Mall Walkers Contest |
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Popped
by Susan Going Genovese
Zombies or no zombies, when could you pull off a heist like this without getting popped?
Paul Willhouse zipped his shopping cart, piled with pounds and pounds of gold necklaces, bracelets, and fat-carated precious gems, past Spencer's Gifts, zigzagging between deserted kiosks and the even more deserted animated corpses shuffling towards him.
This morning the mall had no want of enterprising young men like himself, out to grab what they could and get out without getting killed by zombies or caught by cops who were up to their necks elsewhere with the walking dead. A number of looters was just fine with Paul. Plenty to go around. The more the merrier the distraction would be so he could bob and weave---a moving target, always the hardest to hit. And just in case any dead-heads began to focus in on him, he had his Cobray 12-guage Street Sweeper, what he affectionately called his Sweet Reaper, to clean them up, maggots and all.
Off in the distance, Paul heard a smattering of gun shots pierce the din of groans and the stink of rotting flesh that hung heavy in the closed-in air.
His brother, Tom, had refused to come in. Afraid the foot-draggers might catch him and gobble up his pretty face. He'd wait in the car, keep a look-out for the law. Paul cursed him beneath his breath. They could've gotten twice the haul if Tom weren't such an.
A scream that seemed to richochet from Auntie Anne's to Foot Locker to Mr. Bulky bristled the hair on Paul's neck.
One coming on the left! A drooling, dread-locked dude shambling a little too close. The guy, half his face chewed clean down to the bone, buckled and fell on his back with a crack as Paul sideswiped him with the cart.
"You have to use your head. That's all, Tommy," Paul thought. Be smart. Smart and fast. Zombies might be strong enough to pull the head off a man, but they moved slow as slugs.
Past Victoria's Secret. Past The Disney Store.
The shopping cart was Paul's stroke of brilliance. A battering ram with a basket for the payload. Made it easy as strolling in an Easter parade.
A high-pitched shriek of laughter startled him until Paul realized the sound had come from his own throat.
Yeah, this was a resurrection alrighta resurrection from Hell.
Past the Hallmark store. The Limited. Florsheim's.
Don't want to catch the zombie flu? Avoid crowds, Old Buddy.
He remembered the pale-as-puke face of his brother just before Paul left the car.
Be careful, Tom had said.
Don't worry.
Almost home now.
Paul careened his cart on two wheels around the corner toward the Food Court.
He stopped dead just short of slamming into the horde of picnickers. There were twenty. Thirty. Who knew. Sprawled across the floor outside The Pet Company. The things slurping and gurgling, feasting on the dripping innards of soft puppy bellies, kitten carcasses.
He'd love to shoot them all. Then one close to him caught his eye. It was looking right at him. Looking right in his eye. And there was nothing there. No life. Just blackness. Just the void. Except the thing at the corner of its mouth. Wriggling. A single white worm from a puppy bowel, writhed free, splatting on the floor. Paul lost his grip on the gun as he felt his cheeks explode with half-digested food. Heard the gun's heavy clatter. Felt the cold twitch of a finger against his ankle.
His legs felt like lead, but he gripped the cart with both hands, now his walker, as he forced one foot, then the other. Then faster. He was running. The cart rattled like a cage of steel bones. It smashed into an exit door.
Pull it! Pull it!
He did.
Fresh air, then the next heave, as if everything inside of him was coming out. His guts. His heart. All over the haul. Puke studded with diamonds and rubies, lined with gold.
To the car. He just had to get to the car.
Then he was pounding the trunk. "Pop it! Pop it!"
"Give me the keys!" he was screaming into the driver's side window as the hands came up and gripped his head. His brother's hands. His brother's eyes. Black. The void.
Then the squeeze. Then his head. And
POP!
The End.
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