Sven the Zombie Slayer (29 page)

Milt gave Brian a cold look, hoping to silence him. Brian shrugged, picked up his baseball bat, and began to pace while he kept watch.

At first, Brian paced back and forth in front of Milt, apparently ignorant of Milt’s annoyed glares. Then Milt found a sunflower seed in a fold under his tongue and spit it out at Brian, hitting Brian’s shorts. The seed stuck there, cemented by spit. Brian noticed, and rather than saying anything, he shifted his pacing over to the other side of the car.

Some time later, Milt began to feel better, a little bit more like himself. His head wasn’t spinning quite as much, and the pain behind his ear had lessened.

“I am well enough now, I believe, let us proceed,” Milt said, letting it slip.

“So you are ill! I thought so. Is that why you didn’t want to head over? You can’t get up?”

“That’s not the reason at all.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Let us journey now.” Milt reached for the sword next to him, and tried to make his way up onto his feet.

“Here,” Brian said, offering both of his hands, “grab on to me.”

Reluctantly, Milt accepted Brian’s help, and just as Milt was most of the way to vertical, there was a blinding flash of light, followed immediately by a violent thunderclap. Startled, Milt fell backward, plopping to the ground, and bringing Brian down with him.

“Get off me!” Milt yelled. In addition to the discomfort of having the drug dealer wriggling on top of him, Milt felt a very uncomfortable change of pressure in the air, like his ears needed to pop.

Brian kept struggling, apparently trying to get off Milt, but whenever Brian’s hands pushed, they sunk deeper into Milt’s generous flesh.

Clearly the man is playing games, Milt thought.

Finally, Milt gave Brian a push and the squire flew backward, toppling to the pavement. Milt opened his mouth and yawned, but his ears wouldn’t pop, and the uncomfortable feeling didn’t go away.

“Thanks,” Brian said as he got up, “I was kinda stuck there.”

Milt nodded distractedly, because he was staring at the smoldering pavement not more than a few car lengths away.

Brian turned to look too, and he turned pale when he saw where Milt was looking.

“If we were on a wet field,” Brian said, “we’d be dead. Probably lucky to be alive at all. Zombies and lightning, how do you like that?”

“It is just a coincidence.”

“I don’t know.”

“That is just the drugs talking.”

“For the last time—” Brian began, but another flash of lightning and its accompanying thunderclap drowned out his words.

Brian ran back to where Milt was and crouched next to him. The lightning had struck farther away this time.

“Do not get too close to me now,” Milt said. “I am sensitive about physical contact.”

“Sorry.”

Brian sidled over a few inches. Milt looked over, and saw that his squire’s eyes were wide with what seemed to be horror, staring intently at the spot where lightning had struck moments before.

Milt thought about saying something to reassure the simpleton, but before he could formulate an uplifting speech, the rain began.

The sky opened up, and great sheets of rain hurtled downward as if catapulted to the earth by a great, water-launching giant.

“Now that,” Brian said, voice trembling, “that’s something else.”

Milt didn’t say anything, because he was watching the kind of deluge that he had only read of in comic books. Though he had told Brian the storm was only a coincidence, Milt knew that it wasn’t. It was another sign telling Milt that his destiny was coming for him, and he had a feeling that at that very moment, his destiny was gathering itself up to draw closer.

He gripped the hilt of the sword. The blood was washing off it now, made wet by the droplets that passed through the thick tree cover above. The droplets cooled Milt’s overheating flesh, and he felt overjoyed and more rejuvenated with each little plop of cool wetness.

He hadn’t known it before, but rain was quite a pleasant thing.

Milt closed his eyes, belched, and understood that he was a flesh and blood comic book hero.

67

“Would I?” Lorie said, her heart leaping up into her throat. “You pretty much read my mind! I’ll get some matches.” Lorie walked back to the restaurant’s entrance, thinking that this muscle guy really got her, picked up a few packs of matches, and put them in her pocket, but not in the same pocket as the firework.

Sven nodded. “Okay, let’s check to make sure we have a way out of here first, then we’ll turn the gas on.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What’s that?”

“Your one hundred pound hammer for one thing, and that second chef zombie.”

“Right.”

Lorie watched Sven pick up the hammer, his legs flexing, and flexing and rippling even more when he lifted it over his head and smashed the second zombie chef’s head.

Maybe that’s how you’re supposed to do it, she thought, put your legs into it.

Lorie told herself she would remember to lift with her legs—she had heard the boys at school say that before—the next time she had to use a sledgehammer, if there was a next time.

The zombie with the crushed head fell against a wall and onto the ground. Lorie felt a tinge of regret at that. She had really enjoyed stabbing that first one. Or was it more appropriate to call what she had done skewering? It had been a long knife…a very long knife. She smiled.

Oh well, she thought, it was nice to watch too.

“So what do you reckon that’s called?” Lorie said. “Hammering? Sledging? Or sledgehammering?”

“Uhh, I’m not sure.”

“I like sledging. Can we call it that?”

“Yeah, okay, you got it.” The big man paused. “I need some pants.”

68

Sven pushed open the set of saloon-style swinging doors at the back of the restaurant and found himself staring into the kitchen. There was a CD player on, playing Asian-sounding background music. The music was complemented by the sound of simmering water and a soft, dull clanking noise. At first glance, the kitchen looked empty.

Lorie brushed passed Sven and strode into the kitchen.

“There’s no one here,” she said, tilting her head and throwing up her hands. Then she went around the kitchen island.

“The noise is coming from here.” She pointed to a pot. “Just a ladle boiling away in some soup. Guess they were in the middle of cooking up lunch.”

“Guess so,” Sven said, and heard a click. “What was that?”

“Just turning it off. No need to boil it too long. And we’re gonna blow the place up remember? Don’t wanna do it with us inside.”

“Right,” Sven said. The girl was a step ahead of him.

“That looks like the back door over there, come on.”

“Wait, shouldn’t there be more people back here—inside the restaurant I mean? How could there only have been the two chefs? Who’s running the place?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they all stepped out to smoke and they’re the zombies outside. Maybe they didn’t all make it to work. Maybe the two chefs always get the place ready by themselves. Who knows? Who cares? Let’s see what’s behind door number one.”

“It’s the only door. So I hope it’s something good.”

Sven put his hand on the doorknob, turned it, and waited, readying himself to jump backward at the slightest sign of the undead. He was holding the sledgehammer up and to his right, and he was starting to feel his muscles wearing out from lugging the thing around. Sven was a power athlete who focused on explosive strength in short bursts. Though he did his cardio, he wasn’t used to carrying heavy objects for that long, especially injured as he now was. Sven shook his head, and made a mental note to devote some more of his training to muscular endurance...if there was ever to be any more training.

“Come on,” Lorie said. “Open it already. I bet Jane is getting really worried about us. She was pretty worried about you before I went over here, and I don’t think she was thrilled that I went after you. If there’s something waiting for us behind the door, I’m ready for it.”

Sven glanced over at Lorie and saw that she had picked up a cast iron skillet and was holding it like a baseball bat, ready to strike.

“It’s a lot lighter than that thing,” Lorie said, gesturing at the sledgehammer, “and the girls at school would be proud.”

Sven laughed, turned back to the door, and pulled. The door opened a few inches, letting in some of the warm, moist, outdoor air, then caught. There was a thump, and the sound of wood scraping against the kitchen’s tiled floor, and Sven thought he heard something else, like the sound of another door, but somewhere farther away, behind them. He thought of the shoddy barricade they had set up in front of the entrance.

“Did you hear that?” Sven asked.

“Yeah. All the more reason to hurry. You want me to see what it is?”

“No. Stay here, I might need your help with whatever’s on the other side of this door.” It was half-lie, and he said it in part to keep her in the kitchen, away from whatever was now shambling about the restaurant behind them, but it wasn’t all lie, because Lorie really could help, she had proved that already.

Sven pulled on the door, scraping its bottom along the floor, cutting it into the tile.

“Guess they don’t use this door much,” Lorie said. “Or maybe those things have been messing with it today, trying to get in.”

“You trying to make me feel better?”

“Sorry.” Lorie changed her skillet hold, lowering the skillet and readying it behind her as if she were about to swing at a tennis ball with it.

Sven pulled on the door again, and not making much progress, he stepped to the side and peeked out through the five inch gap into the outside world. He couldn’t see any zombies, just gravel in some shade and a piece of the fence. He didn’t see any sign of Jane or the car, but then he didn’t see the gate either, so he figured they were too far over to see that part.

There was another thump from somewhere in the restaurant behind them, and then the sound of something clattering. Then silence again.

“I guess I should stop being so gentle.”

Sven looked over at Lorie, and she nodded. She looked like a funny little animal with that mask on her face, like a raccoon or something. On second thought, the masked face made him think of Ivan, and he felt a pang of worry. He wanted to know that Ivan was alright, and soon.

He lowered the sledgehammer and stuck its head around and behind the bottom of the door. The door was not a door. It was ajar. Sven hated that joke, but it always made its way into his brain, and for once, it came at an appropriate time. He thought about bringing it up to Lorie but reconsidered. It wasn’t the best time for jokes.

He pulled on the sledgehammer. There was a rending, grazing sound and splinters came off the bottom of the door and powdery bits of tile were scraped off. The door opened all the way.

Looking through the open door, Sven still saw no sign of zombies.