Zombies! (Book 4): Nowhere To Hide

by Merritt, R. S.

  A few hours later they’d all taken turns resting on the dusty floor. Kelly had wandered around the huge warehouse until she found a snack room with three full water jugs in it. The big ones the water jug guy would bring by for offices every week intended for a water dispenser. There were also two vending machines still stocked with snacks and a couple of soda machines. Her concerns fading about supplies Kelly had slept along with the rest of them while Caitlyn pulled her turn at guard duty.

  Sitting around the desk later they all watched the girls play with a couple of flashlights Kelly had found. They’d invented a game they called ‘cat’ which involved shining the light on the floor then all of them trying to jump on it then all of them giggling. It made zero sense, but Kelly and Randy were both grinning ear to ear watching the little girls having the freedom to play for once. None of them could stop smiling at finally hearing those precious giggles again.

  “Tony would’ve loved this.” Kelly said.

  “Yeah. He was a big softie. That’s for sure.” Caitlyn said.

  “At least he doesn’t have to worry about you shooting him anymore.” Randy joked.

  The conversation turned at that point to remembering Tony. Randy and Kelly shared all the stories the girls had never heard before about how they’d escaped from the island and made it down to Florida. They talked and told stories for a couple of hours honoring Tony’s memory. Kelly and the girls all cried again. Randy teared up a few times himself. By the end of the story telling there were more smiles and laughter than tears. Randy thought that was a proper remembrance of Tony.

  “Now what do we do?” Kelly asked after the stories had died down and she felt it was appropriate to switch the talk track.

  “How far are we from where the truck finally died?” Randy asked. The night before was a drug and pain filled haze in his memories. His body ached from the numerous wounds covering him. Any of which would’ve been worthy of a trip to the ER in the old days. Now something like falling out of an SUV onto your face in the middle of the street was just a minor injury you were expected to brush off like it was nothing. Even the stab wound in his stomach was nothing next to the injuries they were all sustaining on a regular basis.

  “Probably about a mile?” Kelly said looking at Caitlyn for confirmation. She’d never been good at estimating distances. One of the reasons they’d always been late to pretty much every function they attended together.

  “I guess so. It took us about twenty minutes to find this place once we caught up to Myriah and got off the interstate.” Caitlyn confirmed.

  “If it was pretty much a straight line from the SUV to this warehouse going in the same direction we were going when the truck blew up then I’m not sure we’re safe here. We can’t assume the Brotherhood is going to stop looking for us. We have to make it such a waste of time and manpower that they decide it’s not worth it.” Randy thought out loud.

  “You guys killed their leaders sister. I’m not sure he’ll ever let that rest considering how much he’s already thrown at us. You said they’re huge so resources may not even be an issue. We need to think like they’re going to keep chasing us forever and figure out the best way to get away from them for good.” Kelly said. She was letting her thoughts flow just like Randy was as they went into planning mode.

  “Or. We could kill the Senator.” Myriah spoke up.

  “He’s in Georgia somewhere with about a zillion soldiers protecting him, but I like the way you’re thinking. Although, I also find it slightly terrifying. We should be doing more to hurt the guys trying to hurt us.” Randy said as he roughed up Myriah’s hair and smiled at her.

  “Booby traps?” Caitlyn brought up.

  The conversation continued. At the end of the day they decided leaving booby traps would be too much like leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for the Brotherhood to follow. Unless they could get their hands on some explosives or something else that would make a real difference. None of them wanted to try and Home Alone their pursuers. They knew they had a head start on the Brotherhood since they’d probably been caught up in the massive surge of Zombies that’d run towards the parking garage. They all mutually agreed they had some breathing room to get a day or two of rest before they needed to be back on the road again.

  “I think we should leave tonight.” Kelly said ten minutes after they’d all decided to get a couple days rest before moving again. Everyone turned to look at her. “As soon as it gets dark, we’ll look and see if we can find a vehicle around here somewhere that we can use. If we can’t then we’ll have to walk. We’re too close to the Escalade we trashed for me to feel comfortable here. We have to keep moving.”

  With a new plan in place Randy lay back down to try and coax his body into healing faster. Kelly took Myriah to try and break into the vending machine. Caitlyn carefully divided up a can of circles and meatballs for the girls. Once those cans ran out, she had no idea when they’d run across some more.

  Chapter 27: Secret Rendezvous

  Kyler pulled into the parking lot of the big box sports equipment store. He was looking for a way to circle around the back to park by the loading dock. Rodriguez was sitting on the other side of the pickup trying to sleep while favoring his left butt cheek. They’d stopped and rinsed off the big gash in his butt then bandaged it up as well as they could considering how large the cut was. Once that chore had been completed Rodriguez had made sure Kyler knew where he was going before prescribing a couple of pills to himself out of a Ziploc bag that he kept in one of his pockets. The apocalypse had created an army of amateur pharmacists.

  Kyler poked Rodriguez in the shoulder to wake him up after he parked by the loading dock behind the store. Mumbling some unkind words about Kyler and looking like he just wanted to go back to sleep Rodriguez instead carefully opened his door and levered himself out of the truck. Once they were both out and Kyler had made sure Rodriguez could walk, they cautiously moved towards the wall of doors to the different stores. Kyler could tell they must be some of the last arrivals since the area by the loading dock was packed with random vehicles.

  “Which door do you think it is?” Kyler asked looking down the long row of doors in the back of the store.

  “The one up the other set of stairs.” Rodriguez said confidently moving towards the stairs he’d just indicated. Kyler looked at that door but didn’t see any difference between it and the other ones.

  “”You sure?” He asked Rodriguez. Kyler didn’t care about trying all the doors if need be, but Rodriguez was limping and obviously not happy to be awake. After the hour spent sterilizing and bandaging Rodriguez’s ass Kyler wasn’t in any hurry to have to fix the bandage if Rodriguez overexerted himself.

  “I’m assuming we should use the one the guy on the roof with the gun is pointing at.” Rodriguez answered back evenly.

  Kyler looked up and saw the guy Rodriguez had just mentioned. He vaguely recognized him from the trailer back at the warehouses. He hadn’t really talked to anyone other than Rodriguez and Krantz, but it was pretty hard to forget the guy who looked like he’d looted all the stores in Nashville on his way to join up with the Brotherhood. The dude was full on chaps, boots and a massive cowboy hat. Kyler didn’t know how well that sat with Krantz who seemed to favor his men dressing more like weekend warriors but each to his own. Besides, the duster the guy was wearing did look pretty cool and carrying a couple of revolvers around had definitely come back in style.

  Kyler nodded up at the cowboy before following Rodriguez up the stairs to the door that’d been pointed out to them. He was looking forward to getting inside where he could be a little freer with his talking. He’d come up with at least three good pain in the ass jokes on the way there. He was wishing he’d written them down as they walked in because he couldn’t remember a single one of them. Another guard sat in a folding chair by the door. He nodded at Kyler and shook Rodriguez’s hand.

  “Everything good Rod? You’re not coming in hot right?” The guard asked. It was a pretty stand
ard question. The walkie talkie in his lap told Kyler the question was mostly rhetorical since the cowboy on the roof would’ve already checked to see if they were being followed.

  “All good man. Where’s the jefe?” Rodriguez asked.

  The guard pointed them down the corridor towards a sign reading breakroom. In the breakroom they found most of the guys from the trailer hanging out drinking beers and eating chips. Rodriguez grabbed a beer and tossed another one to Kyler.

  “Hang out here and I’ll go report to Krantz then I’m going to drink about five more of these and pass out.” Rodriguez was slurring a bit already. Kyler wasn’t sure another few beers was a great idea on top of who knew what pills he’d already taken.

  “You sure you don’t want to go find a bean bag chair and crash now? I can tell Krantz we got the gate shut.”

  “You just want to tell him I stabbed myself in the ass.” Rodriguez slurred.

  “That’s absolutely what I’m most looking forward to telling him, but I really think you should go lay down.” Kyler responded.

  “Yeah. I don’t feel so great. Sorry for being such a pain in the ass!” Rodriguez barked out a laugh at his own joke before grabbing three more of the piss warm beers and wandering off in search of a place to self-medicate.

  Kyler set his untouched beer down on the table and walked back out in the hallway to go find Krantz and report in. Realizing he had no idea where Krantz was holed up he went back down the hall to the guard watching the back door and asked where he could find Krantz. The guard told him to try the sports shooting section. Kyler thanked him then walked into the pitch-dark store.

  They’d had a few lanterns casting light in the hallway and the breakroom. The main store floor was huge and unlit. There were huge windows at the front of the store that let in some light around the advertisements and displays. Kyler looked in that general direction before beginning the trek across the store floor after not seeing anything. He was thinking that most of the stores he’d been in the guns were either in the back or on the sides of the store anyway. He trained his red capped flashlight on the floor in front of him and started a circuit that would take him around the perimeter of the store.

  He managed to walk around the entire store before figuring out the guns were displayed in a room in the middle of the store. He waved his light around as he approached to let the men standing around the gun cases know he was coming. He wondered if this was the only store in America where they put the gun cases right in the middle. In the political climate before the apocalypse most stores had started shifting the gun displays towards the backs and corners of the stores. Almost like they were ashamed to be selling them.

  Kyler was just glad they’d never gotten around to banning the sale of assault rifles and such before the end came. It’d be a whole different ball game if they had to face hordes of Zombies armed with .22 caliber rifles with low capacity magazines. He could beat a Zombies head in with a hammer when need be, but he’d much rather just shoot them with a high caliber rifle from a safe distance.

  “Where’s Rodriguez?” Krantz asked with no attempt at pleasantries. Krantz was standing by the gun case with small piles of guns and ammunition boxes in front of him. Another vaguely familiar guy in camouflage was on the other side of the case pulling out more boxes and guns.

  “He got wounded after we got the gate shut. I told him to go find a place to rest and that I’d report in for both of us.”

  “Good. I was worried we’d lost him when you walked up without him. We’re doing an all hands in the breakroom at seventeen hundred. Try to drag him to that. Dismissed. Get some rest.” Krantz turned his attention back to counting boxes and weapons.

  Kyler wandered towards the front of the store to look out the windows into the parking lot. He saw a few Zombies wandering around with their weird jerky movements. Totally normal to see a few Zombies in the parking lot after that many vehicles had passed through recently. He walked back to the breakroom and grabbed a warm Gatorade and a can of pringles. Someone must have looted a 7-11 on the way to the rendezvous point. He circled back around to the spot he’d seen the camping gear and snagged himself an expensive sleeping bag and a ground pad.

  Once he had his supplies together, he found a quiet corner of the store and setup camp under a rack of clearance t-shirts and pants. He set the alarm on his phone to vibrate so he could make the all hands meeting. It was funny to him that the versatile little smart phones were still useful even when you couldn’t connect to anything with them. Not that anyone had really used the phones for talking anyway. He made sure to charge it up every time he got the chance. He was asleep before he even had the chance to dig into the Pringles he’d snagged.

  The alarm vibrated in his hand what felt like a second later but was really more like six hours. Not a bad amount of sleep at all as far as getting rest in the apocalypse went. Kyler had gotten so used to being nocturnal that it seemed weird to be moving around during the day. Soldiers schedules always sucked. Even if you were just sitting on a base, they’d still schedule you to wake up in the middle of the night to do things like stand fire watch. God forbid the military allow smoke detectors to do their job. If some super ninja was trying to slip over the fence and infiltrate a base, then Kyler doubted a half-asleep sentry was going to spot them anyway. Most guards spent the shift staring at the clock waiting for the misery to be over.

  Stowing his attitude towards busy work and needless watches Kyler walked into the break room on the dot at seventeen hundred. It wasn’t until he spotted Rodriguez sitting on the other end of the table that he remembered he was supposed to have made sure Rodriguez knew to be there. Luckily someone had evidently made Rodriguez aware of the meeting or Kyler would have had to deal with a disapproving look from Krantz. Possibly followed up by a stern talking to.

  “I’m happy to report that the supply center got locked down by the numbers. The supplies are safe, and everyone made it out alive.”

  “Although I heard Rodriguez did a half-ass job.”

  “How the hell did you manage to stab yourself in the ass man? Like how is that even possible?”

  Krantz raised his hand to stifle any more of the super clever banter.

  “Alright. That’s enough. The point is we got the job done. Now we hopefully have a few days to rest up before getting sent to our next gig. Especially since one of our best fighters had decided to turn into a pacifist. Yeah. Rodriguez is looking to turn the other cheek now.” Krantz grinned.

  “Boo!”

  “That was horrible.”

  Krantz held up his hand again. He was still chuckling at his own attempt at humor. Eventually everyone shut up.

  “Ok. I’ve posted the watch schedule on the board. Everyone stays alert when you’re on watch. Otherwise rest up and be ready to move. Plenty of supplies in here if you need to stock up on first aid, ammunition, or camping gear. Any questions that aren’t also an attempt at making fun of Rodriguez?” Krantz asked looking hard at the two men who had their hands in the air and big goofy grins splitting their faces. Both men put their hands down.

  Kyler popped a Pringle in his mouth and waited his turn to check the duty roster Krantz had posted. He took a quick look and saw that he had about thirty minutes before he had to climb up on the roof and spend the next four hours staring at the parking lot. He hoped that was enough time to go find himself a nice thick hunting jacket to stave off the chill in the air. He was walking down the hall towards the entrance to the store to find himself a coat when Rodriguez called out to him to wait up a second.

  Rodriguez looked bad. As he got closer Kyler began trying to figure out if he smelled or looked worse. His face was pale and slack. His eyes were bloodshot enough to cast him as an extra in a remake of any of the Cheech and Chong classics. His smell though. He smelled like he’d drank a twelve pack, eaten some garlic, and then puked into a bucket full of slop before dumping the contents of the bucket all over his body.

  “Dude you stink.” Kyler said by wa
y of greeting.

  “Yeah. The spa was closed so I had to make do with a bottled water and one of those little peppermints you get out of the jars at those cheap Italian places. I’m wounded, on drugs and pretty hammered. Not the best combination for personal hygiene to be a major concern. What’s more of a concern to me is making sure you’re good with the way we closed down that base. You don’t feel bad for those scumbags we used as bait, right?”

  “No man. All good in the hood. I need to grab a coat before I have to stand overwatch. You good with everything?” Kyler asked. He was trying not to sound nervous. He wondered how much Rodriguez had read on his face when they locked the guys up in the pens. He knew his expression may have revealed way too much when the Zombies got in and tore everyone apart afterwards.

  “All good man. Silver lining to almost cutting off one of my own cheeks. I get excused from standing watch for a few days. Sweet right?” With that parting comment Rodriguez wandered back towards the break room. He was probably trying to hunt down some more beer. Kyler wondered how much of that beer was for helping him deal with the physical pain he was in versus how much was needed to help him sleep knowing what he’d done to those prisoners back at the warehouse. Not to mention all the people at all the warehouses before that one.