"How are you so famous?"Tamara asked.
"I honestly don't know," I said."Yeah, it's me.Stacey Adams."
"We're Nagi's troops.Name's Methuselah.This is Rhonda."
"Nice to meet you guys," I said."Where's Nagi?"
"In the back," Rhonda said."Seeing you might perk him up."
"What happened here?"
"Civil Wyrd Corps came.There was something huge waiting a few alleys over.It took out most of them.Nagi's drained.We have human survivors here, but… Nagi's in his feelings about killing more innocents, so we're screwed."Rhonda looked concerned.
"Hey, we're both humans, so watch it," I said.
"Oh yeah," Rhonda said."Come on.He's back in the toy store."
The whole secondfloor of the Mall was cordoned off from the first floor.The escalators and elevators and stairs were guarded.A few staggering deadies roamed about aimlessly downstairs.Men and women in bandanas—undead and alive—checked nearly every entrance.There was a crowd of people—human people—huddled in places here and there.Looked like a good majority of survivors were stationed here, holing up somewhere safe.Someone was manning a pretzel stand.Everyone seemed to have movie-sized soda.
Something in my stomach cramped, and I grabbed my stomach.
"Oh my God," I said."I have to have food, like now."
"You are not gonna go get a pretzel," Tamara said.
"I might."
"Look at that line, though."
"We'll get you food here in a minute," Rhonda said."Methuselah.Get these ladies what they want."
"You got any coffee anywhere here?"I asked.
There was a resounding silence in which the word 'coffee' seemed to reverberate through the food court.Most everyone looked at us, suspicion in their eyes.
"What?"I asked.
"Coffee," Methuselah said."That's kind of a four letter word these days."
"What are you talking about?"I asked.
"From what we can tell, people only get infected if they have a heavy history of coffee drinking," Rhonda said.
Tamara and I looked at each other.Wordlessly, we realized we weren't going to admit to a goddamn thing.
"Good to know," I said.
"Very nice to know," Tamara said, nodding.She turned her face to me and mouthed 'Holy fuck!'
"Come on," Rhonda said."Methuselah, we'll be over that way."
He nodded, and we walked off.
"What do you think about that?"Tamara hissed in my ear.
"That one guy did throw up hazelnut-scented worms," I said.
"I don't remember that."
