by Nick Cole
At the entrance to the store, the mechanical doors slid open and they could smell the heavy yeasty-stale scent of the place. Music played but there was no one to greet them.
Holiday turned and found the control for the metal security shutters. A moment later he had them activated as the gate descended down over the front doors, blocking out the sun.
They turned. Above them, brightly lit rows of empty shelving stretched off into the unseen distance. Everything had been taken. Looted.
The first of their pursuers smacked into the steel roll down door a few minutes later. The metal groaned pitifully. Then one of them smacked into it again, as though it was slapping the door with its bare bloody hands. Soon the smacks were beyond counting and the din echoed throughout the humongous and empty store.
They backed away from the reverberating door.
“Thirsty?” asked Holiday.
Ash nodded, her eyes still on the door.
“Should be something left to drink somewhere.”
They passed a water fountain and each drank deeply from the cool trickle that came out of the spout. They crossed empty aisles under fluorescent lights, occasionally passing some forgotten or unneeded merchandise carelessly dumped on the floor. In the food section most everything was gone. They found a case of mango juice and opened it. Each of them took a bottle and drank. It was warm and sugary. The pounding at the front door continued.
Holiday lit a smoke.
“You smoke?”
Ash shook her head.
“Good. It’s a bad habit.”
She nodded.
“Where are you from?” asked Holiday.
Looking around she said, “A long way from here, that’s totally for sure.”
“Zombies,” mumbled Holiday to himself. “Hard to believe.”
“Among other things,” whispered Ash and Holiday wasn’t sure exactly what she’d meant. He was about to ask when the lights went out.
There was a sudden popping and buzzing as the store’s public address system crackled to life.
“I see you,” said the tinny voice over the store intercom a moment later. “I see you real good.”
The lights went on.
Then off again.
“You in my kingdom now, children.”
Holiday flicked his lighter to life. Ash was crouched behind an empty shelving unit, eyes wide and searching. He hadn’t even heard her move.
“I got everything you need back here in the warehouse,” said the voice. The voice was cruel and taunting, made even more so by the mechanical nature of the PA system. “I gots liquor and weed and food even. I’ma live back here in style ‘till things sort themselves out.”
Holiday stood and grabbed her arm. Using his lighter, they made their way along the darkened aisle looking for one of the main walls of the store.
“Only one thing I don’t gots me…” said the voice with a chuckle as the PA system popped and squealed. “And thas a real live guurl. A real pretty woman like the one ya gots there, boyfriend.”
The lights came on again.
“I see you.”
The lights went off.
“I see you real good.”
Holiday stopped, kneeling down.
“He’s probably bluffing,” Holiday whispered breathily in the dark.
Ash thought about this for a moment.
“Or he might have some NVG’s.”
Holiday looked at Ash, puzzled.
“Y’know, Night Vision Goggles,” she said.
“Yeah,” continued the scratchy whine of the voice over the intercom. “I needs me a real fine woman ‘bout now. So ‘whatcha say, boyfriend? You trade me that pretty little filly and I’ll let you walk right on outta here.”
Silence.
Lights on.
“Whatchu say!” demanded the voice over the intercom.
The lights went off. Over the loudspeakers, the opening riff of Smoke on the Water began to play. The lights began to go on and off rapidly. Holiday and Ash banged into shelving that suddenly disappeared and reappeared in the blinking lights as they continued to cautiously make their way across the store.
The song ended.
Tired laughter flowed out from the intercom. The lights were on now. Holiday and Ash were next to a long wall that seemed to run toward the back of the store. Ahead they could see a small sign on the wall that pointed toward an emergency exit.
“Ah!” shouted the voice over the intercom. “Dontchu go that way. You won’t like what you find outside that door, boyfriend. Won’t like that at all.”
The lights went out again as they continued to feel their way along the wall. When Holiday’s hand fell into open space, he knew they’d found the hallway that would lead to an exit. They turned the corner and a short distance ahead they could see the brightly lit outline of a door and the Emergency Exit sign glowing in soft red.
Holiday slammed through the door and out into the brightly lit sun-flooded dry concrete alleyway between the massive buildings.
People were everywhere.
Not people, zombies.
Missing fingers. Bloody gouges. Open wounds. Pale skin. Wild hair. Eyes like vacant spaces in the universe.
They turned as one, then stumbled toward Ash and Holiday, arms reaching, teeth bared like rabid dogs.
“Back! Back! Back!” screamed Holiday as Ash lunged for the closing fire door, catching the handle just before the door would have closed and locked them out, on the wrong side, for the short remaining moments that would have been the rest of their lives. She flung it open with a heave and a grunt and they rushed inside, pulling it tightly closed behind them as the zombies began to assault it.
Laughter echoed across the store, coming from the PA system. It bounced off shelving and the walls. It rang out above the pounding of the zombies at the fire door and the distant roll-down security door.
“I told ya so, boyfriend. I told ya not to go out there,” crowed the voice. “I told you… I told you you wouldn’t like it out there. Not one bit!”
“We’re trapped,” whispered Ash, and it was the first time since meeting her that Holiday could tell she was truly worried. She’d seemed calm and businesslike for most of their short flight together. Now he could tell she was afraid they might not survive.
The store descended into darkness once more.
“Whatchu gonna…”
The voice was drowned out as a distant thunder tore through everything, roaring from far away, seeming to cross over their heads above the store’s roof and then gone, streaking off and away.
“What was that?” asked Holiday.
It returned a moment later, but it seemed as if it came from another direction this time. Another sound erupted from the thunder. The sound rose up and away from the source, as if it were being pushed or ground out from the deafening roar. It was like a hollow electronic whirring Hummmmmm and it was deafening and menacing all at once. It stopped and the thunder seemed to disappear off into the distance.
Then the thunder returned. The store shook. Lighting fixtures fell and crashed to the floor. The whooshing-hum erupted again, and for a moment it sounded as though a sudden hailstorm was striking the roof and walls. Then it was gone again.
Silence.
The voice on the PA system said nothing.
The lights were still off.
The thunder whoosh groaned again, immediate and loud as the store shook once more, shelves falling over, the ceiling creaking as if it was going to fall down through the darkness right on top of them and that great whoosh-hum erupting, burping its way into existence.
Holiday scanned the darkness and saw small ball-sized shafts of light appearing along the wall and ceiling over at the far end of the store, back near the roll down gate. And then the thunder was distant and receding. They could he
ar it racing far off and away. Then a big Hummmmm now as the thunder rushed toward them again. A big deep HUMMMMM winding up. Winding up as though this time it would fall straight down upon them. They dropped to the floor, smelling the dusty linoleum and sickly sweet floral disinfectant that had been used by all the night cleaning crews of the past. Just when it felt like that HUMMMMMM would bring the ceiling down on top of them, it suddenly changed pitch and raced away…
…a moment later there was an explosion at the front of the store. Shelves collapsed or fell over on each other. They felt a shockwave of force and heat race through the darkness of the store. A metallic bang reverberated, and a moment later the heavy scent of burning fuel raced up and into their noses.
“C’mon,” grunted Holiday and they were up and moving. Shafts of daylight sprinkled the darkness and they could see that a large hole had been torn in the roll down metal gate back at the front of the store. As they neared the shuttered entrance they could see out into the massive parking lot. Bodies lay shredded into thousands of different parts, ripped to pieces. Flaming corpses wandered directionless, first one way then another, only to fall over as the flames consumed them. Small fires remained on most of the body parts, devouring them also. The mass of zombies had been turned into a field of flaming body parts and smoldering torsos.
“Now’s our chance!” said Holiday. “We can get back to my place.”
“It’s not safe out there,” protested Ash.
“It’s not safe in here. Trust me on this.”
After a moment’s consideration, Ash nodded.
They stepped through the wicked rip in the roll down metal security door. The area near the front entrance was churned up by thousands of tiny craters in the pavement. Various parts of corpses still burned, still moved, still gnashed their teeth as they stepped with care through a parking lot full of charred and burning corpse remains.
Once they’d crossed through most of the body parts, they turned back at the parking lot’s edge, watching as the last straggling corpse fell to its knees, still burning, then onto its face, surrendering to the flames that consumed it.
That was once someone, thought Holiday.
Chapter Eleven
The sun burned itself out in the west as the afternoon turned into an orange backdrop for the gauzy smoke that seemed to hang in the air. The heat clung to the last of the day as Holiday and Ash made their way back to the Vineyards. The only zombies they saw were distant and locked in some meaninglessly repetitive task like bashing into a door, or staring off into space at nothing.
“Maybe we drew the ones in the surrounding area to the front door of the Walmart. Then whatever that thing was that killed them, sort of cleaned out the immediate area,” said Holiday as they made their way down a slope of ice plants.
“They were already killed,” replied Ash, slipping on the landscaping still wet from the automated sprinklers. “They’re dead. They just still move around.”
Holiday turned to Ash, started to say something, and then whatever it was felt too crazy to say out loud. When Ash saw the look on his face she nodded and mumbled, “Yeah, I know. Crazy.”
“What I’m saying is, we were what drew them there,” continued Holiday as they navigated downslope toward the wide main road they needed to cross to get back to the Vineyards.
Later, at the top of the road between the two housing developments they’d fled through when the first mob had begun to chase them, they could see the tiled roofs of the townhome blocks back at the edge of the Vineyards.
“My place is inside there.” Holiday paused. “I met another survivor this morning, last night, yesterday… it’s all kind of a blur now, but we managed to keep the fire back. Did you see the fire last night?”
Ash nodded.
“If you don’t mind my asking, where were you going when you saw me?”
“I wasn’t going anywhere,” she said. “I was just running for my life.
She stopped.
Holiday turned toward her in the middle of the road.
She was smaller than him, but everything about her stance said she was used to not being looked down upon. That she was ready to take on the world no matter how big it might be.
“I don’t want…” she began.
“It’s cool,” interrupted Holiday, sensing her unease. “It’s okay. It’s really none of my business. I just thought… well who cares.”
“It’s a long story,” she said simply.
They walked on in silence, entering the Vineyards, following a short, palm-lined street that led into the community, seeing the shimmering gated community pool ahead of them. Each of them could feel an awkwardness surface between them. Like they’d gotten too close too fast or needed each other too much before really knowing anything about the other.
Something.
“Listen, I don’t know you all that well,” began Ash. “But, before I say anything else… I want to tell you thank you. I was running out of options back there. I couldn’t seem to make the right choice and I needed someone to take over and get me to safety.”
Holiday thought about that as they approached the orange metallic SUV, still sitting there with its doors open.
“I don’t know that I did that for you. I was just trying to help.”
“Well, you did,” said Ash and nodded her head. “Thank you for that.”
Holiday smiled at her.
“We did it together,” he said and couldn’t understand why he’d suddenly thought of saying that.
“Well okay. If you say so.” Then Ash laughed and the awkwardness that had tried to nest between them was driven off
“Yes. We did,” she said almost to herself. As if to hear something she didn’t totally believe just yet, but needed anyway.
Frank was waiting outside Holiday’s house when they arrived.
“Thought you’d run off, buddy,” he said to Holiday.
“I took a walk and found a friend. This is Ash.”
Ash and Frank shook hands as Frank said, “Good to meet you.”
“I also found something else, but first we need some beers.” Holiday went inside his house and came back with three cold beers. They opened the cans. Ash drank hers after studying the can for a moment. She’d watched the men open theirs and then did the same, drinking as they did. The bubbles almost seemed to take her by surprise. She giggled as the foam ran over the can’s lip and down onto her hands. It wasn’t a silly giggle. It was just delight at something unexpected. Soft feminine delight in some new thing. Like she’d never had a beer before.
“Found this,” said Holiday pulling out the gun from his pocket. “Got it out of the wreck.”
Frank took it and looked at it.
“That’s a nice little Beretta,” said Frank inspecting the gun. He worked the slide and checked for a bullet. He ejected the magazine. “Empty, though. 25 caliber. It’s a girl gun,” then he turned to Ash. “No offense. That’s just what we called it back in Chicago. Friend of mine got shot with one in the head. The bullet didn’t even penetrate the skull, and the doc just popped out the bullet from under the skin with some tweezers. Probably not much good against these…” Frank paused and each of them knew who he’d meant to name. The crazy people. The Rat-Pilers. The zombies. “Even if it had any bullets,” he finished.
The three of them stood there as twilight consumed the east above them.
“She says the crazy people we saw yesterday morning… she says they’re zombies.”
Frank finished his beer. “Yeah,” he said, looking into the can and then off to the dry brown hills and the scorched earth of the fires from the night before. “As crazy as that sounds… it sounds about right.”
“We got trapped over in the Walmart. There’s some weirdo in there, probably in the manager’s office. He’s pretty messed up. We barely got out of there with our lives,” said Holiday.
“Did you see that A-10?” asked Frank.
Ash slapped her hand to her head. “Yes. Stupid! I should’ve known that. It’s been years since I’ve heard one…” She was going to say more and then stopped herself. She was definitely going to say something more. Or at least that was the impression both Frank and Holiday had. But she stopped herself and covered her mouth with the beer and drank as though she’d never intended to say anything more.
“We didn’t know what it was but it must’ve been what… killed all the people… I mean zombies… the zombies at the front of the the…” Holiday trailed off and finished his beer in an extended long gulp. He let out an, “ahh” when he’d finished. Then, “Thirsty.”
“That’s a military close air-support aircraft,” said Frank. “That means the government is still in operation. It means they’re trying to do something. So, that’s good news. Hey, why don’t we have some steaks and celebrate! We might just get out of this thing yet.”
“What about the zombies?” asked Ash. “How do we know there aren’t more of them around?”
“All of them seemed to have cleared out of here, at least as far as the immediate vicinity is concerned,” replied Frank. “I haven’t seen any more around. The fires last night and the A-10 must have killed a lot of them. I’m sure there are some still around, but if we keep a low profile, they probably won’t come looking for us. We can move the BBQ out into the garage courtyard. The surrounding townhomes will give us cover. I’ve got three nice T-Bone steaks we’ve got to eat before the power goes out. We’ll have those tonight and figure out our next move. Whaddaya say, kids?”
They agreed, and an hour later Frank had the grill lit in his parking court. The courtyards were almost completely enclosed by townhomes and thus cut off from view by the surrounding hills and burnt out neighborhoods. Potatoes wrapped in tinfoil baked down in the orange and ashy coals. The steaks were thick and Frank waited for them to come to room temperature before putting them on the grill.
“Better that way,” he told Holiday while Ash showered upstairs in his guest bathroom. Frank had offered Ash his guest room to stay in and Ash had quickly accepted.