by Mason King
“Worth a shot.” Frank responded, “Thanks, little one.” He turned around, hoping using her childhood nickname might elicit some sort of response, but she just continued to stare out the window.
Diana and Frank continued to chat up front. Hunter off-handedly wondered if it was their way of avoiding the situation at hand. Hunter became alert for the first time upon seeing a person about 100 yards in front of them in the middle of the road, flagging them down.
“Frank, don’t stop!”
“I have to, they’re in the middle of the damn road.”
Upon slowing the car down, Frank rolled his window down just a touch, ready to ask if there was something they could do for him.
Before the words were even out of Frank’s mouth, the car was surrounded. Not by Dead, but by living people. There were 7 men and women, all at different points of the vehicle. The man who had flagged them down in the middle of the road had put his hand into the driver’s side window and was attempting to push it down or pull it out.
The people were all trying the door handles and started pushing and hitting at the vehicle since it was locked. All of the people were talking at once, all of them yelling in various manners for them to give up their vehicle. One man had a baseball bat and busted out both taillights before coming around the passenger’s, holding the bat in what was clearly meant to be a threatening manner.
Hunter sat up straight and started yelling, “What the hell?” Over Dr. Lattimore hoping it would make it out the window. Frank pointed his gun out the window but it didn’t not seem to deter the man and his group. Frank would have driven forward had there not been two men standing in front of the car banging on the roof. Frank started inching forward trying to get them off.
All of a sudden the window where Kendall was sitting was busted out by the man with the bat. He reached inside but Kendall used a piece of broken glass to stab the hand as it began searching for her door handle. The unknown person screamed in pain and withdrew their hand, and with that Frank gunned the vehicle. Both men in front disappeared underneath the hood of the jeep.
Hunter anticipated the sickening crunch he knew would follow. Both Diana and Kendall gasped when they heard it, but maintained their strong façade. Frank kept driving, knowing that the safety of everyone in the vehicle now depended on him. Frank looked in the rear view, he couldn’t help but feel bad but he knew he had no choice. Those people clearly wanted in their vehicle, and they were willing to get violent to get it.
“What the actual Fuck!” Kendall commented, looking towards Hunter for the first time.
“I told you earlier things were getting bad out here.” Hunter paused, not sure if he had it in him to talk right now. “They’re starting to panic.”
Frank took over and proceeded to tell the entire car what he and Hunter had experienced before coming back to the building earlier. Kendall’s jaw dropped when she learned that not only had they encountered, and killed, over a dozen Dead, they had had to fight through several mobs of looters.
After Hunter and Frank had left Al’s pawn shop, they had gone to the first grocery store they could find to try and get some food to tide them over for a few days. The grocery store had been an absolute mad house. There were people fighting over non-perishables and water. Luckily, they’d had plenty of water to start out with so they able to avoid that mess. However, trying to get to bread, crackers, cookies, chips, anything that wouldn’t go bad was like pulling teeth. Both Frank and Hunter had grabbed anything and everything that they could get ahold of before heading to the Jeep.
As they were shoving what they’d gotten inside, they started to get bombarded by people asking for rides, help, and demanding their vehicle. Frank had had to fire his gun in the air to get enough space for them to drive out.
“Thank God Frank is such a bad-ass” Hunter spoke up.
Kendall finally cracked a small smile, clearly proud of her old man. “22 years in the Marines will do that to you I guess.”
Hunter whipped around to look at Frank, but the man ignored him. No wonder he had been such an asset! Hunter had no idea, and Frank had not offered any information on himself. Wow. Hunter had already earned a lot of respect for Frank during the short time he’d known him, but his opinion of the older gentleman just took on a whole new light.
“Speaking of food…” Dr. Lattimore piped up. “I haven’t wanted to say anything, but seeing as obviously there is food somewhere in this vehicle, may I be the first to admit that I’m starving.”
Hunter’s stomach growled. Food. He’d forgotten food was even important over the last few hours.
Kendall reached around and rifled through the backseat, that Hunter realized was completely stocked with everything he and Allison had packed earlier. He appreciated, for the first time, how truly lucky he was to have these people by his side during this time. His heart stung as he realized Allison should have been there too, but he shook it off. He couldn’t think about her right now.
A loaf of bread was handed to him as Kendall began rifling through the backseat, “How does PB&J’s sound to everyone?”
Kendall proceeded to make every person two sandwiches, “We need the fuel” she insisted, and also gave everyone a bottle of water.
The car remained silent as everyone scarfed down their sandwich and drank their water. Kendall also passed around some chips she found in the backseat. She handed Dr. Lattimore a Dr. Pepper and he beamed at her before thanking Hunter and Frank for thinking about him.
“You guys did good.” Kendall said softly to Hunter. It was obvious in her hesitance to talk to him that she still felt guilty for not being able to help Allison. Hunter nodded back at her. Hunter, in no way, blamed Kendall, but he still wasn’t ready to talk.
Costco’s was getting closer, and good thing too as the sun was starting to set. Being the dead of summer (no pun intended) the sun was out later than normal and it was closing in on 8:30 PM. They hadn’t encountered anyone else on the road since the group from earlier.
Hunter let himself think, once more, how crazy it was that so much was happening and how it hadn’t even been a full day since he was blissfully unaware of what the day would hold this morning on his plane ride. Hunter sent up a quick prayer to the Man upstairs for how lucky he had been for the last 12 hours, all things considered
They pulled in to the parking lot and there were cars scattered all over the place. Frank drove the Jeep directly to the front door, and got his gun out. Hunter did the same, and reached in to the duffel bag in the back to give everyone a gun. Dr. Lattimore refused, “I’ve never held a gun in my entire life.” Hunter got out a semi-automatic handgun, loaded it and put a bullet in the chamber.
“The safety is on.” He quickly demonstrated how to take the safety off. “Keep it on and as soon as you need to, just take it off, point, and shoot. You’ll be fine.”
Every person got out of the vehicle and left the doors open, just in case.
Hunter was the first to walk to the front door and look through the glass. The store looked as it always did, only with some disarray among the shelves. Hunter quietly opened the door and stepped a foot inside. He froze when he stepped directly on a Rice Krispy treat, causing it to crunch and rustle under his boot.
A giggle from his left left caused all 5 of them to lift their guns in unison and point. From behind one of the cash registers, a head with 2 little blonde pigtails slowly peeked up, followed by two bright blue eyes. She screamed when she saw the guns and elsewhere a woman started screaming, “Jamie? JAMIE!”
When the source of the screams emerged, all 5 guns swung in her direction. The woman stopped in her tracks and put both hands in the air. “Don’t you dare hurt her!!” When no one shot at her she quickly ran and scooped Jamie up in her arms. The sound of running footsteps followed shortly behind and suddenly their group was face to face with a whole other group of people.
“Motherfucker.” Kendall mumbled under her breath.
Each group had their guns pointed
straight at the other. One man broke apart to join the woman and Jamie, wrapping them both in his arms, making sure they were okay.
No one spoke for what felt like an eternity. The tension was high, and it was as though each person was scared that if they spoke, someone would start shooting.
Finally, a man on the other side lifted both hands in a sign of good will. One by one, every other person in both groups did the same until every gun was safely put away. Hunter, and a man from the other group tentatively walked towards each other and introduced themselves.
“No disrespect, sir.” Hunter began, “But why the fuck did you leave the doors unlocked if you’re hiding out in here?”
The man laughed good-naturedly. “We just got here not 30 minutes ago. We were scanning the area to make sure no Biters were in here.”
“Biters?” Hunter questioned, “So they do bite?”
“You haven’t seen them?” The man returned, shocked.
“No, honestly we’ve run into more issues with the living than the dead at this point. We haven’t lost anyone to…” Hunter stopped talking and couldn’t seem to regain his composure.
“We haven’t lost anyone directly to these things.” Frank finished, coming up beside Hunter for support. “We’ve been really luck so far. We were just looking for somewhere to hunker down and wait it out for a bit.”
“That’s what we were doing too.” He motioned to the rest of his companions, “Well I don’t want to speak for everyone but I’m more than willing to share the space. It’s a huge building.” Everyone behind the man, whose name Hunter introduced as Elliot, agreed that they were fine with it. Everyone proceeded to go around and make introductions. Thank God there are still some decent people around, Hunter thought gratefully.
Elliot, who was probably in his early thirties, had been at the mall with his girlfriend Jeanne when the outbreak reached there. They had escaped and made it home before they knew how bad it was getting. Their neighborhood had been taken over but they were able to escape with their neighbors, Johnathon, Ashley and their 9-year-old daughter Jamie.
The 5 of them had come together in two of the vehicles outside. With them were two other men, Brad and Trevor, both in their early twenties that they had picked up off the side of the road. They had all come to Costco not long ago hoping to take shelter for a while.
After introductions, Hunter insisted they go ahead and lock the door so that they were safer to look around.
Hunter, Brad, Trevor and Elliot figured out how to shut and lock the doors. Frank joined the men and they all started making their rounds to check the safety and stability of the building. Kendall stayed back and she and Ashley took Jamie and decided to walk around the store to evaluate what supplies they had. Jamie was a very active and outgoing little girl who quickly took Kendall’s hand and wanted to lead her around.
It hadn’t been very long and Kendall’s phone, getting very low on percentage, started vibrating. It was a text from Hunter that read “Keep Jamie away from the Dry goods section. Stay on the other side of the store- there are some bodies here we’re going to try and clear out.”
Kendall showed the text to Ashley who visibly shivered, and they turned direction and headed to the section of Costco where they keep the pool supplies, trying to distract Jamie from bouncing all over the store.
***
Hunter pulled his shirt collar up over his nose. The smell was almost completely unbearable.
4 bodies scattered the aisle, all in varying states. It was clear that they were all killed, but it was not clear whether they had been killed dead or alive. Two of the bodies had large bite marks covering their arms and legs. One looked altogether unharmed until Hunter flipped the body over and realized that the area where her stomach would be was completely hollowed out. Trevor took this moment to bend over and throw up, not too far from the bodies they were inspecting.
Great, Hunter thought. That’ll help with the smell.
They worked quickly to take the bodies to the nearest door they could find, looking both ways before walking out. They knew it could only be a temporary fix, but it was all they could do for the time being. Once the bodies were gone, they continued their search of the building and found it clear except for those bodies.
There were other sections where there were pools of blood or streaks as though other bodies had been dragged, but they found no other living, or dead, humans in the vicinity. While searching they found the loading area where you could drive your vehicles in to the building and they made quick work to get Hunter’s Jeep and the other two vehicles, a Highlander and a Tahoe, inside in case there is the need for a quick escape.
Hunter and the men made their way back to the front to find everyone else already congregated there. It was dark outside and there was nothing else that could be done but settle in. The power was still on and those who had thought to pack phone chargers had already been charging theirs, contacting loved ones and keeping tabs on the situation outside. Hunter looked through his bag and, sure enough, Ali had packed his charger for him. He let himself feel a painful moment of grief before pushing it out of his mind. Kendall and Ashley, who had apparently gotten pretty close, had hooked up a little cooking station with a microwave and a few other appliances found in the store. They cooked everyone a different frozen meal in the microwave, trying not to let the fact that they still had power go to waste. It would only be a matter of time before their meals were all cold, dry, or junk food.
Their luck throughout this whole ordeal so far had been unparalleled.
Hunter and Brad decided to go grab some mattresses and blankets from the store down for everyone to sleep on. They took the time to get every person or couple one down and set them in different parts of the store so everyone had some privacy.
Hunter set a mattress down for him not too far from where Kendall and her parents had gotten settled in. They all said goodnight to one another, Kendall gave Hunter’s hand a quick squeeze before heading off in the direction of her parents to get settled in her mattress. Given the situation, the sleeping arrangement was not a bad set up at all.
Hunter had plugged his phone up and when he went to look at it, he had no missed texts or calls. Yet another painful reminder that the one person he had available to him in the entire world, was gone. It was at that moment that Hunter finally let his wall down, in the quiet of his sleeping area, he let every last ounce of the pain in.
He cried for the loss of his best friend and fiancé’. He cried for the loss of the future he had been anticipating for himself. Basically, Hunter cried for the loss of life as he knew it before the exhaustion set in and he settled in to a deep but unpleasant sleep, laced with dreams of an Allison that wasn’t the right Allison.
***
Hunter woke to the sunlight streaming through the glass of the Costco walls. He was momentarily disoriented at his surroundings, before he remembered where he was and why he was there. It was cliché’, but he had really hoped he would wake up and realize it had all been a dream. He stretched and threw the sheet off of him before getting out of bed.
He spent a few minutes rifling through his bag to find some gym shorts and a t-shirt. He grabbed his toothbrush and toothpaste, hoping to find somewhere to clean up a little bit. He did so, passing by where Kendall’s family had set up camp finding it empty. They must already be awake, he thought and continued on. He made his way to the main congregation area and saw that everyone was scrambling around while Elliot comforted Ashley. Hunter walked up to grab Kendall before she darted off in a different direction like everyone seemed to be.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
Kendall looked up at him with a distressed look, “Ashley can’t find Jamie.”
Hunter immediately jumped in with everyone who was searching. Apparently she had only been missing for about 15 minutes, she had gone to use the bathroom and had not returned as her mother directed. Ashley went looking for her and she wasn’t in the bathroom, that’s when she started to pani
c.
They looked all over the building, in every aisle and around every single register, in every office and bathroom.
Finally, Trevor was the first to yell for someone to “Come quick!”
Everyone followed the sound of his voice until they were led to the roof. Jamie was up there, safe and sound, playing with a few of her toys. Ashley ran to her and hugged her tightly, immediately pulling away and scolding her for wandering off. Jamie apologized and everyone was about to head back inside before Jamie’s adorable little voice said, “What about everyone else? Do they get to come inside too?”
Ashley looked at her and asked, “Who, sweetie?”
Jamie grabbed her hand and pulled her close to the edge, “Them, mommy.”
Everyone walked over to the ledge to see who Jamie was talking about. Hunter had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, and as he inched closer to the side his fears were confirmed when he looked down to see dozens of Dead slowly surrounding the building. In addition to those already around the edges, as far as the eye could see more and more just kept coming.
Kendall stood next to Hunter and slowly grabbed his hand.
All she said was, “God help us.”
*****
Volume Three
The group looked below, completely awestruck. Hunter, having just woken up, found himself once again hoping this was some kind of cosmic joke. Maybe he had fallen asleep on the plane and this was all some stress-induced dream.
The gasp from Amanda snapped Hunter back to reality. The group started talking excitedly about what they needed to do. Trevor was the first to decide they needed to barricade the doors as much as humanly possible. They were pretty safe in here, for the time being. Everyone rushed downstairs but Hunter remained for several long minutes.
Staring down in to the abyss of Dead, he couldn’t help but go over the events of the last 24 hours in his mind. He had lost so much and felt like he had no idea how to move forward. As he continued to wonder whether it was even worth it to fight, Kendall gave his hand a tight squeeze. Hunter had forgotten she was even there, and that she had yet to let go of his hand.