Take the All-Mart!

CHAPTER 12: BOB





“Welcome to All-Mart. How can we change your life today?”

According to the nametag half-grown into his chest, the zombie’s name was Bob. He hung spread-eagled on a rack of green polka-dotted teddy bears, electric extension cords lashed tight around his wrists, ankles, waist and throat. Neither his body nor his uniform showed any signs he’d been shot by Trip, the wounds healed and the fabric regrown by the All-Mart nanochines in his blood and living in the fabric of his clothes.

“This was your whole idea?” Trip was up on the Wound’s hood, leaned back on the windshield. He looked up from re-reading the Steve Martin Playboy interview. “Strap the zombie up to a rack and stare at him until he says something other than ‘Welcome to All-Mart, how can we change your life today’?”

“I really think it’s starting to get to him.” Rudy was standing in front of Bob, staring up at the zombie as he thoughtfully puffed on his calabash. “Just give it some time.”

Trip set the Playboy down next to him and slid off the hood. He stepped up next to Rudy. “You’ve already been at it for ten minutes.”

Rudy frowned at him. “You’re not exactly one to talk about taking your time, Mr. ‘I-haven’t-met-a-lock-I-can’t-crack’.”

Bernice was standing off to the side, arms crossed over her chest. “I don’t get it. He’s a zombie. Just torture him.”

Trip smirked. “Oh, no, we couldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

Growling, Trip pointed at Rudy.

Rudy smiled at Bernice. “Karma.”

“Karma?”

Rudy nodded. “The more you hurt others for no reason, the more you get hurt back.”

“Yeah, I know what it is, but... it did attack me.” Bernice jogged her head back at the two zombies still pinned between the Wound and the rack it had crashed into. Their wounds had healed but they were trapped pretty good, despite their continuing, writhing efforts to free themselves. “All three of them did.”

Rudy puffed at his calabash. “And we roughed ‘em up good. But the threat’s over. Always defense, never attack. Read that at an amusement church, once. It’s good advice. Keeps the soul clean.”

Bernice sighed. “So we’re just gonna stand here and ask nicely?”

“You’ll see — he’ll come around once he sees we’re being all civil.” Rudy looked up at Bob. “We might even offer him some lunch later, if he cooperates.”

Bernice turned to Trip. “You believe this?”

“Believe it? I’ve had to put up with it my whole life. But not today.” Trip pulled his elephant revolver from his holster. “No time for this shit.”

Rudy stepped in front of him. “Dude. Karma.”

“You’re trying to appeal to a zombie’s civil side.” Trip’s thumb rubbed against the revolver’s hammer, itching to pull it back. “Zombies don’t have civil sides.”

“There’s still a person in there.”

“Under about a million body- and mind-controlling nanochines that we have to get through first. I don’t see how we’re gonna do that without some good old-fashioned Rumsfielding.” Trip leaned close to Rudy, lowered his voice. “Besides, I think you’re losing Cleavage here.”

Rudy stole a glance over at Bernice. She was glaring up at Bob, rubbing her fist with her palm. “You think?”

Trip nodded. “She seems like the aggressive kind... you know, into real men. Not pussies.”

“Fine.” Rudy gestured for Trip to put his gun away. “But I’ll do it. Your karma debt’s big enough as it is, no need to risk tipping it over and having an asteroid fall on you or something. Especially when I’m standing next to you.”

Trip smiled. “Just get him talking.”

Rudy patted the ashes from his pipe and jammed it into his bandolier. “Right. Right. Okay, give me some room. Okay, how we wanna do this?” Rudy asked himself as Trip and Bernice took a few steps back. Rudy cracked his knuckles and, chewing his lower lip, surveyed the rack of baby toys next to Bob. After a good long moment, Rudy grabbed a yellow rubber duck from a bin. He turned back towards Bernice. “You might want to, you know, avert your eyes, this could get nasty.”

She stared at the duck dubiously. “I don’t see how.”

“Sorry about this...” Rudy said to Bob as he wrapped his hand around the rubber duck and punched the zombie in the gut.

The rubber duck squeaked.

Bob, he didn’t even notice he’d been hit.

“Huh,” Rudy said, staring at the rubber duck in his hand, “that should’a worked.”

Trip bowed his head and pinched the bridge of his nose between his index finger and thumb. “Oh, for Shatner’s sake.”

“Mind if I give it a try?” Bernice asked, taking the rubber duck from Rudy. “I’ve got a badge in discipline.”

Rudy’s eyes went wide and he swallowed. “You’ve got a badge in discipline?”

“Since I was thirteen,” she said proudly, tossing the rubber duck away over her shoulder. “Second badge I earned after indoor horticulture.” She turned to Trip. “Well?”

Trip stepped aside and swept his hand towards the zombie. “Be my guest.”

She pointed at his revolver. “May I?”

Trip thought for a moment, then shrugged, taking it out and handing it to her handle-first. “Be gentle with her.”

Bernice nodded, brushed hair from her face, and strode up to the spread-eagled zombie, cocking the revolver. While Bob looked down at her, his blue-bloodshot eyes trembling, she raised the gun.

“Welcome to All-Mart...” he said. Then she fired, the revolver’s barrel pushed hard into the flesh of Bob’s left thigh, tearing a hole in it the size of a baseball, exposing bone. Bob howled, writhed in pain. Somehow, through the howling, he managed to stutter out: “How... can... we... change your world today?”

“Now that’s how you interrogate a zombie.” Trip smirked back at Rudy then stepped up behind Bernice. He pointed at Bob’s face. The blue-gray spiderwebbing had, if only momentarily, narrowed and dimmed, and had even slightly retracted around Bob’s lips and eyes. “See that?”

Rudy pursed his lips in distaste, and nodded. “Yeah. The pain must make the nanochines recede temporarily. Probably being diverted to repair the damage from the impact.” The hole in Bob’s leg began knitting itself closed and the blue-gray spiderwebbing of his skin regained its regular thickness and glow.

“Keep going,” Trip encouraged Bernice.

Bob’s eyes followed the barrel as Bernice shifted it from his left to his right thigh. He writhed harder, trying to escape the inevitable —

BOOM!

“Welcome to All-Mart!” Zombie Bob howled out at first, then as his skin cleared — becoming almost line free — he snapped his head down towards Bernice. “Will you please stop that?”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Trip nudged Bernice aside. “So, Bob... where’d they take Roxanne?”

“Who? What are you talking about?” Zombie Bob asked just as the spiderwebbing spread out across his face once again. “...How can we change your world today?”

Trip rolled his eyes. “Bernice, if you please? Something a little harder to heal this time.”

Bernice nodded and casually shot Bob’s kneecap off.

After the screaming died down and his skin cleared, Bob choked out: “Okay, okay... what was the question?”

Trip smiled up at him, holding his hand at shoulder height. “Friend of ours. About this tall. Black hair. Great ass. Guy with a badge dragged her off.”

“Security,” Bob said, his voice strained from the pain of his kneecap being rebuilt. “Sounds like security.”

“Okay, security dragged her off.” Trip took the cigarette from his mouth and pointed with it. “In that general direction. What’s that way?”

“Housewares,” Bob said after thinking a moment. “Then sporting goods. Ladies undergarments is a few miles beyond that.”

“Maybe they just want her to model some bras,” Rudy suggested.

Bernice shook her head. “If that’s what they wanted someone for, let’s be honest, they picked the wrong gal.”

“Yes, yes, we all know about your impressively big rack, but can you please put it away before Rudy has an aneurism?” Trip asked her, then turned back to question Bob. “That all that’s in that direction, Bob?”

“No,” Bob said. The blue spiderwebbing glow reappeared around his eyes and mouth, spreading out slowly over his face, and he struggled to speak. “There’s more store. Associate settlements... Then much more store... And... eventually... Origin.”

“What’s Origin?” Trip asked, jogging his head at Bernice. She nodded back with a smile, jammed the barrel of the revolver into Bob’s re-growing kneecap. It sunk deep into the still soft bone as she twisted it, shoved it on through.

“Origin!” Bob screamed from the pain. The spiderwebbing dimmed and retracted. Bob panted, waiting to speak until Bernice had pulled the revolver away and stepped back. “The heart of All-Mart. Where it began... where it spreads out from. Home.”

“That’s got to be where they took her.” Bernice wiped Bob’s blood and bone tissue from the revolver’s barrel on her miniskirt.

“That where they took her, Bob?” Trip asked.

“I don’t know... cannot say...” Glowing spiderwebbing reappeared over Bob’s entire face. “How can we change your life today?”

Trip grabbed his revolver back from Bernice and jammed the barrel into Bob’s ruined knee.

Bob screamed, breaking into tears of pain as the spiderwebbing fully retracted again. “Please... please... stop doing that!”

Trip smirked at him. “Give us a straight answer.”

“All right, all right,” Bob said. “The Voice. It told Security to find her and bring her to Origin.”

“What ‘voice’?” Trip asked.

“The Voice!” Bob lifted his head, smiling warmly at the ceiling. “The pretty Voice. The powerful Voice.”

Trip sighed. “Let me guess... this voice, it comes from Origin?”

“It is Origin.”

“Great. So Origin’s a voice...”

Bob’s smile widened. “And a city, a great city only the most trusted Associates and Security are honored to inhabit.”

“A zombie city. Terrific.” Rudy tweaked his nipple before wandering off down the aisle muttering to himself. “Should have blown my own brains out when I had the chance.”

“Heavily defended, I take it?” Trip asked Bob.

Bob nodded. “Security keeps a high profile, yes.”

“Well, then, no shoplifting, kids. All right, let’s get going to this Origin place, see if we can find Roxanne.” Trip spun around to see Rudy spooning two fingers worth of All-Mart branded Enriched Applesauce baby food into his mouth.

Rudy looked up at Trip and Bernice staring at him, dumfounded alarm on their faces. “What?” Rudy licked his fingers. “You were serious about not shop-lifting?”

Trip scowled. “Did you not see what happens when you eat the food here?”

Rudy’s face went dire. “F*ck... oh, well. Damage done.” He shrugged, scooped another couple fingers worth into his mouth. He swallowed, raised his eyebrows at their blank stares. He licked his fingers clean. “What? My chem factory should be able to fight off the nanochines.”

“You’d better hope they can,” Trip said.

Bernice stepped up to Rudy and, smiling sadly, took the baby food from him. She put the half empty jar on a shelf and stared at him, her brow crinkled with concern.

“Seriously, I’ll be okay.” Rudy pulled up his t-shirt and rubbed his hairy stomach. “Iron belly.”

Bernice pulled his t-shirt down. “Just no more snacks, okay?” she asked, taking his hand and leading him to the Wound.

As they walked by him, Trip took a final drag off his cig and flicked it away, then started back to the Wound himself.

“Hey, wait, what about me?” Bob asked.

Trip didn’t stop. “What about you?” he asked over his shoulder.

“At least let me down.”

“So you can go warn your zombie pals and that Voice thingee?”

“The Voice already knows,” Bob said, jogging his head at the two zombies pinned between the Wound and a shelf rack. They’d given up writhing and were now simply watching Rudy hold the door open so Bernice could crawl into the back seat of the Wound.

Trip stopped at the Wound’s bumper and spun around. “You know the way to Origin?”

Bob nodded his head. “Yeah.”

Trip smiled.