Starts with a Match

Warzone of IKEA

Ten minutes into IKEA and I'm sweating a little. Think I should've at least showered before I came out of the house. I keep scratching at my neck and the dry burns on the backs of my shoulders under my shirt sleeves.

Fifteen minutes in and I'm struggling to keep up with Toby's questions about bedroom furniture and what sized mattress do I want and do I want my dresser to match my bedside table and do I care if my curtains are black out and am I going to want a lamp like them and a thousand other things.

Twenty minutes in and we're passing through the kids section to get to the office stuff, since we have a small corner in the living room I could use if I wanted to.

I'm panting into my face mask. No one else is wearing one. Except Toby is. And last thing I want is to end up glut right after they got saddled with me.

The first sharp whine of a child has a shiver going up my spine. The next, a newborn, paired with horrid, hiccupping crying, has my fingers digging too hard into the almost healed bullet hole under my shirt, and my nails come back a little bloody. My shirt's bloody. "Um..."

Toby doesn't hear me. Not over the speakers squawking the same hip-hop songs I've heard a million times since I got back to the states a mere nine days ago.

A kid rushes past me, snarling and laughing at his little sister, and she's screaming bloody murder at the top of her lungs.

It's when I'm not paying attention to my steps, and I thump into a child's rocking horse, knocking it over and into a little desk, that Toby finally turns and sees me. Their eyes go wide. There's a question in their expression. All I hear is wailing.

"No fair, Gigi!" little boy yells in the center of a fake bedroom. "The safety zone is in the kitchen area!"

"I don't care! Zombies can't get past the wall—and I'm behind a wall!"

"A hamper is not a wall!"

"Is so! You're just mad cause you can't get any of my tasty blood!" Third little kid comes rushing out from under a bed, grabbing her ankle. She shrieks. "No!"

"You can't turn your back on gluts, Gigi!"

"No, no teaming up, Max!"

"Too bad! Get her, Tyler!"

They descend. Parents walk around them like it's nothing.

There's blood everywhere.

There's warm mouth and teeth on my neck, and I'm looking into Lou Stone's blue eyes.

Half his face is missing from where I blew it off. His jaw turns up, crooked and black and snarling.

When he talks, his tongue lolls down to his collarbone, and I hear it pinching into my eardrum. "Look at that, Koop. You're nothing. Like I thought. Nothing without your guns and your back up."

My hand darts to my hip. No gun. No backup.

Stone shakes me, hard. Shakes me again, harder. I jump backward and trip over a throw pillow and slam into the wall, staring at Toby, staring at me.

"Kevin." So solid.

No words for me now. Not in my torn open throat, not with blood gushing through the teeth puncture wounds like this. My hand flies to my neck. Soaking wet with sweat.

Didn't mind the loud music and laughter and sound of traffic and honking and Toby's screaming and my hard breathing in the car.

Didn't mind it.