The Most Uncommon Cold I - Life in the Time of Zombies (20 page)

     Shop for Less was spelled out in
tall, glowing, orange letters at the top of the building.  The front of the store had huge windows with numerous pictures of products and special pricing. Through the spaces between the ads, I could see the deserted checkout lines and empty aisles in the brightly-lit store. The sight brought back the memory of those delicious burritos. Of course, thinking about food after all the things I had seen over the last hours might seem absolutely bizarre. Regardless of whether the thought sprang from the desire to recreate a link to my normal world of the past or was simply a way to satisfy my hunger, getting one of those burritos became an instant obsession.

     As soon as I stepped on the black
mat in front, the automatic door swung open with a swoosh.  To my ears, the sound burst out like a roar in the silent store. I slunk through the door watching for any movement. Nothing jumped out at me as I crept forward.  Then something did.

      “Welcome to Shop for Less!” An older, balding man in a white dress shirt and an orange vest sprung up in front of the cash register in a
nearby checkout lane.

     The surprise appearance caused me to
jump. I looked at the smiling face. For a moment, I thought that the bald checker was still among the living. Maybe it was just wishful thinking. Whatever it was, reality quickly brushed it aside.

     The
shell turned away from me toward the register for just an instant, revealing the red of a blood-drenched back. It turned once again to face me and smiled with a mouth full of viscera-covered teeth. The shredded bits of gore stretched from the lower to upper gums. I could no longer bear to look at the face and spun away from the checkout stand.

     The deli section was at the back of the store. I hurried past boxes of cereal, instant oatmeal, cookies, crackers, granola bars, and mixed nuts.  Finally, I reached my
destination. 

     In front of me, there were several small refrigerated cases holding
assorted types of cheeses, dips, and meats. I started to move around them to the deli counter where my desired burritos were kept.

     It was then that I noticed that I was not alone. 

     To my right about twenty-five feet away was a chubby, dark-haired woman in a baby blue sweatsuit leaning inside one of the tall refrigerated cases against the wall.  I could see the blood dripping down the right leg of the blue sweatpants and pooling around a white sneaker. The shell continued to rock back and forth in front of the case.  Rather than become the object of attention, I moved quietly toward the deli counter.

     The glass case was surprisingly well-stocked with cold cuts, various types of salad, blocks of cheese, sticks of salami, and some other containers with
unfamiliar sounding names.  Consid-ering all that I had seen during the last hours, the attention to detail in keeping the case fully loaded seemed pretty absurd.                                                          

     I must have laughed out loud because I was
suddenly under the gaze of the shell in the blue sweatpants. She had turned to look directly at me, and I now saw a large chunk was missing from the right side of her neck. Then the shuffling sound from behind the counter revealed that the shell of a young man wearing a light blue vest had also noticed me. I stood absolutely still for a moment. All at once, the obvious insanity of putting myself into such danger just to get a burrito came crashing down on me.

     How could I
be so reckless and stupid? The question roared in my head.  It went silent as soon as I caught sight of the burritos.

     They were in a small
silver oven on top at the end of the case.  The placard sitting on the oven announced: Delicious burritos made every morning!!! Just $5 each!

    
By the way I stood transfixed quite possibly drooling at the sight of them, you would have thought that those burritos were the highest form of gourmet cuisine known to mankind. All I know is that I could not remember the last time I had eaten. The smell of those warm burritos filled my nose and made my stomach rumble with hunger. In fact, it was a prolonged stomach growl that seemed to fascinate the shell behind the counter as it shambled over to the other side of the display.  It stood there in front of me and simply gazed at me.

     Its mouth was moving
, but nothing intelligible came out. The inability to form words seemed to frustrate the shell in the light blue vest, and it continued making the effort to turn the garbled sounds into understandable words and sentences.

     For my part, I
simply stood there watching with a mix of confusion, curiosity, and disgust.

     Suddenly, a
flurry of words burst out from the shell, “What can I get for you?”                                                                                                        

     I looked at the pale young face with its
blank expression and could see the red marks a razor had left on the neck. At once, I pictured the young man standing in front of the bathroom mirror in his home that morning. He rubbed his palm full of lather on his face and throat and slowly began running a blue disposable razor first downward over his cheeks and then upward on his neck. Red welts with specks of blood began to appear. Suddenly, it occurred to me that the young man certainly had no idea when he shaved this morning that it would be his last day of life.

     The thought made me sad as I stared at the shell of the young man in front of me whose mouth was moving again.

     “What can I get for you?” This time the question was asked with more force. However, dead eyes and lack of expression showed me that the words were without meaning. It was simply a phrase that had been a familiar part of a daily routine. The only thing left of that former life, of that former person, was the repetition of phrases and motions.

    As I watched the
shell, it became clear that it did not truly even see me. It was not that it was blind or anything, but it just never reacted or looked directly at me.  I stood there observing the thing behind the counter. It never once made eye contact or truly focused upon me. Instead, the shell seemed to direct itself in my general direction rather than to focus on me specifically.

     I took a quick side step to the rig
ht and watched as the shell continued to look at the place where I had been seconds before. This lack of adjustment led me to believe that the shells relied on something other than sight to guide them. The remembrance of how my growling stomach had drawn the attention of the shells moments earlier gave me the idea that the shells might be able to use sound for guidance. The notion that the shells might be similar to bats in the use of sound rather than sight seemed strange, but, given the reality being faced, nothing could be ruled out as too off-the-wall.   

     I continued to
stand and simply observe the motions of the shell behind the counter.  It did not appear to be particularly concerned by my presence.  After opening and closing various display-case doors, the shell in the dark blue vest turned and went through a doorway in the wall behind the counter. 

     I was
alone standing at the counter.  Even the woman in the baby blue sweatsuit was no longer in view.

     Without another thought, I m
oved through the small swinging gate next to the register.  I had grabbed the hotter-than-expected burrito from the oven and was looking for a napkin or something else to wrap around it when I realized that the shell in the blue vest was standing behind me. I spun around to face it.

     From this
angle and proximity, the welts that I had thought were wounds from shaving became something else.  The three parallel lines stretching down the neck were clearly three parallel scratches from fingernails. 

     Instantly, my mind was filled with the face of the shell.
Somehow I was there watching from overhead, but someone who looked like me was on his back looking up at the face moving down from above. The face grew in size as it got closer.  An arm stretched out and a hand with long, bright pink fingernails raked down the side of the neck.  It was not my hand, not my arm, and not my eyes, but I could see as the face pushed closer.  I saw the mouth bite down and send streams of blood into the air.  I saw the blood-covered face pull back and something like a smile form on its lips.

     Overwhelming
fury took control once again, and I threw myself into the shell in the light blue vest. We flew backwards into a silver metal counter bolted to the wall. Everything seemed to be put on pause for an instant as a clear pop sound was heard. The blue-vested shell stared blankly ahead without blinking.  I backed away, and the shell slowly crumbled to the tile floor. There next to it on the floor I saw what remained of my squashed burrito.

     In what I
guess was a symptom of shock, I turned back to the oven and grabbed another burrito. With the hot burrito in my hand, I looked across the display case to see the chubby, dark-haired shell in the blue sweatsuit standing perfectly still and staring in my direction. All at once, it started making a high-pitched, howling sound. It did not strike me as much a scream of fear as a siren or signal. Whatever the intention, the sound served to force me out of my paralysis.

     I looked down to see that the shell in the light blue vest remained crumpled on the
floor with its eyes staring straight ahead. When I looked up again, the screeching had mercifully stopped.  The shell in the sweats had been joined by the old shell in the orange vest from the cash register. The pair stood closely together and seemed to be conspiring about something. As if on cue, they both twisted around to face me and began walking slowly in my direction.

     I had
certainly seen enough of the place and quickly pushed through the little gate next to the register and, with my coveted burrito in hand, sprinted out of the store.

     I can only
imagine that the shells stood staring after me.

Chapter 17

     The coolness of the night made my run through it exhilarating.  Perhaps, it was not simply the run that enlivened me, but the fact that the burrito was the first thing I had shoplifted since I was eleven years old. However, I was not entirely sure that taking a burrito from a store filled with things that were dead and by all rights should not even be moving was technically shoplifting.  In any case, I kept on running for what seemed like miles but surely was only a few blocks. 

     I was not sure why I chose to
run in the direction I did or if I even consciously chose the direction.  Of course, the choice did not matter.  What mattered was that when my feet stopped moving I was standing almost directly in front of Gerald Ford Junior High School.

     I am not sure why it struck me as
important, but I wondered what time it was. Somehow in the strange chaos of the day, I had lost my watch.  Now as I looked at the dark structure where Bonnie used to teach, the time seemed to matter. Without thinking anymore about time or anything else, I started walking toward the school.

     As I crossed the empty parking lot, I realized that I was still holding the stolen burrito; or rather I was still holding what was left of the stolen burrito. The
thing had lost most of its warmth and now just dangled unappetizingly in my hand.  I thought about how less than an hour previous the thought of a burrito had been so appealing. 

     It was that memory that prompted me to stop and take a
bite of the thing. I bit into the burrito, hoping that it might trigger some recollection of past experiences, those days when Bonnie and I had enjoyed lunches in her car laughing and chomping on those big, spicy burritos until we were thoroughly satisfied and happy.  In those days of burritos, Bonnie and I had looked forward to a long and happy future together in which anything seemed possible. 

     Now as I felt the juice of
beef and beans and peppers moving around in my mouth, the only memory of Bonnie that came to me was of her tightly pinched between the two vehicles with her head resting in a strange position on the hood of the Jeep.  The image made me gag. I tried to swallow the mouthful of burrito, but my body would not allow it. Whether it was a rejection of the dreams Bonnie and I had shared, the horrible reality that had come to pass, or just a reaction to a cold, greasy burrito, my entire body pitched forward and threw the contents of my mouth forward and onto the pavement of the parking lot. The splatter of the food as it slapped the ground was the only sound in the still night.

     I looked down at the
mound of half-chewed burrito.  It should have disgusted me, but it did not.  Instead, the sight made me feel incredibly sad. My whole life had been turned into something like a pile of puke. Then because there was nothing to do but laugh or cry, I chose to laugh.  It was not a laugh of joy or happiness but rather the grating, harsh roar that would come from a place full of hate and insanity. The thought sobered me for an instant before I let go with another bellow. This time the sound that burst forth was more of a howl than any sort of laugh.

     My
sound did not go unnoticed.

     Between the parking lot and the school
’s buildings, there was a strip of lawn. Now, about twenty yards from where I stood, a man in what appeared to be a security guard uniform was slowly walking across the lawn toward me.