Keep Busy

16.

Jefferson.

The town was called Jefferson and offered very little.

Like Flint and the others, it was one of thousands of desolate highway towns dotting the nation, giving truck drivers a place to fuel up, shower and score some meth.

"We should try to find some Tylenol, you know. For your head," Jane said daintily sipping on her last blood bag as Frank continued organizing the back of the 4 Runner.

"I prefer liquid Tylenol," he said, folding and creasing a pair of pants.

"What? Like the gel-cap thingies?"

"Like the kind you can drink." He pushed the footlocker a half-inch to the left. "I think it's called alcohol."

"Oh. Right," Jane said rolling her eyes and smoothing the front of her loose linen blouse. She'd found what she called, tolerable clothes at a sad little thrift store. The racks had all been overturned, the old records and brick-a-brack scattered and broken, furniture toppled and smashed with what may have been a sledgehammer—and Frank again wondered how it all happened.

Had people simply gone crazy?

Frank pictured a scene with rampaging lunatics barreling through the store fleeing police, overturning everything in their path as they dashed by, desperately trying to slow their pursuers.

Why does chaos have to be so messy?

Jane's shirt was flouncy and light, hanging off her breasts, creating a fragile tent of fabric over her stomach. The sun behind her made the sheer material translucent, allowing Frank to see the gentle curves of her waist and hips. The spaghetti straps snaked over her protruding collar bones and sharp shoulders, showcasing her perfectly smooth, if very pale, skin. Sadly, the thrift store, while providing what Frank characterized as hippie clothes reminiscent of the kind his mother used to wear, did not turn up any booze.

This was becoming a serious issue as the knot on the back of Frank's skull was beginning to throb. The need for his medicine was getting more urgent with each passing second.

"Maybe just drink a bunch of water. 90 percent of headaches are caused by dehydration," Jane said.

"I don't think getting my head smashed by the rear hatch made me dehydrated. Pretty sure I fall into the other 10 percent. The group that chalks up their headaches to severe head trauma."

"Drama, drama. I don't think it's that severe."

Frank straightened up and looked at her. She looked like a kid sucking on one of those applesauce pouches. "Shouldn't you be masturbating or something? Pruning your flower?"

"I think you masturbate enough for the both of us."

"Oh, hey. Dead guy," Frank said, pointing over Jane's shoulder, happy to change the subject.

She glanced over and saw the leaking form of what might have been an auto mechanic, wearing faded grey coveralls. His feet sloshed and squirted with each painfully slow step, his work boots having long since split and fallen away as his lower extremities expanded. His face looked like a melted candle, skin hanging over the eyes but the jaw still working. Teeth clicking.

"I got this," Jane said, putting her blood bag back in the cooler with all the other empties. She grabbed the tire iron Frank had placed evenly on top of the footlocker and sauntered over.

"You sure? You don't want to mess up your Woodstock cosplay."

"Shut it," she returned, swaying her hips fluidly as she closed the distance between her and the putrid zombie. She spun the tire iron in her hands like she was a baton girl at the front of a parade and in one graceful motion, raised it over her head and brought it down into the thing's skull. Its forehead caved in like wet cardboard, black syrup drained from its open mouth before it fell to the ground in a grotesque pile.

Jane pulled the tire iron out of the decimated skull and passed Frank on her way back to the 4 Runner. "Easy, peasy," she said, keeping up the swinging hips routine. Frank rolled his eyes as he approached the crushed monster and busied himself pulling the zombie off to the side of the road and arranging the body At least this time the kill had been clean, unlike a few others during which Jane tried her hand at swinging the tire iron like a baseball bat sending teeth and chunks of the face launching toward the horizon. Still, Frank would clean up the macabre scenes, scooping up little dollops of tissue and bone just to keep things looking tidy.

They spent the rest of the morning searching the gutted grocery store, looking through cars and ramshackle homes, even the post office but turned up nothing worthwhile apart from a very stale box of Hostess Twinkies, which Frank ate eagerly. There was only one option left. A squat little gas station on the far end of town.

After Frank had satisfactorily rearranged the rear of the 4 Runner and grabbed the wiped-off tire iron in case they ran into any more zombies, they crunched off the shoulder and drove the short distance to what Frank prayed would be their salvation. His salvation. A purveyor of a hidden bottle of booze.

At the gas station—the Fill 'n' Feed—Frank and Jane were surprised to find a distinct lack of clutter. It appeared as though someone had cleaned the place up. Probably someone like Frank—early on, when there were still people alive to do such things. The floor was swept—or at least, all the detritus had been pushed to one side—the shelves, while devoid of anything useful, were relatively ordered with evenly spaced packages of windshield wipers and cans of degreaser—sadly, no food. All the coolers had been gutted but the shelving looked satisfyingly symmetrical in their emptiness.

The windows were broken, of course, but the glass had been cleaned up.

"Have you been here before?" Jane asked.

"Ha, Ha," Frank said squarely.

They made their way through the small store to the back. The office door was closed. Frank shivered in anticipation hoping his desk theory wouldn't be a total wash. He turned to Jane with his hand on the knob, savoring the moment. She crossed her arms and cocked her head to one side. Her baggy, patchwork pants completely hiding her tapping foot. "Too bad you didn't find a bong or anything to go with that outfit?" Frank said. "Some greasy, white-girl dreadlocks perhaps?"

"They aren't hippie clothes. The pants are just a little baggy. And possibly made from a quilt."

"And reek of patchouli."

"Do they?" she asked as Frank turned the knob to the back room.

He pushed the door open and was met by a smiling human face. Then, what appeared to be the stock of a rifle rushed at his forehead and everything went black. Again.