They caught them and proceeded forward cautiously, Alex remembering that there were zombies in here the last time they were here.
“Hey, there were jokers back here last time, right?” Selina whispered, as if on cue. Alex nodded and placed his index finger over his lips for her to be quiet. Then he pointed toward the double doors that led out to the store, which was to their right.
Alex, however, kicked an object on the floor, which skidded away from him and clanged loudly against the steel beam of a storage rack.
Then they collectively heard movement and shuffling from the deep recessed of the darkness.
“Shit! Back toward the door!” he yelped, as the group headed back the way they’d come, and in a hurry.
“What’s the plan?!” Selina asked, racing past Alex toward the employee entrance.
“If we have to, we can funnel them out the door and down the steps, one at a time!” he yelled back to her, following her right to the door. It swung wide as Phil shouldered it open, and the onrush of daylight exposed a dozen or more zombies racing toward them.
Alex leveled the bow at the onrushing undead as Phil held the door open while he let an arrow loose upon the first one, dropping it cleanly. Two more tripped over that one.
“Switch! Selina, hold the door! Phil, use that shield of yours to hold them back as best you can!”
They did so as Alex fired another arrow right past Phil as he got into place. He ducked, but the shaft had already passed by him. Alex smirked at that, unthinkingly reacting to the situation and glad that it didn’t land in the big man’s back. He nocked another arrow and let it fly, dropping a third. Then a fourth appeared in the opening of the door, presenting a perfect target, Alex not missing the mark as it fell before it even reached the door.
Finally, a fifth one made it to Phil’s position. He held out his blade and the thing ran into the blade, skull first, stopping cold and falling to the side, Phil guiding it that way. Another slammed into him, but the burly man held his place, even though Alex noted that the he did give ground ever so slightly under the impact of just one zombie.
He also remembered his first meeting with them and recalled with some anxiety just how strong and deadly the ‘fresh’ zombies were, the very thought causing the hairs on his arm to stand at attention.
He steadied his breathing and saw that Selina smartly dropped to her knees, understanding that Phil no longer needed her to hold open the door as he was leaning against it, and began carefully jabbing at the closest zombie’s limbs.
Alex shouldered the bow and removed the Glock, leveling it right beside Phil’s head. He didn’t want to take any chances of a miss. Phil glanced back at Alex and, using his shield, shoved the leading zombie back toward the onrushing mob.
Alex fired one, two, three and four times consecutively, dropping zombie after zombie. He did so until he emptied his clip, the dropped the weapon and removed his bow once again.
When he looked back, there were only two standing. Phil moved ahead and shoved one back into the other, and they both fell to the hard concrete floor. One’s head split all on its own, landing against the edge of a discarded hand truck, while the other was met with the business end of Selina’s blade while it tried to regain its footing.
Then there was silence.
The floor around them was stained with blood and slick, and they each took a moment to catch their breath, remaining near the entrance, just in case of another attack.
None came, however, which they were delighted to see.
“That must be all of ‘em,” Phil said, bent on one knee, leaning on his shield for support.
“You okay, old man?”
“Old my ass,” Phil countered, grinning through a blood specked goatee.
“We should clean the floor,” Selina said, “just in case we need to make a quick exit.”
“There’s a bucket and a mop over there,” Alex said, identifying the items leaning against a closed door that he assumed might be the janitor’s closet. “I’m gonna see how many arrows I can salvage.”
With that, Alex began picking shafts out of dead zombies and inspecting them as well as retrieving his gun. When he was done with that, he fished through his pack and reloaded the Glock with a fresh clip, then reloaded the empty one and put that, too, in his pocket. “I'm gonna need more arrows. The bulk of what I had is still in the van that’s outside the castle.”
“Yeah, good luck getting’ to them,” Phil said, wiping his face with a rag and tossing it into the wastebasket beside the desk. He plopped down into the chair behind that very same desk and dropped the glow stick on the desktop. He reached for the desk lamp and turned the switch. It worked, much to their surprise.
“Guess the electricity still working here,” Phil said matter-of-factly. “Lemme help her finish cleaning this mess.”
“No need,” Selina said. “Just need the door to stay open for a bit until it dries. There’s a nice breeze coming in.” Alex nodded, wiping the sweat from his facial hair, which was growing back quickly. Selina would no doubt want him to shave his ever-thickening beard, he considered, as he went about searching for a clean rag with which to suit his own hygienic needs. He tossed his bow, quiver and gun onto the desk where Phil sat comfortably, twirling his glow stick.
Alex headed straightaway to the janitor’s closet in the hopes of recovering some clean rags and such, which was clearly marked, and went to turn the handle, but stopped suddenly and listened.
He could have sworn he’d heard something.
He waited for a good thirty seconds and silence ensued. He shrugged and chalked it up to an overactive imagination. he went to turn the handle. It turned a bit, but it wouldn’t open. It wasn’t locked. No, it seemed stuck.
He tried again, finally, getting it to open.
He was very surprised as to what he found inside.
Chapter 9
The door swung wide.
Someone inside the closet jabbed at Alex with a sharpened broom handle.
He easily parried the thrust, grabbing the shaft and pulling the makeshift weapon forward, bringing his attacker along with it.
It was a man—a young man, actually.
A shot was fired from behind them. A bullet whizzed past Alex, and had he not yanked the young man toward him, it would have lodged itself into his skull instead of the wall where he stood just a split second ago.
‘Holy shit!”
Alex spun toward the source of the firing and saw Phil standing there with a gun in his hand. His hand was shaking.
“Please lower that,” Alex pleaded, not wanting the man to accidently fire the weapon.
Selina was quickly by his side and helped Phil steady his hand and lower the weapon. But, the young man was already off and running away, no doubt thinking that they were likely going to kill him. He raced off down the hallway, disappearing out into the store.
“C’mon!” Alex called to the two of them, racing over to the desk and grabbing his gear, and then gently taking the gun from Phil’s hand.
“I…,” Phil stammered.
“Hey. Let’s go,” Alex said sternly to him, looking into his eyes.
“Alex, I—“
“Don’t worry about it. Seriously. Now let’s get after that kid before he gets himself killed. Or worse yet…gets us killed.”
Phil and Selina nodded their agreement and followed Alex out into the store. The area was dark, with very little light except for sunlight illuminating the two outer aisles that faced a series of windows.
As soon as they stepped foot inside the store however, they heard footsteps heading into one of the more gloomy areas. The three of them retrieved their glow sticks and headed down the aisle after the sounds, believing it to be the young man.
“What are we doing here, anyway?” Selina asked, scratching her nose and staring at Alex.
“We can’t leave the kid here, first off. And second, he might just bring more of the fuckin’ zombies our way if he’s not careful. I don�
��t want either of those situations to happen to us. Or him. Okay?”
“We don’t even know who—never mind,” Selina answered. “Always a goddamn issue.”
“So it would seem.”
Alex looked to Phil, who was clearly still shaken by recent events.
“Hey. I need you to be focused, man, okay?!” Alex asked him concernedly. “Please put this in the past and be in the now! We need you. Got it?” Phil shook his head, but Alex grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around to face him, staring into his eyes.
“Okay! I got it!” Phil whispered sharply, staring back at Alex and equipping his sword and shield. “Let’s find this kid.”
The three of them slowly and carefully padded down the aisle, looking in every nook and cranny for signs of the kid. Alex handed the flashlight to Selina and leaned in. “Only turn it on if I say, okay?” Alex instructed, “I don’t wanna give him another chance to bolt.”
“We should just get our shit and get outta here, Alex. Who cares what this kid does?”’
“Don’t be like that.” Alex spun upon hearing movement to his left behind him. He glanced that way, seeing nothing more than a shelving unit. He peered into the gloom and spotted the kid tucked behind some merchandise.
“Shine the light behind me,” Alex whispered. She did that as Alex turned and grabbed the young man by the wrists as he tried to bolt again.
“”Hey, man! Leave me alone! What the hell you gonna do to me?!”
“First of all…shut the hell up,” Alex whispered. “We don’t know what the hell else is in here with us. And you need to get the hell outta here, too, don’t you kid? How old are you?”
“Eighteen. What the hell does it matter?”
“It doesn’t,” Alex said, releasing his wrists. “Where are your parents?”
“Dead just like everyone else I know,” he said with a tone of honest despair with which Alex was all too familiar.
“I’m sorry,” said Selina, surprising Alex, especially after what she had just said to him about the youngster not five minutes ago. But, her tone was genuine in the moment.
“My folks and I were gonna go fishing, then the truck broke down. Dad came here to get supplies to do repairs. We heard the news on the radio while we were drivin’ but we weren’t sure if it was a hoax. Seemed really far-fetched, ya know? Anyways, when dad was inside, that was then the ‘biters’ came callin’.”
Alex looked from Phil to Selina and back to the kid again. The boat they had taken must have belonged to them, he figured.
How many boats are out in the parking lot?
“Well then, maybe you can come with us, back to the castle,” Phil interjected. “We got a place that’s safe, kid, if you wanna come with us.” He stood in silence for a long while, remaining still, and when Selina finally shone the light on his face again, they could see tears streaming down his face.
“I been here for weeks, man. Eatin’ scraps and…worse. I’ll take any kind of help I can get,” he said in conclusion, Selina moving forward to put her arm around him in an attempt to comfort him. It was clear to everyone who gazed upon him at this point, that the young man was extremely vulnerable and emotionally spent.
“Want these?” Phil said, offering him a handful of protein bars, which he scooped up and began hungrily devouring. “What’s your name, kid?”
“James,” he said through mouthfuls of food, “Jim, really. My friends call me Jim.”
“Well, Jim. You got yourself a new home,” Phil said, “Assuming Nick likes you. Now all we gotta do is get some supplies and get the hell outta here.”
Jim stared back at Phil skeptically, and then his expression turned to become hopeful, the expressions unmistakable. “I’ll help you get whatever you need,” he offered, finishing one protein bar and tearing open another.
“We’re looking for food—canned goods, ya know,” Phil said, handing him a bottle of water from his pack.
“I had stored up a few cases of beans and tuna, but once I had done that, I started seeing more of the ’biters’. That’s what I called ‘em, anyway. They were always back here, like they knew I was here or somethin’. So I hid in the closet there, and they never came after me again.”
“Wonder why?” Alex asked, strolling right over to the janitor’s closet. As he stood there for a moment, he immediately concocted a theory. “It was the chemicals.”
“No shit,” Selina said disbelievingly. She then joined him where he stood and sure enough, she quickly pinched her nose as the odors were incredibly pungent. The smells of bleach, ammonia, and various other cleaning chemicals penetrated their nostrils.
“Guess so, I don’t really even smell ‘em anymore. Matter of fact, I can’t even taste this,” he said, holding up the protein bar and waggling it around.
“Well, you ain’t missin’ much,” Phil said. “Where did you put those canned goods again?”
Jim waved for him to follow and wandered over to a series of large plastic storage containers with lids. Inside each of the containers was cans of vegetables, beans, soups, tuna fish, spam and even more. They were all stacked up on top of each other on a skid.
“You guys hustle up and get what you need. Jim and I will load up the ambulance with whatever we can stack inside,” Phil said with a wide grin from ear to ear. He was clearly happy with this score of canned goods.
“Well, most of what we need is at the Home Depot,” Alex said, shrugging his shoulders. Selina and I can grab what we need alone. So I’ll drop you, Jim and the canned goods down by the boat. That way you guys can make the trips back and forth while we make our run. I just need one of you to come back and wait for us when you’re done!”
“Guess that’s me,” Phil commented absently, sifting through the canned goods.
“In a perfect world, were done before you guys are and you don’t have to wait at all.”
Phil nodded and grinned. “Then get your ass over here and help us get the hell outta here!”
Alex nodded and then stared back to Selina. Then he called to Phil, “I’ll be right there. I just need to grab one thing.”
Alex led Selina back out into the store, and headed straight for the sporting goods section. He scanned through the darkness and eventually found a decent compound bow meant for a starter, a quiver, and an armful of fiberglass target arrows. “This oughtta do it.”
Selina crushed him an embrace and kissed him on the cheek. “You remembered!”
“Yeah, you would’ve had my head if I forgot, right?”
“Well, it could have gone one of two ways,” she said brazenly, shoving him backward. “Let’s just say either way, you were getting fucked.”
He laughed at her play on words. Alex took a step forward, but Selina grabbed his arm to stop him.
“What? You don’t wanna—?”
“No! You really don’t get women, do you, Lancelot,” she teased. “We just need one more thing. Over there,” she said, pointing to the pharmacy area. “Just wait here, I’ll be right back.”
He followed her anyway, not wanting to let her out of his sight, remembering the horrors they’d experienced last time when they were here. Alex reflexively rubbed the healed wound on his head where he’d taken a good shot from those would-be muggers.
Selina was beside him again quickly, dragging his mind from its nightmarish reverie. She held a handful of toothbrushes, toothpaste, a straight razor, and a package of battery-operated clippers. She unzipped her pack, tossed them inside, and then zipped it back.
“You really hate that beard, huh?” Alex asked, rubbing the more-than-stubble that covered his face.
She nodded, grabbed his hand, and the two of them raced back to join the others, who had already placed all but one of the containers into the ambulance. Alex went to grab the last one, but James waved him off. And so, he and Selina climbed into the front seats, started the engine and waited for him to load the last one before piling into the rig.
It wasn’t long before they were back
at the rendezvous point. Phil and Jim exited the vehicle and the four of them began dragging the containers down to the riverbank. There, they found several full cans of gasoline stashed behind the same trees where they had hidden the boat.
As they got to the bottom of the hill with the last container, they heard something coming in the distance and took cover behind the crest of the hill at street level. Voices began to penetrate the silence, and Alex peeked up to see Nick and Kelly approaching.
The group crested the top of the hill and got onto the street, heading toward the two men who were coming their way.
“You tried hiding and the ambulance is right there in the middle of the street?” Nick said sarcastically. “And who, pray tell, is this you have with you?”
“This is James,” Phil said, taking a can from Nick’s hands once they got close enough. James, seeing what Phil had done, offered to take Kelly’s extra can with a gesture. He nodded and handed the fuel can to him.
Phil got them caught up on the situation as they headed back down the hill.
“Well, we got two more cans left to fill up,” Nick said. “Why don’t you guys take the food back and Jim and I will get the last two cans filled. That way, we can get to know each other a little. Whaddaya say, kid?”
Jim agreed good-naturedly. He did, however, seem more than a bit upset when Phil and Alex removed the motor from the back of the ambulance.
“Is that…? Where did you get that?!” he asked with a pained expression.
“We…,”
“That was our boat!”
“I believe that it was your parent’s boat, yes,” Alex said curtly, trying to cut through the line of questioning and get straight to the point.
Like ripping off a Band-Aid, right dummy?
He hated himself for saying what he said and how he said it. James sat in the middle of the street with his hand over his mouth.
“You have the boat? What happened to our truck!? We’d broken down and dad went in…then mom and Billy went in after him…they never came out.”
He started sobbing uncontrollably, his hands in his face, rocking back and forth. Selina raced to his side to try to comfort him, Phil kneeling beside him, placing a supporting hand on his shoulder.
Wake the Dead 2 (Wake The Dead Series) Page 10