by Brown, TW
“This is not going to play out well,” Jason said after they had driven past a man who was standing in the street completely naked.
“I don’t understand,” was all that Juanita could manage.
“Nobody is holding people in check. All those awful things that you saw on the news,” Ken posed as they shot past the naked man, coming within inches of actually hitting him. “That was just the surface. And now, with there being no real presence of law and order, a few have crawled out from under their rocks.”
“Those are the types that make even the hardcore convicts nervous,” Jason added, giving Ken a nod in understanding. “The ones that, when they did get caught, it made people wonder how they had existed for so long without being caught. Guys like that freak that killed those two teenaged girls and buried one under his brand new back porch concrete slab.”
Juanita shuddered involuntarily. She suddenly felt a ripple of guilt. She was probably in one of the safest places that any woman could ask to be in at this exact moment. Smack dab between an ex-con who wanted to turn his life around and a hard-assed cop who didn’t seem to like or trust a single soul.
At last they turned into the massive parking lot. Other businesses shared the lot with the colossal Home Depot, including an electronics store that still had wisps of smoke trickling from where the front doors used to be.
“Funny how short-sighted folks can be in a crisis,” Jason sighed. “If this holds out and is the real-deal zombie apocalypse, the power grid is not long for this world. So, all those big screens and video game machines are gonna be little more than unwieldy weapons. Kind of like that joke about whatever you have on your left being your weapon for when the zombies come.”
“Wait!” Juanita turned, giving him a raised eyebrow. “How would you know about something like that? You were in prison the past few years.”
“Yeah,” Jason agreed with a nod. “But I still had friends on the outside. You’d be surprised at the off-the-wall crap you talk about when you have thirty minutes on the phone to kill.”
“Actually…” Juanita’s voice trailed off.
Jason waited for a moment and then cleared his throat to see if she would continue, then he recalled that she had a cousin named Juan who had been in and out of trouble. Fortunately, Ken pulled up to the entrance of the Home Depot. He turned in the seat to face them both.
“Okay, the good news is that somebody left on the lights.” Ken pointed and Jason realized that he hadn’t even given that any thought. “I have a flashlight, but I suggest that you grab one as soon as you can and load it.”
“What about me?” Juanita asked.
“Yeah, you aren’t coming in. I want you to stay in the truck. Turn it around so that we can just bring stuff out and toss it in the back. Any sign that somebody is taking an interest to you and you haul ass. For no reason are you to shut off the engine. Are we clear?”
Jason was actually impressed. He hadn’t really given this much thought beyond the idea of going in, grabbing stuff, and then getting out of town. Also, to her credit, Juanita did not argue. She gave a nod and as he and Ken exited the truck, she drew her pistol and laid it on the dashboard.
“Okay, kid,” Ken grunted as he and Jason walked up to the doors. “Keep your head on a swivel. And make sure you know what you are shooting at.”
“I’ve held a gun before,” Jason said coolly.
“Yeah…that’s what I figured. But this is different.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, this time I’d rather you not take shots at the cop.”
“Oh…you got jokes now?”
“Who says that I was joking,” Ken replied with a straight face. And with that, he pushed the busted door open and walked inside. While it was clear that few had thought to hit this place, it was also apparent that some had. The doors were shattered and the safety glass ground into powder where the wheels of large carts had rolled back and forth a few times.
Jason was not surprised when he spotted a few people running up and down aisles with carts, many of them brimming with all sorts of things. He and Ken had actually planned out this shopping spree on the drive in. Jason had been in construction during those lulls when he was not locked up. He knew what tools to get. Ken had nodded as Jason gave him some of the top priority items that they would require and even asked a few questions about some of the specifics, which let Jason know that the man was not simply nodding and tuning him out.
Twice, Jason paused to help somebody pull something down off a shelf or pick the proper tool. It started to become a nuisance as apparently word spread that some guy in gray sweats was helping people.
At last, Jason had everything that he’d wanted to make sure that they got no matter what. Granted, this was only set to be the first haul, but things had been prioritized. If they had to bug out now, he would be okay. Pushing through the doors, he passed two men on their way in. One of them eyed him and set off Jason’s internal alarms. He unloaded the cart and then waited for Ken to show up. When the man finally arrived, Jason filled him in including a description of what the man was wearing. Before heading back into the store, he paused at the driver’s side and told Juanita as well.
“If anybody fitting that description comes out the door, you just go,” he told the woman, all the while, his eyes darting back to the entrance of the store.
He was just about finished with his second cart when he heard the sounds of screaming from somewhere in the store. He thought about it for a second before tossing a few more items onto the huge pushcart he had snagged for this particular haul and then headed for the doors. The sounds of screaming had turned to begging and pleading that were now being punctuated by meaty smacks.
Jason was almost unloaded when Ken arrived. His trip had been into the garden department just as Jason had suggested. Boxes of seeds and bags of garden soil were piled high.
“You hear that shit going on?” Ken asked quietly.
“Yeah.” Jason gave a curt nod as he tossed another bag of the garden soil into the bed of the pickup.
“Don’t imagine you want to do anything about it?”
Jason eyed the man. If he were being honest, he had wanted to find whoever was doing the beating and give them a dose of their own medicine. The one thing that he struggled with was the idea that they couldn’t save everybody. Right now, their top priority needed to be taking care of themselves. Still, if they were just going to look the other way when things like that were going down, then what did that say about them as human beings?
“Actually…” Jason let that word hang in the air.
“Then let’s go.” Ken tossed the last of some sort of liquid plant food into the truck and headed for the door.
12
Discoveries
Ken moved down the aisle and felt the surge of adrenaline dump into his body like an old friend. Not for the first time, he equated it to the high felt by a junkie. While he was not the type to do something insane like parachute or climb mountains, he did accept the fact long ago that he was addicted to the rush.
He had sent Jason down one aisle over. He felt certain that the kid could handle himself in this case.
The sounds of laughter could be heard just beyond a massive display of soon-to-be useless appliances. Just barely audible, almost as an undercurrent, came the sounds of weeping. Ken had to stifle the feeling of embarrassment as he heard a man sobbing. That was just not something that his “generation” was comfortable with doing. Nowadays, it seemed like men crying had become some sort of social norm. He blamed Alan Alda.
Pausing at the end of his aisle, Ken ducked low and moved across the open space, taking cover behind a large refrigerator. He glanced to his right and saw Jason hurry across and then vanish behind some shiny washer and dryers that looked like something out of The Jetsons. He was about to come up and see if he could get a bead on the bad guys when he heard a familiar voice.
“Yo, fellas! What’s up!”
Ken cursed quietly at
first, but then realized that he’d just been given the perfect diversion. That hadn’t been the plan, but then again, all they had agreed upon was that these creeps needed to be stopped.
“Fuck off, bro!” a voice snarled.
Ken took his time and peered around the corner of his hiding spot. He saw two men standing by a shopping cart. They had picked through it, obviously finding very little that they liked. He doubted that they were here for anything more than to harass and assault others. One of them was currently going through a wallet and making a big show of ripping up photos into tiny pieces. He had no doubt that the man had probably plucked any cash he might’ve found and stuffed it into his pocket despite the fact that it would be good for little more than starting fires before long.
“P-p-please.” The man on the floor lifted his head to reveal a face that reminded Ken of Sylvester Stallone at the end of the Rocky movies.
“Shut up!” one of the two bullies snarled, kicking the man in the ribs for good measure.
“Wow, you guys are pretty hardcore.” Jason’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “That guy has to be…what? A buck fifty? I notice you two punks didn’t say shit to me when we passed in the doorway. Hell, my cart had much better stuff loaded on it.”
Jason waited for a few seconds and then smiled; that smile turned into a chuckle, then actual laughter. Ken was confused, and obviously the two men were just as baffled.
“What’s so funny?” one of the men asked, making it a point of puffing his chest out a bit as if that would add emphasis to his challenge.
“You guys.” Jason made a dismissive wave with his hand.
“You got no idea who you’re messin’ with,” the other man snarled, stepping away from the cart.
“I know you ain’t been in the system, and to me, that means that you are a couple of wanna-be tough guys.”
“Oh, and what makes you so sure?” the one closest to Jason snapped, pulling a rather impressive looking knife from his belt.
“Because,” Jason drew his pistol, causing the man to stagger back a step before he could regain his composure, “in the joint, when you call somebody a punk…well…that is pretty much a guaranteed fight. Punks are prison bitches. Nobody accepts being called that.”
Now Ken smiled. He had to give the guy credit, but now it was time to wrap this up and get moving.
“How about you two young men step away from that cart,” Ken ordered as he came out from behind his cover, gun drawn and leveled in a two-handed grip. It wasn’t a request.
“Hey, man!” the one holding the knife said, raising his hands and then, realizing that he was holding a knife, tossed the blade to the floor with a loud clatter. “We don’t want any trouble.”
“Is that what that poor guy said to you before you busted him up and ripped through his stuff?” Ken waved his gun to indicate that the two men move away from their victim.
“You guys cops?” the other man challenged.
“Yeah, I’m a cop,” Ken replied.
“Thank God,” the man on the floor managed around swollen, busted lips.
“So now cops are out lootin’ like everybody else?” the one who had tossed his knife said with unmasked derision.
“Which means you might want to worry about how likely he is to use that gun he has pointed at you,” Jason quipped. “He don’t strike me as the sort to care much about the rules.”
The two men both seemed to consider that statement. Ken noticed one of them go just a bit pale. He now knew which one he needed to be paying closer attention to between the pair.
“Here is what is gonna happen.” Ken adjusted his weapon to the one that had not drawn a knife and had the lesser reaction of fear. “You two are gonna replace every item in that cart.”
Ken caught Jason’s scowl. He realized that they needed to go, but if there was a way to avoid having to take any sort of drastic measures with these two, then he was all about trying to find it.
“You gonna make us stand in time out next?” the man who Ken now saw as the leader of these two spat.
“No, but I will put a bullet in your leg and leave you for the zombies.”
Ken let all the emotion drain from his face. He knew very well how to strip himself down to something that often made criminals think twice about doing anything stupid. He’d found that emotion was often met and matched. If you let all your feelings sink and gave off a vibe that said you did not care one way or the other, the bad guys often crumbled. It was almost as if their aggression fed off of hostile and negative feelings.
“But you’re a cop,” the follower of the two almost cried.
“I was a cop.” That was the truth. He had retired from the force. However, he would let these two individuals take it any way that they wanted.
“I wouldn’t,” Jason warned.
Ken flicked his gaze to the convict. Had Jason seen something that he had missed? A second later, he got his answer when the leader of this two-man gang suddenly made a run for it. Almost on instinct, Ken squeezed off two shots. The man stumbled, tried to regain his footing and failed, sprawling on his stomach and sliding on the polished concrete floor.
“Okay! Okay!” the second man began to scream. “I don’t want any trouble.”
Before he could say anything, the second man had grabbed the cart he’d been rummaging through just moments before and started off into the giant store. Ken had already dismissed him and was approaching the man on the floor.
Jason fell in beside him. They reached the man who was sprawled in a growing pool of blood. Ken looked around and saw that other people in the store were still dashing about, seemingly ignoring this entire scene. He was only moderately surprised at the apparent lack of any concern being shown by the people that scurried about with their carts. In his opinion, society had spiraled into fantastic levels of self-absorption. Maybe this giant press of the reset button was not such a bad thing.
***
Jason sat in the passenger seat of the truck as they headed home. He had been surprised when Ken shot that guy. Granted, he had been about to do the same thing, but there was just something in Jason’s mind that said a cop would be more reasonable.
The three of them drove in silence all the way back to Sandy. They passed a few more of the living on their way. Some on foot, some in vehicles of all shapes and sizes. Most were headed out of the city.
Jason had looked out the window as they cruised along Interstate 205 and headed for Highway 224. A MAX train was stopped on the tracks just past the transit station, the windows were splattered and smeared with what had to be blood. It was so bad that you could not see inside very clearly, but still well enough to make out a few dark shapes moving around within the cars.
They passed Clackamas Mall and saw several black plumes rising from the massive complex. He wondered how many people had been foolish enough to go there based on some stupid idea they saw in a movie.
By the time they were away from the city and the air began to clear from the smoke and ash, Jason began to feel the effects of the day. Fatigue was making itself known, and he struggled to keep his eyes open between the actual exhaustion. That is why it took him a few minutes to realize that they were headed in a direction that was not towards the house in Sandy.
“Where we going?” Jason sat up and shook away the fatigue.
“I gotta deal with something first.” Ken didn’t look at him, his eyes were locked on the road directly in front of them.
Jason looked around and shot a questioning glance at Juanita who simply shrugged her shoulders and gave a slight shake of the head. Waiting a moment to try and figure out exactly where they were, Jason was lost. This was not anyplace he could ever recall having been before.
“Look…” Jason began, but after only a slight pause, Ken ended the mystery.
“It’s my mother.”
That statement hung in the air, and Jason heard enough in the tone to know that this was a bad situation. He sat back and left the man to whatever thoughts wer
e drifting through his head. As it turned out, he did not wait long. The truck pulled into a large, brown building’s parking lot. The sign read: Peaceful Pines Assisted Living.
As the truck came to a stop, Jason saw several of the walking dead turn and start in their direction. The complex itself was a large domed building in the center with two-story buildings coming off of it. The design reminded him of low rent hotels. Basically, nothing too fancy.
“I will be back soon. If I don’t come back in thirty minutes, feel free to leave.” Ken fiddled with the key ring and removed something that he stuffed into his coat pocket. And with that, Ken Simpson opened the door, slid out of the truck, pulled his machete, and split the skull on the zombie that staggered up and into range.
Jason watched the man hack his way across the open parking lot. The zombies all turned and followed. A moment later, the man vanished into the large domed building that was the heart of the facility.
“What do we do now?” Juanita asked timidly.
“We wait.” Jason made sure that the coast was clear and then got out of the truck and went around to the driver’s side. Seeing that they had three-quarters of a tank, he decided that they would just let the engine run.
***
Ken tugged open the glass door. He had an excellent view of the interior of the reception and recreation area. The cafeteria was further back through some doors, but he didn’t have any need to go there. As soon as he opened the door, the stench of the undead rolled out and almost caused him to vomit.
He went to step over a corpse that was sprawled just inside the door and almost ended his journey right there. A hand reached up and snagged his pant leg, sending him tumbling to the floor. Fortunately, Ken was able to roll and avoid impaling himself with his own machete. Coming up to his knees, he was facing the zombified old man that was now crawling towards him. Jabbing out, he drove the machete into the left eye socket and ended the zombie’s advance.
