Sven had to look away. The gore seemed to be accumulating in his brain, as if the more he saw of it the sicker it made him, with no reachable point of saturation. He shook his head and took a shallow breath, reminding himself not to breathe too deeply of the tainted air.
Then Jane pointed at the first one, still making its way toward them. Her face was pallid. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is just like the movies and you have to—you have to get them in the head. Sever the spinal chord or destroy the brain and all that.”
Sven looked at her. “What? So you were paying attention to all those zombie movies we watched? You always said you hated them.”
“Just because I hated them doesn’t mean I didn’t get the plot. It’s a simple enough concept to grasp, and yes, even women get it.”
Sven nodded, raised the sledgehammer, and brought it down on the crawling zombie’s head, flattening it with finality. The thing stopped moving and lay still.
Sven looked at the three dispatched zombies on the gravel path. These zombies were mostly dry, and that was alright. He caught himself in the unusual thought. No, it wasn’t alright, but it was better, better than that girl standing there with her backpack and no—
“I think they’re all dead now,” Jane said, moving toward Sven slowly and extending her hand to him. “Come on, let’s finish up with the gate, we gotta get out of here quick.”
Sven blinked and looked away from the three mangled office worker zombies. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that damn lock won’t break.”
“I’ve noticed, there’s no need to get all snippety about it.”
“Snippety? Snippety?”
“Put your legs into it or something, come on.” Jane smiled, but Sven could see she was forcing it.
“I guess if we’re stuck here,” Sven said, “then we’ll have to get in the car and try to drive through them, or go by foot.”
Jane shook her head. “Both very bad options.”
“Yeah, very bad.”
Sven was back at the fence, facing the gate. He raised the sledgehammer high up over his head, then he had a thought.
“Wait,” Sven said. “That’s not right.” He lowered the hammer to the ground and rested it in front of him.
“What?” Jane asked, but Sven was already in motion. He hefted the hammer off the ground in front of him, swung it forward, and then reversed its motion and swung it behind and around his body, gaining momentum and bringing it in a vertical circle that terminated at the locked gate.
Sven missed the lock, and hit the chain instead. The link he hit shattered, and the recoil from the blow shook Sven’s body so much that he let go of the sledgehammer and let it fall to the ground. The chain slid out of place and clinked onto the ground.
“Thank God!” Jane shrieked. “Let’s go, come on,” and she was already climbing into the backseat as another wave of zombies—five in this one—was gaining ground on the car.
Sven was so surprised that the chain had broken that he stood looking at it for a moment, until a honk broke through his idleness. He turned and saw Lorie’s hand on the steering wheel, then Jane climbed over from the back of the car and into the driver’s seat. Jane honked, lowered the window, and said, “Come on, come on, open it!”
Sven kicked the chain to the side, picked the vertical bar that held the gate in place out of its hole in the ground, and pulled. The gate began to move outward, then stopped suddenly, shaking in place.
This can’t be happening, Sven thought. He tried pulling again, then realized that the vertical bar had slipped out of his hands and caught in the gravel, restricting the gate’s movement. He raised the bar and pulled again. Cool relief swept over him as the gate swung open all the way.
There was another honk and then Jane drove through the opening. Sven dragged the sledgehammer after her and began to close the gate. He pulled it back into place, letting the vertical bar grind to a halt in the gravel, without replacing it in its hole. Maybe the zombies wouldn’t know how to work it.
They definitely wouldn’t, Sven told himself, they don’t even remember how to get out of their cars.
He threw the sledgehammer down and hobbled to the car as quickly as he could. As he was making his away around the back of the car to get into the passenger seat, the back door opened and the boy toppled out onto the field’s untended grass.
Evan began to retch in violent spasms, and Sven realized at once that they were all going to have a big problem. The kid was very, very sick.
Chapter 55
Across the parking lot, Milt saw two separate groups of men and women—mostly men overall—running and screaming and breaking things. Many of them had baseball bats or clubs of some sort. Milt quickly retreated to his storefront, slinking into position before his display window—the window that housed the singular dark, dusty curtain that kept light out of the store.
He exhaled forcefully and pressed his bulk to the window, making his impressive warrior’s body as unobtrusive as possible. He peered over his shoulder at the looters.
Wait, what was he doing? This was Milt’s day, his time had come, and he would not cower. He would not.
Milt peeled himself off the window, and marched straight for the looters, who were riding shopping carts full of wares—stolen wares no doubt. He avoided the wandering zombies in the parking lot, and was careful to stay away from the cars in which zombie drivers sat and flailed in their stupid, undead misery.
Then he situated himself in an empty spot in the parking lot under the beating sun. He glanced over at a tree-shaded spot with a covetous eye, but that spot had cars under and around it, and the cars weren’t empty. Milt sighed, belched, and addressed the looting shopping-cart surfers, who had stopped in the midst of their illegal revelry to regard Milt in his full glory. Some were pointing at his sword, others at his belly. Milt swiped at his sweaty forehead with the back of his left hand, smoothed down his pony tail, wiped the back of his hand on the hip area of his t-shirt, and began his speech.
“Hear me anarchists and evildoers. This is not a time for petty theft. This is not a time for inconsequential rebellions against the establishment. No, this is a time for redefining yourselves. This is a time for waging war against the undead enemy under a proud common banner.”
Milt looked at the looters. There were twelve in all, one group of five and one group of seven. It looked like they might all be together, or familiar with each other, or something. It wasn’t clear what their relationship was, except that they weren’t fighting each other. There were three women and nine men. Two—a woman and a man—were Hispanic. The rest were white. They were all watching Milt with a wary attentiveness, and this bolstered Milt’s resolve.
“This is a time to unite, to remake humanity. It is a time for leaders to rise up. And here I am. I have risen, and I stand before you now, ready to lead you into the future.”
Milt thought he saw a few of the ruffians chortle, but that could not have been it. This was no chortling matter.
“And so, my disciples, I say unto you, come together under my banner—the banner of Miltimore the Mighty, Miltimore the Sword-Wielder!”
Milt raised his sword high up into the air and gave a fierce battle cry.
When he lowered his sword and wiped some sweat from his face—it really was a hot day for destroying zombies—the sniggers among the looters were unmistakable. But Milt ignored the chuckles, the looters were likely uneducated, and their crass behavior could be excused.
“What say you to this, my soon-to-be followers? It is clear that you are in need of strong, experienced leadership.”
One of the men, a lanky, hoodlum-type wearing a backward cap, baggy jeans, and oversized white t-shirt, stepped forward. Milt’s stomach fluttered.
The hoodlum spoke up.
“Oh yeah? And you have experience? In what?”
“Yeah,” the Hispanic woman chimed in. “Who are you? And why do you have a sword?”
Milt couldn’t believe th
e audacity of these people.
“As I said previously,” Milt began, “I am a sword-wielder, ergo I carry a sword. I am extremely experienced. I have gone on thousands of quests, and have slain numerous toothsome beasts in battle. Therefore, I have the requisite experience to lead you, and—”
The Hispanic woman pointed behind Milt. “Look!”
Milt lumbered around and saw a throng of approaching zombies. He turned back to the looters and began to plod toward them.
“Hey man,” the hoodlum said, “you stay away from us. You’re attracting those things to us.” The hoodlum was backing away, and backed into one of the shopping carts full of pilfered loot. “Some hero you are. You’re nothing but a nerdy freak.”
“Yeah,” the Hispanic woman said, “stick to slaying dragons or whatever it is you do. Just stay the hell away.” Then she took hold of a shopping cart that was resting against a car, pulled it back with a scrape, and pushed its clattering mass toward Milt.
Milt tried to sidestep, but he tripped on his own feet and fell sideways onto the hot pavement, dropping his sword with a resounding clang. He tried to get up by rolling onto his back and then rocking back up and over onto his front. It worked after a few tries, the hot pavement leaving Milt’s body unpleasantly seared. He slowly picked himself up amidst the laughter of the looting scoundrels, got to his feet, and retrieved his sword. The pavement sear had brought on a profuse bout of sweating.
“As you wish,” Milt said. “Go as you have come, leaderless and without hope. But heed my words, you are marching straight into a post-apocalyptic oblivion.”
Eye rolls, shrugs, and nervous chuckles made their rounds through the misguided raiders, and they took off, pushing and towing their shopping carts toward Route 29, where, Milt assumed, an escape vehicle awaited them.
No matter, Milt thought, they shall doubtless perish at the hands of the undead. They were too stupid anyway, he knew, and didn’t deserve the honor of his leadership.
There was a pressing matter at hand—the approaching throng. Milt lumbered back around to assess the situation so that he could begin to formulate his battle plan. He gulped at what he saw, and jammed a sticky inhaler into his mouth.
He took a few puffs, but then realized that he was doing it more out of habit than need. He could breathe just fine. In fact, he was breathing better than he had in years, in spite of all the allergens floating in the air, seeking him out to torment him. Maybe it was that wonderful fragrance in the air. It reminded him of the way his battle station smelled when he had been engaged in his World of Warcraft pursuits for more than nine hours at a time. There was always a magical shift in the air at the nine hour mark. But this smell was different, more complex, enhanced.
It seemed to be associated with the zombies somehow, and as the group of zombies staggered closer to Milt, the magnificent aroma became stronger. He remembered it from his encounter with that first zombie in his store, but the smell hadn’t been this concentrated. It had likely been diluted by the smells of his battle station, his store, and then of the vomit.
Then he understood what the scent was. It was his destiny’s perfume. Yes, Milt told himself, that’s what it is. That’s what it had to be. He smiled, raised his sword, and belched.
The zombies were gathering in around him.
Chapter 56
Jane was outside in an instant, holding Evan’s body, probably so that the kid didn’t knock into anything and hurt himself while he was projectile vomiting. Sven watched, and noted that he had never seen anyone throw up with so much force before. He kept his distance from Jane and the boy, and looked down the length of the field to the road that he planned to drive onto if—no, when—the boy got better.
Sven looked back at the gate. There were zombies gathering at the other side of it now, but not all of the group of undead that they had just gotten away from. He could see eight at the gate, and the rest of the undead seemed to have lost interest in Sven and his group.
Maybe the zombies were attracted by the humans’ smell, or by noise, but whatever it was, it seemed they were not communicating, and they had certainly lost a good amount of their intelligence. As Sven had guessed would happen, the zombies at the gate weren’t even trying to open it, acting as though they had no idea that opening the gate was even an option.
Somewhat relieved and breathing clearer air, Sven turned back to the car and walked closer. Lorie was outside now too, looking worried, but—Sven noticed with a growing curiosity—also keeping her distance from Evan and Jane. There was something about that girl that reminded Sven of himself, as weird as that was.
“What’s wrong with him?” Lorie asked.
Jane shook her head, looking despondent. “I don’t know. Maybe all the stress of the day, and you said he wasn’t feeling well before.”
Lorie nodded.
“He’s burning up,” Jane said. “We need to get him something for his fever. He’s barely conscious.”
Sven walked closer, and put his hand a few inches from the boy’s pallid forehead. Sven felt heat on his hand without even touching the boy.
The sounds of the zombies on the other side of the fence carried over to Sven, who found his ears suddenly tune into the sounds of gravel being kicked and stamped and turned over by the milling of the zombies’ feet. There were groans too, but his mind was drawn to the zombies’ gravel-kicking.
“I should’ve...” Sven began, but he didn’t finish. He looked at Evan, and then back at the gate.
“I’m not sure when we’ll be able to stop again, the way things are going,” Sven said. “And there’s a drugstore right there.” He pointed to the drugstore next to the hibachi restaurant.
“What? You can’t go back over there. How are you going to get through all of...all of them?” Jane paused. “You can’t, we’ll find another place, we’ll—”
“I’ll come with you,” Lorie said. “I’m not afraid, at least not anymore. Evan needs our help.”
Lorie began to walk to Sven, but Jane’s voice stopped the girl in her tracks. “You most certainly are not going over there with Sven, and Sven isn’t going over there either. We’ll have to find somewhere else. Come on, let’s get in the car.”
Jane was holding Evan, now limp, in her arms.
At least he’s done throwing up, Sven thought, but then wondered if an unconscious boy was better than a vomiting one. Probably not.
“I’m going,” Sven said. “Look, that large group isn’t interested in us anymore. There’s just a few of them at the fence, and I’ll be quick. Nimble even. But you—” Sven looked at Lorie, “—you have to stay here and help Jane and Evan. Okay?”
“I can be more help to you on the other side of that gate,” Lorie said, looking Sven in the eye.
“Maybe, but for now you’re staying here,” Sven said, and then he strode off painfully into the thickening stench, the sledgehammer poised on his shoulder.
Chapter 57
Jane was yelling something in Sven’s direction. He was certain she was trying to call him back, but he couldn’t make out the words. He could hear them well enough, or at least the sounds of the words, but as he walked into that putrefying odor, the words lost their ability to hit home, didn’t connect to each other, didn’t translate into thoughts.
Sven remembered Evan though, he remembered he had to help the boy, and so he kept reminding himself to breathe sparingly. He took a few quick snorts of the cleaner air as he walked to the gate, resolving that once through the gate, he would close his mouth and take small sniffs at the air before determining that it was safe to breathe. Sven hoped he could remember to do all of this as he got closer to the fence. He would have to be quick.
By the time he got to the fence, the zombies had gone still. They were no longer milling and anxiously looking in his direction. They were standing on the other side of the fence, facing Sven, unblinking, unmoving, and otherwise seemingly transfixed by his nearness.
Sven made every effort to look away. By th
e time he did manage to avert his gaze, he had seen more than enough.
The zombies on the other side of the gate were all chewed up. There were nine of them there, not eight as Sven had previously estimated, and they were a sight almost as horrific as the mostly headless standing girl in the store had been. The nine zombies looked like they had been fighting with each other, and biting each other, and ripping off gobbets of each other’s flesh, and some were missing parts of limbs, and eyes, and one had a nose that wasn’t quite all there anymore, and—
Get a hold of yourself Sven, he told himself, and took a deep breath. He deftly stuck his fingers through a gap in the gate, grabbed hold of the vertical bar, and raised it from its stop in the gravel. He tightened his grip on the hammer, gritted his teeth, flung the gate open, and lost all control.
He was off the mark with his first swing, but that didn’t matter. The five inches of shaft behind the head of the sledgehammer made contact with the first zombie’s ear, the head of the sledgehammer hooking behind the zombie’s head. There was so much force behind the swing that the side of the zombie’s head flattened, and the ear came away like a clipped fingernail, flying up into the air.
The sledgehammer kept going, and smashed into the face of another zombie, pushing its nose into and through its cheek. Sven twisted with the swing, and the momentum was so great that he fell on his side and lost his grip on the hammer, losing it in the gravel.
He was on the ground now, and the zombie with the smashed face was next to him, staring at him with one leaking, exploded eye, as the numbness began to creep into Sven’s body, began to seep into his mind.
Then three zombies were on top of him—over him, clutching at his track pants, and, it seemed, trying to pull the pants off him. A primitive part of Sven awoke from its slumber, and he growled with so much ferocity behind it that the three zombies stopped their pulling for a second.
And a second was all that Sven needed.
He rocked up to a sit-up position and grabbed the hair of the two zombies who were on the outside of the group standing over him. He cringed as soon as his hands closed in on the wiry, matted hair, much of which fell away at his touch. But he had enough purchase, and he twisted, breaking one of the zombie’s necks, but not getting enough rotational force to break the other one.