Rabid

variety of purses.

I hate to admit it, but he’s right, Taylor thought.  This is about the most useless place we could have stumbled into.

But for the moment they were safe; told himself that that had to count for something.

He walked behind the sales counter and bent down to rummage through the shelves behind it.  There were two drawers on the right side of the counter.  One contained a pricing gun, a roll of packing tape, and a pad of blank invoices.  The other drawer was locked.

Carl said, “Get down!”

Taylor glanced up in time to see his brother hiding behind one of the clothing racks at the front of the store, and ducked down as he heard the sound of a hundred thunderous feet passing by on the sidewalk outside.  He peeked his head above the top of the counter and watched the mob pass.

Once they had passed, Carl sneaked around the rack and up to the window, watching as they headed south along the street.  “You think they’re still looking for us?”

“Probably.”

“Persistent bastards.  You think this is an isolated occurrence?  Like maybe we just stumbled into the wrong town?”

Taylor pulled on the drawer handle.  “Come over here a sec.  And, no, I don’t think it’s an isolated occurrence.  You know better than that.  You heard the same thing as I did on the radio.”

Carl moved around the counter to stand behind his brother.  “All the radio said was there was an outbreak of some kind and that everyone should seek shelter.”

“And the radio also said to maintain a safe distance from the infected.  Lucky for us, they’re pretty easy to spot.”  He pointed to the drawer and then tugged on the handle again.  “See?  Locked.  If there’s something worth locking up, it could be useful.  So help me get this open.”

Carl bent down, wedging his fingers into the small space between the drawer and the counter, pulling on it as Taylor pulled on the handle.

“It’s no good.  We need something to pry it open with.”

“We don’t know if it was a national broadcast on the radio.  Could have been local.”

“I don’t think it was local.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Gut instinct,” Taylor said.

Carl rolled his eyes.  “Was it ‘gut instinct’ that told you to slam the brakes on thick gravel when you were driving the Ford, too?”

“You can’t let me live that down can you?”

“A guy has a near death experience, he tends to remember it.”

“I was sixteen.  Twelve years ago.”

Carl helped him search for something to pry the drawer open with.  After several minutes of searching, he said, “Just forget it.  There isn’t anything here to get that open with.”

“Wait a minute.”  Taylor opened the top drawer and took out the packaging tape dispenser.  It was the kind with a metal lip with jagged teeth below where the tape sat.  “This might work,” he said.  “Not from the top, but if I can get the cutter wedged into the side.”

He motioned for Carl to pull on the handle of the drawer, creating a quarter inch space which was wide enough to slide the tape cutter into.  Taylor held the dispenser by the handle and pushed forward, using the corner of the counter as resistance.  He heard the wood start to splinter.  “Thank God for cheap wood.”  Taylor pushed forward harder, using both hands now, and the metal flap that prevented the drawer from opening gave way.

“See.  You really are like MacGyver.”

Taylor sifted through the contents of the open drawer.  “No gun,” he said.

“We don’t need a gun.  A fire hose would do the trick.”

Taylor picked up a leather deposit bag, unzipped it, and then placed it on top of the counter.  Carl picked it up and counted the cash that was inside.  “Almost a thousand dollars here,” he said.

“And every bit of it completely useless.”

There were other odds-and-ends in the drawer, but none, Taylor thought, were useful enough to warrant keeping under lock and key.  “Why the fuck did they bother locking this thing?  All of this stuff is crap.”

Carl said, “Crap to us.”  He held up the leather deposit bag.  “But on a normal day, I’d say a thousand bucks is worth keeping in a safe place.”

“That’s what banks are for.”

“Maybe the owner didn’t believe in banks.”

At the bottom of the drawer, below a pile of documents, Taylor found a zippered black case.  Upon opening it, he discovered it was a toolset.  “Basic,” he said. “About as basic as you can get.  A flathead and a Phillips.  Pliers.  Zip ties?  Somebody must have added those.  Not much.”

Carl held up the bag of money.  “What do you wanna do with this?”

“Put it back.  It’s not ours.”

Carl zipped the bag shut and tossed it into the drawer.  “Doubt anyone’s going to miss it.”

“Maybe, maybe not, but we’re not thieves.  It’s the principle of the thing.  It’d be a different story if you could hurt those things by throwing five dollar bills at them.  Then I might take the money.”

“What now?”

Taylor shrugged and slid the drawer shut.  “For now, I guess we stay put.  We know they’re still out there.  I’m not willing to try outrunning them again.  If anything, we wait until it gets dark and try to sneak out of town.”

“On foot?”

“We’ll find a car or a truck or something.”

“Doesn’t seem to be an overabundance of them in town if you didn’t notice,” Carl said.

“I can’t figure that out.  It’s a small town.  How many people do you figure live here?”

“I remember seeing the population on the sign when we coasted in on fumes.  I know it wasn’t more than fifteen hundred or close to that.”

“About the same as Coldwater.  So think about home.  If this was home, and we were walking around town the way we have been here, would we have seen any cars by now?”

“Well, if we were walking around downtown, I’d have to say yes because of the car dealership.”

“What if you were walking down Main Street around…” Taylor checked his watch.  “A little after five-thirty.  How many cars would you see?”

“I know what you’re driving at.  Not many.  Nothing is open on Sunday’s except the gas station on the highway, and that isn’t downtown.  Still seems odd.”

“It seems odd now because you’re noticing it for the first time.  Now that we’re actively looking for something to drive the hell out of here, it’s painfully noticeable.  A few of the lucky ones probably got out while the going was good.  Only the crazies left.  How many of those have we seen?  A hundred or so.  Tops.  It’s not so out of the ordinary.  I bet if we can get to the residential part of town, we’d find what we’re looking for.  But I’m not willing to risk it until it gets dark.  Those things out there want to tear us apart, but they’re still human.  At least to the extent that I don’t think they can see in the dark.”

“You really thought that through.  The whole missing car problem I mean.”

“When I was younger, you remember how I liked to take walks?”

“I remember that you liked to go for midnight strolls.  It freaked me out a little actually.  Who does that?  Takes walks in the middle of the night?”

“Best time to do it.  Nobody else around.  A small town is dead at those hours.  I used to pretend I was the only person left on Earth.”

“How the fuck did you get so weird?”

Taylor ignored the question and started to search around the store.  “Help me see if there’s anything else we can use.  It’s close to six.  Should be dark enough out by nine.”