Dead Stop (30 page)

She opened her
eyes to see Harley looking at her with obvious concern. It didn’t take a genius
to realize he must be wondering if this latest news, on top of the shock of
encountering her dead sister, was going to be the straw that brought her down.

And the thought
of that pissed her off.

She had told him
to stop protecting her and to be honest. Now that he had, she would be damned
if his doing so would break her. She had told him she was strong, and Marisa
meant to live up to it. She had to. Benny and Stacey needed her, and she
refused to collapse and let them down.

She would hang
on to that, if nothing else. Until her friends were out of here and safe, she
was going to keep it together. After that…well, to hell with after that.

For now, she
would deal with now.

 “Okay,
Harley,” she took another deep breath, then met his eyes with a level gaze of
her own, “Now tell me about Plan B.”

His eyes
searched her face for a few seconds before he leaned back in his chair,
apparently satisfied with what he saw. The brief look of respect that crossed
his features gratified her enormously.

“Yeah, Plan B…”
He reached up and pulled another toothpick from his hat brim. “Plan B is how
I’m going to get all of us out of here in the next thirty minutes. But I don’t
think you’re going to like it. It has what you would call ‘Hey guys, watch
this,” written all over it.”

###

Stormbreak –
Deke

Deke leaned
against the back wall of the darkened store, holding Stacey tightly in his
arms.

The storm of
emotions whirling through him matched the one outside. He was injured, his mom
was either in danger or dead, and the girl who sat firmly at the center of his
universe was hurt both in body and psyche. He couldn’t do anything about the
first two situations, and the last one confused the boy and made him feel
hopelessly ineffectual. The little waitress would perk up from time to time and
put on a good show, but then quickly revert to just wanting him to hold her.
She said it made her feel safe.

He didn’t know
whether to believe her or not.

She would cling
to him tightly, not crying, and not saying a thing. But from time to time a
shudder would run through her small frame and he would worry. It pained Deke to
admit it, but he felt helpless and over his head here. He almost wished Marisa
was more available to talk to the girl. She had been Stacey’s first choice to
run to when this nightmare had first started.  He felt a small stab of
jealousy about that, but had the honesty to admit the other woman would have
probably done a better job than he had so far.

So here he stood
with the girl of his dreams wrapped in his arms, and him submerged in an agony
of self doubt.

What would
Harley do? Oh hell, who am I kidding? If I was Harley I wouldn’t even be
worried about this because she really would feel “safe” with me. He’s already
taken out two of these things single handedly. So far I’ve managed to climb a
wall, break a desk, and get my ass kicked by a little old lady zombie. And
Stacey had to rescue ME from IT! I gotta step it up here. But how? Now I’m hurt
and more useless than before.

Stacey shivered
again and tightened her grip on him. He returned the gesture with his uninjured
arm, not knowing what else to do. Having the amazingly built little waitress
press so tight against him should have been a fantasy come true, but right now
those kind of thoughts were a million miles away. Right now, he just wanted her
to be alright.

 “Stacey?”
he whispered. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t say
anything, but he felt her nod her head against his chest. 

“What are you
thinking?” he probed, hunting anything to give him an idea what to do.

“I’m not.”

He sighed, not
knowing where to go with that.

“I wish there
was something I could do for you. If there is, anything at all, just tell me.”

“You’re doing
it.”

Deke resisted
the impulse to sigh again and stared at the ceiling. The frustration in him
mounted. Part of him understood this was what he needed to be doing right now,
but another rebelled at the idea of Harley taking care of business without him
helping. Hell, worse than that, he’d been replaced by a girl…even if it was by
a scary girl like Marisa. As much as he adored the feel of Stacey in his arms,
he should have been with Harley fighting these things. He exhaled in
exasperation at this turn of events.

A soft chuckle
from the girl in his arms brought him back into the present.

“I must be
slipping,” Stacey looked up at him with surprisingly merry eyes. “Because I get
the definite feeling you want to be doing something else. Dumping me so soon?”

“No!” Deke
hugged her tight. Suddenly Harley could take care of himself again. “Hey, I
will stand here and hold you all night if you want. That’s my job, and I’m glad
to have it.”

She continued to
look up at him a moment more, then that famous smile spread into existence and
seemed to light up her face in the dark.

“MmHmm,” she
nodded to herself with a pleased expression. “Definitely nice. But I can see
it’s my turn to take care of you for a little bit.”

“Huh?”

“You’re a guy,
and I can tell you’re dying to do something…useful. You don’t know what yet,
but if I don’t figure something out you’ll come up with it yourself. At least
this way I’ll have some input and can limit the damage.”

“I’m that
obvious, huh? I’m sorry. I meant it about holding you all night.”

“I know,” she
smiled at him. “And you’ll get your chance, because it really does help me. But
this is a two way relationship, which means I help you too.”

Relationship?
Holy shit! When did that happen?! Not that I’m bitching or anything!

“So,” Stacey
continued, “we’ve already got all the chips and junk food moved into the back.
What else would be a good idea to grab while we’re in here?”

Deke’s eyes
roved the darkened store, trying to imagine anything that might make a
difference. Something Doc might have forgotten about. Other than food and
drinks, what did they really need? He racked his brains, trying to come up with
an answer, when his gaze settled on the spot where Gladys met her end. The dark
mounds of rubble marked where the cigarette rack had crashed down on the glass
counter display. His stomach got a bit queasy, but an idea started to form.

“Hey Stacey?
Who’s got the store keys?”

“I think Marisa
does. Why?”

“Well,” Deke
pondered aloud. “I remember her saying Gladys had the other set, but I don’t
remember them turning up when Harley moved all the bodies to the cooler.”

“No,” Stacey
frowned. “But I do remember him coming back with the car keys from the customer
who died up there with her.”

“Yeah, so he
must have gone through their pockets when he put them back there. That would
only make sense.”

“True. But,”
Stacey held up a finger, “that would also be why he didn’t find Gladys’s keys.
She kept hers in a purse.”

“And her purse,”
Deke continued the thought, “must have gotten knocked to the floor or buried
under the rubble when they attacked Gladys. So Gladys’s keys are still in here,
and it might be a good idea to find them so we have a spare.”

Deke finished on
a triumphant note. He could still do something important that would help
everybody else. Not to mention, showing up in the back with the spare set of
keys would make him feel more like a contributing member in this little group
of survivors.  He might be “rear echelon” now, but he was still a
functioning member who was making a difference.

The boy started
towards the front, then realized he was alone. He turned to see Stacey had only
taken a couple half steps before going pale and somber.

“Yeaaahhhh…” the
girl hesitated. “Uh, Deke? I don’t mean to be a downer, but Gladys
died
over there, and I’m not really crazy about the idea of crawling around in her
blood.”

That brought his
enthusiasm to a lurching halt.

Now that she
mentioned it, the thought didn’t really appeal to him either. He had never
particularly liked Gladys, but he did know her. The woman had been a bit of a
grouch in his direction, yet she had also been a part of his world since he was
a little kid. The realization she had been standing there a mere nine hours
earlier when her world came to a violent end was a bit unsettling.

“Right,” he
agreed. “I hear that. I guess I got excited and I wasn’t thinking.”

He came back and
started to lean back against the wall again but Stacey caught his arm. The
pained look on her face caught his attention even more.

“No, Deke,” she
sighed. “You were right. It’s an excellent idea. Somebody really should have
thought of it earlier. It might even be a lifesaver if we get separated, or if
the zombies get into one side of the truck stop when Marisa isn’t near the
inside door. I just let the idea of Gladys dying there rattle me for a second.”

“Hey, it’s
okay.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve already had a hell of a night.
I’ll tell you what…I’ll go see if I can find the purse while you just hang back
on this one.”

“Hell of a
night?” she echoed with a hollow laugh. “
Everybody
has had a hell of a
night. It’s not right for me to suddenly pull a dainty princess routine while
you carry the load.”

“I don’t mind.
Besides, I don’t think you’re being a ‘dainty princess,’ Stacey.”

“Really? What
would you call it?”

Deke studied her
for a second, realizing she was trying to work herself up to doing this. Yet
one look at her face told him it was the last thing she should be trying to do.
She had been tough as hell tonight, but it had taken its toll and she wasn’t
ready for this.

“I call it not
wanting to tromp around in your coworker’s blood,” he answered with a
shrug.  “Besides, you saved my butt tonight so you’re entitled to three
‘dainty princess’ moments. This will be number one. Okay?”

Stacey didn’t’
answer right away.

“Okay?” Deke
pressed.

“I guess.” The
girl managed to look doubtful but grateful all at the same time. “Are you sure
about this?”

“Yep,” the boy
said over his shoulder as he started back towards the front. “Besides, it’s
still standing in water up there and I’m the one wearing boots. So this really
counts as just being practical.”

Stacey didn’t
reply, but Deke was gratified to see she remained behind.

Now he could
focus on getting something done.

###

Stormbreak -
Marisa

Still reeling
inside from his revelation about Masonfield, Marisa struggled to digest this
latest statement. Normally, she would have probably said something disbelieving
or sarcastic, but right now she just didn’t have it in her.

“That bad, huh?
This plan of yours must really be something.”

“Well, it’s
elegant.” He put the toothpick in his mouth and nodded towards the window. “But
it has a couple of doozies for kinks. First things first, though…you wouldn’t
happen to know the owner of that truck out there, would you?”

Marisa looked
out the window, grateful that this particular pane didn’t feature a corpse
staring back in at her. The diesel pumps shimmered in the distance under their
awning lights. The lone Peterbilt parked beside them seemed like a relic from a
bygone world…a world that ended nine distant hours ago.

“Yeah. That’s
Grandpa Tom’s truck.”

She looked over
to see Harley exhale in obvious relief.

“Good,” he
murmured. “At least we have the keys to it. There’s one less problem to deal
with.”

“Okay,” she
pressed, “but it’s no different than our cars. We can’t get to it. Especially
now that that jackass managed to draw the rest of those
putos
up here
before getting his stupid ass killed.”

“Actually,”
Harley chewed the toothpick as he stared through the running glass, “that may
end up working in our favor. I wonder how many are left around back.”

Marisa tried to
figure out where he was going with this.

“Who knows?” she
shrugged. “I guess we could go up to the roof and count them. But why?”

“Because,” he
answered while peering up at the black sky, “I seem to remember there is a
power line running from the roof of this building over to the awning over the
diesel pumps. I can’t see it right now due to the darkness and the storm, but
I’m pretty sure it’s there.”

“It is,” Marisa
confirmed, now looking up into the blackness herself. “Every so often some
trucker frets about hitting it, but it’s too high.”

She stopped a
second, as the implication hit her.

“Harley, I know
what you’re thinking,” she turned back from the window towards him. “But it
won’t work. That’s a power cable. You try to climb out on it and you’re just
going to get electrocuted. Especially in the rain!”

He glanced back
over at her, his grin now back in place, even if it did look a little tight.

“As it is now,
yeah,” he agreed. “That’s one of the main reasons this wasn’t Plan A. But if we
cut the power, everything changes.”

She looked out
at the distant pumps, then back at the man.

“Maybe,” she
conceded. Personally, she thought it looked like a hell of a long climb, even
for a guy in Harley’s shape. “But how do we knock out the power?”

“Well, right
there is where this starts to get kind of hairy. The only way to do that will
be to cut it off at the breaker box. You wouldn’t happen to know where those
are, would you?”

“Sure,” she
frowned, “They’re in the back hall. You’ve passed them a bunch of times.”

“No, those are
the internal breakers. Those would be for the stoves, coolers, and other stuff
inside. What I’m talking about will be outside, probably on the back wall
somewhere. They’ll be big metal boxes, maybe with handles on the sides…and
they’ll have padlocks.”