“Track Three:” Baby
“He likes zombies, and the apocalypse. He's got some black magic up in those fingertips.”
Her name was Alice, and for some reason, she wouldn’t leave me alone. She has been following me around the Depot for the last fifteen minutes. And lately, due to recent events, the Depot felt more like the Mos Eisley Cantina we grew up watching on film than a place to buy provisions. But this wasn't a movie, and the Depot had become increasingly dangerous over the last few months since The Event had passed. In short, this was neither the time nor the place to make friends.
Alice looked a little sketchy like she was one silver spray paint can away from joining the race to Valhalla.
God, I miss movies.
“He likes fast cars, and a good fight. But that’s him. That’s my baby.” Alice was talking to me again. She was really cramping the flow of my supply run. “But that was Reggie before the apocalypse. He always loved that shit. I mean, maybe it’s more of an adjustment for me, but it’s really been no big deal for us.”
I decided right then I needed to ditch Alice. I had no desire to know her, let alone her apocalypse-loving boyfriend, who has apparently been thriving during the decline of western civilization.
“We used to go on these crazy fast rides up the coast. He really knew how to hug a curve.” I made my way toward what we would have labeled the ‘Garden’ aisle, pre-Event at least. Now, it was really more of mix-your-own-chemicals, select-your-own-pointy-metal-weapon aisle.
This was always the busiest part of the store.
It was the best chance I had to shake her or at least hope she’d find someone else to attach herself to.
I WAS WEAVING IN AND OUT OF FOLKS. Shopping couples wearing faded, dingy khakis were fighting over rakes and small pointy shovels. To be honest, the whole picture didn’t look all that different from Sunday’s past if you didn’t look too close. I used to make the occasional weekend run here too when I simply needed fertilizer for my garden, and not as an ingredient for zombie bombs.
Strange days, to say the least.
The detour down the weapon aisle might have done the trick. I no longer heard the clatter of Alice’s jewelry and the banging on about her boyfriend, Reggie. Her Baby, in case you somehow managed to miss that tidbit.
I looked to be in the clear.
“-We don’t take those fast drives anymore though.”
JESUS. She was back. And far more stealthy than she was a few minutes ago.
Only now she was just in her tank top and jeans. The sweater she had on seems to be hung up on a roll of chicken wire and left behind as a wounded soldier. And so I hadn’t ditched Alice. She was just clumsy and lagging behind.
“So yeah. We needed a van on account of all the extra storage space. And it doesn’t go so fast.”
I ALWAYS PICTURED THE END OF THE WORLD to look more like Mad Max. I thought I’d find a set of rollerblade elbow pads buried in a box I was sure I had donated to the salvation army years ago, then spray paint everything I own in silver in black.
I assumed my shoulder pad armor would have spikes that I would have attached by hand with the Gorilla glue I have stashed in my Depot shopping cart, and we’d all start drinking blue milk that got us high. Or you know, something like that.
In reality, no one took the time to box dye their hair a weird color, or crimp it, or even shave it in a way that would have made you look like you were part of an 80s revival band.
Nope. In reality, we let our roots grow out and wore our most comfortable pants (black yoga, for me). I don’t know who wears khakis to the apocalypse, besides the people fighting over the rakes. Me? I just threw on whatever bra was most clean and kept an arsenal of fading tee shirts at the ready.
I guess if you were feeling the apocalypse vibes (or just- legitimately cold), you threw on your leather jacket. But even then, leather was key because zipping around on motorcycles became a bigger thing in the land of the lawless. In reality, even that was more about safety.
But that was the thing about the actual apocalypse; no one had the time to focus on the fashion and makeup to make you look like Furiosa. Shit just went analog, and we looked at everyone as a threat- even in the feminine supply aisle of the Depot.
Alice followed me there too, still rambling and smiling and skipping her way along beside me. I know it’s only been twenty minutes, but it felt like an eternity. Long enough for her to sync up to my cycle…? I reached for a box lady products, but Alice didn’t. So she was still just following me to be obnoxious.
“A long time ago, too, before The Event, me and my Baby used to go to the best bars. You remember that, like, really fun pirate bar that used to be downtown-“
“The one with all the fighting?”
“That’s the one! It’s been taken over by real pirates now, but before the world went full-blown apocalytpt-o, someone actually yelped about my Baby and me being there once. If we still had the Internet, I’d read the review to you. His brawl was seriously epic.”
I don’t know why this girl keeps talking to me, but I imagine it’s because her boyfriend has lost his tolerance for her storytelling.
“I just really miss the good ‘ol days, ya know?”
Well. I couldn’t argue with her on that one. I walked through what was formerly a home goods aisle and grabbed a couple of butcher knives and a pack of barbecue lighters.
“Me too.” I stashed them in my cart.
Alice nodded towards the meat counter, “Mind if we swing by that direction before we check out? Reggie’s starving.”
FOR SOME REASON I NODDED, and walked the long way around the store with Alice so she could swing by for their lunch… or a series of lunches. She was buying enough to feed an angry horde of teenagers. Alice procured her paper wrapped meat supply and followed me up to the registers.
I unloaded my cart onto the conveyor belt and kept my head on a swivel. Checking out was the trickiest part these days. In the new world, if you didn’t stay frosty, people would snag your goods off the conveyor belt while you were paying.
I kept my cash in a little billfold I hung around my neck and was rifling through it for the correct amount of cash.
“HEY-“ I turned at Alice’s shout, taking in a familiar looting scene.
A giant asshat of a man thought my Gorilla glue was his for the taking. He reached right over the sprightly little Alice and plucked it up as if he was simply removing it from a shelf of available goods. Had he been wandering around the Depot with me for the last thirty minutes, he would have thought better than to think Alice was someone to be trifled with.
Alice made a move for the cart behind her and ripped a rake from the Khaki Couple’s shopping haul. Before the giant knew what hit him, the glue was back in my possession, and two prongs of that rake were in his hand.
“Show a little bit of common human kindness, would ya?!” Alice ripped the rake from his bloody palm and sent the asshat on his way. She was even good enough to wipe off the weaponized rake before returning it to the Khaki Couple.
I stood there in stunned appreciation as the last of my items were scanned and paid for. “Thanks, Alice. That was… nice.”
Alice just shrugged, “No prob… Hey, you wanna come meet Reggie? He’s just out in the van!”
I’d seen enough afterschool specials, when television was still a thing, to know that words like ‘Reggie’ and ‘van’ didn’t usually leave single girls in the safest of positions, but she did just rake that giant asshat for me…
ALICE AND I TAKE OUR GOODS TO THE PARKING LOT, which I realize, is rather light on her end, and really just the meat from the butcher. She skips to a stop in front of a gray van with frosted windows.
“This is us!”
Alice swings open the back doors to their van, and again, I’m left standing there in shocked silence. Which is more then I can say for anyone who happened to be passing alongside us in that moment.
Screams and horrified faces parted like the red sea. Which is fair.
REGGIE WAS MOST CERTAINLY NOT LOOKING HIS BEST. Trapped in a cage in the back of the van, groaning, and moaning, his blackened fingers were dripping decaying flesh as they slashed at us through the slats.
The zombie apocalypse is just never what you think it’s going to look like, I guess.
“Eat up, Baby!” Alice chucks a slab of meat into the cage and Reggie tears into it. I don’t know how long it’s been since Reggie made the turn, but I’m guessing it’s long enough that Alice has had to turn to having conversations with heavily armed strangers while out shopping for the End Days.
Was Alice deranged? Sure. Could she also be lonely while being shackled to her zombie boyfriend? It would seem so…
I marveled at her dedication to Reggie and the handmade cage that kept him contained from harming any living, moving, pieces of meat. The cage even looked a little cozy, actually.
And the van really did have quite a bit of room for storage.
Reggie was still tearing into the side of whatever it was Alice had bought from the meat counter when I realized I was starring.
Alice just looked at me, shrugging again as she closed up the back of the van. “Yeah he's fuckin' crazy, but he's still my baby.”