by Josh Vasquez
Lexx started to look around as she placed a few more boxes in their cart. The “feminine hygiene” aisle was also the “family planning” aisle. Rows and rows of condoms, pregnancy tests, and assorted lubricants sat neighbor to the maxi-pads, and tampons.
Things kinda go full circle here, huh, he thought.
He picked up a pack of condoms off the shelf, turned it over, and began reading the back of the package. Tori eyed him with a smile creeping up on her face.
“You plan on using those anytime soon there, big boy?”
His face flushed red as he fumbled to put it back on the shelf.
“I uh, was just, uh, reading it,” he said.
“Oh yeah? I bet that’s some good reading there!”
“Shut up.”
“You embarrassed, Lexington?”
He gave her a smile when she called him that.
“No, Victoria,” he mocked. “Maybe I will grab some. I don’t know when I’ll be seeing them again, so I’d like to have a nice supply.”
“Oh, haha. You are so funny. Good luck finding someone to use them with,” she said as she walked away.
He wasn’t sure if she was swaying her hips on purpose, or if it was just his imagination playing tricks on him. Could be both. The skin tight jeans she was wearing hugged her curves nicely and the oversized tourist t-shirt hung loose, exposing the bare skin of one of her shoulders.
He came up next to her and the cart, and emptied his arms of the thirty boxes he grabbed from the shelf. She let out a huge laugh. It was larger and louder than she expected, so she quickly covered her mouth. He chuckled at her awkwardness.
“Oh wow, someone’s full of themselves,” she said.
“No, just confident. Besides, I’ve pretty much already been to second base with you. You wanna make it a grand slam?” he asked with a sly smirk.
“Uh, no. And going along with your stupid baseball analogy, whenever did we get to second base in your mind?”
“Downtown. You pretty much just flashed your breasts at me!”
She laughed at the way he said ‘breasts.’ This time she didn’t hold back her giggles.
“That’s not second base, you doofus! Second base is actually touching them! You, my friend, haven’t even stepped up to bat yet!”
He stopped walking and put his hand on her waist. She immediately stopped and looked up at him. She fought against herself, but knew she was melting in his hands. He looked into her expectant green eyes and inched slowly closer to her face. She put up no fight as he leaned in and kissed her. Their lips locked for a few seconds, before he pulled away. She did not try to hide the big smile on her flushed red face.
“Not bad Lexington, not bad.”
“You’re not too shabby yourself, Victoria.”
“And a gentleman too,” she added. “You could have gone for more and I would have probably given it to you, but you didn’t and I respect that.”
He smiled and they continued to walk again. She started to say something else, but was cut off when the alarms went off. They looked at each other worriedly, grabbed the cart, and bolted for the front of the store.
***
“What the hell is going on?” Tori yelled, as they got to the front of the store. “I thought the power was off?”
Ben and Jeremy got there the same time as Lexx and Tori. Jeremy threw up his hands in confusion. He winced as the alarm continued to blast throughout the store.
“Sometimes alarms are kept on a backup power source,” Ben yelled. “Maybe this is one of those alarms?”
“Well, what the hell set it off then? We’ve been in this store too long for the alarm to just now be going off,” she continued. “Wait. Where’s LJ?”
Everyone else noticed that the fifth member of their group was still missing. Unlike the others, he had not run to the front of the store once the alarm started blaring. They began to look around to see if they could find him when there was loud crash from the pharmacy. They ran there and saw that it had been broken into and was the source of the alarm.
Jeremy walked in first cautiously. The others followed slowly and nearly bumped into a stopped Jeremy. There lying on the floor was an extremely intoxicated LJ covered in prescription pill bottles. He looked up to the group with a big, goofy smile and said,
“Hey guys! I feels better!”
Chapter Twenty Six
They stood there in disbelief as LJ struggled to get up to his feet. He was unsuccessful and fell back into the sea of orange bottles. He just laughed.
“You did this?” Tori screamed, drowning out the alarm. “You set off the alarm, you stupid son of a bitch? Fuck him! We are definitely leaving his ass now!”
She turned and glared at Jeremy. She was right. He nodded.
“We’ll leave him. Just not here.”
She started to protest, but he cut her off.
“Look, this place will be crawling with z’s soon. We can’t leave him here. We’ll find him somewhere safe and leave him there.”
“After all the trouble he’s caused us?” she asked.
He only nodded, and proceeded to try and get the drunken man to his feet. His breath was hot with alcohol. He must have wandered off to the beer and wine aisle, before making his assault on the pharmacy. Ben and Lexx both joined Jeremy in helping the man up. Once they had him up, Ben started to put the small amount of fruit from their cart into Tori’s.
“Here,” he said. “Put him in the cart and we’ll push him out of here.”
Jeremy and Lexx moved LJ over to the cart and slowly lowered him into the basket. The man barely fit into it, his arm and legs dangling over the sides. He seemed to be having a hard time keeping his head up, because it swayed back and forth.
“You guys,” he said between hiccups. “You guys are the best. Hiccup.”
Ben moved a fuming Tori out of the way, taking control of the cart, and pushing towards the front of the store. They all ran, grabbing things off the shelves, and throwing them into the other cart. LJ began to laugh uncontrollably.
“Whee!” he yelled.
“Shut up!” Tori yelled through clenched teeth.
As they reached the storefront, Jeremy noticed that the parking lot’s occupancy was much larger than when they entered the store. There were now several zombies wandering the parking lot. It was not until they got through the doors and got outside, that he realized how bad the situation actually was.
The parking lot was swarming with dead.
“Oh shit...”
The words slipped out of his mouth involuntarily. There was anywhere between fifty to seventy-five z’s out there. He had yet to see that many of them group together like that. It was as if the pharmacy’s alarm was the dinner bell, and they were dinner. He noticed his mouth had dropped open. He quickly closed it.
“We have to get out of here,” he said quietly.
“No, you think?” Tori shot back.
“HEY GUYS! LOOK AT ALL THESE FUCKING ZOMBIES!”
Tori put her hand over LJ’s mouth. He squirmed, so she put him in a sleeper hold.
“Nighty-night LJ.”
He was out. Jeremy noticed that Lexx was trying to hide his smile. Even Jeremy had to admit, it was a cool trick. The truck was not far and most of the dead had not gotten that close to it yet. They pushed the carts to the truck and began loading the groceries into the back. Tori ran quickly up to the cab. She returned pumping a round into the shotgun. Once the men finished loading the groceries, they struggled to get LJ’s dead weight into the back of the truck. He flopped onto the deck, letting out a moan, which was answered by other more-dead moans.
“Look out!”
Tori pushed Jeremy out of the way and blasted a zombie that had wandered too close to the group. She took a huge chunk off the top of homeboy’s head. His corpse fell with a thud. Ben and Lexx climbed into the truck and began closing the door.
“Thanks,” Jeremy said.
“Don’t mention it. Now get us out of here,” she respo
nded, as she pumped another round into the barrel.
Jeremy ran for the cab. The closest zombie was ten feet away. Too close for comfort. He left the keys in the ignition, just in case something bad happened and they had to bug out quickly. The truck roared to life. It was answered by more moans.
And then the shrieks came. Two of the runners, or pinkies, came sprinting full speed across the parking lot. They pushed and shoved their way through the crowd of grays, knocking over several of the less balanced zombies. Jeremy didn’t give them much attention as he peeled out in the delivery truck. The truck fish-tailed, and both Lexx and Ben could be heard cursing in the rear.
He pulled the truck back out onto Highway 21 and headed west towards Rincon.
They'd be somewhere safe by the day’s end.
This thought brought a smile to Jeremy’s face. Ben told them that his parent’s house was on a well, so they would have fresh water, and no shortage of it. They had plenty of generators and an old fuel tank full with reserves. They even had a chicken coop. He could almost taste the fresh omelets they’d be eating the next morning.
“What is that?”
Tori’s question brought Jeremy back into reality. She was leaning forward and squinting, trying to make out something ahead of them. Jeremy began looking at the wide, dark shape that went from one side of the highway to the other. Something was blocking their way. It went all the way across the four-lane highway. As they got closer, a chill shot down Jeremy’s spine as he slowly realized what the shape was.
It was a massive group of zombies.
A solid wall of rotting flesh stretched from one road shoulder to the other. As a group unit, they shambled towards the sound of the alarm. Which put the truck right between the two. Jeremy brought the truck to a stop.
“Turn around,” Tori said slowly.
He put the truck in reverse and turned the truck in the opposite direction. Lexx was yelling, trying to figure out what was happening, but both Tori and Jeremy ignored him for the moment. Jeremy began driving back the way they came. He couldn’t help but to continue to look in his side mirrors though. The dead were not moving quickly, but they were moving. It would only be a matter of time before they reached them if they did not get out of there.
They neared the store and the zombies there were wandering around the parking lot.
“What happened to the alarm?” Tori asked.
Jeremy listened. The alarm was off. The backup power source must have run out. He looked back in his mirror. The group was still steadily moving in their direction. It then dawned on Jeremy that the noise they were being attracted to was not the alarm. It was the truck.
This idea of his was confirmed when he realized that the dead in the parking lot were now also headed for the truck. He passed the grocery store.
“Where are you going?” Tori asked. “Back to Savannah?”
“Where else can I go? We’ve got z’s coming from every direction!”
“Stop! Stop! Stop!” she yelled, pointing in front of them.
Another group of the undead, although not as large as the one from the west, was making their way towards them down Highway 21. Jeremy thought about weaving through them, but that would only lead them away from where they wanted to be. And right smack dab back where they didn’t. So, he made a split decision.
He turned onto the entry ramp of southbound I-95.
“The interstate? Are you crazy?” Tori screamed.
“Not a lot of choices here.”
“Man, this thing is gonna be packed, wall to wall cars!”
For once, Jeremy thought. I hope she is wrong.
***
She was. The southbound side of Interstate 95 was mostly clear. There were some abandoned cars and the occasional semi, but for the most part, pretty easy to navigate. The northbound side, on the other hand, was not so lucky.
Traffic filled all three lanes. It seemed to go on for as far as Jeremy could see. The cars were all passenger-less except where the passengers were unable to leave. There were quite a few zombies still strapped in by their seat belts. Blood covered the inside of windows where someone must have turned inside their vehicle. Or where family members were forced to put down one of their loved ones.
He looked over at Tori. She did not seem to be too upset that she was wrong. Her eyes went from car to car on the northbound side. She scanned for any threat lurking amongst the graveyard of vehicles. Jeremy decided to ride in silence and save talking about what they were going to do with LJ for later. For now, he’ll just focus on how to get to Rincon from 95. He wasn’t too familiar with the area. Jeremy rarely came out this far west. Downtown was normally as west as he got. Hopefully, Ben would know how to get to his parents from here.
There was a banging on the wall separating the cab from the back.
“Hey guys, you might want to pull over when you get a chance,” Lexx said through the wall.
Jeremy looked at Tori.
“It’s clear. We can stop here. I’ll keep an eye out, while you go see what’s going on,” she said.
He nodded, and brought the truck to a stop. He grabbed LJ’s pistol from the console and walked to the back of the truck. His mind raced with ideas of what could be wrong. Was LJ turning? Did he already turn and now Jeremy had to finish him off? His hand gripped the pistol tight as he knocked on the back door.
It slid open to reveal Lexx and a crouching Ben. Ben was kneeling next to LJ; his hand on the man’s sweating forehead. Jeremy relaxed. He wasn’t really ready for a mercy killing yet. Killing zombies was one thing, but putting someone off so they don’t turn into a zombie? That still feels too much like murder.
“What’s up?” Jeremy asked, as casual as he could muster.
“His fever’s getting worse. Ridin’ in the back of a truck ain’t helping either,” Lexx said. He looked back at the man, who was still out cold, but breathing heavily. His breaths were strained and wheezy. He didn’t look good. He looked like death.
“Look, I hate to say it, but if we’re gonna need to stop somewhere, we need to do it soon,” he continued. “I don’t think it would be right to leave him, even though he did screw us over big time. I’ll handle talking to Tori about it. You just find us somewhere to go. And quick.”
Lexx turned and looked back at LJ again and then back to Jeremy. The change of heart in Lexx surprised Jeremy. Maybe Lexx was right about himself and there really was more to him than his gruff exterior. Jeremy was also sure that riding in the back with Ben had something to do with it too. Or perhaps seeing the dying man.
They were near the exit ramp to Highway 80. Pooler, a suburb of Savannah, was right there off the exit. There should be somewhere they could go there. Jeremy ran his hand through his hair, searching his brain for somewhere that would be safe. He went to walk back to the cab, but stopped. That’s it. The answer to where they would stay was right in front of him.
On the other side of the congested northbound lane, down a small slope, and past some small ponds, was a huge building with a glass front. The whole front must have been windows. Backhoes and front loaders in striking poses were dotted across the landscape. It was one of the largest construction vehicle manufacturers in the world. And now, it was gonna be the place where they spent the night.
Chapter Twenty Seven
For having been so hot the other day, there was a cold chill in the air as they pulled the truck up to the building’s loading docks. Jeremy backed it up like a pro to which he received a nod of approval from Tori. They got out and walked over to the stairs that led up to the loading dock. The truck’s bed was now level with the dock, so the men in the back of the truck would be able to easily walk right out. Jeremy lifted the door and they did just that.
“What do we do with him?” Tori asked, pointing her thumb at LJ.
“He should be safe here,” Jeremy said. “We’ll just close the door. This loading area is pretty tucked in here.”
The building was only accessible by a road that turned o
ff of Highway 80 and had a series of check points that you would normally have to pass through. But being that it was the zombie apocalypse and all, they had no trouble getting through said check points. The gates were all broken, but broken out and not in. People were trying to leave this place, not get in.
This thought comforted Jeremy, because he was not ready to deal with anymore survivors. Granted, the hipsters downtown were probably a little crazier than your normal survivor. Still, Jeremy really had no desire to fight over territory, or supplies, of which they had little. Due to the Lumberjack’s raid of the pharmacy, their shopping trip turned out to be a big bust. They had some fresh fruit, snack foods, a few bottled drinks, tampons and more condoms than anyone should ever really need or use.
“Alright, grab your guns and let’s give this place a look over,” Jeremy said as he held up LJ’s pistol.
Lexx handed Ben the rifle.
“Here man, you’re probably the better shot.”
“Probably?” Ben asked with a smirk.
“Ok, ok. You’re the better shot. But I’d like to see you jump from a second story balcony and shank somebody.”
The two men chuckled.
“Hey, when you guys are done jerking each other off, can we get started already?”
Tori stood at the door into the building, tapping her foot. She had the shotgun propped up on her shoulder. She looked business.
“Jeez, babe,” Lexx said. “What’s the hurry?”
“The hurry, babe, is that it will be dark soon, we’re not at Ben’s parents yet, and we have an infected asshole in the back of that truck with all our food and supplies.”
He walked up to her and grinned.
“Point made. After you.”
He held out his hand for her to walk in. She huffed and swung open the door. The lights detected motion and flickered to life. Jeremy closed the truck’s door and followed everyone else inside.
***
The place was a maze at first. Hallways twisting and turning throughout the building. There were a lot of offices and work areas filled with cubicles. So far, it only looked like a business, not a manufacturer of construction equipment.
