“I sure could use a smoke,” Nicole said, looking out the corner of her eye, hoping for some reaction besides despair from her mother.
Tracy picked her head up, anguish clearly visible on her taut features. There was also something else…resolve. She was a little bit more than pissed at herself that she should be able to pull out of her funk over a cigarette, but old habits don’t die easily. They can be suppressed or even forgotten for a while but they can and will always rear their ugly heads at the most inopportune times. This, however, was an opportune time. Tracy wasn’t sure if she was mad or grateful that Nicole knew which buttons to push with such precise precision, but after all, she had been practicing for the last eleven years.
Tracy put the truck in gear. “Sounds good to me. Contracting lung cancer is the least of my problems.”
Nicole would have laughed if the thought wasn’t so macabre. Somehow at this point lung cancer was the safer alternative. How the hell did that happen? They drove in silence for only a minute or so as Tracy pulled into the nearest service station a half-mile away. There were a couple of cars in the bays, but they were unattended. Tracy did a lazy figure eight through the parking lot looking for anything that might make this visit not worth their while. Besides spilled gas there were no imminent threats. The lights inside the convenience store were out and the opaque glass masked everything. Tracy parked in front of the store, the Jeep idling quietly. She and Nicole peered intently into the gloom looking for any movement.
“Keep the car running. I’ll run in and grab a bunch of packs,” Nicole said as she began to open the door.
“Wait a minute, I’m not letting you go in there!” Tracy yelled louder than she meant to.
“Mom, I’ll be fine, I’m just gonna run in and run out.”
“No, if anyone should go in it should be me. I’ve already got two kids, God knows where. You stay here and I’ll run in,” Tracy said, convinced this was the correct maneuver. “If anything happens to me, you just take off,”she said as she began to open her door.
“Mom!” Nicole yelled.
Tracy slammed her door shut, convinced Nicole had seen something. She looked wildly around for the threat.
“Mom, I can’t drive a stick, if something happens to you, I’ll have to run. Have you seen me run?”
“Shit, you scared me,” Tracy said. As Nicole’s words settled in she realized the dilemma they were in. No matter which approach she took, she would be placing her daughter in danger.
“Let’s go in together,” Nicole interjected before the paralysis of fear took her mother over again.
Nicotine was a powerful drug. It had the power to overwhelm judgment. Tracy nodded weakly. They both opened their doors and stepped out. The cold air was redolent with the scent of spilled gasoline. The noxious fumes made breathing difficult but also had the benefit (or disadvantage) of masking the scent of death. They hurried to the entrance to get away from the overpoweringly strong smell. Had their sense of smell not been burned-out by the gas it would have been assaulted by the now all too familiar stink of death. It would be three breaths too late before they realized their error.
“God, I wish there were some lights on,” Nicole said, a slight tremor in her voice.
Tracy had been first in and was silently glad that was the case. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom inside the store she could make out a pair of scrubs-clad legs sticking out from behind the counter. Those legs were not made for walking anymore. There was also a congealed pool of blood coming from the aisle closest to them. Tracy had no need whatsoever to see what had caused it. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.
Tracy shot her hand out and grabbed Nicole’s arm, steering her away from the offending aisle.
“Shhh…did you hear that?” Tracy stopped and listened intently.
Panic welled in them both and Nicole hadn’t even heard a sound. They both stood stock-still as the seconds ticked by. Nicole’s arm began to throb where her mother gripped it like a vise.
“Mom, let go,” Nicole said in hushed tones. “There’s nothing here.”
A small scratching sound emanated from behind the cold drinks.
“It’s probably just the refrigerator kicking on,” Nicole said, more to convince herself than anything.
Tracy pointed to the un-lit lights overhead.
Nicole looked up and swallowed hard. “Yup, no power. I knew that.”
“Shhh…” Tracy more motioned than vocalized.
Nicole was not one to let a word go unspoken and was about to ask another question when the sound repeated itself. It was rhythmic and faint. There was no menace implied from the sound. All the same Tracy was in no mood to hang around.
Tracy spun to face her daughter. “Let’s just grab a bunch of smokes and some sodas for the boys and get the hell out of here.”
“I’m with you on that, this place gives me the creeps and it’s starting to smell worse than outside. Mom, any particular brand you want me to get?”
“Yeah, all you can carry. I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a longtime before Winston-Salem starts pumping more of these out, unless they start to market a brand for zombies. ‘Hey, you’re already dead, why not smoke?’ she tried for a feeble joke.
“That’s funny in a sick way,” Nicole said with a stiff smile.
“Even if we don’t smoke them, we’ll be able to trade with them. In a couple of days they might as well be sticks of gold.”
Nicole’s eyes sparkled. “Gold? Huh.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Nicole said as she went over and grabbed one of the two half-sized shopping carts.
“Good call,” Tracy said as she grabbed the lone remaining cart.
Both women were so busy ‘shopping,’ neither noticed when the door to the freezer section opened. In the shadows a lone figure stared out at them lustfully.
The image of meat, not the actual word, crossed what rudimentary intelligence the beast possessed. Forward it moved, always forward, always hungry, always in pursuit of its next meal. ‘Life was easy’ it would have thought if it had enough cognitive power to be self-aware. That was not the case though.
Nicole had finished filling her cart and had gone out to the Jeep to fill it with her first load of booty. She couldn’t have been any happier if she had just found Davy Jones’ locker. Her previous dread was long forgotten as she reentered the store. She stopped in her tracks, her smile frozen on her face as she watched in horror. An undead nightmare stalked her unwitting mother.
“Mom!” Nicole shrieked.
Tracy dropped the case of Pepsi. Cans shot out in all directions. As they ruptured, sticky liquid arced through the air. Tracy was about to yell at her daughter for scaring her but when she looked up and saw the sheer terror on her daughter’s face, she knew something was terribly wrong.
Nicole was pointing wildly, her finger thrusting like a woodpecker. Words stuttered in her mouth. “Z-Z-Z…”
Tracy got the point. There weren’t too many words that started with ‘z’ that could instill so much panic, unless of course a murderous zebra was loose in Denver and she was in the way of some succulent wild grass. Tracy spun around to face the threat. Her foot slipped on the newly spilled Pepsi. Her left leg shot out wildly as she plummeted to the ground. The expression on the zombie’s face changed from happiness to confusion as it wondered where its meal had gone. It was a beat or two before its eyes tracked down and locked back on its prey.
Tracy had landed hard on her ass; the fall had not been broken in the least by the tiled floor. Tracy began to back-peddle as the zombie once again began its forward progress. Nicole couldn’t get it out of her head that she wasn’t watching a scary movie on cable; her mind was searching for an escape.