Resurrection: A Zombie Novel by Michael J. Totten Page A

to resolve. Hughes could hear them arguing in low voices. Maybe they’d come to terms. They’d better, or Hughes would crack their heads together once Lane was out of the way.
    Hughes lay on his back on the steel floor and laced his fingers behind his head. Frank stuck a Maglite between his teeth so he could use two hands to move some boxes out of his way.
    “Ain’t this a bitch,” Frank said.
    “S’all right,” Hughes said. “Just try to get some sleep. Rest up for tomorrow.”
    Frank took the Maglite out of his mouth and kicked the last box out of the way. Then he shut the light off and fidgeted while trying to get comfortable on the floor. The cooler was pitch black now, so Hughes closed his eyes. He saw spectral purple afterimages on the back of his eyelids.
    The electricity had been off for a long time. The walls and the air inside had long ago adjusted to the ambient temperature in the store, which wasn’t much different now from the ambient temperature outside, which was getting colder by the day. Still, Hughes felt just a tiny bit colder inside the cooler. It was probably just his imagination.
    Frank finally stopped fussing around and got still. “I wonder if the president got bit,” he said in the darkness.
    “The president of what?” Hughes said.
    “Of the country,” Frank said.
    “The hell you talking about, the president getting bit?”
    “Can you imagine him chasing his staff around the White House?”
    Hughes chuckled and shook his head in the dark. “Frank, my man.”
    “Go ahead and laugh, but it’s not funny. Just about every famous person you’ve ever heard of has either been bitten or eaten. Think about it. Stephen King. Justin Bieber. John McCain. Bit. Imagine getting chased in Hollywood by Arnold Schwarzenegger after he’s been bit.”
    “Jesus Christ, Frank. The president hasn’t been bit. He’s in a bunker somewhere.”
    “Okay, but Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t in a bunker somewhere unless he dug it himself in his yard.”
    “Go to sleep, Frank.”
    “I can’t stop thinking about this stuff.”
    “Then think about it quietly, okay?”
    Hughes’ back hurt. Sleeping on the floor wasn’t doing him any favors. He rolled onto his side to relieve the pressure, but the pain just moved into his shoulder.
    “A buddy of mine used to work summers as a mechanic down in Antarctica,” Frank said. Hughes sighed. Frank was not going to be quiet anytime soon. “They even sent him to the station at the South Pole once. How awesome would that be?”
    Hughes just wanted to sleep, but he didn’t want to be rude and couldn’t get comfortable anyway. Frank wasn’t the smartest person around, but he was an okay guy, and anyway he was Hughes’ friend.
    “You want to go to the South Pole?” Hughes said. He had no idea they had a station down there.
    “Well, kind of,” Frank said. “I mean, it would be cool, wouldn’t it? That’s not something you see every day. The guys at the South Pole station are probably fine.”
    Yes, Hughes supposed the scientists at the pole probably were fine for the time being. “Until they run out of food and fuel. Nobody’s going down there to get them.”
    Hughes imagined himself stuck in Antarctica. What would he do? Would he even try to get back to the warm parts of the world, or would he hold out on the ice as long as he could until he died peacefully? Freezing to death had to be better than getting chewed up by teeth. He imagined a team of scientists braving the most hostile conditions on earth and actually making it back, only to return home to—this.
    “You know it’s winter down there in August?” Frank said.
    Yes, Hughes knew it was winter in August on the bottom half of the world. “So I guess it’s spring for them now that we’re going into November. How many people are down there?”
    “I don’t know. Not a lot. They have a pretty small crew during the winter. My buddy left at the end of the summer. Most people leave then. The ones