Floodwater Zombies (27 page)

Doc shook his head. “Doesn’t matter, they’ll both do the trick.”

Rory grabbed the mammoth .357 and strapped the nylon holster around his waist and right thigh. Doc unrolled the old leather drop-loop gun-belt and fastened it around his waist, letting it hang low on his right side.

“I
wanna
a gun, too, Grandpa! I’m gonna be a deputy.”

Doc tied a leather string around his leg to keep the holster from swinging around. “I thought you might say that, A-Man.” Alex’s face brightened as his grandpa turned to the bar and grabbed a black and chrome BB gun, which resembled a nine-millimeter. The kind a cop might mistake for a real gun during a late-night traffic stop.

Alex wrinkled his face. “Lucy?” he groaned, wiping away another tear.

“Here, put it in your holster,” Doc said, handing him the BB gun.

Reluctantly, the seven-year-old took it and slid out from the booth. “But I want a real gun,” he whined, slipping it into the old western holster Doc had given him for his sixth birthday.

Doc knelt down and met Alex’s watery blue eyes. “Lucy is a real gun, squirt. You just have to shoot it more than once.”

“This gun won’t do anything. I can handle a real gun!”

“I know you can, Alex, but we only have so many real guns right now. Can you make do for grandpa?”

Alex lowered his eyes to the BB gun and slowly nodded.

“Atta boy,” Doc said, standing back up with a crack of his knee. He let out a long sigh and tousled Alex’s hair. “And don’t go
shootin
your eye out,” Doc said, winking at his grandson.

Alex frowned and kicked a red Solo cup across the floor.

Rory pulled Rob’s .38 Special from his waistband and handed it to Mick.

Mick hesitated before taking it and flipping the chamber open like he had handled it before. He turned to the bar and grabbed the box of bullets Rob had brought back in with him. “Just remember, kid,” Mick said, sliding shiny bullets into his pockets. “Aim for the head.”

“Make sure it’s none of our heads,” Hooper said, glaring at Mick and his nearly empty bottle of Bud.

Alex adjusted his holster and looked up to Doc. “Did you shoot Rob in the head, Grandpa?”

Doc’s face slumped. Mick stopped stuffing bullets into his pockets and watched Doc, waiting for his answer with as much anticipation as the young boy.

“No, Alex, we didn’t.”

“Are you going to?”

Doc opened his mouth but nothing came out.

“Alex, why don’t you go behind the bar and grab a bag of chips,” Kourtney said, sliding out from the booth and walking over to the bar to survey the other weapons Doc and Hooper had rounded up.

“I’m not hungry.”

Doc pulled out another cigarette and lit up, being extra careful to conceal the lighter’s flickering flame from the spooks outside.

“Well, eat a candy bar or something. You need your energy,” she said, examining a beat up crowbar and setting it back on the bar. “We all do,” she murmured.

Mick slapped the chamber back inside the .38 and tucked it into the small of his back. “Those motherfuckers are gonna pay.”

Kourtney cast a sideways look his direction. Mick dropped his head and shuffled off behind the bar.

Hooper opened his black duffel bag and gave Woody a handful of shotgun shells while Mick grabbed another beer and disappeared into the back.

“Mick!”
Doc called out after him.

“Let him go,” Hooper said, grabbing Doc’s arm to stop him. “He needs to know what we’re up against.”

“An ice scoop?”
Kourtney said nonplussed, holding up an industrial-sized silver scoop.
“Really?
You consider this a weapon?”

Doc shrugged. “Would you prefer a plunger, Kourt? It’s all we got.”

Chapter Fourteen

Mick reemerged through the wooden door and stopped behind the bar, looking white as a ghost. His chest heaved as he removed his Harley Davidson hat and ran a hand through curly brown hair that was overdue for a good haircut. “That
ain’t
right,” he muttered, his glassy eyes bouncing around the shadowy room.

Doc sighed and dropped his gaze to the worn out floor.

“I am not turning into one of those…
things
,” Mick insisted, swapping his empty beer bottle for a fifth of Jack Daniels.

Rory watched him pour a finger of amber liquid into a rocks glass. With a shaky hand, Mick knocked it back in a single gulp and slammed the glass back to the bar with a loud crack.

“We need you clear headed, Mick,” Hooper said sternly, grabbing three full clips from the duffel bag and stuffing them in his pockets.

Mick filled the glass again. “Last thing I want right now, Sheriff,” he said, pausing to burp, “is to be clear headed!” He tipped the glass back and swallowed with another grimace. The glass clanked back to the bar top as a long sigh seeped from Mick’s lips, tickling his mustache. “Damn, that burns.”

Lightning splintered the night, illuminating their frightened faces for a fraction of a second longer than they wanted. More dead people had shown up outside, oblivious – so far - to any sign of life inside the bar. The corpses stumbled aimlessly through the rain soaked lot, not sure what they were looking for but seeming certain they were close to finding it.

Mick poured another drink and lifted the short glass to his mouth. He paused and squinted out the window. “Holy shit-monkeys,” he muttered, lowering the glass to the bar. They followed his glassy gaze to a bearded man lumbering closer. Rory’s heart did a quick double take. The hulk’s suit looked like it had shrunk two sizes since they had last seen him.

“Oh my God,” Rachel whimpered. “That’s the guy from the lake.”

“Doesn’t this bastard ever give up?” Woody asked rhetorically, wrapping his fingers around the shotgun. “
Sonofabitch
almost killed me earlier.” He got to his red sneakers and faced the window, clutching the shotgun in both hands.

Hooper dropped a hand onto his bony shoulder. “Take it easy, Woody.”

Thunder clapped above them, rattling the racks of clean pint glasses behind the bar.

“He
don’t
look so bad,” Doc whispered, his eyes betraying him.

Rory tightened the holster’s black strap around his leg. “You should’ve seen him before.”

Hooper rubbed his chin with a thumb and index finger, pulling on an imaginary beard. “He’s lost his energy.”

“Probably been out of the lake too long,” Woody said, craning his neck to follow the oversized stiff as it heedlessly traipsed around the side of the wooded tavern and out of view.

Mick slammed the glass back down with a loud crack, making everyone jump. “We’re all gonna turn into those decaying
sonsabitches
!”

Alex pressed his face into his mother’s side.

Hooper’s eyes thinned. “We are if you don’t shut the hell up.”

Mick wiped whiskey from his whiskers with the back of his hand, not taking his puffy eyes from three flesh-eaters roaming the dimly lit parking lot. “Shit, I’d just as soon shoot myself right now!”

Hooper.
“Mick!” he hissed through gritted teeth.

Mick’s eyes jerked over to Hooper. Lightning flashed, reflecting off wet trails running down Mick’s rugged cheeks. “Fuck you, Sheriff! We’re all gonna end up like Rob! For all I know, one of you is already infected!” His hand disappeared beneath his
Carhartt
work coat, smoothly sliding to the .38 tucked into the small of his back.

Kourtney hugged Alex and turned his face from Mick just as a five or six-year-old girl in a dingy pink dress started banging on the window. Her cheeks were spoiled holes, sporting jagged rows of gnashing teeth inside.

Rory turned from the window and inched closer to Mick. “Jesus Christ, get a hold of
yourself
, man. Things are hard enough right now, Mick, but you don’t have to make it harder by being
that guy
.”

Confusion danced across Mick’s face. “What
guy
?” he scowled.

“The guy that always has to freak out and cause a big scene when everyone’s trying to be quiet,” he said, his black holster and blue jeans making him look like a TV cop. Just like Hooper. “The guy that gets everyone killed.”

Mick laughed sharply. “I don’t know if you’ve been
keepin
up on your current events or not, slick, but I’m the least of your worries!”

Rory cringed, wondering how well those things could hear and fearing the answer. Wondering how long it would take them to get inside if they banded together like a decomposing lynch mob. “Don’t make it like this, Mick,” he said softly, brushing his hand against the Magnum.

Mick dropped his eyes to Rory’s hand and blinked. “Or what, Rory?” he asked with a laugh, closing the distance between them.

“Now just hold on,” Hooper tried to say with an official tone.

“Or we’ll tie you up and throw
ya
in the cooler,” Rory snapped.

Mick threw his head back and howled. “Shit! I’d like to see that!” he exclaimed, stopping in front of Rory.
“You a badass now, Rory?”

 
Rory stepped closer, smelling the strong scent of whiskey on Mick’s breath.

“Well come on then, hero,” Mick whispered, clenching his fists.

“Mick stop,” Rachel said, getting to her feet.

Mick glanced at her and turned back to Rory with a smile. “No wonder she dumped you, a woman needs a man who can protect her.”

Rory pushed him in the chest with both hands, sending Mick tumbling to his butt. The .38 clattered across the floor and came to a stop by the worn out bathrooms in the back of the bar.