by TJ Weeks
“I got beer!” Lisa belted out at them. We headed for Lisa’s voice and grabbed a hot beer she held up to us.
“I mean really, I tell y’all I have some dead guy and y’all go for a beer?” Kris shouted. “We got thirsty.” I said walking up on Kris. The dead man laid with an axe splitting his skull and flies had gathered around him. I covered my face from the smell and stepped over him to go behind the counter. I rummaged through what was left and found another flash light and two packs of opened cigarettes. I stuffed the cigarettes in my pocket and turned the flash light on and slid it across the counter to Gizmo that was making a face after taking another sip of his hot beer.
“Quit being a whiney bitch. At least it’s beer.” I told him. “Hey, I found their stash of shit, bring me a flash light!” Tina called from the back of the store.
We all headed her way and found her through an open door with only the moonlight shining through a window. I shined my light in to show boxes marked with Frito Lay and Little Debbie.
“Well hell, load that shit up!” I demanded. “Everyone needs a Little Debbie.” I joked. Everyone grabbed a box and headed out with it. I turned to see that the shelves were empty except for a few boxes here and there.
“Load up, let’s move on and cover some more road.” I demanded. “Once we get into town a little more, I need y’all to head to Lowe’s and get whatever generators are left. We are going to do the whole gas thing and we will meet up back here later.” I explained.
“So can we stop other places on the way?” Karen asked.
“If it will help bring things back home, sure what ya got in mind?” I asked. “There is a mall that I saw when I was on the way when this all started. So, we can maybe stop there and rummage through some shit.” Karen half asked.
“Haha, we get to go shopping!” Tina belted out.
“Oh God, Tina, you don’t need a bunch of shit. She has shopping problem.” Gizmo stated. “I bet they have some awesome shoe stores there.” Karen leaned over and whispered to Tina.
“No, No god damned shoes!” Gizmo yelled at them both. The two girls turned and headed to the truck. Kris ran over to kiss me and shot back to the driver’s seat of the truck.
“Hey the turn off is going to be up past the next place we stop!” I hollered to Kris. She threw her hand up and hopped up in the truck. We continued on, taking note of all the cars that had to be checked on the way back through. The next gas station came into view. It looked like it used to be an old Exxon, but the sign had been broken and all you could read on it was the ‘N’ at the end of the sign.
“Let’s see how much gas has been left here.” I opened the door.
The girls honked as they drove on past us. “They are gonna go to that fucking mall aren’t they?” Gizmo said pissed off.
“Maybe Tina will bring you back something pretty.” Donald joked. Gizmo shot him a look while we all laughed. I threw him the syphoning hose and went on to check out the store signaling Howard to come on.
“Why me?” Gizmo asked.
“Cause I wanted to give you something else to cry about.” I said walking away. Howard and I carefully pushed opened both doors. The sun was just coming up and gave a bit of a glow inside to where we didn’t have to use our flash lights. We both readied our weapons and turned the opposite way of each other to look for any rotters.
“Clear.” Howard whispered.
“Me too.” I stated back.
We split up and went our separate ways down the aisles. The shelves had already been cleaned out except for a few sodas that
probably fell out of a twelve pack. Howard grabbed them and stuck one in each of his camo pants pockets and moved on.
“Not much here huh?” He stated out to me. “Nah, someone has cleaned it out pretty good. We will move on to the next, we still got awhile before meeting the girls.” I told him.
Donald, Gizmo and Bo were putting the full gas cans back into the back of the Tahoe when we came out. Far off down the road, I could see two rotters walking.
“Early riser rotters.” I pointed. “Let’s move out.” We headed out and made our way down the road. We passed the two rotters that turned as we passed them and began walking the way we were going. I watched them from my rear view while they disappeared the further away I got. I couldn’t believe this was our new normalcy.
“Look, stop there!” Gizmo pointed toward a car dealership. “They will have gas in service area in the back.”
I pulled to the back of the lot and stopped behind the service warehouse. Gizmo hopped out and started looking through the small windows of the building when a rotter jumped in front of him from inside, making a loud roaring growl at him.
“Oh shit!” Gizmo jumped away from the window.
“You think he can tell us where the gas is?” Howard laughed at Gizmo freaking out. Gizmo made his way to another window and cupped his hands around his face. “There are gas cans inside.” He stated as he watched the rotter walk across the concrete floor inside to make his way to the window where he stood.
“Well, let’s get this shit done, we could use them.” I stated.
Gizmo grabbed onto the door and gently turned the door knob. “It’s unlocked. Y’all ready?” He made sure. “Let’s rock and roll!” Donald said.
Gizmo threw the door back, Donald and Howard were in first and I followed them in and then Gizmo and Bo. The one that had scared Gizmo was on his way. Howard noticed two more standing to the side, all wearing work shirts covered in grease.
“Poor guys, just trying to work for a living.” Gizmo stated before stabbing the window banger in the head.
Howard and Donald went straight in and took care of the ones standing off to the side. “Gather up those cans Bo. Gizmo, grab some of these fucking tools.” I demanded moving quickly in case anymore showed up.
We grabbed what we could when Donald tripped over one of the ramps that hoisted the cars up. His face hung over the hole next to it where the workers were able to go down into the floor and work on the cars.
“Oh shit!” He yelled. We ran to see if he had been taken by a rotter and stepped back when we saw what he was peering over. A horde of rotters had fallen down into the hole and wandered around each other bumping back and forth from wall to wall. They would try and come up the small steps from under the ramps, each time falling back down.
“They are secure right there, let’s leave them where they are.” I stated. Howard helped Donald to stand and we all moved out with our armfuls of new things.
“That is a lot of them.” Donald stated brushing himself off. Loaded back in the truck, we moved on. The sun began to blind me as it flashed through the trees while I drove. I lowered my hat a bit and blocked out a bit of it before seeing another gas station on the opposite side of the road than where we had stopped before. I pulled in and stopped.
“What’s wrong? Bo asked. “Why aren’t you going over there?” Pointing to the where we could get the gas.
“Something is wrong here.” I told them. “Those two cars are in front of the store and the doors are open, that tells us either, someone stopped, got out and got ate; or they got out and made it inside either when this started or recently. Just don’t like the feeling.”
“We at least gotta look in.” Gizmo stated. I put it in park and opened my door as I agreed with him. Bo, Donald, Howard and Gizmo all lined up with me ready for whatever came up. We quietly walked up to the windows of the front of the store while keeping eyes all around. We all put our faces up to the windows and looked in for a few seconds.
“Looks alright.” Bo stated.
“There is still something.” I whispered as my breath fogged up the window.
Bo jerked his head back quickly and backed up. “Nope, let’s go!” “What!” Gizmo stated backing away. “Look behind the counter!” Bo told us.
At least six rotters wandered around behind the counter and peered at us through the windows. The small hinged bar that was able to be lifted to let them out
had been put down so they couldn’t get out from behind it.
“There doesn’t look like there is much left on the shelves anyway.” I said backing away. Bo made his way to the underground tank and peered down into it. “Someone has already got this gas. We could check the cars.” He stated.
Gizmo placed the small hose from his back pocket into one of the gas tanks while Howard grabbed a gas can from the truck. He brought it to him and the two teamed up to suck out the bit of gas in both cars.
Bo watched the front of the store and Donald and I stood at the corners of the front of the store and did the same.
“Got all we could.” Gizmo put the gas can in the back. “Hey guys! Hustle your ass, let’s get the fuck out of here!” Donald shouted taking off at a full sprint.
We looked at each other and followed him. Donald took the Dukes of Hazard approach to getting in and left us all wondering what the hell his deal was. We all opened our doors and got in and I started the Tahoe. I put it in reverse and turned to move out of the parking lot when a horde of at least sixty of the rotten mother fuckers seemed to have jumped in front of us.
“Bitch, you could have let m e know there was a few dozen of the assholes coming, we could have gotten out of here a little faster!” I reamed him for no warning.
I backed up again and made my way around the moving herd of them. A few of them reached out and scraped their wanting hands across the Tahoe.
“Damn, watch the paint job!” Gizmo belted out to me. I looked at him in disbelief of the stupid statement, he laughed at the joke he had made and his smile diminished quickly when I hit a rotter and it rolled up onto the hood. If I would have been going faster than what I was, it probably would have come through. I hit the brakes and sat up straight in the seat.
“That was fucking great!” Bo and Gizmo said almost at the same time. The carful laughed while the rotter rolled off. I backed up again and made my way around him trying to get to his feet and moved on down the road.
“Let’s hit one more and we will stop by Lowe’s and see if the girls are still there, if not we will get back to the store to meet them.” I told my group.
The next store was an actual grocery store. I pulled up right out front and Bo and Howard jumped out and put their faces up to the glass and cupped their hands to see in.
“Looks okay!” Bo stated. “Some stuff on the shelves, a few things we could probably take back with us.
I shut off the Tahoe and walked around the front of it. Bo and Howard made their way to the doors that were supposed to open when you walked close to them.
“Crowbar maybe?” Bo requested.
Gizmo grabbed a crowbar from the back and made his way to the door with Donald. I stood back and watched for anything approaching while Bo worked to pry open the door.
“Hell yeah!” Bo shouted as the doors came off their tracks and he made a big enough opening to get in.
We all made our way in, but now had open doors. “Howard and Donald, stay here and guard the doors. Bo and Gizmo take that side and I’ll take over here.” I pointed out.
I went up and down the register aisles and pocketed some gum and candy bars and all of the batteries that were left on their hangers when a loud boom came from one of the aisles.
“What the hell was that guys?” I asked loudly.
“Wasn’t me.” Bo stated.
“Gizmo, where you at fucker?” I hollered out. I side stepped in front of the six aisles of the small store and found him at the end with a rotter pushed up against a shelf.
“Right here, I’m okay.” He called out. He slid his knife into the top of the small apron clad man and back out. He dropped to the floor and landed on a crate of cans Gizmo had collected.
“Found some help?” I laughed. “The little fucker almost had me, I didn’t even hear him, I turned and he was standing right in my face wearing his cute little apron.”
“Let’s go, I think we have collected plenty, I don’t think we can fit much more in the back anyway with the gas cans.” I told Gizmo.
Bo rounded the corner as Gizmo pushed the runt of a rotter off of the crate. “Did he at least ask if you needed help finding anything before he tried to eat you?” Bo joked.
I patted Bo on the back and made our way back to the front door. “A few coming through the parking lot, but headed to the side, we are good.” Howard said as he still stood guard to let us exit.
I made the turn off for Lowe’s and drove through the parking lot. There was no sign of the girls. Assuming they had already been there and probably had headed to the mall. The sun was past mid sky now and we needed to head back to the first small gas station that was our meeting point, and hit all of the cars up for gas on our way back.
Every car that we came to that had been left, I would stop. We would all get out, three of us would take guard and two would syphon any gas into our gas cans and put it back.
“Done.” Whoever would yell that got the joy of sucking out the gas and on to the next one. It had been at least an hour and we arrived at the ‘mom and pop’ gas station. The girls sat in the parking lot. I pulled up next to them and peered across the passenger side at Kris who still sat in the driver’s seat. She smiled and held up a t-shirt with a popular metal band smeared across it. I smiled back and shook my head.
“Is that what you got, really?” I asked. “No, I got other stuff. I’ll show you when we get back. I have a couple of bags.” She hollered over the arguments between Gizmo and Tina about what she got.
“Hey man, it’s not like she bought the shit and it’s not like it’s all for her, everyone back home needs new clothes!” I told Gizmo.
“I don’t think we should head home yet.” Karen suggested.
“Why?” I queried. “There’s cars all around he re and there is still a lot of stuff that we could have got, but didn’t have the room in the truck for. We could easily convoy vehicles back.” She suggested further.
I turned and looked at the guys.
“It’s not like we haven’t done this shit before.” Howard stated.
“Okay, we’ll have to find a place to stay for the night.” I stated. “Follow us back to the mall, we can sleep in one of the stores and just pull down their caged door.” Karen stated.
“Sounds good.” I answered.
CHAPTER TEN
PULLING UP to the front doors of the
mall, we came to a stop. Everyone started piling out.
“I’ve got a better idea.” I stated.
Everyone stopped from going in and turned around to hear what I had to say. “We can open the bay doors up from the back and drive the vehicles inside. Then no one can drive by to steal our shit while we’re looking for stuff and we can drive one of the vehicles out to find others and bring them back, also won’t have to carry shit so far.” I
suggested.
“Sounds fucking brilliant, I’ll get the bay doors.” Lisa stated. “I’ll help.” Howard and Donald informed. Gizmo followed them inside.
Bo jumped in the passenger side of the Tahoe with me and Karen jumped in the truck with Kris. We pulled around back to the bay doors which led us to the side of Sears. We waited patiently for the rest of the crew to get the doors open and when they finally opened them up, we drove inside. We pulled in far enough to get the vehicles through so the doors could be closed and then we let them hop inside so they didn’t have to walk. We swerved around some of the displays and into the main portion of the mall. I hit my brakes and got out.
“Is this where we’re staying?” Bo asked while looking out his window. “No, but we just found our first car.” I replied while looking at a brand new cherry red Corvette that was trimmed out in black displayed for a chance to win.
“Oh shit! Sweet ride!” He stated.
It didn’t take long before the women joined us to see why we stopped as well.
“I know what I’m driving back!” Lisa teased. I walked over and opened the door to see the keys dangling from its ignition and gas was on
full. I reached in and pulled the keys out and threw them to Lisa. “Better get started by backing it off this display and getting it in line with the rest of us.”
“Oh shit, I was just kidding, but sounds good to me!” She replied. We got back in our vehicles and started driving forward once again. I could see a Game Exchange ahead, so I angled the Tahoe and backed it next to the door. Kris backed the truck up at the opposite angle to block off the door completely and then we all got out.
“Why the fuck are we at a Game Exchange? What could we possibly need from here?” Gizmo questioned.
“Absolutely nothing, which is why we’re staying here tonight. If any unwanted visitors came by, they wouldn’t come here either, which probably makes this the safest spot in the whole mall.” I answered.
“That makes sense.” Karen agreed. We grabbed two thirty packs of beer and some of our belongings before we walked in and pulled down the loud squealing caged door, but didn’t take any chances and cleared the store and its storage room in the back. Once we were sure it was safe we all found comfortable spots around the store and laid out our
belongings.
“You know we could have grabbed some of the bed displays and set them up.” Tina fired away.
“Why the fuck would we setup beds all night when we can actually get a full nights rest for once?” I shot back.
“It was just a suggestion.” She stated. “Hey brother, for what it’s worth…I’m glad to be part of your team and even happier that I found y’all.” Bo stated.
I turned and looked at him while trying to get mine and Kris’s area as comfortable as possible. “Yeah man, I’m glad you found us as well. I thought for sure my past was completely wiped out after all that has gone down in this last year.”
“Who’s going to post as guard?” Karen asked. “No one. Everyone needs to get a good sleep and besides, if someone or something trying to open that door, I’m sure it’ll wake all of us up.” I replied.
“Are we going to eat?” Kris asked. I got comfortable with my head laid upon my arms. “Y’all go ahead and eat if you want, but I’m going to bed.”