Aaron looked over the handle with its inset lock. A padlock was inserted through welded brackets just above that. “This can’t be the way Lilly got in,” he said.
“No,” Katie agreed. “There’s a whole different warehouse area at the absolute back of the store. Different area.” Her face was pale.
“Hey... What's with you?” Amy asked.
“I ….” She shook her head and walked away. Amy followed.
“Maybe something happened here,” Conner said. “Something has her upset.”
Aaron nodded. “Amy will find out,” he shrugged and they both fell silent for a few minutes waiting to see if Katie and Amy would come back. Aaron looked up and saw them both in intense conversation.
“Doesn't look like it,” Conner said.
Aaron nodded and then turned back to the door.
“I don’t know if it wouldn’t still be easier to go through from the inside.” He looked over the door. “That’s a steel jamb. And that,” He pointed down at the inset lock, “Is probably a deadbolt. It’s going to be tough to get opened easily.”
Conner left, walked to the Suburban and came back a few seconds later with a massive sledge hammer and a long heavy crow bar. One swing of the sledgehammer and the padlock burst. Conner reached forward and pulled it from the brackets. It clattered to the ground. Aaron laughed and stepped back as Conner sized up the door itself. He set the end of the crowbar into the steel jamb at the place were the lock-set was. He tapped it lightly a few times to wedge it into the door. After the easy taps he swung hard twice, driving the heavy bar into the door. The door easily dented inward, the lock-set pieces flying out onto the concrete of the sidewalk as he drove the end of the heavy crowbar home.
The door itself bent out of the frame with a soft squeal of metal.
Conner started forward into the small circle of light when the odor from inside the space suddenly leapt out to assault him. At the same time, a distinct sound reached his ears, the sound of dozens of buzzing flies. Conner moved back quicker than he had thought to and nearly tripped over the others as he did.
Aaron stepped forward, snagged what was left of the door and pushed it shut. The broken lock mechanism jammed in the steel door unit and held it closed.
Aaron’s face was gray. Sweat popped out along his brow. He had seen dozens of bodies inside, just within the small perimeter of light that had come through the open doorway, and what looked to be dozens more just beyond in the shadows.
“Jesus,” he managed as he quickly made his way past the others, around the side of the building, away from the odor. He almost kept his breakfast down, but as the picture of the devastation inside replayed in his head, he lost the brief struggle. He came back after a few minutes.
Everyone had walked further down what was left of the sidewalk away from the door. His face was still pale, but he felt marginally better.
“All right?” Amy asked as she rested the back of her wrist against his forehead. Her eyes were worried.
“Better,” Aaron said. “I just wasn’t prepared for that. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“They were stuck in there,” Katie said.
“Except they could’ve just knocked the lock off like we did.” Conner's eyes met Aaron’s. They had both been close to the door as it opened and they had both seen the same things. Weapons scattered everywhere. There had been some sort of battle in there.
“Katie?” Conner asked.
Katie stared at the ground and shook her head. Conner looked at Amy who had squatted down beside Katie and was talking in low whispers, but she did not meet his eyes. His eyes rose to Aaron's.
“Looked like a lot of weapons just lying around by the bodies…like maybe a gunfight took place and then the ceiling caved in, but they were dead before that… shot for some reason. Shot each other?” He looked back at Katie.
“Maybe,” Aaron allowed. “Or shot and then whoever did it just shut and locked the door and walked away.” He shrugged helplessly.
“I doubt they shot themselves,” Amy said quietly.
“No...” Aaron agreed. “But like Conner said…” He shrugged too. “Some weapons looked like they might have been thrown in on top of them… It doesn’t fit.”
Conner nodded.
Katie looked from Conner to Aaron, a look of grief on her face. She glanced back down at the door, back at Conner once more, then spun and walked back down to the door.
“Katie,” Conner called. He started after her, but she reached the door and tugged it open before he reached her. “You don’t,” he started.
She drew in a short breath; her hands came up and cupped her nose and mouth. Her legs were planted firmly, her posture rigid. “It’s true,” she mumbled through her hands. Conner leaned past her shoulder and took a closer look at the room. “I thought I dreamed it.”
There were many more bodies than his first quick look had shown him. The weapons were lying on top of the bodies, as though they had been shot and then someone had tossed the weapons into the room, shut the door and walked away. Just as it had seemed to both he and Aaron in their first short view.
What hadn’t appeared in their first short view were the other things that were, at first, not readily seen.
They had, every one, been shot, but that was not the only thing. It was the way some people’s hands weren’t showing. That in itself didn’t actually register for a few seconds until he realized no one's hands were showing. Then his eyes took in the bodies in more detail than his eyes had wanted to provide, and he realized the reason their hands were not showing was because they were behind their backs. Possibly tied behind their backs? He wondered.
He saw two people that answered the why of that. Glimpses of plastic showed between the bloated skin of their wrists. Zip tie ends jutting up into the air. As he looked around he noticed more and more ends jutting up out of the confusion.
Bound with zip ties… His mind had supplied. Tied, but it was not tied, it was handcuffed with those zip ties. And handcuffed was not a mistake. Handcuffed could not shoot back at all. They had been herded in here, for whatever reason, handcuffed and shot… Murdered, his mind supplied.
“You were here? … Here for... Here when this happened?” Conner asked.
“It,” Katie tried but she could not make the words come: Instead she sagged against Conner and sobbed.
“Come on,” he said quietly to Katie. “We don’t need to see any more of this do we?”
She shook her head, turned her face up to his, and then suddenly found herself running around the side of the building the same way that Aaron had. A few minutes later, she came back out and joined the others. Everyone was silent. The morning had moved on and the afternoon was bright sunshine and warmth on the cracked sidewalk, but none of that warmth seemed able to touch her. She began to talk in the quiet of the sun soaked sidewalk. Telling what she remembered.
“That's it... All I know... Remember. I got out and I was glad I was alive... I didn't ,” She met Conner's eyes and shrugged, at a loss for words. Conner moved to her side and she gratefully accepted his embrace. The silence held a while longer.
“Probably never know the why of it,” Aaron said after a long silence. He spun the cap off a bottle of water, took a deep drink, rinsed his mouth, spat and then drank again. He handed a bottle to Katie. They were all gathered around the trucks.
Conner stared off down what was left of State Street. The street itself was more dirt and sand than pavement. The buildings that were left tilted crazily. Some looked almost untouched until you got close to them. From here they looked fine, just like from the sidewalk the steel door hadn’t seemed to be hiding anything special, his mind jabbered.
“There’s another drug store up the street,” he said, just to be talking. “I didn’t check it. I wasn’t thinking about it. It’s an actual drug store… So I was thinking what could there be there that I would need, but drugstores sell all sorts of things. We could go see.”
“Let’s g
o see,” Amy said.
They all piled into the trucks like they had only been looking for an excuse to go. As they drove away, Conner knew he would never come back to the market for anything. Silence held as they maneuvered their way over the shattered pavement and made their way down the street.
More Trouble
Jake and James were loading up the last of the space that was left in one of the pickup trucks when Dustin came running in their direction.
“People,” he gasped, pointing to the side of the building. “People with guns and stuff!”
James and Jake both reached inside the truck and grabbed their rifles. James reached out and snagged Dustin by the wrist before he could tear off around the side of the building again.
“Calm down. Take a deep breath,” James said in a calming voice. “Where are they?”
“Coming into the parking lot. They’re on foot,” Dustin said. Both Nell and Lilly stepped out of the shattered back door that lead into the department store, their arms loaded down with clothing in various sizes.
Jake sighed in relief, reached down and unsnapped the strap that held his gun in its holster. Checked the safety on the rifle, flicked it to off, and turned to Nell and Lilly. “We have visitors,” he turned to Dustin “Did they see you?”
“I don’t know… I don’t… I don’t think so, but I’m not sure,” he answered, still breathless.
A frightened look came into Lilly’s eyes. “How many? Are they armed? When?” she asked.
“Two guys… A couple ladies and some kids… Little kids… And a dog too,” Dustin said. Thinking as he went along.
“Okay,” Jake said. “We’ll all walk out. Have your safeties off. You may really have to shoot. For Christ’s sake don’t shoot yourself… Or me... Or one of us. Point at who you want to hit, and shoot, like Katie showed you, but don’t shoot unless you have to. Maybe these people are okay.” He waited until everyone had nodded.
Nell and Lilly took the safeties off their guns, held them briefly and then returned them to their holsters. Nell kept touching the curved metal butt of her pistol nervously.
“James, you’re up front with me. You guys in back of us. If you have to shoot, shoot,” he told them again. “Just make sure we’re not in your way… Jesus… I hate this,” Jake finished. He took a deep breath “Everybody ready?” he asked. No one answered except James who nodded quickly before his eyes darted back to the corner of the building and the bright sunshine beyond.
Jake stepped around the edge of the building, his rifle aimed at the ground, his finger resting on the trigger guard.
~
The drug store, and a small convenience store took up the space in the small strip mall building. An auto garage occupied the building next door. Both buildings were damaged. They walked around the exterior of the store building and looked it over.
The large front windows were spider webbed with stress fractures, but were still intact. The front door to the convenience store was bent outward at an odd angle, the top of the door actually out of the frame, the bottom still jammed tightly in it. The brick wall that fronted the building was warped, but still upright. The frame had apparently twisted as the wall had warped.
It was difficult to see into the darkened interiors through the spider webbed glass, but both stores appeared to be uninhabited. They chose the convenience store first. A few well placed blows from the sledgehammer and crowbar combination popped the twisted door from the frame. It sprang inward and caught on the floor, screeching to a stop.
Conner put one booted foot against the warped wall and pushed experimentally. The wall didn’t budge. It didn’t even creak or groan like he expected that a wall about to fall down might do. He looked around at everyone, shrugged and stepped inside, snapping on the big flashlight as he did.
The interior seemed in remarkably good shape. Some of the metal shelving units that had served as dividers had toppled their merchandise to the floor, but it was much better than the supermarket had been, or most other places he had wandered into.
“Looks safe,” He said, and the others stepped inside.
Case upon case of bottled water, soda and sports drinks found their way into the trucks in the parking lot. Boxes of crackers, candy bars and other snacks went in as well. In a short period, the remaining space in the trucks was filled up.
“Well,” Conner checked his watch. The sun was not yet overhead. The watch was really no indicator of actual passing daylight, only elapsed time. Looking into the sky and judging the position of the sun was probably a better indicator of relative daylight left than looking at a watch was. “Probably better than half again as much daylight left.”
“You sound so sure of yourself,” Katie teased.
Conner smiled. “We could go unload this and probably come back for another load.” Everyone agreed. Conner and Aaron muscled the door back into its frame away from where it had wedged into the floor. Then they started the vehicles and drove slowly down lower State Street towards the Old River Road and the factory.
Death And Sin
Jake took the corner wide, allowing James to emerge at nearly the same time as he did. The others were right behind them, spread out slightly. He spotted the small group immediately: Two men; three women, and two small kids walking warily across the cracked parking lot towards the store they were in. All five adults were heavily armed.
The dark skinned young man in the lead wore military fatigues and carried what looked to Jake to be a military issue rifle of some sort he was not familiar with. The next man back was dressed in jeans and a lightweight jacket, but he also seemed to be carrying a military weapon. Both men had their weapons in their hands like they were on patrol, Jake thought.
The women came next, the first one carrying a lightweight pistol, small, possibly a three eighty, Jake thought. The other two women carried the same sort of small, light duty pistols, Jake saw. He tried to get a better view of the pistols. They could be Nine Millimeters, he told himself. It was hard to tell, and he was no judge of weapons like Katie was. It was about then that the dark skinned man stopped. His eyes were fixed on Jake. Jake took a deep breath and waited.
The two men swiveled their rifles around quickly pointing them at Jake and James. Jake and James already had their weapons up. Suddenly there was a stand off. Silence descended and held. Jake could hear every little noise clearly: sand and small pebbles gritting beneath his boot as he shifted position, birds calling from the tops of nearby buildings and the occasional tree, even the far off sound of the river which was still running higher than normal.
The young man in the lead wore reflective sunglasses; the sun shot darts of light off the lenses hiding his eyes.
“We aren’t looking for a fight,” a tall, light haired woman in back of the two men said. She stepped out away from the other two women and the children when she finished speaking. The lead man said nothing; only stood allowing the light to arrow from his glasses, reflecting the strong afternoon light.
“We aren’t either,” James said. He kept his rifle barrel pointed in their direction, his finger still resting on the edge of the trigger guard, his voice strong and steady.
The time played out for a few seconds, both sides waiting for the other side to lower their weapons first: Finally the young woman stepped forward, past the two men, holstered her own weapon, and then turned slightly toward the young man in the military fatigues.
“We aren’t looking for any trouble,” she said.
It seemed unclear to James who she was talking to, them, or the guy with the reflective glasses.
“They aren’t either,” she continued, and it became clear she was talking to the young man and not them.
James’s finger slid a little closer to the trigger. He waited.
The man tilted his head toward the woman who stood before him. It was impossible to see what his eyes were saying. He didn’t speak aloud, and for all James knew he may not actually have even been looking at the woman at all. He may hav
e never taken his eyes off them, only tilted his head to make them think he had.
The face moved slightly again, as if he was looking back toward Jake and the others: Moved again as though he were looking back at the woman once more.
“Jesus,” James said under his breath. “It’s like he doesn’t want to.”
“Dustin, Nell, Lilly… Get back to the edge of the building… Now,” Jake whispered loudly. “Stay there. If anything happens, hit those trucks and light out.”
The head moved slightly once more. Coming back in their direction again. Maybe he’d seen the movements behind them as the three moved back around the building as Jake had told them to, James thought.
“Sin,” the woman said.
Sin, James thought. What…? Was that a name, he wondered to himself. The man's name?
“They said they don’t want any trouble,” The woman repeated.
“I fucking heard them,” the military man growled softly.
He seemed to deliberate. His head turned back toward them and he spoke. “Where’d the others go?”
“Back around the corner. You look a little shaky to me,” Jake said truthfully. “I sent them out of it. We don’t want any trouble… Seems like you don’t want to believe that.”
“Didn’t say I did, didn’t say I didn’t,” The young man said. His rifle stayed steady, which forced Jake and James to hold their own weapons steady.
“Jesus,” the woman said. “Nobody wants trouble. Nobody…”
The young man's face shifted slightly back toward the woman once more. The nose of his rifle jerked.
“Jesus, James,” Jake started.
The young man's rifle swung quickly and Jake saw the young woman’s jacket puff outwards from her back and watched a hole appear just below her shoulder before he actually heard the shot. A split second later the young man spun hard to his left stumbled backwards, and then collapsed to the pavement. James stepped forward, his rifle still tightly held against his shoulder, walking forward, sighting on the other young man as he walked.
Earth's Survivors: box set Page 33
