“Jar—” she started, but he continued.
“You gave me your bean hoard, Anna! That sealed the deal as far as I’m concerned.”
“Is he always like this?” Fletch asked her.
“Yes,” Anna said and pinched his side.
“I thought it was a stress reaction, or maybe a mental breakdown, but no. He’s always been this way, I think,” Bradley said to him.
“He was a strange child,” Enid said to them and sipped some juice.
“Ma! What the heck?” he asked. Anna was giggling next to him.
“What? It’s true! I think it’s because you watched all those sitcoms when you were a kid.”
“Okay, lunch time is over! We’ve got to go to the store,” he said.
“What sitcoms?” Anna asked, giving him an evil smirk.
“Oh, you know that one with the—”
“Now!” Jared said and rushed them all out of the room.
◆◆◆
“I don’t know why you couldn’t let me finish my lunch,” Anna said to him as they took the pickup into town. Bradley, Stewart, and Fletch were in the one behind them. He knew Fletch was fuming because Stewart called shotgun. He wasn’t sure how it had happened, but he did. They were going to have to stop underestimating old Stew.
“Here,” he said, reaching up and popping open the small compartment overhead. He tossed her a bag of Funyuns. “You’ll have to replace them soon. Those are my emergency Funyuns.”
“You know that’s for sunglasses, right?” she asked, rattling the bag and crunching on his Funyuns.
“Not anymore. It’s my Funyun compartment.”
“What’s wrong with the console?” she asked.
“That’s where I keep the Skittles and Chex.”
“And under the seat?” she wanted to know.
“Jeez, the Star Crunches…don’t you know me at all, wife?” he asked incredulously.
“That was not cool, by the way. The thing with your mom and the M word.”
“What?” he asked. “I thought we loved each, and everything else I said was true.”
“I don’t remember any preacher man,” she said wryly.
“Well, except for that. That probably only happened in my head. I watched too much Andy Griffith that day maybe.”
He frowned as he scanned the town. Harry’s place had looked fine as they passed. They waved at the sentry atop the newly constructed towers. He would have honked but it didn’t seem like such a good idea.
“Bradley is due to get those vehicle radios soon, right? So, we can talk to Harry from farther away?”
“Yeah. He may want to stop on the way back, I’m not sure.”
They came up on the local chain grocery quickly. It was wedged in a parking lot behind the community bank. It wasn’t as popular as the big box store down the road, or the more expensive grocery on the other side of town. It would be safer though, hopefully. It was smaller and had better access to the road. The parking lot also wasn’t congested with abandoned vehicles, which was a good sign.
He backed in right up in front of the doors and watched as Bradley followed suit. They got out and closed the doors quietly. Not only did they not want to draw in the biters or the muties, but they couldn’t forget that there was a random sniper around somewhere. It was possible that he was dead, but they weren’t taking chances.
“Stew, stay out here and let us know if anything is coming,” Bradley said, patting him on the shoulder.
“Raaahhhhrrrrr,” Stew uttered in reply.
“What was that?” he murmured to Bradley.
“He said ‘roger’.”
“He’s getting better at the talking thing. That’s a little scary, bro,” Jared said.
“You’re telling me. Sometimes he talks in his sleep,” Fletch said.
“Hush. Let’s go in,” Anna said.
The store was dark inside, but there was enough light through the large, miraculously unbroken, plate glass windows. The entire front two-thirds of the store was visible. The only dark areas were along the back wall and in the storage area. The back wall was all dairy products and the meat counter, which they didn’t want to get near anyway.
He opened the doors by hand, and the most horrendous stench he had ever smelled filled the air. It smacked him in the face, and he barely kept from gagging. Barely.
It was like the time he had left a bag of groceries in his truck, and it had somehow gotten pushed under the back seat into the corner. It baked in the summer sun-heated truck for days until he fished it out. The smell of the slimy, darkened, moldy bologna and the rotting, black tomatoes covered in white fuzz had been enough to actually make him throw up.
He chuckled as he remembered sending it to a detailer to professionally clean. The guy was green as he got in there to start on it. He had tried driving it with the windows down for a couple of days, but he was paranoid of being pulled over and accused of transporting a body. It was that bad. Plus, it was just unpleasant to smell that every day.
It had been even worse than gangrenous Bob, back at Bob’s Body Shop.
The store was all that, but worse. He made sure Anna was in the back where it was safer. Their rifles were raised as they stopped near the cart corral and waited at Bradley’s signal. He motioned for Anna and Jared to wait, and he and Fletch went through the store, looking for any creeps.
“I think they would have come at us by now if they were here,” Anna whispered.
She sounded weird and when he looked back at her he saw that she was holding her nose.
“Maybe they’re taking a nap on the ceiling back there,” Jared said.
“Not funny.”
“Am I laughing?” he said.
She looked more nervous at that, and he was sorry to have brought it up. Still, the experience at the dealership had resounded with him. He didn’t want a repeat with a grim ending, for them anyway.
“You don’t suppose this place has an easily accessible roof?” she said.
“Don’t even say that,” he warned.
“Seems clear,” Bradley said quietly as they came back. “We didn’t go into the back though. We might need to one day, but this place looks pretty well stocked so I think we should clear out what we need from the front for now.”
“Good plan.”
They worked quickly and systematically, gathering the most important foods first. The breads had all gone bad, all but some suspicious-looking hot dog buns. Suspicious because they still looked brand new, which couldn’t be right. They bypassed all that. They could bake their own.
The baking supplies all went, as much as they could load up. Canned goods, dry goods, packaged foods, were all carefully packed away in the beds of the trucks. They would likely not see any more of this any time soon. They needed to get it while the getting was good.
The atmosphere had become somewhat festive as they “shopped” that afternoon. The store was quiet, the town was quiet, everything had a finished feel to it, like it wasn’t dangerous anymore. The sun was hot but not overwhelming here, and they even sort of got used to the rotting meat and vegetable smell.
Fletch loaded up as much alcohol and cigarettes as Bradley would let him take. Jared wasn’t a big drinker, but it would come in handy some time. There were all kinds of things they could use it for. He was surprised it hadn’t been looted before now. Surely that was strange?
“How long until sundown?” Bradley asked, squinting out into the bright parking lot.
“We’ve got a few more hours, but I’d rather not even cut it close,” Jared said.
“We should’ve brought the trailer,” Anna said, looking at the rest of the food still stocked on the shelves.
“We can come back. Other folks may need some of this too,” Bradley said.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s go through and get more of the canned goods and household stuff. Anna, you can get the…uh…female things,” Bradley said.
“Yeah, Anna. Get the female doodads…the t
ampods,” Jared said.
“Tampods?”
“Yep.”
“Don’t you mean tampons?”
“No. Tampods is better.”
“All right, but you have to get the chocolate,” she said, pulling two empty carts over to the other side of the store.
“It’ll be all melty,” he warned.
“It’s still chocolate. Get it!” she said and disappeared down the aisle.
He grabbed another cart while Bradley and Fletch were loading up the last several they had filled. They were running out of room. He went over to the candy aisle. They had already picked through it but Fletch had left the chocolate. Probably because it was all gooey and soft. Why she couldn’t be satisfied with cocoa powder, he didn’t know.
He poked at a couple of different bars and cringed at the gelatinous feel through the wrapper. He moved further down the aisle, where the more expensive, darker chocolate sat in nicer packaging.
Oddly, some of it hadn’t melted into a gooey mass yet. He supposed it had something to do with the fat to chocolate ratio, but it was only speculation. He was no chocolate scientist.
A high-pitched scream startled him, and he jerked his head toward it.
It was Anna, he would swear it was.
He sprinted down the aisle and across the empty storefront as Bradley and Fletch raced back inside. Stewart was plastered to the glass, peering in anxiously.
He didn’t have time to stop or even think about them. Anna was in danger. She wouldn’t scream like that otherwise.
“Anna!” he yelled as he pumped his arms. He was holding the rifle, and he felt frustrated that it was slowing him down a little.
“Anna!” he shouted as he rounded the corner to the female hygiene aisle.
He smashed into a cart, and he saw Anna stumble backward and fall into a shelf. Several bottles of pills fell to the floor with a rattle. He yanked her up and she pulled away from him.
“Go! Go!” she screamed, tugging on his arms.
He frowned and looked back where she had come from.
“Holy shit!”
It was like a nightmare come to life. He could have crawled up into the mutie nest back at the dealership and died happily, if only he had never had to witness what was scuttling toward them now.
From the darkened end of the aisle, a large shadowy figure was weaving its way back and forth, skittering along the floor. He was so focused on it that he didn’t notice the ones on top of the shelves until Anna shrieked and physically yanked him back into the main thoroughfare.
“Run! Fucking run!” he shouted at Bradley and Fletch as they closed the distance.
Their eyes widened at something behind him, and he knew better than to look back. They looked horrified.
He had the creepy-crawly sensation on the back of his neck, not to mention goosebumps, and he visualized some monstrous thing scurrying toward his ankles, wanting to bite down on his hamstring and bring him down. He moved faster.
He could hear them back there, spitting and hissing. He heard the small slaps on flesh on the floor and knew that whatever it was, he didn’t want to see it. They slammed through the glass doors and out into the bright sun. He knew it wasn’t over. The sun was no barrier for them.
“Get in! In!” Bradley screamed hoarsely.
Stewart jumped with inhuman agility into the bed of a pickup and clutched the side. He stood and turned back as Anna jumped in the passenger seat. He wished he hadn’t looked.
God, he wished he hadn’t looked.
Fletch began firing out of his passenger window and there was a loud screech as the bullets slammed into one of the hellish creatures. Black blood splattered the pavement. It kept coming.
Its serpentine-like movements reminded him of a giant centipede, the aggressive poisonous ones that live in the jungle. Its legs and arms where oddly jointed as it scampered madly toward the trucks. He slammed his door and turned the key.
The truck started with a roar, and he slammed it into drive. More of those centipede-like mutie monstrosities flooded out the door. He watched as they disappeared into the surrounding area. More stayed behind and climbed up the plate-glass window inside, defying gravity.
It was quite possibly the worst thing he’d ever seen.
“Who the fuck let Stephen King be in charge of this damned apocalypse!” he shouted.
Anna was hyperventilating in the passenger seat, and he glanced over at her. She was pale, sweating, and looked extremely close to losing it. He didn’t blame her. He turned back to the road and narrowly avoided crashing into a fire hydrant along the side of the street.
Shit.
He sighed and slowed down a little, taking a deep breath and letting it out. He did it three times. Bradley and Fletch had slowed as well, and Stew looked like a happy, strange puppy with his head stuck in the wind. He was standing precariously on the pile of dry goods they had acquired from the store, but he didn’t seem to be worried about falling. He wondered just how resilient Stewart was now.
“Babe, here.” He pulled a chocolate bar from his pocket and placed it gently on her leg. “It’ll make you feel better.”
“Ok, Professor,” she said with a hint of her former snark. He was still worried about her. Could young women have heart attacks from fright?
“Everything is fine, A-dog. We can go back for the lady armor tomorrow.”
She scoffed at that, but he saw a smile tug at the corner of her mouth. It was a start.
Chapter Eighteen
The Next Move
Anna
Anna had calmed down by the time they returned home and unloaded most of the supplies. Juan had been patrolling around the outside of the house and said it was all quiet. She was glad. She didn’t think she could take any more surprises today. Or tomorrow. Or maybe the next day either.
Enid and Maria had used the time to reorganize the basement. They had reconfigured the seemingly endless supply of food buckets into a kind of cubicle arrangement. It was oddly like their old office, and it made her pause.
They had created four more private spaces with the buckets by stacking them three high and hanging old curtains across the tops. She supposed everyone was starved for a little privacy after their long self-imposed incarceration together in the basement.
“I thought you young’uns would like your bedroom back. Its proper enough seeing as how you’re married and everything,” Violet said, patting her hand and moving her knitting supplies into the guest room.
“But we’re not…”
It was too late. Violet had wandered off and she was left in the empty master bedroom. She looked around the space and felt guilty for considering it. It wouldn’t be right, not when Enid and Hank didn’t have real beds. She would worry about it later. She wanted to find out what the others thought about the things they had seen at the store.
In the dining room, everyone was silent and as she walked in, Jared and Bradley looked at her. Jared raised an eyebrow and she nodded. The laundry room door was open, and Stewart was leaning against the washing machine with a book.
Was he reading?
“Ahem. So, about the trip to the store today…we came across something different.”
Fletch snorted and went to refill his cup. “Different…” he muttered.
“What Jared is trying to say,” Bradley said with a quick look at the boys over in the living room, “Is that we came across a new type of mutant.” He kept his voice down a bit and she was glad. She didn’t want them to have nightmares.
“Well hell,” Hank said and rubbed his face. He looked worn out from working all day, and she remembered that he was an old man. This had to be harder for him. “Did these new ones fly too?”
“Technically, I think those were gliders, not flyers,” Anna pointed out. “But no…these didn’t fly.”
Jared shivered violently and everyone stared at him. “What? They creep me out.”
“Uh, these were more like crawlers. Like centipedes or something,” Fl
etch said.
“Without all the extra legs,” Anna added.
Maria cringed and Juan looked faintly disgusted.
“You ever seen The Exorcist, when the demon girl crawls down the stairs upside down?” Jared asked them.
Most of them nodded their heads yes.
“Well, it was worse than that.”
“So, what do we do about it? You guys keep saying these things are getting new abilities, or whatever, but what the hell are we going to do about it?” Enid burst out, slamming her hand down on the table.
“We’re doing the only thing we can. Building up our defenses, networking, stockpiling. We can’t go and search these things out and kill them!” Bradley said.
“Why not?” Enid wanted to know.
Anna thought it was easy for her to question it, she hadn’t seen the things.
“Because we are a defensive force. We cannot afford to send our people out on an offensive against these things. We barely have enough people just to defend ourselves. Any sort of offensive action would be suicide. Trust me.”
“He’s right,” Jared said, and Fletch nodded.
“This isn’t like any other war we’ve ever fought. We can’t dishearten the enemy psychologically. We can’t interrupt his supply lines. We can’t even plan an attack because they are unpredictable. The best we can hope for is what you folks accomplished yesterday with Jimmy Don. Opportunistic attacks,” Hank said.
“And even those will be dangerous and may cause more harm than good,” Bradley said.
“How so?” Anna asked. “Isn’t killing them always good? Especially big groups?”
“Not if it draws in more from the surrounding areas, or if it draws attention to us from other people,” Bradley said. She nodded.
“That explosion was huge. The sound would have traveled. Even if those muties don’t have some kind of…hive mind…they still would have heard it. There could be ten times the number we destroyed on their way here now,” Bradley said.
“Not to mention gangs and the old government forces,” Fletch said.
The Salvation Plague | Book 2 | The Mutation Page 14
