by Adair, Bobby
“Those doors are built to keep burglars out. If they’re locked, we’re not going to get through anyway.”
“Around front, then?”
I nodded. “We wouldn’t be risking this if we didn’t think all those guys were dead inside. I say we sneak around front and go in through the broken windows. If by chance some of those dudes are still alive up on the second floor, they won’t see us sneaking up along the wall and won’t be expecting anyone to come in that way.”
Murphy didn’t like the plan. “That’s all hopes and ifs. Why not just say you wanna go out there and depend on your good luck to get this done?”
“Look, two of those Humvees are gone. They wouldn’t be gone if there were still soldiers up there, right?”
“How do you figure?”
“Either the guys who didn’t get infected drove off in the Humvees, or somebody came and stole them without getting shot. If they didn’t get shot, it’s because those guys are dead.”
Murphy, uncharacteristically silent, pondered that.
“Cool?”
“Fine, but when we get inside, we should announce our presence, rather than sneak up on anybody who might be up there. I’d rather they yell at us and tell us to go away before they see what we look like and shoot.”
“Agreed.” I was getting to the point I just wanted to get the task finished and get back to the riverboat. Just as Murphy was worried over Mandi, I was starting to worry about Steph.
I took off at a run with Murphy right behind. The water in the street was curb-deep again, nearly tripping me as I crossed. I leapt up onto a curb, crossed a sidewalk, and came to a stop at the corner of the co-op building. Murphy hit the wall beside me.
I gave him a nod. He nodded and peeked around the corner. The front wall of the building down its full length was unbroken by window or door. It was just a long, uniformly colored wall. In front of it, I was going to be a target nobody could miss. All of the big glass display windows and the front door were built into the corner of the building, facing the intersection.
With only the sagging crepe myrtles planted between the sidewalk and the street for cover, I took off at full speed down the length of the building. If someone had taken a shot at me, I wouldn’t have heard over the noise of the rain, my breathing and the sound of my feet splashing through puddles.
I came to a stop and dropped to a knee where the wall ended. Just around the corner was the main entrance. When Murphy fell in behind me, I asked, “Cool?”
He nodded.
I peeked around the corner and quickly pulled my head back, closing my eyes so I could concentrate on what I’d just seen. No movement. Broken glass. Dark interior. Books and merchandise on the ground. Closed door.
I risked another peek and pulled quickly back.
“Well?” Murphy asked.
“I don’t see anyone, but that doesn’t mean no one is hidden. The place looks like it’s been ransacked. It’s a mess. A million great hiding places.”
“So what, then?”
“I’m going to risk it. The entrance is a couple of feet above street level. It’s got, like, this big concrete platform under a portico with four or five steps leading up to it.”
“Porti-what?”
“The roof over the porch, with columns holding it up.”
“Why didn’t you just say that?”
“Is this really the time for a vocabulary debate?”
Murphy looked around. “If somebody was going to shoot us out here, they already would have.”
“I’m going to run over there and get in the bushes in front of the porti… porch,” I said. “From there, I can see inside. You stay here and don’t come until I wave you over. If somebody starts shooting, hurl a grenade inside and I’ll haul ass back. Cool?”
“It’s your ass.”
Rolling my eyes, I turned. Without taking the time to second-guess myself, I bolted around the corner. I crossed a sidewalk and dove onto the grass, sliding into the short hedge in front of the portico.
Ouch.
The grass had a few good-sized rocks hidden in it.
From my muddy, wet spot among the roots, I rolled over and gave Murphy a thumbs-up to let him know I was okay.
He was taking a risk by keeping his head around the corner to watch me.
Fuck it. If he can risk it, so can I.
I got up to my knees and lay my rifle up on the concrete landing, pointing into the darkness. The place was a shambles. Any one of a hundred gloomy lumps could have been a threat. My imagination started to brew up dangers, seeing rifle barrels and snipers’ helmets in every random shape.
Double fuck it.
I decided I was as safe as I was going to get. I jumped up onto the landing, bounded across and stepped silently through one of the big, broken windowpanes. Once out of the rain, I felt like I could hear again. The rain still roared down outside, but it was no longer the only thing I could hear.
Looking around in the darkness, I saw a wide staircase in the back corner. I slowly passed my eyes over what I could make out in the mess, first to my left, then my right. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. I waved Murphy in, turned and stepped gingerly through the junk on the floor to take up a position behind a checkout counter.
Murphy came in through the window I’d just entered and took a moment to do his own recon. He stepped silently through the scattered merchandise and dropped to a knee beside me. He looked at me, for an assessment I presumed. I made a show of looking around and shrugged to let him know I thought the place was deserted.
I whispered, “Did you see the stairs at the back?”
He nodded.
“What do you say we get over there and when we get near the top, we call out? If we holler from down here, nobody up there will hear anything.”
Murphy shook his head emphatically. “Let me take the lead on the stairs.”
Yeah, whatever. I shrugged.
With his rifle at his shoulder, panning from left to right, Murphy led the way through the ruined merchandise clothing, books and souvenirs. He was tense, and his tension kept me on edge. He clearly wasn’t as convinced as I was that the soldiers were all dead.
We were halfway across the store and making our way through the remnants of some kind of glass shelving units full of Longhorn doodads and trinkets, the kind of shit parents put on their desks at work to let their friends know their kids were students at UT.
It started out as a scraping sound. Before I knew it, Murphy’s feet were slipping out from under him. He reached a hand out to catch himself as he fell and instead cut his palm open on a piece of the glass shelving unit.
“Goddammit.” He hit the ground.
And that was a mistake.
A body doesn’t make much sound when it stands, except for the sound made by brushing against something nearby, or the sound of shuffling feet on a messy floor. Even the exhale or draw of a single breath isn’t that noticeable, especially when all the rain in the world seems to be falling outside. But when thirty or forty Whites jump to their feet to investigate an unexpected utterance of human speech, it makes a peculiar swoosh, distinct even under the noise of the rain.
If anything, the seemingly ubiquitous whisper made it that much more frightening.
Twenty feet away, between a wall of shoes and a mound of fallen clothing racks, all of those Whites rose. Every eye was on me and I knew in about two seconds, their frog brains were going to decide I was edible.
Without another thought, without taking a moment to warn Murphy—he’d figure it all out soon enough—I pointed my rifle at the nearest of the Whites and pulled the trigger.
Instant pandemonium broke out among them as I squeezed off a dozen rounds into their ranks.
Calm.
Breathe.
Think.
Breathe.
Murphy was on his feet in a ridiculously short second, blood splattering out of his wound and bullets blasting out of his rifle.
My intuition was sparking r
apidly.
With too many Whites still screaming and charging me from the front, I spun around to look behind. Damn good thing I did.
Seven naked Whites were running at us from the far end of the store. Only the size of the store and their choice to take shelter so far from the door had saved us. Had they been closer when Murphy fell, they’d have been on my back and ripping into my throat before I’d squeezed off my tenth round.
I fired at them. Half my rounds went wild, but the Whites obliged me by coming closer and closer into a range where even I was deadly accurate. When the last one fell, I spun back around to see the last of the larger group fall under Murphy’s bullets.
“Damn. That was intense.” Murphy grinned.
I looked up at the ceiling. “I guess they know we’re here.”
Murphy looked toward the bodies of the Whites I’d killed. “Dude, I’d a thought more were back there. What’d you do, shoot ‘em all three times?”
“Yes.” Double helping of sarcasm.
Murphy chuckled. “It’s like the more you shoot, the worse you get. I know it’s hard, but just be calm and breathe. It’ll save your ass. And you’ll use a lot less bullets.”
Chapter 33
An explosion rocked the building and debris flew away from the stairs.
Jesus, what the fuck is this place?
I dropped to my belly without a thought for the cuts I earned for my haste.
Murphy took cover behind a counter.
I clambered across the floor until I was behind what looked like a sturdy shelf and threw the barrel of my rifle over it, aiming at the stairs.
C’mon, motherfucker.
I’d gotten surprised by the explosion and I was pissed. Two surprises in as many minutes was a trend that did not bode well for long-term survival.
I waited. Murphy waited. We exchanged a look to let each other know that we were okay.
Still, nothing happened.
One benefit of the storm outside was not a single White came running into the building after Murphy and I had emptied the better part of three magazines. And, oh, by the way, something tried to blow us the fuck up. Well, maybe not us, exactly, but, damn, it was just right over there.
Thank God for thunder. It made good camouflage for such noises.
My anger was dissipating and adrenaline was stoking impatience. I whispered, “I’m going to go over there and see what’s up.”
“Me first. You follow. Be careful.” With his rifle at his shoulder aimed at the stairs, Murphy made his way carefully across the store’s main floor until he was beside a wall near the bottom of the stairs.
As soon as Murphy stopped, I ran across the sales floor, passed him by and crossed the wide foot of the stairs. I came to a stop and positioned myself beside the banister, pointing my rifle uselessly up at an empty landing where the stairs made their turn to come back up over my head. From Murphy’s position by the wall, he could shoot anything coming down from the second floor on the flight of stairs above me. My position sucked. I couldn’t shoot anything.
Still, nothing moved. No more noises came from above.
While we were waiting, I looked back across what I could see of the sales floor. Nothing had moved since we’d stopped shooting.
Breathe.
Be calm.
Be cool.
We were in a dangerous situation. Riding a wave of adrenaline through a sequence of impulsive choices would only get me killed.
Breathe.
Up at the landing, an arm in what looked like a military MOPP suit lay down across a couple of stairs. A white-skinned hand dangled past the end of a sleeve. A steadily flowing rivulet of blood ran down over the hand and off of the index finger.
“What do you think?” I asked.
Murphy looked up at the empty staircase above my head and hollered. “Anybody up there?”
We waited, but no answer came.
“What just happened?” I asked.
He hollered again. “I’m coming up.”
Not liking the feeling of uselessness, I added, “Don’t shoot at us. If you’re up there and would prefer we leave, just tell us.”
“What the fuck is that?” Murphy chuckled. “Are good manners going to make a difference?”
I shrugged. “Go fu—“
Something, maybe a book, slid across the vinyl tiles on the floor at the top of the stairs.
I looked up as though I could see through the flight of stairs above me just as heavy feet started pounding the steps on the way down.
Murphy’s rifle tracked a target, but he didn’t fire.
“What is it?” I whispered, but I didn’t need to wait for Murphy to answer.
A tan-colored mass hit the wall at the back of the landing, slipped, scrambled around the corner, regained its footing and rushed down at me. It was one of the soldiers in a MOPP suit. Familiar, from the day I’d seen a soldier in just such a suit murder Jerome. The suit’s hood was gone. His skin was white. His eyes were crazy and his mouth was bloody.
I ripped off three shots, hitting the White in the center of his chest. He came to a dead stop and dropped into a seated position on a stair, with his legs splaying out in front of him. His breath hissed slowly out of the holes in his chest.
Standing there with my rifle still trained on the dying White, I realized something profound. I whispered to Murphy, “That could—”
“I don’t think you need to whisper anymore.”
“That could have been the one that shot Jerome.”
“Could have been.”
I started up the stairs and stopped. “Oh, you wanted to go first.”
Murphy shook his head and answered the implied question. “I thought the stairs might be booby trapped, but I think that dead one on the landing took care of it for us. You go ahead.”
“That was the explosion, then?”
Murphy nodded.
With two Whites in military garb dead on the stairs, I figured there was little chance of any normal soldiers still on the second floor. That boosted my courage. Whites I could deal with. The soldiers had lethally bested us on our last meeting.
The stairs were slippery with fresh blood. I was extra careful as I made my way around the body on the landing, keeping my weapon trained at the top. Murphy came up behind, close enough to support me, but not so close that we could both be easily shot by a single gunman.
The wall on the backside of the landing was blackened from the explosion we heard. The handrail was bent and sticking out from the wall. With the greatest caution, I continued up the final flight of stairs, examining every step and every metal support on the banister as I went. I didn’t want to find any booby traps not yet tripped.
At the top of the wide staircase was another sales floor stacked with shelves of mostly textbooks, much more orderly than the first floor. Unfortunately, the shelves limited what we could see. Anyone or anything had a hundred places to hide. At least the second floor was smaller than the first. Doors off to our right led to the administrative offices, or so I guessed.
I ran over to a checkout counter, kneeled and waited for Murphy to join me.
Once he was there, I whispered, “I don’t like this place.”
“We’re here. Let’s get this done.” Murphy ran off to the wall on the left side of the floor.
I followed. Once there, keeping some distance between us, we started working our way through the racks and display cases. All we found were bodies, soldiers in various states of decay. Each of them had been fed on, probably by the two dead Whites on the stairs.
It all appeared to have happened just as Murphy figured. One of the soldiers had brought the infection into the building, either on his gear or in his blood. At least a few of the soldiers succumbed. The others either caught the virus or were killed by those already infected.
When we were finished clearing the upper floor, we’d found the bodies of eleven soldiers. More importantly, we found six M4s with silencers attached to the barrels. They weren
’t ideal sniper rifles, but they were perfect for our purposes.
Chapter 34
With five rifles in the back of the Humvee, Murphy took the passenger seat and was making himself comfortable with his new weapon when I got in on the driver’s side.
“How are we set for gas?” Murphy asked.
“Looks like three-quarters to me.”
“You have any idea how we’re getting back? Looks like the whole damn city is flooding.”
I rolled my eyes. “The whole city won’t flood.”
“You know what I mean, man. If the creek down the street has that much water in it, every creek in town is probably doing the same thing.”
“What are you getting at? Are you saying you want to stay down here tonight?”
Murphy looked at the rain pouring down around us. He shook his head. “If we can get back without drowning, that’s my preference. At least we can drive around right now without getting chased by Whites.”
Taking a moment to think about it, I said, “We can’t go directly across Austin. Even if we could find a way across Waller Creek, we’d never get across Shoal Creek. I think if we can make it up to Highway 183 and take that out to 620, we can head back south and hit the river that way.”
“That sounds like the long way around.”
“It is. But Highway 183 is raised. It won’t flood. 620 might be iffy, but mostly it’s built on high ground. At least, it looks that way to me.”
“You want to go all the way out to Mansfield Dam?” Murphy didn’t like the idea.
I shook my head. “Nope. I think if we cut through that subdivision up there…”
“Steiner Ranch?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Kind of in that area. If we get lucky enough to turn on the right streets, we should get pretty close, maybe a mile or two from where the boat is anchored.”
“Just so you know, if you drive this thing into a river again, I really am going to punch you in the face.”
I started the engine.
Lightning ripped the sky with scary frequency. The rumble and crack of thunder was nearly constant. Rain poured out of the clouds in torrents that made it difficult to see. The curbed streets we drove as we paralleled IH-35 were rivers flowing toward the creeks. The few infected we saw cowered under trees and made no attempt to come after us. With their intense fear of the water, the world must have seemed like zombie hell.
