A Place Called Hope (Z-Day Book 2)

by Daniel Humphreys

  “Did somebody hole up inside?” Kendra muttered.

  Richard stared at the doors for a moment. “Looks that way.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Let’s check it out.”

  The four of them climbed out as one, in unspoken agreement. Richard was more confident of the battery and glow plugs at this point, and didn’t hesitate to kill the engine.

  No need to keep the dinner bell ringing.

  Sandy left his softball bat in the Humvee. If they had to go inside, he doubted there’d be enough room to swing it. He tried to keep from fingering his pistol but gave it up as a pointless effort as he turned and checked the roads leading to the intersection. So far, so good.

  Kendra shone her barrel light into one of the holes in the glass and Richard peered in. “Doesn’t look like they used a padlock.” He reached in and pulled on the chain. The rattle of chain link on the aluminum frame of the door made the hair on the back of Sandy’s neck stand up.

  “Carabiners,” Richard laughed in triumph. He released the latches to open the loop of chain and tugged on one of the strands. The noise wasn’t quite as bad now that it wasn’t tight against the door frame, but it was still too loud for Sandy’s taste. Richard piled the chain into a mound on one side of the door. He took a step back and raised his M4. “Jason, Sandy—pull the doors open. Watch your hands, don’t use the holes.”

  Sandy stepped up to the right side of the doors and sunk his fingers into the seam between the sliders. Gloves. We need to pick up some gloves. A cut or an infection would be bad news. He waited until Jason gave him a nod of readiness, and pulled.

  The sliders were a bit stiff at first, but they opened as the two men pulled. Their entrance into the pharmacy, however, was still impeded. The sliders opened into a small vestibule area, with another set of sliding doors leading into the actual interior of the store. When Sandy had been in stores like this in the past, they’d put newspaper racks, recycling bins, and that sort of thing in the vestibule. Someone—presumably the same person who had chained the doors shut—had crammed shopping cart after shopping cart into the tiny space until every square inch of it was full. It looked as though they’d have to take the entire collection apart from the rear to open the space up. The carts right at the exterior door sat slid into each other and parked flush against the entrance. They weren’t coming out the front, short of cutting them apart.

  “Well, that sucks,” Jason commented.

  Kendra leaned in and shone her light over the clot of carts. “Inside door is open. Crawl over?”

  Richard grimaced, but nodded. “Cover me.” He slung his M4 over his back and climbed on top of the carts. The first few rows were tight, but after that, they weren’t as dense, and the stack began to shift and slide under his weight.

  Sandy forced himself to look away and check the streets again. Still clear, but he didn’t think they could count on that for long. They needed to get in, get out, and get gone.

  The carts rattled one last time as Richard hopped down inside of the pharmacy. He got his rifle out and panned the flashlight around the interior. “What a mess.”

  “What are we doing?” Kendra wanted to know.

  “You and Sandy grab bags and get in here with me. Jason, get up in the Humvee and keep an eye out. You see any movement, yell. Let’s make this fast.”

  The pawn shop had carried a small selection of camping equipment, and they’d used most of the bags to hold smaller items that would have rolled around the interior of the Humvee otherwise. Richard had earmarked a couple of larger hiking packs to use at the pharmacy. Kendra tossed one to Sandy now, and he took a moment to slip his arms through the straps before climbing into the store. He looked back. Jason stared after them, face pale. Sandy gave the younger man a thumbs-up. A nervous smile was all he could muster in response.

  Sandy turned away and made the painful crawl over the collection of shopping carts. Inside, he eased to the floor and slid his pistol out. He had a flashlight of his own now, clamped onto the rail under the barrel. This had necessitated an exchange of holsters, but he felt much more comfortable with both hands on the pistol to steady his aim. While his light didn’t cut through the darkness of the interior any better than the larger lights on Richard and Kendra’s rifles, it gave him a sense of security nonetheless. The pharmacy had windows all the way around the exterior, though dirt and grime streaked the outside. Here and there, the rain had wiped the glass clean, which let enough light into the interior to create angular, confusing patterns of shadow.

  He let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. The pharmacy remained still and silent. Sandy stepped sideways to get a better view of the aisle to his right, and something skittered under his feet.

  Richard cursed under his breath, staring daggers. Sandy lowered his light and waved it across the floor.

  The floor of the place was, as Richard had commented, a mess. Food wrappers and empty drink bottles littered the carpet. In one corner near the section devoted to makeup, a small pile of lipsticks sat against the wall. Waxy, red stick figures decorated the paint, but even the illumination from his flashlight wasn’t enough to get a clear look at the drawings.

  “Is anybody in here?” Kendra murmured. Her voice was steady, calm.

  Hell, I wish I was that collected. Sandy knelt and picked up an empty Snapple bottle. “Let’s see,” he whispered. He cast the bottle underhand, toward the central aisle that led to the back of the store. It hit the floor with a crack and rolled across the carpet until it ran into something hard with a more subdued clinking sound.

  Richard mouthed a ‘What the fuck’ at Sandy, but he cocked his head and listened just as intently as the other two.

  Nothing. Silence reigned.

  “Okay,” Sandy breathed. “Let’s do this.”

  “I still don’t like it.” Richard took the lead down the center aisle. He kept his light low and stepped over the trash as much as possible. It was so thick in some areas that this was an impossible task, and wrappers rustled under his boots.

  Kendra followed Richard, and Sandy followed her. As they progressed, he periodically shone his light into the side aisles. The aisles of makeup and miscellaneous junk on the right were untouched, but someone had pillaged junk food and alcohol on the left. The racks and shelves were almost completely empty, and the discarded containers, cans, and bottles covered the floor.

  Either a small group of people for a long time or a bunch of people over a shorter period. Either way—where did they go?

  They reached the back of the store without incident. There was much less trash back here. Sandy couldn’t understand it. The place had boxes and boxes of garbage bags, so why leave stuff laying around? Hell, he’d occupied half of his time in the lab after the outbreak finding creative ways to get rid of his trash, and after the water pressure failed, his urine and feces. The first night outside had been terrifying, but at least the air had been fresh.

  He shone his light around the pharmacy. It was darkest near the shelves of drugs, though the other half of the area was a bit brighter than the rest of the store due to the somewhat-clean drive-up window. When nothing responded to his light, he holstered his pistol and took a deep breath to steel his nerves.

  Sandy climbed on top of the counter and swung his legs over to step down. He caught one foot on the cash register, sending it skidding across the counter with a bark of rubber on Formica. He lost his balance and toppled to the floor beyond. He barely caught himself with his hands to keep from smashing his face into the floor. Shaking at the sudden fall, he raised his head—and found himself face to face with a leering skull.

  An unmanly squeal burst from his mouth, and he pushed himself away, ready to defend himself from attack. When none was forthcoming, he clutched his chest and took a deep breath. His heart was pounding in his chest, adrenaline pumping his desire to run.

  Richard hissed at him from the other side. “Sandy. Sandy!”

  “I’m good. There’s a body back here.”


  His hands were still shaking, but he managed to pull his pistol from the holster and switch the light on. The body was well into the dried-out stage of decomposition. Based on the work boots, jeans, and flannel shirt, Sandy guessed it had been a male. The corpse still held the snub-nosed revolver he’d planted in his temple, and a dried spray of red and gray decorated the wall beside him. Sandy considered the revolver for a moment, but he couldn’t bring himself to pry it out of the guy’s hand. Maybe it was stupid, but he didn’t want to touch the corpse.

  Plenty of guns in the truck.

  The shredded skin on his opposite hand gave Sandy the reason for the suicide. The crescent-shaped wound was recognizable as a human bite, though it was on the small side. Sandy frowned. “He got bit and shot himself,” he muttered. He pulled himself to his feet and looked Richard in the eye. “We sure it’s empty in here?”

  Kendra gave Sandy a look, then turned to face the front of the pharmacy. Richard grimaced. “We didn’t check every nook and cranny, but you know how it works. We don’t have to. They come to us when they’re here.”

  Sandy frowned. Something about the bite and the place where the man had chosen to kill himself struck him as off, but the feeling wasn’t concrete enough to put into words. “Watch your asses.”

  “Get the stuff and let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “On it.” He stepped up to the shelf and started scanning the neat rows of boxes and bottles. There were a few places where it seemed that someone had rummaged through the contents of the pharmacy and taken things, but the stock was for the most part intact.

  Scanning a few labels established that the pharmacy laid out the medication in alphabetical order, and he eased around from the furthest shelf to the left and moved to the right. The ‘T’ shelf was one of the furthest to the right, and he chewed his lip nervously as he progressed through. There—Tenormin. Shit.

  There were only a couple of boxes of the stuff, with sixty pills per pack, or a month’s supply. He studied them before stuffing them into the backpack. The manufacturer, thankfully, had printed the non-brand name on the box—atenolol. He moved back to the first shelf and checked the labels one by one. Bingo! There were several boxes and bottles of the generic, and he added the pill count in his head as he shoveled them into the backpack. The dosages of the pills varied, but based on what Pat had said his pre-outbreak prescription had been, there was enough to keep his blood pressure down for two years or more. By then, we should be able to cut back on the canned food, grow more of our own stuff. And hell, if we make it that long he’s liable to shed some more weight, and that’ll help, too.

  Sandy zipped the backpack and turned to hand it across the counter to Kendra. She handed him the empty bag on her back in exchange.

  “Got the essentials,” he told her. “Enough to last Pat a good long while.”

  She gave him a tight nod and adjusted the straps on her shoulders as if to ensure she wouldn’t lose the bag. After he considered it, he understood the sentiment. Those pills meant the difference between life and death for someone. Given the fact that each uninfected represented a dwindling share of the human race, every little bit helped.

  Sandy turned back to the shelves. Now that he understood the arrangement, his second search was easier. The hard part was trying to remember the most common antibiotics. He tipped amoxicillin, Bactrim DS, Biaxin, cephalexin, and Cipro inside. If the group suffered any major injuries, painkillers would be helpful, but something told him that they might not have the time to try and breach whatever safe the pharmacy kept those in. He could have sent the others down the aisles for the over-the-counter stuff, but the crawling sensation on his neck made him disregard the notion. He remembered his doctor prescribing Duexis for pain once when he’d thrown his back out, and he cleared the shelf. It wasn’t as strong as an opioid, but it shouldn’t present the same issues with addiction.

  Sandy had a bottle of E-mycin in his hand when glass clinked in the shadows toward the front of the store.

  Richard and Kendra remained silent, but they swept their lights to the front, which draped the pharmacy in sudden shadow.

  Sandy tucked the bottle of medicine into the backpack. “What’s going on?”

  Richard’s voice was steady but tight with tension. “We’re not alone in here. How much longer?”

  He pulled his sidearm and switched on the light. “I’ll make it fast.” He swept the rest of the E-mycin into the bag and kept moving. He was running out of space, and though he hadn’t run the gamut of antibiotics, there’d been other things in the store he’d mentally tabbed to bring out. He shoved an economy-sized box of gauze pads into the bag, crushing it flat to make more room. For some reason, there was a stack of large first aid kits on the display shelves behind the register, and he crammed them into the backpack one by one. It was a strain to get the zipper shut, but he managed it finally. The kits were bigger and, he assumed, would be far better stocked than the one back at the boat dealership. He adjusted the straps and got the pack on over his back. There were a dozen other things he wished he’d been able to search for, but it looked like the clock had run out. The fact that Jason hadn’t called out made him wonder if he hadn’t been right about the source of the body behind the counter.

  Were they hibernating, or what? That thought was far more palatable than the next—that the infected had let them move into the store to cut them off from the exit.

  Cellophane rustled, and this time, the source of the noise was from the right of the store. More than one? Sandy clambered over the counter and stood between Richard and Kendra.

  She clenched her jaw. “Why aren’t they attacking?”

  Richard murmured, “I don’t know, and I don’t care. But we’re going to make a run for it. Right down the middle aisle. Don’t stop for anything, get up and over those carts and out of here.” He made eye contact with Sandy.

  He had all sorts of reservations about the plan, but there was no time for debate. The rustling sounds were coming closer and with greater frequency. He swallowed and gave Richard an affirmative nod.

  The other man hissed, “Go!”

  The methodical pace they’d taken the first time down the aisle wasn’t possible now, and the pack oscillated up and down on Sandy’s pack as his feet pounded down the aisle. With every step, he prayed that he wouldn’t trip and fall. It wouldn’t take much—plastic slipping on plastic underfoot would do it. The aisle blurred by on either side, but he didn’t dare turn his head. Peripheral vision would have to do, but it also rendered every shadow a threat, and he found himself cringing away as they moved through each crossroads in the aisle. All the way, the light of the doors grew before them.

  Kendra hit the carts first, and she got a leg up and launched herself onto the pile. Sandy was only a step or two behind, but she was already climbing out of the front doors when his hands slammed into the first interior row. He hopped up. Despite his terror, he glanced back, wanting to know whether to urge Richard on, or get out of the way, which gave him a front row seat to what happened next.

  The infected were small. Sandy hadn’t spent much time around children, so he had no real basis to judge their approximate ages. However young they’d been when they’d succumbed, they were gray-skinned creatures of hunger—but what Sandy found most disconcerting was not the blood that streaked the lower half of each face, but the speed at which they moved.

  Up to this point, every infected Sandy had encountered had moved with a shuffling gait that was easy to escape. These smaller ones couldn’t match Richard’s flat-out sprint down the aisle, but they were quick enough that the bigger man’s speed didn’t matter.

  They came at Richard from either side, and he might have made it to the carts if not for the trash on the floor. One foot came down on top of a mounded heap of trash, and Sandy heard the loud crack of plastic as the empty bottle at the bottom of the pile collapsed. His footing suddenly uncertain, Richard’s leg went out from under him, and he flopped to the floor on
his chest, well out of reach of the entrance.

  The infected pounced. While shadow cloaked the struggle on the floor, Sandy heard Richard’s grunts of desperation and the rattle of trash with crystal clarity.

  He tossed the backpack to Kendra but had no memory of removing it. Her cry behind him was a wordless shriek as he jumped down from his perch atop the carts.

  Richard had gotten over onto his side. In the process, he’d pinned his rifle under his body. He wrapped one hand around the throat of one of the infected to keep her gnashing teeth at bay while he groped for a weapon with the other. The dead thing had a patchy, leprous scalp of blonde hair and wore a blood-stained Disney Princess shirt.

  To his credit, Sandy didn’t cringe as he placed the barrel of his pistol against the infected’s head. Richard must have seen him coming because he shoved upward with all his strength and offered it up, as though in tribute.

  Sandy pulled the trigger.

  The infected went limp, and Richard shoved it aside with a yell of anger that morphed into one of pain. The second infected was down near his legs, scrabbling at the thick fabric of his cargo pants. Sandy lowered his aim, then hesitated. Even at this close of a range, he wasn’t certain that he’d be able to make an accurate shot.

  Richard kicked out with one leg. The second creature went flying, and he pushed himself closer to the doors, sliding along on his butt. As soon as it hit the ground, the infected bounced up onto all fours. It silently regarded Sandy and Richard with blank eyes, then surged forward.

  Without having to worry about hitting Richard, Sandy lifted the pistol and pulled the trigger over and over. He hit the thing in the stomach, the chest, and the shoulders until one of his last rounds drilled it right between the eyes. It slumped to the ground and skidded to a stop right at Richard’s feet.

  A spreading pool of blood slowly enveloped the infected’s devastated head. The infected don’t bleed. Sandy winced and turned to Richard.