My name is Glen Rappaport and I was a Super Dippy Chips delivery guy in my life before the Infestation. I drove a huge truck, the one that everyone hated because it took up five parking spots. I unloaded and restocked the Super Dippy chip shelves in both grocery stores and mini-mart stores. I also liked to fresh water fish, and train American Pit Bull Terriers and like Norman, I am a zombie killer.
You might think that a guy who pushes around carts all day and has to walk up and down ramps might build up muscles. While this is true to some extent, I am no Adonis.
I am not quite six feet, not quite thin, and am not genetically gifted with a full head of hair and what there is usually sticks out from underneath of a Chicago Cubs ball cap and isn’t quite blond.
On the other hand, I am not hideous, at least I have never had little children scream and hide at my sight. I am reasonably smart with a good sense of humor, and tolerably innovative, and though I’m no marksman, I can shoot and usually hit where I’m aiming. I can cook too, I mean cook not just heat.
Also, I tear-up during dramatic animal movies. Like when the lost dog makes that hundred-yard dash across the field in slow motion and lept into Lil’ Davey’s arms. Let’s just say it’s really hard for me to cope with all of the dust in the movie theater.
I became a zombie killer by necessity, as you might imagine. I mean, the term “zombie killer” carries with it the innate understanding needed. There is you, there are zombies, and they must be killed. Yea, I know that they’re called “Host” and not really zombies but “Host” just sounds too clean for what they do to people and I’m not about making them sound clean and wholesome, so for me it’s all about zombies.
I might not have been a zombie killer if I hadn’t been trapped in a mini-mart one night, and I wasn’t in the mini-mart because of my job either! I had gone in for a slushy drink. Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s pathetic for a 32 year-old-man to be addicted to slushy drinks but hey, everyone has a weakness and slushy drinks are my kryptonite. And it’s gotta be cola. You can have your wild cherry or whatever else silly flavor of drink you want, but seriously, for me there is nothing particularly cherry about that fluorescent red drink so you can keep it and just make mine cola.
Anyway, I had just shut the tap off as the last of the wonderful icy cola slushy drink topped off my cup, and was trying to get the domed lid sealed, when I heard someone right behind me. I mean, right behind me! I could tell by the heavy breathing the person was quite a bit shorter than me so, though I’m not into confrontation, I decided to turn around and back the person away using my Vulcan-style raised eyebrow look.
When I did turn, my slowly arching eye fell on a short, heavy-set, Hispanic woman in her late 40s wearing a mini-mart smock. She had this, ‘Who said you could breathe in my store?’ look about her and my body jerked in a prophetic attempt at self-preservation.
“Uh, yes?” I said.
Nothing, just the stare.
“Can I help you… ma’am? Señora? Señorita?” I tried.
Still nothing, except now her mouth twisted up at the corners, unnaturally, as if her smile was nurturing a bad attitude.
“So, can I pay for my slushy drink… now?” I tried again.
In a flash she was on me. Her body bounced up and down, sliding against mine as she attempted to get her small pudgy hands around my throat. It reminded me of the time when I was twelve, and Uncle Frank’s male malamute tried to get a little frisky with me. A gargling growl came from the woman’s wide-open mouth while I tried to push her away.
The angle was bad and I had no leverage, and my brain was pretty messed up at the moment. The thought of screaming for help beat at the door of my cerebellum, however my testosterone told the thought not to be a pansy, buck up and to pass the word to my arms to push back. So I pushed back, or tried to.
The woman, hefty for her size, didn’t move much against, what I considered, was a fairly stout push. She took my arm with a level of strength that seemed improbable, and whipped me around into the air. I half flew, half stumbled across the floor to crash into the cold-drink doors, which cracked.
A line spread across safety glass just before my brain registered the clerk was charging me. With just seconds to spare, I rolled across the glass doors and she ran into them, breaking through and falling into the shelved drinks. She was in a rage and didn’t seem to feel the cuts and gashes she was making as she fought against the door that kept opening and closing as she thrashed.
I took this time to get my feet under me and run for the front door. As I ran by the counter, I threw a five-dollar bill on it and kept moving. Hey, I’m no thief! With freedom just eight feet away, she tackled me from behind and my slushy drink, which I had been able to save until then, flew from my hand and slopped against the front window. I used most of my strength to roll over and made it in time to block her hammer fist barreling down towards my noggin. Unfortunately, my arm muscles weren’t locked so she drove my own arm down against my nose. A loud snap echoed through my skull and an intense pain shot through my face as blood poured out.
That’s it! I decided as adrenalin shot through my body, flipping my “pissed off” switch to on.
I managed to roll her off, kind of. She was stronger than me but her body mass was tipped slightly to one side so she toppled over and clipped her head hard on a rack holding newspapers. I rolled to my feet and grabbed the first thing I saw, a bottle of cheap fruity wine.
I turned, intending just to threaten her but saw she had now recovered and was retrieving a box cutter from her smock pocket. Instead of raising the bottle as a threat, I followed through and whacked it hard against her left temple. To my amazement, the bottle didn’t break.
“Stop!” I yelled.
She swayed in my direction, but I wasn’t sure if the movement indicated she had heard, or she didn’t care.
“Alto!” I yelled, trying to remember the one year of Spanish I took in high school. Then a crazy thought stumbled onto the stage of my brain, If my Spanish teacher, Miss Rosario, had been ugly I might have learned more!
The clerk seemed to be regaining her focus, a grimace once again crossing her face, but before she could move, I brought the bottle down on top of her head. It made a hollow thunk, right before it shattered and the wine, a weird pink color, splashed all over both of us. The follow-through of my swing caused the jagged neck of the bottle to cut her forehead and face. She pitched forward in a world-class face-plant, then lay still.
In the next second I felt myself coming down off the adrenalin high. I had tried to stand but my knees went weak and I settled back onto the floor as my hands began to shake. I pulled my cell phone from my back pocket and barely managed to call 911. When a human didn’t answer I left a message and then like a good citizen, I waited for the police to arrive. Had I been in a better place mentally I might have had a real problem with being able to leave a message on 911.
Looking down at the clerk, sprawled out before me and bleeding profusely from the cuts on her head, neck and arms, I thought for a instant that I would use my hard learned scouting first aid skills to see if she had a pulse. I quickly decided that I was already in trouble and should probably not contaminate myself with potential evidence before the police arrived.
I zoned out for about five minutes then lifted my gaze again to look at the poor woman. I noticed a movement just down from her short hairline. It looked like some kind of bug was backing out of her neck, like a tick backs out when you touch it with a lit match. Its length amazed me, something around six inches or so.
When the bug completely pulled itself from the woman’s neck it raised its head and looked around in a very un-bug like way, as if it there was something that it was trying to identify. It was creepy, like there was something more than bug thoughts going on behind those bug eyes.
I guess I got spooked at this huge bug skittering towards me and I automatically went into a crab-walk backing away from the woman and the searching insect. My movement and noise grabbed the bug’s attention and it sprang off the woman’s neck and onto the tiled floor. I happily noticed that the wine made the linoleum floor slick and gave the bug very little traction, giving me more time to gain my composure.
It finally cleared the liquid and increased speed. As it closed in, I prepared myself to feel it’s thin, needle-like legs then remembered that I still had the remains of the wine bottle in my hand. I brought it down, edge first, onto the bug. The jagged glass edges dug into its hard exoskeleton but did little to stop it from moving. I added pressure until suddenly the glass cut through the bug, hit the floor and shattered in my hand.
I jumped to my feet, ignoring the pain momentarily, while the bug lay there squirming. I hoped that it was only nerve reflex and not that it was going to grow two heads like that Greek monster that grew two heads every time one got cut off. It finally stopped thrashing, then jerking, then lay still.
I pulled my cell out again and saw that twenty minutes had passed and the cops had still not arrived. I was going to call again when I heard a scream. It was a woman’s scream and it was coming closer. I stumbled past the clerk’s body so that I could duck down behind the counter. From my new hiding place I peeked up and saw my five dollar bill still lay on the counter-top so I grabbed it. Since the clerk tackled me and caused me to drop my slushy drink, I felt no need to pay for it.
I had tucked the bill back into my pocket when I saw a woman stumble into view outside the door. She was limping and her bloody face glistened in the bright exterior store lighting. She reached for the door and I started to stand and to leave my cover to help her until another woman came into view.
This new woman sported an executive-level business suit, the very look of Wall Street. It caught my attention, as did the blood spatters on her face and the machete that she swung. On this particular swing, the machete caught the other woman in the back of the head. The blade evidently stuck because when the woman fell she dragged the machete out of Wall Street woman’s hand. As the woman slammed into the store window and slowly slid down the glass, spreading a wide swatch of blood as she fell, Wall Street laughed. Yea, laughed. I mean, she threw her head back and gave one of those, “I have conquered!” laughs.
She realized where she was and looked into the store. The internal ‘scream-for-help’ that I quenched earlier began looking for the cerebellum again, to ask its advice about the current situation because it was pretty sure that this time, screaming was the best option. Alas, testosterone was no help at all and decided he was useless and would just sit and cry.
I ducked back down behind the counter as the door yanked open. The store counter was just a laminated top surrounded along the outside by racks of candy and chips. Through the spaces between the snacks I saw the crazy woman approach the clerk’s body then move towards the area of the dead bug.
For a minute I thought about fainting as an intense low, inaudible vibration went through my head followed by a high pitched scream in multiple octaves that came from the mouth of Wall Street and I felt pretty sure that no normal human could make that sound. If there was something that haunted me from the weirdness of that initial night, something that I had to deal with for many nights after, it was that scream.
In an instant the business woman changed from normal homicidal crazy to being the conductor on the wacko train to La-La land. She began ripping the store apart, rampaging down the aisle away from me, grabbing and throwing entire racks of goods across the store.
I watched her from beneath the counter while trying to formulate a plan to get out of this shop, when my eyes refocused on a large caliber pistol that had been slipped into a holster screwed to the underneath side of the counter-top. I scanned the area and saw a box of ammunition sitting on a shelf nearby.
I pulled the gun from the holster as the sounds of Wall Street began heading back my way. I looked the gun over and realized it was called a “Judge.” My brother-in-law had one and we spent about an hour shooting it one day a year ago. It could shoot .45 caliber bullets, or 410 shotgun shells but I didn’t have time to figure out which type were loaded.
The crazy woman finished her destruction of the candy aisle and literally jumped about eight feet to land at the entrance to the counter, staring at me with a crazy grin, and blocking my way. It took her less than a minute to decide what to do. She charged me, her eyes wide open and her lips rolled back, exposing all of her teeth and I knew, I just knew that she was going to literally eat me!
On pure instinct, I pointed the gun at her and pulled the trigger. It erupted, booming off my eardrums as a 410 shell fired sending multiple pellets into Wall Street’s chest. She stumbled back about six feet then regained her balance and moved forward again.
I raised the gun a little higher and fired again. This time a single round left the gun, entered her throat and ripped through her spinal column as it went out the other side. Her knees buckled as the bullet’s impact knocked her back causing her to fold like an accordion. She didn’t move again but I wasn’t going to wait for any damn bug to pop out of her body so I stood up, grabbed the box of ammunition began to run the gauntlet.
I jumped over Wall Street’s corpse, slowly maneuvered past the clerk’s body, opened the exterior doors while side stepping the other woman’s body, machete still firmly planted in her head. I ran for my car, both amazed and ecstatic that I was still alive.
I quickly unlocked my car, thinking all alon that I might drop the keys and accidentally kick them under the car as I had seen in so many of the thriller’s I had watched on TV. The car latch lifted with a pop as I heard a couple of gun shots a block or so over, and sirens coming from multiple areas. I climbed in and slammed the door lock stubs down, locking me safely in the car. At least a that point in the Infestation I thought I was safe.
I stopped for a second, my fingers poised on the keys, ready to crank the ignition. Something told me that this was the end of civilization and that nothing would ever be the same. I thought about it for about thirty seconds then suddenly knew what I had to do. I reloaded my gun, climbed out and relocked the car. Five minutes later I returned from the mini-mart, unlocked the car and climbed in. I sat my two bags of groceries and medical supplies in the other seat. I had taken them from the store without paying but I figured that I could win a pretty good sized law suit for being attacked by the store clerk so I wasn’t that concerned about the $100.00 worth of over-priced merchandise.
I carefully set my cola flavored slushy drink into the drink holder between the seats and gazed at it. A tear began to form as I thought. If this was the end then I was going to relish what would possibly be the last slushy drink ever made. I sucked on the straw, filling my mouth and savoring the icy cola flavored liquid. This would have to last me for a while, maybe forever. I wanted to create a memory so powerful that my grandkids could describe my slushy drink and their kids would salivate.
I had finished half of my beverage, and without getting brain-freeze I might add, when a small pimple-faced 12-year-old boy ran full tilt at my car. He dived on the hood and tried to break my windshield by slamming it with his fists, “Hulk smash” style. I instinctively threw my arms up and sent my slushy drink flying into the back seat. Damn. I had about two-thirds of a tank of gas and decided to head out of town as quick as I could. As I left the parking lot and turned right, the kid lost his grip and slid off my car and into the road where he was crushed by a passing eighteen wheeler.
I did think to stop by my apartment to get a few things but since it was on fire and several dead bodies littered the once flowered landscape, I thought that I should just continue out of the city. I drove east for an hour or so until my gas tank passed the less-than-quarter mark and the fuel light came on. Fortunately, a few minutes later I came up to a truck stop on the front edge of a small town. I circled it once and seeing no burning cars, and dead bodies, I stopped.
As I cautiously entered the store, the clerk was banging on a radio that sat behind the counter. He looked up without smiling and I nodded with my hand on the pistol I had stuck beneath my belt at my back. I looked around the store, which seemed pretty normal, especially since he didn’t immediately try to eat me when I walked in. As I thought about the new “normal” I realized that my definition of normal was pretty flexible right then. I pulled my hand away from the gun and let my jacket fall back into place to conceal it.
“What’s new in the world?” I probed.
He shrugged, mumbled something about communists and the rising cost of milk, and complained that his radio was on the fritz. I left him to his caveman troubleshooting technique and went about buying my gas and supplies. When I took my credit card back from the clerk and placed it in my wallet I inventoried what I had purchased. Three six-gallon gas cans, two tarps, some rope, a few disposable propane lighters, and a good quality but highly overpriced pocket knife. I cleared out most of his jerky, processed cheese sticks, corn-nuts, saltine crackers and canned meats. I looked back later and realized the feebleness of my attempt at preparation but I bought nothing that I regretted. Except perhaps not buying another slushy drink.
I filled my car’s gas tank, as well as the extra gas cans, and then walked back in and told the clerk about the trouble in the city and that he might want to close up and go home to his family. He looked at me as if I were a flying pig. Hey, I gave it a shot.
I climbed in the car and headed out of town at about 9am. A large sign indicating a gun store slapped me in the face so I pulled in. As luck would have it, the owner had just arrived and was unlocking the door. I asked him nonchalantly if he had heard of any trouble in the area and when he said he hadn’t I was relieved. I hoped that this craziness might just be in the city.
I wondered around his store like a kid in a dangerous candy store, then purchased several boxes of .45 bullets, several boxes of 410 shotgun shells, and a cleaning kit.
He had just finished ringing up my ammunition when I saw a 12 gauge pump shotgun hanging on the wall behind the register. I decided to max my card out and buy it and some shells but when we got to the part of the sale where he needed to run the background check, he told me that for some reason the phone system was down and could call into the feds. I told him to cancel the order and lied that I would buy one on my way back through town even though I figured that there would be no town to come back to. As it turned out, I figured rightly.
I had no idea where to go so I settled on north. I thought that Canada might be safe, or some place like Wyoming, Montana, or Idaho might be safe, or maybe nowhere was safe. In the end I decided to head to Canada and hunker down for a few weeks… or months, and see what direction the craziness took. In another month that will have been 5 years ago and “hunkering down” has become my way of life. I met-up with Norman about a year ago and when he asked me if I he could record my story I was all too glad to have someone to tell it to. It kind of helped me put things into perspective, bless him.
My life has totally changed. I eat what I forage, I bathe in open streams, I sleep under the stars and funny enough, I’m pretty content. Though, every once in a while, when I think about my old life and the world that was and is long gone, I get this crazy craving for a cola-flavored slushy drink. I guess once you’re addicted…