From about five feet away, I got a running start and hit the doors low. The doors flew open from the center, sweeping the two zombies apart and throwing them back into the room. My momentum carried me, hatchet in hand, right by one who was struggling to get up when the blade sunk deep into his forehead. With one final convulsion, he was dead again, and my hatchet was free of his head. The other zombie was down and not moving. Was there any chance I was this lucky? I kicked her head, and saw that the back of her head was smashed in, making a mess of her platinum blonde hair. I think her back was turned when I hit the door, and the edge of it split her skull. She was wearing a fluorescent g-string, and a garter with pretty good stack of bills rubber banded around it.
‘She won’t need this’; I thought to myself as I unwrapped the rubber-band and pocketed the thick wad of bills. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever need it, but a wad of cash might still have some trade value. The room smelled horrible. Even after just one day, the corpses smelled terrible, like thirty pounds of rotten hamburger.
Feeling like a badass from my easy victory, I checked through the bar, looking for interesting things. I set three unopened bottles on the bar, one bottle of grain alcohol, a Bacardi 151, and an old looking bottle of scotch. Under the bar, I found a box of match books with “Twin Peaks” underneath a pole dancer on the cover. This was a classy place. I added the match books to my pile on the bar, and headed back towards the office.
I listened at the office door, knocked with my hatchet, and waited. Hearing nothing, I opened the door and peered into the dim room. There was a large, beat up oak desk against one wall. I flipped through all the cups and trays on top looking for keys, before even trying the drawers. I found two sets, and tried the drawers in the desk. The top drawer was the only one unlocked, so I started trying keys. In the bottom left drawer, I found the handgun that I knew would be there. I read the barrel; it was a Smith and Wesson model 629- a nickel revolver with black hand-grips, and what I hoped was matching ammunition, 44 magnum. I pressed the cylinder release and emptied a round out into my hand; it was the same as those in the mostly full hundred round boxes. Replacing the round and snapping the barrel shut, I slid the weapon into my waistband, and quickly surveyed the room, but didn’t see anything else useful.
On the way out of the building, I grabbed the liquor bottles and matches off the bar, and headed out to the truck to check on Max. He was sleeping soundly in his seat, so I took the opportunity to really study him. He was so big, and yet so small. I remembered the time when he could fit in one arm, and how I used to carry him everywhere like a football. I hated leaving him here, in the truck, sleeping, but it seemed less dangerous than taking him into a building that probably had zombies in it. With all of my “Twin Peaks” loot dropped off in the back of the truck, I left the AK47, and went across the street to the hardware store, in search of a few more items needed for my plan.
As I walked across the street, I thought to myself, ‘Tookes, you idiot. You should have asked Max how many were in here,’ followed by a quick headshake and ‘what in the hell am I thinking. He’s three and a half years old.’
07. The Potomac Crossing
The hardware store looked deserted. I had a moment of terror when a zombie in the apartment upstairs saw or smelled me, and started banging on the glass. I dove behind a wood pile and watched him beat his fists against the glass, silently praying that the glass was sturdy enough to hold, and that there weren’t any others up there.
Out of morbid curiosity, and perhaps a desire to know more about these creatures, I watched for a moment. Even though I was completely hidden from view and motionless, he kept staring at me, as if he could see me through the wood. I crawled down the length of the woodpile, low on my stomach. I made it to the end of the wall of wood without making a sound, and eased my head around to look at the window. The old man-turned-zombie was still staring at the other side of the woodpile, slowly banging his fists on the window. There was blood running down the window now, and I wondered how long he would say there, banging away on the window.
With the zombie distracted by looking at my last known whereabouts, it was fairly easy to sneak up on the side of the building to the back door. The doorknob was locked, but there was no dead bolt. My family had a doorknob just like this when I was a kid. ‘Back then, if I turned really hard, the door would pop open,’ I thought, as I wrenched down on the doorknob. It was sturdier than I remembered, but ultimately gave way and didn’t make a huge amount of noise.
The door led to the store-room of the hardware shop, which was pretty much just like the rest of the place; floor to ceiling shelves, piled high with dusty old junk. To this day, I still love dusty old junk. Walking through the storage room led me to the store proper, where I headed first for the plumbing section. After searching for a minute or two, I found what I was looking for; a section of PVC pipe, end caps, glue and primer. Down a couple of rows was the paint section, where I found aluminum powder and iron oxide for mixing up metallic paints. One bag of each in hand, I needed to find one more isle of the old store. I peered around the dim room; the only light was what shone in through the dusty windows. I was looking for a hobby or toy section. BB’s, rubber cement, three bags of old army men, and model rocket igniters, and I was off to the front counter to find nine volt batteries, a lighter, and a pack of cigarettes, if I could find them.
I’d quit smoking a few years before, but today seemed like a good day to start again. I unlocked the front door of the store, let myself out, and beat feet for the truck. Max was still sleeping soundly. All in all, I’d been gone less than ten minutes, but it seemed like hours. I opened the back door of the truck and reached for my tool bag. By now it was almost dark, so I spread out my loot on the front seat and started working.
The large bags of army men were the first; I tossed all of them into the back seat, except the parachute men. Max would have fun playing with them. I emptied the six ounce bag of iron oxide powder and the two ounce bag of aluminum powder into one of the army man bags, and shook it up to thoroughly mix the two powders into the super flammable mixture called thermite. I said a silent thanks to those TV Myth guys for showing me how much “fun” thermite could be. From the tool bag I pulled out my hack saw, and cut the PVC pipe into roughly six inch segments, and glued an end cap on the end of each one. I poured the powdered metal mixture out of the army man bag, and into each of the eight capped PVC sections. Next, into the pipe was the ignition end of the model rocket starters, followed by BB’s right to the top. I bent the wires from the igniters over the side of the pipe and glued the top cap on, pinning the wires to the side of the pipe.
The next step was to coat the outside of each pipe in rubber cement, and roll it in BB’s. Each was heavier than I expected. I thought I’d be able to get away with just one parachute per pipe, but from the weight, I was going to need closer to three per pipe. I had nine parachutes total, which gave me three completed incendiary devices, and five partially done. The last step was to rubber cement a nine volt battery to the ‘tip’ of the pipe, and bend the ignition wires up and over the poles of the battery. I covered the terminals of the battery with electrical tape from my tool bag for safety until I was ready to use them.