I looked down at the long item that was apparently supposed to be my weapon and stopped laughing immediately. It was a mop. He expected me to kill rats with a mop.
However, apparently a mop was one of the better weapons.
“What is this?” Hendrix demanded next to me. “A pool noodle?”
I looked over at the long foam purple noodle and burst into more laughter.
With a completely straight face, Harrison looked at his older brother and said, “You’re resourceful. You’ll make it work.”
“They must have been getting ready for summer before the infection happened,” King added helpfully. He was actually holding a pool skimmer, so his assessment couldn’t have been too far off.
“Thanks for clearing that up for me,” Hendrix growled.
“Ok, here’s the plan,” Vaughan asserted authoritatively. “I will open the freezer door and then Hendrix and I will chase everything out here. It’s your job to either kill it, or get it out of the store.”
“What kind of meal do you think we could make out of rat?” Harrison asked thoughtfully.
Everyone ignored him.
“Haley stays with Page,” Vaughan continued. “King go stand by the front door and get ready to open it. Nelson, Harrison and Reagan get ready to chase them.”
We moved into action. Haley climbed up onto the metal work table where someone had laid Page. She pushed aside a huge meat slicer and then sat casually, ready to enjoy the show and way too proud of herself for getting out of the dirty work.
Hendrix walked over to where a sink was mounted on the wall next to the freezer and exchanged his pool noodle for a big push broom. King took the pool skimmer off to the front of the store, Harrison readied his smaller sized broom to the left of the freezer. I went to stand next to him and across from Nelson and his…. I didn’t really know what it was like. Possibly something that hung from the end of racks in order to promo things? It looked sort of like a miniature ladder with hooks on the end. He was also holding a substantial knife in his hand.
I had knives too, but I didn’t plan on getting close enough to whatever came out of that freezer to use them.
Vaughan counted down with his hands- three, two…. one. He hesitated for a moment longer, exhaled a steadying breath and then flung the door open.
I immediately gagged on the stronger scent of everything rotten and frozen inside. I pulled my shirt up over my nose and tried concentrating on anything else but the smell. I could almost see the cloying green fumes escaping the rotted place, like I was living in a cartoon. My shirt helped block the smell some- but only because I was not smelling so hot these days either. I had my own rotten stench to deal with these days.
There was the sound of Hendrix and Vaughan stomping around in the dark freezer, making as much noise as they could. Then there were more sounds as their weapons struck the ground and the various places the rats could make their nest in.
Finally, there was the sound of squeaking and scurrying little feet, nails scratching against the tiled floor.
“Here we go,” I shuddered, just in time to swing my mop- brush side down- out at the rodent charging for me. I let out a shriek of terror and waved the huge creature on toward Nelson. He jumped up as it charged in his general direction but somehow shooed it toward the exit.
I didn’t have time to figure out how he was corralling it toward the entrance before three more human-sized rats bolted out of the freezer. Their eyes reflected off the little bit of light from the windows and their thick, naked pink tales swished angrily behind them. They were pissed at our forced eviction and wanted to sink their sharp, jagged teeth into something.
Like my leg.
I screamed some more and then forced myself to stop thinking about how scary they were. I needed to be brave and it was easier to find courage if I stopped dwelling on the fear.
This time I held my mop out in front of me and swatted one of the huge rodents away. He tilted and skidded on his side but righted himself soon enough.
He didn’t come back, just kept running. Hendrix appeared on the other side of me and together we somehow kept up with the rats with outstretched arms and make-shift weapons and were able to cage them through the store in somewhat of a hockey-player-passing type of manner. They were like our pucks and we were like passing them back on forth.
Hendrix and I worked with two of these and Harrison and Vaughan followed behind with two more. Plus, there was the one that Nelson had. This was what my life had been reduced to- killing Zombies point blank one minute and chasing filthy rats the next. I remembered when my days consisted of making sure my toenail polish matched my outfit and stressing over pre-cal homework.