Transformation (17 page)

Several dead faces turned at the sound of thumping. They shambled over towards a large delivery truck and surrounded it.

18.

It was after sunrise. Jeff and Wendy had slept the night and were getting up, ready to move on.

“We have a problem.” Jeff said as he stood urinating over the edge of the roof.

“Yeah?” Wendy lowered herself from the fan box and stretched her back.

“We are surrounded,” Jeff finished pissing on the dead gathered below. He zipped up and turned. “We need to find a way off this roof and past the swarm.”

Wendy had walked over and was standing next to Jeff.

“Wish I could piss of the roof like that,” she said with a straight face.

Jeff just looked at her, understanding the practicality of the statement but not sure what he was supposed to say.

“You have any ideas?”

“About pissing off a…” Jeff had a few ideas already.

“No.” Wendy looked at him like he was stupid.

“I mean ideas for getting out of here.”

“Oh that. Yeah. OK. I always have ideas,” Jeff was staring.

“Are you thinking or did you shut down?” Wendy asked.

Jeff just waved her off and wandered away.

Wendy nodded. “OK. Well, we may be up here for a while so we can at least get down into these stores and try and find some food.”

“Got that covered,” Jeff said and started walking across the roof.

Wendy followed Jeff to a small box that was maybe eight inches high but a good three by three feet wide. Jeff chuckled as he kicked at the padlocked roof hatch.

“You going to break the lock?” Wendy asked.

“No.”

“Pick it?”

“No. No. Look. These doors are solid, welded to a solid frame, and locked with a commercial grade padlock.”

“So you can’t open it?”

“I don’t need to open the hatch. I just need to remove it.

Jeff pulled a rather large screwdriver from his coat. He stuck it under a frame of thin metal that surrounded the hatch and started prying.

“You see. The hatches are solid but they are usually installed with a few nails and some roofing tar.”

Jeff pried for a few minutes and soon was able to lift the entire box up and over.

“I should go first.” Jeff said and disappeared into the darkness below. He was quick about it but it took Wendy a bit longer to get herself over the edge and onto the ladder. Jeff was on the floor before she was halfway down.

The store was dark and still. The place didn’t smell bad compared to the stores that were full of things that rotted, spoiled, and putrefied. The ladder put them in the rear of the store behind the walls of a small storeroom. Light from the open hatch made it possible to see well in a small area, the rest of the store fell off into darkness.

They entered a break room and both searched the cabinets out of habit more than any other reason. They both also had the experience to know not to open the fridge. The sights and smells of a refrigerator stuffed with rotting food was one you only needed to have once.

As they entered the main store light from the front windows made it possible to see the familiar hanging signs and shelves of electronics and associated goods. Games, DVDs, speakers, cell phones . . . Jeff pocketed a few things as he passed through.

“Upfront they usually have all sorts of food.” Jeff said.

“You mean crap.”

“Yeah, edible crap.” Now Jeff looked at Wendy like she was crazy. He wasn’t sure if he was offended at her lack of gratitude or condemnation of the crap he loved to eat.

There were a few coolers but even with the power off, they contained water and beverages that were still safe to drink. Jeff was sucking down a caffeine drink and searching the long row of shelves desperately, moving quickly to the other end.

“Aw yeah.” He’d found the chips, lots of chips. He grabbed a large plastic bag from behind a register and started filling it with all he could carry, starting with the Doritos.

Wendy picked up packages of snack foods and sneered. She sipped a water, nibbled on some shortbread. “Sorry this stuff just makes me feel so bad when I eat it.”

Jeff had no response. He was stuffing a bag full of snacks and magazines then started to tie it shut.

Wendy wandered over to the doors and peeked out. From an angle, she could see the dead outside. Something about them gave her pause. She watched as they stood, swaying. A few dropped as she watched, she noticed a couple already on the ground. The dead weren’t pounding the door and trying to get in. She decided to try something.

She walked in front of the door and tapped the glass. The dead reacted as one, moaning and slapping the glass, but it was lackluster. They slowed and stopped after a few moments. Several more dropped during that time.

Jeff was sitting on a counter eating chips and looking at an old game magazine when Wendy approached. He stopped and looked up at her, something he would normally never do, but he sensed her concern. Jeff found that the more he interacted with people he liked and trusted, the more he opened himself up to them, the more aware he was of their moods and feelings. It was very distracting.

“Everything OK?”

“There’s something weird going on with the dead. They’re different now.”

“What’d you mean?”

“They look . . . “ No words fit. Sick? Dying? “They look like they are dying. You know what I mean.”

Jeff was at the door. More of them were dropping. The remaining corpses wavered, slumped, and struggled to stand. Most of them dropped too.

“I guess that is a good thing,” Jeff said.

“For sure. It’s bad enough being the last people on earth without those fucking things running around.”

Jeff looked at the hundreds of corpses in front of the door. A good fifty percent were dead or on the ground dying already.

“I still don’t want to walk through all that, even if they are dead,” Jeff said.

Wendy nodded and shuddered at the thought of walking through the sea of dead bodies.

Jeff watched as the corpses dropped for a few more minutes and wondered why such a good thing made him feel so uneasy. He shrugged and left the window, but the feeling lingered.

What’s bothering me so much about this?
He kept asking himself but an answer wasn’t immediately forthcoming.

19.

Cullen backed away laughing.

Sal was furious. As he stood, he considered attacking the asshole.

“Oh man.” Cullen was still laughing, but he had the presence of mind to keep his gun trained on Sal—his loaded gun.

Sal had almost wet himself. It all happened so fast he didn’t have time to move out of the way or defend himself. But Cullen had simply held one gun to his head and fired the other at the ground.

The others, all but Eddie, laughed too. Even Egg was chuckling. When he laughed it sounded like a wet fart. He kept his mouth closed and the sound came from his nose. He was blowing snot bubbles and squinting his eyes tight. Sal could see now the poor kid had a severely cleft palate.

Cullen raised his rifle. “Now this one’s loaded.”

Sal was pissed. He no longer looked at these kids as kids but the enemy. He stood and looked over each face. The Asian kid was the only one that seemed at all decent. He and the bearded guy seemed to be the most intelligent. If he were to get any help, it would be from the Asian kid.

“OK.” Cullen rocked on his heels, clearly pleased with himself. “We are not going back without your little girlfriend. So where did she go?”

“I have no idea.”

“Where is your group staying?”

“What group?”

Cullen kicked Sal in the shin with his heavy boots.

Sal bent over and grabbed his shin, rubbing it vigorously. He looked at Cullen with an expression of disbelief and thought.
What a pussy move. Didn’t little kids kick people in the shins like that?

“Gerald, you want a shot?”

Gerald smiled with glee, his zits reddened, and he ran full steam at Sal.

Sal watched the kid barreling towards him in disbelief.
Does the moron think I am going to stand still for this? Didn’t he ever read the Peanuts?

When Gerald finally got to him, he stopped for a split second to cock his leg back for the field goal kick. Sal pulled his leg away right before impact and Gerald’s leg shot out from under him and he landed on his ass, hard. There was a loud
bonk
as his head hit the pavement. He rolled over, clutching at his skull, and shrieking at the pain much louder than warranted.

Sal couldn’t help but smile.
Just like Charlie Brown,
he thought.

Everyone laughed, everyone except Gerald. He stood up, red faced and angry. His pimples darkened, the pus filled heads stood out in sharp contrast. They looked on the verge of bursting. He rushed Sal and tried to punch him.

Sal avoided the clumsy blow and pushed the kid backwards and down on his ass again. For all his fatty bulk, Gerald was a head shorter than Sal and had a fraction of the muscle mass. He rose and danced behind Cullen.

“Shoot him! Shoot him!”

Cullen planted his hand in the center of Gerald’s chest and pushed him down on his ass once again.

“Now stay down,” Cullen screamed.

The fat kid looked like he was about to cry. He sat, beet red and glaring at Sal.

“You look like an idiot, Gerald. A big fat weak idiot,” he yelled. Then he turned to Sal completely composed. He shrugged at Sal as if to say,
good help is hard to find.
He turned back to Gerald. “Now you tried to take more than one shot. I asked you if you wanted to take one shot, not three.”

Cullen huffed and sighed. “OK. Egg would you like a shot?”

Egg shook his big shiny head and looked at his feet.

Cullen cooed at him. “C’mon big guy, it’s OK. You can take a shot. You like to kick or punch?”

Egg shook his head.

“Wait a minute.” Cullen was smiling and nodding his head. “I remember. You like to bite? You want to bite him don’t you?”

Egg looked up, eyes glistening, his mouth a smile of jagged nasty teeth that partially filled the gap of his cleft. It looked almost as if he had teeth falling from his nasal cavity. He opened and closed his mouth and clapped his hands.

“OK Eggy, go take a bite. One big bite.”

Egg was a bit taller than Sal, but not as solid. He came at him taking a few long awkward steps, grasping for his arm. Sal walked backwards to the edge of the expressway and Egg stopped. He looked sad, frustrated and turned back to Cullen and wailed.

Cullen waved his rifle at Sal. “Now you have to stand still and let Egg get a good bite. Or else . . . “ He kept waving his rifle at Sal.

Egg turned and smiled and came at Sal again. This time Sal waited for him at the railing. He could’ve easily jumped off. The railing wasn’t’ more than three feet high, but he was a good forty feet above the ground.

Cullen cheered Egg on as he lunged at Sal. When he was within arm’s reach, Sal hit Egg in the side of the head with his open hand to stun him. Sal was great at mowing down the dead but was actually a lousy fighter. This Egg kid made him feel like he was fighting a deadhead.
Give it a good head shot if you want to live
. But that wasn’t his endgame. Sal grabbed Egg by the shoulders and pushed him backwards and over the railing. Egg flailed and screamed as he went over the edge. He screamed for a few seconds, and then went silent.

Cullen doubled over laughing. “That was classic! Oh my god, that was just classic! You made that look easy man!”

Sal just glowered at him. He didn’t feel proud or amused that he had to push a simpleton off an overpass, but he did what he had to do. Now he had one less person to deal with.

Cullen walked up to Sal smiling, shaking his head. “You see the key is to not panic. Everyone else I put old Egg on panicked.” Cullen raised his arm in a defensive gesture. “They raise an arm like this and get a chunk taken out of it. But you! Cool as a cucumber man.”

Cullen looked around. “I guess everyone had their shot. Eddie, I am assuming you are a pass.”

Eddie didn’t answer.

Gerald was still on the ground. He was looking at Cullen and waiting for a command.

Eddie worked up the courage to say something. “We should just take him back.”

Cullen dropped his shoulders and sighed. “You should not have followed us out of the mall if you didn’t want to do the job like a man.”

When Cullen turned to taunt the young boy Sal made a move. He was banking on Eddie not attacking and Gerald was at a disadvantage on the ground. He slammed into Cullen’s back and knocked him on his face. His rifle slid a few feet away.

Gerald was startled and reached for his rifle, but Eddie already had his gun pointed at his head. He froze.

By the time Cullen gained his feet, Sal had his gun.

“OK young man, let’s go.”

Cullen mockingly imitated him. “OK, young man,” he laughed. “What? What are you going to do old man? You going to shoot me?”

“I will if you don’t do as I say.”

“Right.”

“OK, sit down and put your arms around the railing.”

“No.”

Sal raised his rifle.

“Fuck you,” Cullen smiled.

Sal was pissed. He couldn’t kill this kid but hated the thought of letting him get away with this shit.
This wasn’t the time for humans to be acting like this,
he thought.

“So you
want
me to shoot you?”

“I know that you won’t shoot me.”

Sal addressed Eddie, but kept his eye on Cullen.

“I’m leaving and you can come with me if you like. I can tell you don’t belong with these two. Thanks for the help by the way.”

“Watch it Eddie. He just wants to ass fuck you,” Cullen said.

Gerald giggled.

“I don’t want to go with you. You killed one of ours. You are the enemy. And I wasn’t helping you. I was stopping Gerald from getting himself killed by him.” Eddie paused. He’d said enough. Maybe when the time was right he could help this man, but for now he had to go along with Cullen and the gang.

Gerald looked at Eddie with a startled expression. He broke into a smile.

“OK,” Sal started backing away. He got a good forty yards back from the three. He watched as Eddie put his hand out and helped Gerald stand up. Gerald patted Eddie on the back and smiled.

Sal continued to walk backwards. The three boys just stood there watching him.

“Stop. Put the weapon on the ground.”

A female voice behind him startled Sal. He cursed himself for not looking around. Mostly he was mad at himself for forgetting that there were two people in their party unaccounted for. He tossed the weapon over the edge of the expressway and turned around with his hands in the air.

“Really funny asshole.” A blonde, a semi-attractive girl in her early twenties, held a shotgun pointed at Sal’s chest.

“Dickhead.” A heavyset girl said. She was blonde too and the girls looked to be sisters. While they looked quite alike in many ways, this girl was heavier, shorter and not as pretty. She was unarmed and had a dull look in her eyes that explained why.

The girls made Sal turn and walk back towards the three boys.

“I see you’ve met Hope and Dawn. The fabulous Baker sisters,” Cullen was all smiles.

“Where’s Egg?” It was the attractive blonde, Dawn. She was a bit walleyed, had a few crooked teeth, and odd scaring on her temples.

Cullen gestured towards Sal. “Ask him?”

Gerald giggled. “He pushed him over the edge there.”

Dawn looked stunned, shocked. “Poor Egg.” She turned on Sal. “Why the fuck did you do that?”

Sal just looked her in the eyes. “Because poor Egg was trying to take a bite out of me.”

Dawn glared at Cullen. “You asshole. You’re supposed to stop him from doing that.”

Hope was looking over the edge, walking back the way the boys had come.

“I see him. Egg. He’s down there.”

“Of course he’s down there.” Cullen sneered.

“No, I mean he’s walking around.” She cupped her hands over her mouth. “Egg! Up here!”

A mournful wail echoed up from below them.

“Oh shit.” Dawn was next to Hope and peeking over the edge.

“I see them.” Hope was looking at a large group of shit bags that were coming towards Egg. But he was safe.

Egg had fallen on top of a city bus. The expressway ran over one of the parking lots for the cities massive transportation system. There were hundreds of busses below them.

“How’d he survive that fall?” Cullen was looking over the edge. He sniffed and cleared his throat and let loose a big wad of mucus.

Eddie had come over to look. “Looks like he landed on that bus. Maybe the roof broke his fall. It looks pretty dented in like maybe it absorbed a lot of the . . . “

Cullen walked off.

Egg was jumping along the bus roofs as a few of the dead pounded on them from below. Egg was panicked and was running away, his gait a long awkward motion that involved his head bobbing and his arms flailing. He jumped from bus to bus and almost slipped off several times.

Sal couldn’t believe his eyes.
How’d these kids last so long
, he wondered. They were all ignoring him to look over the edge. He considered pushing a couple over but the remaining ones would most likely shoot him. Almost as if they could read his thoughts, Cullen and Dawn turned quickly around. They walked away from the edge and kept a sharp eye on Sal.

“So what are we going to do with him?” Dawn motioned to Sal. Without waiting for a reply, she turned and barked orders at Eddie and Gerald. “You two, go help Egg get back up here. Hope, you watch them from above and help steer them clear of the shit bags.”

She turned back to Cullen who was giving her a dirty look. He hated when she took control like this. He was supposed to be in charge.

“I say we just off him here and now,” Cullen gestured at Sal with the barrel of his gun.

Dawn rolled her eyes. “He said bring them back, both of them.”

“I don’t care what he says.”

“Well I do, and you should too if you know what’s good for you.”

Cullen harrumphed and turned away.

“You’ll see. You aren’t better than us. You are one of us now.”

She turned her attention back to Sal.

“Where’s the woman?”

“He won’t say,” Gerald said.

“I don’t know,” Sal spoke up. “We got separated.”

“No plans as to where you would meet up if you got separated?” Dawn asked.

“No. And if there were, why would I tell you?”

Dawn handed her gun to Cullen. She walked over to Sal with her eyes locked on his.

“Because unlike Cullen here, I’m not a violent asshole. I’m a reasonable person. You will live or die based on your usefulness to me. You could go either way in my book.”

Either way?
Sal thought as she came right up to him. She locked eyes with him and he didn’t see a flicker of what was about to come. Suddenly one of her hands was gripping his belt and holding him close and the other was fishing for his cock.