“I’ll take whatever help I can get,” Sarah said.
Edgar was sent to Wyoming Sporting Goods with Edmond to find any kind of gun, ammunition and other equipment. While they were out, they were instructed to also find cargo vans or other large vehicles to better transport survivors or supplies.
“Make sure you grab compound bows. Also, clear out every arrow that you find,” Robert said to Edgar.
Robert also explained to Edgar what he needed to make more spears. He barely had enough to make even one of the steel spears he thought would be useful against the undead.
Two associates named Jerry and Sam were determining how to make the space above the main entrances a better lookout. From the front of the complex, it was possible to see everything for miles around. To top it off, there was a small tower on top between Walmart and the Sports Authority. Scott sent two others to the nearby stores to see if they could find more weapons and supplies.
The daunting task to fortify the store was underway. It was the one way Scott kept his remaining associates from fleeing. As long as they knew they had a safe place, they would stay with the family members they had managed to find.
Scott asked Sarah for the tire iron she had placed in her belt loop. She handed the tool over to him, and was instead rewarded a vicious looking machete that he had taken off the shelf. It had a curved blade and a comfortable grip.
“Now I can rest easy,” Scott said. He looked over the tire iron with a frown. “These belong in trunks, not as weapons.”
Sarah hugged and kissed Tracy and told her to be good while she was away, and to listen to Stephanie.
“I’ll be home soon, Tracy,” Sarah said.
“You better dammit,” Tracy huffed.
“We’ll talk about that word when I come back, now go inside, you silly brat,” Sarah said with a smirk. She lightly swatted Tracy’s behind as the young girl went inside.
“’Dammit,’ she says,” Robert said with a sideways grin.
“That’s from her father, not me,” Sarah countered.
‘Mark, wherever you are, I won’t rest until I find you,’ Sarah thought while she looked out into the horizon.
She had to force herself from her despair to listen to Scott, Robert and Craig.
“This should be able to run anything down if we needed to. Can you drive this thing?” Craig asked.
“I think I can handle it,” Sarah replied confidently. Scott tossed her the keys. “Do you want to drive, Robert?”
“Nah, I’ll take shotgun,” Robert said.
Sarah checked her phone to make sure she had enough life on her battery, but thankfully Scott’s truck had a charger. She gave Scott her number in case something happened.
‘Ring, you stupid phone,’ Sarah thought as she stared at the device. ‘Tell me that my friends and family are ok.’
“Are you all ready?” Sarah asked her companions. They each got into the Durango and gave each other nervous but resolved looks.
“I think we’re set,” Robert said. “We’ll get your sister, Craig, and she’s gonna be fine.”
Sarah put the truck in motion and they were off.
The drive to the house was challenging and nerve-wracking. Each of the streets leading to Craig’s home was plagued with the risen. Sarah led a bunch away and came around to cut through a back alley and finally got onto the street that turned onto Craig’s.
Robert had taken into calling the risen ‘shamblers’ to signify both how they walked and how they were broken down bodies without life inside.
“One lil, two lil, three lil shamblers,” Robert sang to lighten the mood.
Craig pointed out the small gray two-story house that belonged to his father. Sarah started to get out, but Craig stopped her.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Francesca should have come out as soon as we pulled up,” Craig said quietly. “She would have been watching.”
“They could just be hiding,” Robert said.
Sarah took the curved machete Scott had given her and attached it onto her belt after she got out. She thoroughly checked both directions. Thankfully, the area was clear to give them time to get April and her babysitter out safely.
“What’s your dad’s name?” Sarah asked.
“Max, but people call him ‘Dirty Max.’ I guess word’s gotten out about him. He hangs around with an even dirtier freak than he is, named Greg. Fucking asshole looks like he’s never taken a bath in his life. People call Greg ‘Skink.’”
Sarah watched nervously as Robert went in first. He motioned for the other two to come in quietly. Once inside, Sarah discovered the home looked as if it had been torn apart by a drunken rock band. Silence choked the small house.
“Francesca? April? Are you here?” Craig said in a moderate tone.
Something clattered from within the kitchen. Robert motioned for Sarah and Craig to stay put. He held a mallet that he was given for the job of destroying shamblers. All Robert saw when he entered the kitchen was a pair of feet. The backdoor was wide open, and around the corner, two shamblers were knelt next to a woman’s marred body, and they were busy tearing her apart and devouring her. There was barely anything recognizable about Francesca and blood covered everything.
“Dear God. Sarah! I might need your assistance with these,” Robert said as he backed away from the kitchen.
The undead pair heard him and began to follow. The first was a shirtless, disfigured man. Robert dealt the man a devastating blow on the left side of his face that crushed the shambler’s cheek and eye socket. His body violently slammed into the wall and collapsed to the ground like a rag doll. Robert finished him by crushing in his head with the mallet.
The other came next, but the elderly undead man struggled to keep his footing from slick blood that covered his feet. Sarah jabbed her machete forward, which caught him under his chin. She pushed the machete upward to allow the blade to go into the brain. He jerked violently as his body failed him. Sarah only pulled the machete out when the old man had collapsed to the floor.
Once the two undead men were truly gone, it was time to find April.
“I’m pretty sure I know where she is,” Craig said. “When she’s scared, she hides in the basement,”
“Let’s check,” Sarah said. “Robert, can you keep an eye out for more of those things?”
She handed Robert her machete to which he gave her a look of protest.
“I don’t want to look scary,” Sarah explained. Robert nodded and took the machete.
Craig opened the door to the basement and slowly walked down.
“Hello? Is my Koala Bear hiding down here?” Craig asked calmly.
Immediately a little girl came out of hiding and ran to Craig. She wrapped her arms around him and tightly buried her face against his neck. After some time, she looked out toward Sarah and shied back toward the corner she came out of.
“Craig?” April asked with a trembling voice.
“Don’t worry, April, she’s a friend of mine,” Craig said soothingly and reached out for his sister.
“What’s happening?” April asked.
“I don’t know, Koala, but we’re going to get you out of here. Don’t worry. She’s not going to hurt you. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Those things are dead upstairs.”
“Francesca?” April called out.
“She’s not here anymore, sweetheart,” Sarah said quietly. “She went home.”
Back in the blood covered and cluttered living room, Robert searched the pockets of the shamblers he and Sarah had destroyed. He then dragged the two bodies out through the back. He checked the roads out front to make sure it was still clear of other undead between removing each body.
It was a battle to take Francesca outside, and at the doorway, the woman’s eyes opened and her battered arm moved.
“Oh, this is not happening,” Robert groaned.
He planted the machete that Sarah had given him into Francesca’s head and twisted. Francesc
a reclosed her eyes and went still.
“I could’ve done without that,” Robert muttered.
In the dimly lit basement, April moved out of her corner, allowing Sarah to see her properly for the first time. Despite being filthy, she was very pretty with long brown hair, and despair filled her otherwise pretty blue eyes. Sarah reached out for her slowly.
“I promise, sweetheart. I won’t hurt you,” Sarah told the little girl. April clung onto Sarah tightly. “Craig, she’s terrified. She’s shaking like a leaf.”
“April, we’re getting out of here. We’ll be safe from now on,” Craig said softly, and he rubbed his little sister’s back.
“I got her. Let’s go,” Sarah said.
Sarah carefully carried April out to the truck. Craig had gotten in first so Sarah could let him take the little girl.
“Ok, honey, time to get in,” Sarah said.
April let go of Sarah and sat on Craig’s lap.
It was a quiet ride back to the Walmart. Groups of shamblers started to appear more often, but they weren’t fast enough to bother the Durango. Sarah saw from the rear few that the girl watched the undead as they passed them.
“Why are they walking around like that?” April asked.
“I don’t know, Koala. They’re sick,” Craig explained. “Don’t worry about them.”
The Durango pulled into the parking lot to discover the survivors had been busy. A few of them were walking around on the roof.
When Sarah’s team walked toward the main entrance, she noticed a ladder hanging from the main entrance. She looked up into the entryway and saw Jerry sitting inside. He climbed down and invited her up to see for herself. When she came back down, he told her the other entrance was built the same way. Jerry demonstrated how the ladder rolled back and forth to clear the entryway. They could also hide it to trick potential attackers.
Sarah held April’s hand while they went into the store and they were immediately greeted by Tracy. Sarah introduced her daughter to April and whispered into Tracy’s ear.
“I want you to be nice to her,” Sarah had said. “She’s been through a lot. Make her feel welcome.”
“Hi April, I’m Tracy. Would you like to go and play?” Tracy asked April. The little girl had begun to relax and nodded at Tracy.
Tracy reached out her hand, and April accepted it.
“Let’s go,” Tracy said with a glance at her mother.
Scott watched the girls walk off together with a sigh of relief and joined Sarah, Robert and Craig.
Sarah noticed some new faces. Scott had let in a few survivors while Sarah’s team was out. She greeted a middle-aged couple that told her they were run out of their home by a hoard of the Devil’s dead and had nowhere to go. They thought the first thing they should do was to find food and supplies at the store, but found this instead. Sarah told them how she had done the same with her daughter.
“Looks like the rescue went well,” Scott said
“Are you going back out there?” Sarah asked Craig.
“Whoa, we need to…” Scott started
“People don’t have time,” Robert said to Scott. “I’m going too, Sarah.”
“Thank you, Robert,” Sarah said.
“Can someone explain what’s going in?” Scott insisted.
“We’re going to lose sunlight soon,” Robert said. “It’s almost four and we need to try and find more people. I’m not running around among thousands of shamblers with no light. The way Dearborn was left to rot, I’m not expecting anything.”
Scott looked as if he wanted some good news for once.
“I’m going to stay and help you get this place built up,” Sarah said. “If I can find my husband, he’ll want to help too. Scott, this is a good thing we have here.”
“Thank you, Sarah,” Scott said, and he looked as if a weight was taken off his shoulder. “We need to worry about one thing right now. It’s our survival and the survival of who we have left. We have no idea what’s out there right now. We…”
“We’re in hell right now, Scott,” Edgar said behind them. He had just returned from his trip. “If we’re going to stay here, we’re going to really have to batten down the hatches. We’re going to need silent weapons around here. I found a ton of rifles and bows.”
“Then we’ll use the bows around the store,” Scott agreed. “What else did you find?”
“Come with me and I’ll show you,” Edgar said with a gesture.
Sarah left with her small team to search Dearborn while Edgar led Scott to the loading docks, where a team of associates, and nearly a dozen others worked to unload three cargo vans full of weapons, and the materials to make more spears.
Scott kept imagining a group of the undead find a way into the safe zone. He saw the survivors get taken down, including children, and his stomach was in knots every time an entrance was left open.
“Don’t worry, we have people outside watching out for those things,” Edgar said.
“There better be,” Scott said sharply. “Did you see many shamblers?”
“What are shamblers?” Edgar asked. “Oh, Robert’s doing, right? Yes, Dearborn is crowded with them. However, north of the Jeffries is almost completely clear. It’s like Dearborn was intentionally left to die.”
“Or something happened to…” Scott had begun. “Robert was right.”
“Robert is right you mean,” Edgar corrected.
“So here’s what we do,” Scott said. “We’re already working on making this place undead-proof. We’ll create areas where we can lock sections down if they manage to get in here. We’ll all learn how to kill them. Robert can teach people how to use guns and we can make more of those spears. We’ll set up standards on who we allow in here. I think the best person to decide what those standards are would be a mother.”
Scott had lowered a finger with each idea he wanted to work on.
“You’re referring to Sarah,” Edgar speculated. “Are we looking at staying here long term?”
“I think it’s a good spot for now,” Scott replied. “We just have a lot of work to do.”
-----
“Sarah, stop the truck,” Robert blurted out. Something odd had caught his eye as he peered out the window.
“What is it?” Sarah asked.
Robert pointed at a shambler that swiped the air and twirled in circles as if it was fighting invisible attackers around him.
“What the hell is it doing?” Robert asked.
They watched the odd behavior of the shambler male for a little while longer. It was missing a shoe, and it looked half burned.
“Could it be brain damaged?” Craig asked.
“Possible,” Robert said. He thought about the way the shambler moved. “No. It hears something.”
The shambler became so frenzied that it feverishly swiped too hard and fell.
“The thing has a phone!” Robert said. “I’m sure of it. It’s ringing and the shambler can’t figure it out. We need that phone.”
“It might be just an alarm or music,” Craig muttered while he watched with an odd expression.
Sarah checked the surroundings and decided it was safe enough to get out. She and Robert both exited the Durango to investigate if Robert was right. Craig hesitated and he took a few deep breaths. Sarah waited for Craig while Robert went to put the shambler out of its misery.
The spear Robert had created made hardly any sound when it entered the crown of the shambler’s head. The thing reeked of burned flesh and hair, and it was a covered in severe burns from its head down to its stomach. Sarah was amazed that the burns hadn’t destroyed the man, as most of the flesh on his face was gone.
Sarah couldn’t handle the smell and heaved into a trash can.
The phone started to ring again. Robert carefully took it out of the shambler’s pocket. The device was heavily damaged, but he was able to answer it.
“Hello?” Robert said.
“Uncle Ryan, is that you?” a woman whispered on the other si
de.
“My name is Robert Newton. I don’t think your uncle made it. I found this phone on a deceased person.”
“Please help me,” the young woman said with absolute fear in her voice.
“Where are you? Can you tell me where you are?”
“I don’t know. There are hundreds of those things around.”
“Are you in Detroit?” Robert asked. He looked up to see a dozen shamblers heading towards them.
“No,” the woman replied as if confused. “I’m in Pasadena.”
Robert gestured for the others to head back to the truck, and tried to figure out how to help this woman nearly across the country. He wasn’t going to just leave her to die.
“What’s your name?” Robert asked.
“Mandy Ford,” she replied. Mandy seemed to be calming down.
“Mandy, I’m not sure how long this phone is going to last. It’s pretty messed up. I’m going to give you another number. You can call me there, ok?”
“Yeah,” Mandy said. “There are a couple flesh-eaters outside this room I’m in, but I’m safe right now, I’ll call.”
“Is she alright?” Sarah asked.
“She’s stuck in a room with those things pounding on the door,” Robert told Sarah.
Robert gave Mandy Sarah’s number, and she called right away. Sarah gave the phone to Robert to answer.
“Help her by telling her how to get out of there,” Sarah said.
“Mandy, I need you to listen to me. Once you get out of there, you have to find a vehicle good enough to travel. Fill the trunk with supplies, like food, water and a medical kit. Find a weapon that doesn’t draw attention to you. If you run out of gas, don’t spend time refilling your vehicle. Get another one. Find a place with people that can protect you. If you run into a shambler, you have to damage its brain. It’s the only way to stop them permanently.”
“If I make it out, I’ll come find you,” Mandy said.
“Don’t risk that,” Robert said. “It’s a very long trip.”
“You are the first person I’ve spoken to now since the people I was with got butchered,” Mandy said. “You’re taking time to help me out. I have nothing here, and this city is dead, so I’m coming.”
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