“Grab what you think you need,” Michael said to all of them. “I’ll be back. I need to check something out.”
Michael left them in the outdoor section. Scott was collecting a small tent, and Brian was trying to figure out how to attach a sleeping bag to his new backpack frame. The kids were grabbing the camping MREs and stuffing them into their packs.
Following the beam of his flashlight, Michael walked over to a sales counter not far from the camping aisle. Here it is, he thought to himself as he arrived. As he suspected, the glass case behind the counter had been broken into and emptied of its contents. Before the flu virus had hit, he remembered that the locked case had been full of shotguns and hunting rifles for sale. They had been lucky so far, so he thought that having a little bad luck was acceptable.
Then, he remembered what Chris had said about some guy holed up in the store. He made his way back to the escalator and looked around more thoroughly. Again, he tried to avoid looking at the bodies. What little he did see made him realize that the killing must have just ended recently. It didn’t smell that bad in there, and obviously the merchandise on this floor had remained untouched until their arrival.
If the shooter was here alone, trying to defend this floor from intruders, where would he hide? Facing the escalator, Michael turned around and searched. There. His flashlight caught an arm lying on the floor, protruding from the end of an aisle. Thankfully, the arm didn’t move. Still, Michael approached the body cautiously. If this guy had still been alive, Michael and his friends would most likely have been dead right now. They would have climbed the stairs only to find themselves gunned down like the rest of those people.
Approaching the aisle, Michael saw that the body of the man was lying facedown. Dressed in khakis, he had the appearance of having some military experience. Or he may have just been some local hunter. There seemed to be freshly dried blood congealed in a hole on the top of his head. Apparently, he had managed to take out quite a few intruders before his luck had run out and someone got him with a lucky shot.
Michael checked the shelf directly next to the body. A surplus of ammunition was organized on the shelf where the shooter could easily resupply himself during a firefight. There were ample .308 and twelve-gauge shells. Scanning the floor next to the body, Michael quickly found the twelve-gauge double-barreled shotgun. Next to that, he found another shotgun that had the barrel sawn off. It must have been a backup in case he ran out and didn’t have time to reload.
He gathered up both guns, which was a difficult trick, since he was already juggling his own shotgun. He somehow made his way back to his friends balancing the three guns in his arms. They all seemed to be having a good time trying to see how much stuff they could fit into their packs. Brian even had a second pack that he was starting to fill. Michael knew that Brian could easily carry two backpacks without breaking a sweat.
“Here,” Michael said, handing Brian one of the shotguns.
Brian looked up, and his eyes danced with joy as he took the gun from Michael.
“There are shells for it, but you’ll have to follow me back. I couldn’t carry them too.” He gave the other gun to Scott.
“Do you have one for me?” Chris asked hopefully.
“No, sorry. That’s all there was,” Michael replied. Even if he did, he wasn’t sure about giving such a young kid a firearm. Slightly disappointed, Chris went back to stuffing his backpack.
Michael started looking around the aisle for anything he might need. Fortunately, he already had most of what he needed back in the apartment, so he only picked out a few things here and there. Then, he left the group once again and found his way to the hardware section. He walked up and down the aisles, sweeping his flashlight back and forth over the shelves. It has to be here! he thought as he searched desperately. He was just about to give up when he saw it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, he sighed in relief. There it was! He reached over and took the large bolt cutters hanging on a peg. They seemed to weigh a ton, but Michael didn’t care. He placed the bolt cutters in his pack with his other treasured finds and rejoined the group.
“Ready?” Scott asked as he turned the corner.
“I think we got everything we came for,” Brian said. “We need to stop by and get the ammo. We can’t forget that. What good is a shotgun without the shells?”
“Here, they’re this way,” Michael said, leading them to the ammo.
“Who’s this?” Brian said, noticing the body on the floor.
“Must have been the guy that the kid said was defending his territory,” Scott replied.
They divided the twelve-gauge boxes. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. Then, they headed back to the escalator.
At the top, Scott paused. He turned around to Brian and Michael. “If these shotguns belong to the guy back there, then who shot him?”
Good question, Michael thought. There was something else that was bothering him, but he couldn’t put a finger on it. It was like an elusive thought that was just out of reach. Like a word that was on the tip of your tongue, but you had just forgotten. And the more you tried to remember it, the farther away it drifted.
“I bet the shooter is around here somewhere,” Brian said, sweeping his flashlight over the nearest body on the defunct escalator.
Scott looked around. “I bet you someone came up here with a gun, and they both shot each other.”
“How probable is it that…” Brian commented doubtfully. “…that they both shot one another at the same time?”
“Someone could have been shot but still been able to fight back, then bled out.”
“Okay, we’ll look a little longer. Okay with you, Michael?”
“Sure, knock yourselves out.” He took a disgusted look at the bodies on the escalator steps. “Besides, there’s something I want to check out before we go. I think I missed something.”
“Meet us back here in a few,” Scott said, already searching the bodies near the top of the escalator with his flashlight.
Michael went back once again to the body of the shooter, where he had found the shotguns and ammo stashed. He knelt beside the body and looked at the shelves where the twelve-gauge shells had been. Puzzled, he let his gaze wander to the .308 shells next to them. Why are the .308s here? he asked himself.
Marveling at his own stupidity, Michael answered his own question. Somewhere, there must be a .308 rifle. But where? He looked up and down the shelves with the flashlight. Nothing. He walked around the body and looked on the floor. Still nothing.
Realization dawned on him then. Getting down on his hands and knees beside the body of the man, he grabbed the dead man’s jacket and, with some effort, rolled the body over. It made a sickening sucking sound as the clothes peeled away from the sticky, dried blood on the floor. And there, hidden beneath the body, was a very nice .308 rifle complete with scope.
Michael joined his friends a little later with his pack weighing a bit more. He grinned and showed them his prize. They grinned back with equal triumph as Brian showed Michael the 9mm semiautomatic pistol he had discovered.
“Our luck can only last so long,” Scott said, looking at his watch. “Let’s get out of here before it changes and more looters decide to join the party.”
“What about the kids? They’re defenseless without a weapon,” Brian said.
“I don’t really feel comfortable about arming a sixteen-year old,” Michael said. “What if they shoot some other innocent person for food, like Ted did? Then that blood is on our hands. Or what if there’s some accident, and someone ends up dead? Then, we’re the ones who are responsible for it.”
“I agree with Michael,” Scott added. “Besides, they’re not totally defenseless. You saw them grab some of those long, deadly-looking serrated hunting knives.”
Before Brian could protest, Michael looked down at his watch. At least that was still working. “Hey, guys, it’s getting late. That little confrontation with Ted set us back, and we’ve spent a lot
more time in here than we planned. We need to get back while it’s still light and we can find our way.”
Grumbling to himself, Brian followed Scott and Michael down the stairs and to the front door where they paused, checked the outside parking lot for any activity, and then left.
By the time they had hiked all the way back to their apartment, night had fallen. It was a tiring journey as they all had their packs stuffed full. Only Brian wasn’t breathing heavily by the time they climbed the steps up to the porch.
Lorie opened the door as soon as they gave the correct knock, and then she proceeded to scold them for the next fifteen minutes for being so late and scaring her half to death. Sandy tried to act mad that Michael had left her again, but she couldn’t help but wag her tail. He could tell that Lorie had been more worried about them than anything else and was using anger to cover it up. Besides, she said sternly, how would she be able get a ride home if Michael never came back?
Michael glanced at both Brian and Scott. He didn’t say anything about their encounter with Crazy Ted. They had talked about it while walking home and decided it would be better if she didn’t know. There wasn’t any reason for her to know. Michael didn’t feel right keeping secrets from Lorie, but with the world spiraling out of control around them, like something being flushed down the toilet, he didn’t want to upset her any further.
After she had finished scolding them, she surprised them by having a home-cooked meal she had scrounged up from their dwindling supplies. Michael thought he had smelled some new aroma when he had walked into the apartment. For the first time in a long while, they all had a decent meal together. Michael enjoyed both the food and the camaraderie of his friends, because he didn’t know what tomorrow had in store for them, or if there would even be a tomorrow…
That night he slept on the couch once again as Lorie slept in his room. Sandy lay sleeping by the side of the couch, having her own doggie dreams. Michael’s sleep was restless.
He dreamed he was attending a funeral. They were lowering Richard’s body into a gaping hole in the ground. He could smell the freshly dug earth next to the open grave. Two people whom Michael somehow knew in his dream to be Richard’s parents were holding each other and weeping. The rest of the mourners gathered about the funeral service were the people from the department store who had been killed by the camouflage-dressed man. But they were no longer dead. They were alive and unharmed.
As the preacher finished speaking, he lifted his head and looked directly at Michael. It was Crazy Ted. He screamed, “I’m going to get you, Weasel!” and pulled a gun from underneath his black robes and started firing. In horror, Michael backed up, trying to get away, and fell…
…into a lake. His body was pulled under the surface. He was drowning in a large lake, yet he could still breathe. The surface of the water was just out of reach of his fingertips, but as much as he kicked with his feet and struggled with his arms, he could not break free from the current that threatened to draw him down to the bottomless depths. The less he struggled, the lower he sunk into the abyss.
The edge of the lake was a trench. Like a cliff, the sides went straight up and down. There was nothing to grab on to in order to pull himself upward. In the depths below him, the water was black and murky. He felt, rather than saw, something down there that was waiting hungrily for him to sink deeper. It was something monstrous that wanted to grab hold of him with wet, slimy tentacles and never, ever let him go. Screaming soundlessly in fear and desperation, he looked upward. The shore was just out of reach above him, and no one was there to help. He was running out of energy and would soon sink…
Michael woke up in a cold, icy sweat, and it took a long time for him to fall back asleep.
Chapter 15
The four musketeers sat around the dining room table the next morning looking glumly at one another. Even Sandy could sense their mood and was lying somberly under the table. It was going to be their very last day together. They had known this day was approaching and that each had to go their separate way. Saying farewells was much tougher than they had thought it was going to be. Michael had given both Brian and Scott written directions to “Aunt Thelma’s” retreat on the Georgia/South Carolina border in case they ever changed their minds.
“Do you think it would safer to travel at night or during the day?” Scott asked.
“I really don’t know,” Michael replied honestly.
“If you travel during the day, other people can spot you easily,” Brian suggested. “But at night, your headlights would give you away too.”
“Unless you drove at night with your headlights off,” Scott suggested. “But then you couldn’t do that without getting into a wreck.”
“What if you just went with the running lights on?” Lorie asked.
“I don’t think those little yellow lights would show enough of the road to keep you from crashing,” Brian said. “What about speed? What do you think about driving slow or fast? If you go slowly, you might not make as much noise to alert others. But even so, the bad guys would still hear you coming and have time to prepare an attack.”
“Makes sense to go fast. At least as fast as the driving conditions will allow,” Scott said.
“What’s that?” Brian said suddenly. He shushed everyone and cocked his head as if he were listening to something.
Then, Michael heard it too. Someone was yelling, “Help me!” but it sounded muffled and distant. Pushing the kitchen chair away from the table, Michael jumped up and raced to the front window. Pulling aside the heavy curtain, he peered outside.
There, half-walking, half-stumbling down the middle of the street was a woman. She looked tired and haggard. Putting her arm up to her mouth, she coughed violently. She looked at the surrounding houses and yelled, “Please, someone help me!” Then, she coughed again.
Drawing closer to their apartment building, she crossed the sidewalk. Then, she put her hand on the railing and started to climb the steps. Michael could no longer see the woman from where he stood, but he could hear the creak of the steps as she climbed them one by one to the porch.
He backed away from the door as the knob jiggled back and forth. The woman banged on the door and cried out for help. Michael stood motionless, not knowing what to do.
After a few moments, he heard the woman shuffle away and start pounding on the second door that led to the apartment upstairs. His heart broke for this poor woman. She was out there all alone with no one to help her. Michael, without any thought to what he was doing, reached out for the doorknob. It was almost as if he were in a trance.
Suddenly, Lorie’s soft hand rested lightly on Michael’s outstretched arm. She whispered in his ear, “You know that if you open this door, you’ll be exposing all of us.” Then, letting her words sink into his brain, she gently took her hand away.
Standing there realizing he was about to do something really stupid, Michael let his arm drop to his side. Thank goodness Lorie was there to speak some rational words into his mind, or else he might have put them all in serious jeopardy.
He walked to the other side of the front window and pulled back the curtain slightly so he could see.
The unknown woman had given up on their apartment building and was continuing her path down the street. Her unkempt, long, brown hair was matted to one side of her head. There was the crack of a gun, and in the next moment, the back of her head exploded into a red chunk of ruined flesh.
Michael jumped back in shock and watched as the lifeless body of the woman fell to the pavement. He turned his head to look down the street and saw a group of five men, all dressed in camouflage hunting gear. Four of them were carrying shotguns and were laughing and congratulating the fifth man, who carried a rifle. The man with the rifle looked proud, as if he had just taken down a trophy animal.
Michael was disgusted. These “hunters” had just killed a poor, innocent woman. Yes, she was sick, but that didn’t mean she deserved to be tracked down and murdered in cold blood. He was
suddenly afraid, very afraid, of what these times were turning people into. If those hunters had no compassion for the sick, Michael knew that basic human morality was out the window. If they knew Michael and his friends were hiding in the apartment, they wouldn’t think twice about breaking in, killing them, and taking all their provisions. He feared for Lorie’s safety even more.
“Looks like we’re not in Kansas anymore,” Brian said from behind Michael’s head, making him jump a second time. He hadn’t heard Brian come up behind him to watch the events on the street unfolding.
Brian had parked his car in the dirt alley behind their apartment building after he and Scott had come back from their gas-station run. All four of them exited the apartment by the back door after making sure the group of human hunters was nowhere to be seen. Sandy tried to protest again at being left behind, but they didn’t have much room in Brian’s car. Brian climbed into the driver’s seat, while Scott took the front passenger’s seat. Michael and Lorie piled into the back.
As he turned the key in the ignition, Brian’s car roared to life. He checked to make sure everyone was ready. Brian had the sawn-off shotgun in his lap, and Scott held his with the barrel pointed out the window. Michael had his trusty ol’ pump shotgun leaning against his leg, and Lorie held Ted’s revolver tentatively by her side. She didn’t know it was Ted’s gun, and she’d probably never find out. Ignorance is bliss.
Brian pulled out of the gravel alleyway and turned onto the paved street. Driving as fast as he dared and taking care not to squeal his tires around the corners, he drove the hour-long walk to Gary’s garage in just under ten minutes. During the trip, they saw no one. Only trash littered the streets, and loose papers blew in the slight wind. Except for a few cars along the side of the road, the once-bustling college town looked abandoned and uninhabited.
Pulling up right next to Gary’s locked garage doors, Brian shifted into park and let the car idle.
As Michael opened the door to get out, he pointed at the chains and said to Brian, “Just let me make sure I can get in. Then you and Scott go back to the apartment, pack up your things, and head to your parents. You’ve stayed here far too long. Your families need you.”
Influenza: Viral Virulence Page 13