by Josh Vasquez
“Yeah, when our government started cracking down on guns, ammo sales went through the roof, and the demand quickly swallowed up the supply. We might not find any guns there either. But maybe we’ll find something else. Like tools or something. Let’s try it.”
Jeremy nodded and put the jeep back in drive. The thought of finding a replacement machete was on Jeremy’s mind. It would be nice to have one that wasn’t covered in rust too. There would also be food there. That yogurt did absolutely nothing for him. All this running around and bashing people’s heads in was beginning to wear on Jeremy physically. His body ached.
Turning into the parking lot, they both realized they made a huge error. The first thing that caught their eyes was that the building was on fire. Not a good sign. The view of the building from the road had been blocked by the trees, and in the dark of night, they did not see the smoke billowing from the rooftop.
The second thing that caught their attention was the large crowd of dead standing in the parking lot. There must have been twenty-something of them standing there. All of them had their arms up blocking the light from the fire, but yet they all lacked the common sense to walk away from it. Whatever little common sense this group of people once had, was now long gone out the window.
“I think we should probably go somewhere else,” Ben said.
“I think you are on to something,” Jeremy replied.
He began to back the Jeep back down the road they drove in on. Ben motioned towards the lights, and Jeremy quickly shut them off in order to not attract any unwanted attention. Once back out on the road, he turned them back on and they slowly made their way down Montgomery Crossroads.
The street lights were still on in this area as well, so that must have meant there was still power here too. Jeremy assumed it would be a matter of time before the power did shut off, but he was thankful for it while they had it. More than likely, the workers at the power plants and Power Company would care more about their own families and not so much about keeping the electricity pumping.
“There. That hardware store,” Ben said, pointing off to the left.
There was a small, locally owned hardware store. It looked vacant and there were no visible zombies around. Of course, that did not mean that there wasn’t any lurking around in the shadows. Jeremy pulled the Jeep into the store’s parking lot and shut the engine off. It was quiet.
“Do you think it’s safe?” Jeremy asked.
“I don’t know,” Ben answered. “Looks empty. And I don’t see any dead. I doubt that a store like that has firearms, but maybe we can find some tools to use as weapons.”
He paused and then smiled.
“Anything would be better than what we have now.”
Jeremy nodded. He too didn’t like the idea of having no protection, especially with those crazy freaks running around now. He reached for the door handle and slowly opened it. There was a faint click. No zombies. Ben reached for his handle and just as slowly opened it.
They both walked up to the store, watching over their shoulders. The windows had been boarded up, but you could see light escaping through the cracks. Power was still on in the store. Whether or not anybody was inside was another thing.
Jeremy reached out for the door and looked to Ben. Ben nodded and Jeremy proceeded to pull open the door. It was unlocked. They both stepped in, pulling the door shut behind them. Ben quickly locked it and then he gave Jeremy a nod.
“Hello?” Jeremy called out, his voice loud enough for someone to hear him, but still quiet enough to not draw any unwanted attention from outside.
“Is anybody in here?”
Please don’t answer.
Only silence. The men looked at each other and seemed to “telepathically” say, “It’s clear.” Sighs of relief. Jeremy really was not ready for another fight. He was tired. And hungry. Maybe there would be some beef jerky somewhere. Anything sounded appetizing right now.
As he wandered off down one of the aisles, the first item that looked like a good weapon was a crowbar. Black iron and heavy, he was sure the claw end could do some damage if needed. He gave it a practice swing and grinned.
It’ll do.
Meanwhile, Ben was picking up a simple claw hammer. His tool’s claw was similar to Jeremy’s, yet not as heavy and much more maneuverable. If anything popped out, he would be ready to bring that claw down on its skull. When he reached the end of the aisle, Jeremy was standing there with crowbar in hand.
“Let’s make sure the building is clear first and then we’ll go shopping,” Ben said.
They walked around the perimeter of the aisles, carefully looking down each one. When they came full circle, another sigh of relief was given. The store was empty.
“Alright, let’s go shopping!” an excited Ben said.
“Heck yeah. I saw a new machete to replace my old one. It didn’t even have any rust on it!” Jeremy answered.
The grown men took off like kids in the candy store. After a few minutes, they both returned back up front, goodies in tow. Jeremy found a garden buggy and filled it with his loot. Ben walked back up with hands full.
“Oh, buggy was a good choice,” Ben said upon seeing Jeremy’s little red wagon.
“Yup. I like to be resourceful,” Jeremy said with a grin.
“Well, what do you think about this then?” Ben asked, holding up a hatchet.
“Pretty good, but I’d rather stick with the machete though,” Jeremy replied.
He held up a twenty-two inch, carbon steel blade machete. The blade was jet black and had a rubber grip. Jeremy gave it a twirl and set it down on the counter next to the crowbar he found earlier.
“Not only did I find the hatchet, but I found his big brother too,” said Ben.
He held up your standard axe. Wooden handle and a red axe head. It looked like the kind a fireman would carry.
“Do they have ones without wood handles?” Jeremy asked. “The wood ones might break easier. You know?”
Ben nodded, snapped his fingers, and walked down one of the aisles. He returned with a different axe. This one had a yellow handle made out of tough fiberglass. It also had a black axe head, which looked similar to Jeremy’s machete blade. Probably made from the same material.
After raiding a knife cabinet and relieving it of some hunting knives, Jeremy noticed that Ben had a concerned look on his face. He still seemed uneasy, despite that they now had some decent weapons.
“What’s up man?” Jeremy asked.
Ben turned and looked towards the back of the store.
“Did you notice the door in the back,” he asked.
Jeremy did see the door earlier, but didn’t get too close to it, because Ben had already checked that part of the store. He had not thought about it until Ben brought it up.
“Yeah. What about it?”
“Well,” Ben started. “It’s probably just a storage area. We haven’t checked it out yet. But I could kind smell something bad coming from behind the door.”
“We’ve got weapons now. You wanna check it out?” Jeremy said.
“We probably should. One of those things could be back there.”
Jeremy nodded in agreement and grabbed his machete off the counter. Ben picked up his axe and both began to walk towards the door. Jeremy began to feel the adrenaline again. It was not the unsettling feeling of “the rage”, but it was better than nothing.
The door was closed, but a light could be seen underneath the door crack. Jeremy looked at Ben before reaching out for the door knob. Ben raised his axe and gave Jeremy the nod to open it.
“One, two, three,” Jeremy mouthed, before swinging the door open.
The room was empty except for all the supplies. There was food, soda, more tools, and gardening chemicals. They walked in to see that it was a small treasure trove of snack food and carbonated beverages.
“Is this heaven?” Jeremy asked, starting to walk towards a box of candy bars.
Ben grabbed him by the shoulder, holding hi
m back and pointed to the back corner of the room. Slightly hidden behind the mountain of junk food, Jeremy saw two bodies slumped up against the wall. A man and a woman, both wearing matching aprons with the store name on it. Both were holding a pistol and both had a bullet hole directly in the middle of their foreheads.
Chapter Nine
Suicide wasn’t something that had even crossed Jeremy’s mind at this point. Things were bad, really bad, but kill yourself bad? It seemed way too early to be jumping ship. It had not even been a full twenty-four hours yet. Could the events of the past few hours really be enough reason to off yourself? What made these people think suicide was the answer? Did they see something so terrible that a bullet to the brain seemed like the easy way out?
Besides, Jeremy thought to himself. That would hurt so bad.
“We should probably grab some food and leave this place, man,” Ben said, breaking the silence.
“Why leave? Let’s just drag the bodies outside and board this place up,” Jeremy said.
“What if the bodies attract those things? Besides, others might get the same idea we had and try to rake this place clean. I’d rather not get into any more human on human confrontations today,” Ben answered.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Touché,” Jeremy replied. “So, where we going from here?”
Ben stood there for a moment trying to think of an answer.
“You have any family here? My parents live just out past Rincon. We could go there,” he finally said.
“My mom is dead and my dad is off somewhere in the middle of the ocean on his yacht. Sounds like we are going to your place,” Jeremy said.
Ben nodded and began to pick up boxes of food.
“Let’s grab what we can and get it into the jeep. I don’t think the owners are going to care,” he said, motioning towards the bodies.
They both begin to grab food and drinks off the shelves, and carry what they could back to the front door. After accumulating a small pile of snack foods, sodas, and a couple of cases of bottled water, Jeremy walked back to the supply room one last time. He came back carrying the two pistols.
“I don’t know how you feel about it, but we should probably take these too. Our tools can only do so much. If we run into any more of those running freaks, it might help to have some kind of firepower, you know?” Jeremy said.
Ben hesitated to take the gun, but nodded as he did. Jeremy was right. Those runners would be too much for hatchets and machetes. He placed it on top of the pile.
“You ready?” He asked Jeremy.
Jeremy nodded and Ben reached to open the door, expecting the worst to be outside. It was clear. Dark, but clear of any dead. It took a few trips to get everything into the back of the Jeep, but as soon as they were done, they pulled away from the store. The guns sat in the center console, ready.
As they drove through Savannah’s mid-town, they passed a lot of empty, abandoned cars. Jeremy drove, weaving in and out of the gridlocked mess. Luckily for them, his father really had to have the four wheel drive, despite the fact that he lived in a gated community. Jeremy must have jumped the curb twenty times by now.
“Hey look,” Ben said, pointing to their right.
They were passing by the mall. And it was a mess. There were actually people still looting. It looked like Black Friday, maybe worse. The world was going to hell in a hand basket and people were concerned with designer jeans and shoes. The parking lot was not only crowded with living people, but plenty of dead ones too. No doubt all the commotion was attracting them to the mall.
“What kind of idiot would go to the mall at a time like this?” Ben asked.
Jeremy just shook his head and shrugged. Maybe it would have been a good place to hide if it was locked down, but right now, the mall was last on his list of places to go. He watched as one rather large woman fought off a group of zombies with her new Coach purses. She was unsuccessful.
He drove on, trying to put as much distance between them and that madhouse as possible. They rode in silence for a few minutes, both men fighting of exhaustion. What would normally take them a few minutes of driving was taking much longer, due to debris and derelict vehicles. More curb hopping was needed.
“You know what kind of bothers me?” Ben said, breaking the silence.
“What’s that?”
“Where exactly is the military in all this? Or any other government official for that matter?”
Ben paused as Jeremy let it sink in. He was right. Jeremy had not thought about it until then, but since he left the store earlier, he had not seen one soldier or police officer. And that just did not make sense.
“I mean, Savannah is surrounded by a military presence,” Ben continued. “We have Hunter Army Air Base right here. Fort Stewart just south of us. Parris Island and the Beaufort Air Station right over in South Carolina. We are literally surrounded by the military. But I haven’t seen a single soldier, heard a single helicopter or seen any sign that our government is trying to fix this mess in any way. They should be setting up some kind of shelter or refugee camp right?”
“Maybe they are,” Jeremy said.
He said, but he knew it was not true. There had been no signs of it. The few minutes that he watched the news earlier, none of it was instructing what to do. It was all theories of what was happening. It wasn’t reports of what was happening, just media personalities giving their opinions. It wasn’t news, it was hearsay.
“Jeremy?” Ben asked, breaking Jeremy’s deep thought.
“Sorry,” he said. “Just thinking. I know what you mean. I haven’t seen anyone either. Except for the one ambulance I saw earlier.”
They drove in silence again. Jeremy tried to not think about it too much. The idea of our government backing out on the people was unsettling, not surprising, but unsettling nonetheless. It was weird, but he didn’t want to start making conspiracy theories quite yet.
Another car passed them, speeding off in the other direction. The first vehicle to pass them. Jeremy saw people walking as they drove through the city, but cars were scarce. The fact that there were still others alive was a good sign. The city had not been completely overrun by the dead. Yet.
“Which way do you think we should go?” Jeremy asked Ben when they reached DeRenne Avenue.
If they were headed out west towards Rincon, there were really two routes. One would be to get on Veteran’s Parkway to I-16. The other would be to cut through downtown and hit up Highway 80 to Highway 21. Either way, it was gonna take a while to get where they were going.
“I don’t know, man,” Ben said, shaking his head. “It might be a good idea to stay off the parkway. We have no idea how clogged it is. It might be easier to weave in and out through the city streets.”
Jeremy nodded and proceeded to press on deeper into the city.
***
“So, what do you do for a living, Ben?”
Ben straightened himself up. Sleep was creeping up on him and was winning the fight. He ran his hand over his face a few times and yawned.
“I, uh, I’m a social media manager,” he said.
“Oh, ok,” Jeremy replied. “What does that mean?”
Ben laughed.
“Yeah, I get that a lot. Basically, I run all the social media for someone. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, it’s all me. They send me what they want to upload and I make it look good.”
“Sounds like something a celebrity would have. Who do you work for around here? There’s no celebrities around her- Wait. Are you telling me you work for Her?” Jeremy said.
“Ha-ha, yes. Yes, I work for Her. The Lady isn’t as technologically savvy as she puts off. It’s all me. But hey, it’s a pretty easy job. I just have to remember to interject y’all in there every now and again.”
This caused Jeremy to laugh. She did say that. A lot. More than any other southerner should. But hey, Jeremy had no problem with her like some locals did. He would hear some of the older ladies come through his checkout line and complain
about her being a sellout and making Savannah look a cartoon. Jeremy always smiled and nodded politely. Sounded like jealous old women to him.
“What about you, Jeremy, what do you do?”
“I was a cashier at Publix,” he said, remembering Ashley.
“Was… Yeah, I haven’t thought about it like that,” Ben said. “I guess all I have now is a degree in nothing. Should have learned a trade like my mother suggested.”
Jeremy came to a stop when the road ended. He took a left when he got to Victory Drive and it eventually dead ended into Ogeechee Road. He had the choice of going either left or right. To the right, was the Westside of downtown Savannah. They could cut through there and connect with Highway 21, taking them straight to Rincon. Or they could go left and go really out of their way, but stay away from downtown. Jeremy was fixing to turn right, when Ben spoke.
“Hey man, it’s really late. And dark. It might be a good idea to wait and tackle the rest of this trip in the morning. It’s taken us a while to get where we are now, it might be dawn by the time we make it to my parent’s.”
“So, what do you want to do?” Jeremy asked.
“I’m exhausted and I’m not even the one driving,” he said looking around. “I say we see if one of these warehouses are open and we barricade ourselves in for the night. Just wait it out until morning.”
Jeremy looked around. There were a lot of warehouses and industrial looking buildings in the area. Off to the left, he noticed a side road that snaked back in between some of the buildings. He turned down the road. It might be a good idea to find something off the main road a bit.
They passed a few buildings, most of them had gates and fences. All closed.
“Hey look,” Ben whispered, pointing to the right.
There was a small, one-story office building with an open yard between it and a warehouse. A chain-link fence with barbed wire closed in the yard between the buildings; a single gate was the only entrance. And it was open. The gate was slightly pushed open, a chain and lock hanging from it. Somebody must have forgotten to lock it up.