Stephen recalled the location of the aisle with the sports drinks and water, which still contained a few unopened packs. He placed as many bottles as he could fit, about a dozen, into his bag. On the rows of metal shelving of the next aisle he noticed a few bags of salted nuts, the yummy ones with the peanut man that wore a black top hat and spun the black cane around. He eyed the canned spam, disgusting stuff, but it certainly beat going hungry, and lastly he picked up several different types of chocolate and nut protein bars. He tore open the wrapper to one of the protein bars, the best looking one with caramel oozing out of a mountain of chocolate and nuts, and chomped down, hoping to satisfy his rumbling stomach.
In the meantime Alec was scrutinizing pill bottle after pill bottle, label after label, searching from the top of the wooden shelf to the carpet floor. This section of the pharmacy was small, yet he felt lost in a sea of white pill bottles. He had no clue what half of the medications were, but he finally found the shelf with some familiar sounding names on the third row, near the back of the store, the antibiotics. “Found the antibiotics,” he whispered to Kable. “Just found some anti-virals myself,” Kable replied. “Grab whatever you think could be useful and let’s go,” Alec told the big man.
The first antibiotic Alec grabbed was the infamous Z-PAK. His friends at university used to joke that it didn’t matter if you had a common cold or just severed off an arm, according to the health clinic on campus, a Z-PAK would fix it. He nabbed all six boxes of the cure-all antibiotic, four bottles of amoxicillin, two cephalexin and three bottles of doxycycline. Hoping that one of them would help Sara.
After filling up the outside pockets of his backpack with the medicine, Alec stepped through the sea of bottles to find Stephen. As he approach the swinging door that separated the staff from customers, he spotted Stephen near the glass door where they had initially entered the building. There was a three door beverage cooler with four unmistakable letters spelled out in red across the top B E E R. He sighed. Only Stephen would be lingering at the beer cooler at a time like this. Alec turned back to the ‘pharmacy staff only’ section and flashed his light at Kable’s feet. He looked up and Alec motioned for him to follow. He didn’t want Kable to be concerned something was wrong, so he gave him a thumbs up and then flicked his light right on Stephen’s slender figure. The light revealed Stephen in all his glory, chugging a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. He didn’t even bother stop when the light hit him, instead turning the can all the way up towards the ceiling.
Alec knew he should be angry, but his friend wasn’t about to change his ways. To his surprise, he felt the corners of his mouth rise, forming into a smile. For the first time Alec could remember, all three men let out a light chuckle as Stephen downed the beer in a matter of seconds. Alec’s mind flashed back to their care-free days of high school football and late night parties. It was a welcomed distraction to the usual stress and chaos of this new world. And just as fast as the distraction had come it was gone. Alec’s thoughts were drowned out by a wretched shriek echoing in the distance, like a dying cat, except louder and more primal. They all knew the sound. Deep in the night the vile noise could only mean one thing, an abomination was close.
The abominations seemed to communicate through the guttural shrieks, like the grunts of prehistoric humans. Alec had not studied them much, preferring to avoid them whenever possible, but he had heard and seen enough to know they communicated through the shrieks. He had heard their shrieks when they found prey, calling others to feast and once when a smaller female abomination had been severely injured, almost as if it were pleading for help.
Alec darted to the wall facing the direction of the shriek, joining Kable, who was already peeking out the window with his night vision binoculars. “See anything?” asked Alec in a low voice. “Three or four of them. Few hundred feet to the North. Hard to tell what they’re doing.” “Let’s get our stuff and…” Alec was interrupted by another skin-tingling shriek, but this one was much louder, much closer, too close.
Alec twisted around in the direction of the shriek and his heart immediately jumped up through his chest and into his throat, pushing the breath right out of his mouth, causing him to gasp. The beams of his flashlight illuminated a small girl, or at least what used to be a girl. The girl abomination was standing, no, crouching a few feet from the front door. Its head briefly craned towards him with blood red eyes. They were demented, possessed, full of rage and hatred and a primal hunger. Fresh blood was smeared across its pale white face, dripping from a blood-covered chin and falling in dense droplets to the cold tile floor. The girl that was now an abomination couldn't have been any older than eight before the virus or possession or whatever it was took over her frail body. She only stood about four-foot-tall, still retaining portions of her dirty blonde hair. It was caked together into matted bloody clumps, like she had just survived a severe head injury. Her pink and white polka-dotted dress was torn, covered in alternating splotches of brown dirt and a deep red of what Alec assumed was dried blood.
For a split-second Alec froze as he stared in shock, taking in the tiny abomination. The small frame and blonde hair made him think of his own little girl, Alexa. That split-second, no more than the time it took to blink an eye, to take a breath, was all the hesitation the abomination needed. Its head jerked to the left where Stephen stood, empty beer still in-hand. The abomination’s mouth separated as she let out a shriek, exposing gooey strands of pale flesh that stretched from just under its nose to just above its chin, like its mouth was covered in fleshy molasses, and then she leapt onto Stephen.
Alec told himself that it wasn’t real, that this could not happen, but it did. It was. Alec was helpless to stop it, watching in slow motion. Wails of pain reverberated through the pharmacy as the abomination ripped into Stephen’s flesh. Blood began spewing from him like a fountain as the abomination furiously slashed deep into the vulnerable skin around Stephen’s neck with its long sharp nails. The abomination’s head struck him next with the power of a coiled snake. The skin covering its mouth, if you could even call it a mouth, was now fully melted away revealing rows of jagged and razor sharp teeth. With one bite the tiny abomination ripped out a chunk of his neck and a geyser of blood erupted out like his neck were no more than a burst water pipe. His body fell limply to the ground, and his wail became a gargled plea “ma-ma-mama.”
The adolescent abomination didn’t pause to feed, not yet. It leaped off Stephen and landed on all fours with spidered veins bulging and throbbing under its pale skin. Its red eyes focused on Kable and using all four limbs it sprung straight at him. Kable frantically fumbled to swing the AR-15 off his shoulder and into firing position. It was at that moment that Alec realized Kable wasn’t going to make it either. He didn’t have enough time to position the rifle and fire off a shot. Alec felt a heavy dose of adrenaline and a fiery rage from somewhere deep inside him surge through his veins. Every ounce of shock and hesitation evaporated from his body. He would not let this abomination take both of his friends tonight. Not as he stood idly by.
Gripping the leather handle of his Katana sheathed on his back, Alec yelled, “Moooove!” He began running right in the abomination’s path. Each swift and powerful step of his athletic legs closing the distance between him and the abomination, but it was still barreling towards his friend, intent on gutting him like a fish. Blood flew off the abomination’s fingers, off the sides of its cheeks as it soared through the air in its final lunge at Kable, whose rifle was almost ready to fire.
Alec’s Katana appeared in his hand so quickly that it seemed he had summoned it. His blade sliced through the air like a jet through clouds until it struck the abominations flesh and bone. Met wasn’t really the right word. It sliced through the abomination’s thin neck so quickly that for a moment Alec thought maybe he missed. Then the clumps of blonde hair swayed forward, sliding downward with the severed head. With a thud, its petite body came crashing down to the tile floor. Its head struck the tile a half-second later
and rolled to a stop at Kable’s feet. The big man jumped back like the head was a live grenade. Kable stood staring, face covered in shock. Alec wasn’t sure if it was the decapitated head at his feed or witnessing Stephen’s slaughter.
As the two men stood there, silent, Alec felt emotions boiling up inside himself as well. There was the sadness, the shock, but something else. Something that felt like remorse. After all, the abomination had been a little girl at one point. He told himself that the little girl had most likely been long dead. All that remained was this wretched abomination. The abomination that showed no pity when it tore into Stephen. Alec hardened himself, not allowing himself to feel even a morsel of pity for the abomination. With a long stride he stepped over the headless body as it twitched in a pool of blood and stood over the head. He looked down at her small red eyes, still brimming with malice as they glared up at him. Its mouth chomped, teeth making a grating noise like metal grinding on metal. He raised his Katana with both hands, high above his chest, and plunged the pointed tip of his blade through its left eye until he felt the steel of his blade cling into solid tile floor.
Alec withdrew the blade, now covered in a deep purple, and with a heavy heart began walking over to Stephen’s shredded corpse. He could feel the loss, the weight of Stephen’s death with each painstaking step. He collapsed to one knee, feeling warm tears stream down his cheek as he gently closed Stephen's eyes. Gently slid his left hand under the back of Stephen’s motionless head and cradled it to his chest. He looked towards the heavens above, clinching every muscle in his body, and choked out the words, “Goodbye old friend.” Then sunk his blade through Stephen’s right temple.
Chapter 2
It was tradition for Alec and his family to eat at their favorite Mexican restaurant, La Cocina, every Monday. The family owned and operated business sat between Fourth Street and Main, just down from one of the busier intersections in this part of town. The restaurant’s location was great for attracting new customers, but parking was frustrating to say the least. With so many small businesses packed into one area, there were a limited number of parking directly in front of the stores, forcing customers to park several blocks away. Some days Alec didn't mind the walk, but today he was running late thanks to a last-minute customer at his office. That’s always the way things went. Don’t have anything to do after work and it was a ghost town, but have somewhere you need to be around closing and prepare for Walmart on Black Friday.
Driving much faster than the posted speed limit of twenty-five, Alec recklessly swerved around the corner onto Main Street, sending his new package crashing into the passenger door. “Whoops,” Alec muttered to himself, hoping his latest purchase, a Fenix TK75 4000 lumen flashlight, hadn't been damaged. Over the past several months Alec had shifted the delivery of his extracurricular packages from home to his office, in hopes to conceal them from his wife, Natalie. It wasn't that Natalie minded Alec occasionally buying scopes, survival food, or ridiculously bright flashlights online, she just thought the amount of prepper items he bought was a little over the top. Alec never intended to go overboard, but once he got fixated on the end of the world, he couldn’t really help it. If being a little extreme, maybe even a bit strange could keep his family safe, he was ok with that. Not to mention it was a lot of fun coming up with different apocalyptic scenarios and what gear or preparation would be best.
He turned into the second parking garage, still unable to find an open spot. Finding a parking spot was like trying to find that one busted bulb out of the thousands dangling on your oversized, over decorated Christmas tree. It wasn’t until the third parking lot that Alec finally saw a single vacant parking spot. He whipped his black SUV into the tight spot, squished between a silver bus of an SUV and a massive maroon super duty truck with a lift kit and tires that looked like they could grip the side of a building. Alec wondered what the man was compensating for. He shrugged and unhooked his seat belt, grabbed his tablet-sized smartphone, and squeezed out the door. The dance shoes Natalie reminded him to bring four separate times still sat on the passenger floorboard, right under the dislocated Amazon package.
Alec had always been forgetful, or maybe it wasn’t forgetfulness as much as it was distractedness. His mind constantly churned like a water wheel at the base of Niagra Falls, random thoughts running through his head, battling for his attention. Bouncing from office to office, running the errands Natalie asked him to run, tracking the times of Alexa’s dance practices and other school activities, and his own various hobbies such as shooting at the range or mixed martial arts, it was a hectic life, but whose life wasn’t? At least he had the flexibility at work that being a small business owner afforded him.
Walking at a brisk pace, Alec’s mind drifted to various work tasks he needed to follow up on: ordering new checks; posting a new job opening; emailing that sales rep back. Before he knew it he was standing in front of the glass door to La Cocina. The restaurant was owned by the Cortez family, whom Alec and Natalie had gotten to know from their frequent visits over the years. On one occasion, Mrs. Cortez had explained in broken English, how they emigrated thirteen years ago from a small town outside of Mexico City. Like many other immigrants, they decided to move to the United States to make a better life for their three children Ricardo, Sabrina, and Gabriella. Their oldest daughter, Gabriella, was juggling her academics at the local community college, where she was studying to be a pharmacist, helping her parents manage the restaurant. She was a polite, hard working girl, and always made sure that Alec and Natalie were seated in her section. He wasn’t certain if she always waited on them for their conversations, or generous tip they always left her. Maybe it was both.
“Does anyone need a refill?” Gabriella asked in a soft, high-pitched voice, accompanied by a bright smile on her face. About nineteen years old, she was a short, heavy-set girl with dark brown hair, which was always pulled tightly to her head in a neat ponytail. She was wearing a plain yellow dress that hung down past her knees with a pair of black flip flops. Looking down at his drink, Alec saw it was still three quarters full and replied “No thank you,” as he stuffed another chip, dripping with queso, into his mouth. Rolling her eyes, Alexa moaned, “Dad pleeease stop talking with your mouth full. It’s disgusting.” She said it in a way that only the sassiest of thirteen-year-old girls could say it. Alec ignored the comment and chuckled, wondering when his little girl had grown up and acquired this attitude. Natalie let Gabriella know they were fine for now, so she moved on to the table beside them.
“So, what did you do at school today Alexa?” asked Alec as he smiled expectantly. Alec already knew about Alexa’s day from an earlier conversation with her mother, but he hoped she would tell him all about her day like she used to. She was the one thing in life that brought him more joy, and more anxiety, than anything in the whole world, save maybe for his wife, Natalie. In his eyes, Alexa put the most perfect and flawless diamond to shame. She was tall for her age, thin like her mother, with olive skin and curly blonde hair from who knew where in the gene pool. She had blue eyes so icy that even glaciers should have been jealous. What a blessing and a curse all wound into one sassy, beautiful little firecracker. His little firecracker. It was easy to see the love in his eyes when he looked at her youthful face. “I don't know, dad. The same boring stuff as the last time you asked,” she said with eyes glued to her smart phone. He missed the days when his baby girl would look up at him with love and adoration, excitedly counting to ten for him or so proudly drawing the letter A on a napkin. “Oh, well I'm sorry I care about my daughter’s day! Should we all just play on our phones as we eat dinner instead of converse?” This earned Alec another eye roll. As he watched her, he got the sense that something was wrong, something more than his aggravating. Alec knew her like he knew the freckles on his arms, and something was definitely bothering her. He considered what could be troubling her. Perhaps she was having trouble with the latest boyfriend or got into an argument with one of her friends. “Everything OK Al
exa? You seem to be taking some anger out on that screen,” he said jokingly. “Everything is fine, Dad.” Of course it wasn’t, but Alec decided to push the issue, hoping she would open up more about it later.
Alec and Natalie had dreamed about having three or four children even before marrying, but it had taken two years before Alexa was conceived. The infertility had put an enormous strain on them, especially Natalie, who had often cried herself to sleep over the issue. Alec couldn’t stand seeing her in such pain, so he had begun researching adoption. Only then, after hope was all but lost did Natalie see those two magical blue lines appear on what had to have been the thousandth pregnancy test.
“And what did you do today gorgeous,” Alec asked, turning his attention to Natalie. Her silky brown hair flowed straight down to the middle of her back like a chocolate waterfall. She was wearing a black crop top shirt, or part of one anyway, that revealed her slender frame and subtle curves. Natalie was a classic beauty, always drawing attention, sometimes the bad kind, from both men and women wherever she went. Her soft green eyes lit up as he turned his attention to her, “That new brand I was telling you about arrived at the store today. The clothes are even cuter than I remembered from the trade show,” Natalie said beaming from ear to ear with excitement. Alec wished he could get that excited about…well, anything. He tried to remember what clothing line she told him about, but drew a blank and put on his best acting face. “That’s great Nat, I can’t wait to see them.” That was code for ‘I’m sure you’ll show me every-single-outfit-to me later.’
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