Kowalski looked around the immediate area. “Okay, spread out,” he instructed, “we have to find an access hatch. Something that leads down into the store, and preferably something with a ladder.”
The four men branched out, running around the roof, pulling on anything that looked like a doorway or hatch. Finally, after several minutes of looking, Martin yelled out from the back corner of the roof.
“Got something!’ he called.
The other three soldiers dashed over to join him. He shone his flashlight down a ladder that dropped ten feet onto a catwalk.
“Doyle, you’re with me,” Kowalski said. “You two, get back to the front and keep shooting. Anything you can do to keep the focus on you and not me.”
The duo nodded and ran back to their posts. Kowalski hopped onto the ladder and climbed down, with Doyle not far behind. They dropped down onto the catwalk and surveyed the sprawling network of metal walkways that spanned the entirety of the giant store. The darkness made it difficult to see exactly what they were up against.
“Christ, haven’t these builders ever heard of ambient light?” Kowalski muttered.
Doyle shrugged. “You think they got paid enough to care?”
“Fair enough,” his companion admitted.
They raised their night vision scopes and began to scout out the top part of the store.
“Gotta find anything that can get us to the ground,” Kowalski said.
Doyle continued to search. “And then what?” he asked.
“Not a fucking clue,” Kowalski replied dryly. They continued to look, and then he finally found a ladder at the far end. “Bingo, let’s move,” he said.
They crept as quietly as they could, even though they were a good fifty feet above the ground. It was always good practice to make sure the zombies below didn’t know where they were. After a few minutes, they reached the ladder which went straight down into a mechanical room in the back.
Kowalski glanced over the railing down into the store, seeing several creatures shuffling around in the dark.
“Okay,” he said quietly, leaning in, “it looks like this room is closed off from the rest of the store. Bad news is, there’s a shitload of zombies in there.”
Doyle swallowed hard. “What do you want to do?’ he asked.
Kowalski pursed his lips for a moment, thinking hard. “What in here would make a shitload of noise?” he murmured. “Like noise that would resonate to the bridge?”
“Power tools ain’t gonna cut it,” Doyle replied. “What about an alarm system?”
Kowalski shook his head. “Home alarm system?” he asked. “Not even sure we’d be able to activate them.”
“Hell, what about a regular alarm?” Doyle wondered. “Like an alarm clock? Before all this went down, I saw some infomercial about the supersonic alarm clock. Claimed it was loud enough to wake up a coma patient. These stores usually carry shit like that, don’t they?”
His companion shrugged. “I don’t know, but it’s the best idea we got going,” he replied. “So we’ll need those, and batteries.” He paused as an idea came to him. “Oh, and maybe air horns?”
“Couldn’t hurt to look,” Doyle agreed.
They looked out over the store, checking through their night vision scopes, seeing lots of creatures, easily in the mid-dozens.
“This is gonna be a bitch,” Kowalski said with a sigh.
Doyle cocked his head. “You want me to stay up here and pick ‘em off?”
Kowalski contemplated for a moment and then nodded. “Yeah, get to the center of the catwalk,” he instructed. “You just follow my movement, hit what you can. Also keep watch and let me know if I'm walking into something bad.”
“How do I let you know?” Doyle asked.
Kowalski smirked. “Just yell,” he replied. “They can’t understand you, and if anything it’ll draw them away from me.
Doyle chuckled, shaking his head at his moment of stupidity. “Let’s do it,” he said, and extended his fist.
Kowalski bumped it and then began the climb down the ladder. He paused before he got to the bottom, using his scope to see where the door was. He had a hard time looking over the gun, so he removed it and slung his rifle over his shoulder, using the scope by itself.
He moved to the door, knife in hand, and took a deep breath. Okay, you got this, he thought to himself. It’s just like a Black Friday sale, only less chaotic.
Before he threw open the door, he looked down and spotted a couple of large tool bags. He gently and quietly removed the tools and then slung two bags over his shoulder. He gently opened the door and inched out into the back aisle. As he moved, a moan rumbled behind the door.
He darted away and then froze at the sight of a blurry figure moving towards him in the darkness. A booming shot echoed in the store, and the figure slumped to the ground.
Kowalski looked through the scope, seeing the zombie dead on the ground, and then raised his hand to give Doyle a thumbs up for the assist.
The shot excited the zombies in the store, starting up a dull roar of moans and shuffling as they tried to get a read on where their future meal was. Kowalski moved as quietly as he could, using the scope as a guide.
I know batteries are at the front of the store, he thought. So let’s start there. He looked around for a moment to get his bearings and then crept towards the front. A few aisle down, moans came from just around the next corner, and inched up to peek around it.
There were two ghouls there, shuffling dumbly, within striking distance. He motioned to Doyle, pointing to the far one, and then did a stabbing motion with the knife to show that he would be handling the closer one.
A second later, his guardian angel yelled out, “Okay!”
Kowalski counted down silently before striking. As soon as he lunged forward, a shot ripped through the far creature’s head, causing the closer one to whip around towards the noise.
He slammed the blade into the base of its skull, and as it dropped, he marveled at his skill in delivering a perfect strike in the dark. If I’m this good blind, no wonder I’m such a badass, he thought, chuckling to himself.
He continued to the front of the store, getting to the top of the aisle and looking through his scope. There were a dozen or so zombies around the cash registers, but he scanned past them to find the battery display.
With the target in sight, he checked past it to the front door, which had been completely obliterated under the sight of the horde outside. Most of the creatures were focused on the snipers on the roof, but one wrong noise inside could trigger a tsunami of death.
He plotted his course, so he could stay low and use the registers as cover from the zombies at the front. But that didn’t help him with the dozen between him and the batteries. He looked over at the shelf next to him, seeing some small bottles of bug spray. He picked one up, feeling the weight to it as well as a metal exterior.
Okay, so all I have to do is throw this close enough for the register zombies to hear, and far enough away that the mass at the front door doesn’t sweep over me, he thought, and shook his head. Yeah, I totally got this.
Kowalski broke from the top of the aisle, moving up towards the registers. He knelt down behind the end cap display, about ten yards away from the closest ghoul, a thirty-yard dash to the batteries.
This may be your last throw ever, so at least make it a good one, he urged himself, and lobbed the metal bottle towards the center of the store, arching it high over the top of the shelving. A second later, it clanged on the cement floor, rattling around loudly.
The zombies at the registers moaned loudly and began shuffling off in that direction.
Holy shit, did that work? He shook his head in disbelief. Really?
His excitement tempered when he heard moans coming from the front entrance. He peeked around the corner and his stomach sank at the sight of a dozen or so ghouls attracted by the noise.
Gotta move, he thought frantically, you gotta move! He psyched himself up a
nd moved from cover, quickly and quietly going from register to register, pausing at each end cap.
The footsteps and moans got louder as he got closer to the battery display. As he took a knee at the last end cap just before it, a shot boomed from above, and a corpse crumbled a few feet away.
Kowalski dashed past it to the batteries. Fuck, what do these things take? He used the scope to check all the battery types, finally shaking his head and opening one of the tool bags. Fuck it, I’m taking everything. He tore the packages from the shelf, grabbing every type of standard battery he could get his hands on.
Another shot boomed, and another corpse fell. This triggered moaning not just towards the door, but from the aisle he’d thrown the can down.
Good enough! Kowalski didn’t worry about being quiet this time, running parallel to the front of the store. His footsteps excited the zombies behind him, drawing even more into the store and in his direction.
He sprinted about forty yards, holding the scope up to his eye so he had some rough idea of where he was going. He spotted a zombie in front of him, but within seconds the head exploded, so he ducked down behind the paint-mixing stand near the front of the store.
As he caught his breath, he looked through his scope at the main part of the store. There were still several zombies pursuing him, but they were a good thirty yards away and slowing as if they didn’t have him in sight. He looked up at the aisle headers.
Hardware, door fixtures, cleaning… he read. Fuck, where are these things? He kept scanning until he stopped on one sign that read Home goods. Figuring that was his best chance, he checked, and then sighed when he realized that it was the aisle where the can landed.
Well, bad luck is at least a form of luck, he thought, so the fates haven’t completely abandoned you.
He looked up to Doyle, who he hoped was watching him. He motioned to the aisle he needed, that was now filled with zombies.
A second later, Doyle yelled, “Are you insane?!”
Kowalski simply looked up at him, giving a big smile and a thumbs up. He imagined his companion sighing and shaking his head.
“Hang on, I got an idea,” Doyle called back.
There was a moment of silence, and then bullets started flying. In addition to the boom of the gun going off, there were metal pings coming from the front of the store, and then a high-pitched hissing sound. Kowalski’s eyes widened when he realized Doyle was firing at the propane tanks.
He had a moment of panic, though he told himself that without a significant spark those things weren’t going to detonate. Still, it’s a risky move, he thought, but it couldn’t be helped. What was done was done.
At least the zombies from the aisle shambled towards the hissing sound, and he waited for several to go by before moving. As they staggered, one of the ghouls got its sleeve caught on a display, and no matter how much it shifted around, it couldn’t break free.
Okay fates, I get it, I have bad luck, Kowalski thought bitterly. Can you lay off now?
He moved up quickly and quietly, hugging the top of the aisle, and darting across the openings in case something else was waiting for him. As he approached his target, another shot went off and the trapped zombie slumped on the display. Unfortunately the dead weight pulled down the metal structure, crashing loudly on the floor.
Kowalski froze, and then raised his scope, watching several of the zombies that had left turn around and head towards the sound. Nice shooting, Tex, he thought.
“Sorry, I got you!” Doyle called, and shots rang out at a rapid pace.
The returning zombies began to fall like flies, and Kowalski didn’t wait, trusting his companion to have his back. Unconcerned with his noise due to the gunfire, he tore forward, sweeping the aisle to make sure it was empty, and then studied the shelves.
Halfway down, he looked around frantically, hoping the alarm clocks would jump out at him. He finally spotted something promising and picked up a box.
Supersonic alarm clock, he read to himself, wakes the dead, or your money back. He shook his head. So that’s what causes the apocalypse. At least they get to keep their money.
He stuffed six boxes into the tool bag and closed it up. “Got them!” he called between gunshots. “Headed back!”
Kowalski ran down the aisle back towards the maintenance room, awkwardly looking through the scope as he went.
“Big crowd ahead!” Doyle yelled. “Get to the wall!”
Kowalski reached the center aisle and looked down towards the target wall, where several zombies came up from the back of the store. He put his head down and ran, trusting that his partner would do his job.
Blood splattered on his arm as he ran past a zombie, but he didn’t stop. He made it to the side wall, staring at the maintenance room. Several zombies came towards it from the other side, so he took off at a sprint. He pumped his legs as hard as he could, the chorus of moans rising and echoing.
He pushed his body beyond what he’d ever pushed it before, beating the zombies by a couple of steps, and threw the door open, rushing inside. As he tried to pull it closed behind him, a set of rotted hands grabbed it from the back and pulled.
Kowalski strained, keeping the door as shut as he could, putting his boot against the doorframe. “Any time Doyle!” he yelled.
Another shot went off, and the hands fell from the door, allowing Kowalski to slam it shut.
“Holy fucking balls man,” he muttered to himself as he made his way to the ladder. “I’m never doing that again.” He climbed up, starting at the top when Doyle squatted there, waiting for him.
“You good man?” he asked.
Kowalski huffed. “Yeah, I’m good,” he replied. “Just hoping I get a promotion from this.”
“Does rank really matter at this point?” Doyle asked with a light laugh.
His companion smirked and shook his head. “Yeah, it means I would be able to delegate this to you while I set up here all comfy and shooting,” he drawled.
Doyle chuckled and helped him up, and they made their way back to the roof. Once they emerged from the hatch, Kowalski let out a loud whistle so that the others knew they were back. Martin and Hurley gave a quick wave before going back to shooting.
Doyle and Kowalski walked to the back of the store, where the latter dumped out the tool bags. They quickly ripped open the boxes and battery packages, assembling them.
Kowalski fiddled with the controls on one of the finished ones. “All right, here goes nothing,” he said, and then hit the alarm button. Immediately both men covered their ears as the 115 decibel alarm nearly blew out their eardrums. He switched it off. “Fucking hell, that’s loud.”
“If this doesn’t do it, I have no idea what will,” Doyle replied, and they scrambled to slam batteries into the rest of the clocks.
They brought all six to the air conditioner unit near the back of the store and aimed them towards the bridge, nodding while covering their ears as best they could before hitting all the alarm buttons.
The sound was deafening, blasting through the air in alternating beats. They backed away from the clocks and then went to the far end of the back of the store.
Come on motherfuckers, you know you want to know what this is, Kowalski thought, and both men raised their scopes, relieved to see that some of the creatures from the bridge at the back started to wander towards them.
“Hell yeah!” Kowalski cried, raising a fist. “Sonic doom for the win!”
The men exchanged a high five as they kept watch, surveying more and more creatures coming their way.
Kowalski pulled out his walkie-talkie, lifting it to his lips. “Hey Sarge, come in,” he said.
A few seconds later, Copeland replied, “Not sure what that is soldier, but we can hear it down here pretty good.”
The sniper grinned. “Sonic alarms,” he said loudly, “and if you can hear it there, then you can only imagine what it sounds like up here.”
“Question is,” the Sergeant countered, “are they working?
”
Kowalski nodded. “They’re starting to,” he said. “Already have several dozen peeling off and coming our way. Only a matter of time until the others join.”
“Damn fine work Kowalski,” Copeland said. “Damn fine work.”
The sniper straightened his shoulders. “Thank you, sir.”
“Copeland out.”
The duo of snipers stood and watched as more and more creatures wandered off the bridge, heading towards the sonic distraction.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The alarms had been blaring for a half an hour, and the zombie horde at the barricade became smaller and smaller. The sun began to peek up from behind the horizon, illuminating the horrific carnage on the bridge.
There was a pile of bodies stretched across the interstate, easily three deep and piled three and four high in some spots. With the soldiers out of reach, and the alarms blaring in the stance, the stragglers on the bridge had lost all interest and wandered away.
Sergeant Copeland stood proud, nodding in approval of what his men had been able to accomplish. As he admired the scene, Dawson approached.
“Hell of a night, huh Sarge?” the Corporal asked.
“Understatement, soldier,” Copeland replied with a sigh. “Understatement.”
Dawson crossed his arms. “So, what’s next?” he asked.
“I’m going to keep a skeleton crew here to do some reinforcements on this barricade,” the Sergeant explained. “It barely held a couple thousand, so no way in hell it’s holding back a hundred thousand. I want you to take the rest of the men and start clearing the neighborhoods. Those car alarm batteries aren’t going to last forever, so we need to strike while we can.”
“Any word on reinforcements or a resupply?” Dawson asked.
Copeland shook his head. “No, but I’m supposed to talk to the Captain in an hour or so.”
“Good deal,” the Corporal replied. “If you need me, I’ll be on comm.”
“Be safe, Dawson,” Copeland said, and watched him walk away and begin to bark out orders for men to follow him.
Most of the group left, except for five standing at the barricade. Copeland took a deep breath and approached the young soldier who’d been bitten, standing guard as strong as ever. He sighed, showing a brief moment of reluctance as he knew it was time to do what he didn’t want to have to do.
Dead America-The Northwest Invasion Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 20