Take the All-Mart!

CHAPTER 11: MUFFINS AND ZOMBIES





The Wound spat out of an aisle stocked with breakfast muffins and into a cross aisle intersection filled with zombies and nuns. Trip twitched the brakes on just in time to avoid slamming through this old bare-breasted nun, her arms pinned behind her back by one zombie, another zombie trying to force-feed her a muffin. The Wound skidded to a stop, her front bumper stopping just inches short of the old nun’s knees.

“Hey, I know those boobs...” Trip stared through the front windshield while the old nun fought futilely to keep muffin out of her mouth, alternately spitting and screaming, writhing in the zombie’s grip. Both the zombies were wearing some kind of blue vest uniform, with name tags. Trip lit a cigarette.

“What are they doing?” Rudy’s hand was under his t-shirt shirt, tweaking his nipple feverishly.

Trip unconsciously reached for the elephant revolver holstered on his thigh. Consciously, he twitched to lock the Wound’s doors. “I have no idea.”

A third zombie in a blue vest stumbled up behind the old nun, took her head in his hands and held it rock-hard steady. The zombie holding her arms behind her back wrangled his free arm up to hold her mouth open. And that was that — the chesty old nun’s mouth was soon stuffed to overflowing with muffin. The zombie feeding her held his hand over her mouth, forcing her to swallow. As soon as she did, all three zombies let her go and just shambled off.

“My conscious is telling me we should help.” Rudy watched the old nun collapse, convulsing, in front of the Wound. “But my gut is telling me we should run away, very fast —”

Rudy cut himself off with a yelp as the old nun sprung up, her skin a patchwork of spiderweb-like softly glowing blue lines, her eyes glazed. Hunched, she glared at them through the windshield, her now dark azure tongue licking mottled lips. Rudy sunk low in his seat, his head dipping below the dash. Trip pulled the revolver from its holster, leveled it square between her eyes, and cocked it.

The zombie nun stared down the barrel. After a second’s standoff, she let out a quiet, snorting laugh, then shrugged, spinning around on one stiletto heel and shambling off towards a shelf of iced toaster cakes where another nun-turned-zombie — a cute black chick with exceptionally long legs and ripped fishnets — was tearing into boxes and ravenously stuffing cakes into her mouth two at a time.

Trip smirked and holstered the revolver. “Shatner knows I’ve never agreed with your conscious, and I don’t actually think there’s anything we can do for them... but we can’t run away just yet.” He looked around the intersection, both with his own eyes and the Wound’s sensors. “You see Roxanne?”

Rudy craned his neck to peer out over the dash. “I don’t think so.” He sunk back down, grabbing the shotgun from the dash as he did and hugging it tight to his chest.

All around the intersection, nuns turned zombies were rifling the shelves, tearing into food. Trip did a quick headcount. Nine nuns. All zombies. The blue-vested zombies with the name tags were long gone. “Me either.”

“Maybe they didn’t get her,” Rudy said, his optimism betrayed by his voice breaking. “Or she got separated...”

Trip sat back, closed his eyes, and focused on what the Wound’s sensors were showing him. “There’s a red blip a couple rows over and running. Might be her. She’s got a couple blue blips on her ass. Grab something.” He twitched the Wound’s brakes off and hit the gas, sending the Wound barreling down an aisle, just missing a nun-zombie tearing into a bag of All-Mart branded cheese-curls.





Bernice was half-running, half-hopping down an aisle of baby toys. Ten or so strides back she’d lost a stiletto heel, which wasn’t making it any easier to stay ahead of the pair of snarling, slobbering zombie things in blue vests lopping after her.

Run faster! Bernice’s id yelled at her between gasps for air.

Her ego panted back: You know running’s not my thing. Now sleeping, that I could do faster...

Run faster damn it!

You run faster, I’m about dead here.

For the love of the gods, shut up and just run!

Or I could give up.

How about running faster?

How bad can being a zombie be?

Bad. Very bad. That-time-when-we-were-nine-and-Uncle-Stanislaw-put-his-hand-on-our-inner-thigh bad.

Okay, sure, the chances of us ever getting laid might go way, way down, but there’d be food — lots of food.

Seriously, just run!

The left side of her stomach cramped up, her pace slowed. I’m so tired, and they have donuts... her ego sighed.

Okay, okay, how about we make a deal? her id suggested in a panic while she pressed down hard on her stomach with the flat of her hand.

What kind of deal?

You keep running and when we get out of this, diet’s off.

Oh no it’s not, her super-ego chimed in from the depths.

Quiet, you, her id and ego shot back simultaneously.

Don’t listen to her, her id continued. We’ll make it happen. No diet.

Yes, her super ego said, because we all know men really dig fat chicks. The fatter the better. Uncle Stan loves ‘em fat.

Is now really the time to be having this discussion? her id asked.

We can’t get a man now, her super ego went on, and you’re ten pounds shy of Rubenesque, so let’s put on more weight... yes, that makes sense.

Rubenesque? Her ego protested. More like Amazonian...

Her super ego snorted. About a foot and a half shy for that, dear...

Will you two shut up? her id pleaded. They’re getting closer!

“Closer?” Bernice whispered aloud, glancing behind her. The zombies were right there, on her heels, arms outstretched, gnarled fingertips reaching for her, inches from her shoulder.

She screamed.

And then they were gone.

Swept up and slammed away as something big and brown and fast and armored-plated came skidding sideways through the shelving on her right. Reflexively she crouched, throwing her arms over her face, peeking out to watch as the car kept sliding, slamming the zombies into the opposite rack of shelves and pining them between the shelves and the passenger side before finally coming to a stop.

Bernice lowered her arms and slowly stood up, stared at the zombies, their bodies crushed and all jangled up with the mangled shelving. After a good long second Bernice realized she was still alive and remembered to breath.

Then this tall, kind of horse-faced guy wearing a long-tailed tux jacket and black jeans was getting out of the car, pulling a comically oversized revolver and raising it over the open car door, pointing it at her.

All she could do was stare down the huge barrel, eyes wide, like a deer caught in headlights.

“Down!” the guy shouted, cocking the gun. “Now!”

She dropped like a stone, squeezing her eyes shut and pressing herself flat against the concrete just as the guy fired over her.

BOOM!

The retort was deafening. Blanked out all other sound with this high-pitched whine.

Bernice opened her eyes, looked back at what the guy had shot at. Another zombie, his blue apron splattered with his own blue-gray blood from the jagged hole punched through his right shoulder. His arm was just dangling there loose by a few ligaments, but the zombie was still running, still heading towards her.

BOOM!

The shot tore into the zombie’s abdomen, ripped it open, taking a good portion of intestines, stomach and kidney with it as it punched out through the zombie’s back.

But the thing still kept on running. Faster, now.

The zombie let out an angry yell that pierced through the white-noise whine of the gunshots, and leapt. Right over Bernice and straight for tall guy.

BOOM!

And just like that, the zombie had a hole the size of a bowling ball through his chest and Bernice was being showered in bits of blue-gray lung and bone.

The zombie went limp in mid-air. Tall Guy stepped to the side — putting the revolver barrel’s tip to his lips and blowing away the smoke — just as the zombie hit the floor in a crumpled mess where he’d been standing. Tall Guy smirked, poked the toe of his red high-tops into the zombie’s side.

“Hey, lookie there, it’s dead,” Tall Guy said, smiling at himself. “Yay, me.”

“Yeah, well,” said a second guy, getting out of the driver’s side, “I would’a had him if you hadn’t pinned my door shut.” He was short, muscular, cute — especially the darling little red soul patch — and carrying a sawed-off shotgun. He walked around the front of the car to stand next to Tall Guy and stared down at the zombie.

“Did you a favor.” Tall Guy holstered the big revolver. “If you’d tried to down him with that pea-shooter of yours, you’d be picking zombie teeth out of your neck right now.”

“Bullshit!” Soul-patch touched his bandolier. “These shells are packed with high-density micro-explosives. They would have vaporized his head into a cloud of fine red mist.”

“Sure, once he got within range.” Tall Guy lit a cigarette. “Which is what? About zombie-arm length, right? Like two feet?”

“Three,” Soul-patch said, frowning. “Okay, two-and-a-half.”

Bernice sat up, cleared her throat. “Never mind the damsel in distress here.”

Tall Guy glanced at her and smirked. “You’re welcome.”

“Oh, sorry, yeah,” Soul-patch said, slipping the shotgun into a harness on his back and walking over to her. He extended a hand down to her and grinned optimistically. “You okay?”

“That depends.” Bernice took his hand. Firm and strong. She let him pull her up. He didn’t strain at all. “You gonna get me out of here?”

“Your parents got money?” Tall Guy asked as he strode up next to Soul-patch.

“What?” Bernice asked.

“Ignore him,” Soul-patch said. “We can get you out of here.”

Tall Guy rolled his eyes and walked off to examine the zombies the car had pinned to the racks.

Bernice checked herself out. Nothing broken or missing. Just a lot of blue-gray zombie blood splatter. “Then, yeah, I’m okay.” When she looked up, she noticed Soul patch’s camos were wet in the crotch. “What’s with the... you have a little accident?”

He blushed. “Oh. No. Spilled some beer.”

“Beer? You got any left?”

He smiled. Dopey, but cute. “Whole backseat.”

Bernice returned the smile. Normally, that’d be the whole of it — she’d clam up and look away, embarrassment over actually talking to a guy catching up to her. But not this time. Roxanne’s advice to be aggressive rang in her ears — and given extra urgency by the absolutely shitty day she’d been having. “My kind of guy.”

His smile got a lot bigger and dopier. “Really?”

Bernice grabbed his head between her hands and pulled his surprised face towards hers, planting a long, deep kiss on him.

After a moment, she let him go. He just stared at her, wide-eyed.

“For rescuing me,” she said. A pause, then, “Too much?”

His wide-eyed stare broke into a panicked head-shaking. “No... no, not at all...”

“All right, there’ll be plenty of time for you two to get acquainted in the back seat later,” Tall Guy said, returning. He pointed his cigarette up and down Bernice’s body. “I’m assuming by the getup, you’re a Sister of No Mercy, so I’m betting you know who Roxanne is.”

“Roxanne... sure, she’s — Oh, shit!” Bernice exclaimed. “You’re the guy! You’re Mr. Hunter McRealMan.”

Tall Guy’s face went confused. “Huh? Who?”

“Trig, right?” Bernice asked.

“Trip.”

“And I’m Rudy,” Soul-patch said.

“Hey, Rudy,” she said, giving him a hungry smile. He blushed. She was beginning to enjoy this aggressive thing. She offered her hand out to him. “Bernice. Bernie. You can call me Bernie.”

Rudy took her hand and giggled sheepishly. “Hi.” He didn’t shake it, but he wasn’t letting it go, either.

“Concentrate.” Trip took both their wrists and pulled their hands apart. “Where’s Roxanne?” he asked her.

“I dunno. We were running from shoppers, and this big brute with a badge pops up in front of us. It grabbed Rox — just took her, dragged her off, and left me there. I doubled back to join the others but by then all these other zombies had showed up and were force-feeding everyone, and that’s when I took off again.” She gave Rudy a devilish little smile, taking a step closer to him, puffing up her cleavage. “Thanks again for the save.”

Rudy swallowed, struggled to not stare. “I was just... I...”

Trip sighed. “I’m the one who did the actual saving, let’s not forget.”

“That’s nice,” Bernice said, running her finger down Rudy’s bandolier. “So, you mentioned beer?”

“Ummm...yeah...” Rudy watched her fingertip slowly work its way down towards his belly. “Coming right up.” He reluctantly backed away, all the way back to the car, nervously waving at her while he did.

“You say they took Roxanne?” Trip stepped in front of her. “Why’d they take her instead of force-feeding her like the others?”

“You’re asking me?” Bernice reached into her purse and took out something wrapped in tissue paper. She handed it to Trip. “But might have something to do with this.”

Trip unwrapped it. “Her RATpack antenna?”

Bernice nodded. “Yeah. The f*cker took it off her and dropped it when he dragged her off.”

“That must have been when you lost contact,” Rudy said, returning with a milk jug of beer. He held it out to Bernice.

Bernice took the jug with a smile, uncapped it, and drank. “She thought you were jacked in and near, that second time.” She handed the jug back to Rudy.

“There was a first time?” Trip asked.

“Just before the All-Mart snatched us up, during the appeasement ceremony. The antenna looked like it was connected — it went all blinky red — but she wasn’t feeling anybody on the other end. You weren’t sneaking a peek at the ceremony, were you?”

“The thought had occurred to me,” Trip said with a half-smile. “But no. We were still in Shunk. Pressing business.”

“That’s what we figured. She thought it was on the fritz.”

“Weird.” Trip stuffed the antenna away in a tux pocket. “But irrelevant. Any idea where they took Roxanne?”

She shook her head. “I just got here myself.”

Rudy stopped staring longingly at her over the beer jug long enough to ask, “Do you remember what direction it dragged her off in?”

She pointed off into the distance. “Maybe that way.”

“Maybe?” Trip asked.

She scowled at him. “I was a little stressed at the time.”

“It’s okay,” Rudy said.

“No, no it’s not okay,” Trip said. “We don’t even have a signal to follow anymore. Who knows where —”

A low, growling moan interrupted him. All three turned to look. It was coming from the zombie had Trip shot.

“You put three rounds through it — how is it not dead?” Rudy asked.

Trip drew his revolver and cautiously stepped up closer to the zombie. The hole in his chest was closing, the skin resealing itself over undulating, re-growing lungs and heart. The other two wounds were already gone.

“Great. Self-healing zombies. F*cking nanochines.” Trip flicked his cigarette into the zombie’s chest cavity just as it sealed itself shut. Trip cocked the revolver and pointed it at the zombie’s forehead. “Let’s see if the oldie-but-goodie bullet through the brain does the trick.”

“Wait,” Rudy said. “Don’t kill it.”

“Why the f*ck not?”

“Karma.”

“F*ck Karma.”

“Other way around if you keep pissing it off, bro.” Rudy pointed at the two zombies pinned to a rack by the Wound, writhing and struggling to free themselves but not having any luck. They were good and stuck, and helpless. “Look, they’re not a threat to us. Let’s just leave them here and get going.”

“Going where?” Trip waved the revolver randomly above his head. “‘Maybe that way’ isn’t a real direction.”

“Killing zombies isn’t going to help.”

“Oh, it’d help,” Trip grunted, holstering the revolver.

Rudy smiled, looked down at the zombie at Trip’s feet. The zombie’s wounds had almost completely healed and it was just starting to come awake. “Anyway... I’ve got an idea about how we might figure out where to go.”