“I was thinking you meant the psychedelic kind.”
“Oh no, those taste like shit. I make sheet acid.”
“Forget I asked. John, I need some shoes if you have them, and you need to go pack some shit up. We need to get out of here.”
“Why would I pack shit up?” he asked.
“Figure of speech.”
“You make no sense, man,” he told me as he headed up his stairs. I really hope it wasn’t for a nap.
“Well this is a first,” I said to the empty room. “I’m not the craziest one in attendance.”
“What size foot do you have?” John the Tripper yelled down.
“Ten!” I yelled back up.
“I’m an eight. Can you fit in those?”
“When I was twelve maybe.”
“Well can you or can’t you then?” he yelled down.
I think I would be better off with socks rather than trying to cram my feet into a shoe two sizes too small.
“You could wear a pair of Stephanie’s that she left behind!”
“I don’t think that’s going to work.”
“She was a women’s thirteen!” he added.
“What are they canoes?” I asked softly, I didn’t think he would have heard me.
“She had a condition.”
“Amazonian?”
“A women’s thirteen is about a men’s eleven-and-a-half. You want them?”
“Sure, bring some extra socks.” Now I just had to get over my phobia of putting on someone else’s shoes. Hadn’t been bowling in over twenty-five years after I once figured out how many nasty-ass feet those things had been donned on. And that little squirt of disinfectant deodorant that the ‘shoe technician’ put in there would do little to overwhelm the hardy microbes that must be breeding vigorously in that germ-rich soup of toe fungus and foot jam. How’s that sound for appealing? Might as well dip your feet in dirty toilet water.
I was still rubbing the unseen germs off of me when John came back down the stairs. He was carrying an armload of socks and quite possibly the brightest pink sneakers I had ever seen in my life. I mean they looked as if they were potentially battery powered.
“You’re kidding right? Please?” I begged.
“I like socks.”
“No the sneakers.”
“No, Stephanie left a bunch of stuff behind. We’re still married. She visits about once every two months… she’s late this time though.”
My mouth opened, he had once again surprised me. I moved on to something I understood.
“Can you shut those off?” I asked, shielding my eyes from the brightness.
“You’re a funny bastard!” he said, handing over the shoes and some socks.
“I wasn’t trying to be funny,” I said sadly as I went over to the couch to put on my new digs.
John went over to another table in the far corner of the room. He retrieved a large folder that looked thick with paperwork.
“I don’t think you’re going to need to file taxes any time soon,” I said, looking up happily. The sneakers were ugly as hell, but with the added pair of socks, they fit pretty well. Plus, I had the bonus of being able to walk on water if the need arose.
“I’ve never filed taxes,” he said.
“You’re kind of my hero right now,” I told him as I stood, surprised at how well Stephanie’s footwear felt.
“I’m ready to go,” he said, heading towards the kitchen.
“That’s it? That’s all you want to take?” I asked him. “Paperwork?”
“Oh shit, man!” he exclaimed when he turned to me.
“What?” I asked looking around wildly.
“My wife has shoes just like that! How weird is that!”
“Weirder than you know. Let’s get out of here.”
He led the way into the kitchen which had a door to an attached garage, thank God for small favors. The garage was filled with fine soot that was coming in through a partially broken window, but even that did little to obscure the rainbow painted VW van sitting there.
“Did I really expect anything else?” I told the gods of irony.
“Isn’t she a beauty? I bought her brand new back in ‘92.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him they stopped production of his particular model somewhere around the mid-seventies. And beauty was not a word that could be used to describe what rested in his garage. The bright paint did little to hide the various rust holes or the vast number of dings, the van looked like it had been parked on the moon for a few centuries and had suffered a barrage of micro meteor hits.
“It runs?” was all I could ask. It looked too beat up to even be considered a hippie planter.
“Stephanie can’t cook worth a shit,” he said conspiratorially. “Don’t tell her that,” he added as if she were in the next room. “But she has a way with tools like you wouldn’t believe.”
I was now secretly wondering if perhaps Ship-Sized-Shoe-Stephanie, who couldn’t cook but could apparently keep an ancient vehicle finely tuned may or may not be of the feminine persuasion. Again it made absolutely no difference to me, just fodder for my thoughts.
I handed the keys back to John, I wasn’t too particularly thrilled with someone of his mental state driving, but it was still his car.
“Oh shit no, man,” John the Tripper said, pushing the keys back. “I haven’t driven since ‘88 and I just dosed.”
“You’re kidding right?”
“Nope.”
“Besides thinking that right now was a perfect time to drop acid, why would you buy a car if you don’t even drive?”
“The dealer said it fit me.”
I shrugged. “It does, but that still doesn’t make much sense.”
“You feeling anything yet?”
“About what?”
“I put some in your fire water.”
CHAPTER SIX
Eliza & Tomas
Tomas sat for a moment longer. His sister turned her gaze back towards the city that was now under attack. He had felt Michael, of that he was one hundred percent sure, but then what? He could not figure it out; it was as if someone had used the Jaws of Life to severe their connection. Tomas was certain that Mike yet lived, because the connection had not faded to black; it had just stopped even as it was increasing in strength. No, something else was happening here. So when his sister suggested they go and join in the fun down below, he was all for it, if only to see whether he could get some clues and possibly feed; he was so hungry.
“Do you smell that, Tomas?” Eliza asked as she tilted her nose up.
“I smell fire and fear,” Tomas said morosely.
“Exactly,” she answered with a smile. They had just reached the outskirts of the city and were coming in from the west the zombies were pouring in from the north.
“What are you two doing?” a woman shouted from her porch. She was flanked by three malnourished
