* * *
Carol got it in her head to take the kids and follow Jack to the shopping center, despite his instructions to remain in the safety of the gas station. Her excuse was that she wanted to find her some new clothing. She was intrigued by the fact that she wouldn’t need money to get what she wanted. All she had to do was take it off the shelf and it was hers. Besides, who was he to tell her what to do? She could take her children and do whatever she felt like doing.
As she shooed the kids across the intersection toward her dream shopping spree, she failed to notice the crowd that had been working their way slowly up from the mall. Charlie was skipping along humming some sort of tune that she didn’t recognize. Steven was out in the front with his eyes on the ground and his hands in his pockets.
As usual, Sheri was the first to recognize their immediate peril. Without making a sound, she placed one hand on Charlie and with her other hand she tapped her mother. Carol’s annoyed expression changed to one of disbelief as she followed her daughter’s gaze.
“Run!” Carol screamed as she ran past the kids heading for the only person who made her feel safe — Jack.
“Steven, grab Charlie,” Sheri cried. Once she knew that Charlie was in Steven’s arms, she ran after her mother, as fast her little feet would carry her. Steven quickly outpaced her with Charlie over his shoulders.
The crowd of zombies looked like they were pressed up against an invisible barrier as they spread out across the edge of the highway and filled the ramp leading down to the mall. It was as if they were waiting for the starter pistol to fire before surging forward.
To Sheri’s relief, the crowd of walking dead was mostly comprised of the slower moving types. It wasn’t until she was nearly across the parking lot, which was scattered with stinking bodies, that the more aggressive creatures were able to press their way through their brethren and pursue their prey with uncanny speed.
Sheri wept as her lungs burned. Her legs felt like rubber when she finally leapt through the open glass door that Steven held for her. Yards behind her, she could hear her pursuers. She stumbled through the second set of doors and then fell into a tangle of arms and legs when her mother fell across her.
The sound of metal crashing into the floor stirred her from her lethargy and she saw Jack standing over her panting.
“What the heck happened?” Jack asked when the sound of shattering glass echoed from somewhere in the back.
“They’re coming in the back!” Sheri screamed. In her mind, she saw her and Charlie trapped against the crash gate as swarms of those creatures filled the store. She looked to Jack in her desperation. He seemed unreasonably calm. So she opted to hold her breath and wait.
Jack heard the noise, but to him it didn’t equate to zombies coming in the back. He thought about the sounds he had heard and the voice of the man talking earlier. Something’s going on back there, he thought.
“Hey, isn’t that Randi’s skateboard?” Steven asked, pointing to the object propped up beside a large satchel.
“Yeah. She’s gotta’ be somewhere near,” he said and then to Carol he asked, “What happened?”
“Mom wanted to go shopping,” Steven said scowling at his mother.
Jack looked at Carol and she offered him a weak smile and slight shrug in response. Again, Jack swallowed a retort and knelt beside the satchel. He strapped two nine-millimeter pistols to his chest in holsters that hung under his arms, and then hung one of those wicked looking bowie knives from his belt. He stuffed two loaded clips into each of his back pockets and then handed the crossbow to Steven. Reluctantly, Carol accepted the other pistol with clips and holster. She held as if it was a dead mouse in need of disposing of.
Sheri pointed to the front of the barrel and said, “That’s where the bullets come out.”
“I know that,” Carol said and turned the gun the other way so that the dangerous end was no longer pointing at her feet.
Jack sighed and then said, “Watch!” He pulled the pistol from his holster and then made a show of pulling back the action that forced a round into the chamber. “Now you point and shoot. Just don’t touch the trigger unless you intend to pull it.”
After a couple of tries, Carol managed to chamber the first round. Jack resisted the urge to roll his eyes and then watched as Sheri did it for him. “Here’s the plan. This building is filled with everything we need to survive. It’s time to do some shopping.” He looked at Carol to emphasize the last word. He quickly spouted a list of items they would need and sent Carol, Sheri, and Charlie to find them. “Be sure to keep an eye out for Randi. If you find her, tell her I said to stay with you. Steven and I will be back. We’re going to check out that noise.”
Jack and Steven crept off into the darkness leaving Carol standing there gazing at the gun in her hand with dismay. She looked like she wanted to cry. Outside she could hear the frustrated wails of the dead people who wanted to eat her.
“Let’s get to it,” Sheri said and grabbed Charlie by the hand. Carol followed numbly behind.
Jack moved quickly down the center aisle with Steven on his heels. Everything in him hoped that Randi had been the one to break the glass in her search for extra supplies. Or at the very least, he hoped the sound had nothing to do with Randi at all. Yet, there was something in his gut that just felt wrong. If Randi was here and she was okay, she would have made herself known. If she was no longer here, then something was wrong. If Randi was still here and couldn’t make herself known, then something was really wrong.
“There,” Steven said and pointed to an opening the revealed a narrow hallway. Steven checked the water fountain to discover it didn’t work without electricity. Jack, on the other hand, discovered the stairwell. At the top of the steps, a small office with a large picture window overlooked the entire store. The desk was covered in papers, some of which were scattered across the floor.
The room had a strange odor to it that he couldn’t quite place. There was a sleeping pallet on the floor with blankets and pillows. A pile of rags, food wrappers, and other miscellanea left him with the impression that someone had spent a number of days in this room. Yet, there was no hint to where they may have gone.
Looking out the window, he could see Sheri leading her mother and Charlie about the store looking for supplies. If there were others living here, he should probably try to find them. If humanity was going to survive in this new world, they were going to have to stick together. Surely, someone out there could do a better job of protecting this family than he was doing.
“Jack!” Steven whispered up the steps.
“Yeah,” Jack responded as he pounced back down to the hallway.
Steven was standing at the back of the hall looking through two swinging doors into the dark beyond. “There’s broken glass back here,” he said in a manner that made Jack think of the teenage sleuths of Scooby-Doo. If it weren’t for you meddling kids!
Steven was right. The small warehouse at the back of the store was dark, but as soon as he stepped into the room, he heard the glass crunch under his boots. To the right he could see a solid door with a sign above it that pronounced it an exit.
Jack pointed deeper into the warehouse and Steven took the hint and moved his search further in. Jack stepped slowly toward the door. The glass continued to crunch under his feet. The room had a distinct smell that made him think of the kitchen stockroom at the prison.
The door was solid and had a push plate that crossed the center of it. To exit, he would merely have to push on the bar and the latch would open. He placed his hand on the door to open it and changed his mind. Instead, he put his ear to the crack of the door and listened for any sounds beyond.
The scraping of feet, the low growls mixed with the sound of something sniffing heavily at the door convinced him that death danced outside the door.
“Randi!” Jack echoed once into the warehouse, turning away from the door. He was willing to take the risk just this once on the chance that she might be hiding so
mewhere near. All that answered him was silence.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
T his was Denise’s third time being carried like sack over Billy’s shoulder. Having spent three days being passed between Billy and Daryl, she barely managed any sleep at all. Truthfully, she was glad the other girl came along. She had hoped that with the arrival of the new girl, they would leave her alone for a while. Her hope increased when she learned that others had entered the store. Maybe she would finally be able to escape.
What hope she had was dashed when she found herself being hauled down the stairs through the dark and out a back door. The men were running from any confrontation that they were sure they could not absolutely win. She smiled grimly to herself when she realized that until she could escape, she was the property of cowards.
Outside, the daylight blinded her. The dead things sounded too close for comfort and so she tried to raise her head to see how many there were. To her absolute horror, one was close enough to reach out and touch her or at least that is what it seemed like since she had no depth perception. She tried to scream through her gag and warn Billy, but he was cursing his cousin for standing around. Then she heard something scuffle against the pavement in front of Billy followed by the sound of running footfalls.
Daryl had panicked and ran off after dropping the girl on the pavement. The truth of her predicament choked her with fear. Would Billy drop her in exchange for the pretty teenager? Oh God, she thought. How could she convince Billy not to leave her? If only she could talk to him, she would profess that she loved him and wanted him to take her with him! It wouldn’t be the first time that she’d lied to a man to save her own skin. This time it will be her literal skin.
Billy carried her with him when he stepped over to the girl. Denise looked about her trying to gauge how much time she had before she would be lunch for some wretched monster. Several of the creatures were already lumbering in her direction. She squeezed her eyes tight and chanted in her mind, Please . . . Please . . . Please . . . Please. She tried to will Billy to leave and take her with him.
Billy nudged the girl with the toe of his boot and looked around. He figured he had about twenty seconds to decide what he was going to do. The girl’s dark hair spilled over her pale shoulder in a way that made him really appreciate her beauty. Lying there unconscious with her hands taped behind her back so helpless added to the lure of his fantasy. No. He would not leave her. She was Grade A prime beef and he wanted to savor his time with her.
Billy bent over, set Denise’s feet on the pavement, and stood up. She was shaking her head and mumbling something he couldn’t understand. Tears fell freely from her good eye. When he stepped over to the teenager, Denise hopped over in front of him and blocked his way. There was desperation in her look that caught him by surprise. Then he understood. She thought that he was going to leave her here with no way to defend against those things coming up behind him. Well, he probably should do just that. She deserved nothing less for teasing him and forcing him to hurt her when all he wanted was a little love from her.
Billy smiled cruelly into her face and then gave her chest a shove. With her ankles bound with tape all she could do was scream through her gag and brace herself for the impact. She bent double so that when she hit the pavement, she landed on her buttocks. Even so, the momentum of the fall carried through so that her legs went up over her head.
She watched through a painful haze as Billy picked up the girl and tossed her effortlessly over his shoulder. She seemed so small and fragile. Denise looked past him and wondered if she could still manage to get to her feet and hop to safety. Billy stopped to stand over her like a gloating pig, but his smile slowly slid from his face and was replaced by something she would have never have hoped to see — compassion.
He couldn’t leave her like that. Billy pulled a pocketknife from his back pocket and opened it. With a singular motion, he split the tape holding her ankles together. The skin beneath the tattered pieces of the tape was raw and swollen. She immediately pulled her legs apart feeling muscles cramp that she hadn’t used in days. She didn’t lie around to enjoy the limited freedom he’d just offered her.
Scraping her bare knees on the pavement, she managed to get up on her feet. She was still gagged and her hands bound behind her back, but she would take anything at this point.
Billy took off at a slow jog down the back of the shopping center and Denise was reluctant to follow. So, she turned this way and that looking for better options. The shopping center was built on the crest of a hill and she could see the city mall sprawling below. The parking lot was filled with thousands of moving dead people. Not that way, she thought. In the opposite direction that Billy took the girl, there were a handful of creatures milling about. They seemed to be the more harmless type and so she opted to travel away from Billy and his maniacal cousin.
She quickly dodged around the dead that were nearest to her and moved barefooted down the back of the shopping center. She knew that she was still in a heap of trouble, but it also felt good to be free of those maniacs. She still cursed herself for trusting that they would protect her. Billy’s smile had trapped her. He had a way about him that made her feel protective of him, like he was innocent. Innocent my butt, she thought.
The farther she travelled down the back of the building, the more she realized that moving slowly didn’t attract so much attention from the creatures. It wasn’t until she reached the end of the building that she began to wonder what her next move should be. There wasn’t much to see around the corner of the building so she turned the corner and headed for the front of the shopping center. Surely, she would find someone who could help her.
Diagonal across the parking lot, she caught sight of a gas station, a pizza joint and a car wash that was no more than a quarter of a mile up the highway. Around the corner of the building, the parking lot was strewn with rotting corpses and she started to step around the corner when she caught sight of a crowd of creatures piled up against one of the stores. Slowly she stepped back behind the edge of the building.
She looked around her. For the moment, she was reasonably safe. There were no creatures within sight so she leaned her bare back against the building enjoying the cool touch of the stone. Her jaw ached from the gag. Her ankles itched from spending too much time taped up and her lip was starting to throb. She needed to get her hands free.
Carefully, she slid her forearms down the back her hips and past her buttocks until her taped wrists were nestled at the back of her knees. Then she stepped back through her arms. The maneuver effectively allowed her arms to rest in front of her rather than behind.
Removing the gag, she flexed her jaw. With the utmost care, she put her wrists to her mouth. She was careful not to inflict any more damage to her lip. With a single tear of her teeth, she was free of her bonds. She snatched the tape from her wrists and ankles with a series of quick pulls and then removed the gag from around her neck. She was finally able to rid herself of what was left of her bra and tossed it on the ground.
She desperately wanted to cry. This was the first time in days that she could move around of her own accord. The object was human again. She rubbed her wrists gently as she reviewed her situation. She was no longer a slave. She was free of that problem. At the same time, she was faced with several other problems. One, even with her newfound freedom, it would only take one of the wrong kind of flesh-eaters to discover her for her to change her mind and wish that she was back in the arms of Billy and Daryl. Two, she was running around outside without any clothing. That, all by itself, might attract the wrong kind of help. In her mind, she pictured herself running from a biker gang whose only interest was that she was naked.
Denise ran a hand through her dirty brown hair and sighed. Three, she could really use a hot bath. She wanted to wash the filth from her in many ways. She was tired of smelling her own stink. She knew that the only reason the guys put up with her smell was because they smelled even worse. The thought made her laugh. The
world had been taken over by monsters and only the insane survive!
Shaking herself, she looked back around the corner. The mob continued to hang around the front of the store looking in through the glass like window shoppers without money. She moved back toward the rear of the building and looked around that corner. A herd of walking dead was moving up the hill from the mall. Soon the rear of the shopping center would be swarming in hungry corpses.
Panic rose in her stomach and she rubbed her arms with her hands looking for a way out of the situation. She felt trapped. She peeked around the corner again. There was no way she could flee in that direction. Surely there was one of those “runners” in the crowd who would chase her down and eat her alive. The thought instigated a series of shivers that left her covered in goose bumps.
Quickly, she tiptoed back to the front and looked around the corner again. The crowd of dead people seemed rather subdued as they stood hovering around the store. Maybe they were the slow walking kind. That would be really good right about now. It would be the break she needed.
She counted four stores between her and the crowd of flesh-eaters. Maybe — just maybe — she could move slowly enough not to attract their attention. Then she might be able to slip into one of the other stores before they noticed her. Hopefully, it will be a clothing store. What she wouldn’t do to feel cloth on her skin again. The thought lent her courage.
First, she put one barefoot out followed slowly by the other — and she froze. She was standing in full view of the creatures and all she could think about was that any moment one was going to turn its head and look at her. After that, it would be screaming and more screaming followed by a horrible death as she screamed some more.
She shook her self mentally. It’s either death or life. Her only chance was to find an open door and slip through it — even if they turn and see her, she admonished herself.
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