Chapter Thirteen #3
“I can’t believe we got this parking spot,” Everett says, his smile growing as he pulls Chicken out from her carrier. “Even in an apocalypse! Amazing.”
We walk toward the great obelisk, Everett listing facts about what a dick George Washington was while Chicken and I pad quietly behind. There are no other survivors that I can see. And yet…I don’t feel alone. Neither does Chicken, guessing by her alert posture, tail pointed high in the air.
I pull out my machete with one hand, my Taser pole still clutched in the other.
Everett glances over at me, then frowns. “What’s wrong?” The question is laced with fear but also disappointment, as though our excursion is already doomed. “Is something wrong?”
I pivot on the spot, searching for eyes on us, glowing or otherwise. But it’s only eleven, and the zombies present are fully withdrawn, their eyes as lifeless as their bodies should be. Chicken doesn’t seem to be concerned with them at all. “Do you think someone’s watching us?”
Everett pulls in a breath through his nose, then exhales. “Honestly? No. The city is weirdly empty, Maisie. Freakishly so.”
“What do you mean?” It seems about as populated as any other nonresidential area we’ve been through.
Everett bites his lips in. “Historically, any time there was drama in the capital, National Guardsmen were sent in. Extra police. Armed security everywhere you looked. The Metro stations, the lawns—you’d see people with big guns standing around, watching.
But I haven’t seen a single guard since we got here.
Shouldn’t some of them be zombies by now?
Why didn’t the government try to protect the city and keep order once people started turning? ”
I frown. “That is weird.”
I rotate on the spot, Taser still ready, but I have to concede the point. There’s simply nobody here. “You’re right,” I finally say. “Probably just in my head.”
Ten minutes later, we’re standing in front of the heavy glass doors to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. I feel almost giddy as I grasp the metal handle and pull, the door hinging open to let us inside the sun-drenched entrance hall. “Unlocked!”
Everett blows out a breath and turns on the Tasers he’s clutching, one for each hand.
Weapons sparking, we make our way across the hall, our footsteps echoing against the high ceilings.
Uniformed staff and guards stand listlessly in their own exhibition—Unpaid Zombie Labor in the American Workforce.
All told, there are maybe five or six visible, two standing sentry at the metal detectors, wands dangling from their fingers, two trapped within a great, circular welcome desk—one the flesh-eater, the other the flesh-eatee—and the remainder hovering near the entrances to the various exhibits.
A true skeleton crew, the hall devoid of any actual tourists.
I guess the big benefit of a diarrhea virus spawning the zombie apocalypse is that everybody who could possibly stay home did.
I pluck a map from the stand and gently pry the roll of stickers from the welcome-desk zombie’s fingers.
Why is she here? Was she out of sick leave or something?
“Here you go.” I slap one on Everett’s chest, momentarily distracted by the lack of give on his pectoral muscle, then one on my own. “Now we’re officially visitors.”
I watch for a smile, a huff, anything to show that my glib behavior is working on Everett, but his eyes remain glued on the security guard to the right of the map stand, who looks admittedly dodgy.
Even Chicken hisses at him, a response usually reserved for the more active ones.
I zap the guard in the heart, and he crumples to the floor without fanfare.
Though his eyes are dull, his mouth is painted with dried gore.
This zombie’s eaten someone, and maybe I’m just an evil vegan, but I don’t abide the feeders.
I step over the body. “So, what’s good to see here?”
Everett’s lips finally quirk. “Transportation. Hands down.”
We pass model kitchens and gowns of first ladies and furry puppets in cases that Everett gets inexplicably teary-eyed at, murmuring “There’ll never be Sesame Street again” until I drag him toward the giant steam locomotive that lords over the transportation wing’s entrance.
The zombie staff are more active back here, deep in the museum’s halls away from windows and sunlight, but Chicken spots them every time.
Her hissing and their faintly glowing eyes and rasping vocalizations give them away, and their shuffling steps are still slow.
They’re also exquisitely dumb.