“Yeah.”
“That’s called the crosshair. You need to put the center of the cross on the thing you want to shoot.”
“Ok.”
“Now squeeze the trigger slowly.” She squeezed the trigger like I told her, “Good. Do you want to try with it loaded?”
“Sure.”
“Here’s the magazine go ahead and load it.” She did. “Good. Ok now take aim. Good. Now when you’re ready I want you to turn the safety off and squeeze the trigger.” I waited for a full minute before she flicked the safety off, she was obviously a little nervous. I waited even longer for her to finally take a shot. She missed the only can but I saw from the moving branch that she had been pretty close.
“Ow,” she squeaked out of shock rather than pain.
“Did it really hurt?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Ok, try again.” She went through another seven shots before she hit the can near the top.
“I hit it,” she said happily.
“Good job. There're six more bullets left, try to hit it again.” She ended up hitting the can another two times before it flew off the branch. “That was great Michelle. You’re a natural.”
“Am I as good as you when you were my age?”
“Better,” I said standing.
“Now it’s time to read,” chimed Liz.
“Do I have to?” she said dragging out her complaint.
“Yes,” I said taking the rifle from her, “we can shoot again.”
“Do you promise?” she asked.
“I promise, now go on.”
“Fine,” she said taking Liz’s offered hand and walking inside.
I put the rifle away and change into workout clothes and went to find Sarah and anyone who might like to practice with me. If I could get at least four then I would have them spar with each other. In the end, the only people who felt like working out were Sarah and Jason. I decided that they wouldn’t get a lot from fighting each other or from fighting me one on one, but they could learn to fight together.
“Ok, you two,” I said standing on the lawn with Sarah and Jason, “You two are going to fight,” They turned to face each other, “me,” I finished smiling.
“Who’s going first?” asked Sarah.
“You’re both going at the same time.”
“We’re both gonna fight you at the same time?” Jason said incredulously.
“Sure, why not?”
“Oh come on James, you’re not that good,” said Sarah, “Besides, you’re still hurt.”
“Well let’s find out,” I said confidently.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Look, if I’m not that good then this will be over in a second, especially if I’m still as hurt as you think. I think you’re scared,” I said winking at her.
“Ok let’s do it,” she said quickly.
“Well if she’s in…” said Jason.
“Alright let’s do this,” I said smiling at the two of them.
They stood on either side of me in fighting stances, focused and confident that they could take me without a problem. To someone new to fighting it would appear that I was staring straight ahead and ignoring my opponents, but what I was doing was using my peripheral vision to watch both of the at the same time. Most people don’t utilize this part of their vision very often but when fighting it can be very effective. Letting my eyes go out of focus I could see if and when my opponents made their first move. It was Jason who attacked first, I’d drilled the idea of patience into Sarah’s head. He came at me with a round kick aimed at my middle. I turned and caught his leg with both hands and pulled him towards me, making him fall. I turned in time to block a fist thrown by Sarah and returned the attack. My punch was a feint and as she raised an arm to block I brought my other arm around and smacked her on the side of the head. I backed away laughing. “Come on guys, I thought I wasn’t this good.” My laughter was all part of my focus, I could feel a dull ache spread through my muscles as I moved, signaling me that fighting was still a problem.
“You’re not,” said Jason jumping to his feet and attacking.
Their progress as a fighting team improved drastically near the end of the fight. I’ll tell you now that when I started I knew I would lose. Not because I would let them win but because it was difficult to fight even two people at once without hurting them. In a fight against multiple people, the key was not to disarm but to disable, quickly. That usually meant fighting dirty, eye gouges, crotch kicks and throat stabs. This was simple sparring and I didn’t want to hurt them, so I lost, but not without a fight. We were sweating and panting when things were done and we would all have a few bruises tomorrow.
“Dude, you punched me in the ear. That fucking hurt,” said Jason.
“Yeah, well you should have moved faster if you wanted to dodge it. That or you should have just blocked.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said walking inside.
“You did well,” I said to Sarah.
“I know,” she said grinning.
It had been Sarah who had finally taken me down. While Jason held my attention solely on him she had kicked the back of my knee, bringing me down. It wasn’t the kick that did it but the knife hand she brought around to my throat. She had stopped short of actually striking me and simply rested the edge of her hand against my neck. Knowing that I had lost I raised both my hands, “I surrender.”
“No you don’t,” she had said removing her hand, “You lost.”
“You know I would have won if I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” I said trying to defend my manliness.
“Whatever you say,” she said smiling, extremely proud of herself.
She came over to where I was standing and looped her arm with mine. We turned to walk inside and with the first step the knee she kicked buckled. “Damn. I might be limping for the rest of the day.”
“I didn’t kick you that hard did I?”
“I guess you did. It hurts but it’s not that bad. I don’t know why it’s weak.”
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re getting stronger. That’s a good thing.”
“Yeah but you’re hurt.”
“I’m fine, but if you want to make it up to me…” I trailed off with a wink.
She laughed, “Yeah, in your dreams.”
“I think the real thing would be better.”
“James!”
“I’m just kidding… sort of.”
“Whatever,” she said smiling and walking away.
We walked inside and separated to change. The rest of the day was spent resting and going over the plans again. That night I was getting ready for bed when there was a knock at my door. When I opened it I had to act quickly to catch a duffle bag flying towards my face thrown by Sarah. “What’s this?” I asked her.
“My stuff.”
“So I take it that you’re moving in?”
“Unless you have a problem with that.”
“No, no problem.”
“Good,” she said walking past me.
“I’ll make some room for you.”
“I’ll help.” We took my clothes from three drawers and added hers to them. She was digging around in the bottom drawer of my remaining drawers and pulled out two books, both black, one the size of a photo album, the other a small journal. “What are these,” she said raising an eyebrow and waving them at me.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” I said a little too quickly as I reached for the books.
She pulled it away, “No it’s definitely something,” she said suspiciously.
“Sarah please,” I said quietly.
Her smile was replaced with a frown as she saw my reaction. “Ok, but what are they?” she said handing it to me.
“Like I said, it’s nothing.”
“James, you don’t have to keep anything from me, even if it’s something embarrassing.”
I smiled weakly, “I know. Don’t worry, it’s not important.”
“Well, it ob
viously is. You’ve kept it and nearly leaped at me to get it back.”
“Just… don’t worry about it.”
“Ok,” she said with a huff. I knew she would ask about it again, I just hoped it wouldn’t be for a while.
I put the books back and we got into bed. I didn’t rub her back and we didn’t talk about the books again that night but I knew she was very curious. We talked for a little while before going to bed. “Are you nervous about the Costco raid?” I asked her.
“No, should I be?”
“No, but I just thought you might be.”
“I trust you and your plan,” she said smiling.
“Thanks but it’s not just my plan, everyone else helped too.”
“I guess but they’re following you. What do you think they trust more, the plan or you?”
“Me?” I guessed.
“That sounded like a question.”
“It might have been.”
“Oh jeez. If you’re not confident in your ability to lead then just stop.”
“It’s not that I’m not confident, it’s just that I don’t see why they trust me.”
“Well, you’ve done a pretty good job so far.”
“Pretty good? Just pretty good?”
“Ok, good.”
“Well, thanks.”
“I’m just messing with you,” she smiled.
I yawned, “I know.”
“Good. How’s the knee.”
“I’ll live.”
“You’re going to need to be in top condition to keep up with me on the raid.”
I laughed, “That’s what you think.”
“That’s what I know,” she replied cockily.
“We’ll see.”
“I guess we will.” We talked a little more and then I fell asleep with her in my arms.
The next two days passed quickly and without incident. My knee felt fine and I was more than ready to scout the dealership. Early that second day I was talking to everyone in the living room. “Ok everyone, I’m going to check out the dealership. It’ll take maybe an hour and a half, I want everyone who’s going to be ready in two. Everyone good?” Head nods all around “Good. I’ll be back.” I headed outside and standing next to my bike was Sarah, helmet in hand. “What’s up?” I asked her.
“I’m coming with.”
“No.”
“James…”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I need you to stay here and keep everyone safe.”
“That’s bullshit James and you know it. Everyone will be fine without me, they can take care of themselves. Why can’t…”
“Because I can’t lose you again,” I nearly yelled at her, “I have to keep you safe.”
“I don’t need you,” she said angrily shoving the helmet in my hands.
I climbed onto the bike and put the helmet on the ground. I smiled sadly at her, “I know. But I need you.” I started the bike and drove away. I would have said more but I didn’t know if I could have. She said she didn’t need me. I knew it was true, if I died today she would be sad but she would get over me. I knew that and I knew she probably meant that she didn’t need me to protect her but that’s not what I heard, and that’s why it felt like there was a knife in my chest. I drove off and made my way to the dealership. The town was quiet as the dead, you know the real dead, and so was the dealership. There wasn’t a single threat to be found and that only made me even more uneasy, but since everything looked clear I headed home.
Pulling into the garage I walked inside and called out, “It’s a go.” Turns out I didn’t have to yell because they were all sitting in the living room and ready to go. As soon as the words left my mouth they were up and moving.
The raid went off without a hitch and it was really pretty simple and boring. We cleared the inside of the dealership of exactly zero Walkers and grabbed all the truck keys. It was pretty easy to find them, they were in a labeled cabinet. We used the keyless entry function to find out which keys belonged to which trucks. In the end, we rolled out of the dealership with seven F-350 XL’s and two F-350 XLT’s, leaving our cars behind, and headed to the nearest gas station to fill up. All the trucks ran on diesel which I was thankful for. Gas was more refined than diesel and that made it more unstable with a shorter shelf life. We filled up at a station that was just down the street and, after clearing the small mini-mart of two Walkers, we cleared it out and took off. The worst part of the raid was the communication between Sarah and me, mainly that there was none. She didn’t say a single word to me the entire time.
That night I waited for Sarah to come to the room we now shared but she never came. I opened the drawers that I had cleared for her and found her clothes still there. This brought me a little relief if I was lucky I hadn’t messed up too bad. I pulled out the books that she had found and thought to myself, Why did you even keep these? For the first time in a while, I slept alone. My bed seemed large and empty without Sarah there to lie next to me. I pulled her pillow close to me and tried to fall asleep, it was hard but after a few hours of lying there in the dark, I sank into a fitful sleep.
CHAPTER 21
I woke up the next morning feeling like I hadn’t even slept, my muscles were sore, my eyes were heavy and I didn’t feel like doing much of anything, let alone recon the store. After grabbing a cereal bar and changing I strapped on my pistols and opted for a shotgun rather than my bow. I had modified a backpack to hold the shotgun behind my right shoulder so I could pull it out in an instant. I strapped my Bowie to my ankle and another hunting knife to my waist. I pulled on my jacket and slipped my backpack on, buckling it around my waist. It was sunny outside so I snagged my sunglasses and headed to the garage. As I passed the kitchen I saw a couple people up and eating, one of them was Sarah and after she glanced up she refused to look at me again. I opened the door to the garage and called out, “I’m headed to recon the store, I’ll be back in a few hours.”
The Costco was located across the bridge in Warrington and it took me about twenty minutes of weaving through cars and a couple Walkers to get there. I hardly noticed the trip as I focused on how I shouldn’t have yelled at Sarah and how it was dumb to have kept those stupid fucking books. These thoughts kept going through my head over and over until I saw something that brought me back to the real world. I was crossing the bridge when I saw three bodies hanging from the steel rafters. They were truly dead, having been hung while still alive and uninfected. I drove closer and saw that besides the nooses, something else hung around their necks. Each one had a sign reading something different, murder, rapist, and thief were painted in huge black letters. I could tell that they hadn’t been there for very long, a week maybe, I couldn’t be sure, but they hadn’t been there when I had set off the distraction before the raid on the gun store. Their presence could mean only one thing, there were other people alive, other people than Cole’s now decimated force. These three people were hung as punishment for their crimes, which meant that whoever did it were organized and had some sense of moral law. This could complicate things, I thought and kept driving. I pulled up to the Costco and looked across the huge parking lot at the sea of cars and, as they began to move and squirm at the sound of my engine, the impending flood of Walkers. “Holy Shit!” I murmured. This is not good, I thought as I got off the bike. Grabbing the med kit from my backpack I put on a pair of latex gloves, pulled out my knife and started towards the front of the store, stopping at each Walker on the ground and stabbing it through the temple, eyes or ear, anywhere I could to reach the brain. If it was on its stomach then I would stab it at the base of its skull, immobilizing it. If it was on its back then I would step on its neck to keep it from possibly biting me and put my knife through its eye. I slipped into a rhythm as my world turned red. There had to have been hundreds of them and I killed them all. When my arms got tired I switched to using a pistol, putting a single bullet in each one. I went through five magazines, leaving a single magazine for an
emergency, and switched back to the knife. It took me almost an hour of non-stop slaughter to clear the majority of the lot. My arms were tired and my hands were shaking from gripping my knife so hard. Wiping blood on the shirt of the last Walker I sheathed the knife and stood in front of the large bay doors of the Costco. One of them wasn’t closed all the way, a body preventing it from shutting. I didn’t know if it was a Walker or not but I knew that it meant the door had once been open. If the door had been open then there had to have been people inside, alive, dead or undead I didn’t know, but I decided that there was no better time than the present to find out. It was probably a mistake, I should have left, gone back and changed the plan, but my curiosity got the better of me. I squatted and put my hands under the lip of the door, tried to lift it and failed. The door was big but it wasn’t too heavy for me to lift, which meant someone had made sure the door couldn’t open. I thought back to the three bodies hanging from the bridge, wondering if there could be survivors inside the Costco. It wouldn’t have been a bad place to stay, there would have been tons of supplies and doors to keep them safe. I decided to do what you normally do when you want someone to open their door, I knocked, hard, loud and in a rhythm than no Walker could have produced. I knocked twice more and yelled, “Hello? Is anyone in there? I mean you no harm, I’m just looking for more survivors. Hello!?” After a minute or so there was banging on both of the big doors. “Fuck,” I said, taking a step back, “This is going to be a problem.” It was easy to deal with a large group of fairly immobile Walkers, they couldn’t attack, but the Walkers inside were obviously very mobile and could not only walk but bang on the doors, meaning they were a threat and we would have to take care of them. I didn’t know how they had managed to stay mobile while the ones in the parking lot were little more than puddles. I guessed that the ones inside were protected from the weather which would have sped up decay, that or they were recently turned. I kept thinking about the three bodies on the bridge.
Survivors Series (Book 1): Heroes Aren't Born Page 31