It was that old familiar sight, the county grocery store. Rickety shutters covering brick walls to give the look of windows, when really the building was a dark box with only a store-front window and glass door. Frederick had worked at one of these for more than half of his young life. He rather believed them to be an original American institution. He lamented the fact that he never got a raise, nor a promotion, “Grocery Store Clerk for the win!” -that was his motto. With the others scoping out the trail of vehicles in the parking lot, he decided to venture inside to look for any leftovers. Walking through the broken glass door, being careful not to cut himself on any of the pointy shards, he peered over at the registers and noted how similar they were to the machines they had, worked with in Wilkesboro. He didn’t bother telling Lucy about his past, and why should he? It was a boring waste of a life, one he hadn’t seen as a waste until the Z0M8 virus hit his town. He looked around the front of the store, no movement besides his own, seemed safe enough. He eyed an opened package of ginger snap cookies, the kind his mother used to make during the holiday season. The thought of his mother and the holidays gave him a twinge of remorse for the current state of affairs, and he thought he would honor her by snacking on a few of those sweet reminiscent morsels. He tore the plastic open just a bit more to look at how many cookies were left. A good amount of the package had gone undisturbed so he grabbed one from the front and slowly brought it up to his lips. Licking his lips out of habit, and widening his eyes as he shoved the whole cookie into his mouth. Initially, his mind shot happiness and comfort through his body, and he let out a small sigh with his mouth full, closed, and his throat vibrating a solid “Mmmmm”. But within seconds, he knew. He tasted an ashy, bitter, filthy flavor that instantly shot back feelings of fear, anger, and surprise. He spit the cookies out with his hands spread far out from his body, and his legs spread in a warrior stance, tottering on the tip of his toes, shoving his head forward but keeping his body pulled back. He tried his best to spit the cookies out without letting any parts touch his mouth more than they already had. His tongue was wildly moving up and down, trying to move out of the way of the nasty remnants. He grabbed for his water bottle, but with too much haste, threw it, three aisles down towards the deli section. He ran to the bottle with tears streaming down his face, he knew he was too late but he still scrambled for the water. He ripped off the cap and threw it away from him as he dumped the bottle over his face. His mouth, wide open like a fish, praying for a cleanse from the clear, healthy, water. Quickly, his mouth swished the liquid in and out of his cheeks, forward and backward from teeth to throat, and he expelled the sickly Decay from his mouth in one last fit of fear, spraying the water all over the news stand magazines in front of him. Breathing heavily, and expelling more saliva every three seconds, he thought back to the devastation that occurred when the virus ran like a wild-fire through his small town. It was like a light-bulb shattering in his mind, but then it wasn’t in his mind at all, it was shattering right in front of him. His expectorant had clung to one of the hot lamps above him, and exploded from the unexpected change in temperature. The explosion of the glass coupled with the loud sounds he had been making with the water and cookies had roused the few Decay that made the grocery store their home. Unaware of how many Decay were in his vicinity, Frederick grabbed for his machete and started swinging wildly. His blade caught hard in something behind his shoulder and he yanked it back in order to stumble away and gain a better view of his assailants. He noted four wretched, long-haired Decay in rags billowing below their knees, and two skinny, short Decay covered in packaging that stuck to their torn flesh at all angles. Quickly he withdrew his sidearm and shot the two closest wretched Decay, one, right above the left eye, the other, sharply in the thick of the neck. Both went down. The remainder wretched foul Decay was further back than the two short packaged Decay. He giggled to himself, a crazy high-pitched, sorrowful giggle at the sight of the two absurdly wrapped short Decay. One of those poor souls even had a Maxim cover pasted onto it’s torso, he noted. I wasn’t enough to giggle at them though, they didn’t care what they looked like; for them life ceased to be livable, life wasn’t about looks or skills or thoughts, it was agonizing. It was unfair. The Decay with the Maxim cover tacked to it’s torso was solely thinking of how it could take Frederick down. How it could share it’s damnation with him. Frederick knew this, but was giggling more so because he had already brought damnation into his life; the moment he popped those tainted, retributive, ginger snap cookies into his mouth. His piercing laughter had alarmed the crew outside and they came rushing in. Lucy cleared the broken doorway in a deft leap and ran to a halt just as Frederick finished slicing the head off of the Maxim labeled Decay. The other short Decay was quickly upon Freddie, but he was more interested in the last wretched dilly. She, if he could be so bold as to claim that’s what it was, had lost all of her fingers, and most of her leg muscles. The rest of her was covered in rags, presumably of a torn velvety dress. Her face was contorted and smashed on one side, making her grin wave from left to right, as if in a Salvador Dali painting. Something about her grin, made him angry, and even with the short childlike Decay hanging off his left shoulder, he was more interested in taking down the she-devil in front of him. In a disturbing way, he believed she had left those cookies out for him, for HIM. He had enough with her mocking grin, and threw the childlike Decay off his back, reached around his left side and pulled out his shotgun. Three quick blows to the torso before Lucy speak a word, and the wretched woman-ish Decay was down. Quickly he eyed Lucy, who looked shocked- or was it proud- as he swung around to finish off the last little Decay with his last loud bullet. Slowly, he turned around, eyes down, and started to walk over to her, the healthy, dignified Lucy. He couldn’t see her face, but he could hear the hesitation in his steps. She could already see the scratch marks crossing over his left clavicle, so he knew she wouldn’t risk the chance of touching him. He started to remove his jacket as he opened his mouth, amazed his voice was still carrying that high pitched chitter. He closed his mouth, and stopped cold. After a big exhale, he shrugged off the vest, and kicked it over in Lucy’s direction. He had wanted to say more before the end, nothing about love or desire; he had just wanted to say more. But when it came down to it, he thought it would be poetic to leave in mystery and glamour. So as he pulled the shotgun barrel up to face his chin, finger on the trigger, still not regarding Lucy in the doorway, he plainly said this:
“Stay away from the cookies.”
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