by D C P Fox
Unless he cut the tie before the smoke overwhelmed him. But he had to admit to himself that wasn’t likely.
And there was no one to rescue him. The survivalists didn’t give a shit.
Hanging onto his scissors, he took a deep breath and inched his way into the heavier smoke.
Alexander, Marty, and the other five soldiers had all piled into the one SUV, the other one stuck on that muddy slope. Evacuation of that vehicle had used up precious time. With three rows, they fit, but Marty and one soldier in the back seat could not fire weapons if they didn’t break the glass on the rear windows. All the other windows were open in the cool September early afternoon air.
Jocelyn’s apparition explained the entire situation to everyone en route, including how she was a partial zombie with healing powers, and how important it was for her to survive. She needed to retrieve her sword, her best defense against the zombie scourge.
As Beaver Park Market came into view, Jocelyn had devastating news.
“The hell we are!”
Marty and the soldier continued to bash their rear windows with the butt of their shotguns, trying to shatter them, their M4 assault rifles lying in their laps.
Jocelyn’s apparition hovered above the SUV’s console.
Silence. Jocelyn vanished.
“God dammit!” Alexander screamed while hitting his fist on the car door. Tears began to well up in his eyes. She can’t be dead! There must be hope yet! But prospects were bleak.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Day Eleven
Alexander’s heart raced as the burning pyre came into view. Flames shot up higher than the market, the smoke hundreds of feet up in the air. The building was indeed burning.
Jocelyn was somewhere in that blazing inferno!
Alexander refused to believe they could not rescue her.
The SUV turned left at the end of the strip mall, and Francis gunned it. Alexander and his open window faced the Beaver Park Market side, his military-issued assault rifle out, ready to shoot. There were two deafening shotgun blasts from within the SUV, and the rear windows shattered. Marty and the other soldier, Corporal Terry Dorman, must have blown their windows open.
Francis slammed the brakes and Alexander lurched forward. Resolved to take no prisoners, he shot wildly at a large man with a large beard. The large man, stunned for a moment, regained his senses and pulled out his assault rifle, dropping to the ground.
Brooke Reynolds spotted the guns hanging out the open windows of the SUV that sped toward her and Oliver. She understood the common joke: I don’t need to outrun the bear, I just need to outrun you. Leaving Oliver to whoever they were in the SUV, Brooke surreptitiously ran back into the burning supermarket. Oliver would slow them down while she executed a tactical retreat.
While ducking behind a display case in view of the action, she saw Oliver lying on the ground, jerking as if shot. She realized her best hope would be to brave the heat and smoke and escape out the back before the entire building was engulfed. She got up and started to walk back through the store, down an aisle toward the employee break room where they had Clarence restrained.
Then she remembered the sword—the sword that Oliver believed had magic powers.
Brooke picked up her pace, only to have her right leg slip on something slick, and though she fought to maintain her balance, she slid forwards, falling to the floor and hitting the back of her head, disorienting her.
Fred and Cameron had been on the north side of the pyre, at the end of the mall, when the SUV came screeching to a halt on the south side. They ran together to the west into the parking lot, away from the burning market, through a barrage of bullets that rained down upon them. They ducked behind the hood of a sedan, their backs to the side of the vehicle, their hands clutching their assault rifles, the engine giving them good protection.
The bullets stopped and Fred turned around and peeked his head up. As though on cue, the hail of bullets resumed. He saw just enough that he knew the driver and the rear seat passenger, as well as the passenger behind that person, on the west side of the SUV were the ones firing at them. Ducking down, the bullets ceased again.
Defending the store was not an option. To escape deeper into the parking lot seemed like a good course of action, assuming the shooters would miss them. They could then flee back to their ranch.
Cameron must have come to the same conclusion and scurried up the aisle—packed with cars—crouching low away from the store toward the nearest car. Another barrage of bullets. He made it behind the next car’s engine block. Fred scampered toward Cameron, bullets flying around him.
Alexander couldn’t tell for sure, but he thought he’d hit the large man in the ass, and the man threw his weapon aside and put his hands behind his head. He had jerked as if he had been shot in the side as well. One soldier in the second row, Private Leon Probert, opened the door and leaped out, aiming his assault rifle at the large man. A shotgun hung diagonal across the soldier’s back. Every soldier on the team carried an assault rifle and shotgun, but Alexander insisted on a handgun instead of an assault rifle. He just felt more familiar with a handgun.
Alexander exited the SUV on the right side and looked around, handgun at the ready, but there were no more enemies in sight. He let the sheriff and the other soldier out of the vehicle, and told the sheriff, “I’m going after Clarence. He’s on aisle five, in case you didn’t hear Jocelyn.” He took a deep breath and ran headlong into the billowing smoke of the burning market, through the shattered glass of the vestibule.
The haze was so thick that only the register aisles were visible, despite the light of the dancing flames all around him. Alexander ran in the direction of aisle five, calling Clarence’s name, counting on his memory of the layout.
The heat was almost unbearable. Alexander’s eyes watered and stung from salt. After fumbling his way through, he heard a weak, “Over here.”
Alexander moved in that direction, arms flailing and outstretched, until his shin collided with a hard object. Clarence was right in front of him, tied to a chair turned on its side, the fire extinguisher lying nearby. Alexander got down on the floor and breathed in some healthier air. He holstered his handgun and took the scissors out of Clarence’s hand. Shaking, holding his breath, Alexander wriggled the bottom half of the scissors under the plastic bond cuffing Clarence’s hands and cut the restraint. He did the same for each ankle.
Alexander pulled him up, but Clarence clutched a knee and cried out in pain. “My knee is injured,” he said, grimacing. “Oh, my god, your forehead!”
“We were captured by neo-Nazis,” Alexander said as he grabbed the fire extinguisher. “It’s a long story. Put an arm around my shoulder and we’ll try to walk out.”
Marty faced the pyre to the north, the burning store to its right. The incessant popping of Captain Francis Davies’ and Corporal Thomas Wyndham’s assault rifles filled the air as he and Corporal Terry Dorman hunkered down behind the SUV’s engine block.
Corporal Harvey Johnson guarded one survivalist.
Marty and Corporal Dorman both peeked up and saw the two survivalists shooting at Francis and Thomas.
“Follow me,” Corporal Dorman yelled above the sound of the bullets. “We’ll sneak up on them. They’re busy engaging each other.”
“Jocelyn said there were four. I only count three. There’s still one at large.”
“We’ll just have to take our chances. You with me?”
Marty nodded. Alexander was taking care of Clarence. Neutralizing the survivalists was also a priority.
“All right, let’s go.”
The fog of confusion began to lift for Brooke, but not the fog of smoke, or the sharp pain in the back of her head and the dull ache in her
back. Flat on the floor, she looked up at the billows of smoke, a large hard object digging into her back, the nearby flames heating her flesh like a bad sunburn. Sweat soaked her clothes and dripped down from her forehead. She sat up and felt the painful spot on her head—it was slick. She looked at her hand, surprised to see it bloody, but then she looked around, still disoriented, and noticed blood all around her.
Now she remembered. She had slipped—in this blood, no doubt—while trying to escape out the back. On her back was her AR-15 that she had fallen onto. She cursed herself for ignoring her training of how to fall without striking one’s head.
She overheard someone close by—a man another aisle or two over—say, “I’ll get the fire extinguisher.” Now with her full presence of mind, she guessed they would use it to put out the fire near the witch and allow her to heal. God knows what powers the witch had, especially with that sword. She knew she had to retrieve that sword and bug out of there—either the sword was useful to her, or at least she would keep it out of the witch’s hands.
But it was also important to keep the witch burning.
Brooke took a deep breath and pushed herself up. Standing in thick blood, she readied her assault rifle. She walked along the register aisle, and through the fog of smoke she saw grampa limping, helped by a man carrying the extinguisher. Dizziness began to set in. She stopped and aimed her rifle at the man helping grampa.
She pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
Shit.
Unsure of why the gun misfired, she approached the slow-moving men quietly. Once she was close enough, from behind she slammed the butt of her assault rifle onto the head of the one carrying the extinguisher. The man fell forward, the extinguisher disappearing into the smoke, clanking to the ground at least several feet away.
Then she hit grampa on the head. He fell forward, too, and neither of them moved after striking the ground. She kicked each one, but they lay still. Brooke did not want to waste any more time on the fire extinguisher, so she walked, carefully this time, toward the employee area in the back of the store. She reached the swinging doors and pushed them open.
Corporal Dorman led Marty to the same aisle as the fleeing survivalists without incident. They ducked behind a car and scanned the lot. The two survivalists moved from car to car, shooting occasionally at Francis and the other soldiers. They were slowly getting away.
Marty followed Dorman as he ran, staying low, across the parking lot aisle. They crouched behind a car, and Marty felt the scorching heat of the pyre, the flames less than ten feet away. The shooting stopped. Now the survivalists were getting away with even greater speed.
Dorman got up and, staying low, crossed the aisle and moved along the line of cars in the survivalists’ direction. Marty followed right behind him. They and the survivalists continued to move toward the road, on opposite sides of the same aisle. If spotted, Marty and Dorman would have to duck behind a car or risk a bloody fire fight.
Fortunately, the fleeing survivalists were unaware of them and were about to emerge from the parking lot to the sidewalk when Dorman stopped behind a car, aimed his assault rifle, and fired at them repeatedly.
The lead runner cried out and buckled, and his friend ran right into him, and they both fell down together onto the cement.
The one on top grabbed at his assault rifle, and Dorman let loose another spray of bullets.
Marty traveled cautiously back toward the burning store, having left Dorman behind to finish verifying that the two survivalists were dead. At least they weren’t going anywhere.
Marty knew of one more female survivalist at large.
No one was on the north side of the pyre, and on the south side, behind undulating flames and billowing smoke, the one remaining male survivalist lay on the ground, guarded by three soldiers.
Something must have gone wrong, because by now Alexander should have emerged from the fire with Clarence.
Smoke poured out the broken windows on his side of the building. Fearing both Alexander and Clarence trapped, Marty raced over there, took a deep breath, and stepped over the foot-high threshold below the window on his right.
The force of the heat surprised him.
“Alexander! Clarence!” he called, trying not to breathe in the smoke. Flames everywhere, visibility a few feet, he headed toward where he remembered aisle five to be. Two bodies lying on the floor came into view: Alexander, and, he guessed, Clarence.
Their pulses were weak, and Clarence’s old age shocked Marty—what was an elderly man doing attacking survivalists?
The fire extinguisher was only a few feet away, so Marty had to make a split-second choice—which one to save first: Jocelyn, Alexander, or Clarence. He chose Jocelyn, despite the long odds. She was humanity’s best hope for a cure.
Marty picked up the extinguisher and headed back toward the window he had first entered. During the few precious seconds it took to get there, guilt set in from his decision. Alexander and Clarence didn’t deserve to die, entitled to life as much as Jocelyn. But she had priority in this cruel world they had been plunged into.
Marty carried the extinguisher out the window and climbed over the threshold. Out of the smoke, he took in a deep breath.
Smoke and flame obscured the identities of the bodies on the pyre, but Marty remembered Jocelyn’s body laid near the edge in the front, so he focused the extinguisher there and blew its white vapor at the fire in that general area.
He paused after twenty seconds, and now a small area in front of him was absent of fire. There was Jocelyn, lying face down, tiny bits of flame dancing on her charred body, but for the most part fire-free.
Jocelyn’s hands stretched out past her head. Marty put down the fire extinguisher and grabbed them, and even though his hands burned, he gritted his teeth and, pulling with all the strength he had, dragged her out of the pyre and onto the asphalt. Her stink vile, Marty suppressed a retch which came out more like a gag. Blisters formed on his hand on which searing pain developed as his adrenaline surge subsided.
Captain Francis Davies appeared and grabbed the fire extinguisher and put out the rest of the fires that engulfed Jocelyn.
Marty collapsed to the ground and took a deep breath. The fire had blackened Jocelyn without skin over almost all of her body. Marty stared at Jocelyn for some sign, a movement perhaps, any sign that she might still be alive.
Some pink began to return to the back of her hand.
Marty thought about what to do next. He could go after the sword—the sword Jocelyn had said was the reason she confronted the survivalists. But he couldn’t bring himself to favor an inanimate object over people. Besides, if it was so magical, it should protect itself? Right?
“Captain, there are two men unconscious in there—can you help me get them?”
Francis smiled. “That’s what I’m here for, sheriff.”
Together, they plunged through the window of the market, into the thick smoke rapidly rising up the outside wall. Marty led the way to where the two bodies lay. Marty checked Alexander for a pulse, and Francis checked Clarence.
“No pulse,” Marty said. “Yours?”
Francis shook his head. Marty felt sick to his stomach. Francis yelled, “Which one do we save first?”
Now Marty had another choice to make. He hated making it, and he knew it would haunt him regardless of how it turned out.
“Alexander,” Marty replied. Alexander was young, and, as an expert in viruses and bacteria, qualified to help find a cure.
So, Marty and Francis brought Alexander’s body over the threshold of the windows and placed him on the ground. By now Terry Dorman had shown up and Francis instructed him to start chest compressions while he headed back into the burning store.
As Marty stepped over the threshold, pain erupted on his back as a large, hot object struck him and the weapons on his back. He tripped and fell face-first onto the floor of the store, his feet still outside. He tasted blood.
Chapter Fifty
Day Eleven
Captain Francis Davies ran over to Clarence’s body. He was about to grab the ankles when he noticed the sheriff’s absence. He cursed, made the sign of the cross, and then headed back in the window’s direction. When he arrived, he saw Marty pinned under a beam, his body draped over the threshold.
Although it was heavy, Francis lifted and tossed the beam aside.
“Are you all right? How’s your back?” Francis asked.
“In a lot of pain.” The sheriff grimaced and grunted.
“Let’s hope it’s not broken.”
Francis helped the sheriff through the window into the burning building. He didn’t cry out but only grunted, which was a good sign, though the sheriff’s face was a mess. His mouth was bloody and it looked like he would need some dental work. Good luck with that. The sheriff carried himself clumsily over to Clarence’s body.
He would have made a good soldier, Francis thought.
They carried out the elderly gentleman through the store and over the threshold of the shattered windows.
Marty collapsed on the asphalt as soon as they laid Clarence’s body down. He moved his tongue over the gap that once housed a tooth now somewhere in the store. His upper back roared in pain.
The corporal looked exhausted as he kneeled on the ground next to Alexander.
“Is he?” Marty asked, gesturing toward Alexander.
“I administered CPR. He’s breathing. That’s all we can hope for.” The corporal felt Clarence’s neck for a pulse and started chest compressions.
Marty looked up and around, spotting Jocelyn’s apparition, naked and charred and almost all black with some red and pink patches, looking over both bodies, making the sign of the cross.