Death & Decay (Book 2): Divided

by R. L. Blalock

  Colin shifted, stretching muscles that had become stiff from sitting in the same position for too long. The breeze surrounded them with the smell of decay, a rank and pungent smell tinged ever so slightly with a hint of sweetness that made Colin want to gag.

  His eyes were locked on the gun shop, though. Dozens of bodies shifted continuously around it, clogging the open front doors and flooding the small parking lot in front of the building. The front windows had been plastered with posters advertising anything a gun enthusiast could want. It was those same posters that prevented them from seeing what the inside of the store was like.

  “They should be here any minute.” Eric looked up and down the large street between them and the gun shop. “They can’t tear in here. If they aren’t quiet enough, it won’t work.”

  “I know.” Samuel shifted impatiently. “I would just about kill to be moving, though.”

  “Hush.” Ervin’s voice silenced them as he pointed down the road.

  The van rolled slowly down the road, a few freaks trailing slowly behind. Colin tensed up as the van rolled past their position and stopped just in front of the shop. Two high-pitched whistles broke the relative silence as Rotna leaned out of the passenger-side window and banged invitingly on the car’s door.

  As one, the freaks turned toward the sounds. Howls echoed off the buildings around them.

  But the van didn’t move. As the horde surged forward, the van idled in the street. As the first few freaks reached the van and began to beat their bloodied fists against the windows, the vehicle moved.

  “Easy. Easy,” Ervin muttered more to himself as the van lurched forward before resuming its steady crawl, moving just fast enough that the zombies had to trot to keep up with it.

  Slowly, the van receded down the street, the freaks clustered around the bumper, trailing in its wake.

  Just another minute.

  “Go,” Samuel hissed when the van and the horde were nearly out of sight.

  Running in crouching positions, the four sprinted across the five-lane road as quickly and silently as they could. As they neared the small gun shop, Eric broke away to the left. A freak toppled out of one of the broken windows, reaching for Eric. He lunged forward, quickly caving in the creature’s skull.

  As Samuel reached the front door first, Colin readied his hammer. In the small confines of the shop, the hammer would be much easier to wield than the crowbar. One of the thick metal doors was propped open by the mutilated remains of a body. Picked down nearly to bone and a few stringy clumps of flesh, it was hard to tell anything about who the corpse had been. Samuel yanked open the other door, ignoring the remains.

  The smell that wafted out of the dark interior was worse than Colin had imagined it would be. The enclosed space had captured the rot, holding its stench within the walls. As he stepped in, it became hard to breathe through the miasma of death that permeated the interior.

  Colin blinked rapidly, desperate to clear his watering eyes and trying to take slow shallow breaths as he searched the darkness for any freaks that might have remained behind.

  The store’s interior was cluttered with glass display cases and stands holding any number of accessories. A growl to his right gave Colin a split second’s notice before a freak lunged out of the darkness. Colin sidestepped before it could grab ahold of him, bringing his hammer down on the creature’s shoulder with a sickening crunch. Samuel and Ervin pushed through the door next to him, flanking Colin on either side as the creature fell to the floor. Samuel brought his ax down on its head, quickly yanking it back.

  “Shit,” Samuel swore. The dark interior of the store roiled and churned as more of the freaks turned toward the entrance, excited by the movement. Fewer of the monsters had followed the horde and the van than they had hoped.

  “Use the aisles to funnel them down to one or two at a time.” Ervin leapt forward and smashed another in the face before it could move toward them.

  Colin’s heart raced as he moved to Ervin’s right.

  “Right behind you.” Samuel patted Colin’s shoulder and fell in line behind him as Eric moved in behind Ervin.

  Growls echoed through Colin’s ears as he pushed deeper into the store. Another freak lunged at him, its bloodied hands reaching for him as he brought the crowbar down squarely on its head. The woman crumpled to the ground in a heap, but another was right behind her, ready to take her place.

  Swing. Step. Swing Step. Swing. Step.

  A hand took hold of Colin’s sleeve, pulling him to the ground as he stumbled over one of the bodies on the floor. The freak fell on top of him, snarling and snapping. Its nose was missing, leaving two gaping holes in the center of its bloody face.

  With a sickening thwack, it suddenly fell still. Samuel wrenched his ax out of the freak’s head. He shoved the nearest freak hard, sending it into one of the displays. With the brief opening, Samuel stepped over Colin, hacking into the neck of another freak.

  “Need a hand?” Eric extended his hand to Colin and helped pull him to his feet.

  With his own heart roaring in his ears, Colin hadn’t realized that silence had fallen over the room. Only the sound of glass crunching under a few feet and some heavy breathing broke the silence.

  “Everyone alright?” he asked.

  “I’m good,” Ervin called out from where he had moved to a wall that displayed more guns than Colin had ever seen in one place.

  “Me too.” Eric nodded.

  “You alright?” Samuel asked.

  “Yeah. I’m fine.” The entire right side of Colin’s body was covered in a slimy coat of gore where it had met the floor, but nothing felt more than just sore.

  “Here.” Eric placed a long heavy flashlight in Colin’s hand. Colin immediately clicked it on. Bright swaths of light cut through the darkness as others turned on theirs as well.

  “Alrighty folks, let’s get down to business,” Ervin called out. “Eric and Colin, look for the AR-15s and the Glock 22s. Some shotguns couldn’t hurt if they get in close. However, the ammo for the others will be lighter. Samuel, grab the ammo and pile it up. We’ll all have to load up as much as we can carry.”

  “Just keep on your guard,” Colin noted as he cast his flashlight toward the floor. It was covered in a mass of tangled bodies. Mangled limbs and angry snarling faces woven together into a gruesome carpet.

  It wasn’t long before they had amassed a large stack of boxes near the front door. Next to it sat a pile of a few dozen guns, each carefully selected according to Ervin’s advice about ammunition, maintenance, and reliability.

  Colin bent down in front of a glass case, inspecting the few knives instead. The knives were almost an afterthought, with only six on display. Colin selected a sturdy-looking, fixed-blade buck knife and plucked in out of the case.

  “Look at what I found,” Ervin proclaimed proudly as he extended half a dozen slim cylinders. “Suppressors. The quieter we can stay, the more of a chance we’ll stand against these fuckers.”

  He handed one to each of them and ran back to get more.

  “I was thinking,” Colin said as he threaded the suppressor onto the barrel of his own AR-15. “There’s a Walgreens right next door. We should go check it out while the area is relatively empty. There are definitely things we could use in there if it hasn’t been picked over.”

  Colin hated the idea of entering another potentially infested building. They had been lucky so far, but there was no telling when their luck would run out. However, the opportunity to pick up medical supplies—specifically medicines and antibiotics—was too good to pass up.

  “Sounds like a good idea,” Samuel agreed. “We might as well do it now while we’re here. It’s better than having to go out again.”

  They stuffed their bags, in the end having to make two trips to the SUV that they had stashed in the dealership parking lot before heading over to Walgreens.

  The sliding glass doors in front of the store lay in shattered ruins across the ground. The edges of the g
lass that had remained in the metal frames gleamed red as the sunlight bounced off them. Rusty red handprints and smears marred the building’s white walls.

  Colin checked the safety on his AR-15 as they approached the building. The drugstore was better lit inside than the gun shop had been. High windows that surrounded the store let light trickle in on to the toppled displays and cluttered aisles.

  One by one, they moved down the aisles, dispatching the remaining freaks. Far fewer remained in this store than the gun shop, as they were allowed to move more freely through the permanently open doors.

  With the building cleared, they grabbed more backpacks from the back-to-school section. They were small, flimsy, and cheaply made, but they would work for now. With that, the group set off to collect what they needed. Canned and packaged food. Water. Bandages and first-aid supplies. Toothbrushes, shampoo, soap, and other hygiene necessities.

  When their packs were full once again, they grabbed a few more from the racks and headed toward the back corner of the store. Toward the pharmacy. The large metal gate had been pulled down over the counter, sealing what lay behind it from sight.

  They moved to the side, where patients could use a small door to consult with the pharmacist. When the door didn’t budge after a few kicks, Ervin pressed the barrel of one of the shotguns to the handle and pulled the trigger. With a deafening blast, a hole appeared and the top half of the door swung inward from the force. Colin wrinkled his nose in disgust as the scent of decay wafted from the pharmacy.

  Shrieks erupted from inside the room. It took Colin a moment to realize they weren’t the crazed angry shrieks of the freaks. They were fearful cries.

  “Wait.” Samuel nudged the others aside, but didn’t stick his head through the open top half of the door.

  “Hello,” he announced, his voice soft and calm. “Is someone in here?”

  Only sniffles and quiet sobs answered him.

  “We aren’t here to hurt you,” he called out again. “We were just looking for supplies.”

  “W-We’re here,” a shaky female voice returned.

  “We’re armed but we aren’t here to hurt you,” Samuel reiterated, his voice level and calm. “I’m going to come in. Is that alright?”

  There was a paused and some hushed whispering, though Colin couldn’t make out what was said.

  “Yes, you can come in.”

  Samuel handed his gun to Colin. Slowly, he reached in and unlocked the bottom half of the door. Inside the room, huddled in a corner, were two women in the white lab coats. One, a tall blonde woman with her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, wore a pale blue button-up shirt and khakis—normal business-casual attire that wouldn’t have looked out of place if it weren’t for the blood that had dried down the front of her coat and shirt. She brandished a bat at them as they entered the back of the pharmacy. Behind her, the other woman was curled up small in the corner.

  Samuel held his hands up as the others lowered their guns towards the ground.

  “Have you been in here the whole time?” Colin asked in amazement as he took in their gaunt faces and the way the bat dipped and wavered unsteadily in the woman’s hands.

  She nodded, her movements jerky. Finally, she lowered the bat, too exhausted to hold it up any longer.

  “We’ve been surrounded.” She leaned back against the shelf and slid to the ground, scooting closer to her companion. “We locked ourselves in here, but they never left. We thought we were going to die.” Though she seemed to want to cry, no tears came. Her lips were cracked and dry, as she licked them nervously.

  Eric dropped his pack to the ground, a move that startled the women. “Sorry.” He grinned sheepishly as he began rooting around. Producing two bottles of Gatorade, he slowly walked towards the women, holding the bottles out.

  “Thank you.” The first woman greedily snatched the bottle from him and gulped down half of it before passing it to the other woman. “I’m Brenda. This”—she nodded towards the other woman, who had uncurled a bit to eye them warily—“is Emily.”

  “Are you hurt?” Samuel asked after she opened the second bottle and had drunk some more.

  “No.” Brenda looked down at her stained clothes. “It’s not mine.” Her eyes grew distant for a moment before she continued. “Someone else was with us when this all started. One of the customers collapsed in the waiting area. When Steve went to help, he attacked her. I grabbed her and decided to lock us back here until help arrived.” She cackled—a startling, hysterical sound. “The help never came and she woke up and started attacking us.”

  Brenda’s eyes flitted to a corner behind the four men. Colin followed her gaze. A set of men’s brown dress shoes stuck out from behind the end of a shelf.

  “We were hoping to find some medicine.” Eric looked to the women. “We don’t have much back at our camp, and we were hoping to take some back to our group. If you want to come with us, you can. It’s not much…”

  “I don’t know where else we’d go.” Brenda sighed and pushed herself up. “What are you looking for?”

  “Honestly, we don’t know,” Samuel admitted. “Nobody is sick—not yet at least—but we figured some of the stuff in here would be important if people did start getting sick.”

  “Follow me.” Brenda walked along the shelves, her eyes expertly roving over the bottles and pulling them down as she saw fit. Before long, the three bags they had were bulging with medication, most of which Colin couldn’t even begin to pronounce and knew even less what they were used for.

  “That about does it.” Brenda handed back the last backpack.

  Colin looked over the medication still on the shelves. “None of this other stuff is useful? There are more backpacks in the front of the store we could grab.”

  Brenda shook her head. “Unless you have people that are very old with the ailments that come with age, or specialty conditions, the rest will just be useless weight.”

  Colin nodded. “At least we have some stuff to tide us over.”

  “Alright, let’s get on home,” Ervin announced.

  Colin hoisted his pack and settled his rifle against his shoulder.

  “Samuel, with me in front. Colin and Eric, watch the rear. Ladies, stick to the center. We’re going to move quick and quiet. We want to get out of here without drawing the freaks back,” Ervin instructed. Brenda nodded and helped Emily to her feet. The girl still had a far-off look in her eye, and Colin wondered how far gone she was.

  They moved down the aisles towards the front door, alert for any freaks that may have wandered back and made their way inside. Colin was itching to get back to Thies. Back to their relative safety.

  “Well, what the fuck do we have here?” A loud, unfamiliar voice declared. The others had stopped short, and Colin barely avoided colliding with Brenda as his foot slipped on some loose ads.

  Colin’s heart fell as he looked over three cars that had parked in a semicircle around the front doors. Nine men stood just inside the ring of vehicles, preventing them from leaving. About half of them carried guns. The other half carried baseball bats and hammers and in one case a sword.

  “Hey, buddy,” Ervin said lightly, though he made no move to lower his gun. “We aren’t looking for trouble. We just want to get home and ride this thing out like everybody else.”

  “I am not your buddy, asshole.” A tall man, almost a full head taller than Colin, sneered at Ervin from under his St. Louis Blues baseball hat. He held his shotgun propped against his shoulder. His plain t-shirt and jeans were dirty, much like their own, from a week’s worth of grime. Muscles rippled in his arms and neck as he shifted slightly to look at his compatriots.

  “You are on Sovereign territory, and that is our stuff in your hands.” He looked over their group, assessing each of them.

  “Sovereign territory?” Colin asked incredulously.

  “Yes, dipshit.” The man’s gaze snapped over to Colin. “That would be us. We are Sovereign and held accountable to no man that is not ou
r own. And this”—he gestured around him—“is our territory.”

  Colin blanched. The rhetoric sounded like some mindless antigovernment bullshit that had gotten out of control. These guys weren’t just crazies spouting their ideas online anymore, though. Now they were an unchecked threat.

  “This place was overrun when we got here,” Samuel snapped back. “We cleared it out.”

  “There’s plenty left still,” Eric cut in. “There’s enough for the both of us. We got what we came for.”

  “Do I look like a fucking dog to you?” Eric seemed taken aback by the question. “I don’t take anyone’s leftover scraps. These were ours and you’re carrying our shit. So put it down like good little boys.”

  “We worked for this stuff,” Colin spit out. “We need it just as much as you do. There is more that we can carry. There’s no reason why we can’t share it.”

  “We can’t share it. In case you haven’t gotten the newsflash, this is the end of the world. This shit isn’t just going to be available in stores anymore. What’s here is what we got—so no, we won’t share it. Now I said put your goddamn bags down. Last chance.”

  No one made a move. Colin glanced at the others out of the corners of his eyes. They were tense. And ready.

  “Fuck! Fine! I’ll count. You have till the fucking count of three. One!”

  Colin could feel his heart thundering in his chest. What were they going to do?

  “Two!”

  Carefully, Colin used his thumb to flip the safety on his rifle off.

  “Three!”

  Boom!

  The man jerked backwards and collapsed onto the ground. For a moment, the others stood there, hardly contemplating what had happened. Then the men scrambled to put up their guns while the ones with hand weapons scrambled behind the cars. Colin centered his sights on a man as he backed behind the edge of the vehicle. As the man raised his shotgun, Colin pulled the trigger. The man fell back, red blossoming across his chest.

  Without a word, Samuel and Ervin began firing as Eric ushered the women to safety inside the building.

  A scream pierced the air. Emily’s head snapped back, bone and brain matter spraying out of the back of her head. Brenda sank down next to her, tears streaming down her cheeks. Eric yanked the woman up quickly, dragging her away from her friend and back inside the drugstore.