CHAPTER 6: COOKING WITH GAS
July 30, 1993, 08:00 AM
Harlan was the first one up. After some stretching, he threw on jeans and a jacket and made sense of the mess around the house.
Food in the kitchen, medicine in the cabinet, tools in the shed.
In the middle of this massive sorting effort, Anthony awoke. Bleary-eyed he came downstairs to a greater mess than before and Harlan in the middle of it.
"Hey." Harlan's head snapped to the stairs.
"Oh, hey."
"What the fuck."
Harlan laughed and tried to explain he's getting things in order "if we're gonna be here a while." Anthony made the compelling counter-argument of "how can we live here NOW if it's a mess?" In the process of cleaning up, Harlan came across the gas cans, the objects he set out to set aside at the very beginning of his effort.
"Wanna hit the gas station today, Anthony?" Harlan called as Anthony prepared breakfast over the backyard fire.
"Wha?"
"I said," louder, "GAS STATION?"
"Sure!" Anthony called back.
Once things were sorted, and both men had eaten, Harlan brought six empty gas cans out of the house and tossed them on the backyard grass in front of Anthony. It was a fair and clear day, a slight breeze brought conflicting scents of fresh trees and rotting flesh.
"I think it works out like this, two hands, two cans, one in our backpacks. Plus we gas up the car." Harlan paused. "Or, let's put the gas cans in the truck bed and use our backpacks for whatever's in the store."
"It looked busy when I passed through a couple days ago, but maybe they got distracted?"
"Only one way to find out. Get your shit!" Harlan clapped his hands and slung his big green backpack around his shoulders. Anthony met him at the pickup, tossing his empty cans in the truck bed and hopping in shotgun. Harlan hopped in the pilot's seat, clicking his seatbelt in place. He looked at Anthony.
"Buckle up."
"Really? It's around the corner."
"And if I crash? Do you really trust me that much?"
Anthony paused before buckling up. The pickup rattled to life before rolling through the neighborhood. Anthony watched house after house pass by, some locked up tight, some with the entire facade broken through, and others that were burnt to the ground. Some homes had zombies trapped inside, banging on the glass in a futile attempt to catch the two men as they sped past.
Harlan kept his eyes on the road, swerving away from abandoned cars and over rotting corpses before speeding past the burnt down church and onto Main Street. He noted the book store as they passed the supermarket.
"Can we stop at Spiffo's on the way back?" Harlan glanced at Anthony.
"Why?"
"Maybe they're selling burgers." Harlan groaned. "Maybe they're the last Spiffo's alive and they're just hiding."
"I'll leave you there and skip town if you wanna play that game."
"You could, but you're gonna need me for that." Anthony pointed to the rooftops of the gas station island, it was all they could see past the horde congregated around it. Harlan coasted to a stop on the street and killed the engine, turning to Anthony, who was gripping a baseball bat.
"Let's hop out, make some noise, draw them out into the street. Kill the ones that get close, and if it gets too much just run past the restaurants." Harlan sighed. "We can regroup at Spiffo's." He spat without a drop of humor. Anthony smiled.
"Yeah, that sounds good."
"And if you get bit, drop your loot and lead them someplace far away." Anthony's smile faded. "It applies to me too, Anthony."
"You can call me Tony, Anthony's what my mother calls me."
"Okay, Tony. But you get the plan? We take them out, knock them down, then move the truck in and steal anything that isn't nailed down."
"Yeah, yeah, I've been to flash sales before." Anthony joked as he hopped out of the pickup and walked up to the gas station. Harlan jogged behind him. The horde hasn't noticed them yet.
"ALRIGHT YOU UNDEAD SCREWHEADS, LISTEN UP!" Harlan bellowed as he produced a shotgun. He felt his stomach turn as faces in the crowd, rotten and meaty, faced him. "YOU SEE THIS?" He held his gun aloft. "This… IS MY BOOMSTICK!" The undead crowd was unmoved by his movie quote, and his sole living spectator hadn't seen that one yet.
"Harlan, what the fuck."
"It's a movie!" Harlan turned his back to the horde. "You haven't seen Army of Darkness? Evil Dead?" Anthony shrugged. "Neither one or two?" His bemused look shattered.
"THAT ONE'S RUNNING!" He pointed to the horde behind Harlan, who turned to see one of the zombies bounding for him. There was a brief flash of panic across his nervous system before he pulled his axe off his back, pulled back, and swung it into the undead man's face as he got close. His body flew past Harlan like a ragdoll and came to rest on the grass, the top of his skull cleaved off.
"Is that all you got?" Harlan heckled the mob as they drew closer and closer. A couple broke from the group to shuffle a little faster, Harlan and Anthony took them down as they backed over the road and into a field.
It was simple, back up, bash, back up, bash. The coast was relatively clear after an hour of cracking and caving skulls. Harlan pulled the pickup around to the gas pump while Anthony explored the shop.
Inside, the store looked perfectly pristine. Sure it lacked the electric hum of appliances, but Anthony felt at ease reading familiar brand names. He didn't waste much time, sweeping entire shelves into his bag before hitting the cash register. Empty.
Once his bag was full, he sauntered back outside and emptied it in the pickup's truck bed. Harlan eyed him.
"What's up?"
"Oh, nothing, the truck's full, just topping off the jugs."
"Cool." Anthony returned to the store, emptying more shelves. A few minutes later, Harlan appeared in the doorway and began looting what Anthony couldn't fit. AFter a few minutes, he spoke up.
"Did you check upstairs?"
"Upstairs?" Anthony's head appeared from behind a shelf.
"Yeah, there's an apartment upstairs." Harlan's bag was about half full of junk food. "There might be something worth taking."
"Did you know them?"
"Who?"
"Whoever lived here."
"Yeah, actually. Lucas." He was my first kiss. "He was a classmate of mine."
"Oh, small world."
"It's only small if you stop wandering." Harlan sighed. "He looked like he saw a ghost when I walked in a couple weeks ago." He paused before continuing, "He told me that the rumor around town was… that I was dead. I went to New York and just… ended up face down in an alleyway or something."
"What?" Anthony stopped packing.
"Yeah, dead. Once I graduated, I took a bus to Louisville and a train to New York and never looked back."
"What about your family?" Dead, or disowned.
"They didn't want anything to do with me after I left. And when I came back I kept a low profile. It's been almost a decade."
"Your own family would do you dirty like that?" Oh Tony.
"Yeah, it's not something I like to chat about." Harlan navigated behind the counter and pocketed a big box of cigarettes. "But we should check upstairs before we go." To see if Lucas made it. "To see if there's anything worth taking."
The two men carefully crept upstairs, finding the apartment unlocked. Inside, Harlan found Lucas's body sprawled out on his couch. Self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Harlan pinched the bridge of his nose and took a stabilizing breath. Anthony put a hand on his shoulder.
"Sorry, Harlan, if he was a friend of yours."
"It's fine, it's fine," it's not fine, "At a certain point, you accept death." But Harlan didn't accept death. In fact, he wasn't even entirely sure that this all was really happening. The smell, the quarantine, the virus, the zombies, all of it felt like he was hallucinating in a hospital bed.
Lucas wasn't even his friend, really. He was just some guy who would walk home with Harlan after school sometimes. And maybe one of those times, they took a long detour through the woods and had a little Kodak moment that would've brought out the town's torches and pitchforks if anyone saw. Harlan could still hear the twigs and leaves crunching under their feet that day in '83.
"You accept death because it's everywhere. Everyone is dead, dead, dead, fucking dead!" Harlan wound his fist back and punched a hole in the wall before storming out, leaving Anthony alone with Lucas' body.
Outside, Harlan threw his bag into the truck and sat in the driver's seat. He could see a couple deadheads in the trees, a few more out in the road, just standing there. The world is over, the virus has won, and it can't even celebrate. Harlan felt heat rising up from his stomach, into his chest, and bubbled over as tears. He quietly sobbed until Anthony walked out of the shop. Harlan scrambled for a tissue to clear up his face as Anthony opened the passenger side door.
"Hey, you alright?" Harlan wasn't entirely sure. He held his hands on the steering wheel and stared straight ahead at the undead milling in the woods.
"No, no I don't think so."
Anthony climbed into the car.
"Then let's go home."
And they did. Once the two men returned, Anthony topped off the generator and brought the house to life. Harlan didn't say much, but Anthony could tell he was much happier cooking dinner over the stove and not over a fire.