Chapter 10
Day 4
Max’s stomach was rumbling, and he didn’t remember when he had last eaten. There was a convenience store in a little plaza coming up on the left, so he decided he’d run in and grab whatever food he could find. Four zombies shuffled around the parking lot, but they were spread out. He didn’t know what he might find inside the store, so he thought it was best to take out the zombies before he went inside. It didn’t take much effort for him to put down all four of them. He took another look around to make sure the area was clear before walking up to the glass door of the store.
Looking through the door, he didn’t see any of the dead stumbling around. He opened the door slowly then swore when a little bell at the top of it rang to announce his presence. He took another glance behind him then walked inside. He heard the telltale sound of raspy moans, but it sounded like there were only a couple of them. A quick look down the end of each aisle revealed nothing, but at the rear of the little store two zombies were stumbling out from the office and storeroom area. He kicked one in the knee to knock it off balance but it stayed on its feet after a little stumble. That was all the time he needed to kill the first one before taking care of the second. There was a thumping sound coming from somewhere in the back, but he didn’t feel the need to clear the storage room since this was a quick stop. He walked back to one of the little food aisles and grabbed an armful of beef jerky. Eyeing a display of trail mix, he grabbed a couple of bags from behind the counter and filled them to the brim with jerky, nuts, and trail mix. With the electricity still on, he grabbed a couple of bottles of cold soda and a few more energy drinks. It was plenty to hold him over for a while so he wouldn’t have to make another stop like this. He had a full pack of water in the truck but grabbed a case on his way out the door anyway. He thought of Frank and Junior being stuck in the firetruck with no water and shuddered. He wasn’t going to get himself stuck anywhere without supplies, and the day was already heating up to be another scorcher.
Max pulled out onto the street and thought of the pharmacy coming up at the next intersection. Knowing that medications were soon going to be hard to come by, he decided to make a stop. With his wife being a nurse, Max knew that she would want a stockpile of various medications in case of illness or injury. He pulled into the parking lot and parked near the door. A half dozen zombies were lingering nearby, and he knew he should take them out before he went inside, or else they might draw a larger crowd. The zombie closest to him was a frail fifty-something man dressed in what was once a nice shirt and tie before it became blood-splattered when the man had lost a chunk of his neck to a zombie bite. Max quickly and easily grabbed the man and thrust his knife through his ear. Close behind was a teenage girl wearing very little clothing. Both hands were missing fingers, and several bite wounds ran up her left arm. Max took a handful of her hair to hold her in place, then plunged his knife in. A little further away, two twenty-something male zombies shuffled toward Max. They both wore tattered jeans with concert t-shirts and shared the same curly blond hair, making Max believe that they had probably been brothers. He generally didn’t notice or care about those details because they were all zombies, but the matching hair stood out to him. They were both built pretty solid with minimal visible bite wounds to impede their movements, so Max figured he’d better separate them before trying to kill them. He shoved the one on the left, causing it to stumble backward a few steps as he took those precious seconds to kill the blond on the right. He turned back and killed the first blond as it regained its footing, but before it could lay a hand on Max. He looked around to make sure no other zombies had wandered into the area before taking down the last two. Both were fast, easy kills.
The store was unlocked and well-lit, which wasn’t surprising given that the zombie apocalypse had started on a Friday afternoon. He stepped inside and stood by the door for a moment to see if he could hear anything moving within the store. There was a faint tapping sound coming from the rear of the store and a pair of shuffling feet somewhere nearby. Max looked up at the nearest security mirror to see a zombie about to round the corner toward the front door. Max met the zombie halfway and dropped it to the floor with a quick thrust of his knife. Looking around, he could see that the store had already been ransacked. Smears of dried blood coated the counter by one of the registers, and a dead body lay on the floor behind it. Full displays of chips, sunglasses, and candy were knocked to the floor. Blood was smeared throughout the front of the store, with several more bodies scattered around. Max silently crept past the end of each aisle to make sure there were no surprises in store for him. At the fourth one, he found a legless zombie crawling toward him at an agonizingly slow pace. He walked over to it, bent down, and put it out of its misery. Looking around, he didn’t see anything else other than the mess of store goods knocked onto the floor throughout the store. There was still a tapping sound coming from the direction of the pharmacy, which sat just out of sight in the far corner after a small curve in the wall. Max used the security mirrors hanging near the ceiling to help make sure that the area was at least relatively clear. When he finally rounded the corner toward the pharmacy, he saw several dead zombies on the floor, and the security door to the pharmacy itself stood wide open.
The tapping sound was coming from somewhere beyond that door. Max quietly stepped through the open doorway and looked around. The pharmacy had been ransacked. Baskets filled with bags of prescriptions had been knocked to the floor, and several shelves stood empty. He followed the tapping sound to the controlled substance area. What should have been locked up to protect the drugs from would-be thieves was freely exposed. The tapping sound Max had been hearing was coming from the pharmacist turned zombie who was wedged in by the door for controlled substances. Pen in hand, the mindless zombie moved his hand up and down with the pen hitting the door, creating the tapping sound. Before looking any further, Max put down the pharmacist. A slight noise from the corner grabbed Max’s attention. Sitting on the floor with his back against the wall was a twenty-something guy bleeding freely from a large bite wound on his arm. Max looked closer to see if the guy was armed but saw no weapons of any kind.
“Hey man,” the guy said quietly.
“You alone?” Max asked. He wasn’t sure what he was dealing with yet and wanted to make sure no surprises were going to jump out at him and that the guy didn’t have friends with him ready and waiting to make a move.
“Yeah,” he said with a gasp. “I was an idiot trying to get into the narcotics and didn’t see the pharmacist until it was too late.”
“The pharmacist bit you?” Max asked.
“I thought the pharmacy was clear, so I didn’t even have my knife out. When he clenched down on me, he ripped out my bicep. It was all I could do to shove him behind that door.”
“You have anyone out there waiting for you?” Max asked.
“Nah man, I’m on my own. Shit, I should have never left my house. I’m David,” he introduced himself.
“Max. Can I do anything for you? You want some water or something?” Max looked closer at the wound and knew that the guy didn’t have much time left.
“Keep me company for a few? I don’t want to die alone, man,” David said. His face was so pale it was nearly white.
Max took another look around to make sure everything was still clear before he answered.
“Yeah, I’ll stay,” Max said.
David nodded his thanks as his breathing grew more labored. He never said another word before his head dropped to his chest and the last bit of life left his body.
“Shit,” Max mumbled to himself. He crouched down and thrust his knife through David’s ear. The guy had survived the first few days of the apocalypse then died because he went looking for a quick high. Max just shook his head. What a waste.
He stood back up and looked over at the controlled substances. He grabbed a few bags and cleared an entire shelf of painkillers, then quietly walked around the pharmacy looking for anti
biotics. Most of the medications were foreign to him, and he had no idea what they were for. Finally, he found a section filled with some familiar names of antibiotics. He grabbed various bottles until he had a bagful. He looked around some more, then grabbed steroids, the allergy and cold medications kept behind the counter, and a few other random things that he was unfamiliar with. He didn’t know if or when any of those items might come in handy but figured it was worth grabbing what he could while he was there.
As Max took one last look around the pharmacy, he jumped when he heard a loud slapping noise coming from his left. A quick look revealed a few zombies pressed up against the glass of the drive-through window. He let out a sigh of relief and figured he’d better get moving before he drew a crowd. He went down the regular store aisles and filled a few bags with first aid supplies, peroxide, and alcohol. Not wanting to push his luck any further, he quietly made his way back to the front of the store. He looked out the door to see a handful of zombies shuffling around the parking lot but none near the door. He hurried out, and put all of his overflowing bags in the back seat, then got into the truck. A few more zombies had turned toward the store and were headed his way, so he quickly pulled out of the parking lot to put some distance between them and resume his search for Camille.
Chapter 11
Day 4
Camille eased herself out of bed then slowly walked to the bedroom door. Her knee protested as she put her weight on it, but she made herself keep moving. Once in the hallway, she heard the voices of the family who had taken her in. She followed the sound to find them once again in the living room at the rear of the house.
“Good morning, Camille,” Elizabeth said warmly, although Camille thought she sensed some tension in her voice. “How are you feeling?”
“Much better, but a little sore all over,” Camille said.
“A little more rest and some ice should help quite a bit,” Elizabeth said as she handed her a bottle of water and two pills to help with the pain. “Sweetie, sit down on that recliner so you can keep your knee elevated. I’ll be right back with some breakfast and a fresh ice pack.”
She returned a moment later with a plate of cinnamon rolls and fresh fruit in one hand and an ice pack in the other. Camille accepted both gratefully and started eating.
Elizabeth and Bradford sat down and got comfortable on plush couches. Camille couldn’t help but notice that the noise from the zombies was louder than it had been the night before. She thought Bradford and Elizabeth both seemed a bit stressed.
“What’s it like outside?” She asked. The couple exchanged a quick glance before speaking.
“Well, the house is surrounded by a few hundred zombies, but they’re mostly focused on the rear of the house,” Bradford decided to be blunt with his answer. “I don’t think they’ll be able to get inside, but with so many of them out there, I just don’t see a way to try to get you back home, at least not yet.”
Camille sighed. She was grateful to be safe and felt she couldn’t have stumbled upon a nicer, more generous family to take her in, but she desperately wanted to get back home to her own. She also worried that the sheer number of zombies surrounding the house would cause the wall of windows to break. She shivered at the thought of hundreds of zombies making their way inside.
“Do you really think the weight of so many zombies pushing up against the house isn’t going to cause the windows to break? What about the doors? With so many of them out there, you don’t think they’re going to manage to push or break the doors open?” Camille asked.
“The doors and doorframes are reinforced with steel. I honestly don’t think they can get through,” Elizabeth said. “I think the glass is thick enough that it will hold as long as they don’t all pile up against it.” That was exactly what Camille was afraid of; that the zombies would all pile up against the glass. At least the zombies couldn’t see them up on the second floor, or else they would have been in a feeding frenzy.
“The yard slopes downward toward the beach. That should help keep too many of them from pushing up against the windows. If the ground were level, I’d be much more concerned,” Bradford said, then sighed. “A fire started up last night in Westlake and has burned through two entire blocks of houses. We’re hoping it will eventually burn itself out before it spreads any further.”
“We’re just keeping a close eye on things right now,” Elizabeth said.
Neither of them had to say any more for Camille to understand that they were potentially in a precarious situation, but she thought that they were far enough from Westlake that it wasn’t likely to become a problem for them.
“I’ve been packing up bags of supplies, so we have some things ready to go just in case we have to leave in a hurry,” Bradford said. “We packed some extra things for you.”
“But you said there are hundreds of zombies surrounding the house. How would we get through them?” Camille asked.
“I’m trying to come up with a plan for that, but honestly, I’m not sure yet,” Bradford said. “We’ll just have to figure things out as we go.”
“In the meantime, you need to rest that knee as much as you can,” Elizabeth said. “I don’t think that we’re going to end up running around on foot, but if you need to move quickly, your knee needs some time to heal. Don’t get up, sweetie. If you need anything, just let one of us know.”
“I understand how badly you want to get back to your family, but I don’t think we’re going to be able to do anything about it today,” Bradford said. “So just listen to my wife’s advice; she’s a fantastic surgeon, and she knows what she’s doing.”
Camille appreciated their care and refuge but knew she couldn’t wait another day to try to get home to her family. Before she could put her thoughts into words, Elizabeth picked up a remote and turned the TV on. The screen was so large that it filled nearly half of one wall. It almost felt like a mini-movie theater. Camille thought she was going to flip through channels to see if any of them were still on the air, but instead, the screen split into more than a dozen smaller frames. Each frame showed live security footage from views all around the outside of the mansion, covering every entrance as well as each side of the home, the driveway, and the beach.
Nearly every camera captured close-up images of zombies surrounding the house. Elizabeth pressed some buttons to zoom out on the view outside. There were indeed at least a few hundred zombies surrounding the house and covering the beach, but there weren’t very many at the front of the house.
Camille perked up a bit when she saw the views of the front of the house and the street. She had already run through smaller crowds of zombies, much like what she was viewing on the monitor. Where the family that had rescued her saw hopelessness, she saw a possible opening.
She glanced at Elizabeth and Bradford and saw the strain evident on their faces. She wondered if either of them had come face to face with a zombie yet. Somehow she thought it was unlikely that they had. With the safety of their home, they would have had no reason to. She tried to imagine the two of them using knives or guns to fight off the dead, but the image seemed ridiculous in her mind. She wondered what kind of weapons they had or if they even had weapons.
“Do you have guns and knives ready if we have to fight our way out?” She asked as she double-checked that she still had her knife on her belt. Knowing it was there was reassuring.
“We have some guns for self-defense as well as some hunting rifles, and I have half a dozen good knives,” Bradford said. “I’ve put them with our supplies.” Elizabeth visibly blanched at the thought of using a knife or firing a gun.
“I’ve had to kill some zombies. You may have to mentally prepare yourself for it, especially if you have to use a knife. The easiest way to kill them is to plunge the knife through their eye or ear. It’s gross, and the smell is horrible, but if you hesitate…” Camille trailed off. She was a guest in their home but felt that she was better prepared to fight the zombies than they were. “We’ve avoided using gun
s since they’re drawn to sound.”
“If we’re forced to leave due to the fire, perhaps some of them will be distracted by the flames. Maybe we won’t have to go through so many of them,” Elizabeth said hopefully.
“For now, we’re just going to make sure we’re prepared for a worst-case scenario,” Bradford said. “We may be lucky. The zombies could get distracted, and the fire may burn out before it reaches this far.”
Camille turned back to the monitors to get a better look at what the front of the house looked like. She was already so accustomed to zombies that the images didn’t disturb her much. As she looked at the various screens, she noticed that some of the zombies got carried away into the water, unable to maneuver where the waves gently lapped the shore. As more zombies went into the water, others that surrounded the house made the push back toward the water.
The medication, ice, and rest were all helping to relieve the pain in her knee. She felt she could use it, but it would be a long walk home, and if she had to run, her knee might give her trouble. She wondered if the kind couple would let her take one of their cars. She didn’t know how to drive, but how hard could it be? There were no other drivers on the road; she’d just have to dodge zombies and abandoned cars. All she could think about was getting home to her family. She knew her mom had to be out of her mind with worry, and her dad and Jesse could be home by now. She was sure they were out searching for her, but how could they possibly find her? They didn’t know where to look and could be anywhere. They didn’t even know which direction to search in. She’d put quite a bit of distance between herself and the horde and had run further than she ever would have thought possible. She was interrupted from her thoughts when Bradford commented on the zombies getting carried away into the water.
“I know, I’ve been watching the monitors, and there are fewer zombies in front of the house than there were just a little while ago,” Camille said. “A lot of them are getting washed out into the lake.”
SUBURBAN JUNGLE: A Post Apocalyptic Zombie Survival Thriller (Chronicles of the Undead: Book 2) Page 9
