by T. Gault
Now only about ten feet away from me, I pointed at his face and squeezed the trigger. The back of his head exploded and sent pieces of scalp all over the truck, the yard, and me. The momentum that he had already built up sent him tumbling into the front porch. His knees impacted the red brick steps and he slid into my legs. I stumbled backwards into the front door. I grabbed onto the rod iron railing surrounding the porch and steadied myself. I quickly jumped off of the porch, but the one standing on the walkway grabbed onto my book bag. I tried to keep moving with him holding onto my bag, but I couldn’t move fast enough. The other sick person that was standing in the yard was gradually getting closer.
“Get off of me!” I yelled as I whipped my book bag around. I gave the bag one good jerk and flung the man holding onto my bag stumbling into another man standing next to a tree in the yard. They both fell to the grass and I pulled open the driver-side door of the truck. I jumped into the cab and started the engine. The door was still open when I began to back out of the driveway. One of the two men dragged himself over to the door of the truck and when I backed out, I could hear the corner of the door strike him on the left side of his head as the truck moved. I pulled the door shut and continued out of the driveway.
I forced myself to take my eyes off of the sickly figures lying in the wet grass. One of them was still trying to get back up to follow me. I looked down to the end of our street, to where it connected to the main road. I slammed the gearshift into first gear and put that 22R motor to work. I flew down our street faster than I ever had before. I quickly rounded the corner and paused for a few seconds when I came to the stop sign at the next intersection. I felt my stomach begin to convulse again, but I could not allow myself to lose control.
I straightened up in the oil-stained cloth seat of the pickup truck, grabbed the steering wheel tightly, and pulled onto Mercury Boulevard. I didn’t see too many vehicles driving about, but there were a few. Most of them were no longer concerned with the posted speed limits. Apparently the fire department had not been able to stop that house from burning. I could see the pillar of smoke well before I was near to the location. As I drove, I noticed that the diseased individuals had no fear of endangering themselves. Several of them were standing in the roadway and appeared to have no intention of moving. Others were aimlessly stumbling from place to place. It seemed that as soon as they saw the movement of my truck, their attention was taken off of whatever it was they were doing and they could only see me driving past them. I watched in the rearview mirror as they attempted to run after me. I sped past them and headed to Food Lion.
I slowly pulled into the Food Lion parking lot. Bonfires were set ablaze where several vehicles used to be. In various places in the parking lot, cars were frozen in the moment when they had collided with another vehicle. One vehicle sat in front of the doors to Food Lion, the driver’s side door was open, and there was a pool of fresh blood on the asphalt just outside the door. Shopping carts were strewn about, across the lot, and there appeared to be no movement inside the once thriving supermarket. The lights inside appeared to be off and I doubted that I would be using my money to get the supplies I needed.
I parked as close to the font as I could without putting my truck next to a smoldering heap of metal. I gathered all of my things, slowly stepped from my truck, and quietly closed the door. The smell of burning plastic, metal and rubber was overwhelming. I stopped and tried to recall the number of bullets that should have been left in the Glock after I left home. I fired one to his shoulder and one to his head, I said to myself quietly. I was hoping that I would not have to use any more until I got to a store with ammo, but if I did I wanted to be ready. I dropped my book bag to the ground and knelt beside it. I kept my eyes scanning the parking lot as I topped off the magazine in the Glock, leaving only fourteen cartridges in the box. I placed everything back in its place and tried to prepare myself for what I was about to attempt.
I took a deep breath and started walking toward the front door of Food Lion. As I walked, I passed an old, green Volkswagen Rabbit. The back window of the car was shattered, but there was no glass on the ground behind the car. There were also some bloodstains on the bits of glass that were left in the frame. I stopped and looked at the car for a moment. I wonder, I said to myself as I walked to the front of the car. I placed the palm of my hand on the hood, and despite the rain, the engine was still warm. The vehicle had just recently been parked. There was no one inside the car and there appeared to be a couple piles of clothes in the back seat. I continued up to the store, hoping that it was as vacant as it looked.
The inside of the grocery store was dark, and I couldn’t see any movement throughout the aisles. Several of the large plate glass windows on the front of the building had been destroyed. Glass crunched under my shoes as I slowly made my way to the front doors. The power was off, but I it had most likely only been for a few hours. There was a foul smell in the air, and it didn’t smell like rotting produce. As I walked to the automated doors, I almost stepped right into the glass. Then it dawned on me that the power was off. At that moment I was glad that there was no one around to see me, waiting for those doors to open. I jammed my fingers in between the two doors and pulled one outward to dislodge the sliding door. Well, if the door was shut that means that no one came in this way. Then I noticed that the doors at the other side of the entrance had already been pulled out. “Crap,” I whispered. Well, I’ll get what I need and get out of here.
I aimed the Glock into the darkness and tried to stay as low as possible. I needed a flashlight or I wouldn’t be able to find anything quickly. Cash registers usually have little flashlights around them. I inched my way up to the closest register to me. I looked down to the end of that lane, but it did not seem to have any flashlights on the rack. Again I got down low and moved on to the next register. This register had some flashlights, but only three or four cheap off brand ones. I slowly made my way down the lane toward the rack, but just before I was there, I heard a shopping cart rattling in the back of the store. The sound was so faint, I almost wasn’t sure that I had heard it.
I paused, wanting to jump up and get out of the building as fast as I could. But I forced myself to stay put. I needed to get supplies. I sat still for several seconds, but heard nothing else. I watched the shadows and saw nothing moving. The flashlights were almost within my reach. I scooted along the side of the register until I was directly across from the rack with the lights on it. As I turned to face the rack and attempted to grab all of the remaining lights, I felt my book bag strike a display for potato chips and send it crashing to the floor. I had never heard anything that loud in my life except for the growling moan that followed it. But this moan sounded different than the other ones I had heard. It sounded like it was coming from everywhere. I froze where I crouched and listened. At first I heard nothing else, but as I waited, I heard shuffling shoes on the glossy linoleum. I turned to my right just as a young man in a bloody Food Lion uniform stumbled into the light from the shadows of one of the aisles. “Crap, stupid book bag!” I said angrily as I pointed the gun toward the man and stood up. This time I aimed for his head first. POW My first shot flew past him. POW The right side of the man’s head exploded. His limbs flailed for a moment just as he collapsed to the floor.
The muzzle flashes lasted less than a second, but it was enough to illuminate the seven other lifeless faces staring at me from the aisles. I attempted to aim at the people I had seen, but it was like trying to hit something at the pace of a strobe light. Every time I took a shot, the people were in a different position than before I aimed. I couldn’t even tell if I had hit any of them before I ran out of ammunition. Rather than keep shooting blindly, I put the Glock into the waistband of the back of my pants and pulled my sword from between my back and my book bag. I stood still for a moment trying to figure out which one was going to get to me first. I stepped back behind the registers so my attackers would have to step further into the light before they could get to
me. I lifted the sword and prepared to strike.
BONG-BONG-BONG. Another one of the ragged looking people was outside the store pounding on the glass right behind me. I panicked and swung my sword into the glass. The glass cracked but didn’t shatter. The female on the other side of the glass didn’t flinch. Her right and only arm continued to slam against the glass. I could hear the glass beginning to buckle under the repeated blows. Suddenly I felt a cold, clammy set of fingers wrap around my right elbow. I spun around just in time see that I was about to have one of them gnawing on my arm. I ripped my arm back and forth until I was able to break his grip. As he stumbled backwards into the cash register, I brought the blade of my sword down onto his right forearm. The bones broke and the skin split in several places, but there was no reaction on his face, no screams of pain, and no retreat. He lifted both of his arms again and charged. This time I embedded the blade of my sword into the right side of his head. Just like all the others, this blow stopped him completely. The body fell to the floor, with a thud.
I pulled my eyes away from the one that had just attacked me, and braced myself to deal with the other three of them now within ten feet of me. This time I didn’t wait to see which of them would get to me first. I lunged at the one furthest to the left. He seemed to have been the one in the best shape. Other than the fact that he was charging me just like the rest of them, I wouldn’t have guessed that he was also infected. My sword sunk into the top of his head, but the blade wouldn’t come back out. I pushed on his head with my left hand as he fell to the floor, but the dead weight of his body pulled the sword from my hand. I turned to face the attacker that was now about to grab my back. I shoved him into the one behind him and sent them both tumbling into the soda machine at the end of register four.
I turned back to try to retrieve my weapon from the corpse. I grabbed the handle and stomped on his face. It took me three tries, but I finally worked the sword free. As I locked onto my next target I heard something squeaking up one of the aisles. I drew my sword back to hack into the skull of the one I had shoved into the soda machine, but before I could swing, his head exploded right in front of me. The body tumbled sideways toward the front of the store.
Then I heard something I had not heard for hours: someone talking to me. He was pushing a shopping cart full of groceries with a pump shotgun resting on the top of the pile. “GO!” he yelled at me. Then I noticed the mob following him. Most of them appeared to be pretty slow, but one of them was right on his heels. I quickly slid my sword back in between the straps of my book bag and pulled out the Glock. I removed the empty magazine and pulled a full one out of my pocket. I accidentally dropped the empty magazine onto the bloody floor at my feet.
I slapped in the full one and took aim—scared that I would hit the person I was trying to save, but if I didn’t try, I didn’t know what was going to happen to him. I took the shot. It struck the infected female on the right bicep. At the pace she was running, she lost her balance and fell forward into the legs of her intended victim. They both fell to the floor and the shopping cart continued to roll.
“Crap!” I could barely get the word out of my mouth before I was attacked a frail-looking old man that had been knocked over by the one whose head had been removed by the buckshot. Startled by his proximity I let off a stray shot into the darkness behind the man. A quick kick to the man’s left thigh sent him back into the soda machine. With several more of them still quickly closing in, I ran around the end of the register to attempt to help the guy I had unintentionally sent sliding across the floor. But when I came to where I was sure he would be laying, he was already gone.
In a confused panic I began shooting again into the advancing crowd. Then I heard the voice again, but from behind me this time, “What are you doing! Move!” I glanced over my shoulder toward the front doors just in time to see the guy I thought I was saving pushing his cart through the propped-open front door. I sprinted for the front doors. I wasn’t counting on the slickness of the blood still on the bottoms of my shoes, and when I tried to stop; I slid across the floor into the glass. But by pure luck I didn’t fall. When I regained my balance, I ran out the front door I had come in through.
The inhabitants of the grocery store were still close behind me and aggressively trying to follow me outside. The guy I had seen run outside was now behind that Volkswagen, scooping handfuls of groceries in through the shattered back window. I slid the Glock back into my right pants pocket and ran back to the entrance to Food Lion. With several of the rotting shoppers only feet from the doors, I grabbed onto the doors and yanked them shut. I started to run around to the other side to attempt the same on the other set of doors, but halfway there, I heard the voice of reason coming from the direction of the Volkswagen, “What are you doing? Get in your car!” I glanced back at the glass entrance to the store just in time to see a man in a shirt and tie jam his face into the glass right next to me. The impact was enough to crack the glass and enough to get me moving away from the store. As I ran to my truck, I saw the other guy’s vehicle lurch forward and begin moving out of the lot, and heard the previously cracking glass shatter and the sound of shoes stepping on broken glass. In spite of the temptation to look back, I set my eyes on the driver’s side door of the truck and pushed myself harder. I ripped the door open and tossed my bag onto the passenger’s seat. I didn’t know exactly where I was going to go next, but I had found someone else.
And I had a feeling that he had some answers.
I followed the beat-up Volkswagen as though I was tailing a friend on the way to his house. I didn’t know where he was going, but for some reason it felt good to let someone else think for me for those few minutes. For the most part, the city still appeared to be the same boring place that I had grown up in. Well, other than the fact that there were almost no healthy people anywhere.
The rain had started to let up again, and at the same time that the rain crossed my mind I realized that I was soaked and shivering. I had packed extra clothes in my bag, but now my bag was also soaked. The clock in the truck said 3:07. It felt like a lot longer than twenty-four minutes had passed since I had been sitting on the floor in my bedroom. I felt something inside me desiring to turn the truck around and just go home, but in the back of my mind I knew that there was no longer such a place.
The small green car in front of my pickup truck suddenly turned on its right-turn signal and pulled into a thrift store parking lot on Mercury Boulevard. I had been to the thrift store a few times during my “Old clothes are cool” phase, but it had been a year or so since I had even thought about going there. We parked right in front of the store in view of the glass front door. The front door was locked and the inside appeared as though no one had come to open the store that morning. But we noticed that there was another car in the lot besides both of ours.
The owner of the Volkswagen quickly walked over to the late model Oldsmobile. I stayed by the front door of the store and waited to see what the other guy was going to do. The red Oldsmobile was parked across the dividing lines of two parking spaces. As the other guy walked to the car, he slid several fresh 12-gauge shells into the magazine tube of his shotgun. Just as he stepped up to the window he raised the muzzle of the weapon to point at the driver’s seat. I heard a muffled screech and the vehicle began to shift back and forth on the suspension. BANG, click-click, BANG, click-click. Before I could even get my pistol out to line up on the vehicle, my unnamed companion put an end to the infected driver.
I ran over to where he was standing and helped him get the door open. He reached in and pulled out the remains of an elderly woman wearing a thrift store name tag.
“Sorry, Sharron,” said the other guy as he dropped the body to the gravel parking lot and began to search the inside of the vehicle. The entire left side of the woman’s head was gone. As I looked inside the vehicle, I saw that the left side of her head wasn’t gone, just no longer intact. I looked down at the remaining face of the poor woman and looked at the name t
ag. Sharron. I felt my stomach become queasy again, but all I could do was dry heave.
“She must have them in her pocket,” said the other guy from inside the car. I slowly knelt down and reached into her jean jacket pockets. I was still struggling with my bowels when I found the keys.
“Why are we here again?” I said as my new friend stepped out of the vehicle and I handed him the keys.
“Don’t you want somewhere to sleep tonight?” he said as he raised his eyebrows. He ran over to the doors and I followed.
“But why a thrift store?” I asked while he attempted to find the right key.
“How many cars do you see in the parking lot?” he asked.
“Ours and...Sharron’s,” I replied.
“And those are most likely the only people who are here,” he said just as he got the door open.
We both went inside and locked the door behind us.
“We’re not staying here, though, right?” I asked as I looked back outside toward my pickup truck.
“For now we are,” he replied. “My name is Matthew McCloy... My entire family was killed by those sick people,” he said with a blank stare of hate.
CHAPTER 6 - Origin of Matt...
We agreed to stay inside on the thrift store to exchange information and our stories. We also discussed what supplies we had been able to collect and what we had planned to do next.
