time before the howlers came down from the north.
Best not to borrow trouble. He had his eyes peeled for any hitching, darting movement, but so far, they hadn’t seen any of the critters again. Traveller was left safely in Ginny and Steph’s room, with a big bowl of water and mournful eyes. The kids were under strict orders not to go anywhere outside the hotel alone; Juju had them in the four-by and was looking for yet more supplies. Lee himself was on the hunt for ammo.
Lots of ammo.
“I thought I remembered a Bately’s here.” Ginny sounded pleased enough for both of them. She was bright as a new penny this morning, and that eased something inside Lee he hadn’t even known was wound clock-tight. “And there’s the bookstore. That’s where I got your present.”
Oh. Tucked on the other end of the strip mall, past a closed-up gun store and an empty unit with soaped windows, was a storefront with a hand-painted sign: SCHAPLY’S BOOKS, dabbed in cheerful white and yellow by a shaky hand. “Well, we can go on in there, if you need to.” At least she wasn’t asking him if he’d read any. There hadn’t been much time, what with recent events.
“I should get a fresh journal.” It was the first time she’d seemed downright excited. She clasped her gloved hands together, and those dark eyes were all but shining. “For history. And…God, what does one read in the middle of the Apocalypse?”
He hadn’t thought about it that way. Lee set the parking brake. “Huh?”
“I was up last night talking to Juju.” She bounced a little on the seat, her hood flopping and those gold ear-hoops sparkling even though the day was a grey haze.
Were you, now. Juju hadn’t mentioned it, but they were on a first-name basis this morning. Which was a vote of confidence from Thurgood; he didn’t hand out his Christian name to just anyone. Spatters of melt touched the windshield as the wind freshened.
Lee made a noise of assent, just to let her know he heard, and put the truck in park, scanning the parking lot again. There were a few cars, mounded under slumping snow, and that bothered him. None were close enough to this end of the mall to be an immediate concern, but his hackles were up. He touched the keys in the ignition, his forehead wrinkling hard. He had some decisions to make about about gasoline, too. So far, he and Juju could find the overflow valves with little trouble, but how long until whoever survived had guzzled up all remaining go-juice? “Read some of that Hemingway last night on watch.”
“Did you?” A sunny smile and sparkling eyes, all focused on him. She tugged at her pretty but useless grey gloves, settling them. She even looked graceful doing that, like Nonna in her Sunday best, fixing her veil and smoothing material down the backs of her hands and wrists. “What do you think of it?”
Lord, how was she so interested in what he thought of imaginary people? He cut the engine. “Don’t know why that girl puts up with him.” All the same, it was good. He said things direct, that Hemingway, and at the same time, there were things you could guess at. He didn’t drag you to the pond and try to put your nose in, he showed you the water and let you figure it out.
“Well, that’s love. Especially in fiction.” She reached for the door handle, stopped herself, and her smile faltered a little. “Is something wrong? You’ve got that look.”
Lee’s forehead was a little tight, but his face didn’t feel strange at all. Just usual. “What look?”
“Like something isn’t right.” Turning serious now, her mouth drawing down and her dark eyes turning grave.
Shit. He didn’t want her worrying. “Just lookin at the parkin lot, that’s all. Ain??
?t seen any of them critters.”
“Maybe they died off?” She didn’t reach for the door again, and that was a relief. “That kind of fever, and the activity we saw from them…that’s pretty metabolically expensive.”
It made sense that they needed extra fuel, Lee decided. “Well, if they’re eatin each other, maybe they’ve got enough in the tank.” He didn’t like that line of thought, or where it led. “Just let me look around a minute, get my bearings.”
“Okay.” She settled, and it was official: he could smell her shampoo. They had hot water for now, and girls liked being clean. Lee could also catch a breath of perfume, whatever it was she wore. He couldn’t quite pin it down, except it reminded him of summer grass cut the day before, warm and forgiving and just a little bit spicy.
He considered Bateley’s doors. Breaking the glass was the easiest way to get in, but was it the best? He hadn’t slept much last night, and it was showing. Fatigue was a killer. “Ain’t no help for it,” he murmured. “Gonna have to break some glass.”
“Well, yeah. Unless it’s open.” She leaned forward a little, peering through the windshield. “How many places do you think are just open, and why? Someone goes into work sick, falls down and convulses, then…”
“Then someone calls the ambulance, and it don’t come on time?” Christ. He could see it playing out, all over the Crossing and here, too. Gas stations, mom and pops, liquor stores, Laundromats. When you scratched from paycheck to paycheck, going to work sick was a necessary. “If it’s open, that means there’re prolly more critters. So let’s go easy, Miss Virginia.”
“Critters.” Her profile, thoughtful and sweet, sent a bolt of something hot and nameless through him. Even in this light, she looked impossibly finished. Each seam tucked away, each curl arranged, each inch of her buffed or glossed. “That’s a good word. Better than the other one.”
Zombies. Mark and Steph had made up their minds to call ’em that, and Lee thought the kids were having an easier time dealing with current events than the adults. After all, there were all the movies, and being young meant you didn’t have a whole lot of molehills to compare life’s mountains to.
He was busy looking at Ginny instead of the parking lot. Lee tore his attention away, gave the melting snow, lamp-posts, and moth-eaten shrubbery at the edges another going-over, scanned the sides of the building. Half brick, half concrete, probably real nice when it was built. Then the money ran out, and a slow slide downhill came along.
Lee studied Bately’s door again, the faded lightbox sign with its old-fashioned lettering. Bateley’s HUNTING FISHING FOOTBALL Sporting Goods. “Huh.”
Ginny followed his gaze, leaning forward a little. “What?” Another tantalizing thread of her perfume reached him. It really did smell like cut grass in summer, the day after you ran the mower and everything was dry and sweet.
“The open sign.” It was flipped. So there might have been someone in there, after all.
“That’s not good, is it.” Ginny’s breath caught midway through the sentence.
“Depends.” His heart sped up a little. “You stay behind me, you hear?”
“Yes sir.” It even sounded like she meant it.
The swinging glass door was unlocked, and Bateley’s was a damp cave full of plastic and the monstrous hulking shapes of exercise equipment. It reminded Lee of a high school locker room; it lacked the edge of fermented sweat and adult male frustration an Army shuckdown would have. No, this was all new equipment and high-flying dreams, kids aching to be the next superstar and parents determined to live out their own unfulfilled coulda-wouldas through their cubs.
Ginny stayed carefully behind him, and it took longer than he liked to scan the aisles and get a good idea of where everything was. It was goddamn dark, even with soft grey snowlight coming through the decorated front windows. Someone with a fair hand had painted snowflakes and harvest cornucopias all over the glass, along with percentages off brands and equipment in big bold letters. He'd never before thought about how that stuff got slapped on a window, and now Lee found himself wondering if that painter would ever dab a brush again.
Nothing looked off, but all his fine hairs were bristling.
“Do you really need a gun for this?” Ginny whispered.
Did she really want him to answer that? She'd be right glad he had one if a critter showed up. “You ever been in here?” She’d be able to tell if things were rearranged or missing.
“God, no.” She sounded horrified at the thought, peering around his shoulder, warm and close and thankfully safe. “What is that?”
He glanced at a lump of mangy taupe fur. “Looks like a deer.” An eight-pointer, with dark, wounded glass eyes. Someone was proud enough to stuff it, but they probably hadn’t eaten the meat. All for show, and that was a damn shame.
“But it’s…” Was she lost for words? Still whispering, like a little girl in church. Maybe trying to be polite.
“Stuffed.” Hadn’t she ever seen taxidermy before? “Look, they got a cougar too. Big bastar—uh, a big fellow.” The cat’s peepers were yellow glass, and glittered balefully. It was posed in a crouch no feline would ever consent to, on a big plastic lump supposed to represent a rock.
“Corpses on display,” she muttered. “Fabulous.”
He was about to make a smartass reply—funny, how standing in the door of a dark sporting goods store with a gun in his hand meant he could talk to her without feeling the shakes—when all his interiors turned cold and iron-sharp. The metal taste of adrenaline hit the very back of his tongue and every angle, every edge in the entire store stood out in crisp relief as his pupils swelled.
The critter erupted from behind glassed-in cases holding two cash registers and signs proclaiming You Broke It You Bought It and Unattended Children Will Be Sold As Slaves, a hideous grinding growl filling its flayed chest. It was haggard and juicy, dripping a foul fatty grease while its jaws worked with a queer rusty sound, like the tendons were seized up. Looked like a male, from the narrow hips and broader shoulders, and zipped onto its heaving ribs was a red polyester vest with a plastic nametag proclaiming FRED over the news that It’s Better at Bateley’s! Strings of dark oily hair plastered its rancid-gleaming scalp, and it held its arms out stiffly, shuffling and blundering between round racks of camo vests and pants. Looked like military surplus there, a piece of good luck; Lee brought the gun up smoothly.
“Plug yo’ ears, Miss Virginia.” He wanted the critter focused on him, and it didn’t disappoint—its head made that queer sideways listening movement right before the shot and muzzle flash. Ginny’s cry of surprise was lost in the noise, and if there were any others around, that would get their attention.
“—Christ!” Ginny finished, and Lee banished a smile, scanning for any movement in the dim interior. She crowded even closer, and that was pleasant but it might mess with his aim.
So he finished breathing out, nice and steady, and dropped his weight a little to keep both of them balanced. “Ginny.” Calm and focused, that was the ticket. If there were more, the noise would bring ’em out, and he’d deal with them one at a time. “You hear me?”
“I’m practically deaf,” she whispered, shakily. “Yes, I hear you.”
“Turn around. Put your back up against mine and watch that parking lot, okay?”
“Oh, God.” But she obeyed, and her small slight pressure caused a few more interesting reactions to cascade all the way to the bottom of his spine. Not to mention in front.
Deep breaths. Just keep breathing. Tunnel vision wanted to close down, he scanned again, shaking the ringing out of his ears and listening. No grinding sounds. No blundering noises like something in a back room was disturbed and was floundering. “How’s it look out there?”
“N-nothing moving.” She probably wasn’t aware she was still trying to back into him. “That I can see, I mean.”
“All right. We’ll just wait a second.” Staying near the door wasn’t good tactics, but in this case, he figur
ed it was best. The thing had fallen into a rack of vests and lay there, chewed fingers twitching as nerves figured out they were really, truly, unplugged. He had to loosen his knees—her lower center of gravity meant she could do a good job of backing right through him. “Just to see if that got anyone’s attention.”
“What was it?” Each word ragged, quick, but soft. Sounded like she was having trouble getting enough air in. “Was it one of them?”
“Was.” Lee considered the corpse. “Looks like he came into work on the wrong day.”
“Oh, God.” She surprised him again, taking an audible deep breath. “Is it…is it dead?”
“Should be. Half its head’s gone.” He expected another expression of disgust, but she stayed quiet. “Don’t you worry, Ginny. Everything is right as rain.”
“If this is right, I’d hate to see wrong.”
Since she wasn’t watching, he could let himself smile, a tight thin curve of lips. It wasn’t a nice expression, and he’d worn it out in the field more than once. Tip used to call it his chewin’ grin, because when it came out, someone was gonna get bit. “Nothin out there?”
“Nothing I can see.” She shuddered, a tiny, wounded shake, but she quit trying to back into him. Which was a shame, really. She was soft in all the right places.
“All right. Come on in.” The urge to look everywhere at once was overpowering, and familiar. Training overrode it, kept him ticking off quadrants, his eyes adapted to the gloom and his pulse beginning to smooth out. “But you stay with me, you hear?”
“I heard you the first time, Lee.” Her sweet, prim, prickly politeness. “I’m not stupid.”
No, indeed you are not. “I know.” It was damn cheerful to hear her get a little irritated, he decided. “I’m repeatin it to steady my nerves.”
“Oh. All right.” That eased her up a bit. Wind her up and wind her down, both sides were just as fun to watch. “Carry on, then.”
Which was exactly what they used to say in the Army. Lee filed it under coincidences to think about later and took another good look at the darkened store. “Looks like we’re lucky. Lots of ammo here.”