Brian Keene - Jack's Magic Beans

She shook her head, sliding down the wall until she crouched.

“Depressed?”

“No. Yes. Look… Jack—I’m not a commando. I’ve never killed anybody before. Just give me a few minutes, okay?”

“Sure.” He turned back to the window, granting her some privacy. “I’ll keep watch until you’re ready.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

Jack looked out the smudged glass, staring at the carnage. From his vantage point, he had a view of the freezer aisles and part of the dairy aisle. He knew them well. He worked them several nights a week and most weekends—rotating the milk, yogurt, and sour cream; restocking frozen pizzas and vegetables, TV dinners, ice cream and a hundred other items. He barely recognized the aisles now. The glass doors in the frozen vegetables section were shattered. Mist curled out of the freezer, lazily rising towards the ceiling. Dead bodies littered the floor, sometimes three high. The few areas without corpses were littered with pieces of them. Blood and scarlet handprints covered the other freezer doors. Somebody had removed the popsicles from their shelves and replaced them with dozens of severed heads—men, women, and children, young and old.

People-sicles , Jack thought.

He stifled a laugh. It scared him. Was he cracking up, too? Would he be turning on Angie next? He didn’t feel crazy, but would he really know if the illness was starting to set in? All his life, he’d had to deal with people picking on him about his mental illness. Cruel taunts and jokes from classmates who had no fucking clue. He’d been called crazy a thousand times, but now…

He glanced over his shoulder at Angie. Her eyes were still closed, her face serene.

No, he decided that he wasn’t crazy. He was just scared. They both were.

He heard movement behind him. Jack turned, and saw Angie climbing slowly to her feet.

“You ready?” she asked.

He nodded. “Ready if you are.”

Angie made a seesaw motion with her hand. “Not, really. But I sure as hell don’t want to stay here.”

They crept into the store. The double doors creaked on their hinges. Jack had never noticed them doing it before, but now, the sound seemed to echo down the aisles. Both of them braced for an attack, but the store appeared deserted. Muzak still played over the loudspeakers—Elton John’s ‘Island Girl’. Even though he hated the song, Jack knew all the words. It always came on at least once during his shifts. It used to be an annoyance. Now, the song filled him with dread—and a strange, surreal sense of longing. It was familiar in a world that was anything but. It reminded him of home.

Home. The word ran through his head, looking for something to connect with. His parents—he hadn’t thought of them since this whole thing began. Were they okay? Both of them worked during the day. Chances were good they’d been sitting in rush hour traffic when everything happened. Depending on how far the illness had spread, they could be okay. Maybe they were out of range.

And maybe not.

Elton John continued wailing. “You feel her nail scratch your back just like a rake. He one more gone, he one more John, who make the mistake.”

Jack shivered.

“That music’s creepy,” Angie whispered, echoing his thoughts.

“Yeah, it is.”

“Why don’t grocery stores play stuff like the Foo Fighters or Dave Matthews or The Mighty Mighty Bosstones?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “It could be worse.”

“What could possibly be any worse than Elton John?”

“Fergie. The Pussycat Dolls. Fall Out Boy. Kanye West. Take your pick.”

“You fight dirty, Jack.”

He grinned, despite his fears. “So do you.”

She reached out and took his hand, giving it a squeeze. Jack squeezed back.

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” Angie said. “This doesn’t mean we’re gonna hook up. You’re a little too young for me.”

“Okay…”

“This is just because I’m happy to be alive and because I’m scared. Understand?”

“No worries,” Jack said, trying to project confidence. “Don’t be scared. I’ll protect you. My doctor didn’t call me Jack the Giant-Killer for nothing.”

“You’ll protect me? So far, I’ve been covering your ass.”

“I know,” Jack admitted. “But I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.”

Despite their efforts to stay quiet, both of them giggled. Then they moved on, still holding hands. They moved slowly, picking their way around human wreckage. Angie slipped in a pile of intestines. Jack accidentally dropped his knife and bumped into a bloody shopping cart full of severed feet—most of them still wearing shoes. Elton John gave way to Christopher Cross, singing about being lost between the moon and New York City. Jack and Angie knew how he felt.

“Notice something?” Angie asked.

“What’s that?”

“I think we’re alone in here. They’re all dead. Each and every last one of them. It’s like they butchered each other until there was nothing left.”

“Well, we should still be careful. Somebody had to be the last one standing. He or she might still be around. Or there may be others like Marcel, that didn’t change until now.”

What he thought to himself but didn’t say out loud was that they should probably be wary of each other, too.

They made it to the pharmacy without encountering trouble. Angie paled as they approached the counter. Her grip tightened around Jack’s hand.

“What’s wrong?” he whispered. “Did you hear something?”

“No,” she said. “Just brings back bad memories.”

“Well, wait here. I’ll try to hurry.”

“Where are you going?”

“To get us some meds. If my theory is right, then we’re gonna need them.”

“Did you ever work in a pharmacy?”

“No.”

“Then how the hell do you know what you’re looking for?”

“Prozac is really fluoxotine, so that’s what they should have it labeled as.”

The pharmacy’s employee door was locked. Setting his box-cutter aside, Jack vaulted over the counter. There were two corpses behind it. One of them, a woman, was missing her eyes. The other, a man, lay on his stomach. His head had been bashed in with a coffee maker. Jack knew because the bloody appliance lay next to the corpse.

“Is it bad?” Angie called.

“Not as bad as out there, but it ain’t pretty either.”

He stepped over the bodies and went to the back. Then he searched through the shelves and bins until he found what he was looking for—a drawer full of fluoxotine.

“Bingo!”

“You found some?”

“Yep. Grab me a bag, will you?”

“Paper or plastic?”

“Plastic. Easier to carry.”

Angie retrieved a plastic bag from one of the registers and handed it to him over the counter. Jack returned to the shelf, yanked the drawer out of the cabinet, and dumped its contents into the bag. Then he returned to the counter and smiled.

“Do you have your insurance card with you?”

Angie gave him a puzzled look. “No. Why?”

“Oh, well.” Jack chuckled nervously. “What the hell. Prozac’s on the house today. Can I interest you in some free samples of Oxy-Contin, as well? Or how about some high-grade pharmaceutical marijuana?”

“Just the anti-depressants, please. Thanks.”

“Angie…” Jack shook his head. “You should never turn down free weed.”

“We should probably divide up the meds,” Angie suggested. “In case we get separated or something.”

“Okay,” Jack agreed, “but I think we should take them at the same time. That way, we can sort of remind each other. Less chance of forgetting a dose.”

“Good idea.”

“Thanks.”

“So what now?” Angie asked. “Do you think we should leave?”