Whatever It Takes

by Mike Staton

  Percival lifted his pistol, noticed the slide was locked in the open position and cursed.

  “Watch the door!” he shouted over the ringing in his ears as he ejected the empty magazine and stuffed it into his pocket. He dug another magazine out and pressed it into the bottom of the pistol and released the slide, loading the first bullet into the chamber.

  “No need to yell, dude,” Evan said. He had his hunting rifle aimed at the pair of swinging doors.

  “Sorry.” Percival didn’t feel sorry. He had only yelled to get over the ringing in his ears. The ringing was slowly subsiding. “What the hell was that?”

  “Zombie, I think. It was tough to tell with all the flashes from your gun.”

  “Zombies don’t act like that. Where are we?” Percival finally took a moment to look around.

  They’d left the parts warehouse and burst into a large, open mechanics bay. It was mostly empty, except for various pieces of equipment for the maintenance of cars, and a red 1994 Dodge Spirit.

  “Well, hello.” Percival backed away from the doors. “Watch the doors.”

  “Sure, whatever.” Evan didn’t move, and simply continued to aim his rifle at the pair of swinging doors.

  Percival turned away from the doors and moved to a nearby bench. He picked up a wrench from it and carried it back to the door. He listened for more growls or the clicking of claws before closing the distance and sliding the wrench through the handles and creating a makeshift bar for the doors.

  Percival backed away from the doors faster than he had intended. The zombie, beast, animal, or whatever it had been, scared him. He turned to face Evan after he was well outside of arm’s reach. “Let’s go find the others.”

  Evan lowered his rifle and checked his watch. “Half an hour before we need to meet up.”

  “If there’re more of those things around, I want us to be together. Besides, we’ve got a car now. Maybe.” Percival wasn’t going to let this course of action change. He was fearful of more of the things and fearful that some of these stalkers had also set upon Sarah and Karl.

  “Right.” Evan didn’t sound convinced, but followed Percival anyways.

  Percival headed toward the back of the dealership. He wasn’t entirely certain he was going in the correct direction, the blow to his head had messed with his internal compass, but guessed it was right. He stepped out of the maintenance bay and looked around. He didn’t see the mostly empty car-lot, and assumed he’d picked the right way.

  On a whim, he chose to turn right, and make his way around the building. He just hoped that when he came to the gas pumps, he’d find both Sarah and Karl alive and well.

  Percival led Evan around the corner of the building. The feeling of being watched came back and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He didn’t like it and felt it was as though it were one of stalkers watching him silently from afar.

  He was glad to see gas pumps as soon as he rounded the corner and broke into a run to reach them quicker. Karl was crouched a short distance from the pumps with their homemade hand pump next to him. Sarah stood facing the opposite direction, looking out at the city. She turned as Percival and Evan neared.

  “What the fuck happened to you?” Sarah’s eyes were fixed to the side of Percival’s head.

  “Huh?” He hadn’t even said a thing about being attacked yet.

  “You’ve got gouges in your helmet.” Sarah reached out and touched his helmet. “Did you run into something?”

  “You could say that,” Evan said.

  “New type of undead. We think. Bloody zombies’re evolving,” Percival said. “But you’re going to be more interested in what we found.”

  “Zombies don’t evolve.” Karl looked up from his position at the pump. “We found diesel. The regular is dry though. What’d you find?”

  Percival pulled his duffel bag around and tugged a radio out. “It works too. There’s also an undamaged car in the maintenance bay.”

  “Evan, take over for me.” Karl got up and Evan reluctantly took his place at the pump.

  Karl walked over to Percival and took the radio from his hand. He turned it over a couple times and clicked it on, listening to silence for a moment before clicking it off.

  “Was this in a charging cradle when you picked it up?” Karl asked.

  Percival nodded.

  “Where? We need to cradles as well.”

  “What for?” Percival asked.

  “These radios don’t have typical battery packs. They’re charged off a cradle, like the ones you left behind, instead of plugging in more double A batteries. If we want to use ‘em for longer than, probably, half a day, we’ll need those cradles.”

  Percival frowned. “There are those new zombies in the building. I don’t want to go back in there.”

  “Did you find keys to the car you said you found?” Sarah asked.

  Percival was glad to have the conversation moved briefly away from the discussion to co back inside. “No. To be honest, we didn’t go near it.”

  Karl nodded slowly. “Do you know how to hotwire a car?”

  “No!” Evan called from his position at the pump.

  “Then we’ll need to go back inside and find the keys to begin with. We can grab the cradles at the same time.” Karl’s argument was perfectly rational and that fact alone was why Percival hated it so.

  “It’s not safe.” Percival knew he sounded whiny. “I think the entire building is infested with those things.”

  “They’re zombies, hon. Just how bad could they be?” Sarah said.

  “You’re not helping.” Percival looked from Sarah to Karl. “These things were quiet, except for when they attacked, and I think they were smart to some capacity. They followed Evan and I to a confined space and then cornered us.”

  “They’re zombies, boy,” Karl repeated. “The darkness probably just played tricks with your eyes.”

  Percival looked to Evan. “Back me up on this.”

  “They were scary as sin.” Evan had switched the hose to the second jerry can they brought. “But nothin’ we couldn’t handle.”

  “You weren’t attacked,” Percival muttered. He was losing this argument. “Fine. But we’re not going in for any longer than absolutely necessary.”

  *

  Percival had used the time that it had taken Evan to finish pumping diesel into the second jerry can to reload his spent magazine. He’d also taken his helmet off long enough to look at the damage. There were three gouges that swept from the side toward his visor. They weren’t too deep, but the fact that the stalker in the warehouse had managed to create them with a single swipe made Percival uncomfortable. If they could gouge hard plastic so easily, he didn’t want to think about what they could do to an unprotected piece of flesh.

  And if it hadn’t used a tool, a knife or something, it meant the damned thing had grown claws; claws that would likely transmit the infection.

  “You’re just making things up now,” Percival told himself. He tugged his helmet back on and secured it.

  “You seem really shaken.” Sarah sat down next to him.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to go back inside.” Percival wracked the slide on his pistol, chambering the first round. “The stalkers around this building scare me.”

  “Stalkers?” Sarah raised an eyebrow at the term.

  “My label for the zombies that attacked Evan and I in there. You know, zombies don’t scare me any more. Stalkers do. They don’t act normal.”

  “I think you’re blowing things out of proportion.” Sarah stood up. “Evan’s done, and it’s about time to go find the keys for the car.”

  “Joyful day. I want it on record that I don’t condone going back into that building.” Percival stood up as well. He holstered his pistol after flicking the safety on. He walked to the pumps and picked up one of the two jerry cans. Evan picked up the other can and, together with Sarah and Karl, carried them to the maintenance bay.

  Percival led the way ov
er to the car and put his can down. He looked back to the double doors that led back into the parts warehouse. The doors were unbarred and the wrench he had used to secure them wasn’t near the door. He frowned. That wasn’t right. Zombies bashed their way through obstacles. If that had happened here, Percival would see the broken, or simply dislodged, wrench near the door.

  For the second time that day, he wished he had Roy Joy there to offer some insight.

  Percival shook his head and looked toward the others.

  “You realize this car is nearly a dozen year old, right?” Sarah asked.

  “So?” Percival answered.

  “How do we know it’ll run? Or run for long?” She asked again.

  “We don’t. However, what we do know is that if it does run, for however long or short, it’ll be faster travel than our feet,” Karl said.

  Percival nodded in agreement. “Otherwise it’d be another reason for us to not go back into the building. Speaking of which, we’re going in and we’re sticking together. Understand?”

  “Sure, but—“ Karl began to say.

  “No ‘but’s. If we’re going back in there, it’s by my rules. We stick together, we watch each other’s back. We understood?” Percival had very little intention of going into the dangerous building and letting another member of his team die.

  After everyone around him had nodded, Percival turned to look at the double doors leading to the parts warehouse. “We go get the cradles first, then find the keys and get out. We’re not spending any more time in there than necessary.”

  “Sure. Sounds good to me.” Sarah led the way to the double doors and leveled her shotgun.

  The three men followed her and Percival split off with Karl to pull both the doors at the same time.

  “Three, two, one.” Percival pulled his door open in time with Karl. Light leaked into the parts warehouse and illuminated the nearest shelves and some of the boxes that were scattered during the attack on Evan and Percival. Percival stepped inside and slid one of the heavy boxes to Karl.

  “Prop the door open.” Percival said as he moved a second box outside and propped his door open.

  He sucked in a breath and stepped into the parts warehouse again. He looked to where he remembered the attack having come from. A destroyed face still dripped red gore onto the shelf and floor. The arm that had struck Percival hung limp, the fingers from the last knuckle down were chewed right down to the bone.

  “Not natural claws,” he muttered and lifted the hand. Bloodied bone was all that was left of the tips of the fingers, and that looked as though it had been filed or chewed to be sharp. “Normal zombies don’t do this.”

  “I agree with you.” Karl moved past Percival and further down the aisle. “Doesn’t change that we need things from in this building.”

  That fact didn’t help to quiet the uneasy feeling in Percival’s stomach. He motioned for Evan to go second. “Show him to the lockers.”

  Evan nodded and walked after Karl.

  Percival looked to Sarah. “Be careful with the shotgun in here, there’s a lot of metal for the shot to bounce off of.”

  She gave him a deadpan look that said, ‘are you kidding me?’ “Fuck you.”

  “Later,” he quipped.

  Sarah’s face twitched in what Percival assumed was a smile. She turned away from him and followed after Karl and Evan.

  Percival brought up the rear, straining his ears listening for the clack of bone on concrete, or the soft animalistic growl that the stalker had emitted earlier. At least they weren’t absolutely silent.

  The walk to the cabinet was short and uneventful, and delving further into the darkness made Percival less and less comfortable.

  It took a few minutes for Karl to unwind the cords and get the cradles out of the locker. He crammed them into his duffel bag.

  “Where’s the customer area?” Karl asked.

  “This way,” Evan said. He took the lead, raising his hunting rifle and walking toward the front section of the parts department.

  Percival followed him with Karl and Sarah following.

  Evan pushed open the door and stepped into the customer area. He swept his rifle around in a wide arc, the flashlight taped to the gun revealing the area slowly in a circle of light that drifted around the room.

  Karl followed them through and stepped to the side. His flashlight played over items behind the counter. He settled his beam on a lockbox attached to the wall.

  “Did you check upstairs at all?” Karl asked as he worked to get the box open.

  Percival was about to answer when an animalistic growl erupted from across the room. The growl was answered by a second growl from closer and in the opposite corner of the room.

  “Was… Was that a dog?” Sarah’s voice trembled as she panned her flashlight and shotgun in quick arcs around the room, looking for the source of the sound.

  “No, it’s the stalkers.” Percival was amazed at how calm he thought he sounded when inside he was a torrent of fear and the desire to flee was. “Uh, Karl? Have you gotten that box open yet?”

  “It’s jammed.” Karl bashed his pistol against the box. He let out a frustrated grunt and slammed his pistol hard against the metal box.

  The metal clang echoed in the dark room. Three more growls answered the bang. Percival was sure that they came from the direction of their possible exits.

  “Evan, sweep the hallway.” Percival brought his light around to shine near a doorway that would lead out. Something flittered quickly out of his flashlight’s beam as he brought it around.

  “Something’s dodging my flashlight,” Evan said.

  “They’re guarding the exits,” he muttered. “Karl, is that box open? Sarah, watch the door… Bar the door to the parts warehouse.”

  Percival was letting instinct settle into his voice. He wasn’t letting personal feelings enter his orders. That had gotten a team member killed before, and he wasn’t about to repeat the instance.

  “Step back.” Karl took a step away from the box and shot it. The muzzle flash illuminated the room for the briefest of moments.

  In that moment of moments, Percival saw the opposite of what he wanted to see. He’d heard three different stalkers growl, but had seen half a dozen eyes scattered around the room. His eyes had to be playing tricks on him.

  “It’s open,” Karl announced. More growls echoed through the room and drowned out the clinking sound of keys as Karl hastily gathered all of the small metal objects from the box.

  Percival swept his flashlight frantically from side to side. Shadows darted away from his beam. The growling grew in intensity, as he heard the clack of bone against the hard, tiled, floor.

  “Don’t let ‘em get close enough to swipe,” Percival shouted. His heart felt as though it had leapt into his throat. “Hop the counter and run for the stairs, it sounds like they’ve got the other exits covered.”

  Percival brought his flashlight around to the staircase and trained it there as his teammates made affirmative noises. He did his best to keep his cool and calm. Or, at the very least, he wanted to pretend and make it look as though he was still calm and in control. He swept his flashlight along the path they’d have to take. It was thankfully clear of debris.

  “Sarah, Evan, Karl, in that order. Go!” He shouted the last word.

  It was as though he’d fired a starter’s pistol at a track meet. Sarah vaulted the counter and sprinted across the room with Evan quick on her heels.

  “No arguments, old man. I’ve got the rear.” Percival shoved Karl toward the counter. He followed the older man over the counter and sprinted after him.

  A screech startled Percival. He reacted by ducking away from the sound, swept his pistol around and squeezed the trigger. The bullet punched through the stalker’s outstretched hand and splattered Percival’s visor with specks of red. The stalker howled and darted back into the darkness.

  Percival stumbled for a step and corrected his dash to the staircase. Sarah and Evan wer
e already three-fourths the way up the. Karl stood at the base, scanning the darkness. He didn’t move until Percival joined him.

  Together they dashed up the stairs. At the top they met a door labeled ‘Employees Only.’ Percival wasted no time in pressing past Sarah and Evan to thrust his foot against the door. It popped open without any resistance at all.

  He stepped through and swept the room with his pistol and flashlights. He motioned for the others to come up.

  His flashlight revealed boxes labeled with blue tags held on by yellowing, clear, packaging tape. One of the closer boxes read ‘Car Deals, 2004, Ng-Nu.’ Percival muttered a soft curse. A file room likely meant another maze-like series of aisles and shelves. A maze that the stalkers knew and the survivors didn’t.

  Chapter 4

  “Let’s go into the creepy infested building.” Percival was angry. He slammed the door to the stairs. It helped to shut out the growls and screeches. “Alright, who’s got the next great idea?”

  “Are you okay?” Sarah moved close to him, examining his front.

  “I’m fine. I don’t like being in here where they obviously know the building and we don’t. But other than that, I’m—“

  “Were you scratched, boy?” Karl broke Percival’s tirade.

  Percival took a deep breath, held it for a moment. He was losing it, but was physically uninjured. He needed to calm himself and present a good, focused leader to the others. He let the breath out slowly.

  “I’m fine. Let’s get the hell out of here.” Percival turned away from them and moved toward another nearby door. The growling was growing on the other side of the door leading to the stairs and if he could put more physical barriers between his team and the stalkers, he would gladly do so.

  “If you were scratched, we need to know,” Karl said.

  “I’ll let you strip search me once we’re in a safer location,” Percival muttered. “Infection doesn’t cause an instant turning like in the movies. It takes as long as a month.”