Left Behind: The Suburban Dead

by T. A. Sorsby

  Damian and Lucile got between us and grabbed the shutter to pull it upwards, but only managed to clear our tools by another couple of inches – the shutters were doing their job, forcing us to strain against whatever mechanism held them down. We pushed the prybar forwards, and a little at a time, managed to get it about a foot off the ground.

  I looked over my shoulder to see Laurel keeping an eye on the road, watching for approaching zeds, so I didn’t worry about getting a nasty surprise while we worked at it.

  Morgan slid the car-jack under the gap, set it, and begun to work the lever. Something began to creak as the shutter rattled upwards, a high, tense sound followed by a loud metallic snap which shook the shutter. She got it another inch or so, but it was slow going, the creaking sound starting up again, like we were working backwards against some tooth in a cog.

  ‘It won’t budge any further.’ Morgan said, still trying to press down on the jack lever. Metal groaned again somewhere inside the mechanisms, but we’d gotten almost two feet to wiggle through, we didn’t need to break the thing.

  ‘So we’re thinking there’s a switch to work these remotely then? It’ll probably be in the office.’ Neville suggested, setting his crowbar back in the bag. He blew into cupped hands afterwards, trying to breathe some life into cold fingers.

  ‘Neville, you and me.’ I said, ‘Everyone else, keep watch.’

  ‘Right.’ he acknowledged, drawing his weapon from its holster, and a heavy flashlight from an inside pocket. The thing must have been a foot long, thick as a beer-can and as reminiscent of a club as Anita’s – part of his security guard kit probably. I took Morgan’s tiny light from my pocket and put the lanyard around my left wrist.

  Neville got down on his belly and shined his light under the shutter. He called out it was clear, and started to crawl under. I rolled my bat through and went in after him. He gave me a hand back onto my feet when my lanky legs had folded themselves inside. It wasn’t exactly claustrophobic in here, but if you had a cat, you wouldn’t want to swing it.

  The co-op’s doors were humble, wooden things painted in a pastel shade of blue, with glass panes halfway up, not security glass or toughened, as far as I could tell. I guess putting security glass behind a steel shutter would have been overkill.

  The glass might not have been reinforced, but the doors were chained shut; a heavy length of steel was wrapped around the two door handles and padlocked. The doors themselves probably had their own locks too, but at least there was no alarm system.

  ‘Smash the windows out and climb in?’ Neville asked, training his light on the chain and padlock. In the space between the shutters and the doors, our voices seemed to both echo and be muted.

  ‘Be difficult to wheel the supplies out. There’s bolt cutters in good old Uncle Robb’s bag though,’ I replied, kneeling down again to talk to the guys outside, ‘Can you hand me the…thank you.’ I added, the oversized pliers already passing under the gap.

  They were pretty heavy-duty, and with them I got through the steel padlock with a barely a grunt of effort. Neville slipped the chain loose, and tossed it into a corner, before taking the cutters and handing them back outside.

  ‘Cordless drill, please?’ he asked in exchange.

  ‘Why?’ came Morgan’s muffled response.

  ‘Store lock.’ Anita provided, obviously up to date on the methods of breaking and entering.

  The drill was quite small, smaller than Neville’s new pistol, and as with any man with a power tool, he gave it a couple of test-whirrs before pressing it against the lock. There was a brief whine from the lock before the drill-bit spun out a ribbon of metal, spiralling through the metal as if it were plasterboard. Neville drew it back out, and cocked his head to the side.

  ‘This is professional quality.’ He muttered, suspiciously.

  ‘Maybe Uncle Robb was a locksmith.’ I suggested, keeping my voice as quiet as his. I nudged the door slightly with my foot, and watched it open slowly.

  ‘Possibly. But more than one type of professional might have a drill like this.’ Neville replied just as quietly, before passing the drill back under the shutter.

  ‘You reckon Damian’s uncle is a thief?’ I asked, swinging the door open for Neville. We both knew he was going in first. He knew how to use his gun better than I did, and he had the bigger flashlight.

  ‘One crowbar is happenstance, two crowbars is coincidence, a third, oversized crowbar, in a duffel bag with a lock drill and a blacklight...’

  ‘That’s what that was? You reckon the folding shovel is for when he takes people out into the sticks and makes them dig their own grave?’ I teased, eyes flicking this way and that, trying to keep the tension down.

  ‘It’s weird is all I’m saying.’ He answered.

  The co-op was dark. There were no windows to let the last rays of the day in, and if there was emergency power backing up the freezers and fridges, it wasn’t doing the same for the store’s lighting. I used my knowledge of the place to build a mental map in my head, tried to visualise where everything was. Neville shopped here too, and I figured he’d be doing the same.

  The front doors put us about halfway along the building, but not halfway along the aisles. To our left would be the majority of the food and a door into the storeroom over in the back corner, to our right; a few more aisles and the checkout tills, with the office doors behind them.

  Neville scanned the doorway around the entrance with his flashlight, looking for any kind of switch for the shutters. He found a bank of switches, and flicked them all to the toggled-on position. To our surprise, one light did appear. I thought it was another flashlight at first, but it came shining down from the office doorway.

  A small box with two directional bulbs sat just above it, one of the lights pointing straight at us, at the entrance, and the other diffusing light over the checkout area. It made the rest of the store look even darker, and my paranoia started to eat away at me. Stood here in the pool of light, we’d be visible to anything lurking around in the store. I wasn’t sure if I saw it or just imagined it, something moving around between the aisles, like The Beast in some horror flick. I shivered again, pointed my light towards where I’d seen the movement, and gritted my teeth.

  It was just a trolley, sat in the middle of the aisle. It hadn’t moved.

  ‘You good?’ Neville asked, keeping his voice low. He was looking out into the aisles too, but he didn’t look like he’d seen anything. I tried to take comfort in that, nobody had pushed that trolley, I just hadn’t expected it to be there. After the pawnshop, I think I’d begun to develop an irrational fear of shopping.

  ‘Thought I saw something. Empty cart.’ I added, taking Edgar’s revolver out of my jacket pocket. The weight of the Cobra would have been more comforting, but I knew how to handle the Tetley, and now didn’t seem a good time to learn a new gun.

  ‘And you told Lucile off for saying it was too quiet.’ He chuckled, his voice still low, making it sound deeper, and slightly sinister.

  ‘Hah-ha…’ I found myself nervously grinning, ‘Maybe we should split up and look for clues, after all, I heard a strange noise over there, I’m only two weeks from retirement and it can’t possibly get any worse than this.’

  ‘Haha. Good one…’

  ‘Guys like me are always cast as comic relief.’

  ‘We’re just lucky neither of us are the black guy.’ Neville joked. ‘Coming in here is like asking to get picked off first.’

  *

  Twenty Seven

  We went quick and quiet along the row of checkouts, one eye fixed on the rest of the store as we went, torches flicking this way and that, making sure the coast was well and truly clear. Neville took the lead, the steadier gunhand.

  Neville squeaked through a hip-height plastic door, shining his flashlight along the little shelves of cigarettes, strong spirits and condoms they kept behind the counter. I followed close behind him, catching the door with my knee as it tried to spring back into the
closed position.

  The noisy door, our waving lights and footsteps, in my head we were being too loud, too conspicuous. I turned to stare into the darkened shop again, feeling the walls close in. My breath came tight around the pulse in my throat. I tried to fight it, fixing my tiny flashlight against the dark and slowly strafing along the checkouts, re-checking the store aisle by aisle.

  Neville’s hand on my shoulder told me I’d come too far over.

  ‘Gods, I’ve never seen you this paranoid.’ Neville said, still keeping his voice down, ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Just being careful.’ I snapped back.

  Neville tentatively lowered his hand.

  ‘Sorry,’ I tried again, swallowing hard, ‘I don’t think I’m doing too well with the dark. This happened to me the other night, after we fought the first one, at that car crash.’

  ‘Where Damian broke its wrist?’

  I nodded. ‘Couldn’t sleep. Felt trapped, hard to breathe. Had to turn the light on.’

  ‘Shame we don’t have the lights back yet, but after what we’ve been through, that’s just normal.’

  I hadn’t turned away from the shelves, maybe it was a guy thing but I didn’t want to look at him as I admitted I was afraid of the dark.

  ‘You been having trouble sleeping?’ I asked him.

  ‘Not when I finally doze off, but it takes me a while,’ I saw him shrug, looking down at the floor, ‘have to check the door three or four times, been putting every lock on it, and then dragging a chair over too. Morgan thinks I’m nuts. I can’t sleep until I know she’s sleeping either. According to my watch, I’m on about five hours. Give or take.’

  ‘Mostly take?’

  ‘Mostly. So…I need sleeping pills, and you need a bedside lamp.’

  ‘Sleep’s important. We need to stay rested. Light’s just a trade-off between letting the monsters see you, and not going insane…’

  ‘I’d rather have you sane, personally.’ He said, clapping me on the shoulder, ‘Someone needs to look out for Morgan if I don’t make it. Gibbering wrecks aren’t great role models.’

  I nodded, and tried to pull my shit together. ‘Understood.’

  Neville tried the office door and found it unlocked. Opening it just a crack, he shone his torch through, holding it in a reverse-grip and resting his gun-hand on top, just like you see them doing on TV.

  ‘So how’d you get to sleep last night? Burning candles?’ he asked, nudging the door all the way open with his foot, and leaning in to scan the room beyond.

  ‘Didn’t need them, I had company, sharing the bed with Laurel - nothing happened.’ I quickly added, getting onto my knees to look for a shutter control button under the counters.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought it did, don’t worry. You’re both dealing with the loss of someone close. It’s to be expected you’d grow closer. Maybe not that kind of close…but you know.’ He struggled.

  ‘Not that kind of close.’ I confirmed. ‘Just needed the company.’

  Anyone with a pulse could tell you Ms Daniels was a pretty girl. Maybe even my type. Confident, strong, same brand of arrogance that Katy sometimes wore, if we’re being candid. I’d never seen her with her guard down, except maybe, last night when she’d been crying for Dani, and this morning, when she’d woken up with me.

  I pushed that thought aside, and got my eyes back under the counters. There was a button underneath each till, a red one the size of a doorbell; presumably a panic button in case of robbery. At the till closest to the door, behind Neville, was a metal toggle switch with a printed label above it. With the beam of my tiny flashlight, it read “Shutter Lock”.

  I flicked it, and heard a very loud thunk from outside. Guess it didn’t need mains power to work. A moment later, the shutter began to rattle upwards, Damian standing beneath it, pushing upwards with about as much effort as a garage door. Lucile was already putting the car jack back in the duffel bag.

  ‘Clear?’ Anita asked, coming in much as Neville had, gun and light in her fancy, trained grip, shining it down the aisles.

  ‘Clear.’ I confirmed. She lowered her weapon.

  Damian, Lucile and Morgan were next in, weapons held in a relaxed position. Laurel came in last, checking over her shoulder. While everyone was piling into the shop, Neville went into the little office space, gun lowered now. I followed him in.

  Bare brick walls were softened here and there by inspirational posters; cats hanging onto tree branches, dolphins with captions like “Teamwork – We’re better together!”, that kind of thing. A few chairs were arranged around a cheap-looking dining table, and there was a small kitchenette in the corner, complete with microwave, kettle and sink - you know the setup, basic staff room.

  We went on through another door marked “Manager”, a simple office with a basic computer, filing cabinets, shelves stuffed with folders and loose paperwork around the walls, except in the back corner, where a steel cabinet was marked with a yellow power symbol.

  ‘Could be emergency power, emergency lights, something like that.’ I suggested.

  Neville opened her up, while I kept the light aimed on the switches and read-outs.

  ‘Got one for battery lights here…’ he muttered.

  There came a buzzing hum from the staff room, where the lights pinged and popped into life.

  ‘We’ve got light!’ Lucile called from the store. ‘Good work boys.’

  ‘So far, so good.’ Neville confirmed, shutting the electrical box.

  Out in the aisles, the overhead lights were still warming up, flickering to life. The abandoned trolley sat halfway along one aisle, The Beast that I’d glimpsed with my torch earlier.

  ‘Freezer section’s still fully functioning, think we’re in luck for more steak dinners.’ Anita informed us, coming back to the doors from a row of deep chest freezers.

  ‘These are emergency lights, right?’ Neville asked Lucile, who was seeing if anything was salvageable from the fresh bread stand. ‘Why weren’t they already on?’

  ‘Probably just fire safety lights, not set up to come on just because of a power outage.’ She shrugged one shoulder. ‘Not up to code, I can tell ya.’

  We left the ladies to guard the entrance, Damian, Neville and myself heading to the back of the store, where a blue security door stood. Unlike the doors at the front of the co-op, this one did have wire-mesh security glass in the top, and a keypad at the side. I tried the handle, but it was locked.

  ‘Seen these locks before, we’ve got them at work – power outage should have knocked if off. Must be on whatever emergency power the freezers are running on.’ Neville guessed.

  ‘How do we get in?’ I asked, ‘More crowbar?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s as heavy-duty as the pawnshop door. Tools should get us in.’ Neville agreed, sucking his teeth.

  ‘How many digits in your work code?’ Damian asked Neville.

  ‘Four, why?’

  Damian reached between us, and pressed four numbers on the keypad – one, two, three and four. When that didn’t work, he tried two, four, six and eight. The door buzzed, and he pushed it open.

  ‘Most clubs and bars I set up in, they have codes that’re easy to remember. Pattern in de numbers or just a line of them. If not that, probably written in de staff room notice board.’

  ‘Nice.’ I smirked, ‘Saves a job.’

  The storeroom didn’t have emergency lighting, so Damian led the way in with one or Morgan’s mini-flashlights held in the same hand he was using to support the shotgun barrel. It was awkward, but it worked.

  The back wasn’t warehouse sized, but it was more than half the length of the store, the far wall ending where the office was. It held enough over-filled shelving units to make me smile from ear to ear. If worse came to worse, if we were going to be up in Castle Towers for the foreseeable future, we’d be alright.

  ‘Jackpot.’ Neville beamed, lifting the cardboard flap on a box of tinned beans and sausages. ‘We’re going to stink out the a
partment.’

  ‘Here’s hoping we can get out of Greenfield before we need all this.’ I gestured, walking down one of the shelves and inspecting the contents. ‘Let’s get it back home. Might take us a few trips, so pile as much as we can in both cars, then dump it in Stan’s living room to keep it out of sight before we can haul it up in the lift.’

  Morgan wheeled the trolley over to the doorway. It was shorter and shallower than the big supermarket trolleys you get, but it was better than carrying a box at a time. We managed to load four boxes of beans, biscuits, soup and sundries, but there were plenty more where they came from.

  Anita was inspecting the frozen section, packing select items into insulated cool-bags that we’d gotten from near the tills, the kind that you put your frozen stuff in when you went shopping, so it wouldn’t start to defrost before you got it back home. Together with a few pre-packaged ice cube bags it might buy us a day or two but it was no better than our coolboxes.

  Lucile had stayed to watch the entrance, make sure nothing crept up on us while we were celebrating our win – a trip out of the safehouse completely without incident.

  Or…so we thought.

  As we were making our way back to the doors, we heard the rumble of an engine, the squeak of tyres, and the shouting of voices.

  I abandoned the trolley and ran forward, drawing the Cobra as I went. Footsteps squeaked and pounded on the co-op floor behind me, as the others rushed to keep up.

  Lucile let out a yelp, but I got to the doors just in time for her to disappear, dragged sideways. I strafed quickly around the corner after her, my gun raised. I felt the rain coming down faster now. People were moving out of the store behind me, raising their guns up. I hoped Morgan had the good sense to stay inside.

  Lucile was being held by a man in camouflage gear – top to bottom. I could see one side of a tactical vest, but the other half of his body was blocked by Lucile. She still had her gun, her bat somewhere on the floor, but her hand was shaking. The man held her like a human shield, crouching slightly to compensate for her height, and pressing a gun up against the side of her head.