Rochelle rolled around uncomfortably. She was covered in what seemed to be hair and gritty, sandy dirt. It reminded of her of when she was a little girl and her dog would sleep in her bed after going to the beach. The dog had been affectionately named Potato Safari after a long night of drunken rambling.

"Ugh, Potato Safari… Get outta my bed…" Rochelle muttered sleepily.

Coach jolted into a sitting position. "Potato? Mmm, boy! Do I smell some potatoes? Who said potatoes? I love potatoes!"

"No, Coach, there ain't any potatoes here. Just that drunk bitch ramblin' again. She is just so intolerable." Ellis drawled, looking up from Nick's hair. Ellis loved to braid, pet, and comb Nick's glorious and successful mane.

Rochelle looked at him, taken aback. She felt hurt, but knew better than to say anything because of her irrational fear of being gang-beat by three large men.

"Sorry, Coach. I think I was having a dream."

"Oh, little boy lady! Don't you worry about it. I know all about them food dreams. Always creeping up at the least appropriate times, if you know what I mean." Said Coach, glancing towards Ellis' bleeding inner thigh. Coach tried to wink at him, but all he could manage was to twitch his eyes several times. It made the sound of a junebug hitting a window.

Ellis tried to vomit; put there was nothing left to vomit after last night.

"Uhh… What is all this stuff on me?" Rochelle murmured, brushing several small, black hairs off the front of her t-shirt. They were bristly like bear pubes.

"Oh, sorry Ro'. Those are mine." Nick admitted. He ran his hand through his hair and held it up to Rochelle. "See? It's just my hair."

"He's a shedder!" joked Ellis, and elbowed Nick in the ribs. Mucus shot out of Nick's nostrils like a demented fire hose.

"I'm a shedder too!" Coach said excitedly.

"No you ain't! You don't even have any hair!" Ellis shouted, pressing his chest against Coach's tender bosom.

"I am so! You don't only shed head hair!"

Coach paused for a moment while everyone stared in horror.

"What? I shed my nose hair too!" Coach announced. He put a finger over a nostril and blew out. Piles of hair shot out and scattered onto the floor.

Nick dove into a pile, letting the nose hair caress and bathe him. It swam in and out of his own nose. He sighed in happiness.

"No! You are so dumb!" Ellis yelled, ignoring Nick. "You need that hair to breathe! It's like what gills do for fish!"

"I don't need to breathe! I'm the toughest!" Coach hissed, and a misty spray of spittle landed gently on Ellis' face. Ellis shuddered in arousal and tilted his head back moaning.

"You can't distract me! I-OHMIGOD! It's Jimmy Gibbs!" Ellis ran towards a poster on the wall, wading through the hair and mucus on the safe room's floor.

"Gimmy Jibbs? I love that guy! I got all his albums! Even the new stuff that ain't no good!" Nick cheered.

"What are you going on about Nick?" Coach screamed wildly, his eyes oozing from their sockets. "Quit trying to impress Ellis! Everyone knows that Jimmy Gibbs is the world renowned school bus driver!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah!" Ellis added excitedly. "He once drove an entire busload of children off a dock! And due to a mistake in court, he never got caught." he added proudly.

Ellis flattened himself against the wall and flicked his tongue all over the poster of his hero.

"Oh, Jimmy," he whispered in a low voice. "The things I would do ta you."

"WOO-OOO-OOOOO!" Coach bellowed in ecstasy, pounding his cloven hooves onto the concrete floor. A spray of poop left his great buttocks and painted the walls a sexy shade of red and brown.

Meanwhile, Rochelle stood by the door crying. She had fought off three hordes of zombies they had somehow attracted in the past ten minutes.

"Guys!'" she yelled trying to get their attention. "Guys!"

They paid her no mind. Ellis and Nick were locked in a ferocious battle of "suck-each-other's- face" and Coach was looking at the ceiling howling his brave heart out. His heart jumped out of his mouth and started to scream too.

"Listen!" Rochelle screamed, and fired a spray of bullets at Nick's feet.

"Woo!" Nick exclaimed and danced around over them. He danced towards Rochelle and towards the door. He danced right out of sight. The only sign that he was still in existence was the loud stamps of his feet and his faint scream of "woooo". It eventually faded away, just like Rochelle's faith in humankind.

Coach and Ellis looked at Rochelle, stunned.

"Now, are we going to go and get evacuated? Or would you guys rather stay here, make out, and poop yourselves?" Rochelle snapped.

Coach and Ellis turned to each other and grinned slowly, grinning poopy smiles of things yet to come.

"Well-"Coach began.

"You know what?" Rochelle sighed. "Don't answer that. Let's go."

Ellis approached the door and jiggled the handle. "It's stuck," he said.

"How?" Rochelle asked. "Nick just went out."

"Well, it don't matter now." Coach proclaimed. "Watch and learn, little cowgirls."

Coach winked and pressed himself up against the bars of the door.

"Mhmm. Don't fail me now, Satan." he whispered and slithered through the bars.

"Ssssss." he said flicking his forked tongue. "Ssss. Come on. Ssss."

The others turned into snakes and slithered through the bars. Ellis had to stop to shed his skin but, other than that, there was no trouble.

The three greatest of friends hurried down the long hallway into a small elevator.

"Oh, wow!" exclaimed Ellis. "That's Jimmy Gibb's school bus! The very same he used to drown all those children!"

"Hmm…" Coach mused. "This gives me an idea."

Rochelle looked surprised. "You thinking what I'm thinking, Coach?"

"You betcha!"

"Alright," Ellis said. "So what's the plan? Not that I'm not smart enough to think of what you guys are thinkin', 'cause I am. I just wanna see if you know."

"Well," Coach began. "I was thinking that we could go down there, steal the bus…"

"Uh-huh." Rochelle nodded.

"Drive it outta this mall…"

"Uh-huh."

"Get to a safe zone…"

"Uh-huh."

"And drown ourselves!" Coach concluded proudly.

"Wow, that's so perfect," Ellis cooed. He looked at Coach adoringly.

"Yeah, that's great," Rochelle said sarcastically. "But how about a plan that doesn't end up with us all being dead at the bottom of a lake?"

"That's how all the best plans end, but whatever you say." growled Coach.

Rochelle reached out to press the buttons but was swatted away by Ellis.

"I wanna press the buttons! You did last time! If Nick was here, there'd be Hell to pay." He whined.

"Uh, okay, go for it."

Ellis' eyes lit up. He ran his hand down all the buttons and screamed. It reminded him of his grandmother's skin. Lumpy. Hard. Plastic. Glowing.

After several cycles of going up and down in the elevator and being squished against Coach, they reached the ground floor.

"There's the bus!" Rochelle said, pointing. "Come on!"

They piled out of the elevator, tripping over each other in a frenzy to reach the elevator.

"I wanna drive! I wanna drive!" Ellis howled.

Coach elbowed him in the face and took the lead. "Nu-uh! I'm gonna drive!"

"You'll get us killed! I'm going to drive!" Rochelle snapped.

They were all spiraling and tumbling into each other. It was worse than the time Coach was stuck in a washing machine at the Laundromat, trying to get the beef jerky out of someone's pocket. He had been in there for forty days and forty nights.

Coach reached the bus first and pried the doors open using his rippling nipples. He was the Hercules of their time.

Ellis darted underneath Coach's massive arm and turned the key that was in the ignition.

"Damn!" he shouted. "It's outta gas!"

Rochelle swore under her breath. They were all in the bus, but it was now surrounded by zombies.

"What do we do?" Ellis asked, his eyes darting around the bus. "If I could get outta here I could go siphon some gas out in the parkin' lot, just like my grandma taught me."

Coach glanced up. He had been on the floor of the bus sucking up apple cores and gum that had been stuck to the bottom of the seats. He found the taste of child spit made it all the more sweet.

"Look," he said. "There's a hatch on the ceiling. I can toss you outta here using my bulging muscles!"

Ellis shivered in delight at the prospect of being touched by Coach's chicken strip fingers. So thick, so strong, and covered in batter. "Alright," he moaned. "As long as ya'll can keep these critters off me."

Without opening the hatch, Coach grabbed Ellis and threw him through the roof.

"C'mon! We gotta keep these zombies off Ellis!" Coach roared.

Rochelle and Coach clambered through the bloody, Ellis shaped hole.

"Okay, hold 'em off until I get back!" shouted Ellis and he ran off towards the exit.

Rochelle looked at Coach uneasily. "Okay, it's me and you."

"Well, actually," Coach began, a wild look in his eye. "There's something I need to do first. Wait here."

"Bu-"

It was too late. Coach jumped off the roof of the bus, scaled a pillar, and was gone.

The zombies started to claw at the bus and clamber on top of each other. Rochelle fell down, weak in the knees. She tried to kick them away, but one was placed with another.

"Ahem!" a loud voice boomed through the mall. Someone was using the loudspeaker!

Coach rustled his papers in front of him. He had spent all his life waiting for the perfect tagline.

"Attention shoppers! All prices on VHS tapes are being slashed in half. And so are you!" he cackled.

The zombies looked around wildly, trying to see where the noise was coming from. They were in a frenzy trying to reach the loudspeaker and had forgotten about Rochelle for the time being. She breathed a sigh of relief as she saw Coach coming towards her.

He was swinging on a loose wire that was dangling from the ceiling. He landed on the bus, almost caving the roof in.

"What the Hell was that?" Rochelle gasped.

"I was trying to live my dream. Just trying to live my dream…" Coach replied. "You know. Be remembered for something."

"By zombies?" Rochelle asked, confused.

Coach waved his hand in her face. "You wouldn't understand. You don't have a dream."

"I'm a journal-"

"Oh! Look! It's Ellis!" Coach screamed, jumping up and down excitedly.

Ellis approached them, his cheeks swollen. They could hear sloshing whenever he took a step. He reached the bus, opened the gas hatch, and spit a small mouthful of gasoline into the tank.

"Is that all you have?" Rochelle asked incredulously.

Ellis glared at her for a second. He then punched himself in the stomach. Gasoline flew out of his mouth and into the tank. He was crying and shouting Nick's name through heaves of gasoline and last night's dessert.

"Let's go!" Coach yelled, and yanked the blubbering Ellis onto the roof and through the hole that Coach made.

"What's wrong, deputy?" Coach asked, cradling Ellis in his arms.

"Damn," Ellis sniffled. "Swallowin' all that liquid made me think of Nick… Oh, Nick."

"Sssh, it's alright, little man." Coach whispered, kissing Ellis' eyes closed. Coach could taste his warm, salty tears on his lips.

"So warm… So salty… Like old fashioned chicken noodle soup, mmhmmm."

"Coach! Stop eating my eyelashes!" Ellis whined.

"I wasn't eating them!" Coach denied. "I was just… Curling your eyelashes! Yeah… You look real pretty today."

"Oh, thank you kindly!" Ellis blushed, fluttering his eyelids.

"Guys," Rochelle piped up. "Sorry to interrupt, but the pedal is stuck."

"Well, what do you want me to do about it?" Ellis snapped, angry that their cuddle time had been cut short.

"You're a mechanic, aren't you?"

"Naw, I just dress like this 'cause one time Keith was livin' in this graveyard and there were all sorts of different kinds of bombs and there was this goat that screamed for a year every time we opened it's eyes and we filled balloons with our own gators and he had third degree burns all over his turkey he tried to make when he was shootin' crows and he thought we could spice things up in the bedroom so I got these overalls and a horse and dancing for money and stuff and-"

"AAAHHH-OOOOO-AUGHHH!"

Ellis paused. "What was that?"

Coach and Ellis glanced at the front of the bus where the manly scream had come.

"It wasn't me!" Rochelle said, glancing down. "Oh my God!"

"Hey guys," Nick said sleepily, and pulled himself out from underneath the pedals.

"That's what was jamming the pedals! Ol' mechanic Ellis fixes yet another car malfunction!" Ellis declared proudly.

Nick strolled up to Ellis and grabbed his ass. "You're so magically, wonderfully, beautifully, impressive."

"Aw, shucks." Ellis blushed.

Before Ellis and Nick could embrace, Rochelle slammed on the gas and the bus lurched forwards.

They ploughed through any zombies in their way and right out the window.

"Hey, how'd they get the sky down here?" asked Ellis.

"It musta come down here when they saw they left an angel," purred Coach.

Rochelle screamed. "How did we not notice the bus was on the fourth floor?"

The bus sailed through the air, the ground rushing up towards them.

"Everyone, gather around," said Coach. "Let us pray… O Lord… The world looks mighty good to me, 'cause Tootsie Rolls are all I see… Whatever it is I think I see, becomes a Tootsie Roll to me.
Tootsie Roll, how I love your chocolatey chew. Tootsie Roll, I think I'm in love with you… Whatever it is I think I see, becomes a Tootsie Roll to me. Amen."

"Amen," muttered Nick and Ellis in unison.

Maybe the prayer had worked. Maybe they were lucky. Maybe Nick's sex appeal had saved them all. Whatever it was, the bus landed on a smaller bus cushioned with pillows and boxes of cereal.

"That was an ordeal," Nick breathed and ran his hands through his hair. Strands of hair floated through the air.

Coach lay on the backseat of the bus. Rochelle had parked the bus on a seemingly deserted highway. They had clogged up the hole in the ceiling with gum they had found on the bus. It had been a battle to keep Coach from eating it, but they managed.

Coach rolled on his side, sighing. The air was still except for the gentle breathing of his friends and Rochelle.

"Oh, Iqbal…" he whispered. He held the Monopoly piece he had taken from Iqbal's wallet and let his tears pour over it. "Iqbal, oh, Iqbal. You are the number one in my heart. "

Coach froze. He heard a dry rustling underneath the seat he was planted on.

"What in the…?" he muttered. What could it be? The sound almost sounded like mice rustling through dead foot skin in his old room. But there were no mice. Only foot skin. And a broken heart.

Coach leaned over the seat and peered underneath it. He opened his mouth to call out to whatever was under there, but a dry, itchy hand slapped over his mouth. Coach's eyes widened in surprise as he was dragged under.

"Mrrrmmrrrfff! Mrrrmmrrfffmmm!" a familiar voice crooned.

"Iqbal?" Coach stammered. "Is that really you?"

The only reply he got was a pair of, cold, dry, crusty, dead lips on his own. It was the most erotic moment of his life.

Coach grinned stupidly. He stroked Iqbal's ear hole lovingly. He licked his lips. "I wanna make sweet and sweaty love to you all night."

Iqbal made a series of stifled squealing. That was consent enough.

Coach and Iqbal crashed into each other's already naked bodies, like two oceans of passion.