“The back,” Jeff had said. “Guard the back!”
Mary was doing just that. No corpse left “alive,” threat or no threat. She walked the line of the pit, tracing the backyard with lead and casings, always keeping an eye on every direction.
Her entire world was falling apart piece by piece, and her breathing became tense at the thought. Ammunition was sparse, most of it in the Escalade and F-150. Jeff’s plan to fill the pit with a few extra explosive toys had gone to shit when that screamer made its presence known to the surrounding area a few minutes ago.
Her magazine ran dry and she replaced it with her last remaining one. She turned toward the back door to make sure none of the dead had made it around the sides of the house. None had, thankfully.
Mary shifted her stance as Jeff came running out the back door. She shrieked at his sudden appearance, practically jumping out of her skin when he placed a hand on her back. Jeff was lucky he didn’t get shot as Mary turned around and backed away with her gun raised.
“Whoa, it’s just me.” He lifted his left arm, revealing one of the AK-47s. “And I brought gifts.” After handing it to her, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out two full mags. “She’s locked and loaded. Let’s make quick work of the ones back here. Alex has the front covered for now.”
The shooting resumed, only this time twice as many guns fired.
***
Randy stood listening as the pace of the shooting picked up. He ground his teeth and spat at the thought of those bastards wasting his father’s precious ammunition. The only thing keeping his nerves calm was the memory of those two bitches bleeding out back at the house.
A groan from the right stole his attention. He turned to see a zombie shambling toward him from one of the side streets, right off the path he needed to follow. He froze when he heard more groans coming from his left, from the patch of woods between two houses. And then, out of nowhere, there was a zombie in the distance ahead.
This one didn’t groan, didn’t move. No, this one just swayed with the wind and falling snow, staring Randy down while its comrades approached from both sides. Randy’s stomach filled with discomfort as more came out from another street.
Randy backed up a few steps, taking in the entire scene. Deaders began pouring out from backyards and damn near every patch of woods. There weren’t enough rounds in the magazine to take care of them all. Even if there were, more were sure to show. What then?
“Shit,” he said, realizing his options were limited, and none appealing. He turned around, ready to hightail it back to the house and wait this out. In midstride, his eyes met with another zombie in the center of the road. It swayed in imitation of its undead brethren. Randy furrowed his brow. The thing screamed, and it was so loud that both of his ears popped.
Moments later he was running down the side street where he saw the first staggering creature. There was another roar, this one from the direction of the first observant zombie. Before he knew it, Randy was being chased by running cadavers while the slower, creeping corpses lumbered behind them.
“What the hell?” he said between breaths as a pair of the things leaped over a short fence from a yard to the right. He slid to a halt and shot them both in the head. Before he knew it, he was thrown off balance as something slammed into his shoulder. He turned around in time to see one of the running bastards reaching for him as its body slid into a parked sedan.
He took off as three more runners gave pursuit.
***
The zombie had dropped to the ground and incapacitated itself. Perplexed, all three onlookers wondered how the thing had gotten up to the top of the aisle, but it amused them to walk up to it and see its maw opening and closing, unable to do anything else.
“Look at this little guy,” Cole said. “Seems he lost his balance.” He brought his boot down and put the thing out of its misery with a wet thud.
“Looks like no one’s been here,” Angela said.
Matt’s vision adjusted as he walked toward the bay door. He’d been in this store numerous times and remembered the light panel was somewhere on the back wall, not too far from where they had entered. He found the switches and turned them on as he said, “Let there be light.” At first the bulbs throughout flickered then illuminated the entire store.
“Oh, Your Holiness,” Cole mocked. “Remind me not to piss you off, or else you might smite me.”
“Yeah, well Your Holiness says we need to clear this place, get our stuff, and get the hell outta here.”
“Agreed.” Cole slung his assault rifle behind his shoulder, pulling out a pistol. “We’ll clear the front, you clear the back.” He took Angela with him, and they both were out of sight seconds later.
“Great,” Matt muttered. He slung his own rifle, favoring his pistol in quarters like these, and started walking down the back of the store. For the first fifty feet or so there was a bevy of iceboxes, carpeting, and tile accessories. The hall to the right after the tile accessories had him worried, though. Customer bathrooms; a likely spot for some zombie that didn’t possess the ability to pull the door open and free itself.
He chose the Men’s Room first and knocked three times. Putting his ear against the door, he heard nothing, yet the smell death ran across his nostrils. He pushed the door in and planted his right foot so that it didn’t immediately shut on him. As the door bounced off his foot, he swept the bathroom. The light flickered on and off and on, painting the room in a crimson tint each time it lit. Looking up, he found the light to be stained with drying blood and could hear the surges of power coming and going. Beneath the light, a body lay unmoving, face down on its chest.
Matt gingerly stepped in, keeping the sights of his pistol trained on the cadaver as he approached it, staying well out of the way of the encircling pool of blood. When the light afforded, he was able to see bits of brain matter on the tiled floor, sticking out like little islands in a sea of blood. He saw the pistol in the grip of the corpse’s right hand. The back of its head was blown open.
Matt nudged it a few times for good measure then made quick work of kicking open the stalls. Only the first one revealed anything interesting: bloody walls and a bloody toilet filled with light pink water.
Something had been in here. That probably explained why Mr. Dead behind Matt offed himself. He’d been bitten.
Matt searched for bloody footprints, but found none. He turned to leave and stopped, seeing something on the farthest mirror. Why! was scrawled in blood that dribbled down to the sink.
He bolted from the room. The breeze of fresher air was enough to the wipe the nausea away. Matt eyed the water fountain in the hall and felt the dryness in his throat. He had to fight the urge to take a sip. The waterworks were probably compromised, more than likely playing host to a few walking corpses dripping their infected blood into the system like arch-villains in a comic book. Not since before the initial outbreak had Matt drunk from a faucet. He might have been a little too paranoid, but hey, he was still alive.
The women’s room was in pristine condition. The light worked. The floor was clean. Hell, it even smelled fresh, which he thought was odd considering he was in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Maybe there are other survivors in here, he thought as he cleared the stalls.
Matt scanned for more unmoving bodies, but couldn’t find any. He reached the employee break area, which housed two more bathrooms and a back room marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. The break room was easy enough to clear. The door had been left open, and he could see that the snack machines were empty; the glass barrier was no longer there, yet he couldn’t find a single shard of glass.
He shut the door a little too loudly for his liking and made quick work of the bathrooms, which were as clean as the women’s. The back room was at the end of the hall from which he’d originally entered. This was where, he presumed, all of the store’s surplus stock was kept. He reached for the handle and received no slack. Deciding it would be best to have the others around for clearing a locked door
he returned to the main part of the store, eager to tell Cole and Angela about the find.
As he reached the hall, he heard a door shut behind him. Matt reached for his pistol and spun around to see a man his age, a little taller and much bigger than he with dark blond dreadlocks hanging past broad shoulders. He was pointing a double-barreled shotgun right at Matt.
“Hello,” the man said with a voice which was too calm for Matt’s liking.
Matt lowered his pistol and rummaged up the coolest smile he could find.
***
They just didn’t stop coming.
That little girl must have combed through every part of the neighborhood, garnering the attention of anything undead. The thought of it nearly brought a tear to Mary’s eye, but she forced it down before it could escape. She had run out of ammunition and was making her way in through the back door.
When Jeff’s assault rifle ran dry he ran for the back door, too. The backyard would have to go unguarded. As he took his first steps toward the door, leaving the nearly full pit behind, he saw Mary had made a costly mistake upon entering. In her haste, she’d left the back door open. Two runners were crossing the threshold with a few creepers in tow.
Jeff booked it, running as fast as his legs would permit, and entered to see Mary wrestling with one of the runners, the other making its way upstairs. Where the hell is Tim? The thought danced in Jeff’s mind as he saw Mary losing her struggle with the rotter. He pulled his sidearm and slammed the door to gain the runner’s attention, blocking the creepers behind immediate access.
“More food over here, rotter!” He raised the pistol, but couldn’t get a clear shot at the snarling creature, or its attention.
Mary pushed and pulled, coming uncomfortably close to the open basement door. The runner, a thin, shirtless dead man with a malformed bump on its right shoulder, tried wrapping itself around her. Its teeth clacked as Mary shoved the pallid limbs away and took another step back.
“Mary,” Jeff yelled as she kicked the thing’s midsection and tried repositioning herself, absentmindedly taking another step back. Her eyes went wide when the ball of her foot missed the top stair.
“AHHHH!”
A crash and a thud later, the runner was hot on Jeff’s trail.
He put a round in its head and ran to the basement doorway to find Mary motionless on the cement floor below. Shit, he thought, unsure if her chest was rising and falling or his sanity diminishing. Another crash and scream rang out from upstairs.
“Dammit!” He punched the wall beside the door and made for the stairs, hoping the back door would hold.
***
“Look, man,” Matt said, raising his hands, “I’m not here for any trouble. My friends and I—”
“There’re more of you?” The blond man said from behind the shotgun.
Hesitant, Matt answered. “Yes. Two more.”
“Why you here?”
Matt looked around. “Supplies.”
The dreadlocked man stepped out of the room. Matt could see at least two other people behind him now.
“What the hell you need in here, man? Ain’t no food or water for you.”
“We just need stuff to reinforce our house. Not too much worried about your food and your water, to be honest.”
The man quickly moved the barrel from Matt to right behind him, where Cole and Angela appeared.
“The place is—” Cole stopped in his tracks. “Oh… shit.”
“‘Oh shit’s’ right,” the blond man said. “Drop that fancy assault rifle you got there, son, before I make your chest see-through.”
“All right, everybody calm down.” Matt spread his arms defensively between Cole and the big man. “No need for a gunfight.”
“Hell yeah there is,” the newcomer said, nodding behind them. “You three come into my store with your fancy weapons and just think you can take our shit?”
“Dennis,” a female voice said from behind the man, “will you calm down? You’re gonna end up getting yourself killed.” A teenage girl with long red hair and a freckled face walked up next to him. She was pale, slim, but still very attractive, and maintained a level attitude when she said, “Stop pointing that gun at them.”
Matt saw that her nametag read: “Jennifer.”
“I’d listen to Jennifer, Dennis,” Cole said, keeping his voice hauntingly calm. “Your ass is outnumbered and outgunned. You’ll get no more than one shot off before your fat ass drops dead to the ground.” Cole had his assault rifle at the ready position in a flash.
Matt could hear Angela flipping the safety on her pistol behind him.
“What if all I need is one shot?” Dennis said, looking a bit shaken.
“Then I’d suggest you take the safety off.” Cole laughed a bit. “You obviously don’t know shit about guns, so why the hell are you pointing one around?” He stepped beside Matt and shoved the barrel of his assault rifle in Dennis’s chest.
The big, dreadlocked man’s expression faded as his cheeks went red. He looked at the safety with a confused air.
“You will only get yourself killed if you so much as reach for that safety, Dennis,” Cole said as he winked. “Now back down. We weren’t planning on killing any humans today, but I will kill you if you don’t heed my warning.” He glanced to Matt then to Angela, who was bringing her pistol up.
Dennis slowly lowered the shotgun, shaking his head, his confidence and ego bruised.
“Now hand that shotgun to my friend Matt,” Cole ordered.
Dennis looked to the firearm with a mixture of disgust and hate. He sighed, lowered his head, and offered it to Matt.
“Fuckin’ amateurs.” Cole laughed. “I swear to god.”
Seeing Dennis grit his teeth, Matt said, “Like I told you, we’re not here for trouble.”
“How’d you get in?” Jennifer asked, pushing past Dennis.
“Uh, through that bay door that was left open,” Matt answered, looking the shotgun over.
“That son of a bitch opened the doors!” a man wearing a sweat-stained tank top and faded denim jeans stomped into view. “We should’ve killed his ass when we had the chance.”
“I take it you’re talking about that corpse in the men’s bathroom,” Matt said.
“That would be him,” the man replied, nodding. “Jasper, that fucking prick.”
“He got bit when he went out for food yesterday,” Jennifer said. “We didn’t find out until a few hours ago.”
“When we confronted him about it,” Tank Top continued, “he pulled a gun on us. You could see it in his eyes; he was gonna kill us all. Me and Dennis here managed to get him out of the room,” he nodded to the area behind him, “and we’ve been staying in here since.”
“You guys didn’t hear the gunshot?” Matt inquired.
Tank Top shook his head.
“We thought you were him when you went for the door.” Jennifer walked back to Tank Top and wrapped her arms around his right bicep.
“Well next time make sure that you keep the safety off.” Matt handed the shotgun back to Dennis. “We cool?”
He nodded. “Yeah, man, we’re cool.”
Matt smiled. “Awesome, ‘cause we got some bad news for you.”
“And what’s that?” Tank Top inquired.
“There are about, I don’t know, maybe a few hundred zombies making their way here.”
“You kidding me?” Dennis put a hand on his head and blew out a deep breath.
“Look,” Angela said. “We’re wasting valuable time here. Can we just get what we came for and get the hell out of here?”
Matt had almost forgotten that she was behind him, and he realized that they wouldn’t be able to get their “alone time” quite yet. “I’m with her,” he said, trying not to let the disappointment bleed into his voice.
“Well, you guys aren’t going to get that far if you plan on leaving.”
In an instant, every available gun was trained on a man who’d snuck up behind them.
Great, Matt thought. Just. Fucking. Great!
***
Tim ran into the room where Alex had been, mind and body both light as a feather. He was stoned, and far too out of it to keep a straight face.
Alex was perched in the far corner between a dresser and the wall. An infected woman, nearly the same size as Tim, was closing in on the kid. He noticed the rifle on the bed.
“Help me, Dr. Grant!” the boy cried, pushing back even though there was nowhere else to go.
Tim watched as the boy shed tears of pure terror. The good doctor was far too inebriated to handle the rifle, too old to be wrestling with the walking dead. Instead, he backed out over the threshold with the boy calling his name, pleading for help.
Tim shut the door—not completely, though, as that would draw questions as to how the thing got in there in the first place—and returned to the hall as Alex let loose a scream which could mean only one thing.
The boy’s loss would not be in vain, Tim realized. For it will be a tool to persuade the others to leave this godforsaken place. It would make him right, and oh did Dr. Timothy Grant love being right.
He opened the door to his room as Jeff rushed up to the second floor.
“Mary fell down the stairs in the basement,” the soldier said, beads of sweat falling down his cheeks. “Help her, Tim.”
Nodding, Tim could hear the desperation in Jeff’s voice and see the discontent in his eyes as the former soldier noticed the bottle of pills in the doctor’s hand.
“Just make sure the kid’s all right.” Tim descended the stairs, pretending to hurry, wearing the smile of a madman as everything around him fell apart.
***
“Whoa there, guys. Don’t shoot the messenger.” A dark-haired man sporting a full beard raised his hands. His faded leather jacket sported a few tears and stains. He looked back to the bay entry and then to the survivors.
“Who the hell are you?” Angela asked, lowering her pistol a bit.
Downfall Page 24
