Zombie Kong Read Free Page A

good buddy Chong.
    “Oh God,” she muttered. “I don’t know what to do about this.”
    She looked out the window.
    On the far side of the street most of the buildings had been knocked down. Athlete’s Delight , she realized, had been replaced with a pile of rubble that had a flattened car squashed into it.
    The man spoke again: “What do we have here? Who do you think you are?”
    Candice found herself wishing there was a waitress in the house so she could order a cup of coffee and look at the menu. She turned towards the counter. As luck would have it, a pot of joe was sitting right there, and it looked like it had been freshly brewed, too. She turned towards Jake. “Would you like something to drink? A chocolate milk, maybe? Coke?”
    Jake nodded. “Okay, Mom.”
    “Which?”
    “Huh?”
    “Which? Coke?”
    “Coke.”
    “Okay. I’ll get you a––”
    “No, wait. Chocolate milk. I want chocolate milk.”
    “Okay. Chocolate milk it is. Stay right here and I’ll fetch us some drinks. Then we’ll figure out what to do.” Candice forced a smile.
    Jake tried to do the same but failed.
    After plunking her phone and her purse on the table, she stood up and started walking, avoiding the man standing at the center of the restaurant. As she was making her way behind the counter she heard the man say, “What are you doing?”
    She didn’t respond.
    His hands opened slowly and snapped shut.
    She was getting a bad feeling, a scary feeling. A feeling of imminent doom.
    Two modern-looking refrigerators with glass doors sat together like wide-shouldered soldiers. Inside the unit on the left, there was an entire shelf dedicated to milk, chocolate milk, and cream.
    She opened the appropriate door, reached inside, and liberated a liter of chocolate milk. The container had a cartoon-drawn, brown-colored cow licking its lips with its eyebrows raised, suggesting the milk it produced was ten times more delicious than the milk from any other cow.
    As she sat the carton on the counter the man spoke again. His eerie voice was enough to make her skin crawl: “You’re not allowed back there. Get away from there!”
    The man was suddenly coming at her with a noticeable amount of aggression in his awkward movement. His head was still cocked sideways in an outlandish predatory gesture, but more disturbing were his eyes. Chicken-eyes, red-rimmed––frightful and filled with the promise of pain; they were lit up like hateful firestorms.
    Before Candice knew it would happen, she snatched the container of milk from the counter and held it up defensively; it was a knee-jerk reaction, not a game plan. She found herself backing away while scanning the restaurant for a weapon more threatening than a cold beverage.
    Within seconds the man was behind the counter with her, getting close, reaching for her milk.
    God damn, what the hell was he trying to do?
    “You’re not allowed back here!” he announced. Lines materialized in his forehead as he slapped the container across the restaurant. The container soared, turning circles, leaving a splattering of bubbly chocolate in its wake.
    Candice managed to say: “What––?” before his hands––both of them––wrapped around her neck.
    He began choking her.
    She backed into a corner, struggling to free herself. The bulk of her thoughts centered around a common theme: Why are you doing this? Why would you do this? Why is this happening? Why do you want to hurt me? Why are you attacking me?
    Why, why, why?
    Then a new thought came: How can I make this stop?
    Overwhelmed, she looked towards the counter, searching for a weapon––a knife, preferably.
    Her eyes widened.
    There was a knife––two of them, in fact––but they were too far away to be useful. There was a spoon, however, and it was well within her grasp.
    She reached her hand out and her fingers tickled the spoon’s long handle. As her fingers were making contact with the would-be weapon the man shook her violently and