by T. A. Sorsby
‘Wasn’t raised in a barn, that’s for sure…’ she grunted, eying up the broken door.
‘Coast look clear.’ Damian said, ‘I don’t want to be here any longer, seen?’
‘What about the pump?’ Neville asked.
I holstered my revolver. Or just, you know, put it in my pocket. It was starting to wear a nice groove in the side of my leg.
‘I’ll have the quickest of quick looks back here,’ I said, making my way to the workshop door, ‘if you can get out front and keep watch. Yell if I need to run to you. And don’t leave me.’
‘Going nowhere, man.’ Damian grinned, fist bumping me with a shaky hand.
The floor of the shop was littered with bodies, half a dozen maybe more, dark shapes in the half-light. I drew my bayonet, kept it to hand while I went from shelf to shelf, looking for what we needed.
I knew you could get ones that were pretty small, about the size of a pint pot with a hose and either end and a crank in the middle, but SC’s wasn’t the kind of place to carry something like that, something for home use.
A proper autoshop had something like…that. I found it, knocked to the floor in the struggle. I carefully picked it up, keeping an eye on the zombie it’d fallen beside. This pump was made for tapping full-sized oil drums. You know old wells in little village squares? The big cylinder, the lever-pump, the spout? It was like that, only in a four foot cylinder and instead of all the underground workings, there was a flexible rubber hose on either end to suck up and spit out the gas.
I returned to the office, to see everyone peering out of the windows, Damian actually leaning out of the doorway.
‘All those shots brought more of them,’ Neville said over his shoulder, ‘can’t afford to get entrenched here while every zombie in Hillside throws itself at us.’
‘Preaching, choir.’ I shot back by way of reply, ‘I’ve got the goods, let’s get a move on.’
Damian shoved a pair of corpses that’d slumped on top of the sofa back onto the ground and climbed over, offering a hand to Laurel as she went after him. I went next, and she handed me my bat once I’d done climbing, leaving no useful weapon behind. Neville brought up the rear again.
The forecourt was empty, save for one freshly mobbed accountant, but the streets around us were another story. We’d killed more than a dozen between us, but there were more still coming, all shambling across the road, their moans drifting towards us like an eerie wind.
Damian ran ahead, unlocking the doors and jumping up into the front passenger seat to slide across to the driver’s side. Neville held the door open for Laurel as she did the same in the back. I tossed the gas pump into the footwell ahead of me, and Damian had us reversing before I’d even closed my door.
The back end slammed into one of the zombies as he frantically spun the wheel, turning us back onto the road, going hand-over-hand just like the instructors tell you not to. The engine groaned a brief protest as he fumbled a gear change, getting us on our way with a squeal from the tyres.
Scores of them had come out as far from the centre as Hillside. If that trend kept up, we’d be knee-deep in zeds by tomorrow morning. But on the upside? If the zeds were leaving the centre, that meant it was becoming safer.
I needed to go to County General, my last, best hope of finding Katy. With everything Anita had said about what happened there, I had thought it would be suicide. But if the zeds weren’t in the centre anymore, a little trip to County might not be as risky as I’d thought. I might still find her.
*
Twenty Five
We turned into the parking lot outside the apartments, sans diesel, but with the pump, and with the guns. Two out of three ain’t bad. Nobody made any moves to get out. A brief wave of heat washed me from head to toe as the image of that pawnshop owner flashed before my eyes, emerging from that cupboard, laying its hands on me. I shut my eyes tight, and then I saw the zombie diving towards Laurel, bearing her to the ground. What if we’d both been bitten? Urgh. I shook my head.
‘Pretty good work back there.’ I nodded, letting out a breath I didn’t realise I’d been holding. ‘Held them off like nobody’s business.’
‘Uh huh.’ Laurel said, deliberately not looking at Neville.
‘I’m sorry about the door,’ he said, picking up on it, ‘I guessed it’d be locked and I just kicked it. I’m sorry.’
‘Just check first next time, okay? Common sense.’ She muttered, opening her door and sliding out.
I jumped out after her, and put a hand on her shoulder as she was coming around the other side.
‘We’ve all got to blow off some steam,’ I said, keeping my voice down, ‘and I know it’s well deserved, but could you lay off him a little?’
‘Why’d he have to kick the door?’ she asked, not trying to keep her’s down. ‘Work of a second to check it wasn’t locked and he goes all cops on camera?’
‘Like I said, we all need to blow off some steam.’ I shrugged.
‘Stupid is all I’m saying. And the blowback nearly got me killed!’ she added, yelling, standing on tip-toe with her fists clenched at her sides. This shit wasn’t good for anyone.
‘Come on,’ I sighed, putting my arm around her and walking her to the foyer, ‘let’s get some lunch. I’ve got a few beers in my fridge, you’ll feel better.’
When we got into the foyer we saw that Lucile had stuck a post-it note to the elevator doors:
‘Diverted power to 14th and elevator. Couldn’t do 13th. Tested it, works, ran out of gas.’ It read.
Still without power, it looked like we were back to square one with the stairs. I didn’t feel much like going out there to pump some diesel right now – I’d rather face the stairs than another zed. We left it in the boot for later.
Me and Laurel took the stairs ahead of the other two, diplomatically separating them so they could cool off. When we breathlessly made it back to the top floor, we saw a welcome mat outside the Jamesons’ door. Morgan’s combat boots sat beside it, with Lucile and Anita’s trainers lined up next to them. Looked kind of weird, boots just out in the hallway. We shrugged to each other and slipped out of our shoes before going inside.
Four family-sized coolboxes were lined up on the kitchen island, in patriotic red, white and blue - only with two white ones in the middle. I had a quick peek inside them while Laurel went to use the bathroom. The red box was full of meat – steaks, sausages and chicken breasts in plastic wrap, with ice piled around, looked like they’d been taken from people’s freezers.
The first white box held a similar story in potato products, packets of peas and mixed vegetable servings – the rest of the sandwiches the girls had made earlier were the next box on, still in air-tight plastic lunchboxes, ready to keep for longer. But the blue box had what I was looking for. Our scavenger team were heroes.
I pulled a few of the chilled bottles out for everyone else and made sure the lid was closed properly, just as I’d done with the others, to keep the cool air inside. Edgar kept his bottle opener in the ‘useless items’ drawer next to the sink, being more of a whisky man than a beer drinker.
On the kitchen sides were row upon row of tinned food, seemed like I wasn’t the only person who enjoyed beans on toast. Strawberries, pineapple, pear, suspended in fructose syrup. Tinned tomatoes, carrots, sweetcorn…and every flavour of soup under the sun. In some places, the stacks were four or five tins high.
With the tins were pots and jars as well - pickled onions, gherkins, pasta and curry sauces, those noodles and quick-meal dishes where you just add boiling water and get a passable imitation of food if you wait two minutes and keep stirring.
Of course, there were some things in there I didn’t like the look of. Like the mushy peas - not all Northerners like them - and tinned spaghetti loops. Really don’t like the texture of tinned pasta. Beggars can’t be choosers, but this beggar had a party-sized coolbox full of meat to get through first. Might only last a few days, but they’d be a good few days.
&nb
sp; I noticed one of the cupboard doors hanging open, and found out that some attempt had also been made to load bags of rice and dry pasta into the kitchen cabinets. While I was over there, I saw yet more meat in the sink, wrapped up and defrosting in separate bowls - no cross contamination. A prod revealed they were coming along nicely.
Yet more of the cupboards had been filled with fresh produce, potatoes, peppers, onions, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower. Some of it looked close to the point I’d throw out, so I wondered how much they’d had to leave behind.
I heard voices coming from the corridor, and turned around to greet the guys, wiping my finger off on my jeans.
‘Shoes off and you can have a beer.’ I hastily commanded as the door opened. Neville and Damian did as they were told, so I handed them their drinks as they came in, to keep them sweet.
‘Don’t you usually take your shoes off when you’re inside?’ Neville asked.
‘Yeah, but I guess our shoes would probably fill the doorway.’ I said, nodding to the Jamesons’ shoe rack. Which still held their shoes. Nobody wanted to move them, I guess.
Neville went straight into the living room and started unpacking the bags of guns, arranging the boxes and clips neatly, as if for display. Damian just leaned his shotgun against the arm of the sofa, took the box of shells out of his pocket and started loading them in.
‘Wish we’d had de sense to do this earlier…’ he said to Neville. ‘Why have them, and not load them?’
‘You didn’t load your shotgun either, D.’
‘I was driving. Should’a given it to you.’
‘Point well made. I think we could all do with putting some more thought into our actions.’ He said, looking over to me apologetically. I’m not sure what the scorecard of our fuckups would read right now, but I’m guessing we were square again.
‘Yeah, yeah…’ I agreed, swigging beer. It was good stuff, import, from across the Cold Sea. One of those names with a lot of zeds in – the letter zed, not our new shorthand for the walking dead.
‘Where is everyone?’ Neville asked.
Before I could answer, the door opened again, Morgan and Anita coming through, carrying a sizeable cardboard box each. Must have been using them to ferry the tins about. They set them down on the floor by the kitchen island, heavy with more tinned beans and soup from the vacant apartments. Both of them had wet hair at the temples, from working up a sweat.
‘Hey guys.’ Anita said jovially.
‘Thought I heard you come back.’ Morgan said, looking down at the coolboxes. ‘See anything you like?’
‘Much obliged.’ I smiled, tipping my beer back again.
I could already feel the tension ebbing away. I usually had one or two after work, enough to take the edge off the postal bureaucracy’s latest attempts to screw over our warehouse. If I was going to try taking the edge off today’s stress, we’d need to go looking for a stomach pump too.
‘Open me one of those bad-boys, will ya?’ she asked.
Neville opened his mouth to speak, but Damian gave him the eyeball-equivalent of a soft knock in the ribs. ‘Oh come on…’
‘…was only going to say it’s a bit early in the day…’ Neville muttered.
‘Killjoy,’ I chimed, looking at the clock on the Jamesons’ kitchen wall, ‘it’s almost four.’
I passed more beers out to Anita and Morgan, still barely dinting the impressive number that they’d scavenged from the tower. I guess it wasn’t high priority stuff to take with you when you’re fleeing a deadly virus. More for us.
‘How’d the search go then?’ I asked Anita.
‘Hit a couple trouble apartments, but I went in ahead and cleared. Kiddo was adamant she was okay with the bodies…’
‘Didn’t get vomitorial at all, not even once.’ Morgan butted in. I saw Neville turn to listen in from the other side of the apartment.
‘A close thing,’ Anita smirked, ‘but she was okay. Neville’s keys got us into most apartments, but there were chain locks on the ones with the dead in, had to get a hacksaw from your landlord’s place. Most of it was easy going though. Open doors, root through cupboards, stack it all up outside the door then come back when we found boxes big enough.’
‘Thanks to you guys, looks like we’re not going to have much of an issue with food.’ I said gratefully.
‘Maybe,’ she said, sucking her teeth, ‘I had a while to think about this today. Seven of us, right? That’s twenty one square meals a day, really. We actually haven’t finished bringing stuff up yet, but at a guess, and I’m just eyeballing here…’
I let her think for a minute, tilting her head this way and that.
‘If we eat at that pace, four months?’ she tried.
‘That’s…still a lot of time. Plus there’s plenty more in the co-op.’ I grinned at the news. We were good for supplies. She didn’t look too happy though.
‘Four, six, even eight months with rationing and more food, that isn’t forever. We’ll run out of water before we run out of food too. There’s plenty of fluids we’ve not brought up yet, pop, juice, more alcohol - which is actually going to dehydrate you, so go easy. But actual water, we’ll run out of quickly, since we need it for cooking and cleaning.’
Morgan, who had been filing cupboards with the food haul, paused to turn around. ‘Good job we’re coming into winter. I’ve seen loads of plastic tubs, buckets and boxes. If we put them out on the top floor balconies, we can collect rainwater, like earlier today – every drizzle helps.’
‘What about the roof?’ I asked. ‘There’s a door in the stairwell that can get us on there.
‘Too breezy, up this high,’ she said, ‘empty buckets are going to go rolling off the edge, or if the wind takes a full one then we lose what we’ve collected. The high sides of the balconies’ll stop that, but I suppose we lose some efficiency if the wind’s blowing the rain the wrong way, so we’ll have to bucket every balcony.’
‘Smart plan Morgan,’ Anita smiled, warmly, it touching her eyes, ‘she’s been a pleasure to burgle with.’ She added to Neville.
‘Thanks guys. Glad someone’s day went better than ours.’ I yawned, feeling the beer start to unwind me.
‘What happened?’ Anita asked.
Damian piped up, ‘Shit happened.’
‘Tell you later. Where’s Lucile anyway?’ I asked.
‘Fetching some disposable barbecues from Damian’s kitchen. Wonder how she knew they were there, huh?’ Morgan added with a mutter, so only we could hear.
‘One of life’s great mysteries. So I guess it’s BBQ for dinner tonight? Fantastic.’
‘Someone say barbecue?’ Laurel asked as she re-emerged from the bathroom. ‘I’m a master of the grill.’
‘The disposable grill? And no shrimp.’ Morgan smirked.
‘It’s a coastal tradition, but I think I can work with that.’ Laurel spoke, quite solemnly. ‘It won’t be the same, that’s all I’m saying.’
I think it’s really important to keep morale up. Any tensions in the group are going to show if things turn dangerous. We’d already seen what that could mean with Edgar and Rosie, and Neville’s lack of thought had really ticked off Laurel. But now everyone was back at the safehouse, together, you could feel the strain, the oppressive air of the outside world, just lift.
I sighed and drank again. I had no solid lead on Katy anymore, and just as little idea whether she was still alive as I had yesterday morning. My best hope of finding her was County General, and even if the zeds were moving out of the city, there’d still be a hell of a risk going there. I was glad for Neville’s guns now more than ever.
So that afternoon we had a barbecue, cooking out on the balcony. The last of the dated bread, the defrosted meat, and a box full of beers – all you ever need to have a good time, though I suppose some of the group had insisted there be some salad, I didn’t let that put me off. It was nice, relaxing, and almost normal for a Friday afternoon. As soon as the first bite of a charred steak sandwich
touched my lips, I was in a private heaven.
Then Laurel slapped my ass with a toasting fork and told me to keep an eye on the sausages.
Not to get all preachy at you, but have you ever noticed how much excess our society has? We have so much food that we need to invent ways of preserving and storing it. Having an entire tower block’s worth of frozen food slowly thawing in the kitchen, we’d easily eliminated the short term problem, but unless we got some diesel in that generator, we’d only have it for maybe a couple more days until it started to go bad and we were forced to live off the dry stuff and tins. If we did get power back, we’d even have our electric ovens to do real cooking in.
‘So this co-op you mentioned? Maybe it’s got a backup generator, you know, for the freezers?’ Anita suggested, as we all sat around the living room, drinking and digesting after the meal. Plates of leftovers were being passed around and picked over - we’d eaten well, I was stuffed, but nothing was going to go to waste. Anita had suggested a vote and we’d decided two meals a day were going to have to be enough from now on.
‘Maybe,’ Lucile nodded, ‘Bigger supermarkets do for sure, in case of power cuts. Ain’t so sure about our little local though. Anyone up for a little night-raid to check it out?’
‘May as well. Being out after sunset’s not a thrilling prospect, take it from us’ I said, looking from Neville to Damian. ‘But it’s only up the road. Not far on foot, let alone by car.’
‘Don’t we have enough food already?’ Morgan asked, ‘We’ve stripped the Tower clean and you’re still hungry?’
‘We’ve got more stuff to bring up still, but we’ve been up and down those stairs all day.’ Anita mumbled, covering her mouth as she’d just taken a bite from a chicken sandwich.
‘Really got our cardio in.’ Morgan sighed in agreement. ‘First dibs on the deserts…’
‘If they do have a backup genny, at the co-op though, it’d be small. Maybe even a portable. Could plug it into our fridges.’ Neville suggested, ‘Then we wouldn’t even need to bother with the big generator in the basement.’
