Аманда Хокинг - Hollowland

She was still staring at him when his friend came into the living room. His mouth was full, and he had a half-eaten can of SPAM in one hand and a Fiji water in the other. Without the gun, he wasn’t intimidating at all. Short and wiry, with a slim fitting tee shirt and jeans, he looked completely out of place.

“What’s with the kid from The Shining ?” He gestured to Harlow, spitting little chunks of SPAM out when he spoke.

“Oh my god.” Harlow did a sharp intake of breath, and her eyes widened when she saw him. “You’re Lazlo Durante !”

“Oh,” I said as it dawned on me.

Lazlo Durante had been the guitarist or drummer or something in this band called Emeriso. Right before the world went to hell, they had been the hottest group out there.

They were radio-friendly punk, kind of like a boy band with guitars, but their music had been catchy. Even I had their album. Lazlo was on one of the last ever covers of Rolling Stone , looking rather sexy in a shirtless pose.

“The one and only.” Lazlo choked down the massive chunk of SPAM in his mouth and smiled.

His chest puffed up, and he managed to look proud. I guess it must be some kind of achievement getting recognized after the apocalypse.

“What are you doing here?” Harlow asked, in awe.

“Probably the same thing you are. Raiding the place for anything useful.” Lazlo took a swig of water and pointed to the hole in the wall from when he shot at Ripley. “Sorry about that. I thought she was gonna eat my face. Where’d you get a lion anyway?”

“Found her on the side of the road,” I said.

“Sorry. I’m being a total pig. I just haven’t eaten in a while.” He looked at Blue and motioned to the kitchen. “They have other stuff in there, if you wanna eat. And not just SPAM. I know you’re not that into it.”

Lazlo smirked, and in a falsetto, he said, “ I don’t like SPAM ,” and then went back to his normal voice. “Like from the Monty Python sketch, right?”

“What’s Monty Python?” Harlow asked, and I rolled my eyes.

“Do you mind if I get some food?” Blue asked, looking to me for confirmation.

“Yeah, sure,” I shrugged. “Just leave some for us.”

I didn’t have a claim to it any more than they did, but I needed to make sure we were fed. Ripley had been eating some of the zombies, so at least she wasn’t hungry.

“Thanks,” Blue smiled gratefully and headed to the kitchen.

“Come on. Let’s see what they have upstairs.” I put my hand on Harlow’s shoulder.

“But-”

“Come on.” I pushed her harder, and she stared back at Lazlo.

When we left the living room, he was still standing there, and he hissed at Ripley.

“There’s nothing that great up here,” Harlow muttered as I forced her up the stairs. “I don’t know why you need me to come with you.”

“Don’t argue with me,” I sighed.

“It’s just clothes,” she said.

I didn’t want Blue or Lazlo to overhear so I didn’t say anything until we got into the massive master suite. It had tall double doors, with ridiculous gold inlays. Once we were inside, I shut the doors behind me, and Harlow walked over to the king sized bed and flopped down.

She had been going through the closet when Lazlo and Blue arrived, and clothes were strewn about the room. It sort of looked like a zombie had done it, but none of them were torn or covered in blood.

“I didn’t want to leave you down there with them.” I picked up some of the discarded clothes off the floor.

“Why not?” Harlow crossed her arms over her chest.

“Those are two guys with guns who we just met and you’re a thirteen-year-old girl!”

“ Lazlo Durante would never do anything!” Harlow insisted, almost swooning at his name.

“Whatever,” I scoffed. “Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“ That .” I waved vaguely to her with an argyle sweater. “Be all… like that. It’s the end of the world. You can’t have school girl crushes during the end of the world.”

“Why not?” Harlow sounded offended. “You got to have a boyfriend.”

“He wasn’t my boyfriend,” I said under my breath.

I went into the walk-in closet so I wouldn’t have to talk about Beck. The sun had almost completely gone down, so I could barely see anything. I pulled at the clothes, hoping to get something I needed. Jeans and underwear were my top priorities.

When I came out of the closet, Harlow had found a box of matches. The room was lined with thick white pillar candles, and she began to light them.

“There’s a pool out back,” she said as she lit the last candle. “It’s a little skuzzy, but maybe tomorrow we could clean it and go swimming. It might be the closest thing we have to a shower for a while.”

“Maybe.”

I still had my messenger bag looped over my shoulder. I pulled it up over my head, along with the gun and set them on the bed. My tennis shoes had been very nice Converse before I wore them all to hell, and I slipped them off. When I sat down on the bed, my feet throbbed painfully.

“I don’t wanna walk tomorrow,” Harlow said. “I don’t think I can do that much again.”

She sat on the bed next to me, and I looked over at her feet for the first time. They were covered in bloody, swollen blisters.

“Holy hell!” I gaped at her wounds.

“I know. When I pulled off my socks, they were full of blood.” She stared down at her feet wearily for a second, and then looked sharply at me. “Don’t worry. It was all my blood. Those are army grade boots, and they don’t have any holes. I double checked.”

“Those boots are killing your feet, though. They’re way too big!” I wanted to get up off the bed and take them from her, so she couldn’t let them mutilate her feet anymore, but I wasn’t ready to move just yet.

“But they’re great for kicking in zombie’s heads.”

“Yeah, but I haven’t seen you kick any zombie’s heads since I met you.” I shook my head. “You can get gangrene and lose your feet. And there’s no way you can go swimming like that.”

“What? Why not?”

“The water is probably contaminated with the virus, and you have open wounds,” I said. “Even if it’s not full of the zombie virus, it’s probably has something that would cause a major infection. In fact, come here.”

“I am here.”

“Come closer. I don’t know why you argue so much. Have I led you wrong yet?”

She sighed and scooted over to me. I put her feet on the bed, setting the argyle sweater underneath them. I reached in my bag and dug out a bottle of alcohol. Beck had told me to always be sure to pack plenty of bandages for wrapping wounds and lots of alcohol. It might not stop the zombie virus, but it would suck to die from tetanus.

“This might sting,” I warned her, and before she could protest, I poured it on her feet. She let out such a shrill scream, I would’ve thought someone cut her leg off. “Harlow! Shh! It’s okay!”

Within a minute, I heard feet pounding up the stairs, and Blue threw open the bedroom door, gun in his hand. I reached for my gun, but I only put my hand on it.

“Is everything okay?” Blue scanned the room.

“Yeah, I was just cleaning her feet.” I pointed to Harlow’s damaged appendages.

“Are there zombies in there?” Lazlo shouted from somewhere down the hall.

“No, it’s all clear,” Blue yelled back at him and lowered his gun.

“You used to be a doctor, right?” Harlow asked him. “She’s killing my feet.”

“Do you want me to check them out?” Blue offered, stepping closer to where we sat. “I mean, I wasn’t board certified, but I can clean a few cuts.”