by Wood, J N
‘Yeah whatever, you decide,’ Jack added.
‘Beth,’ Ali said. ‘You have the deciding vote.’
Beth laughed. ‘Oh thanks guys.’
‘Wait for a shop, or search houses,’ I said ‘What’s it to be Beth?’
‘Shop,’ Beth said.
‘What a surprise,’ Jack called out.
Beth twisted around in her seat to scowl at her husband. ‘Why is that a surprise?’
‘It’s a joke isn’t it? Women and shopping,’ Jack said. ‘I thought it was quite funny.’ He leaned around Theo to look at me. ‘Chris. That was funny, wasn’t it?’
I smiled back at him. ‘I think you’re a disgusting, sexist pig.’
Beth had turned back to face forward. ‘Thank you Chris.’
‘Fuck off,’ Jack exclaimed. ‘He’s taking the piss.’
‘Stop showing off in front of your friends Jack,’ Beth said.
‘What? I’m not showing off. How am I showing off?’
‘Show off,’ I said.
‘Hey,’ Sandra called out. ‘What are you doing? Shall we go?’
Jack opened his mouth to speak, but then thought better of it, sitting back in his seat.
‘We’ll follow you,’ Roy said. ‘Ali, do you remember where the mall is?’
She nodded. ‘Kind of.’
‘That will have to be good enough.’ Roy pointed in front of him. ‘Lead the way.’
‘Wouldn’t have had this problem if we’d have gone to the bus,’ I said under my breath.
The windows in the grey Honda started to rise, as it moved ahead of us. Roy put the Chevrolet into drive, and followed them as they led us out of Birch Bay.
‘It’s very quiet,’ Theo said, staring out of the window.
I followed his gaze to see the empty streets rolling past. ‘Thank fuck,’ I said to him.
‘This is what it was like when we drove through this area on the way up,’ Jack said. ‘All the zombies must be outside the camp, or further along at the border wall.’
‘Hopefully they stay there and leave us alone,’ Beth said.
‘Some parts of the border being free of the dead would be helpful,’ I said.
We drove down a long straight road, the rear lights of the Honda guiding us.
‘How much fuel do we have?’ Jack asked.
I looked to my right and saw the petrol station that must have prompted Jack’s question.
‘Three quarters full,’ Roy replied. ‘The other car had about the same.’
Jack pointed at the petrol station up ahead. ‘Should we get some more?’
‘No electricity means no gas,’ Theo said. ‘Only way is to syphon it now.’
‘They’re indicating left,’ Roy said. ‘I think it’s the mall.’
We followed closely behind the Honda, heading towards the back of some large buildings. There was a gap up ahead. Our lights picked up vehicles on the other side. We drove along the road that ran through the gap in the buildings. It opened up to a large car park beyond. Once through, we took a left turn and drove the entire length of the row of shops, before turning around and driving back. We eventually parked up alongside the other car. Roy started to lower his window, Jack did the same. Our combined headlights illuminated a sign on the building in front of us. It read, W.A. CAMPING STORE LTD, in large letters.
‘This will do,’ I said.
‘The doors have been smashed in, people have already been here,’ Beth said.
‘It doesn’t mean it’s empty,’ Jack said. ‘It looks pretty big.’
‘Guys,’ Ali said from the other vehicle. ‘Sandra and Pete are going to stay here with the kids. Who is coming with me from the Chevy?’
‘How many torches do we have?’ Roy asked.
‘I’ve got a flashlight,’ Ali said with a smile.
Sandra waved hers out of the back window of the Honda. ‘Me too.’
‘I’ve got one as well,’ Jack replied.
I reached down to the floor and picked up my baseball bat. ‘I’ll take yours Sandra. If you want?’
Jack and I got out of our car, as Ali left the Honda. Sandra passed me her torch through the open window.
‘If you see or hear anything,’ Jack said. ‘Just flash the lights.’
Chapter 24: Barricade
Jack, Ali and I slowly walked side by side over to the front of the camping shop. The glass that had once been in the doors was now shattered into tiny pieces. They covered the paving separating the shops and the car park, glinting in the light of the headlights. The light shone past us, illuminating our path, and casting our shadows across the glass fronted building. Jack’s axe, my baseball bat, and Ali’s large knife were five times their size as they stretched across the front of the shop.
The crunching under our feet was far too loud.
Beth’s initial fears appeared to have been correct. It looked as though the shop had been ransacked. Empty clothes racks were broken and lying on the floor. Shelves just inside the doors were hanging askew on the wall. There wasn’t any camping gear in sight.
Jack flicked his torch on and panned it side to side just inside the broken doorway.
He turned back to us. ‘Looks empty. I’m just going to make some noise. Okay?’
Ali and I both nodded.
He slammed the head of his axe down into the ground three times in quick succession. We waited to see if anything stirred.
Nothing.
Jack looked back to us again. ‘Nobody here.’
Ali nodded and I shrugged. We crept into the shop, slowly sweeping our torches in front of us.
The rest of the shop looked like a swarm had sprinted through and collided with everything, nothing was left standing upright.
‘Well, this was a waste of time,’ I whispered. ‘I didn’t see any gun shops either. Should have gone back to the bus.’
Ali was directing her torch light at the back wall of the shop. ‘Stockroom,’ she whispered.
Jack and I combined our torch light with Ali’s, and a door became visible on the back wall.
We headed towards the door, being careful to step over, or walk around the fallen racking.
A loud clattering noise rang out around the empty shop. I immediately swept my torch to the right, following the noise. The light fell upon Jack, lying on the floor. He was tangled up in an overturned clothes rack, coat hangers scattered around him.
‘Alright?’ I asked him.
‘Yeah I’m fine,’ he said, trying to escape from the metal poles restraining him.
Again, we waited for any unwanted sounds.
Still nothing.
The door at the back marked Employees only, was locked.
‘Break it open with your axe,’ I said to Jack. ‘It can’t be any louder than you fighting with a clothes rack.’
Jack stared at the door for about ten seconds. I’d been very close to asking him if he was alright again, when he stepped forward and swung his axe from his hip. The axe head hit the door just to the left of the handle. Bits of wood splintered and the door swung open into the stockroom. We shone our lights into the pitch black room. I leaned in through the doorway, quickly looking left and then right. It was only about fifteen feet deep, but it ran along the entire length of the shop. It was filled with rows upon rows of metal racking.
I raised my bat and took one step back, waiting for whatever was trapped in there to emerge.
Luckily for us, nothing had been trapped.
We entered the room and started searching the many free standing racks. The first box I looked in was full of maps of Mount Baker and the surrounding area, so I grabbed a few of them. There were some plastic wrapped backpacks on one shelf. After unwrapping one, I stuffed three others into it and put it on my back.
‘I’ve found clothes,’ Ali said. ‘And more flashlights.’
‘I’ve got batteries,’ Jack called out.
The sound of metal scraping across something made me stop. It lasted for less than a second. I trie
d to listen for it again, but all I could hear was Jack and Ali rummaging through shelves. A huge plastic bag, tied in a knot at the top, slid along the ground, stopping when it hit the wall by the door.
‘Enough warm clothes for us all in there,’ Ali said.
‘Just be quiet for a bit,’ I told them.
We waited in absolute silence. My breathing was all that broke it, until Jack asked, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Thought I heard something. Must have been us.’
I found a carton of energy bars and squeezed it into my new backpack.
Jack walked towards me, holding a large cardboard box in front of him. ‘I’ve got some walking boots, in various sizes. I don’t know what size everyone is.’
‘Good idea,’ I told him. ‘Have you seen any wire cutters, or wire snips, or whatever the things you use to cut wire are called?’
‘Not seen any,’ he said. ‘Not sure if they’ll have them here.’
‘There’s a tool box down here Chris,’ Ali said. ‘I’ll have a look for some.’
Thirty seconds later, Ali appeared from the darkness, also carrying a large cardboard box. ‘Found some, they’re pliers with the cutting bit, so they should cut through wire.’ She put the box down and picked up a crowbar from within it. ‘This is my new toy.’ She swung it two handed across her body.
‘Are you okay with that box Ali,’ Jack asked.
She nodded and placed her crowbar back in it, before picking the box up.
‘Chris, you get the bag of clothes,’ Jack instructed.
I picked the bag up, surprised at how heavy it was, and awkwardly opened the door with my hand holding the Smasher. My torch was pointing up towards the ceiling as I walked back into the shop. I paused briefly when I noticed it was a much darker shop than when we had left it. The headlights from the cars seemed to be flickering, only occasionally shining into the shop, and the Chevy on the right looked like it was moving sideways, towards the Honda alongside it.
I carried on, and was only three or four steps in, when the hissing started. I quickly angled my torch down from the ceiling. The shop floor was full of dead eyes staring back me. Wide open, decaying mouths hissed that all too familiar noise.
I instinctively stepped backwards as they all seemed to move towards me at the same time. Some of them fell over the overturned clothes racks and tried to crawl along the floor. I felt a hand grab the back of my jacket and drag me backwards. My torch illuminated a flash of something, just a split second before a heavy weight slammed into the bag in front of me. It forced me into whoever was trying to drag me, and we tumbled backwards into the stockroom.
I was on my back, lying on something uncomfortable. The backpacks were digging into me. Hands were clawing at my face and my shoulders, trying to reach around the bag of clothes. I felt legs and hard boots being dragged out from under my back. Ali grunted, before I heard a loud cracking noise. The hands trying to get to me stopped moving. I raised my torch up to see Ali standing over me, her crowbar hanging at her side. A giant of a zombie was slowly forcing the compressed air out of the plastic bag full of clothes on my chest.
Jack ran past us, shouting, ‘Door!’
He slammed his shoulder into the door, just as the zombies collided with the other side. He hadn’t managed to get it fully closed. Hands, arms, heads and nearly whole bodies were trying to squeeze their way through the gap.
A second later Ali was next to Jack, putting her weight into keeping the door where it was. I rolled the dead weight off me and clambered to my feet.
I started swinging the Smasher at the many body parts trying to get in. If I hit a head, it slowly slid down, catching on the other zombies as it fell. Hitting arms didn’t make any difference. Zombies don’t feel pain, so they wouldn’t withdraw their hands and arms if they were hit.
I bent down and dragged a zombie into the storeroom. It was almost in anyway. I crushed its head with the heel of my boot. I then rolled the giant zombie that had tried to crush me over to the door, leaving it wedged against the bottom.
‘I’m going to push one of the shelving units over,’ I shouted to Jack and Ali. ‘Hopefully it’ll force the door closed. Get out of the way when I shout for you to move.’
They both nodded, the soles of their footwear squeaking on the floor as they tried to hold their ground.
I rushed around to the other side of the closest set of shelves. I started to gently push it, just to see how easy it would be. It budged a little bit.
One big shove and it will topple over.
I took three steps backwards, so I was up against the shelves behind me. I angled myself so my shoulder would hit the shelves in front of me, and ran.
‘Now!’ I shouted, just as my shoulder connected.
Jack dived to his right, Ali went to her left. The shelves started falling away from me, and towards the now opening door.
There was a loud cracking noise as the shelves connected two thirds of the way up the door, cutting it in two, and slamming the top third shut. The bottom section was still open, wedged into the shelves. Zombies were managing to squeeze their way through the open gap.
Fuck’s sake.
Jack was already up on his feet, with his axe in his hands. He was swinging it up and over his head, bringing it down on whatever parts of the zombies appeared first. They were crawling and dragging themselves out from under the side of the shelves.
More zombies were trying to force their way through the gaps in the empty shelving. I started clubbing at hands, arms, and heads with the Smasher. Ali ran over carrying two boxes. She forced them into gaps, and onto the heads trying to get through. She disappeared into the darkness to get more. I ran in the opposite direction, found a shelving unit full of tents, and starting throwing them towards Jack. Once I emptied the shelves in front of me, I ran back to the piles of tents I’d created, and starting stuffing them into every space I could see.
Jack was still wildly swinging. He’d almost blocked his side of the shelves with the amount of zombies he’d felled.
After Ali and I had filled all the openings, I dragged her to the shelving unit behind the one I’d knocked over.
‘Let’s push this one on top!’ I shouted.
Ali nodded and got into position.
‘Watch out Jack,’ I shouted to him. ‘This one is coming down.’
It wouldn’t have hit him where he was standing, but I didn’t want him to move at the last second.
We stepped back, and then put all of our combined weight into pushing it over. A couple of seconds later and a loud metallic clang rang out in the stockroom. I ran over to take a look.
Nothing else could have got in through there. We just needed to sort out the right hand side where Jack was fighting.
I stepped around so I was behind Jack, but out of the way of his swinging axe. Bodies were tightly packed into the gap, they seemed to wobble, almost vibrate, as more zombies tried to force their way through.
‘Let’s see if we can drag some more shelves over,’ I said. ‘Maybe rest it against all the bodies?’
All three of us managed to drag one of the empty shelving units into position. We pushed it up against the dam Jack had created, blocking the dead in. We dragged another over and slowly lowered it into place, so it rested against the upright shelves.
I lowered my head and rested my hands on my knees, the shock of what had happened only just seeming to hit me.
‘Did you see them outside?’ Ali asked. She was struggling to catch her breath. ‘Were they okay?’
I was struggling myself. ‘I thought it was too dark. I must have seen the headlights through all the zombies as they walked past. The Chevy was moving a bit, like it was being pushed.’
Jack stared at me, his eyes wide with alarm. ‘Like we were pushed? What if they get pushed over?’ He picked up his torch from the floor, and started to look all around the stockroom. ‘We need to get back to the cars.’
‘There must be a fire exit in here,’ Ali sai
d, turning and walking towards the back of the room.
Jack also left to scan the walls with his torch. I had one last look at our barricade. It looked surprisingly solid.
I had just turned to follow them, when Jack said, ‘Found it.’
I looked for his torch light in the darkness. Ali soon joined me, and we found Jack at the far end of the room, standing in front of a door. Above it the words FIRE EXIT faintly glowed in the dark.
‘Remember what happened last time you ran out of the back door of a shop,’ I quickly said. ‘Open it very slowly and only a little bit.’
He placed both his hands on the metal bar that stretched across the door’s width. He very gently pushed, a grimace spreading across his face as he pressed the bar in towards the door. There was a high pitched squeak when the lock was disengaged. All three of us flinched when we heard it. Jack let the door swing outwards just a couple of inches, before he quickly shut it again.
He turned back to us, his face looked drawn. ‘Nope. There are a lot of them out there.’ He marched past us back towards the barricade, whispering, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’
I jogged to catch him up, thinking he was going to start dismantling the only thing stopping hundreds of zombies getting in and eating us. He walked up to the box he’d been carrying, and sat himself down on it.
With his head in his hands, he said, ‘Fucking hell.’
Ali had caught us up and was now staring at the barricade.
‘The cars will have just been pushed up against another shop,’ I said. ‘There aren’t any hills around the mall.’
‘You don’t know that Chris,’ Ali said, now pacing back and forth. ‘Anything could have happened to them, and we’re trapped in here.’
‘Yeah we’re trapped,’ I agreed. ‘But only temporarily. As soon as this swarm passes, we can go out and find whatever they’ve been pushed into.’
I sat on the floor and watched the barricade as it occasionally jostled and shook slightly. Eventually Ali stopped pacing and also sat on the floor. I removed the bag from my back and pulled out the carton of energy bars. We each ate one in silence.
Jack stood up and walked towards the back door, within thirty seconds he’d returned. ‘Still out there,’ he said glumly.
