Walt nodded and then headed back to his bus. Nicole turned to go into the store then turned back.
“Anything in particular you want us to look for in there?” Nicole asked.
Walt thought about it a second. “Some fresh fruit would be nice, but frozen is good too,” he said.
Nicole turned and entered the store behind Billy and Sam as they pulled the sliding doors apart.
Across the street in the stadium, Jordan roller-bladed around the concrete perimeter of the football field. She gyrated to Firework by Katy Perry blaring over the stadium’s sound system. The song faded out and her own came on.
As a present on her sixteenth birthday, Connie and Paul hired a local musician who ran a small production company. For a fee, he would write a song just for you and then make a video of your performance. Best Day of the Week was Jordan’s song. Jordan and her parents thought it was something cute, a home movie of sorts to view years later and have a laugh. When Jordan loaded it on YouTube and it went viral, nobody could believe the response. The video got over two million hits. Most of the comments were disparaging, but it was like the musician who wrote the song said, at least they were talking about it. A small record company had even paid them to press some CD singles. It was released just about the time the Dead started rising, and the short life of Jordan’s song became even shorter. Jordan loved her song, and much to Paul’s growing agitation, she would play it over and over again.
As she came around the front, her attention was caught by the open doors of the All-Mart across the street. She stopped and stared at the store.
On the fifty yard line, in a chaise lounge, Paul reclined and read a book about growing your own fruits and vegetables. He knew the supplies at the All-Mart would not hold out forever. Consequently he took advantage of Woodford’s taste for sports nostalgia. Planted in rows along the yard lines on the football field were various fruit trees and vegetable plants. The built in sprinkler system provided the daily waterings, the retractable roof allowed sunshine. Paul could repair almost any mechanical device, but he never considered himself a green thumb, so he read his book and prayed the plants would not die.
He was about to turn the page when he noticed his daughter staring out the massive clear doors. He reached down, retrieved the remote control to the sound system and clicked off the music. He looked at his watch.
“Honey, they’re about to pass in the next few minutes. We don’t want them to notice us,” Paul called.
Jordan did not move. “I don’t remember us leaving the doors open when we finished shopping, do you, Dad?” Jordan asked.
Paul furrowed his brow and rose from his lounge. It was a bit of a struggle. When he would meet people for the first time, almost invariably they would say that he looked like the actor Kevin James. Paul enjoyed eating and had not had to give that up to any great degree since taking up residence across from the All-Mart.
“What are you talking about, honey? Of course we didn’t leave the doors open,” Paul said as he came alongside Jordan.
“Well, they’re open now,” she said as she pointed across the street.
Paul looked and saw the sliding doors sitting open. His eyes were drawn to the bus and Walt standing up on top of it.
“Oh no,” he said then looked at his watch. “They must have just rolled up looking for supplies,” he said.
Paul was agitated. Jordan was slower to pick up on the ramifications of their arrival.
“But if they just arrived… they probably don’t know about the zombies… Dad. What time is it?” she asked, fear playing around the edges of her question.
Paul leaned up close to the clear doors and tried to look down the street to see if the horde was in sight. The streets were clear, but they were scheduled to make their circuit any minute. Paul checked his watch as if looking again would change the time on it.
“Should we warn them?” Jordan asked.
Paul did not respond as his eyes darted from the store to down the street and back again.
“Dad?” Jordan asked again.
“I don’t know—there’s no time to go over there,” Paul said.
Jordan became concerned, her face revealing her angst. “If they get stuck out there—”
Paul cut off his daughter’s words. “I know! I know!” he barked at her and instantly felt bad about doing it.
Not waiting any longer, Jordan started waving her arms over her head. “Over here! Look over here!” she screamed at Walt.
Not knowing what else to do, Paul mimicked his daughter and started jumping up and down and waving his arms as well.
“Get out of there! You have to move!” he screamed, his words mixing with his daughter’s.
On top of the bus, Walt looked up and down the street but not across it. Paul and Jordan jumped and shouted but none of their cries got to Walt. The massive doors blocked sound as effectively as they did the Dead. They continued to try to get Walt’s attention as Nicole came out and approached the bus. In her hand were two walkie-talkies. She handed one up to Walt who stooped down to take it.
Paul and Jordan watched them exchange some words as Walt stood back up and resumed looking up and down the street. They continued to shout as Nicole turned and went back into the store.
“They’re not going to make it! Dad! Those things are going to be here any second!” Jordan cried.
Paul was beside himself. He pulled his daughter away from the huge door.
“Come away from the doors, honey. There’s nothing we can do,” he said.
Jordan looked at her father in shock as he pulled her back.
“Wait! We can’t just leave them out there, Dad?!” she pleaded.
Paul’s shoulder’s slumped. “Don’t look, sweetie. If those things see us, they may come over here,” Paul said as he led his daughter away from the doors.
Jordan cried, not taking her eyes from the street. Paul led Jordan over to the chaise lounge and sat her down. Kneeling down in front of her, he hugged her and waited for it to be over. His daughter shook in his arms, her sobs coming in waves. Paul was in anguish as he held her.
“Shhhh, it’ll be over soon, baby girl…” Paul said, trying to comfort his daughter.
He tried and failed to not look over at the doors and the inevitable bloodbath that was about to happen literally on their doorstep. He turned away and squeezed his eyes shut. He kicked himself for the selfish thought of how he would get the Dead moving again, after their normal circuit was disrupted by their fresh meal.
Outside, the wind shifted. Paul caught the scent of something awful wafting through the ventilation, the stadium’s distant early warning system telling him that the merry-go-round of death was making another turn.
On top of the bus, Walt looked off down the street in front of him and saw nothing. Turning, his jaw dropped as he stared into the wave of the Dead rolling his way. His mind left him for several seconds as he tried to understand what he was seeing coming. A thousand Dead shuffled his way. Walt brought the walkie to his mouth and keyed the mic.
“Uh, hey man! You got to get out of there, like now!” Walt shouted.
A second later, Nicole’s voice called back over the walkie.
“You see something, Walt?” Nicole asked.
Walt never took his eyes off the advancing horde.
“More like a thousand somethings! We’ve got to bug out, man! Come on!” Walt yelled into the walkie.
As he did, the vanguard of the horde caught his scent. They started shuffling towards him, veering off the course they had traveled without interruption for weeks. Walt whipped his head around as he saw Nicole, Sam, and Billy come running out of the All-Mart. They froze in their tracks as they saw what Walt had warned them was coming. Their minds were not prepared.
Walt jumped down and climbed into his bus, followed by Billy. Sam and Nicole ran to the GTO. As they got into their vehicles, the Dead flooded into the streets. In no time at all, the Dead had blocked both ends of the street. With the road
blocked in either direction, Nicole and Walt tried to push through, but their progress was slow, hindered by the sheer mass of the Dead clamoring around them.
“This is it, Man!” Walt cried.
Billy just stared at the horde and gripped his seat.
In the GTO, Nicole tried to cut a path through the Dead, but was not making ground. Sam looked around, trying to spot any space in the mob that the GTO could push through and not seeing any. The Dead pushed and slammed up against the vehicles. The GTO rocked and swayed under their onslaught. Inside, Nicole gripped the wheel and tried to navigate the horde. Sam kept his head on a swivel looking for any out. He looked to his right, his face fell in amazement.
“Over there! Go there!” he shouted at Nicole.
Nicole looked to where he was pointing and could not believe what she saw.
“Is that Kevin James?” she asked, seemingly in shock.
“Just go!” Sam screamed as Nicole cut the wheel hard to the right and floored the gas. The GTO lurched, tires squealing, as Nicole launched the big car through the slowly rising clear polycarbonate door of Liberty Bell Stadium. Paul was waving frantically in their direction. In the bus, Walt saw Nicole take the hard right and looked to where she was going.
“Alright, Man!” Walt exclaimed as he saw Paul waving at them.
Walt gunned the bus and followed Nicole into the stadium.
Outside in the street, twenty yards from where Paul stood, the Dead were slow to react, but react they did. As the bus headed for the entrance of the stadium, Paul was already lowering the massive door.
“Come on, Come on!” Paul shouted as the Dead fell in pursuit of the bus. The bus barely cleared the door as it came down, clipping the extended taillights, shattering them. Just as the door hit bottom, a thousand dead piled against it, clawing and pounding.
The vehicles came to a stop. Nicole, Sam, Walt, and Billy piled out. Walt rushed up to Paul.
“You saved us, Man!” he said.
Paul did not hear him. His face twisted in anger, he shouted at them.
“Do you know what you’ve done?! You’ve killed us!!”
Twenty-One
Walt’s smile slid off his face and he stepped back as Paul advanced on him.
“Those things know we’re in here now and they’re never going to leave!” Paul shouted.
Jordan approached her father and reached for his hand.
“Daddy, stop yelling at them, it’s-”
Paul cut off her words. “Do you know what it took to get those things moving in one direction, to keep them away from us?!”
Nicole got in Paul’s face. “Hey look, man! We didn’t know you guys were in here! Sorry for surviving and spoiling your good thing, but we are out there trying to live too!” Nicole shouted.
Paul and Nicole locked eyes and stared at each other. Finally, Paul looked at the rest of Nicole’s group.
“Well, you just cut our chances of survival down to zero,” Paul said.
He stormed away. Jordan apologized with her eyes to Nicole, then turned and followed her father. Nicole watched him go, then stomped over to the GTO and collapsed in the driver seat. Sam went over to her and leaned his head in the passenger side.
“It’ll be all right. He’s just scared. After everyone-”
This time Nicole cut off his words. “This is why I didn’t want to take on riders, you know? I could be in Colorado by now if it wasn’t for…”
Nicole’s words trailed off and she rested her head on the steering wheel. Sam looked at her, hurt, before turning. He climbed up and sat on the trunk. He took a deep breath and tried to relax. He thought they were done for sure out there. When he saw Paul waving them in, it was like a couple of miracles, one, that there were other survivors, and two, that they just might survive the latest mess they had gotten into. Regardless of how everyone felt right now, he was sure it could only be a good thing that there were other survivors, and they had helped them. The clamoring Dead on the other side of the Polycarbonate doors tried to make a case for the contrary.
Walt sat in the stairwell of his bus and looked at everyone. Each had retreated to their own space. He noticed how each had their head down and was seemingly lost in thoughts of doom. Looking over at Paul, Walt’s eyes wandered over to the line of fruit trees. He hauled himself up and made his way over to Paul.
Paul saw Walt approach and buried himself in his book. Walt shuffled his feet nervously and looked over at the fruit trees. Several seconds of silence passed before Walt spoke.
“Hey, man… listen, I know we crashed your party and we’re real sorry about that, you know. Times being what they are, you find a place to hold up, that can be a precious thing,” Walt said.
Paul did not look up from his book. Walt continued to stare at the trees.
“Me, I got a place on an island, man. I only came over to the mainland to see the sites,” he continued.
Paul snorted. “Your timing was perfect,” Paul said.
Walt rubbed his chin and smiled. “Yeah, people keep telling me that,” Walt said.
Paul looked up at Walt and could not hide a smile. Walt smiled down at him and Paul looked away.
“Where’s your island?” Paul asked, almost begrudgingly.
“It’s in the Hawaiian chain. It’s a little one but real nice, you know. I noticed your trees, man. They look awesome. On my island, I have trees too. Fruit, man. It’s nature’s candy,” Walt said, chuckling.
Paul looked at the trees. “The stuff across the street isn’t going to last forever, so I thought I better do something,” Paul said.
Walt looked down at the book Paul was reading. “That book there, you know it’s not really for the kind of trees you got, man,” he said.
Paul tried to hide his insecurity over his lack of knowledge about the trees.
“Yeah, I know that, but it’s not exactly like the Net is still up is it? The government said they were shutting down lines of communication when martial law was declared. Internet, land lines, even the satellite feeds in the broadcast booths went down. All they showed was the same stupid public service announcement. Stay in your homes, don’t panic. Yeah, right. Trouble is, there was no one left to turn it all back on again,” Paul said.
Walt smiled at him. “Well, that’s okay man, cause I love my fruit, learned a lot about them. Those trees are gonna need pruning. You don’t do it right you could kill the whole branch, man,” Walt said.
Paul’s eyes sunk and Walt noticed.
“I could show you how to do it, you know? I really love my fruit trees, Man,” Walt said.
Paul looked at Walt, interest battled caution on his face and interest won.
“Yeah, alright, I mean… yeah, okay,” Paul said.
Walt smiled. “Alright, man!” he said as he watched Paul haul himself out of his chair.
“You sure say ‘man’ a lot,” Paul said.
“Yeah, people keep telling me that a lot, too… man,” Walt smiled a big smile at Paul.
Before Paul could catch himself he smiled back at Walt. The two went over to the trees.
“My name’s Walt,” he said, introducing himself.
“Paul.” Paul said. “Welcome to Liberty Bell Stadium.”
Billy sat against the front tire of the bus hugging his knees to his chest. He thought the girl on skates was pretty, but he didn’t know what to do about it. The decision was taken out of his hands as Jordan skated up, doing a perfect pirouette before stopping in front of him.
“Hi, I’m Jordan, like to skate?” she said.
Billy looked everywhere but at her face. He was fear stricken. He was sure she just talked to him, but he did not know what he should do about that either.
“Hellooo… I said, do you like to skate?” Jordan pressed.
Billy was left with no choice but to face his fear and talk to her. “I… I don’t know… never done it before,” he stammered.
Jordan twirled again, watching her feet. “That’s okay. I can show you. I have
another pair of skates over there. I like to change so I always bring more than one pair with me. Those are pink though, so you’ll just have to make do,” she said.
Billy kept looking away. Jordan turned and began to skate away. When she noticed Billy was not following her, she stopped with her hands on her hips.
“Well come on, pink ain’t nothing but a color,” she said.
Billy would have rather taken his chances outside with the zombie horde than interact with this girl, but he thought she was so pretty. He thought maybe if he didn’t say anything, she wouldn’t think he was stupid right away. Hoping the risk might be worth the reward, Billy got up and followed after Jordan.
Sam rested his feet on the back bumper and reclined against the back window. He knew that Nicole was upset and that is why she said the things she did. It didn’t matter to him. He was alive and Nicole was the reason. He knew enough to know that he was not falling in love with her because of that, but he also knew he owed her his life. Regardless of what happened, he was not going to leave her. He vowed to himself to do whatever he could, to make sure she got to Colorado. Comforted by this firm resolution, Sam drifted off to sleep.
In the front seat of the GTO, Nicole fumed. She watched Walt talking to Paul. She looked over and saw Billy, looking like he wanted to crawl under a rock as he stood all too unsteadily on his feet in pink roller skates, receiving instructions from Jordan. She glanced back and saw Sam resting on the trunk. She shook her head and stared off into the distance. She wondered what was going on in Colorado. She needed to get there, that was her only goal, not gathering around her a bunch of misfits who looked like they could not take care of themselves and were only slowing her down. If she had been by herself she could’ve jumped in the GTO and sped away, could’ve left the horde in her dust. She had had to wait for Walt to get moving and that wait had cost her precious seconds. An opposing thought entered her mind. If Walt had not called to her on the radio, she might be trapped in the All-Mart instead of here. Then again, maybe not. Maybe if she had been alone, with nobody standing outside playing the human slim-jim on top the bus, the horde would have moved on by. The debate tired her and she rubbed her face. Her head fell back against the head rest. Inactivity was her enemy. What did her dad always say?
Nicole's Odyssey (Human Extinction Level Loss Book 1) Page 11