Paul crept closer, walking on pins and needles, shotgun leading the way. “Sir? Are you okay?” He stopped in front of the buggy and reached out, making Benji stir.
“Paul,” Sophia whispered.
Paul shook the man’s arm and his head rolled limply to the side. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth and a small bible slipped from his bony fingers to the mud-covered buggy floor.
“Sonofabitch,” Dan said, a deep-seeded frown carving lines into his face. “We never found out where he lived!”
Chapter Fifteen
They watched Benji and the buggy fade down the interstate back to where it came, keeping a close eye on the woods out the corner of their eyes. Paul tilted his head to one side and cracked his neck. They tried to free the horse but Benji would have none of it, choosing to remain with his master instead.
“We never even got his name,” Dan said glumly.
“Benji.”
“No, the guy’s name.”
“Oh,” Paul said, loading a shell into the shotgun.
Wendy tucked the .38 into the small of her back. “I wonder what kind of food he had.”
Paul looked to the dead man in overalls on the side of the roadway. “Probably a lot of friendship bread and Shepherd’s pie.”
Dan watched the buggy navigate a curve and disappear from view. “I don’t know what that is but it sounds delicious.” Back in the cop car, they shut their doors and locked them. Dan turned the key one click in the ignition, making the dashboard ding. He stared straight ahead, surveying the road before them, hesitant to find out what would be waiting for them around the next bend.
“I’m never getting out of the car again,” Wendy said from the backseat.
Dan glanced at her in the mirror and started the car before he lost his nerve. Paul secured the shotgun in the dashboard mount and fastened his seatbelt. Missing out on the food and ammunition seemed so trivial in the face of such mayhem but it hurt just the same. They rode in silence for a while, unable to rise above the gloom and doom following them wherever they went. Every so often, Dan would sneak a peek at the lovely Miss Wendy, unable to stop himself. Then she would bust him and he would try the radio again.
Not even static.
As dead as everything else.
Paul massaged his temples with two fingers on each hand. It was insane, as they motored down some barren interstate, how they ended up on this road trip from hell, the four of them against the world. Two weeks ago his biggest problem was trying to find something to watch on Netflix. Now, everyone wanted to eat them. He wondered what it felt like to be pinned down and slowly picked apart.
“I’m getting hot,” Sophia said from the backseat, pulling off her coat. “Can you turn down the heat?”
“We’re getting low on gas,” Dan replied, turning off the heater.
Paul nodded up ahead. “Get off at this next exit.”
☠
Siphoning gas from an abandoned Ford Expedition was a breeze. Finding it parked in a strip mall with a Kohl’s store seemed nothing short of a miracle. Paul returned the siphon-kit to the trunk and got back inside the car.
Dan promptly locked the doors and took a long survey of the land, the snow nearly gone. “Where the hell is everyone?”
“Maybe they just vanished into thin air,” Wendy suggested, coiling a strand of hair around her finger.
“Wouldn’t there be piles of clothing and cell phones everywhere?”
“Alright, here’s the plan,” Paul said, turning to face them. “We get in and we get out.”
“Ooh, brilliant plan, Paul!” Wendy smiled. “Did you think that up all by yourself?”
“You know what?”
“Paul,” Sophia said in a low voice, cutting him off.
Paul made sure his safeties were off and pointed. “Pull right up front.”
The store, which used to appear so normal and every day, now looked haunted and poisonous. A spattering of vehicles littered the lot, more than likely belonging to the customers and employees who never made it out alive. Dan drove closer, noticing one of the glass doors already shattered. “Hope there’s something left.”
“Only one way to find out.” Paul popped his door and climbed out.
The others followed, not bothering to shut their doors. On cue, the cloud cover broke, sprinkling them with moving pockets of sunlight.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Sophia said.
Paul pumped the shotgun. “Don’t say that.”
“Maybe we should find a Macy’s.”
He gave her a dismissive arch of an eyebrow and kept going. Triangular shards of glass rimmed the edge of the broken front door like shark’s teeth, twinkling in the setting sun. Paul stepped through first, careful not to snag his coat on the door’s pointy teeth guarding the entrance. Glass popped beneath his winter boots. He stopped just inside the double doors and covered the others as they entered the store, sniffing at the musty smelling air. It didn’t take long to figure out the walking dead smelled like spoiled milk.
The Kohl’s store was even quieter inside than it was outside. No light music raining down from the recessed speakers in the ceiling, no hum from the heavy-duty furnaces, and no carts with squeaky wheels and fussy children. They stood shoulder to shoulder and listened, the sunshine stretching their shadows across the tiled floor before them. Regardless of the broken front door, it looked like they were the first ones to step foot inside since the manager turned off the lights, locked the doors and never returned.
Paul removed his bulky coat and threw it off to the side, already feeling ten pounds lighter. “Say goodbye to this damn thing.”
The others followed suit, shedding their thick skins for the last time.
Dan stared at Wendy’s massive breasts pushing against her thermal, his shotgun clutched in both hands. She gave him a coy wink and Paul rammed a shopping cart into a long jewelry case, shattering glass onto the watches inside. With weapons at the ready, they stood united, a wall of resistance to every angle someone could come flying from. The tension-filled silence weighed on Paul’s lungs, squeezing his chest like heartburn. When no one sprang from a rack of half-priced Valentine’s Day sweaters, Sophia grabbed another cart and started pushing.
“We’ll be right over here,” she said, pointing to the women’s section.
“Make sure you stay where we can see you.”
She waved at her husband, an impish smile on her lips. “We will,” she sang out, followed by two maniacal laughs that echoed throughout the store as the girls strolled off with an empty cart that wouldn’t stay that way for long.
“You know we’re not going to be able to fit back in the car,” Dan whispered, admiring a rack of bomber jackets.
Paul flipped through some bubble vests. “We’re going to need a truck.”
Dan’s wide eyes slowly rose. “We should hit a car lot next,” he whispered gravely. “Oh my God, I’m finally getting a Corvette.”
“You’re too young for a mid-life crisis.”
“Not anymore. I’d say the average life-expectancy just dropped to thirty-five, which means I’m about ready to retire.”
“In that case, we should get you a walker.”
Sophia inhaled sharply, drawing Paul’s gaze to the women’s department across the aisle. “This is so cute!”
“Ooh, that is cute,” Wendy agreed, admiring the red pleather jacket Sophia was holding up. “But I have to have this.” Wendy slipped into a tight-fitting girly motorcycle jacket and searched for a mirror, pulling her hair over her shoulders.
Sophia studied Wendy with an eye trained for fashion. “That is so you.”
“And it doesn’t smash my boobs!” She paused. “Well, that much.”
“Ha! I wish I had your problems.” Sophia slid into the red jacket and joined Wendy at a three-way mirror outside the dressing rooms. The short coat fit tight, showing off her hourglass figure. “This is definitely a keeper,” she said, turning this way and that, her long ponytai
l bouncing behind her.
Both women kept the jackets on and continued on their shopping spree.
Paul couldn’t help the smile he felt playing on his lips. It was good to see her forget their troubles long enough to have some fun again. A few days ago, he was certain fun would become a thing of the past, like Hulu and Starbucks.
“What do you think?” Dan asked, modeling a brown bomber jacket.
“Don’t you want something that’s waterproof? There will be a lot of pop-up storms around the ocean.”
Dan checked his wallet. “If you loan me forty bucks I can get both.”
Paul grunted and found a lightweight windbreaker with a perfect fit. He threw a black vest over it and kept moving, feeling like he could swing the shotgun around much faster now.
“This is pretty.” Wendy held up a purple sweater.
Sophia tossed a pair of thin gloves into the cart. “That looks really warm.”
“Feel this.”
Sophia rubbed the soft material. “Ooh, I’m getting one of those too.”
Wendy threw the hanger to the side and dropped the sweater on top of the gloves, surveying their haul with hands planted on her curvy hips. “How much fun is this?”
“So fun,” Sophia replied, too busy holding up a black sweater of her own to notice the tall skinny lady standing just inside the shadowy entrance to the dressing rooms.
Chapter Sixteen
Paul leaned his shotgun against a table covered in folded jeans and found a pair of black Levis in his size. He tossed them in Dan’s cart, his handgun banging against the table. “You think Benji found his way home?”
Dan looked up, a pair of jeans clutched in his hands. “I doubt he could make it that far. That horse looked spent.”
Paul replied with a faint nod, trying not to imagine Hannah and James holed up in their house with bloodstained mouths when Benji came home with their dead husband and father slumped over inside the buggy.
“I’m putting on all new clothes before we even leave.”
Paul rifled through a stack of blue jeans next. “That’s a good idea.”
“Let’s hit the shoes!” they heard Sophia say in the women’s department.
“I need some new underwear too,” Wendy said. “Mine are getting…”
Sophia set the sweater into the cart, eyebrows knitting together as she looked up. “What’s wrong?”
Wendy screamed and Sophia jumped back, knocking the cart to the ground with a clang.
Paul dropped the Levi’s to the floor and left his shotgun leaning against the table, pulling his Beretta on the run. He bolted from the carpet to the shiny tiled floor, feet sliding out beneath him. Arms wind-milling, he slid to a stop in the women’s section where red drool oozed from a tall woman’s mouth. Her hollowed out eyes watched Wendy shakily draw a .38 from the small of her back. The dreadfully thin lady spread a playful grin and shambled from the dressing room shadows. A Kohl’s name tag told Janet’s story.
Paul was wrong.
The manager never made it out alive.
With trembling hands, Wendy pointed the gun at Janet’s decaying face, but Janet didn’t seem to mind. She trudged closer, carelessly knocking a rack of springtime raincoats to the floor. “Please stop,” Wendy moaned, taking a step back.
“Shoot it!” Paul yelled, taking aim. He hesitated with his finger on the trigger, giving Wendy a small window of opportunity to get her third kill. She would need the practice on moving targets. They all would. Shooting a tin can on a fence post didn’t have the same effect on your breathing as shooting someone who used to be a mother of three and now wants to eat your flesh. Breathing changed everything.
A gunshot sent the thing flying backwards into the three-way mirror. Janet crumpled to the floor with shards of glass landing in her thin brown hair.
Wendy stared hard at the blood trail leaking from Janet’s forehead, gun still pointed at the manager’s face. “I-I couldn’t do it.”
“It’s okay, sweetie,” Sophia said, holstering her smoking weapon and rushing to Wendy’s side.
“I couldn’t do it!”
“It’s over now,” Sophia said, gently lowering Wendy’s gun.
Dan scanned the mess on the floor through wide eyes. “Hole-lee shit!”
“Are you okay?” Paul asked, examining Sophia and Wendy.
“We’re fine,” his wife answered with Wendy trembling in her arms.
“I lied about the girls behind the bar,” Wendy sobbed. “I couldn’t shoot them and, eventually, they just went away.”
Dan shook his head, eyes glued to the dead woman on the carpeted floor. “Why didn’t she come out when you rammed that cart into the jewelry case?” He looked up to find Paul’s dilated eyes.
Paul stared back at him with no reply, a bad feeling washing over him like a cold dark cloud.
Sophia traded a look with Paul that four years of marriage allowed him to read loud and clear. They had to be more careful. Just when you thought it was safe, it wasn’t. Precedent meant nothing.
“They’re getting smarter.” Dan used his boot to nudge the woman’s floppy leg.
“We could’ve been killed,” Wendy murmured. “And it would’ve been my fault.”
Sophia pressed her lips together. “It’s never anyone’s fault. Not now.”
Wendy seized her by the wrist, a wild look in her eyes. “You saved my life.”
Sophia peeled Wendy’s fingers from her arm. “And you better stick around long enough to pay me back.”
Paul stared at the small bite mark in the dead woman’s arm, wondering what the last thing she did as a human being before some dead thing sent their pointy teeth into her skin. Returning unwanted clothing from the dressing room to the sales floor? Unpacking the new spring line of dresses? Texting her husband to let him know she’d be home late and that she loved him? If there was electricity, he’d locate the security office and rewind the surveillance footage to find out. A part of him had to know. Then he wondered what the last thing he would do before the inevitable. It was only a matter of time.
Here’s the writing.
Here’s the wall.
A high-pitched shriek made Dan scream. A chubby little girl came fast from a rack of sweat pants, stringy red hair swinging across her angry face. Dried blood encircled her splintered lips and darkness coiled in her eyes. No time to shoot, Dan swung the butt of the twelve gauge around but didn’t catch her squarely. Undeterred, the girl’s purple arms slithered around his waist and constricted, popping a loud groan from his lips and slamming him against a wall of flannel shirts. Dan dropped the shotgun and pushed against her forehead to keep her snapping teeth at bay. “Get her off me! Get her off me!”
Unable to get a clear shot, Paul yanked on the girl’s hair but it ripped away in his hand.
Dan cried out to the ceiling as she wrung the air from his lungs. “Shoot her!”
Paul grabbed the back of the girl’s coat and Sophia joined in the tug of war. The red head’s teeth clamped down on Dan’s arm and tore away a patch of leather. He screamed and Paul gave one final tug, hurling her to the floor. She rolled to a stop and sprang to her feet, a grin slicing through her freckled cheeks. The color drained from Paul’s face as he witnessed the impossible. This girl couldn’t be older than eight or nine yet had the strength of a full grown man and the speed to match. “What the fuck?” he whispered coldly, aiming at her snarling face.
She charged again, digging Hello Kitty boots into the tiled flooring. Matt and Mike dashed through Paul’s mind just before he put two rounds into her chubby cheeks, sending her crashing onto her side. Silence rained down from the vents above, their uneven breaths the soundtrack to Paul’s racing heart. She was so damn young and he wasn’t sure which hurt more: The dead look on her face or the fact that he just put it there.
“Did you see how strong she was?” Sophia whispered as if more may be lurking in the shadows.
Dan peeled himself off the wall and rubbed the back of his head
. “Oh, I saw it. She almost crushed my lungs.”
A far-off ringing stung Paul’s ears, his chest rising and falling beneath his new vest.
Dan examined his shredded jacket, pulling the sleeve back and checking his arm, which appeared to still be in one piece. His large eyes rose to find their anxious stares. “So you guys about ready to get going or what?”
Chapter Seventeen
The Kohl’s security room upstairs was much smaller than Paul imagined, lit up by a single computer monitor on a diminutive desk. He looked down at his brand new black Adidas, and then turned to Sophia and Wendy. Both women sat in plastic office chairs against a white wall, modeling vacuous looks with folded arms and crossed legs. Then Paul noticed his holster and gun were gone. His heart jumped. Spinning on his heels, he patted his new Levi’s down like they were on fire.
“Here it is!” The computer screen cloaked Dan’s face in an eerie glow. “Come check this out!”
“I left my gun downstairs!” Paul cried, turning to Sophia and Wendy, both of whom seemed disinterested in his plight.
“Forget about that; you have got to see this!” Dan replied, not taking his eyes from the old fashioned monitor.
Stupefied, Paul looked up from his naked gun belt and, grudgingly, traipsed over to the metal desk, insides melting. Even with his much lighter running shoes, his legs still felt heavy, like when you get thick mud clogged in your shoes.
In the screen’s glare, Dan’s face looked older, wiser. “This is so crazy,” he whispered, leaning on the desk and nodding to the chair. “Sit down.”
Paul’s brow fell in the ghostly glow. “How is this even on? There’s no power.”
“Must be running on some kind of backup generator or something, but you are not going to believe this.” Dan shook his head. “As if we didn’t have enough to worry about already.”
Paul studied Dan through dubious eyes before pulling back the desk chair. His face soured. “I can’t sit here,” he said, staring at the chair, which reminded him of his kindergarten days. “It’s way too small.”
A Little More Dead Page 9