Colin Oliver – Chapter 4

Colin winced as Katy rolled the decaying corpse on to its front.

‘You know that’s really gross right?’

Katy looked up at him and grinned.

‘And you know you’re a real wimp, right?

Colin couldn’t argue. Despite his years of experience in destroying zombie hoards on his games console, he was disappointed with his reaction to seeing the real thing. During the time he was camped out in the Wal-Mart store, watching the undead patrol the parking lot, tearing his evil boss to shreds and generally ruining everything, he had convinced himself that he was at home in post-apocalyptic Georgia. When his defences were breached, however, it was a different story. Zombies were scary and dead bodies were gross. Those were the facts of the matter and Colin was struggling to adjust.

Nearly 3 days ago now Colin had found himself being saved by this teenage girl, and what little pride he had in himself had taken a beating. Their slow progress West had been largely without incident; the only sightings of anything were distant and vague enough to warrant caution. They had scavenged various tinned goods, a couple of bits of wood for self defence and some kitchen knives in case the situation required aggression; Colin hoped that it would not. Now he found himself standing outside the closed metal shutters of a store known only as ‘Mike’s’ with a teenage girl who was searching a corpse for keys. Colin looked at her as Sulu shifted around in the rucksack on his back.

‘How do you know you’re going to find any?’

Katy said nothing; she merely pointed to the door behind him. Hanging grimly from the door handle was a severed hand. Upon further inspection, and what felt like throwing up in his mouth, Colin noticed that the corpse was missing one of its hands.

‘That’s twisted.’

Katy looked up, holding a set of keys triumphantly in her hands.

‘I’d guess that he was either locking up to make a run for it, or trying to get in when they got him. Either way, it didn’t work out for him.’

She threw the keys to Colin and he caught them awkwardly. He headed over to the door and tried his best to get to the lock without touching the severed hand. Katy brushed him out of the way and yanked hard, breaking the dead mans grip. She threw the hand out into the street.

‘Seriously, you are a wimp.’

‘I’m a little concerned about how at home you are with scattered body parts.’

‘Body parts of motionless corpses can’t hurt you dude. You need to man up.’

Damn it, she’s got me pegged.

Colin opened the door and made sure to lock it behind them as soon as Katy had followed inside. He turned to face into the store and could feel the smile creep across his face. Katy looked around the room and turned back to Colin with an unimpressed look on her face.

‘Oh God, here comes the geekasm.’

Colin completely ignored her as he gazed upon his new treasure; this was a comic book store. There were shelves and shelves of recent comics lining the walls, but the good stuff was in glass cases in the centre of the room and by the payment desk. He ran over and blew the dust off of one of the cabinet, peering down through the glass. He turned excitedly to Katy.

‘Do you know what this is?’

She shrugged.

‘A geeky virgin’s paradise?’

Colin couldn’t really debate the legitimacy of her answer, so he carried on regardless.

‘This is a first edition of the very first Spiderman comic! And it’s in the same case as Wonderwoman number three! Do you have any idea what these are worth?’

‘I’m guessing a whole bunch of lonely people would pay a lot of money for these?’

‘I’m talking thousands of dollars man!’

Katy smiled as she wandered over to peer into the cabinet for herself.

‘If only the world hadn’t ended, you could be rich.’

‘Morbid.’

Katy spun around and headed behind the counter, ducking her head around the corner and looking into the back of the shop as Colin continued to browse the comics, touching some of the cellophane covers and remembering what it was like to get home and tear it open. He missed that kind of excitement in his life. He lost interest in comics as he grew older, preferring instead the entertainment offered by games consoles. He made the decision that he would take some comics with when they moved on. He took off his rucksack and let Sulu down. The cat peered at his dimly lit surroundings suspiciously before trotting off slowly to explore.

Katy returned from the back of the store with a bag of chips that were still in date and stood at the counter as she tore them open. Colin headed over and joined in the snack.

‘Any other food back there?’

‘Not really. A couple of bottles of water though, I’ll put some down in a bowl for Sulu.’

‘Did you have pets before all of this went down?’

‘I had a couple of fish. My dad was allergic to cats and dogs.’

Colin shrugged and tried to smile at the comment as Katy headed to the back of the store again. Katy had spoken fondly of her father over the previous 3 days, and it was more than obvious that she had not yet begun to come to terms with his death. Colin had listened intently as she had spoken about him and their life together and had become genuinely interested in the story. Colin had never known his father. The result of a one night stand, Colin’s research into the whereabouts of his father had turned up the information that he was dead; killed in a bar fight six years after Colin’s birth. His mother was an abrasive drunk, and ill-equipped to cope with raising a child. Colin had been removed from her care when he was two years old and her only attempt to contact him had been 13 years later, in search of money. Colin rebuffed the approach however, and had not seen her since. Spending his youth transferring from children’s home to foster family and back again, he had not bonded with any kind of father figure, and although his latest set of foster parents had represented his most stable living environment of all of them, he was ultimately unmoved at their likely demise. He had always viewed his foster parents as wardens of a sort, and tried to maintain a pleasant relationship with them, but kept his distance in almost business-like fashion, well aware that his next move could be right around the corner.

Colin withdrew from his daydream as Katy re-appeared behind the desk.

‘I have something for you.’

He looked up at her as she threw a pillow at him. Colin thrust out an arm and caught it with cat-like reactions.

‘Err, thank you?’

‘We need to get some sleep dude. We’ve had hardly any in the last few days. I’ve checked all of the possible exits and this place is sealed up pretty well. We’ll be safe here.’

‘Ok. In that case I have something for you too.’

Colin pulled a candy bar from his rucksack.

‘I’ve got a limited supply of these.’

Katy smiled as Colin handed it to her. She stretched out on the floor and rested her head on her pillow as Colin did the same. As they rested on their backs, staring up at the ceiling and eating chocolate, Katy sighed.

‘What if we end up being the only ones left?’