by TJ Weeks
We heard a clatter towards the front of the store and both of us pulled our knives to get ready for the rotter. We kept the pairs of jeans on one arm and walked to the edge of the aisle. I looked at Bo to make sure that he was close and stepped out.
“What y’all got!” Gizmo half shouted on purpose laughing. “I scared the shit out of y’all!” His voice trailed off in laughter.
“You’re an asshole.” I stated laughing with him. “Payback is a bitch, just remember that. Help with some of this shit.”
Gizmo followed us back down the aisle and began grabbing pairs of jeans and we all moved to the other aisles collecting what we thought anyone might be able to wear back home. The store was clean of what we wanted and we ended with a big pile of greatness by the door.
“Look at that shit, a Lids!” Gizmo stated. Bo and I looked at each other with a bit of confusion since we didn’t even know what the store was. Gizmo headed over and lifted the closed gate at the front of the store.
“Hold up man! You don’t know what’s in there.” I jogged to catch up.
“Sure I do, fucking hats!” He stated turning back to us. A rotter came from behind a small display of ball caps and grabbed Gizmo from behind. The tall rotter’s arm slid around his neck and if it weren’t for the bill of the cap he was wearing hitting the back of Gizmos head, he would have been a goner. Bo, with his knife still out, raised up and whizzed his knife passed Gizmo’s head and through the ball cap that had tipped forward and covered the rotter’s face and into his forehead. His grip loosened from Gizmo and he fell to the floor.
Gizmo’s eyes were huge and he lurched forward into Bo’s arms. “Got ya little guy!” Bo laughed.
“Fuck you!” Gizmo quickly stood back up.
He turned and looked at the rotter and picked the hat up off of its face.
“That was a nice hat to.” Gizmo stated sadly turning to Bo and I. “Thanks for the help Bo.” I laughed a little at the sight of Gizmo falling into Bo. “That was great, Bo caught you like a little bitch!” I laughed harder.
Gizmo glared at me and pushed me with his elbow as he turned and walked away with a bit of a red face.
Bo and I laughed following behind him. We grabbed a few of the ball caps off of the wall and flung them outside of the front of the store to pick up on our way through. I reached up and grabbed a black hat that had a red open mouthed skull smeared across the front and removed my old worn hat and put that one on my head. I stuck my old one in my back pocket. I watched Gizmo standing by the wall trying to reach a hat at the very top. He stood on his tip toes and then hopped a bit to only touch it with his fingertips. Bo walked near him and reached up and grabbed a few of the hats that were too high to reach for him and handed them to him and walked on.
“Guess it’s my day to help the little guy?” Bo questioned with a smile. “That guys a pretty good smart ass, def initely a buddy of yours TJ.” Gizmo said with a sour look on his face.
I stood at the front of the store and laughed at Gizmo getting pissed off about the short jokes. I could hear the rest of the crew loudly coming down the corridor. Both Gizmo and Bo quickly exited the store and came out thinking
something was wrong with the chaos sounding from everyone.
Karen, Kris, Lisa, and Tina strolled down with armfuls of things that they had found from the other end of the mall.
“Fucking girls!” Gizmo whispered so they couldn’t hear him.
“Hey, look at all this stuff we found!” Tina stated.
“Why do we need all of that?” Gizmo asked her while picking shit up out of her arms. “Most of it is for the kids and stuff that we can wear and use, quit your bitching!” She shot back at him.
Kris, Karen and Lisa dropped their loads onto the floor.
“Any Rotters?” Kris asked me.
“Just one, but he was partial to Gizmo before Gizmo became partial to Bo.” I laughed. “We found two, but Lisa took them out pretty quick with a hi-ya. We decided to stick together from then on out. We are going to hit up a couple of the stores down here. We saw the piles y’all were making so we did the same outside some of the stores. Donald and Howard headed to the bathrooms to see what bathroom supplies they could find. We also need to hit up Sears and see what things we can use.” Kris rambled on.
“We planned on getting there babe. Calm down.” I told her. “I found some great stuff for the girls in the chow hall from one of the kitchen stores and some extra food from a small discount dollar store that they had down the way.” Karen belted out in accomplishment.
“I found a new hat!” Lisa lifted off of her head.
I laughed at the group of girls being just what they were. Donald and Howard joined after a few minutes with what seemed like hundreds of rolls of toilet paper and paper towels.
“Jackpot in the bathrooms!” Donald stated dropping the wrapped items to the floor. “There are shoes down the way!” Tina whispered. “The kids need shoes!” Tina quickly turned to Gizmo before he opened his big mouth.
Kris pulled Tina’s arm away from our group and Karen and Lisa followed laughing at Gizmo’s stern look telling Tina to leave the shoes alone.
We moved on from store to store going the same way as the girls had, making our way to Sears while gathering up necessities.
We soon came to a small camping store. Guess I had never seen a camping store inside a mall, but it was there. We made our way inside and started gathering everything we could. Howard and Bo began to gather all of the batteries near the counter, Donald and Gizmo were enthralled with the small kerosene lanterns and gathered all of them along with the kerosene for them and I moved straight to the guns that were on the racks. I began searching for the ammo that went with them. I got behind the counter and stepped on something that was not that of the floor texture. I looked down to see a man lying on the floor looking up at me. He didn’t look to be changed, he looked normal. He had blood running from his shoulder where he had been bit and was reaching to me with his other arm.
“What the fuck!” I whispered.
Donald rounded the counter. “Oh shit!”
The other three made their way. I started scanning the store looking for what bit him. They had to be here, his bite looked fresh. He had survived all of this time here and now he gets attacked? That means that there are rotters here and that more than likely they are ones that had not found him after all of this time until now.
I plowed my way through the guys and stood in the middle of the store turning circles pulling out my knife. Donald, Bo, Howard and Gizmo followed suit and we all stood back to back ready for them.
I slowly crept around a tent thinking I heard a quiet chomping. Sure enough, there it was, a rotter laid on top of an older woman chomping at her insides. I dropped my head and my knife to my side wishing we had been able to find them sooner.
I pushed my knife into the rotters head and slid it back out. “I’m not sure if there are any others, so keep your eyes open.” I told the rest. “I guess someone needs to go check on the girls, while we gather the rest of what we can here.” I suggested.
“I’ll go.” Gizmo volunteered.
“I’m on it.” Bo followed.
“I don’t need you saving me all damn day.” I heard Gizmo tell Bo on the way out.
“Apparently you do. Third time is a charm.” Bo laughed. I smiled at the two going back and forth as they left. Howard, Denson and I gathered tents and knives and anything else that we could from the store. Anything here would end up being helpful. We set it all by the door. We had cleaned out the full stock of inventory,
including the small back storage of boxes. I looked down the corridor at the large sign that read Sears.
“Finally, the end of the mall . I have always hated malls. Too many damn people in them.” I told the guys. “Plus we need to find everyone else, since they seem to be lost.”
I figured that we needed to gather everyone back up to go get the vehicles and start loading everything.
Our
small group rounded displays and racks that were empty and finally found the escalators that of course no longer worked. We made our way up the one time moving stairs and to the top. We saw the group all laid up on already made up beds in the bed department.
“Are you fucking kidding?” I asked. Heads popped up on each of the beds.
“Babe, come check this out!” Kris hollered from the last bed on the row. I walked to my wife, not being able to help but smile at her lying sprawled on the king sized bed. I laid next to my wife and kissed her cheek. I snuggled close to her for a moment and felt the urge to need to get out of bed with her since an audience wasn’t the ideal situation on what was coming to my mind.
“Let’s go!” I stated to the group. Everyone raised from their lounging and made their way over to where I stood except for Tina and Gizmo.
“Where the hell are they?” I asked.
Karen pointed to a bed behind a display where the blankets were being bounced around. “Apparently an audience was okay for them.” I stated. “Hey, fuck birds. Let’s go.” I hollered.
The blankets stopped and I turned to lead the group in the opposite direction. We need to head down and see what tools we can find.” I instructed.
Howard, Bo, and Donald headed to the other end of the store to find another way downstairs to look for tools as to not to have to pass the bed that had continued on with its bit of squeaking. Karen, Kris, and Lisa started grabbing sheets and blankets and had found some smaller pillows that were easy to carry. Making our way down a few other aisles, and came across soaps and shampoos.
“This is good stuff right here.” Karen stated holding up a bottle as she put it under her arm and grabbed a few bottles to stack onto Kris and Lisa’s armfuls.
We came to the set of stairs that Howard, Bo and Donald had found to make their way down to the tools. They had gathered numerous things off of the shelves and were passing them down to each other to set outside the Sears doorway into the mall corridor to pick up on our way through. The girls placed their things outside the doorway and stood in the line to help pass things out to the mall corridor. I walked to the other side of the aisle and found the generators.
“Bo help me out.” I hollered from the other side. Bo walked around and picked up one side of the generator as I picked up the other and walked it to where the stack was. We went and grabbed two more of them and walked them out as well.
“Alright, I am not sure what we already have is going to be able to be taken back. So let’s get the cars and pick up what we can on the way and make our way back down here to the bay doors and get the hell out of here.” I directed.
Tina and Gizmo raced down the stairs from behind us that we had come down just a bit earlier.
“Fucking rotters!” Gizmo breathlessly stated without his shirt on. We all pulled out the weapons we had on us and waited for them. One fell from the top and landed at the bottom and peered up at us. The closest was Howard and he quickly gouged the fallen rotter in the eye and backed away. A loud ruckus came from the top of the stairs, four more hit the bottom with sounds of their heads bouncing off of the steps. Two of them reached their feet fairly quickly and two were unable to stand because of broken bones. Lisa quickly made her way to one of the standing rotters and swiped her knife through its head while Bo stabbed at the second. The two on the ground began to crawl towards us leaving a trail of blood behind them. Their growling echoed and made me cringe at the sound. I grabbed one by the nastiness of its hair and stabbed it hard through its rotting skull and Denson made a quick stabbing motion at the other.
Karen and Kris had made their way to each side of the stairs waiting for more to come tumbling, when two more rolled down. Both of them took their stabs and hit their targets right on and stood waiting for others. We all stared up the stairs waiting so that we were not surprised with anymore.
“Where the fuck are your clothes?” Howard asked Gizmo. “I barely had time to get my pants on. We thought it was you guys until one fell on top of the damn bed!” Gizmo exclaimed. “I had to get rid of that asshole just for Tina to get her clothes.”
“Sometimes it just isn’t the greatest idea to bang your wife in the middle of the
apocalypse.” Donald laughed.
Tina glared at him and all of us with a bit of a red face.
“We are going to get the trucks. Let’s go!” I told them all. Everyone gathered their bearings from the recent kills and moved out into the corridor of the mall and down towards the Game
Exchange. I tried to arrange some things in both of the trucks to make sure that there was room for all of the things that we had pulled from the stores, but we were nowhere close. We moved all of the gas cans to the back of the truck the girls had been driving and made room for the generators Bo and I had pulled earlier.
“Y’all take what we have back and I’ll stay here and hold down the fort with everything else.” I stated.
“Well, I’ll stay with you.” Bo exclaimed.
“Then so will I.” Howard stated as well followed by the majority of the others. “Look, we can’t all stay. Bo and Howard can stay with me, the rest of you can take the vehicles and drop off what we collected and bring back the Deuce.” I broke up the conflict.
With a few sad eye’s they got in the vehicles and pulled off. Bo, Howard and myself got the bay doors for them and closed up behind them.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I WALKED out the employee door that
was next to the bay doors and rested my arms on the guard rail as I watched my wife and the others pull off. I barely heard the door latch before opening again. I looked to the side to see that Bo and Howard had joined me.
“Why do you look so worried, brother?” Bo questioned. I looked back out to see the last vehicle take the corner. “I don’t know, it’s not like me to let my wife go out on her own while we’re out here…Plus, they’re just now leaving and I already have a bad feeling that I can’t shake.” I turned and looked back at them. “Maybe it’s just nerves after so many close calls today.”
Howard dropped a hand over my shoulder. “It’ll all pan out.”
“On a bright note, Lisa left us some beer.” Bo added. I turned and faced the guys. “Let’s grab some jackets and a beanies and take our venture to the rooftop. Maybe we’ll get lucky and have our first cold beer in over a year.”
“Fuck yeah!” Bo followed with. We flung the door back open and made our way back inside. Bo guided us through the maze of the mall and into Dillards where we grabbed a couple of thick jackets. Howard grabbed a beanie, Bo grabbed a red bandana and I grabbed a black bandana. I folded it up pulling one corner to the adjacent corner to make a triangle and then folded the tip of the triangle over to make more of a rectangle with pointed ends and wrapped it around my head, pulled it tight and tucked the ends. It took Bo a little longer because he had to pull his around his dreadlocks before being able to tie it.
It didn’t take long for us to make it back to the Game Exchange and grab the beer that was left for us. “Budweiser! Could have at least left us Corona or Bud Light!” I exclaimed.
“Beer is beer.” Bo stated as he grabbed one of the thirty packs.
I held up the box. “Not really, Budweiser is a fucking migraine to wake up to.”
“I second that, but it is what it is.” Howard stated. We took the beer and made our way up a maintenance hatch to the rooftop. The wind hit us like pins and needles as we neared the edge.
“Goddamn, it’s way colder up here.” Howard stated. I held up my thirty pack. “Well, hell yeah…we’re above most of the trees in the area, so now we’re the only thing to slow the wind down.”
“Our winters usually aren’t that bad.” Howard stated. “That’s true, but we do have our occasional shit storms.” I replied as I caught a glimpse of a few snow flurries falling from the sky like ashes escaping a fire and trying to seat their selves firmly back to the ground.
*Psssssht* sounded with each beer we opened as we gazed into the park
ing lot. There were a few rotters making their rounds, but nothing of great significance. We each had pulled our hoods up from our coats to block some of the wind from our faces. The wind had us close to tearing up from its strong presents and chilled temperature.
“Well boys, we have a whole night on the town. What do you want to get into?” I questioned as we pushed through our first thirty pack.
“I think a good night’s rest is our best bet.” Howard suggested. I tossed my empty beer can off the side of the ledge of the building, it clanked a few times that let off an echo. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. No telling how long of a day we’ll have tomorrow.”
We gathered our other thirty pack and made our way back to the Game Exchange. The tips of our fingers had turned a bit of blue from the cold. I could tell that we were in for a cold winter.
I grabbed a few things from one of the MRE’s and snacked down fairly quick before resting my head and tried going to sleep. After lying down for about an hour, I got up and slipped my shoes back on.
“Can’t sleep?” Bo asked from one of the corners.
I was a bit startled since I thought they had already gone to sleep. “No.” Bo sto od up. “Where are you going?” “Just for a little walk.” I answered.
He started walking towards me. “I’ll join you.” We walked out of the store and towards the glass door exit. I rested my arms on the metal frame of the door that stretched across the front and stared out. The snow was pile driving the pavement and stacking up. I could see many rotters had made their way to the mall, but wasn’t crowding the door, just wandering the lot.
“How many do you think is out there?” Bo asked.
I wiped the glass and got a better view. “I don’t know…maybe twenty, maybe more.” You could almost hear the snowflakes make their crisp landing with the quietness that surrounded us.
