The Zombie Apocalypse Flower Shop

“I think we should go into town today!” Jared announces.

“Do you think there’s a town left?” I ask.

He gets an irritated look on his face. He hates when I question him like this.

“Of course, there’s still a town left. Why wouldn’t there be a town left?”

“Oh I don’t know…a little thing called the zombie apocalypse happening. The town itself might still be there, but I bet we’ll encounter zombies if we go there,” I reply.

“We probably will, but we need supplies and maybe we’ll meet some survivors. They can tell us what’s happening in the world.”

“I think we already know what’s happening, sweetie, but it wouldn’t hurt for us to get more ammo, if there’s any left.”

“Alright then,” Jared says.

We get into the car and turn left, toward town. I briefly look in the rear view window, in the direction of the Kinsley’s house, but there’s been no further activity, since we visited their house yesterday.

I drive the 10 miles into town and look at the gas gauge. We’ve got three quarters of a tank left, which is enough to get us home, easily, but now I worry about using our gas up, because once it’s gone we’ll either be on foot or horseback.

“I think on the way back we should stop by the gas station and fill up and any gas tanks we can, assuming we’re not being chased by zombies,” I say.

“Makes sense,” Jared distractedly says.

I glance at him. He’s looking out his window and he’s got his hand on his gun. There’s a couple zombies squatting on a dead body, chowing down on what’s left. I want to vomit, and look away quickly.

“Jared, maybe we should ignore them. Who knows how many more of them are around?”

“Sue, I hear you and I doubt there are any survivors left. Let’s hit the gun show, get whatever ammo and guns are still left and get out of this place.”

The gun show is fortunately on Main St. I drive a few blocks to get to it, constantly looking around for zombies, but I don’t see any others. All I see are lots of cars parked on the side of the road. I bet if we need to get gas, we could always use the trick of sucking the gas out of the tank. It’s not appealing, but you do what you have to do to get what you need to survive.

I pull up in front of the gun shop and park our car right in the middle of the road. Jared looks scandalized.

“Sue, you can’t just park the car in the middle of the road!”

“Why? I don’t see anyone who’s going to raise a fuss or call the cops. We don’t have time to find a good parking spot anyway. Let’s get in and get the guns and ammo we need.”

“Alright. I still think it’s a bad idea to park in the middle of the street. What if some other survivor comes through here?”

“Then we’ll deal with it. Maybe we can get some of that news you keep hoping for,” I sarcastically reply.

“Ok smartie pants. Let’s just get in and get out of here.”

I turn the car off and we both get out. Jared weaves his way through the parked cars to the gun shop door and tries the handle. The door doesn’t budge.

“They locked the damn door and the windows are boarded up. How are we going to get in?” Jared exasperatedly asks.

“Let’s try the flower shop,” I suggest and point to it. There’s a few Marigold flowers in the window, a reminder of life before the zombies.

“Good idea, sweetheart.”

Jared tries the door and it’s locked as well. He pulls out his pistol and shoots the window of the flower shop. The bullet goes through the window and shatters the flower pot containing the Marigold flowers.

“That’s one way to get us in,” I say.

“If you’ve got better ideas, just tell me!”

“I don’t, but I also don’t want to draw the zombies to us. Let’s see if there’s a way for us to get into the gun shop from the flower shop.”

Jared carefully clears the glass at the window and then hops into the shop and unlocks the front door and opens it with a flourish for me. I grin at him for a moment.

“Such a gentleman, sir!”

“When the opportunity arises,” Jared says.

I roll my eyes and walk into the flower shop. We carefully scan it, but there’s nothing but dying flowers and vases. We walk to the back. There’s a door back there, and Jared tests the handle. It opens and leads us to a back corridor. We turn right and try the next door, to the gun shop and it opens.

“Now our luck is changing!” Jared says.

The lights are turned off. Jared flicks a switch and the light comes on, showing us guns, ammo, and three zombies. Now I know why the front door was locked and the windows were boarded up.

The zombies weakly stir when they see us. They look emaciated, buy the crawl toward us with a determined and famished look in their eyes. Jared coolly plugs each zombie with a shot to the head.

“Let’s get what we need and get out of here,” he says.

“I guess if they don’t eat, they starve.”

“Yeah too bad there isn’t a way to lock those suckers up.”

I start scavenging the ammo. Fortunately there’s still a lot of it in boxes. Jared starts to grab guns, but when he sees how many boxes of ammo I’m finding he drops the guns.

“You don’t want to take them with us?” I ask.

“We need the ammo more than the guns. If there’s still room after we get those boxes loaded, we can come back and get the guns.”

“You know that’s actually sensible,” I tartly reply.

“I have been to known to come up with good ideas occasionally,” he acidly replies.

We find nine boxes of ammo. We’ve got the guns for each type of ammo and it’ll keep us for quite a while. Jared unlocks the front door and carefully looks around.

“We’re clear.”

We start hauling the boxes to the car and get the trunk and back seats loaded up.

“You know, it was a good idea to park on the street,” Jared concedes.

“I’ve been known to come up with good ideas frequently,” I rely, giving him a grin.

Jared chuckles in response and pats me on the back.

“Do you want to grab any of the guns?” I ask.

“Yeah, we have enough room. I’ll grab a few spares just in case. Why don’t you start the car up so we can get out of here.”

I nod and get into the car and start it up. I nervously wait for the next few minutes and then breathe a sigh of relief when Jared comes out with a couple semi-assault rifles and a shot gun stuffed under his left arm and a couple gun cleaning kits in his right hand. He throws it into the back seat and gets in the car.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to go home,” Jared says.

“Gas station first,” I say.

“Right.”

I put the car into drive and take a left turn on the next street and a couple more lefts, bringing us back to Main St. I take a right and then drive over to the gas station. We reach the gas station and Jared hops out and gets the gas started for the card. Debit cards still work, which shows that even with an apocalypse someone still wants to get paid. It seems to take forever for the gas to fill up and when I hear the clunk of the fuel pump, I feel a bit relieved.

“Sue?”

“Yeah, Jared.”

“I need you to cover me.”

I’ve got the window rolled down. I pull out my pistol and look around. I see the zombies. They’re the same ones that were eating the corpse earlier.

“Unnnnggrrrrryyyyyyyy!!!!”

Jared hurriedly puts the gas cap back on and then slides over the car trunk to the other side. One of the zombies howls and starts running at the car. I fire at it, but miss.

“Start the car, start the car!” Jared yells.

I fumble for the keys and jam them back into the starter. I turn the car on and it rumbles to life.

Jared fires a couple shots and the zombie coming toward us tumbles to the ground, dead. Jared slides into the passenger seat, and I put the car into drive. He hurriedly grabs at the door and awkwardly slams it shut.

The remaining zombies start chasing after us, but I’ve got my foot on the pedal and the car speeds up to sixty miles quickly. We leave the zombies eating our dust.

“I think that’s the last trip we should take for a little while,” I gasp.

“You m-might be right about that darling,” Jared replies.

To be continued...

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