Plague Town (23 page)

Lil and I stayed hidden behind the car until the zombie lurched out of sight, then resumed our careful journey toward the town’s business district.

I still wasn’t sure exactly how we were gonna get two freaked-out felines back to Big Red. We could always try
to find a car with keys in it, although driving up to the barricade wouldn’t exactly contribute to the stealth part of the mission. If there was any way of getting back in without letting Gabriel discover that we’d been gone, I was determined to take it.

We cut through several front and back yards to save time. The quiet continued to spook me. No dogs barking, no babies crying. No sounds of insects or cars or televisions... nothing.

“Where are they?” Lil whispered as we crept through past a swing set in the backyard of a Craftsman bungalow. “The zombies, I mean.”

I shrugged, stepping over an overturned tricycle.

“Maybe headed up to Big Red because of all the noise up there,” I offered as I edged through a narrow side-yard leading to the front of the bungalow. “Maybe they’ve eaten everything there is to eat. Or maybe—”

I stopped short, words drying up in my mouth.

We’d reached the front of the house, a chain-link gate separating us from the yard, which faced out onto the main drag.

I swallowed once, then twice.

“Or maybe they’re all hanging out on Maple Street.”

Lil and I crouched down behind the gate, peering out between the gaps at what had to be the majority of the zombie population of Redwood Grove.

“Where’s your mom’s store?” I whispered.

Lil pointed to the right, where a seemingly nonstop parade of shamblers was headed.

“Pretty much dead center of town,” she said.

I snorted and she shot me an apologetic look.

“I know, but seriously, the store’s in the Courtyard.”

That explained it. The Courtyard was a little shopping center made up of individual cottages ringing an enclosed patio with a rose garden in the center. The overall affect was “quaint” with a capital “Q.”

I shook my head, getting my brain back on track.

“This is gonna be tricky,” I muttered. “Odds are those things are all over the patio.”

“There’s a back entrance off an alley.” Lil patted one of her many pockets. “I’ve got the keys that’ll get us in either way.”

I nodded slowly.

“So the real trick is to get down there without every zom in town seeing us.”

We decided to backtrack a few blocks and cross over to the other side of Maple Street where it dead-ended into Oak, which ran perpendicular to Maple. Oak had
the public library, the high school and a couple of small shops on it, and it didn’t seem to be zombie central like Maple Street. Guess no one wanted to read or go to class in the afterlife.

Slackers.

Better for Lil and me. We dashed down Oak and across the end of Maple Street, heading for the alley that ran the length of the business district. Dumpsters and trashcans lined the way, giving us plenty of cover.

“How many blocks?” I hissed as we made our way as quietly and quickly as possible.

“Maybe four or five?” Lil guessed. “It’s in-between Aspen and Beech. I don’t usually take the alley.”

“Get your keys out now,” I suggested. “Just in case, y’know?”

“Good idea. Hang on a sec.” We paused next to a wickedly stinky dumpster so Lil could fish the keys out of a pocket. One thing I’ll say for military fashion, you never run out of pockets.

We continued down the alley, our feet crunching on broken glass and other debris. The moon had come out from behind the clouds, making it easier to see.

One of the restaurants we passed, Baxter’s Brewery, had a light on inside, the glow filtering out through a filthy window overlooking the street. We paused, and heard shuffling and moans coming from within. The light was probably attracting more zombies to the restaurant, a sort of “dinner is served” sign.

Lil smacked my arm.

“We’re almost there.” She kept her voice to a whisper. “It’s the next block up. We just have to cross Aspen Street.” Although not as busy as Maple Street, Aspen was home to several restaurants, a trendy boutique, and an Albertson’s grocery.

At least a dozen zombies shambled, staggered or lurched up and down in either direction. One of them, a female dressed in ragged layers that may or may not
have been filthy before its reanimation, pushed an empty shopping cart.
Bag Lady Zombie.

Lil and I ducked back and hugged the wall of the alley next to a white panel van, the kind serial killers used. I poked my head out and looked both ways. A pretty much sparse but steady trickle of zombies wandered in either direction.

I ducked back.

“We’re going to have to run for it,” I said. “I think we can make it to the shop, but unless we get lucky they’ll know we’re in there. That’ll make getting out again a real bitch. So we’ll have to be fast.”

Lil nodded.

“I’ve got a cat carrier inside,” she said. “We’ll grab Binkey and Doodle and run for it.”

“Can you handle the carrier and your pickaxe?”

Lil hesitated, then nodded again.

“Whatever it takes.”

I sucked in a deep breath.

“Okay. Let’s do this.” I slapped her shoulder just as a rotting hand shot out of the driver’s side window of the van and sunk into Lil’s shoulder. She gave a startled shriek as a zombie, a gaping hole where its nose used to be, began pulling itself out of the window, using Lil as leverage.

My sword was already out. I used it to slice through the zombie’s wrist and free Lil. She smacked the hand still clutching her shoulder, knocking it to the ground.

“Go!” I gritted. We took off across Aspen Street, dodging several zombies that immediately started moaning and clutching at us. We knocked them aside and dashed into the alley on the other side of the street. Bag Lady Zombie turned her shopping cart around and slowly wheeled it after us as we sprinted for the back of Betty’s Bead Emporium.

“Here!” Lil slammed to a halt in front of a nondescript metal door situated between two dumpsters. I
barely stopped myself from running headlong into her.

“That’s my mom’s car!” Lil stared at a green Mini Cooper parked haphazardly next to the front dumpster.

“That’s great,” I said as I unholstered my M-4. “Maybe she’s inside. Let’s get in there and find out, okay?”

“Sure, yeah... of course.” Lil set her pickaxe down and fumbled with the keys. The moon went behind a patch of clouds, and the light in the alley was almost non-existent.

“You got it?” There was a rattling behind us, and I took off Bag Lady Zombie’s head with one solid stroke of my blade, then sent the point through the brainpan. The body slid slowly to the ground, releasing its hold on the shopping cart. The weight sent the cart rolling away as Lil finally managed to slide a key into the lock.

The tumblers clicked as she twisted.

“Got it!”

Acting on impulse, I grabbed the cart and hauled it up to the door as Lil pulled it open. She raised an eyebrow as I muscled the cart over the doorjamb and into a dark hallway.

“Considering we have two cats and probably some supplies to haul back to campus,” I explained, “it seems like a set of wheels might come in handy.”

She nodded and shut the door. I pulled out a flashlight and shone it around. The hall led past a stairway that headed upstairs.

“Apartment’s up here.” Lil bounded up the stairs. I left the cart and hurried after her.

“Lil, wait a sec, okay?” If her mom’s car was there, then mom might indeed be upstairs, but not necessarily alive. I didn’t know if Lil was ready or able to cope with that.

I caught up with her just as she reached the door to the apartment, grabbing her wrist before she turned the key in the lock.

“Go slow, okay?”

She glared at me, like a sweet cuddly kitten suddenly gone feral.

“Why?” she hissed.

“Because you don’t know who... or what might be in there.”

She started to answer, then stopped as it dawned on her what I meant. Her eyes went wide, the whites startling in the flashlight’s glare.

“It’s... you mean, my mom?”

“Probably not,” I said quickly. “But we have to be careful.”

Lil took a deep breath.

“Yeah.” And then another. “Yeah...”

She turned the key, then deliberately tucked it back into her pocket before cracking the door about an inch.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

“Mom...? Mom, are you there?”

“
Prroww
?”

Lil’s face lit up.

“Doodle!” She ran into the apartment, caution thrown out the window at the sound of a cat’s meow. I followed, sword and flashlight at the ready, and did a quick sweep of the place.

The apartment was small, but cute, decorated with Maxfield Parrish prints on the walls, eclectic secondhand furnishings, and enough toys to entertain an entire colony of cats. It definitely
smelled
of cats, but not as bad as I’d have expected.

Two doors stood open down a little hall. One was a bedroom, the other a bathroom. I looked. The toilet seat had indeed been left up.

Thank goodness men are pigs.

A partially shredded jumbo-sized bag of dry food sat in a corner of the little kitchenette, kibble spilling out onto the floor. There didn’t seem to be anyone else there and, thankfully, no bloodshed and no body parts.

There were, however, two extremely fat felines, one a brindle-colored fluff ball with long fur, the other a shorthaired and absolutely huge black cat. Both sat with Lil smack in the middle of the overstuffed couch, purring loudly and staring at us expectantly.

The black one meowed again and Lil started crying.

“Oh, Doodle... you’re okay!” She scooped both cats up against her. They looked confused, but tolerated the embrace. They did not, however, look as if they’d missed any meals.

“Damn, they’re fat.” I shook my head, thinking of the poundage we were going to be hauling back to Big Red. “Will they both fit in one carrier?”

Lil nodded.

“It’s kinda big, and they like being together.”

“Good.” Because at least one of us would have to have both hands free as we headed back through Zombie Town. “Let’s get everything together and get out of here.”

Lil hesitated.

“But my mom...”

Isn’t here
, I almost said. But I didn’t. Instead I put a hand on Lil’s shoulder.

“I’ve done a sweep of the apartment,” I said as reassuringly as I could. “There’s no sign of violence.”

“The shop,” Lil said firmly. “She could be hiding in the shop.”

The logical place for her mom to hole up would be the apartment, with access to food and water. But I didn’t say so. If it were my mom, I’d be grasping at straws, too.

“Let’s get the supplies ready and the cats into the carrier and then we’ll check the store,” I said. “That way if anything... well, if anything goes wrong, we’ll be ready to run for it.”

Lil took another deep breath.

“Yeah, okay.”

She retrieved a decent size carrier from the back of a closet and unceremoniously stuffed both cats inside, one after the other. The offended howls began immediately.

“I know, babies,” she murmured, latching the carrier gate securely. “But you’ll thank me for it later.”

“Or they’ll pee on your bed,” I commented. “What else do we need?”

“Food and litter.”

We grabbed everything we could find with military efficiency. When we were done, I turned to her.

“You ready to go?”

Lil started to nod, then stopped.

“Two more things.” She dashed off down the hallway into the bathroom, reappeared and then vanished into the front bedroom, re-emerging seconds later with a stuffed lamb that was distinctly worse for the wear. What had once been plush fur was now threadbare and nappy.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“It’s Lambiepie,” she said defensively. “He was my very first toy.”

“Just don’t let Tony see it,” I warned her. “You’ll get a new nickname.”

Lil stuffed the lamb in the waistband of her pants and pulled her shirt down over it, looking like she’d suddenly grown an oddly shaped tumor.

“Now I’m ready,” she announced.

Sheathing my sword, I grabbed the bag of food and the litter while Lil got the litter box and hefted the carrier. She listed to one side with the weight of the carrier.

“You two have got to go on a diet.”

Mournful howls answered her.

“They’re worse than hungry zombies,” I said. And then looked at her. “The howling... it’s going to attract some attention, you know.”

“Maybe they won’t pay attention because it’s not people?” But she didn’t sound like she believed it, any more than I did.

“Will they stop after a while?”

“Last time I took them to the vet’s, they cried all the way there and all the way home.”

I nodded. So
much for stealth.

“Okay then,” I said. “Let’s just worry about getting back in one piece.”

Back downstairs, we put the carrier and its unhappy cargo—still howling—into the shopping cart, then packed litter and food around it. No way it was going to be a smooth ride back up to Big Red.

Then it was time to check the shop. I wasn’t religious, but I pretty much prayed that we didn’t find Lil’s mom. Better for Lil to have some hope.

“You got the key?” I asked, but Lil already had it out. She inserted it into the deadbolt, which unlocked with a definitive
clunk.

She slowly cracked the door open an inch.

“Mom...?”

We both listened carefully. The cats even paused their non-stop howling.

“Mom?” A little louder this time. And still no answer. Lil glanced back at me, hefting her pickaxe with one hand, flashlight with the other. I nodded and unsheathed my blade as she opened the door all the way, then stepped inside. I followed close behind.

The shop looked as if it had remained undisturbed during the outbreak. Zombies milled about in the courtyard, visible through two picture windows on either side of the wooden front door.

Lil shone her flashlight around the store. Rows and rows of bins held beads separated by shape, size and
color, a magpie’s paradise, all bright and shiny under the LCD beam.