The three women are off in a far corner giggling over something on one of the shelves so I wander over to where they are and see if they need any assistance.
“Hello there, ladies. What can I help you with this evening?”
They all start giggling again and each one turns bright red when they try and look me in the eyes.
“Um, well, my friend Jamie here has never been to a sex toy store before. So, what would you recommend for her first toy?” one of the women asks.
Normally, I enjoy helping out the customers in Liz’s store. I’m kind of a genius when it comes to all of the things in here but as soon as I start to impart my wisdom on them, my nose starts to tickle and I feel a sneeze coming on.
I let out four rapid sneezes right in a row and apologize to the ladies, asking them to follow me to another display so I can show them a few things for beginners.
As I’m holding up a bullet with a cock ring attachment, I feel my eyes start to itch and I’m wondering if I’m suddenly getting allergies or something. The three girls are so embarrassed they are barely even listening to what I’m saying, and I feel like my sex intelligence is wasted on them. I’m holding the bullet and I’m rubbing my eyes furiously now since they won’t stop itching.
“Oh my God, my eyes are so itchy,” one of the women complain.
From behind me, I hear hacking coughs and I turn to see what’s going on with Jim and Carter but my eyes are watering so bad I can barely see them.
Next to me, two of the women start coughing and complaining that their throats itch.
What the fuck is going on?! Is this the fucking zombie apocalypse? Are we all infected with something that’s going to make us foam at the mouth and eat people’s faces??!
“Fuck! Did you guys eat bath salts tonight? Did you breathe bath salts on me or something?” I ask the women as I too start coughing and tears run down my cheeks.
My eyes are starting to burn and itch at the same time, and I feel like I can’t cough hard enough or long enough to stop my throat from itching.
“Drew!” Jim yells between hacking coughs from the counter.
I drop the bullet and cock ring on the floor and tell the women not to move which is pointless because two of them are now sitting on the floor clawing at their eyes while the other one is leaning against a display case sneezing over and over.
I scramble back to the counter as best I can since my eyes are watering so badly that everything is blurry. My coughing gets worse the closer I get to Jim and Carter, and I see they are having the same problems I am. Carter is sitting on the floor behind the counter digging his fists in his eyes while he sneezes and Jim is dry heaving in between coughs.
“What the fuck is going on?!” Jim yells as I stumble behind the counter and sneeze six times in a row.
“It’s the fucking zombie virus! Son of a bitch, I told you this day was coming! No one believed me and you all laughed. Well, who the fuck is laughing now?! If I go first, you kill me before I eat ANYONE’S face off, do you hear me?” I scream at Jim.
A hand clamps around my ankle, and I scream like a girl and jump up onto the counter. I look down and see Carter staring up at me with a scared look on his face.
“I don’t want to eat people either! Don’t let me eat people! They say it tastes like chicken but I don’t believe them. PEOPLE TASTE LIKE PEOPLE NOT CHICKEN!”
I nod my head, too busy coughing and wiping the tears out of my eyes to do much else. I glance behind me to check on the three women and see them crawling on all fours to get to the front door.
“NOOOOOOO! YOU CAN’T LEAVE! THE ZOMBIES!” I scream.
They can’t go outside. The streets are probably overrun with creepy bloody people chewing on arms and toes.
The women scream at the top of their lungs and are half crawling, half running as they try to get up off of the floor. They are coughing and crying and screaming and shoving displays and each other out of their way to get to the door. They don’t listen to my shouts of warning at all, and before I know it, they are out the door and lost to the zombies.
“It’s so sad. They were so pretty. Now we won’t even be able to recognize them the next time we see them,” Jim says sadly as I continue to cough.
“I need to call Jenny and tell her I love her,” I say between sneezes as I reach for the phone on the counter.
I dial our home number and she answers on the first ring but she sounds funny.
“Mmmmmm, mmmmfffuh”
Oh my god, has she been turned already?!
“NOOOOO! Jenny! Baby! Did they get to you already? Are you already a zombie? Oh my God!” I scream into the phone.
“What? Jenny’s a zombie?” Jim asks from behind me before dissolving into another coughing fit. “Shit! I need to call Liz.”
I hear a cough on the other end of the phone and I know that if Jenny isn’t a zombie yet, she will be soon.
“Fight the virus, baby, FIGHT IT!” I scream.
“Drew? What the hell are you talking about? I was taking a nap. What time is it?” she asks.
“IT’S ZOMBIE TIME! Lock the doors, baby. Don’t let them eat your face!” I tell her.
“MY FACE IS BURNING!” Carter yells from the floor as he scratches his cheeks.
“We need an antidote! What the fuck is an antidote for zombies?” I yell to Jim.
“What the hell does your Aunt Dottie have to do with zombies?” Jenny asks through the phone line. “Did you eat pot cookies again? You know what those do to you.”
A flash of blue and red lights catches my attention, and I turn around and look out the front window.
“It’s the cops. They’ve come to save us,” I say.
“Or they’re really zombie cops and they’ve come to eat our legs,” Jim adds.
~
“Yes, officer. I’ll make sure they are never left unsupervised again,” Liz tells the cop as he gets in his cruiser and then takes off.
Jim, Carter, and I are all sitting on the curb outside of the store with wet towels pressed to our eyes and bottles of water clutched in our hands.
Even though we can’t see right now, we can tell that Liz is looking at each one of us like she wants to murder us.
“What in the fucking hell were you guys thinking?” she asks.
I can hear her shoes tapping on the concrete right in front of us, and I close my legs to protect my nuts, just in case.
“You three morons thought you would spray mace in the porn room because it was a closed room. And yet somehow, during the planning of this stellar idea, you failed to remember this little thing called a VENTILATION SYSTEM. And you know, since it’s winter and all, the heat is on, pushing air and MACE from the fucking VENTILATION SYSTEM out into the entire store,” Liz explains angrily.
I remove the wet towel from my eyes and chance a look at her.
“Yeah, we didn’t really think that part through,” I admit.
“Oh gee, you think? Those three women went running down the street screaming about crazy men and flesh eating zombies that had taken over my store. And Jenny called me in a panic, freaking out because someone knocked on her door, and she thought zombies were going to break into the house to eat your kids. She threw a blender, the toaster, and a lamp at the door before I could convince her that it was my mother dropping off a present for Billy,” Liz tells me.
“Which lamp? It wasn’t my Ohio State one, was it?” I ask in horror.
“That is so not the fucking point, Drew!”
I look over at Carter and Jim and realize they are much smarter than I am. They are both sitting with their heads down, not making eye contact.
“You three are in time-out! No playing together for the rest of the week!” Liz yells before stomping past us and into the store.
“Yes ma’am,” we all mumble.
After we hear the door close, we all finally look at each other.
“Next time we’re allowed to play together, we are so coming up with a zombie antidote,” Jim states.
Chapter 24 – I Love Your Mom’s Clam
“Tell me again why we’re spending our Friday night with your parents?” Drew asks for the tenth time tonight.