Cries of fear and alarm erupted from the crowd of onlookers that had just witnessed a boy biting his mother. Much of the crowd tried to flee all at once, but were basically tripping over each other. Aaron, Cliff, Grace, and Steve stood a moment longer, watching in dumb silence.
A member of the staff ran through the ring of people to intervene. He seized the boy bodily and pulled him off the woman. In the commotion the hood was pulled from the boy’s head, revealing his face. It was definitely the lady’s son, but he was a lot more messed up than when the gang last saw him. His face was now covered in his mother’s blood, and his vacant expression had changed to a bestial snarl. An inflamed vein prominently stood out on his face.
With a cry of pain, the employee dropped the boy. “Motherfucker!” he shouted to nobody in particular as he clutched his arm and stumbled away, “He just bit me!”
“Well, I’m going to go ahead and call the police,” Steve announced as he juggled the chips awkwardly so that the could retrieve his phone from his pocket.
“Is he on drugs or something?” Grace wondered aloud.
“He must be, or else the kid’s a zombie,” Aaron confirmed Grace’s suspicion as the boy crawled over to his mom and started eating her face, “This is like something out of a bad movie.”
“This is just messed up. I don’t think we should just be sitting here watching this,” Cliff weighed in.
Finally Steve managed to successfully dig the phone out from his pocket. Holding a couple of bags of chips in his other hand, he dialed 911. Raising the phone to his ear, he heard an odd tone followed by a voice announcing that the circuits were busy.
“Guys,” he addressed his friends, “Something weird is happening here.”
“No shit,” replied Grace, her gaze transfixed by the boy turned cannibal.
“Can any of you put a call out? Some recording just told me the circuits were busy, like it’s the 50’s or something.”
Together the gang tried their phones, but met with the same obstacle. Nobody could place a phone call, and it wasn’t just to the police either. They were cut off from their phones.
“Well shit,” Aaron declared while he watched the boy to be sure he didn’t get up, “What are we going to do now?”
Grace had an idea, “Maybe they have a silent alarm here. It could be on a different circuit than the phones.”
“Good idea,” Steve praised Grace as he approached the injured employee, “Hey man, is there a silent alarm button at the register? We can’t seem to call the police.”
The employee was leaning heavily against the checkout counter. He looked up at Steve with an expression mixed with pain and anger. Decidedly unhelpful, the man just snarled at him.
“I know you’re hurt right now, but the sooner we get the police here, the quicker we can have them radio for an ambulance,” Steve explained as he eyed the man’s bloody wound, “I know first aid, if you get me the kit I can look at your arm for you.”
Steve reached out to the man, but his advance was met with another snarl. Steve took a step back, but a second later the employee lunged at him. Steve shouted as they locked into a grapple. He was swept off his feet by his attacker’s momentum and fell beneath him. The man started gnashing his teeth inches away from Steve’s face.
“Holy fuck!” Aaron shouted, “It really is a zombie! I’ve seen this movie before!”
“Fuck!” Grace threw in some cursing of her own, “What do we do?”
“Shoot him in the head,” Aaron answered, “That’s what you do with zombies. Everybody knows that.”
“We don’t have any guns, dumbass!” Grace thundered back at Aaron.
Cliff dashed over to a stand of display shelves near the checkout where Steve was being accosted. Seizing a shelf with both hands, he popped the shelf out of the bracket. He hefted the unwieldy instrument with both hands, upsetting dozens of bags of candies and chocolate bars. Swinging the shelf with a fearsome shout, Cliff brought the shelf down on the man’s head. With a wet crunch his skull caved in and the man slumped over Steve.
The dead weight of the man was making it difficult for Steve to breathe. He struggled to roll out from under him, but Cliff stepped in to help. He rolled the body off of his friend and helped Steve to his feet.
“Thanks,” Steve gasped.
“No problem,” Cliff answered, then gestured to the boy with his head, “What do we do about him?”
Steve rubbed his chest as he struggled to catch his breath. “Maybe we could just leave him alone,” he suggested, “He’s not hurting anybody anymore. We can get out of here and let the police handle it.”
“I like running away,” Aaron interrupted, “It’s a pretty good plan. Nice and safe.”
“Holy shit!” Grace shouted as she pointed, “He’s getting up!”
The boy clambered to his feet, blood dripping from his face. He slowly and unsteadily lurched towards the group of friends. A quick look around told them that they everyone else had the good sense to flee for their lives.
“Running is still on the table here,” Aaron announced as he took a step back.
Cliff wasted no time, however, and hefted the shelf once more. He swung the flat edge of the shelf at the boy, sending him sprawling to the ground. Before he could recover, Cliff followed up with a blow to the face. The boy spasmed once, then never moved again.
“This is so fucked up,” Grace declared.
“You’re telling me,” Aaron agreed with her, “Let’s hurry up and get out of here.”
“Hold on,” Steve argued, “What about her?” He was pointing at the boy’s mother.
“What about her?” Grace wondered after Steve’s meaning, “She was a bitch, but now she’s dead. We should just leave her and go.”
Steve shook his head, “What if these guys really are zombies? Couldn’t she get up and hurt somebody?”
Everyone looked at Aaron, who they all knew had seen just about every zombie movie that American cinema had to offer. “Well,” he began, “It’s hard to say. In some of the movies they’re dead people that just walk around eating people, but in others they’re still alive, so they can’t be reanimated after they’re already dead.”
Cliff looked at the unmoving woman, “She looks pretty dead to me.”
“Is she going to stay that way?” Grace asked.
“I don’t know,” Aaron admitted, “I’m just getting this from movies.”
“Is there a way we can keep her from reanimating?” Steve asked.
Aaron shrugged, “Destroying the brain kills them. If you bash her face in, she definitely won’t be able to get up again.”
“Right,” Steve nodded at Aaron before turning to Cliff, “You’ve got to hit her in the head.”
“What? Why do I have to do it? Mutilating a dead girl has got to be a felony,” Cliff argued.
“They call it ‘committing an indignity to a body,’” Steve admitted, “But you’re already up for a double homicide. You’d be a sucker to quit now.”
Cliff shook his head, but took up the shelf anyway. “I don’t know if I can do this,” he said between deep breaths.
As Cliff stood over the lady, her eyes flickered open. She lurched upright with a snarl. Cliff stopped hesitating and struck her in the back of the head. The lady was swiftly dispatched, and slumped forward into an awkward sitting position. Tossing the shelf to the ground with a resounding clatter in the otherwise still store, Cliff wanted to wash his hands of the whole situation.
Steve came up behind Cliff and laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder, “You did it, bro. We’re safe now thanks to you.”
“We can throw a party later,” Aaron urged impatiently, “Let’s just get out of here.”
“Wait,” Grace came to a sudden realisation, “What if there’s more of them out there?”
Steve looked at the bloodied steel shelf on the ground. “We’re going to need more weapons,” he declared.
“Let’s go then,” Grace hollered as she took off running down the main aisle, “We’ll stock up in the Hardware department.”
“Hardware?” Steve asked aloud before taking off after her. “Wait a second, Grace!” he shouted after her.
Not wanting to be left behind, Aaron jogged to catch up with his friends. Cliff stayed behind for a minute to reflect on what had just happened. He had just killed three people. Three people that may have been monsters, and would likely have done the same to him or his friends, but he couldn’t shake the fact that just minutes ago they were people, just like him. Yet now, they were just lifeless bodies on the floor. The thought rattled him some place deep within.
With a shake of his head, he pushed the unbidden reflections from his mind. There wasn’t time to worry about that now. If there were more zombies out there, or whatever these people were, they were all still in danger. Resolutely, he trudged across the store looking for his friends.
Meanwhile, Grace had stopped running to catch her breath. “Where is it?” she asked herself, “They’ve got to have a Hardware department around here.”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Steve answered from a few steps behind, “They don’t have a Hardware department in this store. Never did.”
“What?” Grace questioned as Aaron caught up to them, “Then where’s somebody supposed to buy a hammer?”
“Probably at a hardware store,” Steve answered, “That’s my guess.”
“Well fuck. What about yard tools?” Grace kept pushing.
Steve shook his head, “They don’t have anything we can use. It’s November, they just those plastic snow shovels.”
Grace ran her hands through her hair as she began pacing and muttering to herself, “What do they have here? Clothes are all on that side of the store. Nothing useful in Electronics, nothing in Toys. There probably isn’t anything in the Pharmacy or Groceries. Oh! A knife! We can get knives in Housewares!”
Running off again, Grace left Aaron and Steve behind. The two exchanged another look before Steve took off after her.
“Really?” Aaron called out before joining his friends, “More running around? We should be getting the fuck out of here!”
The trio arrived in Housewares shortly to find Cliff perusing the kitchenware. “Hey,” he greeted them, “Find anything useful?”
“Nada,” Steve admitted, “How about yourself?”
“Knives and frying pans,” Cliff explained, “Unless you want to tangle with a zombie with a toaster, they’re the only thing we can use here.”
“Right,” Steve agreed, hefting a cast iron skillet, “Woah! This thing is heavy. I guess that’s actually what we want though, huh?”
Aaron pulled a packaged knife off a hook. “Okay,” he declared, “I can do some damage with this thing! I just need to get the package open.” He reached for a pair of scissors nearby, and discovered they were in the same kind of package, which was unopenable without either a knife or some scissors. “Shit.”
“Here,” Grace offered her help with a roll of her eyes. She pulled a penknife out of her pocket and sawed through the package. She gave the kitchen knife back to Aaron before selecting one for herself.
While Grace and Aaron were arming themselves with knives, Cliff and Steve decided they were more comfortable with the heavier cookware. They knew they could really throw their weight behind a blunt weapon to do some damage.
Steve surveyed the scene, “Are we all ready to get out of here?” he asked.
“Like, twenty minutes ago. With chips.” Aaron answered.
“I didn’t even want to come in the first place,” Grace admitted.
Cliff simply nodded. Steve didn’t need to hear any more by that point. Together they left the DepartMart behind them without another word.
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