Free Resurrection by Tim Curran Page B

King bullshit he’d been hearing today, he knew looking at those people that there was something definitely off about them. They were standing funny, the rain running right over them, like mannequins somebody had left out in the storm. Too intense, too fixated on the store and the two men watching them. That kind of patience was disturbing.
    Tommy said, “Shit.”
    Those people, they were crossing the street now.
    The waiting was over.
     
    9
    Mitch smelled them before they arrived.
    Their odor seemed to flood the store in a vaporous stench: a weird, heady smell of rotting garbage and dank sewers, something maybe worse. Something secret and dark and vile.
    “ What the hell do they want?” Yellow Hat said.
    “They want us,” Hot Tamale informed him.
    And that was it. The floodgates of panic were opened, because even those that didn’t squeeze up to the sheet metal flap with Tommy and Mitch knew that what was about to happen was going to be really, really bad. Hardy started praying under his breath and Mindy let out a long, shrill scream. Yellow Hat ran to the back of the store and then ran right back. Hot Tamale stood there defiantly like she was enjoying it all and Herb stood there with her like he did not have a clue about any of it.
    Hubb, who had gotten most of his left knee shattered in the Korean War, seemed to realize that battle was about to be joined. “Those cockfuckers want to break up this party? Well, fucking peachy, let’s tan their hides.”
    He wasn’t worrying about his merchandise now. He had his baseball bat and although he did not sell firearms, he had just about everything else and with the help of Tommy and Jason and Gena Kramer, weapons were passed out: axes and hatchets, machetes and British Army police billyclubs. Mindy took the kid over behind the counter because he and she were in no shape to do anything.
    But the others, they stood their ground—Mitch and Tommy, Hubb and his two elderly chums, Hot Tamale and her boyfriend, Jason and Gena Kramer, even Yellow Hat. They stood in a loose half-circle like some kind of savage gauntlet, scared but cohesive, ready to kill anyone or anything that made it through the rupture in the store’s front wall.
    Mitch waited at the flap, watched those people come on.
    They moved with a slow and deadly intensity, drenched and ragged things with hair hanging in their faces. Like Tamale’s boyfriend said, those faces were bleached white like floaters pulled from rivers. Even their lips were colorless. But their eyes, dear God, they were just black and glistening like glass eyes dipped in India Ink. They did not blink. They were glaring and set and merciless. You could not reason with eyes like that or the fathomless murky brains which compelled them.
    “You come in my motherfucking store and you’re dead!” Hubb called out to them, not seeing them from his position, but no doubt feeling their odious presence. “You better stay out there, you cocksucking hippies!”
    Mitch felt a manic laughter bubble in his throat. Hippies. Now that was rich. You could buy the whole bank with that.
    Mitch pulled away from the flap when they were only feet away.
    He stood there with the others, amazed at how perfectly the Intrepid had penetrated the front of the store. The sheet metal had been pushed in, bent, but it had not been torn apart really. It had just conformed itself to the intrusion of the car. And except for the piece Mitch had bent to get the door open, you could not see outside unless you yanked that flap back.
    And was that a good thing or a bad thing?
    There was a great thud as the things hit the front of the store. It was as if, in those last few feet, they’d decided to rush the building and see if they could simply burst through the front like the car had. They hit the outer sheet metal wall and just began to pound and scratch at it with an almost idiotic glee. Mitch had seen their eyes, had seen what was behind them, and although there was nothing in