A Little More Dead (9 page)

Sophia laughed. As a proud owner of a
huge shoe collection back home, she could relate. Although, Paul bet his wife
could fare pretty well in high heels if push came to shove, but fortunately she
would never have to find out. Outside of the winter boots she had on now, she
would never see her beloved shoe collection again.

Wendy grew quiet, watching their faces
in the flickering light. “When I finally made it to the bar, I found two of the
girls who worked here waiting out back. I was so relieved I wasn’t alone, I
called out their names and when they turned my way...”

Sophia’s smile slid down her
heart-shaped face and disappeared into the collar of her coat.

Paul hit the smoking joint and held it
in, watching Wendy force herself to continue.

“They started coming closer.” Wendy
stared through the cloud of smoke Paul exhaled, watching the whole thing play
out in her mind. “And when I saw the blood on their faces I’d never felt so
alone in my entire life.” She stopped to take the joint back and put it to her
lips, the cherry glowing red. “I beat
em
to the front
door and hid in Joe’s office with those two girls pounding on the backdoor all
night long.” Smoke trailed from her nose like a dragon. “After they continued
into the next day, I finally went out back and shot them both in the face,
which wasn’t easy.” Wendy’s glassy-eyed gaze found Sophia. “They were good
girls, and both still in their heels.”

“Damn!” Dan said, knocking back another
shot and slamming the glass down. “That is why I always wear sneakers. You
never know when shit is going to go down.”

Wendy went on to tell them she hid their
bodies behind the dumpster and locked herself inside the bar. Uninvited company
dropped by a few times with the same sloppy fist pounds as Peaches and Destiny,
but, after awhile, moved on to search for their dinner elsewhere. The whiskey loosened
her lips, as well as her tough guy exterior, and Paul could tell she was just
as scared as they were.

“So what the hell is going on out there
anyway? Do you have any idea what happened?” Wendy lit up another cigarette.

“You know about as much as we do,”
Sophia said, chewing on some peanuts.

Wendy grabbed the bottle of Jack and
shook her head. “None of it makes any sense.
Dead people
walking the streets?
Come on.”

Paul watched her refill her glass. “You
get a flu shot this year?”

She looked up and shook her head. “I
hate needles.”

“Are you Busty Dusty?”

Her gaze darted to Dan. “Why would you
think that?”

“Found a flier out back but the picture was
kinda
blurry.” His eyes dropped to the breasts
pushing against her winter coat. “And you’re
kinda
…
busty
.”

Sophia flattened her lips. “Dan, don’t
be a creep.”

“Busty Dusty was a feature dancer we had
in here last week.” Wendy saw Dan’s mouth open and she cut him off at the pass.
“And no, I’m not a dancer. I was a cocktail waitress.”

Dan let a grin loose and poured more tequila
into the shot glass. “Come on, Wendy. It’s okay if you were a dancer. No one here
is going to judge you.”

“Dan,” Sophia grumbled.

“I’m kidding, relax.” His laughter
tapered off into an uncomfortable silence. “Were you?”

“No, I wasn’t!”

He held his hands up. “Okay, okay.”

They ate and drank and smoked while Dan
stole furtive glances of Wendy, who deflected them with a simple turn of the
head. Normally, tequila made Paul loud and quick to laugh at any little thing.
Tonight however, it made him tired and brought back pulses from the past. The
mechanic dragging Mike through the snow, the dead state trooper, the old
woman’s teeth buried in Matt’s neck, all took turns poking Paul with sharpened
sticks. He shifted on the bar stool, his butt going numb. Tomorrow morning they
would leave this dive and go back out there with those things.
Those
killers
.

He shook his head and tipped back
another shot, clenching his teeth against the burn. “I stomped on that girl’s
face as hard as I could and it was like stomping on a bowling ball. Nothing
happened.”

Sophia frowned at Paul. “What girl?”

“The one in a McDonald’s uniform who
ripped the shotgun out of my hands.” Paul massaged his face, palms muffling his
words. “She grabbed my ankle and her grip was so strong I thought she was going
to break it.”

Dan stopped the shot glass in front of
his lips. “What’re you saying?”

Paul breathed out, wiping his greasy hands
on his jeans. “I’m saying I wouldn’t advise getting too close.”

“Really?”
Wendy laughed.
“And here I was planning a zombie barn dance for next week. Shoot!”

Paul swallowed thickly, wondering what
would be waiting for them when daylight pulled back the curtain on the carnage
waiting outside.

Chapter
Thirteen

DAY EIGHT

The dressing room
’s
blacked
out windows made it impossible to tell if it was morning or the
middle of the night. Paul pressed a button on his G-Shock and
7:23
lit
up in blue digital numbers. They made it to another day and a part of him
wanted to stay in this shit-hole with its metal doors and blacked out windows and
beat up trunks stuffed with g-strings and bikinis for the rest of his life. It
was safe here but cold as hell. His head pounded and his stomach growled and, as
far as he could tell, everyone else was still asleep. Quietly peeling back the
blanket, he fumbled for the flashlight and gun belt on the floor. Sophia
stirred next to him on the ratty couch. He froze, wanting her to get as much
sleep as possible. She would need it. He cupped the end of the flashlight and
turned it on, carefully stepping over Dan and Wendy curled up together on the
floor. The faint light ran over a purple butterfly peeking out on Wendy’s lower
back where the blanket had slipped off. Tramp stamp.
Big
shocker.
Paul snorted and kept moving. He had to pee like a racehorse
but wasn’t going anywhere without clicking into his holster. Just over a week
now, and the weight of his gun was starting to feel good.
Familiar.
At first, it was heavy and clunky on his thigh, always banging against doorways
and furniture. Now, it felt like an extension, one that made him feel whole.

Dan rolled over onto his back and Paul
stopped tying his boots. When certain everyone was still asleep, he grabbed the
tactical shotgun by the door and quietly went out into the cold dark bar. In the
men’s room, Paul picked a urinal that was still draining, wondering if Wendy
would really stay here. Not only were the bathrooms already disgusting, but her
snack food wouldn’t last long. Neither would her bullets. His breath rolled
through the flashlight’s beam in his armpit. He hoped she wouldn’t stay. There
was power in numbers.

Emerging from the bathroom, he went straight
behind the bar and stuffed two frozen water bottles into his coat pockets,
hoping his body heat would thaw them out enough for a few sips. Next, he
grabbed a Snickers Bar and a half a bottle of aspirin he found next to the
antique cash register. On the paying side of the bar, he plopped down on a
stool and unfolded a map of Missouri he took from the cruiser’s glove box. The
map spilled over into Kansas just enough to give him a good idea of where they were
and which route to take. Outside of going around some major cities like
Oklahoma City and Dallas, they would stick close to I-35. It was their fastest,
and clearest, path to warmer weather. He couldn’t wait to shed his heavy coat
and boots. They made it nearly impossible to run for his life. The teenager in
a McDonald’s uniform surged to the forefront of his mind like a volt of
electricity, making him stiffen. The sound of the gun’s
buttstock
crushing her nose echoed off the walls of his skull. How many times out of ten
could he pull off a move like that without
getting bit
?
Once?
Twice?
He rotated the
ankle she’d latched onto, shaking his head. It was sore but he’d be okay.

The dressing room door clicked open,
stirring him from his thoughts. He turned to see Dan stumble out and quietly
shut the door behind him. He yawned, running his fingers through his mess of
curls. “Holy Jesus, my head is killing me and it tastes like a cat shit in my
mouth.”

Paul tossed him the aspirin. “Have to
take them dry, everything’s frozen.” He paused.
“Except the
booze.”

Dan groaned and popped a tablet into his
mouth. He tried to swallow but couldn’t, face twisting as the pill lodged in
his throat. He coughed it up into his hand. “Damn, how do they take pills
without water on TV all of the time? It’s impossible.” He grabbed the nearly
empty tequila bottle sitting on the bar and poured a shot.

“Really?”

Dan cheered him and sent the aspirin
down the hatch, exhaling like his mouth was on fire.
“Oh my God.”
He put a fist over his mouth and coughed, eyes watering.

“Hey, at least the toothbrushes still
work.”

Dan inhaled a wheezing breath. “Yeah but
what happens when we run out of toothpaste?”

“We’ll never run out of toothpaste. You
get any sleep?”

“Some,” Dan replied, running a tongue
across his teeth.

“I need you to stay frosty today.” Paul’s
gaze drifted to the swinging doors behind the bar because the backdoor was
through there.
The one that led to the car.
The one
they’d be going through soon. His heart beat faster in his chest just thinking
about it. “So…how’d it go with Wendy on the floor last night?”

Dan stretched his back out.
“
Woulda
gone a lot better if we weren’t
wearing ten layers of clothing.”

“If it was warm enough for that she
would’ve made you scoot over.”

“Don’t be so sure,
Paulie
boy,” he said, heading for the restroom and softly whistling as the broken
mirror crunched beneath his shoes.

Paul bit into the candy bar and swung
the flashlight around, the feeling that they weren’t alone making the hairs
bristle on the back of his neck.
Next to the darkened Golden
Tee in the corner, sat a poker machine that had dealt its last hand and a
KISS
pinball machine that had to be a collectible by now.
The place was stuck
in the past and, a few years down the road, everywhere they went would be stuck
in the past – if they lived that long. No more new
iPhones
or TVs. No late model cars and houses. Everything was the last of its kind,
including them. He tried imagining what this world would look like in five to
ten years and could only see it covered in dirt and weeds.

Dan came out of the bathroom, buckling
his belt. “I really do not want to do this anymore,” he said, wrinkling his
nose. “Every bathroom is like some sick-ass bathroom in Indonesia.”

Paul returned his attention to the map.
“God, I miss plumbing.”

Dan stopped next to him, focusing on the
flashlight’s glow. “Man, I haven’t seen a paper map in ages.”

“Tell me about it. It’s like we’ve gone
back to the stone ages. No GPS, no internet, no cell phones.” Paul looked up, his
eyes sobering. “No Twitter.”

“Fuck Twitter,” Dan replied, plopping
onto a bar stool. “
Buncha
whiney-ass bitches hiding
behind their keyboards.”

Paul dropped his head and chuckled. “Why
don’t you tell us how you really feel, Dan?”

Dan paused for a yawn. “What happens
when we run out of lighters?”

“We’ll use matches.”

“Then what?”

Paul shrugged.
“Sticks?”

Dan blew out a long breath. “How far you
think we’ll get today?”

Paul tapped at the map. “We should drop
into Oklahoma sometime this afternoon and, with any luck, we can find a Target
or a
Walmart
and ditch these coats and boots.”

“We need to find more ammo and pronto.
Even with the stuff we found in the cop car, that gas station wiped us out.”

Paul winced at the mention of the gas
station. He looked up and stared at his ghostly reflection in the mirror behind
the bar. He looked different.
Older.
Thinner.
Sadder.

“And if I have to eat another candy bar,
I’m going to crash and burn,” Dan said, taking a careful bite of a frozen Baby
Ruth. “I seriously have no energy. Like none. I can’t keep this up much longer
without some real food, dude.”

“I know. We’ll find some.” Paul studied
the map for a moment longer. “We’ll also need to get her a gun.”

Dan stopped chewing. “Get who a gun?” He
followed Paul’s glance to the dressing room. “I thought she wasn’t coming with
us.”

“She won’t stay here; look around. It’s
a deathtrap. Plus, we need more people, especially people who know how to shoot
a gun.”

Dan nodded, slowly grinding his jaws.
“Especially beautiful blonds who know how to shoot a gun.”
He swallowed. “So how do we convince her?”

“We tell her goodbye and then we leave.”

Dan opened his mouth to respond but the dressing
room door clicked open and Wendy staggered out with her yellow locks in a
tangled mess and her tight fitting jeans half twisted the wrong way. Dan whipped
around so fast he knocked the flashlight to the ground with a clatter. It
rolled, flickered and went out.

Wendy pointed her flashlight at Dan
before redirecting the beam to the women’s restroom where she disappeared.

Paul stared at Dan through the darkness.
“Smooth.”

☠

Sophia came out of the bathroom and
released a breath she’d obviously been holding for several seconds, maybe even
minutes. “That is so gross,” she panted, adjusting her red coat.

“Sorry princess, but the Marriott is
another town over,” Wendy snapped, gnawing on a rock hard Mars Bar.

Sophia joined them at the bar and folded
her arms across her chest, teeth chattering. “I need a hot shower so bad it
hurts.”

Wendy washed some aspirin down with a
shot of whiskey. “I’d settle for some wet wipes.”

“Right?”

“We think you should come with us.”

Wendy’s blue eyes darted to Dan.

He sat up straighter on his barstool. “You’ll
never last here by yourself and you know it.”

She laughed sharply. “Oh trust me,
honey,
I’ve dealt with bigger creeps than those things out
there.”

Sophia and Paul laughed, spiking his
headache.

“How many bullets do you have left?” Dan
asked, pressing the point.

Wendy shrugged. “Enough.”

“How many are
enough
?”

“A box or so.”

“And when your food runs out?” Sophia
ran a brush she found in the dressing room through her hair.

“I’ll run down to Chuck’s.”

“Chucks?”

“It’s a grocery store a few blocks from
here.”

Dan laughed out loud.
“On
foot?
You’re crazy! You almost died coming here, remember that part of
your little story?”

Wendy didn’t respond and took another
shot instead.

Paul clasped his hands together over the
map. “Look, we need your help just as much as you need ours. We can watch each
other’s backs and make it somewhere safe so we can figure out our next move.”
He spread his palms. “I can’t figure shit out when my fingers and toes are
frostbit.”

Wendy turned to the mirror behind the
bar, wheels turning in her head. They ate their candy bars and chips in silence,
everyone too tired to say much else.

“I appreciate the offer but someone will
show up here,” she finally said.
“Joe or Tammy or somebody.
I can’t just leave. I don’t even know you.”

Dan gestured to the front door. “And what
if no one shows up?”

She lifted a shoulder to her ear. “Maybe
I’ll come find you.” Her eyes landed on Paul. “Where are you going again?”

Paul slammed a clip into his gun and racked
a load before getting up. “I’ll let you know when we get there,” he said,
looking to Sophia and Dan. “We should get going.”