Useless Bastard

by Hooke, A. J. A.

  "Maybe if we work hard tomorrow and really lock this place down that we might see some spark of hope?"

  Sid looked at Dave. "I bloody hope so. I'm just not expecting much."

  "Still, can I count on you helping out?" asked Dave. "You don't seem thrilled by the plan, but I think that once we get the outer doors closed and sealed then you'll find that this place will be much safer."

  Sid smiled. "Sure. Why the fuck not? I ain't going anywhere in a hurry."

  "I'll help too," said Eric.

  "Of course," said Dave happy to hear Eric's enthusiasm. "It's getting dark. Maybe we should be getting ready to sleep."

  "Good idea. Those dopey buggers will be waking up soon."

  Dave gave another look over the side of the roof. The number of staggering creatures had doubled as they had talked.

  All three walked off to the places that they had for their respective sleeping places. As if having made up its mind after a long contemplation, the night swiftly approached.

  As Dave settled onto his sleeping bag he noticed that Eric had stopped talking. That wasn't all. A chill came across Dave as he noticed that no one was talking, not even in hushed tones. Dave took off his boots and slid into his sleeping bag.

  No body said good night. Fear had silenced everyone.

  * * *

  Dave woke early and got out of his sleeping bag. Eric had been laying awake on his own bedding, so that when Dave moved Eric also rose up from the blankets that he had been sleeping in.

  The sun had yet to rise but there was still plenty of light in the early morning twilight.

  With a silent agreement, Dave and Eric walked to the wall that made up the roof's edge, avoiding piles of blanket covered sleepers. Displaying a caution that was probably unneeded, the pair approached the edge of the roof and looked out into the car parks and roads beyond. Dave was impressed by how the mere coming of daylight was enough to empty the streets of the dead. But if the dead were not outside the shopping centre, then where were they during the day? Dave gritted his teeth in worry as he pondered the question of where the dead stayed through daylight hours. It was a question that Dave truly didn't want to be the one to find out the answer.

  "Looks good," said Dave.

  "Yep," agreed Eric.

  "Okay. The sooner we start the better."

  "I'll get Sid," said Eric.

  They turned from the roof's edge and walked over to where Sid was sitting on some blankets. Sid was using a spoon to scrape the last of the contents from a soup can.

  "I miss cooking," said a surly Sid.

  "Well," said Dave, "if we can lock up this shopping centre then we might be able to set up a kitchen."

  "There's no power though."

  "Fire is what we mostly need and I'm sure we could find some gas cylinders. If not then some barbecue grill that we feed with wood."

  Sid grunted in agreement, put the empty can to one side and stood up. "We really need to do something about garbage."

  Dave nodded. "I'm surprised that sewerage isn't a problem as well."

  Sid nodded knowingly. "It will be. That's one of the main reasons why I'm not completely opposed to this plan of yours."

  Dave looked back and forth between Sid and Eric. "Let's start."

  They started walking towards the stairs that led down from the roof. Scattered here and there were sad piles of blankets in which people slept. Dave was disappointed that no one else jumped up and tried to join their little team, but he also understood the strain that they were under. Some people need a little prodding before hope grows in their hearts.

  "Where do we start?" asked Sid as Dave opened the door to the stairwell.

  Dave peered into the gloom of the stairwell. "I first want to look around. The place needs to be clear first."

  As a group they walked into the stairwell, letting the door click closed behind them.

  "What if it isn't clear?"

  Dave stopped in front of the closed door that opened to the inside of the shopping centre. "I hadn't thought of that. I guess that it's up to us to clear it then."

  "What do we use get rid of them? Profanity?"

  Sid spoke in a cynical voice, but Dave understood that Sid didn't mean anything negative. "You wouldn't happen to have a gun?"

  Sid lifted up his empty hands. "This is Australia. Can't arm the prisoners."

  Dave frowned.

  Eric spoke up. "It's been clear every morning so far. Maybe it still is."

  Dave opened the door and walked onto the top floor of the shopping centre. They walked towards the middle where a hole in the floor let him see the other levels. The others joined Dave in looking about. It all looked still and empty. Even straining one's ears revealed no sense of there being others.

  "I never realised how creepy this place looked," said Sid.

  "You raised a good point," said Dave. "Does anyone know where there's a tool shop?"

  "A tool shop?" asked Sid. "Eric has explored this place more than me. He's the one to know."

  "What sort of tools are you after?" asked Eric.

  "Gardening tools. Rakes, axes, crowbars."

  "I get you," said Sid. "Those would make some decent weapons."

  "I've never fought one of them before," said a nervous Eric.

  Dave sighed. "Neither have I. The only way that I've survived so far has been to run away."

  "Heroes don't die old," said Sid.

  "Yeah. But there's no way we can survive the way this place is currently set up."

  Sid turned to Eric. "Lead the way."

  "Okay," said Eric.

  The gardening store was on the second floor. Its front displays filled with lawn mowers and flower pots filled with fake plants. It didn't take long to find the heavy tool section away from the front.

  Dave looked over the stock. "Any ideas?"

  Sid scratched his arse in contemplation. "Things like the pick would probably be bad as they'd get stuck in a body pretty quick."

  "How about an axe?"

  "I think that one of us should take an axe, but it might be a problem to use in combat. It would be slow to swing and suffers the same problem as the pick in that it could get stuck easily. However, while we're going around we might need a way to break open a door and the axe might be useful."

  "One axe and what else?"

  Sid picked up a crowbar. "These. Smack someone in the head with his and you'll cave in their skull. Hold it just above this curved part so that it's harder for your grip to slip off. This will be more than enough to cave a few heads in."

  Sid gave Dave the crowbar and gave another crowbar to Eric. "I'll take the axe because I'm the strongest here."

  "I'm good with that," said Dave. "You okay with this?" said Dave to Eric.

  Eric merely nodded as he grew aware of the responsibility that this little team was bearing.

  "Good," said Dave. "Let's go check the bottom floor. We need to scout out the various ways of getting in."

  They walked out of the tool store and walked down the escalator to the ground floor.

  Dave looked back and forth. "Looks like three main entrances. One entrance for each compass point. Except one."

  "That's the side where there's a large undocking bay for the trucks," said Eric.

  "That's going to be tricky. So let's check the main entrance ways first."

  "Do you want the check all of them?" ask Sid as they walked towards the nearest one.

  "I don't think we need to," said Dave. "I'm mostly checking to see how the entrance way works. Maybe we'll be lucky and can close the entrances without power."

  Sid snorted. "I think that someone has already tried, but I'd like to see how it is done for myself."

  "Exactly," agreed Dave as he looked at the approaching entrance.

  Dave walked through the doors and looked back at the entrance. "This is better than I thought. It looks like there's two sets of doors. One set is a standard set of hinged doors. It looks like we can just close those by hand."
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  "Let's try it," said Sid approaching one of the doors. He pulled the door shut. "No latch on this side."

  "What about inside?" asked Dave.

  The three walked back inside the doors. Sid closed one of the doors and rotated a dial near the door handle. They all heard a solid clacking sound of a lock engaging. Sid gave the door a tug.

  "That's a solid door," said Sid.

  "Good," said Dave. "That's four doors per entrance that we can close manually."

  Dave walked just outside the hinged doors and looked up at the flat ceiling. "Looks like there's some sort of roller door up in the ceiling. There's even rails down the wall to hold it in place."

  The three looked up at the hand-wide gap that stretched all the way across the entrance. Just within the gap they could see a roller door.

  "The main doors are pretty solid, so I'm not sure why this second door is needed," said Sid thoughtfully. "Maybe it's a crash barrier to stop looters crashing cars through the entrance."

  Dave walked over to the side of the entrance where he saw a panel. There was a hinged cover that he flipped up. There were a pair of buttons - one with an arrow up, the other with an arrow down. Dave idly pressed the down button. The roller door didn't move. Not expecting a response, Dave pressed the button with the up arrow.

  "That's secure," quipped Sid. "Even though is on the inside of the roller door, the panel is not even locked."

  "It's a paradox," said Dave. "People often scream for security but rarely ask if their requests actually make them secure. They should have probably had the controls set up to be remotely operated in a control room somewhere. But the designers then thought that go back and forth would be a pain and came up with this simple solution. This actually helps us. It would have taken a bit of time to track down a control room and determine which buttons do what."

  "Could you imagine if they locked it?" asked Sid. "It would be a damn pain if we had to find a key to operate it."

  "While it seems clear in here I want it to remain so. Let's close up all these doors and check out the docking areas," said Dave.

  "It'll be quicker if we split up," suggested Sid. "Don't worry if you find company, noise will carry inside the store. Yell if you run into something. It shouldn't be too hard to hear each other."

  Dave looked at Eric. "Are you okay with that?"

  Eric nodded. "I'm used to running about this place."

  "Okay," said Dave. "Be quick and we'll meet up in the middle.

  Sid and Eric ran into the shopping centre. At the central intersection Sid went left and Eric went right. Dave could hear the crisp echoes of their feet.

  There was no time to waste. Except for the door that Sid had locked, Dave went to every door, pulled it shut and turned the latch until he heard the lock going into place. He made certain to give each door a good shake to verify that it was firmly locked.

  Dave took one last look through the doors. There was nothing out there. But how long until the three were noticed?

  Pushing his worries down, Dave jogged deeper into the shopping centre until he reached the T-intersection where Sid and Eric had separated before. Dave stood still and listened. It was a faint mess of sound of shuffling feet and the distinct metallic clicks of door locks. Dave was surprised by just how well noise travelled in this store. If there was something inside the shopping centre, then they must be aware of Dave, Sid and Eric by this time.

  Dave noticed the sound of running feet was getting louder. Because the hallways in the shopping centre were so straight Dave could see Sid and Eric jogging back towards Dave. When they arrived they were a little out of breath but not terribly so. Dave was impressed by their physical fitness. Impressed and a little envious.

  "All good?" asked Dave.

  They all nodded.

  "Easy as pie," said Sid.

  "Now comes the tricky part," said Dave. "I don't know my way around here. So I'm relying on Eric to show us around the docking area."

  Eric nodded. "No problem. Just follow me."

  In front of the trio was a large wall. It was a noticeable asymmetry in the design of the floor because they were the only solid walls to be seen. Any other place where a potential wall could be placed was instead filled with a glass store frontage begging for customers to spend their money. In the middle of the wall was a large, double-width door. The door was open to a short hallway. Immediately inside the hallway, discretely hidden from public view, were the entrance ways to the public toilets. The wide hallway wasn't too long and at the far end were another set of double doors - this time closed.

  "Through those," said Eric pointing down the hallway, "is the docking area."

  There was no need to say anything and the three walked down the hallway. Dave gave a nervous look at the entrances to the toilets. The shop fronts were glass and easy to see into, while, with no lights on, the toilets were a difficult, dark place to see into. They didn't linger and reached the end of the hallway quickly.

  Eric gave Dave and Sid a glance before pushing the door open.

  Dave had expected the docking area to be dark and gloomy. Instead he could see that most of the rear doors that should have covered the docks were open and the area was filled with light. The place appeared abandoned in mid-step. Trucks were parked about the docks. Fork-lifts were often left in the middle of some task. Pallets with boxed products were scattered about. Dave wasn't familiar with how such a place worked so to him it looked like chaos.

  "What a mess," said Sid agreeing to Dave's unstated thought.

  "Let's look around," said Dave. "We need to close all this up somehow."

  The three looked all around as they approached the rear of the docking area. There were four large doors - large enough for a truck to drive through - along the rear wall. All of the big roller doors were fully open. Dave felt that these doors wouldn't as mechanically solid as the other doors when it came to blocking visits from the dead.

  The outside was about a meter lower than the inside floor area. This was so that the trucks could back up into the docking area and the truck beds would have been at the same height as the dock floor. One could then put down some steel ramps and a fork-lift could easily drive onto the rear of the trucks to collect the pallets of goods.

  "Hey look," said Sid pointing to a panel on the supports between the rear doors. "Another of those push buttons. This one also has no look on it."

  "We're lucky with that," said Dave, "but unlucky with the trucks. It looks like three of the docks have trucks in them. We can't close the doors with the trucks there."

  Sid grinned. "Then we move them."

  Sid went to the cabin of the nearest truck and opened the door. He got in and gave a laugh. "The keys are still here."

  Without hesitation, Sid turned the key and started the truck's engine. Smoke belched from the truck's exhausts. There were some loud grinding noises as Sid put the truck in gear. Then the truck lurched forward. There were some metal ramps resting on the rear of the truck which fell away with a loud noise. Sid didn't go too far and parked just far enough to clear the doorway. Sid turned the truck engine off.

  "Shit," said Dave as he watched Sid drop out of the truck's cabin. "That was damn loud."

  "If we do this quick then we should be okay," said Sid.

  "I don't know what you're basing that on, but we don't have a choice."

  Sid ran back into the docking area, but through a different dock. He climbed into the cabin of the next truck. "The keys are also here."

  "We are too lucky," said Dave to no one. But Eric had heard Dave and gave Dave a nervous look.

  Sid fired up the truck's engine and drove it fully out of the dock. He stopped the engine and got out. He ran to the final truck. Dave was positive that their luck had run out. Sid opened the truck cabin and got in. "Bingo! We have a set of keys."

  Dave sighed with relief, as Sid started the third truck and drove it out of the dock. Another loud clang happened when a ramp fell off the back of the truck. Sid stoppe
d the truck as it was moved enough and turned off the engine. This time Sid didn't get out of the truck.

  "What's up?" muttered Dave.

  "Look," whispered Eric pointing past the truck that Sid was in.

  Dave nearly panicked when he saw the red-eyed shambling form. Much of its clothing had been ripped from its body and its skin was easy to see. It was the familiar grey skin with hand sized patches of yellow that looked squishy with pus. Dave was still unsure if the yellow skin patches was a sign of someone who was recently converted to the dead or if there was another cause at work.

  The shambling form looked towards the docking area for a moment. No doubt it had heard the noise that Sid had made. But it seemed confused. After a few snorts and some rough turns of its head, it turned and walked away. Sid gently opened the door of the truck and slid out. Quietly, he came over to Dave and Eric, and climbed up onto the dock to join them.

  "That made my balls pull up inside me," whispered Sid.

  "How it didn't spot us is beyond me," whispered Dave.

  "Yeah. We need to close these doors now."

  Dave nodded. "Let's try and find the generator."

  "No," said Sid gesturing at Dave and Eric. "You two go. I'll stay here."

  "What?"

  "We need these doors closed now. It will take a lot of time to get from the generator and back to here. Who knows what will come in while we're gone."

  Dave patted Sid on the shoulder. "Be safe."

  "That's the dream."

  Dave turned to Eric. "Do you know where the generator is?"

  "I think so."

  "Let's make this happen. I'm getting really worried."

  All three nodded. Sid moved so that was easier for him to see outside. Meanwhile Dave and Eric tried to leave as quietly as they could.

  * * *

  "It's just in here," said Eric - his words echoing in the tiny hallway.

  "You think it's the generator?" asked Dave.

  "I'm not sure. But it's the closest thing that I've seen that could be one."

  "That's good enough for me."

  Eric opened the door in front of them and together they walked into the room beyond. In the middle of the room was a large, metallic box. There was nothing about its boxy shape that marked it out as a generator, however it was clearly marked with lightening blots and text saying "high voltage". Around the room were numerous power lines and consoles with important looking switches.