Chapter 3: Like 'Werewolves Ate The Cashiers' Coupons

I stepped out on the roof of the building. Bianca had sent me to get Professor James. I wondered if he would mind being called PJ.

"Hey, Professor!" I called out. He stood at the edge of the roof facing the street. I preferred the river view since zombies couldn't walk on water. "We're ready to go."

"So Bianca settled on you being her errand boy," he said smiling. I walked to his side to get a look down at the street. Not a lot of zombies. Too bad!

"Much better than Stephen and Danny's duty as bait," I said, smiling back at him.

We watched the jocks run through an open lane of zombies. They turned left at the end of the street. The entire Zombie-Mob turned to give slow chase; the coordination made it seem like they were controlled by a single mind.

"Fifteen minutes," the Professor said. "I have give it to those boys--at least, they have balls."

"Yeah, balls to spare!" Not to mention stupidity to spare too. Seriously, not a fucking chance I'd be caught dead playing tag with zombies.

"You should be careful with Ashley." He looked uncomfortable to be speaking his mind. "She's a survivor."

"Aren't we all?" I asked. "So far anyway!"

"I'm not talking about now." He made more direct eye contact with me. "Ashley looks out for number one."

"She's close to Jewel."

"I don't doubt Ashley weighed the pros and cons of being friends with Jewel and decided the pros outweighed the cons," he told me.

"That's not how people make friends," I said.

"It's how Ashley does it."

"It's a little..."

"Different," he finished for me. "I'm guessing she talked to you about our problem with your friends."

"If you think they're my friends, where did you get your degree?" I snorted.

He stared at me for a second before laughing.

"You know, kid, that's the first time I've laughed since I woke up on Zombie-Day." He patted my shoulder. "Ashley is trying to manipulate you. When the boys decide it's time for a leadership change, she wants you on her side."

"She wants to be the leader of this fiasco?" I asked.

"Ashley is smart enough to know Bianca is our best chance of survival," he said. "If Ashley has you, she also gets Joey. Four in Stephen's group. Ashley has four. Three on Bianca's side."

"So Ashley is Bianca's equal even if she's not the leader," I said with a nod.

"At any given moment, Ashley is perfectly cognizant of her position in the power structure of a social group," he told me. "She does not have to be the leader, but her position must be secure, meaningful, and known. What makes her truly dangerous is she only cares that the other power players know how much weight she can bring to bear!"

"If I side with Bianca directly, Ashley isn't going to like it."

"That's good." He stared at me. "In fact, very good! A couple is the most stable social unit in a small group. Brandi and me. Ashley and Jewel. Joey and you."

"We're not..."

The Professor raised his hand to stop me. "It doesn't have to be a romantic couple. The important thing is that if you back Bianca, Ashley may side with the boys. Will side with the boys!"

I tilted my head.

"Stephen, Danny, Kellie, and Tara aren't a real group. They're four individuals with a common background."

I nodded.

"Ashley is smarter than them. She'd have the boys thinking they were the leaders, while they danced to her tune," he said. "In our case, three voting blocks is more stable than two."

"This fucking sucks!"

"Welcome to the New World, kid," he said. "It all sucks!"

The upside to the Apocalypse is the obviousness of the dangers. Zombies don't do ambushes. Werewolves howl when they're hungry. There's no Academy Award for Most Subtle Vampire. Humans don't settle for little evils either, like pissing in your coffee. Before the Apocalypse, I wouldn't have known Captain GunNuts if he disguised himself as a mailman.

"What the fuck did he plan to do with this many guns?" I asked.

"I wouldn't," Brandi whispered. "Bianca is pissed we have to make two trips, even with the pickup truck she hotwired."

"She's pissed!" I squeaked. "I'm freaking terrified! This guy could have taken over a small country."

"Or a medium sized one," Ashley said as she walked by us with a crate of ammo.

"I thought we loaded all the ammo," I said.

"There's stuff in the attic," Bianca yelled, throwing some very slick and mean looking shotguns into the front seat of the truck. "I hope we don't need a third trip."

"I hope this guy isn't alive and comes home in the next few minutes." I made sure only Jewel and Joey could hear me as we headed back into the house.

As soon as Bianca figured out it was everyone for themselves, she logged onto some police data resources from home and printed out a list of armory license owners. Twelve names seemed a lot for a city the size of Hohokus! After looting a few of the licensed homes, I figured the ordinance was an easy way for the city to make money. The owners had more guns in their house than necessary but nothing insane. Number Nine was fucking certifiable! I hoped Number Nine didn't wake up on Zombie-Day. In fact, I hoped the crazy motherfucker died a few weeks before Zombie-Day!

"I think that's everything." Bianca pushed the sofa back in place after finishing another sweep of the house looking for hidden gun cabinets. "We need to get to the last three."

"Uhmmm?" I raised my hand slowly. "Maybe we should be happy with what we got."

Stephen and Danny snorted, "You scared, shmidge?"

"Why do they call you that?" Jewel asked, giving the jocks the stink eye.

"Shrimp and midget," I replied.

"You're not that short," Ashley told me.

"Four inches, eight inches," I shrugged. "Jocks aren't good with the measuring thing."

"Enough!" Bianca snapped when the guys took a step toward me. "I say we need the last three and that's it."

"Okay," I said. "But I'm waiting in the truck."

She froze and stared hard at me.

"The TV guy said the numbers are rock solid! Four out of ten dead. Five out of ten zombified or worse. One of ten alive and kicking. We've been to nine houses." I tilted my head from side to side waiting for them to do the math.

"The odds of..." The Professor stopped when I put palm out to him.

"Excuse me, Professor! Mr. Nine had enough firepower that the cops would have called in the National Guard to serve a warrant. It's not the odds; it's the fucking risk! We've got what Bianca said we needed."

"She said that about food," Stephen said with a snort.

"We're walking up to houses like the only danger is zombies or rotting corpses," I said. "This motherfucker had a flamethrower--A FUCKING WORKING FLAMETHROWER!"

Bianca crouched down and studied me, "That's what you wanted to say at the first house."

"I haven't seen the one out of ten who should be alive or any proof that he/she woke up on a zombie's breakfast plate," I said.

"Shit!" Danny put a hand on his stomach. "I was the first..."

"You were hanging out in the back." Stephen intended for it to be an accusation towards me. "You fucking coward!"

"I prefer that to 'you fucking gut-shot, dead idiot'," I said.

"I could have gotten everybody killed," Bianca whispered.

"You could have gotten them killed," I corrected, pointing at everyone else.

"Are you some kind of strategy genius?" Ashley asked me.

"It doesn't take genius to recognize fire and remember that sticking your hand in it is a bad fucking idea," I replied. "We're standing in the middle of the street! You're pretty good when we're on the move, but we've been here over a half-hour!"

"You seem to know a lot about the situation we're in," Kellie told me. She looked at Stephen and Danny. Her tone of voice put me down but her eyes were afraid.

My eyes passed from one person to the next until they rested on Bianca. "I've lived in Crazy-Town and with a fucking sadist for a foster brother. Downtime is when they get you! You think because you're barricaded in a room or you have a pile of fucking guns that you can relax."

"I thought you were some kind of super-cop!" Stephen yelled at Bianca.

"Probably a fucking meter maid." Danny patted Stephen on the bicep.

Oh shit! I hadn't meant for them to go there. I only wanted Bianca to put me on guard duty back at the hideout so I didn't have to keep coming up with excuses to be the last one through a door.

"You guys were right," Bianca said to Stephen and Danny.

They high-fived. Idiots!

"We didn't get enough food last time," Bianca continued. "Let's not make that mistake with weapons. We're going to the last houses!"

Double-shit and fuck me!

"But he just said..." Danny and Stephen looked at me to side with them.

"I'm going to put on some of that body armor," I said and walked towards the pickup.

"This time he goes through the door first," Stephen demanded.

"That's a manly job!" I yelled without looking back. "I'm a fucking coward. Remember?"

At least, they were more careful at the last three houses. Stephen and Danny tried to make a big deal out of me being afraid for no reason, completely ignoring that number eleven AND twelve had been alive and eaten by their zombie-spouses, whom the jocks had to kill.

It did bring up a troubling point though--there should have been zombies in more of the houses we raided! Where had they gone?

"You didn't handle that very well," the Professor told me as we carried double armfuls of assault-rifles into our building.

"Sir, here's something you can tell them you read in some book like the Art of War or Five Rings or Surviving The Apocalypse For Morons," I said dropping the guns into a pile. "You better fucking know when you've only got one shot!"

"One shot at what?"

"You just missed one of those times," I replied. "Isn't it getting late?"

"Yes," he replied. "There are more weapons than Bianca expected. We have to wait until morning for the supermarket trip."

"She didn't tell me," I said.

"I know!" The Professor rested his hand on my shoulder. "Here's a lesson from 'Playing Nice With Others For Idiots'--don't watch someone do something stupid and wait until afterwards to tell them it's stupid."

"Bianca's not a super-cop, is she?"

"Second year on the police force, Miguel."

"Fuck me!"

"At least, she's learning fast," he said. "I hope the rest of us do too."

"Fuck me!"

It's not like I thought I knew everything. I was the idiot who thought the plan of waiting in the pigs' house for the Feds to come rescue my ass rung of sheer brilliance. Not to mention the Professor had it right, I wouldn't know how play nice with others if you counted being in the same room while others played nicely. I seriously screwed the pooch with how I expressed the desire to stop gun hunting. Bianca wasn't talking to me; her eyes were quite expressive every time she looked in my direction. The Professor and his wife pointedly ignored me, at least in Bianca's presence. No reason to mention the jocks and the cheerleaders since I'd never met an athlete who appreciated being proven conclusively to be as good at being stupid as they were in their chosen sport. Even Ashley and Jewel kept their distance! I didn't blame the strippers, since it was probably for Joey's sake that Bianca hadn't asked me to leave the group.

"I don't think those people are okay," Joey said, staring at the supermarket cashiers.

I wanted to be sarcastic, but being that she was my only remaining friend in the group, I decided to try the playing nice thing for once. "I would guess you're right."

"They're standing there like they expect us to checkout."

None of us had considered that some of the survivors would not be able to handle reality. The two cashiers looked like nothing existed outside of the supermarket. They were gossiping about the previous night's episode of some medical drama. There had been no TV shows on TV in days!

"They mentally retreated into the past," Brandi said. "I talked to them for a few minutes."

"They're crazy?" I asked.

"Delusional," Brandi replied. "They're sleeping in the back, but it's as if their day begins and ends at their shift time. I should have thought this would happen; we're going to lose survivors to insanity."

I shook my head, "Have lost."

"What?"

"We ... you have lost survivors," I gestured at the cashiers. "They're gonzo!"

"Didn't the Professor say people were coming in and out of here," Joey asked Brandi. "I haven't seen anyone."

"Other groups probably took more supplies in their first foray," Brandi replied.

"And now they're holed up somewhere," I said.

"Waiting for the government to come rescue them," Brandi said, smiling at me as she walked away.

"I want chocolate," Joey told me. "The end of the world requires massive amounts of chocolate."

"Or you might end up like the cashiers." I accompanied Joey to the candy aisle. It had too good a view of the cashiers, which I didn't need. Crazy people are creepy!

"Isn't that an offensive amount of chocolate?" I asked, watching Joey throw everything she could get her hands on in the cart.

"I'm not the only woman." She pulled the cart next to the shelf with the Hershey's bars. Sticking her hands as deep into the shelf as she could, she dumped all the bars in.

"We need food, Joey."

"For women, chocolate is a food group," Joey replied. "Don't tell me you're not going to throw in a few bags of Sweet Tarts!"