Carver Pike - Scalp

Lance scoffed again.

“Go on,” Nitsy said.

“I swear I saw something jump from the girl’s hair onto the hair of the other girl,” Beau finished.

Nobody spoke for a while.

Finally, Nitsy broke the silence. “That makes sense.”

“It does?” Phyllis asked.

“I thought I saw Elias’s hair move when he was coming toward me,” Nitsy informed them.

“And that sound,” Robbie added. “It sounds like bugs trampling each other.”

“It’s in their hair,” Lance said. “So, we shave off our hair.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Robbie said, “if anyone has hair trimmers in their back pocket.”

“All we need is a knife,” Lance said.

“Do you have one on you?” Robbie replied.

Lance shook his head.

“And this room is empty except desks,” Robbie added. “We’d need to get to the kitchen.”

“Risking it out there with those things to get the thing that would maybe, only possibly, keep us safe from those things seems kind of counterproductive,” Phyllis said. “Don’t you think?”

“Getting our phones would be the smartest thing to do,” Nitsy suggested.

“Our phones?” Yasmin asked, shaking her head wildly.

“Our phones are in the auditorium,” Bradley reminded them. “There’s no way I’m going back in there.”

“That would be crazy,” Robbie agreed.

“Fuck that,” Lance said.

“If we can get our phones, even one of them, we can call for help,” Nitsy reminded them. “How long do you think we’ll survive in here without food or water?”

Beau rubbed his head. “Not long.”

“Not long,” Nitsy repeated. “I’ll go for a phone.”

“Nitsy,” Robbie said, grabbing her arm, “you know I’m with you, no matter what, but come on. That’s crazy.”

“There’s literally a bucket,” Nitsy reminded them. “A single bucket… full of our phones.”

“And you’re going to run all the way from the auditorium back to here with a big bucket in your hands?” Phyllis asked.

Nitsy lowered her head. The more she thought about it, the crazier it seemed. She didn’t even know where the bucket was. What if it had been locked up somewhere? That would be the smart thing to do with expensive possessions like kids’ phones. Yet, she couldn’t imagine anyone would go through the trouble to lock up a bucket of phones. It was probably there in the auditorium, on the floor, near where Mrs. Price always sat.

“Does anybody have a better idea?” Nitsy asked.

Nobody answered.

“So, we either go to the kitchen to find a knife and painfully shave everyone’s head… hoping that’ll keep us safe from the zombie horde outside, we go to the auditorium and get the bucket of phones, or we sit here and do nothing.”

“We could make a run for it,” Beau said, “try to get to the woods.”

“And then what?” she asked. “It took the bus a long time to get to campus, and we don’t even know how far the main road is from civilization. You want to hike all that way with these things on our asses?”

Beau shook his head. “No.”

“I say we go for the phones,” Nitsy said.

“There’s a lot of we talk going on,” Lance replied. “Who is this we ?”

“Her… and me,” Robbie informed them.

Nitsy smiled. She couldn’t believe he’d risk his life to go with her.

“It might be better if I go alone,” she said.

“Not gonna happen,” he said.

“Robbie…”

“You’re not gonna talk me out of it. In fact, I think you should stay.”

She held up a hand to stop him. “Fine, we both go.”

She stood up from her spot on the floor.

“Oh,” Robbie said, “we’re going now?”

He suddenly seemed nervous.

“I want to get out of here,” she said.

This was a hell of a first date. Grant and Sally had escaped Main Street on foot. Grant could have gone back for his truck, but it was too risky. Those things were everywhere. They’d spent the daylight hours hiding out in an antique furniture store where Grant often sold his wares. The old lady who owned it never used an alarm. Most people in Clydesville didn’t. Nobody was going to break in to steal her old tables and chairs.

The phone inside the store worked, so Grant tried calling the cops. Nobody answered, and that didn’t surprise him. They would be out there dealing with the situation. The police force was rather small, and they definitely weren’t equipped to handle something of this scale. This was the kind of thing seen in 80s horror movies where military trucks would roll in any moment with scientists clad in white hazmat suits and face shields.

If that happens, they might shoot everyone still alive.

That, too, always happened in those movies.

Sally cried quite a bit at first. She was worried about her family. Her parents were both in their seventies and her younger sister was twenty-two. Their home phone rang and rang. Their cell phones went to voicemail.

If this thing had already infiltrated the Clydesville neighborhoods, things were seriously fucked. Grant had believed it was unique to the Main Street, or downtown, area. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

“We need guns,” Grant said aloud, for at least the third time since they’d entered the store. “Dammit, we need some guns.”

“Then what?” Sally asked, peering out onto the dark street.

“Then we shoot the bastards in the head,” he replied. “Like in the movies. I mean, they’re zombies or somethin’, right? That’s what you do with them. You ain’t ever seen Night of the Living Dead ?”

Grant knew he was dating himself. Of course, there had been countless movies and TV shows about the rising dead, but he wasn’t much of a movie buff. He spent most of his time in his house, so if it wasn’t something that came on basic cable, he probably hadn’t seen it. He appreciated shows like Antique Roadshow and Storage Wars. Television programs with furniture on them often gave him ideas for projects.

Jesus, you really are a boring son of a bitch. What would a woman like Sally see in you anyway?

Here they were, crouched down behind a big oak bookshelf, hiding from whatever sickness was spreading on the other side of the shop window, and he was thinking about romance. In his mind, he might somehow become the hero of this situation and win the girl’s affections in the end.

“It’s dark enough now, I think,” he said as he stood from their hiding place and made his way over to the door.

Sally didn’t budge. “Wait, what? We are not going out there.”

“We can’t stay in here forever.”

“Forever? It’s only been hours.”

“It’s been all day. I know where we need to go. It’s not that far away and in the darkness, we should be able to hide.”

“Hide? We’re hiding now.” She looked at him with her eyes watering. “I don’t even know if my family is okay.”

He crossed the room and held his hand out to her. She refused to take it at first but then accepted it and rose to her feet.

“We ain’t gonna be able to check on your family from in here,” he said.

“We don’t even know if those things see, hear, smell… I mean they’re human, right? They should be able to do whatever humans do.”

“Sure as hell seemed like it back at the diner.”

Grant walked to the floor-to-ceiling glass window and peered out at the dark street. He was surprised he didn’t see burning cars or anything else destroyed the way things always were in scenes of the aftermath of riots or other periods of mass hysteria. From where he stood, Main Street looked no different than it would any other night. In the dark, it looked quite peaceful.