Take the All-Mart! (14 page)

“Welcome to All-Mart...” he said. Then she fired, the revolver’s barrel pushed hard into the flesh of Bob’s left thigh, tearing a hole in it the size of a baseball, exposing bone. Bob howled, writhed in pain. Somehow, through the howling, he managed to stutter out: “How... can... we... change your world today?”

“Now that’s how you interrogate a zombie.” Trip smirked back at Rudy then stepped up behind Bernice. He pointed at Bob’s face. The blue-gray spiderwebbing had, if only momentarily, narrowed and dimmed, and had even slightly retracted around Bob’s lips and eyes. “See that?”

Rudy pursed his lips in distaste, and nodded. “Yeah. The pain must make the nanochines recede temporarily. Probably being diverted to repair the damage from the impact.” The hole in Bob’s leg began knitting itself closed and the blue-gray spiderwebbing of his skin regained its regular thickness and glow.

“Keep going,” Trip encouraged Bernice.

Bob’s eyes followed the barrel as Bernice shifted it from his left to his right thigh. He writhed harder, trying to escape the inevitable —

BOOM!

“Welcome to All-Mart!” Zombie Bob howled out at first, then as his skin cleared — becoming almost line free — he snapped his head down towards Bernice. “Will you please stop that?”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Trip nudged Bernice aside. “So, Bob... where’d they take Roxanne?”

“Who? What are you talking about?” Zombie Bob asked just as the spiderwebbing spread out across his face once again. “...How can we change your world today?”

Trip rolled his eyes. “Bernice, if you please? Something a little harder to heal this time.”

Bernice nodded and casually shot Bob’s kneecap off.

After the screaming died down and his skin cleared, Bob choked out: “Okay, okay... what was the question?”

Trip smiled up at him, holding his hand at shoulder height. “Friend of ours. About this tall. Black hair. Great ass. Guy with a badge dragged her off.”

“Security,” Bob said, his voice strained from the pain of his kneecap being rebuilt. “Sounds like security.”

“Okay,
security
dragged her off.” Trip took the cigarette from his mouth and pointed with it. “In that general direction. What’s that way?”

“Housewares,” Bob said after thinking a moment. “Then sporting goods. Ladies undergarments is a few miles beyond that.”

“Maybe they just want her to model some bras,” Rudy suggested.

Bernice shook her head. “If that’s what they wanted someone for, let’s be honest, they picked the wrong gal.”

“Yes, yes, we all know about your impressively big rack, but can you please put it away before Rudy has an aneurism?” Trip asked her, then turned back to question Bob. “That all that’s in that direction, Bob?”

“No,” Bob said. The blue spiderwebbing glow reappeared around his eyes and mouth, spreading out slowly over his face, and he struggled to speak. “There’s more store. Associate settlements... Then much more store... And... eventually... Origin.”

“What’s Origin?” Trip asked, jogging his head at Bernice. She nodded back with a smile, jammed the barrel of the revolver into Bob’s re-growing kneecap. It sunk deep into the still soft bone as she twisted it, shoved it on through. 

“Origin!” Bob screamed from the pain. The spiderwebbing dimmed and retracted. Bob panted, waiting to speak until Bernice had pulled the revolver away and stepped back. “The heart of All-Mart. Where it began... where it spreads out from. Home.”

“That’s got to be where they took her.” Bernice wiped Bob’s blood and bone tissue from the revolver’s barrel on her miniskirt.

“That where they took her, Bob?” Trip asked.

“I don’t know... cannot say...” Glowing spiderwebbing reappeared over Bob’s entire face. “How can we change your life today?”

Trip grabbed his revolver back from Bernice and jammed the barrel into Bob’s ruined knee.

Bob screamed, breaking into tears of pain as the spiderwebbing fully retracted again. “Please... please... stop doing that!”

Trip smirked at him. “Give us a straight answer.”

“All right, all right,” Bob said. “The Voice. It told Security to find her and bring her to Origin.”

“What ‘voice’?” Trip asked.

“The Voice!” Bob lifted his head, smiling warmly at the ceiling. “The pretty Voice. The powerful Voice.”

Trip sighed. “Let me guess... this voice, it comes from Origin?”

“It is Origin.”

“Great. So Origin’s a voice...”

Bob’s smile widened. “And a city, a great city only the most trusted Associates and Security are honored to inhabit.”

“A zombie city. Terrific.” Rudy tweaked his nipple before wandering off down the aisle muttering to himself. “Should have blown my own brains out when I had the chance.”

“Heavily defended, I take it?” Trip asked Bob.

Bob nodded. “Security keeps a high profile, yes.”

“Well, then, no shoplifting, kids. All right, let’s get going to this Origin place, see if we can find Roxanne.” Trip spun around to see Rudy spooning two fingers worth of All-Mart branded Enriched Applesauce baby food into his mouth.

Rudy looked up at Trip and Bernice staring at him, dumfounded alarm on their faces. “What?” Rudy licked his fingers. “You were serious about not shop-lifting?”

Trip scowled. “Did you not see what happens when you eat the food here?”

Rudy’s face went dire. “Fuck... oh, well. Damage done.” He shrugged, scooped another couple fingers worth into his mouth. He swallowed, raised his eyebrows at their blank stares. He licked his fingers clean. “What? My chem factory should be able to fight off the nanochines.”

“You’d better hope they can,” Trip said.

Bernice stepped up to Rudy and, smiling sadly, took the baby food from him. She put the half empty jar on a shelf and stared at him, her brow crinkled with concern.

“Seriously, I’ll be okay.” Rudy pulled up his t-shirt and rubbed his hairy stomach. “Iron belly.”

Bernice pulled his t-shirt down. “Just no more snacks, okay?” she asked, taking his hand and leading him to the
Wound
.

As they walked by him, Trip took a final drag off his cig and flicked it away, then started back to the
Wound
himself.

“Hey, wait, what about me?” Bob asked.

Trip didn’t stop. “What about you?” he asked over his shoulder.

“At least let me down.”

“So you can go warn your zombie pals and that Voice thingee?”

“The Voice already knows,” Bob said, jogging his head at the two zombies pinned between the
Wound
and a shelf rack. They’d given up writhing and were now simply watching Rudy hold the door open so Bernice could crawl into the back seat of the
Wound
.

Trip stopped at the
Wound
’s bumper and spun around. “You know the way to Origin?”

Bob nodded his head. “Yeah.”

Trip smiled.

CHAPTER 13: BACKSEAT EXPOSITION

Rudy leaned forward, checked himself in the
Wound
’s rear-view. He ran his fingers over his cheek and chin. “Am I getting... glow-y?”

Trip twitched to turn on the ceiling light and glanced over. He didn’t see any blue-glowing spiderwebbing, and he hadn’t the other dozen times in the last two hours Rudy had asked. “Your skin does have a certain pallid sheen to it... although that might just be fear and loathing.” Outside, endless shelves of camping gear flashed by at fifty-miles-per with maybe two inches clearance on either side. The steering wheel jiggled back and forth on its own, the
Wound
making constant micro-adjustments while Trip chain-smoked and played Tetris on a first-gen GameBoy Rudy had converted to draw power from contact with skin. “But maybe I should just put one in your brain now as a precaution.”

Rudy slumped back. “That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?” His hand slipped under his t-shirt to turn his nipple up all the way.

“And hilarious.” Trip returned his attention to the game. “Plus, it’s win-win, either way.”

Rudy’s brow crunched. “How you figure that?”

“If it doesn’t heal, we know you’re not a zombie, and my trust in you will be restored — I’ll even say as much during your eulogy. But if it does heal itself, sure, you’re a zombie, but you might come out better for the deal. Maybe the nanochines can fix the damage from that time you got dropped on your head when you were six months old.”

“Oh, you mean the time you dropped me on the head when I was six months old?”

“Yes, okay, that time.” Trip winced as an L-block landed the wrong way up, cutting off a Tetris he’d been constructing. “But don’t go blaming that on me. Blame mom. Who gives an 18-month old an infant to hold, anyway?”

“She needed her hands free — we were kinda in a firefight at the time.”

“So it’s no surprise I dropped you.”

“More like threw me at the bad guys.”

“Only as a diversionary tactic to save myself. And that’s another thing... who takes her kids on a hit?”

“She couldn’t find a sitter. Again, all your fault.”

“Sure, bite one sitter’s tit and you’re blackballed for life.” Trip tossed the GameBoy onto the dash. “You didn’t see me raising a stink about her boobs being dry wells, did you?”

Rudy crossed his arms over his chest. “She was in her sixties.”

“Still had a nice rack, though.” Trip grabbed the rear-view, re-adjusted it to point into the back seat. Bob the Zombie and Bernice were sitting as far apart as they could, eyeing each other suspiciously over the pile of beer jugs stacked up between them. Bob was tightly bound in loops extension cord, his arms immobile. “So, Bob, what can Rudy expect in his new life as a zombie?”

“Knock it off, will ya?” Rudy sunk further down into his seat, crossing his arms over his chest and sulking.

“Knowing is half the battle,” Trip said back, nodding at Bob to answer the question.

Bob shrugged, kept his eyes on Bernice. “Well, it’s actually not all the bad... when people aren’t shooting or stunning or hitting you.”

“Which reminds me...” Trip balled his right hand into a fist and shot it out at Rudy’s left temple.

Rudy screamed. “What the fuck was that for?”

Trip chuckled. “Just trying to keep you human, bro.”

“Asshole,” Rudy snarled out, rubbing his temple with the palm of his hand. “You don’t get to hit me. Anybody’s doing anything to me, it’s Bernice.”

Trip shook his head. “Oh, no, you’d both enjoy that way too much. — But that does remind me... Bernice?”

Bernice smiled, reached over the beer jug pile and shoved the snapping and sparking business end of Rudy’s shock baton into Bob’s shoulder, holding it there for a count of three before withdrawing it with a full-toothed smile. Bob went into convulsive spasm, the faint trace of glowing spiderwebbing around his eyes retreating.  “Damn it,” he said after catching his breath, “you have to lay it on so hard?”

“Stop being such a baby,” Bernice told him. She laid the baton on her lap, opened a fresh milk jug of beer. “Okay, here’s a question for you, zombie. Where’d the All-Mart come from?”

“What do you mean?” Bob asked warily.

Bernice took a slug then handed the jug over the front seat to an appreciative Rudy. “The Tome of Speculation says the All-Marts were corporate weapons used to aggressively capture market share in Central America, way back in Megacorp War II: The Revengening. But that war ended forty years ago, and long before that all the All-Marts had been neutralized and torn down. But then this one just pops up out of nowhere ten years back — and a couple thousand miles north of Central America — and starts spreading out over the wasteland. Why? The Tome doesn’t even speculate.”

“Give the zombie a break, Cleavage.” Trip smirked at Bernice through the rear-view. “He’s had a rough day. Bad enough we have to shock him every ten minutes —”

“More like five,” Bob noted.

“— whatever.” Trip snorted. “I’m just saying, he probably doesn’t appreciate all the questions.”

“It’s okay,” Bob said. “It’s nice just talking, again. We mostly communicate non-verbally. But truth is, I don’t know.”

“What does it matter?” Trip lit a cigarette. Not that many left in the tin, he noted with a sour frown. “It’s here, it’s not bothering anybody.”

“Except the people it turns into zombies,” Bernice said.

Bob shook his head. “Not bothering us, either. It’s saving us. Before I walked in, I had nothing —”

“Wait a second.” Rudy wiped beer from his lips with the back of his hand and handed the jug back to Bernice. “You walked in? Voluntarily?”

“Yeah. And it was the best decision we ever made.”

“We?” Rudy asked.

Bob looked out the window at the shelves flashing by. “There were about two dozen of us at the end — all that was left after our town got taken over by a WOLFpack. We’d been doing the nomad thing for a while, but it was hard. Real hard. The things we did for food and shelter... I don’t like remembering. And that was when we could find either. We never knew when one of us might go missing in the middle of the night — kidnapped by raiders or dragged off by an animal. But then we came across the All-Mart. We’d heard the stories about being turned into zombies, but at that point, we were desperate. We figured it was better being a zombie than what we were.”

Bernice took a slug of beer. “I’d rather be dead in the wasteland than a zombie in here.”

Bob turned away from the window towards her. “You say that, but you don’t know. I mean, my old life, it seems unreal, and right now, I feel okay — but unnatural. Like I’m dreaming — more like I’m having a nightmare. I can’t wait to wake up and be myself again.”

Bernice smirked. “My friends didn’t ask to be zombies. They aren’t better off.”

“I’m just speaking for myself,” Bob said. “I’m part of something. I’ve got a job, a reason to exist. Plus, I eat regular. And I’m safe. My family’s safe. Hell, if it wasn’t for the All-Mart, I wouldn’t have met my wife.”

“You met her in here?” Rudy asked.

“Yeah, of course. She’s security. She was working Tween board games, same as I was, and we hit it off just about instantly over a game of ‘Sparkly Mystery Dude.’ Nine months later, we had Ty.”