INFECtIOUS (5 page)

Her eyes are
soft and tender and she speaks with so much love in her voice that I can't help
but reach out and hug her. She feels fragile in my arms as I cling to her. I
loosen my grip, afraid I'm being too rough with her. She kisses my cheek and a
tear slips down her cheek as she continues with her story.

"I wanted
to cheer you up and I practically ran into the toy store when I saw it there.
Betty was talking to someone further down the strip and I didn't wait for her
to stand watch at the door. I figured I'd only be a second. Just grab a toy or
two and maybe some art supplies for my creative Ivy." Her voice gets
distant again as she dredges her memories, reliving something I don't think I
want to hear. "I wandered into the second row of toys. I remember tripping
over something on the floor; and the fear I felt when I realized it was a body.
I fell forward and felt someone grab my legs and climb on top of me." She
pauses and then stares into my eyes as she admits, "It's the most scared
I've ever been."

I want her to
stop telling this story. I regret mentioning the toy store. I feel cold and
nervous and too alone in this big abandoned place. It is with fear and unwanted
responsibility that I realize that I am the stronger one between us. If
anything happens to us out here, it will be up to me to get us out of it. Aunty
is older than I thought. Aunty is more breakable today—how did this happen?
When did she go from my protector to this gentle old lady? I think we should
call it a day and go back home.

Aunty doesn't
notice the affect her story is having on my nerves and she continues, "I
tried to call out for Betty but he had his filthy hand over my mouth."

I can see
disgust and loathing on her face for this man of the past. Her mouth screws up
like she can still taste his dirty hand.

"Thank the
Lord, Betty saw me disappear into the toy store. She was almost through the
door when she watched me fall behind the row and not get back up. She was always
wise, a quick thinker. Instead of running in to help me, she found a young man
in the parking lot to help her and they came in together. The helpful dear had
a gun and he shot it over his head as he
came
shouting
through the door. The man on top of me cursed at me and hit me." She holds
a hand to her cheek over the ancient sting and leaves it there as she
continues, "He jumped up and ran into the shadows at the back of the
store. They pulled me outside into the sun and checked me over; then the man who
helped us went back in to find my attacker. He searched the whole store but
didn't find him. We could only assume the horrible man had somehow slipped out
the back service door of the store. It was—," she pauses and then finishes
her thought, "traumatic."
 

"I'm so
sorry Aunty. I didn't mean to make you sad. I forgot you and Aunty Betty used
to come here, too."

She waves at
hand at me as if to say it's nothing, no big deal.

"I think I
wouldn't have cared if I ever had anything new again."

We both know
that's true. I'm only here because she insisted. I'd be wearing old hobo
clothes with everyone else if it weren't for her proprieties.

"Life
always goes on Ivy. You'll learn that. The hard times come and make you think
you can't possibly move forward, but then you do."

She stares at me
with wisdom and knowledge in her eyes and instead of feeling encouraged, I feel
afraid. I don't want those hard times to come, whatever they are. My life has
already been hard enough.

"Let's just
get what we need from the rest of the stores and go home," I recant my toy
store idea, no longer enjoying our adventure.

I'm nervous. I
keep twisting my head to look all around
us,
feeling
like her story will conjure up the scary man from the past.

In a quick
change of mood, Aunty brightens. "We'll have to go fast and use our
flashlights. Let me pull the car right up front, just in case. I let that go
years ago and I won't let it haunt me again. Thomas needs a toy or two just as
much as my sweet Ivy did when she was his age."

She smiles a
mischievous, devil-may-care smile at me. Her adventuresome side has beaten her
cautious old-lady side. We are going in the toy store.

A Killer Pair
Of
Pumps

As Aunty pulls
the car close to the store's entrance, her words are still ringing in my ears.
I know what the "just in case" is. We won't find creepy bums and
rapists in the store today. Something worse could be haunting the once happy
aisles of the Toys R Us outlet.

The toy store's
doors and windows are still intact and thick with dirt. The sun sends little
light through the film. I wonder how long it has been since anyone has gone in
there? Maybe Aunty and her heroic entourage were the last ones to go through
these doors. While Aunty moves the car up onto the sidewalk, right in front of
the store, I try to swallow the foreboding lump in my throat and think ahead
about what Thomas would like. He's been with the community for about a month
now.
A funny, sweet twelve year old boy that one of the
missionaries brought to us.

We rarely add to
our number these days. The missionaries bring fewer and fewer converts in each
time they come home. Thomas was the last to join us. He is outgoing and very
bright. He's not at all athletic, so I'll look for fun games and toys, not balls
or sport's gear. I got to know him because he stayed with us at the Inn for his
first few days in
Toccoa
. Jose and Ellen, a young
couple from the other side of the compound, "adopted" Thomas an hour
after they met him. They are the perfect parents for him; and, even if I didn't
know them at all, just being members of the community would be enough
qualification for me to like them.

"Ready?"
Aunty asks with an overly optimistic smile as she pulls the small powerful
flashlight out of her pocket. "We will only take two minutes of the
batteries. Grab what you can, don't go more than one row away from me, and
don't talk. Stay in the front part of the store. Ears open, okay?"

"Sure.
Okay. Let's go."
 

I push on the
door and it seems to be locked. Am I disappointed or relieved? Should we take
it as a sign and move on to safer stores? I give it one more push to make sure;
and it budges half an inch. I look to Aunty for what to do next. It's obvious
this door is going to make a good amount of noise. On the other hand, no one
has been in here for a long time. Zombies shouldn't be a concern. Though, there
is that back door from
Aunty's
story, so—as much as I
want to—we can't rule them out. Aunty nods for me to go ahead and we push
together.

The door barely
moves at first, grating and whining as we push, then it abruptly swings open
with an announcing screech. The store has sat still and untouched for so long
that it looks like a spooky storybook witch's trap.
Toys
instead of gingerbread to lure in foolish children.
Lure them in and eat
them. My knees shake uncontrollably.

Cobwebs hang
from the ceiling in long diagonal strands. I hate cob webs. I know they are
made from dust and not spiders, but they feel spidery none the less. When I see
large, lace-like webs covering the toy boxes in the cloudy display windows, my
stomach lunges violently towards my hammering heart. I can't focus. I'm just
brushing at my face and shoulders, lost in spider paranoia. Aunty makes a soft
noise with her throat to regain my attention. She gives me a good, hard
"pull yourself together" stare. I try to find my courage and focus on
the reason we are here.

We move quick
and quiet like shadows though the displays of toys at the front of the store,
always keeping each other in sight. After a thorough inspection for
creepy-crawlers, I grab some boxes from a display with science experiments for
kids. I hope they aren't too childish. Next, I pick up a game with a cup and
Pingpong
ball that looks geared towards his age. I consider
some multiple player
boardgames
but none of them look
fun to me. And I'm pretty sure I'd end up being the one who'd have to play them
with him.

As I pull out a
box that claims to have the best transforming dinosaur toy ever, several boxes
that were tucked in around it topple against me and crash to the floor. I jump
and shake myself, brushing at my hair and shoulders—just in case. In a normal
situation you wouldn't have even called it a loud noise, but here in the tense
stillness, it resonates around the store. I look up in panic and see Aunty
looking at me with exhausted reproof on her face. She can lecture without even
using words. I shrug my apology and she nods for me to follow her as she heads
for the door. She has her arms full with a skateboard and a guitar.

Score!

He is going to
be so thrilled. We don't have many kids in the community right now. He's been
playing with Lois, the 5 year old girl who lives next door to his new family.
He's a pretty great kid. Lots of potential, if only there was enough time left for
him to have a future. These toys will give him something fun to fill his time.
I know his new parents had a few things for him at Christmas but it was mostly
homemade or used. They definitely didn't brave an abandoned toy store when they
went Christmas shopping.

A lot of people
disagree with Aunty and
I
making this trip. They don't
feel it is worth the risk. What can I say? Aunty and I are two strong, brave,
awesome women. We leave the toy store without incident and load the toys in the
back of the car. Today has been a huge success.

We've saved my
favorite store for last. It also happens to be the last store on the strip. Rue
21.
Teenage girl heaven.
I love everything about it.
It probably has just as many cob webs and creepers as the toy store, but the
afternoon sun has filled it with welcoming light and it seems cheery and almost
untouched. I could almost pretend it was just a normal store.

One little thing
in my favor is that the beginning of the end happened to be in January, 6 years
ago.
The perfect time of year for shopping.
All the
winter clothes are on the clearance racks and the new spring line is on the
regular racks. If the world had ended in June for example, there would only be
shorts, tank tops and bikinis in the stores. I don't think I've worn a swimsuit
since I was 9, let alone a bikini. So, there you go Aunty, I'm counting my
blessings.

Aunty has once
again taken her place at the front door. She has no interest in this last stop,
having done all her shopping in classier stores. I vow to still like fun
clothes if I make it to old age. I stuff my bag full of cute shirts and
sweaters, silly T-shirts with funny slogans, and comfy socks and yoga pants for
sleeping in. I laugh out loud when I find a shirt that says "Zombies Just
Want Hugs" with a little mob of cartoon zombies, arms outstretched in
Frankenstein fashion. I smirk and grab one in
Aunty's
size.

Running this
first load out to the car, I come back for another round. I keep expecting
Aunty to be impatient with my frivolous choices and how long I'm spending in
here, but she just seems happy that I'm relaxing and enjoying myself.
Being a teenager and all.
I pick out some cute necklaces and
put them all on to bring them home. One of them even has a cross on it. I grab
an identical cross necklace for my friend Harmony. Matching necklaces is kind
of dorky, but we're dorks. She'll like it.

Then I spot the
cutest, most impractical shoes ever. Pink suede wedges with stripes of black
satin and a black satin strap with a round silver buckle on the ankle. I don't
own anything that matches them and they are one hundred percent unnecessary—I
must have them. Kicking off the brand new pink Adidas running shoes I just took
from the Adidas store, I try on the pink heels and stare at myself in the
spotty mirror.

 
I am short and somewhat average; not skinny-
minnie
, but not chubby either. My long, curly brown hair is
usually knotted in a bun on my head, but today I left it down. I'm wearing all
new clothes and my new
ruffly
blue shirt doesn't
match the hip pink shoes. I can't think of anything I own that would go with
them, but they make me look taller. Studying myself in the mirror, I feel
pretty and confident.
Maybe even
kinda
hot.
Too bad the only person who's interested is Tim Markowitz. That glum
feeling that sometimes overtakes me when I think about my future among the
Living threatens to steal my pink shoe cheeriness.

A huge crash in
the back of the store makes my stomach lurch and my heart fly into a panic. I
run for the door shooting frantic glances over my shoulder. I can't help but
think of the story Aunty just told me and, as I look behind me, I am just sure
I saw someone move there in the shadows. I flee out of the door that Aunty Coe
is holding open for me. We jog to the car with Aunty facing forward scanning
the parking lot and me jogging backwards, stumbling in the ridiculous pink high
heels, to make sure no one is coming after us. We reach the car and still no
one has come out of the store.

"Clear!"
 
Aunty barks over her shoulder at me.

"Clear!"
I yell back at her.

"You forgot
to lock the car, Ivy!"
 
Her voice is
shrill and full of fear.

Shoot!

I forgot to
re-lock when I carried out that first load of bags. We jump in and quickly hit
the door lock.

Before I can
even hope that we're safe, I smell him.
Just a second before
he has his arm around my neck.
It's the smell of rotting flesh and body
odor. The two smells, though equally gross, are in opposition to each other.
The smell of death and the smell of activity and life.
That's
what a zombie is, polar-opposites coexisting.
Physically
alive, but spiritually dead.
And cursed.
He's
behind my seat and his grip is an iron band across my neck.

I scream and
thrash, trying to pull away from him; but he's strong and he has all the advantage.
I'm strong too though, and harder to hold onto than he was expecting; so he has
to fight to keep me in his grasp. Something sharp pinches my neck and scrapes
across my skin. I cry out in pain and pull hard to the right, pinning his arm
against the door. The distraction works in our favor and within seconds Aunty
has the
taser
shock prod to his shoulder and she
presses the trigger.

A standard
taser
is fired from a distance. Our devices are used up
close by pressing the electrically charged prongs directly into someone. Almost
like a short, electrically charged cattle prod. I feel a small tingle of
electricity run through me, but my attacker's arms slacken as the full current
paralyzes him. One shock won't slow him down for long, but I hear Aunty press
the trigger several more times rendering him limp and convulsing against the
back of my seat. He's still conscious and the paralyzing effect of the shock
will only last about a minute. I'm confused and terrified when Aunty starts the
car and guns it towards the highway.

"What are
you
doing!
" I scream. "We have to get him
out of here! Stop the car!"

My voice is
high-pitched and
weak,
I can't seem to catch my
breath. I feel like I'm dying from fear. Is this called hyperventilating? I
want to fill my lungs but they seem to be working against me! I pant tiny
scraps of air into my desperate lungs. My eyes are starting to blur.
 

"It's a
trap."
Aunty's
voice is flat and calm.
"There are at least two of them, Ivy."
 

Just as
unexpected as her sudden burst of speed had been, she stomps the brake,
throwing me forward into the dash board.

"Sorry,"
she says as she thrusts the SUV into park and realizes too late that she
could've warned me.
 

This last jolt
scared the wind back into me. My lungs are burning but functioning again. I
blink little floating lights out of my returning vision. We've only gone about
a quarter of a mile, just to where the parking lot meets the highway, but Aunty
is hoping
it's
enough distance between us and whoever
was helping this creep. She is already out of the car and coming around to the
passenger-side back door.

Shaking myself
free of the shock I feel, both from the predicament we are in and the hard
knock I took against the dash board, I climb into the back seat to push the man
out as she pulls from the other side. Before we dare to touch him, she gives
him one more long burst from her
taser
. As we
struggle to tug the moaning, convulsing monster from the tall SUV, his Oscar
the Grouch mask slides to one side revealing his deformities. His ear is rotten
with almost no flesh left. His exposed cheek is covered in strange lumps of red
skin and yellow sores. Near his lips there is a gaping hole, revealing what's
left of his stained brown teeth. I shudder at the sight of him. He's one of the
worst I've seen and this is the closest I've been to one of them for years. He
smells revolting.