Kate thought about Donald. Striking him with the stiletto and how the sharp point slipped into the side of his head, as if the skull wasn’t even there.
“Unless you cut off your own leg first,” she said.
“No way.” He slid the sword back into its scabbard. “I’m getting used to it.”
He pushed the curtains aside and looked out into the strip mall parking lot. She walked over and stood next to him.
They stared at the Wallbys and the Blockbuster store. With the windows covered, they looked foreboding, unwelcoming, even ugly. The Blockbuster in particular looked old and decrepit, like some ancient thing from the past that didn’t belong in today’s world.
“When was the last time you rented movies at a Blockbuster’s?” Luke asked.
She had to think about it. “It’s been a while…”
“Funny, I didn’t even know they still had Blockbusters around. Who rents movies anymore? I stream them over the net.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
“You torrent?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s this illegal downloading thing. You can get free movies or TV shows and stuff like that.”
“Oh,” she said. “Good to know. Maybe when the power comes back on, you can show me how.”
He laughed. “You really think the power’s going to come back on?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“I don’t think it’s ever coming back on,” he said. “When I was in middle school, we took a field trip to a power plant. There were all these buttons and switches and hundreds of people had to keep the place working around the clock. One person doesn’t show up, someone’s got to replace him. You can’t run a power plant with just a few people.” He shook his head. “I don’t think the lights are ever coming back on, Kate.”
“You’re probably right.” She glanced at her watch. They may have lost all power in the city, but as long as there were batteries, her watch would still work. Behind her, she could hear the ticking of a wall clock. “Two hours until it gets dark. We should keep looking for more supplies.”
Luke looked up toward the sky. “Did it always get dark so soon?”
“It’s always like this in late November.”
“Funny, I never noticed until now…”
In the back rooms, Luke found a couple of big safes but no combinations. Undeterred, he retrieved a sledgehammer from one of the shelves.
“That’s not going to work,” Kate said.
“You don’t think so?”
“Not in a million years.”
He started wailing away at one of the safes. She stood back and watched him, hands over her ears to keep out the loud, clanging noise. She shook her head.
He gave up after a half-dozen tries that left one of the safes dented, but no closer to opening. Sweating and gasping for breath, he crouched, using the sledgehammer as a resting post.
“Told you,” she said.
He made a face and tossed the sledgehammer down. He found a crate in a corner, sat down, and closed his eyes. “I’m going to rest for a while.”
“Take your time.”
She went back to the front of the pawnshop and worked her way through a rack of second-hand women’s clothes. Most of them were dusty, cheap, and hopelessly out of style. She searched for a shirt and pants that would fit, locating a white shirt and black slacks among the camouflage hunting gear and oversized tees.
She changed in the pawnshop while Luke got going again in the back. She could hear him tossing boxes around and cursing.
She was glad to be out of the torn blouse and skirt. She didn’t realize how much they smelled until she had stripped them off into a pile next to her then threw them into a nearby trashcan. She looked for sneakers and socks and found them in another aisle, along with something to tie up her hair.
She grabbed some clothes in Luke’s size and tossed them at him when he came out of the back room.
“What’s wrong with my clothes?” he asked.
“They’re covered in blood.”
“Oh.” He looked down at himself. “I didn’t even notice.” He took the clothes into the back room to change.
There was a fridge in what she guessed was an employee lounge. Inside were bottles of water and an old Red Delicious apple that had turned a pale shade of brown. The fridge smelled of rotten air when she pulled open the door, so she grabbed the bottles and slammed it shut again. She found unopened strips of Jack Link’s beef jerky inside a drawer underneath the cash register. The find made her giddy.
“Gatorade would have been better,” Luke said.
“Evian would have been better,” she said. “Or Perrier. Or red wine. I could go for some red wine about now.”
“I’ve never tasted wine.”
“You’re too young; that’s how it should be.”
“I hear in France kids drink wine when they’re ten, sometimes even younger than that.”
“Did you know the French invented French fries?” she asked.
“Really?”
“No. I’m just messing with you.”
“Oh, ha ha,” he said.
She laughed.
“So who invented French fries?” he asked.
“We did. They say Thomas Jefferson was the first one to ever eat them ‘served the French way.’”
“Hunh. You learn something new every day.”
They were sitting on sleeping bags that Kate found on a back shelf. They were careful to set up in the middle of the pawnshop, hidden from the front windows in case the creatures looked in, but close enough to rush forward and defend if necessary. The prospect of actually doing that filled her with dread.
The beef jerky went down with some difficulty, but Kate hadn’t eaten a thing since lunch yesterday afternoon, and her stomach growled loudly, eager for each new strip of beef. She had almost convinced herself not to eat it when she saw how much sodium was in each piece. But once she started eating, she couldn’t stop. Her stomach wouldn’t let her.
“I guess you don’t eat this stuff on a daily basis, huh?” Luke said.
She made a face, and forced another strip down with a gulp of warm water.
Sundown came at 5:30 p.m., and it was pitch dark outside before they realized it had happened. For a moment Kate forgot to breathe. It had gotten so dark so fast that it took her breath away, and all she could think was, My God, when did that happen?
Then she heard the sound of the city waking up.
Then she heard them.
There were a lot of them, moving in different directions. She could tell that much from the scampering nature of their movements. She imagined this must be what it sounded like if you paid attention to cockroaches moving in the dark. When they leaned out from behind the shelves and looked toward the window, they saw dark figures moving across the window, a constant stream of odd shapes and sizes.
“How many do you think are out there?” Luke whispered.
His voice sounded even younger than his fourteen years. She could feel his fear, radiating from every inch of his body. She understood exactly how he felt and had to put both hands in her lap to keep them from shaking.
“A lot,” she whispered back.
How many? Hundreds. Thousands. Tens of thousands…
She felt something strange — plastic and metallic — and looked down in surprise to see she had picked up the machete without realizing it. Her fingers were a pale white as she gripped the handle. She willed herself to release some of the pressure and uncurled her fingers slowly.