Less than thirty minutes later Kyler found himself standing alone on the top of the mega store. He hit the side of the walkie talkie to let the guard below know that all was clear. If all went to hell, he’d hit the button three times then talk if he thought he could get away with it. He began a leisurely walk around the massive structure. He’d never really given much thought to how big the roofs on these places were. He’d also never considered how many pipes and random other pieces of junk would be positioned on the roof with the intent of making him stub his toe or risk tripping every fifth step he took.
Thankful for the steel toes in the work boots he was wearing Kyler carefully picked his way across the ridiculously hazardous roof to the side facing the parking lot. He stared out into the lot with the night vision goggles on until he’d located the Zombies that he’d seen walking around earlier. They were bunched up over by a few bushes and trees growing in the far corner of the parking lot. Kyler pressed the side of the walkie one time to let the guy downstairs know all was well. He worked the goggles off his head to take a break and stare up at the stars.
Without people around to pollute the air the stars had gone from being little pinpricks of twinkling light to the gloriously glowing gigantic balls of fire they were supposed to be. Kyler hadn’t realized how many of them there were. The night sky was jam packed with brightly glowing stars. Thinking back to his astronomy lessons in school Kyler was sobered by the thought that the light he was seeing from the stars was really the light that had reflected off those stars millions of years ago. For all they knew the rest of the universe had already ceased to exist. At the current rate it wouldn’t be much longer before the human race ceased to exist as well. The normal, sane humans still roaming the earth weren’t even at the top of the food chain anymore.
Kyler spent an uneventful three hours wandering the cold roof. He put the goggles on when needed once he’d spent some time cleaning them off. The guy who’d been up here before him was either naturally greasy or had managed to sweat while standing around in the cold air of the rooftop. Although to be fair the previous guard had been on the roof when the sun had been blazing down. Kyler could see how it may be a much different environment up here during the day than it was at night. Either way though the goggles had felt pretty gross the first time he’d put them on.
Once he was relieved Kyler made a beeline for the breakroom to grab some food and a late-night snack. He was walking out of the break room when a man came through the backdoor and spent a few minutes talking to the guard there. The guard looked up and saw Kyler standing there.
“Hey man. Run grab the lieutenant. This is the messenger he’s been waiting for.” When Kyler just stood there staring at him the guard finally filled in the missing piece. “He’s camped out in the gun section still.”
Kyler nodded and headed for the center of the store. Krantz had setup a tent inside the store for himself to sleep in. Kyler unzipped the front of the tent and stuck his head in to wake him up. The strong odor of whiskey explained why Krantz had put up a tent. He’d wanted some privacy to get wasted in. Kyler wondered briefly how long it’d be before he was tipping back a bottle to be able to fall asleep at night. Hopefully their next assignment wouldn’t involve chaining up innocent men to be eaten alive.
“What is it?” Krantz asked before Kyler had even touched him.
“Messenger sir. He’s at the back door waiting on you.”
“Ok. Tell him I’ll be up in about twenty minutes.”
“Yes sir.” Kyler said. He pulled himself out of the tent and walked back to where the messenger was. As long as he was awake, he figured he might as well find out what was going on.
“So, what’s going on?” He asked the messenger.
“Beats me man. I just deliver the envelopes. I’m not supposed to read them. Driving around this Zombie infested state’s bad enough for me. I’ve got no desire to risk an even worse job by peeking at orders that spell out what people who aren’t me are going to have to do.”
“Sounds like a solid philosophy.” Kyler said as the lieutenant appeared in the doorway and stuck out his hand. The messenger passed him a large yellow envelope that’d been sealed with wax.
“Please sign this confirming the seal was in place when I handed you the envelope sir. Then spell out your name below it. You’re Lieutenant Krantz correct?”
Krantz ripped open the envelope after filling out the requested paperwork. He read through it twice then shoved the mess of papers back into the envelope and started to walk away.
“Where we headed next sir?” Kyler asked. Krantz stopped walking and turned around to stare at him. Kyler wondered if he’d overstepped his bounds by asking.
“Pack your shit. We’re going to Disneyworld.”
Chapter 28: Street Racing
The warehouse they’d been hiding out in didn’t have any windows except for the sales area in the front of the building. The rest of the space was just rows and rows of cables, electronics, and bins of different kinds of hardware. There were some offices on the front of the building that may have windows as well but the doors to all of them were locked. If they were planning on being there longer it would’ve probably been on the list to bust into them but as it stood, they didn’t see a need.
They stocked up on batteries and chargers and a few other items they thought might be useful. They carried all of that to sit by the door they’d originally accessed the warehouse from. Fleeing the horde in the middle of the night Caitlyn had ran up and tried one of the doors on the side of the warehouse. She’d almost fallen over when the door had easily opened for her. Based on the easy access they’d all been scared to go inside at first. If it were that easy to get in, they assumed the place must be full of Zombies. It was a pretty obvious nesting site. Luckily, it’d turned out to just be a big deserted building. Every once in a while, it was nice to have something go right for them.
As far as things going right for them the warehouse just kept on giving. Kelly was looking through the drawers in the sales office after checking out the front window to see if anything looked off when she found a drawer with three different keys in it. The keys were labeled as service vans one through three. She excitedly shoved the keys in the side pouch of the new backpack she’d slung over her shoulder. The backpacks had been another great find at the warehouse. There’s been a whole section of tool bags and backpacks. They’d all been able to replace what’d been left behind. Except for Zoey who was still upset they’d left behind the backpack she’d ben lugging around for months that was filled with stuffed animals she’d been collecting. After listening to her whine about it for a day now Kelly was starting to wish she’d left the bag of ammunition in the SUV and grabbed the damned stuffed animal bag instead.
Kelly went back to the windows she’d previously checked. She could see over in the corner of the parking lot the back of a large white van. She hoped she was right in assuming that would be one of the service vans. Knowing it would’ve been sitting there for over a year without being turned on she knew they might need to jump the battery in it. Having no idea how that part of a car really worked she excitedly ran back to the admin office to wake up Randy and let him know what she’d found.
Randy was less than excited to be woken up. Kelly had been the one who’d talked him into taking a pain pill and trying to get some more sleep. He was not at all surprised when she was the one to wake him up again so soon. On hearing her news though he got as excited as she did. He thought he may have a solution for the battery issue.
“We’re in a gigantic electronics warehouse. They may have a battery charger or extra batteries here.” Randy said with confidence.
Three hours later they’d found power tool chargers, UPS batteries, and all kinds of charging devices meant for electronics like phones. What they hadn’t found was a single thing they could figure out how to use to charge up a car battery. The search had included waking everyone else up and digging through the catalogues in the customer lobby as w
ell as walking the aisles trying to see if they could find anything that looked like it might help.
“Remind me next time we pass an AutoZone to grab another one of those wind-up chargers.” A sweating Randy said as they were winding down their search.
“Once it gets dark, I say we just all get ready to move and I’ll run out and check if the van will start. We may get lucky.” Kelly said doubtfully. Her enthusiasm had faded greatly from when she’d originally found the keys. Three hours of digging through electronics trying to find a car charger was not something she ever wanted to be involved in again.
Randy agreed with that plan but hated that it was Kelly who’d be the one going out to check the van. He knew it should be him doing that, but he was moving at the speed of an eighty-year-old man at the moment. Any slower and he’d be trying to add tennis balls to the front of his walker to get some style points.
They spent what was left of the day gathering supplies and moving the ones they’d already gathered from the back door to the front lobby area. Taking advantage of the flashlight and glowsticks they’d found Caitlyn started up an impromptu game of flashlight tag which everyone joined in. Everyone except Randy who became the default judge of who was out. He’d found a nice comfortable bench to watch from. He hated when it got time to go and he had to be the one to tell everyone it was game over. He couldn’t even remember the last time the girls looked like they’d had this much fun. Doreen had even said a couple of words. Although every time she talked, she did look around to see if she was going to get into trouble for it.
“Weird how life goals have changed. Trying to get a raise so we can get a bigger house or pay off the pool. Scheduling vacation and work and shopping on Amazon. I think now my biggest ambition in life is to find a house in the middle of nowhere with some kind of abandoned Costco near it we that we can loot and live happily ever after. Somewhere the kids can play without having to be quiet all the time.” Randy said when Kelly sat down beside him. She was breathing hard from chasing the kids around trying to tag them with a glowstick.
They were all still a little out of breath when they grabbed their last bit of gear out of the admin office to carry to the lobby. Based on how long they’d been playing tag and what it’d looked like outside the last time they dropped some gear off it should be plenty dark enough now for them to load up a van and hopefully be on their way. Zoey and Ali had run up ahead to hold the doors for the rest of them to get out into the lobby. They threw open the doors proudly for their family to walk through.
A beam of light hit them as they all stood their exposed. Men on the other side of the glass doors stood there shining a light at them. The two men they could see were heavily armed but hadn’t started shooting yet. They probably thought they’d stirred up some Zombies from inside the warehouse by shining the light in. Regular humans else would never be stupid enough to throw open doors like that.
Giddy with relief that they’d at least turned their lights off before opening the doors Kelly realized immediately what was going on. She knew they had seconds to react before the men on the other side of the doors figured out that they weren’t Zombies.
“Guns!” She yelled dropping the supplies she’d been carrying and swinging her rifle into her hands. Caitlyn and Randy did the same.
Myriah had left her rifle in the SUV but she had a pistol that she pulled now. They all had fully loaded magazines. They were all partially blinded by the flashlight shining in at them. Screaming for Zoey and Ali to hide they all opened fire.
The men on the other side of the glass were both veterans. They’d both been in combat overseas. Since becoming Brotherhood they’d had a ton of experience dealing with Zombies and deserters. They just happened to be caught off guard this time. The mind sees what it wants to see and what they’d both seen was Zombies busting through a door when they started playing around with the locks and shining a light inside. This was the first building they’d checked looking for the outlaw group of deserters that’d killed the Senator’s sister. They hadn’t really expected to find anything.
A wave of lead shattered the glass doors. Both of the soldiers were dead before they’d even had the chance to bring their rifles into play. Bullets continued to rain into the parking lot for a few seconds before Randy got them to all stop shooting. Once the noise from the gunfire ceased, they heard the screeching noises from the Zombies start. With the front doors shot to pieces and Brotherhood scouts lurking around this place was no longer safe.
“Grab your weapons and all the extra ammo you can carry. Leave everything else. We’ve got to get the hell out of here. Right now.” Randy ordered. He’d compartmentalized the pain in his body. It wouldn’t matter how much he hurt if they all died in the next five minutes.
They spent about thirty seconds dropping everything non-essential to the floor and loading up on weapons and water bottles. While they were doing that Randy carefully moved through the shattered glass to see if there were any more surprises waiting outside for them. Kelly came up beside him as he was flicking off the flashlight from the glass shard covered dead soldier. The one was lying on his back with his mouth wide open. At first glance the bullet riddled body could’ve been Tony laying there. Randy quickly turned off the light.
Standing up he saw in Kelly’s eyes she’d seen the same resemblance he had.
“No choice babe. It was them or us. I’d much rather it was them.” Randy mumbled quickly to her then took the keys she was handing him and forced his body to make a run for the vans. Kelly stayed behind to usher the kids along.
There were two big white vans parked outside. Randy unlocked the first one and tried starting it. Nothing happened. Deciding to try the second van before completely freaking out Randy jumped out of the first van and ran around the back of it to get into the next one. He ran face first into a Zombie that’d been sprinting for the front doors of the warehouse.
The Zombie bowled Randy over. He bounced painfully off the concrete of the parking lot. He sat up and put a couple of rounds into the Zombie that’d already gotten up and started running towards the warehouse doors again. Stumbling to his feet Randy limped as fast as he could make his body move towards the driver’s door of the second van. He fumbled with the keys until he got the right one to open the door.
Gunfire right behind him. Randy spun around to see Kelly running with Doreen tucked under one arm. Her other arm was extended straight in front of her pointing her pistol at whatever she was shooting at. Randy assumed Zombies but it could be Brotherhood to at this point. Not knowing what else to do he tried the key in the ignition. This van made some sputtering noises then died.
Kelly banged hard on the door behind his seat. Randy reached on his door and hit the unlock button so they could all pile in. He tried the key again while they were getting in. He heard them shooting like crazy as something tried to attack from behind them. He turned the key and the van coughed again without starting
“Start the damned van!” Kelly screamed at him.
Randy stopped himself from turning around and yelling something sarcastic at her. She probably wouldn’t have heard him any way since she was playing tug of war with her door against a skinny old Zombie that looked like it used to be somebody’s grandma. Now she was the grandma from hell with bright red eyes, bloody pustules lining her forehead and hands that looked like they’d been carved out of ebony. Blood stains covered her face and what was left of her clothing. Her loose sore covered flesh hanging out of the remnants of the dress she had on.
Wondering if they had a chance at making it back into the warehouse and trying to hide out in there Randy tried the key again. The van choked and sputtered but finally started. Without thinking about it he flicked the headlights on so he could see how to drive out of the lot. The lights revealed about a hundred Zombies running through the parking lot straight for them.
Putting the van into drive Randy forced himself to focus on his breathing. He knew panic was the enemy right now. Any chance to keep the
kids alive depended on him not making the wrong moves. That and a dump truck full of crazy good luck should get them out of this mess alive. He started to drive forward when he realized that was the wrong idea. He shifted quickly into reverse instead. Wishing this was a newer van with the video screen showing him what was behind them he went old school and turned his head instead.
Turning his head didn’t do a ton of good since it was too dark to really see. The kids were also jumping around aiming weapons all over the place. Zombies were slapping on all the windows. Trusting to blind luck and feeling himself start to panic a little bit he started reversing the big van way too fast. He spun the wheel to try and avoid the warehouse wall but slammed into it anyway. Yelling for everyone to put on their seatbelts he put the van in drive and drove fast towards the exit to the street.
The fastest runners in the wave of Zombies coming for them started colliding with the side of the van. They mostly slapped the side of the van a few times then bounced off and got left behind. One of them managed to get itself stuck on the driver side mirror for a few seconds before the mirror broke off. Randy watched that one go spinning off into the darkness. A second later the big van dipped down low as they transitioned onto the street.
Zombies! (Book 4): Nowhere To Hide Page 26