“That’ll have to do,” was his curt reply.
When Travis and Alex had gone back out and my weapon was back on my shoulder, a little man no more than 5’5” tall came out from behind the customer service desk. He wore coke bottle glasses, had a receding hairline that had probably earned him the nickname Five-Head. (I’ll explain – it’s like ‘forehead’ only his is so big it’s a FIVE head. So it’s not the funniest joke in the world, and it is at the expense of another, but you gotta admit it’s still humorous). He had on penny-loafers, khaki pants, a shirt and a tie, and a Safeway smock that had his name, Store Manager Thad adhered to it.
“How you doing Thad?” as I extended my hand out.
“How...how did you know?” He quickly realized his mistake and blushed as he looked down at his nametag.
I couldn’t believe this guy was still alive. A field mouse would most likely send him shrieking into the night. Bad example, that would probably send me shrieking into the night too.
“How many of you are there, Thad?” I asked as he finally closed the distance between us and took my proffered hand.
“Four.” He winced; I may have gripped his hand a little too tightly. I was still a bundle of nerves.
“May I say something, sir?” he began.
“Mike,” I answered.
“Mike?” he asked.
“Yeah, Mike Talbot’s my name.”
“Mike, please don’t take this wrong.” He looked a little embarrassed at what he was about to say, and he didn’t want to offend me but he held true to his convictions. “You really do smell bad,” he finished. I noted he had a distinctive not-oft used English accent buried in there somewhere.
“Yeah I get that a lot,” I said as I put my non-offending arm around him.
He visibly relaxed. I told him about why we were here, and about the Little Turtle complex and that all of them were welcome. There was still plenty of room to be had.
Thad called out to the rest of his cohorts, who turned out to be two of his co-workers and one customer. From behind the aisle with the canned fruit came a woman in her late 50’s. Sores covered most of her arms and she had some on her face. I gripped my rifle a little tighter thinking she might be one of the undead. When that didn’t appear to be the case I wondered how she could possibly be developing a case of scurvy in a grocery store. She nodded in my general direction and headed back down the aisle picking at a sore at the bridge of her nose.
Thad whispered to me. “She’s been doing that since this whole mess started, a sore no sooner closes up and she picks it open.”
I shuddered in revulsion. The germaphobe in me was going to make sure that she wasn’t in the same vehicle as me when we headed back.
From right behind me, where he had been waiting behind the shopping carts came a giant of a man carrying a tire iron. I would have thought it was Durgan but this man was a soft chocolate color. He unnerved me to the core; give me a zombie any day.
“Sure glad I didn’t have to use this,” he said as he smacked the iron into his open palm. Alex and Travis rushed in thinking it was a gunshot, it was that loud.
“Ah yeah, me too,” I said honestly.
“That big fellow’s name is O’Henry but we all call him Big Tiny, because…” Thad stated.
“I get it,” I said looking straight into Big Tiny’s sternum.
“B.T. for short,” the big man said as he walked a little way past us to get a water out of one of the end cap coolers. I noticed he had a small smirk on his face, as if happy that his size had visibly flustered me like it did.
The last to show herself was the lone customer in the store when Thad had prudently locked the doors from the horrible nightmare that raged all around in the parking lot. Her name was Beth, and she was in her late 30’s, early 40’s, shoulder length auburn hair, green-hazel eyes, and a heart shaped face. She was attractive but there was something else about her; I had an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. I knew her somehow but I had never laid eyes on her before, at least not in this lifetime. Anyway, there was no time to solve mysteries. With four extra hands the loading of the truck went exceedingly smooth. I made sure that we also did a thorough raid on the pharmaceuticals. You never knew when you were going to need a Percocet or two, errr, I mean penicillin.
The truck was stuffed as full as it could get but the grocery store was still brimming with supplies. I would have liked to go unload this shipment and come back but it was already beginning to darken, and I had not the least desire to be out here any longer. We could come back tomorrow, zombies willing. I climbed back into the truck. Thad was in the process of getting in on the other side. When I stared ahead through the windshield, I felt like I had been punched in the gut. Standing not more than one hundred feet away was THE zombie woman and she was holding something. I was having a difficult time discerning what it was when she held it above her head.
“Oh Christ!” I opened my door and evacuated my guts.
Thad had just adjusted himself in the seat before he had looked. “Oh Dear Father in Heaven!”
More power to Thad, he didn’t get nauseous, but then again he didn’t know the person that head used to belong to.
“Dad!” Travis yelled, “That zombie has Spindler!”
I jumped down off the truck. I wanted to run up to her and scream ‘What are you doing,’ and ‘Why are you following us?’ My gaze kept returning to the head in her up stretched arm. Eyes rolled up so only the whites showed, tongue lolling out like a dog on a hot summer’s day. Ragged flesh around the neck showed the numerous bite marks it had taken to separate the head from the body. There was at least six inches of blindingly white spine that hung down past the ropes of skin and vein. She dropped the head and even from this distance we heard the sound, mostly because I think all of us were holding our breaths. The skull cracked with an audible ‘pop’ and as luck would have it, Spindler’s head, of course, rolled to a stop upside down, looking at us. I looked back up to her face, my mouth hanging open like a giant Venus flytrap. She nodded once and turned to walk back through the alleyway.
I shouted at her. “What does that mean?” not expecting any reply. “Is that what you’re going to do to us?” And then it dawned on me. “Is that your brand of payback for us not killing you?”
She had been watching the exchange with Durgan. She had seen Spindler turn tail and run. I was scared all the way down to my meat and potatoes. This involved a much higher brain activity than ‘Must Eat Brains.’ She was displaying signs of justice, albeit a Thailand version, but a form of justice all the same. It took all of my control not to run to her and demand an answer. She had helped, of that I was sure. Spindler was a spineless little piece of shit but he wouldn’t blindly run into a lone zombie. No, he was cornered, or more likely I thought, herded into a trap. The little pecker left me in the lurch and I had fully intended on busting his nose when I saw him back at Little Turtle, but I never would have wished on him what had happened. Big Tiny started to walk towards the end of the store to the alleyway that buttressed between the grocery store and a bar.
“B.T. I wouldn’t do that,” I told him.
“I know YOU wouldn’t,” he said condescendingly.
“Go ahead. But I’m sure she has friends. LOTS of friends,” I said as nonchalantly as possible.
His step faltered a beat but he kept steadily onwards. Without turning back he asked, “How many friends do you think she has?” a minute quaver in his voice.
“At least a dozen or so. How many do you think you could kill with that tire iron before they overtake you?” I challenged.
His pace slowed but he didn’t want to let up now that he was committed. I had to find him an out so he could save face, especially in front of the women.
“B.T., I’m sure you could take out the zombies, but it’s getting dark and I want to get this truck home and unloaded before midnight,” I temporized.
Even from seventy feet I could see the relaxation in his shoulders. “Yeah, you’re right man, I am tired. Stupid zombies.” He chucked his tire iron and turned to come back. The bar clanged and slid to the foot of the alleyway not more than five feet away from the woman zombie and a couple hundred of her closest friends. Evil oozed from the mouth of that darkness and I was happy to be leaving. As powerful as the déjà vu had been upon seeing Beth, so too was the feeling that we had just averted a major disaster. It would have been easier to use the whole parking lot to turn the truck around but I didn’t want to be anywhere near the alleyway in case I stalled, which was a viable possibility. The truck ride home wasn’t nearly as stomach-turning as my previous attempt. Either I was getting better or I was too distracted to care, although Thad was looking a little green, but that could have been from our encounter moments before. I waited by the bus gate, waiting for them to open it.
