19) Saturday Midnight to Sunday, 2/15, 2 AM - Besieged!
At a considerable cost in life and property,
Giga-Plex was now secure… though hundreds of enraged shoppers… overwhelmingly
young and male… still roamed the One World Mall; smashing windows, looting
merchandise, assaulting staff and other patrons. The nearby Farragut Methodist Church tolled midnight, a minute
after than the clock in the Food Court, its chimes recalling to consciousness a
bloody, beaten Reverend Ellsworth Goodwin, lying face down in the mud of the
construction site behind the Mall under a menacing array of girders and
construction cranes. He rose, staggered
off towards the beckoning neon. People
were streaming in and out of the vacant CD store - fighting over looted booty
in the parking lot… gangs smashing windows of cars… inside the Food Court,
Jean-Francoís was being robbed at gunpoint of the Baffler’s day’s
receipts. Broke (but, at least, unshot)
he refused to turn the Off switch that would leave the laughing swaying head of
Ghede on all night, cursed America and left.
In Mark Tenison’s office, strategy was
plotted… orders barked… Anjelika, Vern Cooth, Big Sonny, Faubourg and Capps
huddled around the manager while others drifted in and out as summoned, or to
deliver messages.
“Haven’t heard jack from the Feds,”
Captain Capps observed, grimly, “…from those state or county pricks either… I
hope those gates are as strong as they look…”
“They are. I’ve had them made on a little island in the Caribbean we need
not mention,” Big Sonny smirked, “they’ll stand up to a Category Four
hurricane, maybe a Five…”
“But will it stand up to a bunch of goddam Redskins fans?”
Vern objected.
“Certainly a lot longer than that tincan chainlink
covering most of the stores here…” Sonnenschein smiled.
“It’ll hold,” Mark promised. “How long can those idiots roam around
outside, howling, before it gets through their heads that they’ll have to come
back tomorrow?”
“Might be awhile.
They’re stealing beer and wine from Giga-Mart and trying to crack open
the liquor stores…”
Hearing this, Big Sonny opened his
cell, trying to raise the GM boss, Estrada.
After twenty seconds of ringing, he snapped it shut.
“Not answering. Captain, I want all the surveillance tapes…
here and across the way… secured and copied tomorrow morning. Don’t even send ‘em back to Waco, find some
of those local robbers and pay their price – one more thing, be sure to get
affidavits, I don’t want some damn lawyer challenging our chain of possession. Fred, first thing tomorrow… ah, fuck, well
first thing Monday, get your fat ass down to… what’s the county seat of this
cesspool. College Park? Bribe the D.A. or break him – I don’t care. I expect prosecutions… lots of prosecutions…
and none of this suspended sentence BS either.
Criminals have to pay the price…”
“I’ll do what I can, but we got
liberals runnin’ the country, now, state and county… and that’s three strikes…
besides, this part of Maryland, it’s sorta dark, you know?
Big Sonny nearly exploded. Then use the Patriot Act!”
“I’ll do what I can,” the lobbyist
hitched up his trousers, “speakin’ of the dark continent, what do you want to do with those guys
cuffed to the tent?”
“Leave ‘em overnight, let ‘em piss
their pants… get a little hungry and tired, think twice about ripping off a
Giga-Plex,” Big Sonny said with a mean little glint stealing into his watery,
blue eyes.
“Hopefully the County will be in a
better position to take them off our hands so we can clean it up, that
urination problem…” Tenison parsed.
“Anjelika, if I get people, a new batch of temps, in by six, how long
till we can reopen?”
“Before noon, probably… unless you
order these people work all night…”
“Better let them get a little sleep…
OSHA, you know?” Sonnenschein warned.
“Tenison, there’s got to be a paint store or something where Mexicans
hang out in the early morning, send a truck out with that guy in the back, run
‘em in and out, pay cash. Is there a
way… can we get our staff out through the fire door up front if there’s still a
crowd outside? I don’t trust that
Sergeant Mays…”
“He’s worthless,” Tenison concurred
while Capps opened his phone, trying to raise the Eagles’ truck. “Better to just send them through my door,
here, they can go down the corridor and out into the parking lot…”
“Can’t reach the truck. Fuck!
Everything in this fuckin’ place is out of whack…” Lester Capps said,
scratching his butt.
If anything, Capps had understated the
situation. As still-terrified Giga-Plex
staff coped with the mess, screams and bangings resounded on the metal gates
while, outside, mall security was being overwhelmed and screaming men charged
through Giga-Mart, pummeling staff and grabbing merchandise. Earline Soames attempted to hide under a
register but a trio of familiar faces loomed over her… the three grinning
college kids, Alpha, Moonface and Shorty.
“Hello, sweet thang…” Alpha crowed, popping the top off a fresh beer from the
rapidly emptying display case.
“We’re baaack!” Moonface leered.
She screamed, but the invaders… most
headed to the beer and wine display… paid no heed, not even Rev. Godwin,
staggering in after the mob, a bloody and beaten Rev. Godwin in shirtsleeves
and collar -humiliated and crowned in filth.
Earline observed a female clerk being dragged into a restroom, her
screams rising, then, suddenly, ceasing.
Jack Gobelman ambled through the wine section, blithely comparing
vintages before snatching three bottles of warm champagne… one for each pocket
of his filthy suit jacket. He smashed
the neck off the third and swilled through bloody lips, stumbling out of the
Giga-Mart and into the Food Court to gape at the animated Ghede head… swaying,
rotating, fairly trembling with peals of hideous laughter.
In the Title Pawn cum Plasma Center
next door to the vacant CD shop, a manager with a shotgun fired at looters
massed in front of his interior door, reloaded and fired again. His exterior glass shattered by a concrete
block, more zombies swarmed in; he fired once more at the mob, and then was
overwhelmed. A few lucky looters
escaped with fistfuls of cash and other people’s car titles… others grabbed
plastic bags of blood and plasma, holding them up to the light, wondering what
to do.
Behind their gates, the Giga-Plex
employees attempted to go about their business as if it were just another
night. Vicki was totaling up her
register’s hefty receipts while Craig… coming back into the store after the
closing of the loading dock… was feeling reckless.
“So…” and he leaned his elbows on the
chrome bagging area she’d just sprayed and wiped, “nice day…”
Annoyed, she looked up to the cameras
whirring away amidst the catwalks as if to hope that somebody in Waco would
take note of Synch’s impertinence. “Not
for me. Salespeople happy, Mark happy…
did you get plenty of tips?”
“Sure… mostly suggestions on what I
could do to myself. But I made it… I
was acting supervisor on the dock and nothing terrible happened…”
“So you gonna ask for a raise? Maybe, even, to eight bucks an hour?”
Craig scrunched his elbows up nearer
the cashbox, ignoring the screaming and banging outside. “Never know. Taylor really fucked up, don’t even know if they’ll let him
back. Tom, the guy on the crane, said
he’d come in for two weeks, then… gone!
He’s a big, dumb old coot, I play him right, he’ll show me how to use the
cherrypicker, and then…”
The commotion outside became too
violent to ignore… someone pounding on the fire door built into the gate… a
desperate voice crying out…
“It’s Mays, Sergeant Mays… for the
love of God, somebody let me in! They’re killing us out here. Killing
me…”
“Wow… that doesn’t sound good, think I
should let him in?”
“You’re
the one thinks he wants such responsibility, now, you decide…”
“Hell no, I’m deciding. I’m calling… hey, Cappy! Captain Capps…”
Lester had been busily trotting towards
the satellite corner - he stopped, angry.
“What now?”
Craig pointed. “That Sergeant from Mall Security outside,
it sounds bad…”
And even Capps could hear Mays and the
rest of his unarmed rent-a-cops screaming now and, under the demonic laughter
and scuffling, the Sergeant’s plea… softer now, as if diminished by broken ribs
or a shattered jaw…
“Let me in! For the love of God…
help… anybody…”
The Screaming Eagle shook his
head. “Shoulda known better. Not our job, kid… we’re safe until this crap
dies down, so long as everybody follows orders. Door stays closed… and that’s
my order.
Thin red blood started flowing under the gates,
peppered with little white specks that Craig decided not to contemplate… still
chained to the tentpole (though, at least, without his dead companion, now)
Westy Soames called out to Lester…
“Hey officer, what about us? Me!
Ain’t supposed to be here, I was framed…”
And a couple of wiseguys cuffed to the
opposite pole echoed: “Framed!”
“Innocent!”
“Shut up, all of you,” Capps snarled. “Maybe I should just throw you out there,
tell them animals that you’re the guy made us run out of inventory…”
With an evil glare at Craig for
disturbing his itinerary with the Mall cops’ tragedy, Lester returned to
Sputnik Station as Ralph Richards, trying and failing to keep pace with Skinner
and McHale’s technical banter, sensed that Soames might be a cut above the
usual thief, telling him…
“We’re all going to die…”
“Oh man, I don’t have to hear that…”
Westy protested.
Richards’ despair did have the effect
of gaining the attention of the two wunderkinds. Ed picked up one of the advance copies of the advertisement that
would hit the Sunday papers in only a few hours, now. “Not necessarily so,” he said, thwacking the tech desk as if to
kill a virtual fly. “We’ve got the
Eagles, and there’s plenty of stuff here that could be weaponized in the
worst-case scenario. Hell, we could
hold off an army with those Blu-Ray 2 disks, break ‘em in half and they’re
sharper than ninja stars… catch some bad actor in the throat, curtains!”
“I think
there’s potential in those smart pest control units back in Appliantology,”
Thunder countered, “…you just have to rev up the dispersion unit with, I don’t
know… pepper spray?”
“Cyanide. Napalm,
maybe…” Total scoffed…
General Westmoreland Soames shook his head. “An’ you’re the psycho fucks locking me up?”
And then, all turned as Captain Capps
stalked back to the sarcen of televisions to confer with Big Sonny… the big
boss hectoring his musicians who’d been enjoying the Dominator, waiting for the
all-clear signal. With plenty of
scowls, the Soft Shell combo picked up their instruments and dove into a
curiously listless medley of Dixieland standards while Leland B. Sonnenschein
slapped Effie Lou on the butt, whispering a few words into her ear. As if programmed, she began to dance, the
other Giga-Grrrlz following, but without enthusiasm…
“No reason for a body not to have fun!” Sonny beamed.
And the Dominator, inexorably, continued radiating
evil rays and broadcasting, at an unpleasant volume and pitch, the
pontifications of Evan Augsberg.
“I’m still outside of the One World
Mall, Ted, where I’ve been receiving reports that it’s bad, bad as the
Superdome during Hurricane Katrina, a few years back. People seem to have lost their heads, and… wait, sir?”
The commentator strained to detain one
of the Mall rent-a-cops… face bloody, uniform torn. Augsberg’s target sprinted by but, seeing the cameras rolling,
bowed to the inevitable American yen for publicity, turned and made an obscene
gesture…
“They’re killin’ people in there!
It’s a slaughterhouse,” added the security guard, “…not worth dyin’ for,
not for seven-fifteen an hour or even seventeen-fifty…
no gun and no benefits. You wanna know
what to do, send the Air Force over and nuke the place…”
“Ted, we may have to take that out…
oh, no?” the newsman added, pretending to jiggle the microphone/comline running
across from ear to lip like a silver scar from a pimp’s knife. “Well, that’s live television… we’re going
to try to get a statement from the local police but, until then, back to you,
Ted…”
Effie Lou Wilson, rapt with excitement
and fear and moving her arms and legs like a puppet with her strings pulled by
a drunken Gepetto, turned from Fraser on the giant tube to Crystal, Rae and
Sabra Martin while the Dixieland band fell to arguing what to play next…
“‘Dja hear that?” she rolled her
eyes. “It’s crazy out there, it’s like… we’re in a jungle!”
“What do you know about jungles?” Rae scoffed.
“That they’re dangerous. I wish all that
pounding and screaming would stop…”
“They just love us…” Crystal maintained.
“Want to eat us up…”
Effie Lou’s eyes widened another
f-stop and she placed a hand across her ample, vinyl-coated bosom. “That’s horrible, Sabra…”
“Don’t worry, Effie,” the runner-up
cracked, “Big Sonny will protect you… with his, his…”
“His Big Sonnyness?” was the best
Crystal could do, but the three girls still enjoyed a laugh while a solitary
tear dripped from Miss Dominator’s eye, winding its way down the white vinyl
bikini-top
“You’re mean…”
As the band finally settled upon a
vengeful rendition of “St. James Infirmary”, the Grrrlz went back to doing what
they were paid for doing… dancing… even though all the Giga-Plex customers had
been evicted; nobody remaining but the bosses and cretinous staff. Ray Wilson guided Honey Keissler back
towards the loading dock, away from Anjelika’s conscript gangs sweeping the
floor and straightening inventory after the long night’s ordeal. There, Tom Eppert was searching through the
much-diminished inventory for the Tungwa that Mark Tenison had set aside for
him – bent forward like Sherlock Holmes; Marko… lip curled into a secret,
Balkin smirk, one eye blackened from the pounding he’d taken out behind the
loading dock… was smoking, tapping his feet in time to the beat as the four
remaining Romanian 92’s, throbbed with the soundtrack to a Time Magazine
infomercial for classic soul CDs featuring the sound of Stax, Motown and… at
the moment… James Brown. The music
pierced Honey like a dirty wind, sickening and exciting her at once… she
started to shake, gulped, gives Ray a weak smile…
“Guess those Dominators ain’t goin’
anywhere, tonight?” she inquired.
“Forget ‘em, kid. I got a better plan!”
Honey took a deep breath. If James Brown could feel good… even two
years after his demise… she could, also.
“You do?”
Ray looked around to be sure that
nobody else was watching him… the Mexicans seemed just as absorbed as Marko
with the program, and Tom continued his manic, fruitless searching. Even so, he lowered his voice.
“You get off on that crank?”
“Sure! But I don’t want any more, I just wanna get out of here, go home
and crash. I think I made a lot of
money today, I don’t even know how much, maybe a thousand if those damn
assholes don’t come back and return their shit… I make even half that tomorrow
and the rest of the month is gravy, which suits me fine. All I want to do is sleep and party…”
“How’d you like to make enough so that
you wouldn’t have to come back tomorrow?
Or ever?”
“Well sure, but… it’s crazy out
there! Lester said people were being
robbed in the parking lot… uh… that’s not what you’re talking about, is it?”
“Hell no, girl,” Ray sneered, “I’m
slick, but I ain’t sick. All this shit
goin’ down tonight is cover, the perfect cover. Bet you don’t know where that speed comes from…”
“West Virginia?” Honey guessed.
“Nope. Right here.” And Ray
pointed downward. “They gotta lab under
Oil Change Charlie’s… Charlie and his guys.
It’s perfect. See, the trouble
with meth labs is that they stink, so what’s the perfect place to hide one
under? A stinky garage, smells like gas
and oil…”
“But some of those guys are in
motorcycle gangs… Bandidos, Diablos, something like that. Wouldn’t it be dangerous?”
“Who’s to know? They’ll think some of those idiots out there
stumbled on the place. Won’t even think
about me, let alone you…”
“Gee I don’t know…” Honey wavered…
“Only way to mess up is if someone
started movin’ the stuff around there, so them guys with an IQ of like, two,
found out. But me, I got connections
out of town. Philly, Atlanta…
thousands,” he reminded her…
Honey bit her lip, thinking it
over. Ray was waiting for her to make a
decision, but that old, creepy idiot, Tom Eppert had come over, asking his same
old creepy questions…
“Hey guys, either of you see one of those Tungwa’s
around, twenty-seven incher?… had a paper taped to it, said, reserved for me…”
Ray chose to play dumb, rather than getting into a
discussion with the big goof. “For me?”
“No, for… it’s mine. M…Mark set it aside for me…” and Eppert
smiled, the guy probably thought he was a comedian. “Put his mark-down-mark on it.
My name…”
“Well, there’s televisions all over,”
Ray observed. “Ain’t seen one like that…
you better talk to Mark, but wait until he gets through with that meeting of
his…”
And Tom looked hungrily towards the
Manager’s door – shut tight as a bank vault.
“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks…”
¾ ¾ ¾
The One World shops with only glass frontage facing
either the parking lot or corridors running north to south… as opposed to those
where chainlink or full metal gates had been drawn over the windows… were
falling to the mob. Looters had
saturated Linens 2 Go and Roasted World Nuts… some stuffing cashews and
pistachios into their cheeks like chipmunks before turning south towards the
Parfumeríe and funeral home, or across the corridor to Deems Hardware. A man who had clearly lost his mind guzzled
wino blood our of a plastic envelope from the stab lab, one of many
establishments largely left alone after the cash registers had been violated… a
few puzzled zombies drifted through Lester’s Likenesses and the Prescott
Funeral Home and the bookstore was deserted too, except for a few excited
teenagers thumbing through Playboys, Maxims and fresh copies of “The
Anarchist’s Cookbook”…
Outside, by the loading dock, Jerry Eames from the
local television station drove up through the mob at precisely the appointed
time, expecting to be richly rewarded for all the free publicity afforded the
franchise. To the amusement of at least fifty other shoppers, he beat his fists
on the gates… and began to cry out: “We had a deal, motherfucker! We had a deal!”
One of the disgruntled, a fat man in
camouflage and a hunter’s vest waved his dishonored receipt. “We all
had deals…”
An older guy pointed to the Screaming
Eagles, who’d retreated to the perimeter of their van, weapons drawn, eyes
anxiously scanning the angering multitude.
“It’s their fault…”
In the Giga-Mart, rough hands hauled
Earline out from under the register and ripped off her clothes. Surrounded by men, mostly drunk or still
swigging beer and wine, she bit one of the assailants in a sensitive spot as he
sprawled atop her, causing him to fly off, howling. As one of the fraternity boys replaced him, Jack Gobelman
snatched a boxcutter from beneath the register. The screaming and laughter
could be heard as far off as the petshop at the far Northwestern corner,
opposite the Giga-Plex security door across the corridor. Rev. Godwin, clutching his looted sixpack
like a dead cat, drifted aimlessly out the door and into the Food Court, under
the chortling head of Ghede as the clock over the opposite portal struck one. Humanitarian zombies rampaged through the
pet shop, opening cages – releasing birds and dogs and monkeys. The glass enclosure of fluorescent rats was
smashed, allowing dozens of unsold Christmas rodents to scamper to freedom...
On the opposite, Northeastern corner,
other zombies were taunting the shepherds, dobes and pitbulls in Kearsey’s
Kennels. These fighting dogs, like
humans, all seemed unhinged by the flashing lights and booming bass of the
Dominator, still radiating apocalypse behind the Giga-Plex gates. Out of their minds with rage, they smashed
their snouts against their cages, or lowered their heads, panting, waiting for
their time to come around…
Still holding their beer – and a
canister of beef jerky – Alpha, Moonface and Shorty backed out of Giga-Mart
with hesitant steps and whitened faces.
“Dude,” Shorty grimaced, “he was like… he… I don’t think I’m ever gonna
forget…”
“Forget,” Alpha ordered, despite the
churning in his own stomach. “Dude was
psycho. We weren’t there, we aren’t
here!”
“What about cameras?” Moonface
worried. “They got cameras in those
places, up on the roof. They might have
caught us on film…”
“Video!” Shorty corrected him.
“Then they’ll see it was the old guy,
not us. We don’t know the dude,” Alpha
sighed. “We were just in there to buy
beer but, if anybody asks, we lost the receipts…”
“I wanna go back to the frathouse,”
Shorty wailed…
“Yeah. Yeah,” Alpha determined, “but, first…”
¾ ¾ ¾
On the floor of Giga-Plex, Mark Tenison whistled for
attention.
“Alright, it’s one… everybody’s clocked out as of
now. Long day today, another long day
tomorrow… today… Departmental managers and all security, you’ll stay behind
while we sort out what’s to be done tomorrow.
Everyone else… we’ll evacuate through the fire door in my office. I want an orderly line, seniors and women
first, guests, temporary then staff…”
As the crowd migrated towards the
manager’s office (with the Dixieland band playing a sardonic “Hit the Road,
Jack!” as they marched), Kristi, David and Vern were accosted by Big Sonny,
vowing retaliation for the Chief Executive’s speech, three hours ago. “I’m probably going to lose fifteen, twenty
million in sales tomorrow, thanks to your leaning on the President to give in
to that mob…”
“Not me!” Vern reacted instantly and
then trained a long, thin finger on David and Kristi. “It was them… those
two, and a couple others… if all those bums with their cheap old analog sets
didn’t have agents on the inside, they would never have risen up.”
All that David Lee could do was
laugh. In fact, he and Kristi had spent
the last half hour contemplating the process and outcome of their suit against
the Commission and its renegade Manager.
“Yeah, Vern, blame me. Of course
that announcement was fucked up, but what’s goin’ down tonight is just the
appetizer… do you realize what thirty million people not watchin’ the game
tomorrow night are capable of…”
“A lot
of damage…” Kristi exclaimed.
“Yeah, but when they come to their
senses Monday morning, where do you think they’d have to go to replace all the
stuff that they destroyed? To me,
that’s where… who… aw fuck… I gotta get that band to shut up, they’re not
helping…”
Sabra Martin had stopped dancing,
honing in on Ray and Honey, who’d drifted off to the side of the line
converging on Tenison’s office.
“Word’s out that you’re a candy man…”
she purred.
“Word’s
gonna get his tongue ripped up out by the roots, spreadin’ words like that… but
yeah, I can give you a taste…” Ray allowed, “seein’ as we’re all in this
together.”
“We’re gonna get a lot of candy…” said an ebullient Honey.
“Your name Word?” Ray snapped back at her. “You want me to get Mark’s bullhorn and that
fuckin’ whistle, so’s them as still don’t know hear?”
He looked Sabra Martin over more
closely… a tweaker, no doubt, but she seemed to have the right combination…
strong body, weak mind… and she’d be far away, inaccessible, when the bikers from Oil Change Charlie started
looking up potential suspects…
“You wanna make a little money?” he
said.
“Doesn’t everybody?”
And Honey, suddenly less ebullient,
complained: “Why do we have to have her
along?”
“To haul more candy out of Willie
Wonka’s factory, down there, carry it upstairs and put it in my Explorer… and,
also,” he smiled, “because, since you already told her, either she’s in or else
I have to waste her…”
Sabra smiled back, as if she didn’t
take the threat seriously, which irked Honey all the more. “Why your Explorer?” she whined. “Isn’t my Corolla good enough?”
“That tiny rice-burnin’ block
o’shit? ‘Cause I know how to move the
merchandise and not get caught. You
want payoff in candy that you’d rather move yourself, well, that can be
arranged…”
“Both would be nice…” Sabra mused.
Ray, of course, had no intention of
paying the girls off in candy, cash or anything else. But he favored Sabra and Honey with a big smile, and even managed
to pat both on the back.
“That’s the spirit. Of course there is one little problem; to
get to where we’re going, we have to go down below. It’ll be dark, won’t smell very good… full of little things that
bite…”
“Long as there ain’t no more of those
fools outside! How do we get around
them?” Sabra asked.
“Like I said, we go down. There’s a trapdoor in the janitor’s room…
some tunnels they use once every few years when somethin’ goes wrong with the
boilers…”
“And you’ve been down there?”
“As far as a certain door in the
vicinity of Charlie’s. Which
necessitates this…” Ray couldn’t help boasting as he removed a box of Altoids
from his pocket.
Honey reached for it. “I could use something to freshen up my
breath… mind?”
Ray jerked it away, but with a
smile. “You don’t want to put this
stuff in your mouth. The
Double-oh-Seven Club is not the only spy shop operating in Ray’s ‘hood.”
Uncle Raoul angrily wheeled the big Lincoln into the
One World parking lot, dodging its looters, shooters and curiosity
seekers. There were already many
vehicles afire and… since it stood to reason that persons disappointed by
Raoul’s converters might be here, looking to recoup their losses by any means
necessary… he’d tried to disguise himself under a baseball cap pulled down
almost to his eyes, a jacket borrowed from Westy, collar hiked up, and
wraparound shades. Finding a space, he
walked quickly through the lot, stepping lightly over a couple of the bodies
lying or writhing on the pavement, knifing his way through the pushing,
fighting shoppers. The unprotected
exterior plate glass of Lester’s Likenesses has been smashed and, since most of
those entering and exiting were using the pet store, title pawn and vacant CD
store far to the north, he stepped through the glass and into a strange, silent
world of white statues. A couple of
display models had been knocked over and smashed… some others spraypainted or,
even, crayoned… and the effigy of a bosomy lady lay in the doorway as if some
myopic pervert had tried to drag it out, then given up.
From this doorway, Raoul could see
down the corridor, including both the armoured-up Giga-Plex and ravaged
Giga-Mart… also, a constant stream of looters charging in and out of that
latter store. Reverend Godwin stumbled
by – oblivious to Raoul, as to all others, even some of those who’d followed
him up from Nakonset Park and, now, rewarded the Reverend with merry waves and
high-fives. He passed the still-gated
liquor store and looted Roasted World, finally lurching into the bookstore,
where a few bloody, bedraggled zombies were thumbing through popular tomes and
popular magazines – they glanced at his collar with ironic detachment, then
return to their reading.
“Says here,” a bearded zombie assailed
a fat woman – probably a trannie, Godwin noted, riffling through Hollywood
scandal rags – “that the true believers have so little ballast, they have to
suck in another human being to keep from flying away…”
“I hate Hoffer,” the fat lady snarled,
“Ashton Kutcher is so much more
reliable…”
“This isn’t Hoffer,” Beardo spat,
showing the cover of Ernest Becker’s “The Denial of Death” to Godwin as,
perhaps, a neutral observer. “The hero…
or schizophrenic… transcends death only through complete personal servitude to…
to…”
Even this far off, the Reverend could
hear Evan Augsberg – booming through the metal gates surrounding
Giga-Plex. He popped the top of his
last looted beer, waved off the literary debaters, saying “I am, also, very,
very tired…” and, finding a quiet niche behind a rack of self-help paperbacks…
most having to do with diets and relationships… he scattered a few handfuls
over the floor to make a nests, lay down and promptly fell asleep.
¾ ¾ ¾
Tenison, aided by Anjelika, Captain Capps and his
security people, had marshaled the besieged into a line that stretched out the
door and into the loading dock area.
Banging and cursing resounded behind the metal gates there, but the
Manager pressed his ear to the fire door, heard nothing, and smiled. First in line to get the hell out of Dodge
was Lester, the Greeter, still full of smiles.
Placing his left forefinger to his lips so that the besieged would know
better than to make remarks during the escape process, Mark opened the door and
cautiously pushed Lester forward… three rats (one glowing red, the other two
green) scampered in and a wall of hands and faces, teeth and weapons dragged
Lester out, still screaming: “Welcome to Giga-Plex!” Three of the zombies actually forced their way inside before Mark
and the Screaming Eagles could slam the door, provoking a short, bloody battle…
the intruders fighting with tooth and claw, trampling the Manager and a couple
of elderly, female cashiers before Anjelika shoves one against the wall and
cold-cocked him with a right to the jaw, worthy of a heavyweight. Captain Capps, shoving his way through the
crowd, shouted: “Outa my way! Outa my
way!”
He fired his taser at the nearest
lunging zombie, but the fellow turned aside at the last moment, and the prongs
sank deep into the robotics salesman behind him. Blick collapsed in seizures to Tenison’s floor where another
zombie tripped over him; stumbling forward on hands and knees, the invader
looked up… only to find another Eagle, this one with an old-fashioned
billyclub, poised to put his lights out.
The last of the zombies, slashing and biting, actually made it out of
the office and loading dock and into the store before a single gunshot through
his nose, fired at close range, dropped him like a puppet with its strings cut.
Capps, wielding the smoking gun,
looked to Big Sonny for assurance. “He
was askin’ for it,” said the Eagle.
Though Fred Faubourg put his hand over
his face… not necessarily in disgust nor sympathy, but apprehensive of the
litigation to follow… Sonnenschein nodded.
“That’s how we do ‘em in Waco,” said the big boss.
And then, one of the elderly female cashiers, gouged
and bitten, her blouse hanging in strips, wailed…
“They’re infected!”
There was no foundation to this
apprehension, but panic snaked through the line of putative escapees, even
after… having secured the door… Tenison and Anjelika led her out of the office
and around the corner to a bench in the employees’ locker room, leaving the
rest of the besieged to wander back into the store, except for Ed Skinner who,
without authorization, picked up the receiver of the Manager’s rotary phone and
dialed home…
“Ma?
Yeah, I’m still in the store… it’s kinda crazy. I tried to call, but… what? Yeah, we got TV, plenty of televisions,
nobody says anything. Typical. Well, needless to say, I’ll be late. Probably at least an hour before things
settle down…”
Thunder tapped him on the
shoulder. Behind him, half a dozen
employees… Craig, Vicki, Marko Mosrovich, the kid from the DVD section, two
Mexicans… were waiting to use Tenison’s phone.
“Gotta go… yeah, love you too.” He hung up, but, before McHale could grab
the phone, announced: “Somebody’s been blowing up all the cellphone towers…”
“Why they doing that?” said the
puzzled, battered Marko.
“Somebody must have figured out the
connection,” Thunder opined, “…the government sold off broadcast television
frequencies to the cellphone companies so, in a way, the cells are to blame for
their losing the Superbowl…”
“But the President said they would show the Superbowl…” Vicki
objected.
“Yeah,” Thunder allowed, “but how
would people know, if they don’t have cable or hi-def…”
Ed proudly volunteered new
information. “Ma says all the neighbors
are throwing their old sets out in the street.
Some high school kids in a truck came by and took ‘em to the school and
blew them up with M-80s… boy, are they gonna
be sorry tomorrow…”
“But tomorrow is today…” pointed out
the finicky Richards.
Marko shook his head. “Crazy Americans…”
As Thunder reached over Ed to grab the
phone, Vern Cooth... roaming Appliantology, surrounded by smart brooms,
washer/dryer combos and the purring Moondreams smart bed… was giving his
disloyal, now ex-employees another piece of his mind, whether they cared or
not…
“Some way, somehow,” he accused David
Lee, “it’s you who’ve been aiding and abetting Trent Lockett, and I’m going to
find out everything. You’ll be
investigated – maybe under the Patriot Act.
I’ll bet you and that nig… that…” and then he bit off the n-word, though
barely, “that the both of you have something to do with those goddam vans
driving around broadcasting filth n’ lies that are messing with licensed
frequencies…”
“They’re not messing with anything…”
David said.
“Well how would you know? Aha!” the Manager pounced. “You wouldn’t… unless you are behind all of
this. Interfering with frequencies
someone else has bought and paid for is theft, some kind of theft, subverting
police and fire calls, that’s flat out treason… it’s people like you who are making
it impossible for the law to crack down on all that, that…”
He waved to indicate the chaos still
audible outside the store…
“You should know better, Vern,” Kristi
stepped in. “We’ve been telling the world… at least that one percent paying
attention… that the frequencies aren’t going to be operable for weeks, if not
months. All this shit is happening
because the police are overwhelmed.
People have been seeing their real incomes fall for two decades, now,
they’re losing their homes, can’t buy gas, milk, can’t afford to take their
kids to see the doctor. They’re angry…
they’ve been angry for a long time, but as long as they could go home after
working at jobs they hate but can’t complain about, watch some dumb fucks eat
bugs for money or cop shows or the Superbowl, not only did they sit back and
shut up, they blamed more or less anyone that we in the government told them to
blame. Until now. They’ve finally woken up, just as they
always do…”
Cooth wilted. “You never loved me, you were just using me…”
“Well, duh…” Kristi answered.
Zombies were weaving through the Mall, now, tugging at the chainlink gates that still protected a few shops like the liquor, jewelry and auto showrooms. Godwin snored loudly on the bookstore floor; Uncle Raoul peered furtively around the white, larger-than-life-sized statue of a NASCAR champion, commissioned but not sold. Looters fled Giga-Mart with increasingly incongruous treasure… armsful of mops, canned mushrooms, even gigantic boxes of the fabled Gross of Toilet Paper. And a demented man with an old fashioned, military-issue can opener was patiently trying to carve a hole in the metal fence guarding the Third-Fifth Bank.
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