by Oliver, Nick
“Morning Sarah,” I said as I walked into the auto garage.
“Oh don’t morning Sarah me,” she sighed. “Why did you sleep on the couch last night?”
I was a bit surprised by her asking that, “Well you were mad at me, so I assumed you wouldn’t want me to be in the bed.”
I glanced over and saw Roxie was standing next to the truck, looking up at the ceiling awkwardly trying not to bother us, before getting into the passenger seat of the truck to avoid getting caught in the middle of what looked to be an inevitable argument.
“Not on the night before you go on a supply run you idiot,” she wrapped me in a hug, “Just be careful please.”
I wrapped my arms around her and kissed the top of her head, “Don’t worry I’ve got Roxie to protect me, we’ll be fine.”
She couldn’t help but laugh, “You always did find odd ways of cheering me up. Go on, I’ll open the door for you guys.”
“We’ll be back before dinner,” I reassured her, then got into the truck and fired it up, “Ready when you are babe.”
She pulled the chain to open the gate, there were a few zombies outside, but none close enough to the gates for me to be worried. I hit the gas and we were off. Before we were completely out of the door the truck jolted like someone dropped a boulder in the bed.
“What the hell was that?” Roxie screeched and grabbed her rifle.
I turned around and saw the door had closed on the back of the truck. Sarah must have let go of the chain too early. The zombies were still relatively far away so I rolled down the window and leaned my head out, “Maybe next time you should wait for the truck to get completely outside before you close the door.”
“Oh shut up,” I heard Sarah yell back.
I laughed and rolled the window back up. Roxie was impatiently looking at the Zombies that were heading our direction. “Could you stop flirting and get us the hell out of here.”
I hit the gas again and the truck lurched forward with a horrible squeal as the metal door scraped the paint off the bed rails. As soon at the door reached the end of the bed the truck built up speed and took off.
Roxie was looking a little nervous so I stopped at the stop sign at the end of the street and shifted the truck into park. “What do you want Roxie?”
She looked over at me perplexed, “What do you mean?”
“Do you really want to go out here, gather supplies, and walk around without the walls around you?” I asked, “Or do you just want to scare the shit out of Nick?”
Roxie shook her head with an offended look on her face. “I’m not doing this just to scare Nick into wanting to marry to me, that’s not the point.”
“Well what is the point then Roxie?” I took my hat off and scratched my head above the bandage on my forehead. “Why are we out here?”
“I just want to know he’ll be there for me no matter what,” she sighed. “It’s not like we have a lot of time left.”
“This isn’t a game Roxie, we could die out here!” I reminded her a bit more angrily then I should have.
“Do I look like I want to play a game?” she yelled. “I can be more useful than just putting band-aids on you guys whenever you get a damn scratch.”
I smirked, my sister may have been a bit hot headed at times, but she wasn’t an idiot. “Alright then, let’s do it.”
Rather than going through houses which could be dangerous, what with all the small spaces and hallways that could be potential deathtraps, we went to the local Wal-Mart. The parking lot was relatively spacious, which was a good sign.
“Okay, this is the plan. We’re going to leave the truck here and then go in the front door,” I informed Roxie as I parked the truck and shut down the ignition.
“Really? That’s the plan?” Roxie asked sarcastically, checking that her rifle was full of ammo. “Go in the front door?”
She caught me off guard, “Well I didn’t say it was an intricate plan.” I reached into the back seat and grabbed some of the bags. “We fill these up one or two at a time, dump the bags in the truck and grab more bags. Simple, safe, and quick.”
“Well what are we waiting for? Let’s do this,” she said rather gung ho, throwing two bags over her shoulders and opening her car door to get out of the truck.
I slung my rifle across my back, grabbed the bow from the back seat, and clipped a quiver of arrows to my belt. I didn’t want to make any unnecessary noise, so I’d use the bow until I ran out of arrows to buy us some time before they came out of the woodwork.
“Okay, just be careful in there, try not to fire if you don’t have to,” I told her as we started walking toward the front doors. “But don’t risk your life trying to stay quiet.”
She nodded, “What if there are too many inside?”
“If there are too many we leave as quickly and quietly as possible, and then go somewhere else for supplies, we have Target, K-Mart, grocery stores, No unnecessary risk.” We reached the door, and I didn’t see anything lingering inside. “I’ll go in first, you cover my ass. If anything goes south, and I mean anything, you get your ass back to that truck.”
She nodded, “I’m right behind you.”
I pulled the glass doors open enough for Roxie to get through and then let them close. There were surprisingly few bodies lying around, I only saw two within eyesight of the doors.
“Okay, let’s start with the food,” I said to her quietly. “And then anything else we might need, clothes, medicine,”
“Ammo,” Roxie added, checking down the aisles for zombies as we made our way to the grocery section.
“That too,” I agreed. Moans echoed from somewhere in the store, they were definitely here, it was just a matter of where.
We got to the canned good aisle, and I was surprised to find that there was still quite a bit on the shelves. Not a truckload, but enough to fill a dozen or so duffel bags.
“Okay, grab as much as you can, but don’t overfill your bags so that you can’t carry them.” I started stuffing cans of soup into my first duffel bag, “We can always make more trips.”
“What if we run out of bags?” she asked, filling her duffel bag up with canned vegetables, corn, green beans, and tomatoes.
“If we have room in the truck we can grab some more bags from in here, I’m sure there are some left somewhere.” I finished filling the first bag and grabbed the second, “But I think we’ll be alright with the bags we have in the truck.”
I reached for a can but it fell down and smashed to the ground. The sound seemed to echo through the store. The distant moans stopped for a moment then grew louder.
“Shit,” I cursed myself, for attracting them to us. “Fill up your second bag as fast as you can, we’ve got to move.”
Roxie must have noticed too, because before I finished telling her to hurry up she was already stuffing cans into her bag as fast as she could. The moans and snarls were getting louder. I zipped up my bag and threw them over my shoulders, “Let’s go! Forget the rest, they’re getting too close!”
I walked toward the end of the aisle as fast as I could while weighed down by the heavy bags. I got there just as the undead did. One of them reached out and grabbed my shoulder. “Fuck!” I shrugged it off and fell backwards onto my ass. Roxie was right behind me and just barely missed me knocking her over too.
“Go the other way!” I yelled kicking the zombie that grabbed me so that it fell over too. Roxie fired her rifle, putting a hole between its eyes.
“Not without you,” she yelled, grabbing my arm and helping me up.
We started off toward the other end of the aisle with a crowd following us, I didn’t have enough time to count them, but it was more then a dozen for sure.
“Oh fuck me,” Roxie muttered, observing another group just as large coming down the other side of the aisle, “They have us trapped.”
I took a quick glance at the shelves to see if we could climb them, but immediately decided against it, they were too close, we’d never make i
t. “You take the ones on this end. I’ll take the ones behind us”
“What!?” She screeched. “You can’t be serious!”
I dropped my bags and threw my bow to the side, there were too many for me to try to use that. I drew my sidearm and fired at the closest one. “Roxie, focus!” I yelled, firing again at the next closest.
She fired at the three closest to her, taking them all down, “There are too many!” she yelled, clearing a jam in her rifle. “We’re going to get overrun!”
“Roxanne!” I yelled as loud as I could. I never used her full name. I’d been calling her Roxie my whole life. The last time I called her Roxanne was when we were playing tag in the woods as kids. It was winter time and she ran onto a frozen pond, but it wasn’t thick enough to walk on, even for someone as small as her. I’d called out her full name then too, just before she broke through the ice.
I didn’t have to utter another word, she knew I was serious and shouldered her rifle. We fired at them one at a time, taking them out as they got too close.
The last one on my side was a nasty looking piece of shit. It was about a foot taller than me, and its right arm was torn off at the shoulder. It got a bit too close and grabbed my gun. I punched it in the face a few times but it wouldn’t loosen its grip. I heard Roxie fire a few more shots, then she rested her rifle on my shoulder.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked.
“Don’t move, I got him,” she took aim using my shoulder as a rest then fired. The tall son of a bitch crumpled down to the floor dead. My ears rang something awful from Roxie firing the gun so close to my ear.
I turned around rather annoyed. “Could you not do that again please?”
“Oh you mean save your life?” she asked rather smugly. “I’ll try to refrain. Now let’s get these bags and get the hell out of here before more of them show up.”
Her enthusiasm took me by surprise. She’d always been pretty good with a gun, but her side had just as many if not more of them piled up, and she didn’t seem scared at all, not anymore. “You got it. let’s get these supplies out of here.”
We grabbed our bags and started running for the door again. We were almost to the door when I stepped over what I thought was a dead body. Its arm reached up and grabbed my foot and pulled me down flat on my face. Before I knew it, it was crawling over the bags and trying to bite me. I was too dazed from the fall to focus. I tried my best to hold its head away from me.
Blood sprayed out its right temple with a bang. Roxie was standing over it with a literal smoking gun. I cleared my now dry throat, “You are frighteningly effective with that.”
“I know, lets get the hell out of here,” she said as she helped me up again, “I think we’ve overstayed our welcome.”
I got to my feet a little slower than I would have liked. Roxie was glancing in every direction to make sure nothing else was sneaking up on us. “Maybe not,” I thought out loud.
“What do you mean?” she asked, taking the opportunity to put more rounds in her rifle.
“I don’t hear them anymore,” I observed, looking around the store, “There are no more moans.”
She looked around too and a smirk crept up the side of her face, “I think you’re right.”
“Well what are we waiting for?” I pulled the bag straps back over my shoulders. “Let’s get these bags to the truck and grab some more, no sense in wasting a good thing. Let’s fill that fucking truck up!”
We made five more trips before a large group of them started moving its way toward us from across the parking lot. The sporting goods section had already been picked pretty clean. We only found a few loose shotgun rounds and a box of hunting rifle rounds that matched one of the rifles Nick found the other day.
Roxie was tapping her foot on the way back to the school. For a second I thought it was nerves, but she still had a small smirk on her face. It wasn’t an arrogant smile, it was a confident one. She knew the dangers of being outside, but she was just as ready for them as me or Nick.
I also had a smirk on my face, we got a lot more food then I was expecting to get. I was also happy to still be alive. There were a few seconds that I didn’t think we were going to get out of there.
As we pulled down the street leading to the school Roxie pulled out the radio, “Nick or Sarah do you copy? We’re pulling in. Can you head to the auto garage?”
“This is Sarah,” the radio buzzed. “We’re already here waiting for you guys, Nick’s going to open the gate as soon as we hear you pull up.”
I honked as we pulled up to the rolling door. Almost immediately it rose high enough for us to drive in.
The door slammed into the ground as I shut the ignition off. I limped out of the truck only for Sarah to tackle me into a hug. “Easy babe, I’m a little bruised there,” I whimpered.
“Are you going to be okay?” she asked anxiously, loosening her grip slightly.
“I’ll be fine. I just need some time to heal.” I reassured her and put my arm around her shoulder.
Roxie was hugging Nick as well. Sarah and I walked around the truck just in time to see Nick push her away for a second and get down on one knee.
Sarah squeezed my arm in shock. I didn’t blame her. I didn’t think Nick was actually going to do it.
“Roxanne O’Neal, Will you marry me?” Nick had a broad smile on his face. He wasn’t doing it because I threatened him, he looked genuinely happy.
Roxie was staring down at him, the smirk that she had grew into a smile, but she didn’t answer right away. We all stood there waiting for her to answer for what seemed like forever.
“No,” she finally said.
Nick looked like he just got kicked in the balls. He couldn’t even get any words out. He just stared in disbelief.
I glanced over at Sarah. Her jaw might as well have been on the floor. I looked back over at Roxie who was still smiling and said, “I have to admit, I did not see that coming.”
Chapter Twenty-Two: Storm
4:45 PM, December 11
“No!?” Nick yelled, standing up from his kneeling proposal position. “After all the arguments, all your talk about marriage, rings, commitment, and I finally drop down on that knee for you, only for you to stare at me and say no like you’d been planning on it the whole time?”
Roxie shook her head, “No, I really did want this, but now that you proposed I don’t know, it just feels pointless.”
Nick let out a sigh, “You’ve got to be shitting me, that’s what I’ve been saying the whole time.”
Sarah’s jaw was still dropped. She stopped staring at Nick and Roxie long enough to look up at me and whispered, “Did you know about this?”
“Which part?” I asked. “About whether or not Nick was going to ask her to marry him, or about what Roxie’s reply was going to be when he did?”
Sarah let out a quick chuckle, “Both.”
Roxie eyes began to water up, “I don’t need a piece of metal on my finger to know you’ll always be around. For all we know this could be our last day alive, every time you go outside those walls I wonder whether or not I’m even going to see your face again.” Tears began to roll down her cheeks, “I almost died out there today, and it made it that much more real. We’re together, and that’s enough for me.”
Nick was still upset, but he grabbed Roxie into a hug, “That’s all I’ve ever needed. If you died who the hell would I argue with?”
Sarah tugged at my sleeve, and then gestured toward the safe room. She wanted us to give them a few minutes alone.
She reached into the bed and grabbed a duffel bag to carry. I followed suit and grabbed two duffel bags myself. Nick and Roxie didn’t break eye contact with each other, and probably didn’t even notice we were walking away.
The wind was pretty strong in the courtyard, stronger than usual. “Wind is pretty strong, has it been like this all day?”
Sarah shook her head, “I don’t think so. It’s only been this windy for a few hours or so.
Maybe a storm is coming in.”
We dropped off the first load in the kitchen. Sarah started unloading the bag she carried up. I took a glance out the window before I started emptying mine and from the looks of it Roxie and Nick were still in the auto garage. “Maybe we should wait a little bit before we go back down there, they look a little busy.”
“Yeah, they definitely need some time,” Sarah agreed, stacking the new cans of food up on the shelf. “What do you want to do with all this free time we just acquired?”
“Do you remember the last hurricane we had?” I asked, opening one of the duffel bags I carried up, “The winds were just like this, hell if I didn’t know any better I’d say we were about to experience a hurricane.”
“Yeah,” Sarah agreed, pulling the last can of beans out of her bag. “What was the name of that bad one we had two years ago?”
“Like I’m going to remember that?” I chuckled while opening the second duffel bag I carried up. “You know how long it took me to remember Katrina don’t you?”
“That’s true,” she agreed. “You called it hurricane Kaitlin for almost a month. But that’s beside the point. It’s already past hurricane season, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s supposed to end in November,” I reminded her. “It’s probably just a normal storm, it’s not like we haven’t had those before.”
Sarah came over to help me empty out the last bag of canned food. We put it all on the shelves. There were still plenty of bags in the truck but Roxie and Nick were still in the auto garage and I really didn’t want to interrupt what ever they were doing.
“I hope you’re right,” she picked up the now empty bags. “If we get hit by a hurricane now we could be in some serious shit.”
“Well it is past the normal season for hurricanes,” I reminded her again. “Hopefully all that hype about global warming isn’t true, and this is just a big thunder storm.”
“You’re probably right,” Sarah put the bags down on an empty shelf, and then walked over to the window. “Looks like the love birds are coming up here, should we get out of here to give them some privacy?”