by Joe Kelly
“Lets go” Jared said walking to his van. The moment Ronny was in the air the rest of the group pulled out and headed towards town.
As they rolled up 52 and approached their exit, Ronny radioed. “Looking good in the parking lot. Not many pus bags around either.”
“roger that, keep us in the loop” Jared said. “copy and out” Ronny said.
With Ronny flying overhead, the Trucks made good time to the Walgreens, encountering only a handful of undead that they put down easily. The store sat on a large lot that it shared with the Long john silvers. A Chinese fast food place called the Lucky wok across the street. A handful of abandoned vehicles were in the parking lots of all three, at the main entrance to the Walgreens parking lot a truck was wrapped around a light pole.
Jared turned into the parking lot hoping that there would be food inside. He wasn’t banking on it, but the place had been locked up tight when they had scouted it a week ago, unlike the Walmart just down the street.
Even from here he could see the thick plumes of black smoke that still billowed out of the entrance to Walmart, the sickly sweet smell of charred flesh filled the air. He pulled up with the passenger side towards the Walgreens door and stopped.
The side door opened, Jason leaped out with a portable cutting torch. He reached the door and automatically pulled to see if it was locked. Yep still locked Jared thought as he and Jill reached the door to provide cover for Jason as he fired up the torch to cut out the locks on the door. Steve drove around the parking lot, running over any undead that put in a appearance.
“its done” Jason said, then ran to put the torch back inside the Van.
“we are ready” Jared said over the radio. A moment later Steve pulled up close to the doors and parked the monster six wheeled truck he drove. Warren and Rob stayed with the truck to provide security.
As Ori and Steve joined them, Jared hid a grin. Each of them wore armor that Jill had designed. Bracelets or Vanbraces as Jill called them that ran from the wrist to the elbow, they were made of thick cloth with metal plates riveted to them. Just above the elbow to the shoulders was another set that were attached to the shoulders of the combat vests each man wore to keep the upper arm armor from sagging down.
She had plans on thigh and shin armor as well for later. But this was all that could whipped in time for to days run. At least it would be a harder to get bitten on the arms right now. Jared had a mental image of her future designs, full plate armor like the old knights had worn with Sub machine guns as part of the armor.
“Okay remember no firearms unless we have to. Melee weapons only.” he said as he pulled one of the two tomahawks from his belt and grinned wrly. 2010 and he was going into a combat zone with weapons a Crusader would have understood and appreciated.
“Open it” He said. Jason nodded and slipped a piece of rebar with a hook on the end, into the, still red hot, hole he had cut. He pulled to one side and slid the door open. There was some resistance due to the dust and dirt that had gathered in the track.
Jared moved into the store searching for threats. The customer side was nothing more than L shaped section of counters and displays that ran around two walls, the rest were shelves, with the pharmacy tucked into the back left corner.
the front half of the store was lit by the light from the outside, but the back half went from shadowed to pitch black. From what they could see the shelves were mostly stocked. “Stay together, we do this as a group” Jared said as they moved to the right. He glanced at the dusty floor and saw footprints. “There’s a couple in here for sure “ he said pointing at the tracks, but the smell was all wrong.. With the others watching the aisles Jared quickly looked over the counter tops and saw a purse, a couple boxes of open bandages, and blood spots.
“Lets clear it” Jared said loudly. They swept down the outer lanes first, flashlights lighting the way. a soon as the aisles near the front door were cleared they worked their way thru the middle aisles and still no zombies.
Finally, they had the entire shop cleared leaving only the stock room and offices in the back. they assembled in front of the heavy metal access door to the employee area.
Jill sniffed and shook her head. “Something’s not right” she said.
“You think its booby trapped, maybe Seth lured fifty or sixty back there and locked them in.” Jared asked
“No I don’t smell them, you know they have a reek all their own. It just smells musty in here.” Jill replied
“She’s right “Steve said, then pointed down the aisle that ran past the Pharmacy counter to the section with Power bars, weight loss, and exercise supplements. There were open wrappers on the floor. “Someone is alive in here.” he said softly.
“Maybe” Jill commented looking nervous.
“Well..” Jared said his voice trailing off as he reached out and knocked loudly on the stock room door. “Hello, any one in there. This is your favorite neighborhood zombie hunters.” He waited hearing nothing, smelling nothing.
“Maybe they bailed out of here.” Steve suggested. Jared shrugged then pushed on the door and opened it slowly. Dust motes danced in the light of the flashlights. Beyond they could see a short hallway, with a bathrooms on the left, and two office doors on the right, beyond that through the doorway at the end of the hallway he could see rows of shelves loaded with cases of items.
They cleared the bathrooms and the offices, and then moved to stockroom. Towards the back of the stockroom they saw a cinderblock room, with a swinging door. Boxes loaded with trash were stacked by the loading dock doors. Jared pointed to the room at the back and the others nodded. Jason stayed at the hallway as a rear guard.
“Ready” Jared whispered. There were nods all around. Jared, knocked once, then listened intently, hearing nothing. His nerves were singing, “Jill come in last” he whispered. Then held up a hand and counted down with his fingers. Reaching three, he burst thru the door, swinging right and knelt. Steven went left kneeling. Ori held the door for a moment as beams of light swept the room.
Jared saw movement on the far side of the room, and centered his light on the spot. He rose for a better look then slid the tomahawk into his belt. “We aren’t going to hurt you” he told the Strawberry blonde teen aged boy and the middle aged man who stood before a woman and two ten year old girls. They looked like they had barely been eating. Probably rationing what food they had knowing that no help was coming. God how screwed up is this world.
There was a resemblance between the man and the boy; most likely they were a family. “Who are you?” the man demanded. There was something vaguely familiar about him but Jared couldn’t place him.
“Jared Stone, and these are my friends” he said then introduced each of them. “look we didn’t know you were in here, we called out but you never answered.”
“What do you want in here, this is my store” the man said. He looked scared but defiant staring into the lights.
“mother of god is that coffee” Ori asked noting a large red container on the counter.
“That’s ours!” The man snapped taking half a step towards the counter as if to protect the coffee. His son looked confused and scared but remained silent. The woman however leaned forward and placed her hand on the mans arm.
“Kelly, please calm down.” Her voice was calm and level, but her eyes kept moving to the weapons Jared and his people had slung. Kelly, the name rang a bell for Jared. Kelly Armstrong, he had met him several times out offroading.
“I remember you, you had a really great ride, a Dodge, jacked up six inches, replaced the stock motor with a 401, and added what a dana 60?” Kelly looked at him for a moment, then nodded.
“we rode the teacup and had a couple of parties up on preacher’s rock last summer.” Jared said. Kelly was obviously relaxing a bit. not much but he wasn’t about to leap across the room and jump someone. About then the radio ear bud crackled in Jared’s ear “how’s it going in there?”
“We found survivors, how’s it lookin
g outside” Jared replied into the throat mike, noting the looks on the faces of the family as they realized he was in contact with others.
“A few here and there at the moment. Nothing to worry about we have time”
“Roger that, call back if there’s trouble. Out”
“Are you military?” the boy asked, his name was Ian, if Jared remembered correctly.
“Not any more, used to be.” He replied.
“are those throat mikes” Ian asked. Jared smiled.
“Yes, sadly not the military ones. But good enough for what we need them for” he paused then looked around.
“Here’s the deal, we need food and medicine. We have one pregnant woman and 26 kids, and several other people back at our place. You can either come with us, or we can leave most of this, but I’m sorry we have to take some of it.”
“Kelly” Joan, his wife said almost pleading. “is it safe there” she asked.
“safer than here, but really safe?. No I can’t promise that. Nowhere is really safe not anymore. But there’s power, hot water, and people.” at the mention of hot water, he knew he had them. They began to gather what little stuff they called their own. “I gather you have keys” he asked Kelly. Who nodded.
“I was the manager here. It was so bad, we never opened. And when those things were crawling all over town, I brought my family here.” He explained as they stuffed clothes into cheap packs, really school book bags.
“would you happen to have a key to the pharmacy” he asked. Kelly nodded and passed him a ring of keys.
“there’s not much in there, we were supposed to be restocked but it never happened. The trucks probably on the side of the road somewhere” Kelly said.
“Whatever is in there is more than we have.” Jared replied as he tossed the keys to Steve.
Finding a semi wasn’t hard, there was one behind the still burning Wal-Mart. It was empty which sucked but you couldn’t luck out every time. The half tank of fuel, was more than enough to drive over to the Walgreens and then make it back to camp or at least close. And that’s all that mattered to Jared. it took them three hours to load everything. There wasn’t a lot of food, maybe a months worth when spread across the entire group. But there was a mother lode of TP, paper towels, paper plates, condoms, lube, makeup, and every other product that people could want. When they left, there wasn’t a lot left on the shelves of the Walgreen’s.
Jill was especially thrilled at the makeup and hair trimmers. She looked at Jareds grown out hair as they drove towards the golf course and grinned. “When we get back, Im going to cut you hair. Either shaved down, or the kind of hair cut you had the day you started to ask me out, you know the same day the world ended.” Jared shook his head, to be honest he didn’t mind if his head was shaved he did like the look. It was her comment there at the last. She had known he was going to ask her out. that brought a smile to his face.
“I never claimed I had great timing.” He said glancing in the mirror to watch Kelly and his family who sat in the back. They looked terrified to be outside again after months of hiding and worrying about starving.
Jared was surprised that Kelly hadn’t made a stand or something. I guess he had reached his limit, either his family died by the undead, starved to death locked in Walgreens or possibly die at our hands he opted for hope one last time, Jared thought. I mean face it every option he had before we showed up was a short terrifying death or a long drawn out death, why not take a risk with us and hope we were honest.
The trip to the Golf course wasn’t all that long, thirty minutes down the road and as it turned out mostly a waste of gas and time on the way back they stopped at the only other outfitters shop they hadn’t visited yet.
They pulled in running down the few undead in the gravel parking lot then parked around the open front door. It wasn’t a good sign, once they entered they found only a three zombies inside, two of them men that Jared had known casually from his visits to the shop.
Once the store had been cleared, a quick look told them the place had been stripped by some one a while back. In the end they salvaged several packs of Broad heads, arrow shafts, replacement knocks, crossbow bolts, spare strings, four boxes of 9mm and one of .45 that had been overlooked. Two bricks of .22 that had some how been kicked under a shelf. No 5.56 though. There were plenty of holsters for various weapons, and they grabbed all those. Extra slings, and a variety of other things, that might prove useful.
They gathered up what was there, and got out as the zombies numbers coming down the highway were starting to swell. Jared lifted the CBs microphone as he watched the sky. “forget the Golf course, what may be left in their restaurant wont be worth the risk lets head back” he transmitted. By the time they were heading back to camp, dark clouds were gathering and lightening was flickering across the sky.
They reached the Rendezvous point, about four miles from the Walgreens, Ronny had landed some time earlier and waited in the truck that had been left for him. There were more undead in the area than there had been earlier but not more than ten or so and those had had been drawn here by the sound of the Utra-lights motor. Ronny had just stayed in the truck, unwilling to deal with even a low number of undead with out some one else to cover his back.
Seeing the undead around the parked Truck, Jared parked the Van and climbed out lifting his commando into position and shot down the undead around the truck that were now heading towards him. Steve and Ori joined him and the moment the last of the undead around the truck were down, they turned and began picking off the more distant undead that were now staggering down the high verges on each side and onto the highway. The rolling thunder may have covered the sounds of weapons fire, but Jared had a feeling it wouldn’t matter somehow the undead would know they were here regardless.
They picked each target with care, taking one or two bullets to put down each target. While Ronny and the others rushed to break down the ultralight and get it loaded up. it seemed like only seconds before the ultralight was loaded up and strapped down, making Jared wonder if they had just set a record for breaking down an ultralight.
“Let get out of her…” Ronny said as a cold moist wind gusted around them, his voice trailed off as Jared pointed at something to the south of them on the road. In the distance there were headlights, several sets of them and coming closer.
“Should we go talk to them.” Steve asked looking around, several more zombies were in sight coming down the slope to the west, where a small church steeple jutted into the stormy sky.
“Well I’m pretty sure they can see our headlights “ Jared said, “Rob you and Ronny head back to camp, the rest of us will go meet the new guys”
Jared didn’t have to drive far, only half a mile where the two lane road widened into four lanes that passed under one of the few overpasses in town, an exit curved up and around joining another road. who ever was in the other vehicles were taking their time, whether it was because they were being cautious or because they were planning some thing remained to be seen.
Jared parked under the overpass just as a chilly rain began to fall, flashing his lights three times to get the oncoming vehicles attention he glanced at Jill, half tempted to tell her to stay in the Van but didn’t she could handler herself.
“Ready?” He asked Jill.
“Yes,” she said simply with out any sign of the apprehension she must be feeling.
He opened the driver’s door and climbed out weapon ready. Steve had parked further back where he and Ori could watch and cover Jared if necessary. He only hoped that the undead continued to stay away.
The new vehicles slowed then stopped out there in the rain, then one of the vehicles, a Jeep wrangler pulled up and stopped under the overpass, its wipers steadily clicking. A man who looked to be six foot, with dark hair and an olive complexion got out of the jeep, armed with only a pistol that was holstered at his waist.
Logan studied the Red head man and his weapon for a moment, then the woman who was as heavily armed
as the man. The Couple and he was pretty sure that’s what they were, walked slowly towards him. the mans right hand resting on the stock of the weapon slung across his chest. but neither of them acted threatening in any way.
“Evening, We might hurry this up, zombies about” the red head said with the ghost of a grin in the head lights. “ I’m Jared stone, and you are?”the man asked calmly but there was something about his tone that sounded almost amused.
“Logan Mills” Logan said, deciding that this was by far one of the stupidest things he had ever done.’
“Nice to meet you Logan, your pretty brave to meet with two disreputable types like me and Jill here” Jared said with a nod towards the woman.
“Speak for yourself Jared” the woman, Jill said.
“what brings you here, and I should tell you there aint much left around here,” Jared said using his off hand to indicate the ruddy glow on the horizon behind him. “Someone set fire to the place.”