Chapter Sixteen
“YOU’LL WANT THIS,” JASPER SAYS when I just stare at the metal monster in his hand.
“You’re giving me a gun?”
“Lending it,” he says, impatience an undercurrent to his words.
I leave the gun in his outstretched hand. “They make too much noise. Chandler never—I don’t know how to even—”
“You won’t care how much noise a gun makes if a hungry zombie attacks you in there.”
We’re in a stare down for only a moment before Jasper realizes that I won’t be taking the gun from his hand. Or he realizes that it’d be stupid to give a gun to someone who doesn’t know how to use one.
He tucks it into the waistband of his jeans.
“Get out,” he says, picking up the backpack at his feet and hauling himself out of the Jeep.
Shit. A backpack. Why didn’t I think of that? I’ve been letting people do the thinking for me for far too long.
I look around in the back seat and yelp when Jasper raps a knuckle on my window. “There’s one in the trunk,” he says, then walks to the back of the Jeep.
I check my surroundings before easing open the door. Lots of rubble, yes, but no zombies—at least in the near distance.
It’s wild. Grandma used to load up her Lincoln with cardboard boxes and take Bunny and me to Costco once a month.
We’d drive around the massive parking lot searching for an open spot before finally settling on one way in the back.
And then it’d take Grandma fifteen minutes to squeeze into the space.
We’d get inside and fill the cart with way too many paper towels, juice boxes, gigantic apples . . .
We’ll be lucky if we find anything of use today.
The parking lot is as full as it used to be, only it looks so much different.
Stop signs lie bent on the ground, cars sink into massive holes in the asphalt, and red-lipped carts are flipped over, their wheels having been blown off.
Bones scatter the sidewalks, gray-brown dust floating up from the broken earth.
Jasper offers me the gun. I blink.
“Take it.”
“No.”
“Yes,” he insists.
I squeeze my eyes shut and weigh the pros and cons of accepting this gleaming hunk of metal. Pro: Self-defense. Con: Self-harm. I may very well shoot myself in the foot. Pro: Greeley and Jasper see me as strong. Con: I prove them wrong. By shooting myself in the foot.
I blink my eyes open and stare at the goddamn fortress that is Costco.
Sure, the building stands, but it has changed—no longer do families push oversized carts around its aisles.
No longer do workers serve up samples of on-sale snacks.
No longer do hot rotisserie chickens sweat in the meat case or flat-screen TVs light up the entrance. This place will never be the same.
If Costco can change, I can, too.
I hold my hand out, and as Jasper gently places the gun in my palm, the weight of it settles in. Physically and emotionally.
“Cock it,” Jasper says.
I do as he says. I think. “How’d I do?”
It’s slight, but his mouth lifts into a smile.
His eyes crinkle at the sides. “Five gold stars. Your grip, on the other hand . . .” Jasper grabs the gun by the muzzle, flips it around, and clenches it on either side.
He narrows his eyes and aims the gun at a silver Mercedes—that certainly didn’t used to be a convertible—across the lot.
“Hold the gun like this. Firm. Confident.”
I blow out a breath. “Easier said than done.”
“Just try,” he says, handing me the gun again.
It weighs heavier in my palms than even a second ago.
This thing has too much power. I don’t want this much power.
I look up at Jasper, surprised to find him nodding encouragingly at me.
“You believe in me,” I say, pointing the gun at a defunct shopping cart. “Why?”
“One of us has to.” He maneuvers behind me and places his hands over mine. Squeezes them so tight my palms dig into the rough grip of the gun. “Like this,” he says, adjusting my aim.
“Are you going to stand behind me when the zombies attack?”
His warm breath tickles my ear, sending a shiver down my spine. “No, but I’ll have your back. Greeley might not, but . . .”
I lower the gun and flip around to look at Jasper. “She won’t try to kill me, though, right?”
“Maybe with insults.” He shrugs. “But that’s all you have to worry about.”
“That, and zombies,” I say, turning back around. I close my left eye and narrow my right, staring at the spot where the sun glints off the metal of the shopping cart like a fish scale.
“So I just . . . pull the trigger.”
“Let’s hope we don’t have to find out.”
“That’s encouraging.”
“Maybe not, but it’s honest,” he says. “Yes, Kota, you pull the trigger. And then you run.”