Fear of the Dead Read online

  “17,” Atton corrected. “Tried as an adult.”

  Eli spat a breath of air.

  “Fuckin’ judges.”

  “Yeah. Fucking judges alright.”

  10:53 AM

  “Talkin’ to Atton reminded me o’ the judge that reigned on my trial. Bitch by the name of Katherine Sullivan. I remembered her ‘cause a’ all the shit she said to me in my face. Callin’ me a monster, a menace to society. Thinkin’ that she knew everythin’ there was to know about me.

  “I ain’t ne’er killed anyone in my life, but I wanted to strangle that bitch for every word outta’ her mouth.

  “It’s disgustin’ how they pay these people to dress like fuckin’ penguins, and have ‘em sit on that chair like they’re all so high and mighty. People like her goin’ around thinkin’ that just because they make more money, because they live in a fancier house, that they’re better than everybody else.

  “I hope that bitch judge and that jury got what was comin’ to ‘em. Hope those zombies ripped their fuckin’ faces apart for what they did.”

  A fist fell on the bathroom door.

  “You done in there?”

  Eli rose from the porcelain toilet seat.

  “Just about! Hold on a bit while I find me some paper!”

  He removed his shoes and pants before searching the nearby stalls for toilet paper. Fortunately, the one beside him had plenty. He flushed the toilet, then smacked his head when he realized it didn’t work. He sniffled, then wiped his nose. He felt his sense of smell begin to dull, then stuff until it became progressively harder to breathe.

  “Damn it.”

  He sneezed, and his hands covered in phlegm. Eli rubbed it off on a roll of paper. Then he sneezed again.

  “You alright in there?” called Atton from the door.

  “Jesus Christ Atton! Can’t a man get some privacy?”

  “Hurry your ass up. We gotta move pronto.”

  “I’ll be out in a bit!”

  He tried not to sniffle too much lest he inhale the smell of his own byproduct. Eli cleaned himself up, then promptly left the woman’s room.

  11:02 AM

  “Where to now?” Eli asked.

  “We still need to pick up a few supplies. Grace might need some extra bandages. And Linus mention…”

  “Fuck Linus.”

  Atton twinged. In spite of Eli’s undeniable objection, he completed his thought.

  “Linus wants batteries.”

  “Tell him to get ‘em himself.”

  “The man needs a working radio.”

  “What he needs is a foot up his ass.”

  “Look, we’re getting the man his batteries, and that’s that. No sense in arguing about it. I’m getting it with or without your help.”

  He started the truck.

  “We’ll check the closest hardware store.”

  Eli sat back, then lunged forward as he threw up a lungful of air.

  “You okay?”

  “No man. I’ve been sneezin’ storms since ‘bout a minute ago. I don’t know what it is. Feels like allergies or somethin.’ Maybe it was somethin’ in that pot.”

  “You ever had this stuff before?”

  “Not since high school.”

  “You need some wipes or something?”

  Eli shook, made clear note of the toilet rolls in his possession.

  “Maybe you are allergic.”

  Eli wiped his nose.

  “I’ll be fine. Just gotta keep a little clean is all. The sooner that dope passes out of my system the better.”

  “That’s if it’s the dope.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s givin’ me a headache.”

  11:17 AM

  “Of all the things to be allergic to, I had to be allergic to weed. There ain’t no justice in the world, pure and simple.

  “We been parked outside Lowes for what, half an hour? Twenty minutes? Atton ain’t showed up yet, even though he should’a been back by now. Maybe he got eaten or somethin.’ I guess it’d serve him right for tryin’ to do Linus a favor.

  “I swear, that asshole ain’t nothin’ more ‘en trouble. I don’t know why the rest of ‘em don’t see it. Well, actually I do. It’s the fact that there’s so less of us left. They don’t figure that anyone else that’s still around might just be as much of an asshole as they were before.

  “Hell, probably worse.

  “But people are dumb like that I suppose. The same people you wouldn’t give two shits about on any given day all of a sudden become symbols for somethin’. What was it Grace called it?

  “Hope?

  “I swear some folks are off their boat.

  “God, how long’s it been now? A year? Is Atton plannin’ on showin’ up at all?”

  11:20 AM

  Eli promptly made his way inside the abandoned store. The automatic glass doors were broken from when Atton made his own entry. The broken window was how Eli made his.

  The building itself was all in all about as large as an industrial warehouse, rife with aisles as long as the store itself. The place even looked like an everyday warehouse. Packed with blocks of wood on one corner, buckets of paint on another, and construction equipment scattered all throughout. In fact the more he thought about it, the more the place genuinely seemed like a construction zone for something.

  In the sheer crowd of home improvement inventory, Eli failed to find any trace of Atton Stone. He sneezed, then cupped his hands over his mouth before he yelled.

  “Hey Atton! You in here?!”

  There was no reply.

  “Atton, if you’re dead I ain’t stayin’ here a second longer!”

  Again, there was nothing. Eli sighed. Without bothering himself to check the rest of the store (which for all he knew was crawling with infected), Eli promptly returned to his truck.

  He didn’t stay outside for long, but then again he couldn’t quite leave either. The truck’s ignition was missing a key. One that Atton must have unwittingly taken with him when he went inside.

  Of course, it was also possible that his friend might have taken it with him deliberately. Possibly out of the remote fear of being left behind. Whatever the case may have been, Eli wasn’t left with many options. His gaze returned to the store directly ahead, which towered above him like a hulking behemoth. A giant’s den full of possible hiding spots for zombies.

  “Goddamn it.”

  11:22 AM

  Eli nestled the MP5 in his hands. Safety off, crosshairs set between his eyes. He paced forward slowly, examining each and every corner within his line of sight before allowing himself a single step forward. He travelled from aisle to aisle, glancing at every which way he could.

  As far as Eli knew, the place was empty. If Atton hadn’t heard him the first million times he’d called his name, then the man had either gone deaf, or he must have tripped over a vending machine he was trying to rob.

  The mental image was enough to raise a chuckle or two.

  “Niggers. Can’t stay off looting can you?”

  Eli slowly eased his shoulders, slung his weapon behind his back.

  “There’s no one here. I don’t know what the hell that nigger’s doin.’

  “Hey Atton! Atton! Come out here ‘fore I have to kick your black hairy ass!”

  The aisles were empty, in the sense that the shelves were devoid of a looter’s mess. Everything was as it always had been. Neat. Clean. Organized. If he wasn’t around the aisles, then he must have been in the office. Or the bathroom. A possibility that in consideration didn’t seem so unlikely. If Atton was busy taking a shit, then he probably wouldn’t hear him. Or he wouldn’t have responded even if he did.

  Still, half an hour was a lot of time to spend in the shitter. Eli decided to check the office first, so in the off-chance that he was right, he would have bought Atton some time to himself.

  The manager’s office was small; cramped. Space was limited, and as a result the furniture had to conform to what little of the carpet r
oom there was to spare. The desk was small, the loveseat in the back corner barely large enough to fit two people. The two seats in front looked far from comfortable, and the manager’s leather swivel chair was just a little over enough to fit Eli’s scrawny ass. If the bulging man in the pictures on the office desk was any indication of the man that sat on that chair, then perhaps miracles really did exist.

  Eli pulled open the drawers, finding nothing but boring old stationeries and stacks of printed paper, receipts, and forms. When he searched underneath it all, Eli saw what looked to be a magazine of kinds. It was hidden, tucked underneath a stack of blank printing paper. When he fished it out, Eli’s eyes widened at the sight.

  “Hoo. Would you look at what we have here?”

  He turned to the portrait of office manager Benito Gonzalez and his family.

  “I bet the wife don’t know ‘bout this one does she? Well, Benny my man. You done made me proud.”

  Eli simpered, then gently laid the September issue of Amateur Hotties on the business end of Benito’s desk. He glanced wondrously at the color pages, skipping while ogling at the pictures and reading the headlines. Women of all shapes and sizes straddled on long, lean cocks, moaning before the camera. One feature was a simple collection of women’s faces while they were being fucked. An article on the back page called Doing The Bronco had a woman doggy styled, squirming whilst trying to break free from her naked, tattooed hunk.

  The article explained what it called The Bronco as simply taking a girl from behind, moaning someone else’s name, and then riding her on as she tried to pull him out.

  Eli felt his pants begin to bulge. He slowly undid his zipper, then gently caressed his little member. He stared at the blonde woman on the page, trying to break free from her captor whilst cringing in agony. Eli tugged and tugged, and got faster, harder.

  11:32 AM

  After cleaning his hands, Eli went to check for Atton inside the public restroom. He wasn’t there, but the men’s room reeked of shit and weed. He went back outside, returned to the truck, and sure enough there he was.

  “Where were you?” Atton asked.

  “Motherfucker I was lookin’ for you.”

  “Well. Here I am.”

  “I can see that.”

  Eli took his seat beside the driver’s.

  “You get what you need?”

  Atton cocked his head directly behind. Eli looked back, and saw that Atton had packed in some blocks of cherry wood, a few axes and crowbars, and cardboard boxes filled with batteries.

  “So, where do we go now?”

  “Back,” Atton said. “I couldn’t find bandages, so we’ll bring this stuff over first.”

  “Sounds good to me. I could use some breakfast anyhow.”

  Say what Eli could about Grace, she was nothing if not a good cook.

  Atton turned the key.

  11:41 AM

  The truck hummed along the street in relative silence. Neither Eli nor Atton spoke for the rest of their ride back to Costco. Eli spent the time toying with the MP5 on his lap, removing then reinserting its crescent-shaped magazine.

  He wondered how many bullets he could get out in one second of repeated fire. He also was curious to know which mode on the dial was full automatic fire, and which was semi.

  He’d never carried an MP5 before let alone fired one. Submachine guns were illegal for civilians. Only law enforcement could keep them around, and even then not very many policemen did.

  “I am a lucky man,” he thought out loud.

  Atton swiveled.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Atton’s eyes went back to the road. Eli’s nose began to itch, and he felt another sneeze come his way. He held his nose to suppress the urge, but it was too late. With the sheer force of his sneeze, Eli felt his head shoot back.

  “Damn it.”

  “You know, maybe we really ought to find a pharmacy before we decide to head on back. Grace is going to need them, and as far as I can tell you could use some allergy meds.”

  Eli hated his situation, but he nonetheless had to agree. As hungry as he was, the sneeze had to be taken care of as soon as possible before it got any worse.

  “I suppose you’re right. My shit ain’t gettin’ any better, and my head feels like a goddamn balloon.”

  “I think I saw a drug store on our drive over. We can probably scope the place out.”

  11:46 AM

  The drug store was a mom and pop operation. Or at least it seemed that way from the look of things. Everything from its podunk walls, its fainted, unkempt paint job, to the label at the front, which read Griffin’s Drugs, made the hint.

  Shoddy though the place seemed to be, so long as they had the right stuff, Eli couldn’t complain. They went inside, together this time. The store was located in the middle of the city, not around a parking complex like Lowes was. Zombies could have been hiding anywhere. Cities were as good as breeding grounds for zombies, so extra precautions were necessary.

  Atton searched the shelves for some basic medication while Eli took to the drugs beyond the cash register.

  “What are you looking for?” asked Atton.

  “I’m checkin’ to see if they’ve got some morphine pills ‘round here.”

  “Good idea. Anyhow, they’ve got some allergy meds right here.”

  Atton rattled a bottle and tossed it over to Eli’s outstretched hands. Eli dunked down three pills before eventually reading the label. He didn’t feel better yet, but he was willing to give it some time.

  “Say Atton, what’s your favorite kind a’ food?”

  “Why are you asking?”

  “No reason. Jus’ starvin’ is all. Thought came up so I thought I’d ask.”

  “Nothing specific comes to mind. I guess what I miss the most though is hamburgers.”

  Eli gazed longingly in the distance.

  “Yeah. Burgers are nice. You ever had that thing with the melted cheese and the mushroom?”

  Atton shook his head.

  “It’s been a while since I had a big mac. What I wouldn’t do to have one right now.”

  “Big mac’s got mayonnaise on it.”

  “Mayonnaise isn’t bad.”

  “Mayonnaise is French.”

  “Last I heard you deep south boys are French.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yeah? Don’t you know?”

  “Ne’er heard nothin’ bout it.”

  “Yeah. The Creoles lived up in Louisiana right when Uncle Sam bought it from the French. Used to be property of the First Republic.”

  “You learn that back in high school or somethin?”

  “Wyden Hall,” Atton corrected.

  “What? You mean in that goofy ass library a’ theirs?”

  “You could have learned something too if you ever bothered to try reading a book or two.”

  “Yeah, well excuse me for havin’ better things to spend my time with. Namely tryin’ to survive.”

  “You spent most of your time picking fights. You call that surviving?”

  “Hey,” shot Eli, his eyes affixed to Atton’s. “I did what I fuckin’ had to do stay alive in there. You think that just ‘cause I had to do some rough shit that I had myself a fuckin’ good time?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’d better be sorry. I had to roll with a numbskull who thought that niggers were the scourge a’ the Earth. You think it’s easy ridin’ with a crowd like that? Before Wyden Hall the only crime I er’ committed was goin’ 90 on a 65. I ain’t a goddamn felon. I didn’t deserve to be there! I was thrown in for a crime I didn’t even commit! Shit was tough for me man. Harder on me than you, and we both know it. So don’t you dare fuckin’ judge me for what I had to do to keep my ass alive.”

  Atton dropped his shoulders.

  “You’re right man. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  Eli sighed, then settled down.

  “Don’t worry ‘bout it. I’ just ain’t got
too many fond memories a’ the place. Y’know what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah man.”

  Eli staved away the unpleasant retentions, and skirted back to his regular, flippant self.

  “Say, you ever heard of the singer by the name a’…”

  Just then, something smacked on the floor behind them.

  “What the…”

  Eli turned to the sound, saw a shadow sprint into a corner.

  “You see that?”

  Atton only nodded, steeled himself with his shotgun in hand.

  “It was a girl,” he muttered silently.

  “You mean a zombie.”

  “No. I…I don’t know.”

  Eli leapt over the counter and cocked his weapon. He was about to pass by Atton when he felt his arm block his path.

  “I’ll lead,” Atton said.

  Eli couldn’t imagine why, but “Alright.”

  Atton scoped the area with Eli following two steps behind. The noise of footsteps continued but dulled as the two lagged progressively behind. Finally the girl stormed out of the pharmacy doors, peddling her bare feet outside. Eli shoved past Atton and darted immediately after her. She was fast, but in time he picked up enough distance to grant him a clear shot of the zombie’s back. He stopped, held his position, and stared at her nape with the iron sights set before his eyes.

  The girl was a red head, clad in a thin grey sweater and a long brown skirt. She was medium height, slim, and slender-skinned. Eli set his sights before he moved to fire a round. But before he could, Atton’s giant hand leapt into view and knocked his barrel down just as he was about to fire. Eli flinched, pulled down the trigger, and bursts of semi-automatic fire came out, sending bullets storming down against the concrete.

  “Atton what the hell are you doing?!”

  “You don’t know if she’s infected!”

  “Of course I know she’s infected!”