Free Mistakes I Made During the Zombie Apocalypse by Michelle Kilmer Page A

made him want to mess with her more.
    “Write it down, hand over some money, I don’t care! But you best not leave it on the shelf all used and dirtied. It’s theft.”
    • • •
    Ian’s stomach growls loudly. It sounds like the hungry cry of one of the zombies. He turns over and lays his belly down on a fist.
    Laying on it won’t make it go away.
    “What else am I supposed to do?” Ian asks himself.
    You never dug through Grant’s bag. He could have stashed something.
    Ian quiets his mind and continues lying on his fist. Touching Grant’s belongings seems like a bad idea to him. They are piled in the corner of the bedroom in a sort of shrine to his dead friend. There was no other way to honor him besides respecting his things.
    Honor him by honoring the expiration date on the can of pinto beans in his backpack.
    Ian jumps to his feet, opens the closet door and runs to the cairn of fabric and gear. He stands before it, but still cannot bring himself to touch anything.
    You’ll die, Ian. Grant wouldn’t want you to die.
    A sensation creeps over him, one of being watched. The feeling you get when someone else is in the room, like the airspace has shifted to allow their presence.
    “He’ll see me and he’ll get pissed off that I touched his things.”
    There is no one here but you. Grant is dead, Ian. The beans are yours now.
    Ian forces himself to turn around and face whatever demon stands behind him, but he only sees the partially opened bedroom door. He wraps himself in Grant’s sleeping bag. The beans are slimy, bland, and cold, but Ian savors every mushy bite.
    Remember what happened next in the great magazine debacle?
    “Edith ate toothpaste.” Ian laughs at the memory.
    • • •
    “How desperate are you for entertainment that you’d steal?” Edith yelled. She pulled a tube of toothpaste from the front pocket of her floral apron and began to nurse on the thing as though it was a Gogurt. Everyone could see she had several more tubes on standby for when she sucked the first one dry.
    “You are eating toothpaste ! If that isn’t desperate, I don’t know what is,” Grant said.
    “This isn’t desperation! I’m on a budget and I had two-for-one coupons! Besides, the mint flavor calms me down.”
    Edith’s refusal to loot during end times was annoying to say the least and her suggestion that she was capable of operating in a calm state of mind was comical to Grant.
    “I don’t think you know what the word ‘calm’ means, lady,” he spat.
    “Look you piece of shit,” Edith screeched, “your mother may have let you disrespect her like this, but I won’t stand for it!”
    Ian wasn’t prone to fits of rage or violence, but when he heard the word ‘mother’, it set him off and he took up Grant’s fight as though it were his own. “No, you look you psycho bitch! My mother was great. You should be dead instead of her!”
    Grant laughed.
    The other Walgreens survivors gasped.
    Edith’s face went red. The tube of toothpaste dropped to the floor, sending a small glob of the mint-flavored dental hygiene goo shooting out onto Edith’s Crocs. She opened her mouth to speak, but she could find no words. One of the women ushered her away, down the greeting card aisle, her sanctuary, where heavy sobs could be heard.
    “I think you boys should leave,” the man said.
    “Fuck you and your stupid rules,” Grant replied.
    In the secluded back parking lot of the building, they sat on a curb to formulate a plan. Grant pulled open his backpack.
    “I smuggled some stuff out.” He presented Ian with a tube of ChapStick, a deck of cards, a travel-sized package of Q-Tips, and a book of crossword puzzles. It was an odd assortment, but Ian saw the usefulness of each item and wholeheartedly approved of Grant’s rebellion.
    • • •
    The sun is going down outside the mostly abandoned house. Ian still sits in the bedroom, wrapped in Grant’s sleeping bag, the empty bean can beside him. He goes to the