The captured store victims panicked.
Mr. Hardy and the woman merged into one. What was left of their skin, muscle, and bone were fusing together in one big melting pot of vile sludge and tissue. Her screams turned to grunts and moans as her lips blistered and contorted into unnatural shapes.
Blood was puddling on the floor around them.
Most everyone quickly scrambled toward the back of the store. Those too stunned to move had entirely forgotten about the other three pursuers. Could they even be considered people at this point? What the hell were they, really? It was as if their disfigured, maimed bodies were just walking buckets of acid filled death.
It wasn’t until one of the other cashiers started screaming that Kyle snapped out of it. To his right, closer to the front of the store, the cashier tumbled to her knees as Mr. Hardy’s friend collided with her. It was horrendous, indeed. The disgusting odor of burnt hair and boiling skin reached Kyle’s nose. The smell was one he would never forget and he fought the urge to puke.
Ben grabbed him on the shoulder.
“We need to get the hell out of here, man!”
“You’re telling me!” Kyle shouted as he turned away from the carnage.
“No… Look, there.” Ben pointed to the front door.
Although it was dark outside, making the black murky cloud hard to see, it was still there. The smoke began slowly seeping in like dank fog, thinning as it traveled into the store.
“Oh, shit!” Sarah screeched.
“Let’s go!”
Running down the center aisle toward the back, the grunting protests and sloshing bile grew fainter, replaced by moans of pain and agony.
“Through here,” Sarah said.
They ran through the double doors at the back of the store. Before them were stacks of boxes filled with various vegetables and fruit.
“This is the produce storage room,” Sarah said. “Just around the corner is the door to the loading docks.”
“Are you crazy? We can’t go out there!”
“You got a better idea, Kyle?” Sarah brushed the long dark hair away from her weary face.
“Shhh… Do you hear that?”
They all stood tensely in the silence for a moment. Off in the back room, a little way, Kyle heard two people talking. It sounded as if they were arguing about whether it was safe to go outside.
“I’m tellin’ ya baby, we can’t go out there. You know what I’m sayin’?” The voice was faint.
“Come on. Let’s go see what it is.” Kyle led the way.
His flip-flops didn’t do much for hiding his presence. They echoed against the cold, wet cement of the stockroom. Rounding the corner, Kyle spotted a male and female standing together by the back door, which he assumed led out to the loading docks.
Approaching the couple, Kyle said, “Hey… where did everyone else go?”
Startled, the male raised a pistol into the air. Cocked sideways and unnaturally high, the gun aimed down toward Kyle. The man was tall and thin, and although he was white, his hair was braided tight to his scalp. His pants were baggy and low, revealing most of his boxers. His shirt was three sizes too large and the gold watch on his arm definitely accented the gold in his mouth. He had no visible tattoos other than the three teardrops under his eye. Kyle instantly felt this guy could be trouble. His demeanor was stiff and agitated. Kyle imagined that it wasn’t those things in the store or the clouds outside that made him that way.
“Who the fuck are you, dawg?” He shoved the gun forward.
“Hey, hey… hey… We don’t mean any trouble.” Kyle lifted his hands to the air. “I’m Kyle. Kyle Turner. This is Sarah… and that, that’s Ben Love.”
The man with the gun smirked. “Your last name really Love, yo?”
Ben nodded, looking uneasy. “Yeah.”
“Hell yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ bout, dawg. Yo, my name’s Zack, but you can just call me Z, all right. And this here… This is Becca.” Z stuffed the gun away behind his back.
“Hi… It’s actually Rebecca.” Her inflection was faint, revealing her Hispanic heritage.
Becca waved, but her eyes never left the floor, glazed over with fear. It was as if she had escaped to some faraway place in her mind. Kyle couldn’t blame her. Hell, if he could, he would too.
“Look, it’s nice to put faces and names together, but where the hell did everyone else go? I watched most everyone head this way when the door gave out up front.”
Z didn’t speak. He just nodded toward the door in front of them.
“What? You mean they went out there?” Ben asked, frantic.
“Where the hell else you think they went, Best Buy? Stupid Kracka.”
“Look who’s talking…” Ben whispered.
“What did you say, dawg? Don’t make me bust a cap up in here!” Z stepped forward. “You hear what I’m sayin’?”
“Hey now. We don’t have time to get into racial debates, alright!” Kyle glared at Z.
“We cool.” Z backed down.
“Alright…”
“Yeah, I hear you.” Ben fidgeted with his glasses.
“If they went outside, did any of them say where they were headed?”
“No,” Becca said. “What’s going on?”
She looked up from the floor making eye contact with everyone. Her eyes were swollen from crying, and she was shaking badly.
“What happened to Mr. Hardy?” She continued. “He was such a nice old man.” Tears ran down her face. “I was back here when most of the others left. I didn’t see anything happen, but I could hear it. I could hear them dying. I don’t want to go outside. I’m scared.”
“What do you mean you could hear them dying?” Sarah asked.
Becca didn’t respond. Frightened, she fell into Z’s chest, covering her face with her quivering hands, and began to sob uncontrollably.
“What does she mean?” Sarah insisted.
“She means the fog of death is out there, yo! Those people are crazies, dawg. You know what I’m sayin’? She means she don’t want to go out there! Plain and simple.”
“I don’t blame her,” Kyle sighed. “I sure as hell don’t want to go out there if I can help it.”
Kyle looked at his surroundings.
The hall they had just come down led away from the produce storage area. There were the double doors leading outside in front of them. Although the building was old and run down, it looked as if the doors had been wired to an alarm system at one time or another. The floor under his feet was damp cement, instead of the tile on the sales floor. Across from the rear exit doors was another door. Sarah confirmed that it led to the Deli’s prep room. Other than that, there wasn’t much to look at. A few carts with boxes of unopened freight lined the wall, and a bailer for packing cardboard was across from that. Several empty pallets lay on their side, leaning against the wall beside the bailer.
Moving feet echoed across the sales floor to the backroom. Whoever was out there was getting closer. They were running out of time and options.
“You wouldn’t happen to have another gun, would you, Z?”
“Naw, dawg… This piece right here’s all I got. You know what I’m sayin’.” Grinning, Z pulled the pistol free for everyone to see.
“Good point, Ben. We need weapons.” Kyle continued to scan the room.
“The Deli should have some knives.”
“I appreciate the thought, Sarah, but think long range. You saw what the hell happened out there! The farther away I am from those things while I’m defending myself, the better.”
Sarah rolled her eyes at Kyle.
“The pallets,” Ben said with excitement.
Running up to one, he kicked it over. It crashed to the floor. The noise was loud amid the silence. He stomped down hard on the thin plank of wood, breaking off pieces. Bending over, he yanked at a board until it pulled free.
“Like long wooden stakes!” His voice cracked as he waved the four-foot piece of wood in the air.
“Good thinking, Ben. Here…”
Ben tossed it across the room to Kyle.
“Haa… Yeah, I can feel that. Like some caveman shit, right? You know what I’m sayin’?”
“Hey, it’s better than nothing.” Kyle shrugged.
Just when Ben started to pull away the second piece of splintered wood, the double doors to the produce stock room kicked open. Something crashed to the floor in the produce area, and a guttural moan followed. Kyle couldn’t see from around the corner, but he didn’t have to. The smell was enough to alert anyone.
They were coming!
Sarah and Becca both screamed!
The disfigured lady that had entered the store through the parking lot rounded the corner first. It was as if somehow, over the short amount of time, her body was falling apart even more. As she stepped forward down the hall, pus fell from her exposed tissue. The wet sound of chunks as it splashed to the cement echoed across the hall.
It wasn’t until it followed in behind her that the first shot was fired.
Mr. Hardy and the obese woman suddenly appeared rounding the corner. Combined together like mutated Siamese twins, they staggered and struggled through the hall. It was a single entity. One living thing. But how could it be alive at all? With its four legs moving in an aggravated rhythm, the beast shuffled forward. It had four arms. and its two heads and torso were joined together like jammed, blood covered clay. Two arms protruded out from the center of its hideous mass. The other outer arms freely flailed about like wild limbs in a frenzied storm. Blood and viscera dripped from the thrashing appendages.
Both the woman and the conjoined thing behind her hissed out mournful wails.
The sudden report of Z’s pistol startled Kyle. He dropped down low out of instinct. The shot went wide. The sound of metal meeting metal followed as the bullet ricocheted down the hall.
“What the hell is that thing, yo?” He shouted firing two more shots.
In the confined space, the gunfire was deafening. The first shot went wide, but the second one hit home. The lead woman jerked back as a bullet struck her in the center of the chest. Blood and puss exploded from her disfigured ribcage. Sludge and visceral portions sprayed from her body as the bullet exited her backside.
Regaining her balance, the woman advanced, picking up her pace.
“What the hell!”
“That should have killed her, right, dawg?”
“Come on! Haven’t any of you seen a real zombie movie?”
Ben leaped forward, pushing Kyle and Sarah aside. With the broken piece of pallet in his hand, he lunged toward the approaching creature. He yelled while driving the board into the target. Like soft, watery mud, the plank penetrated the woman’s face. Sliding through her cheek, the muscle folded like damp paper. The board exited the back of her throat separating the spinal cord from the brain. The momentum sent Ben forward as the creature fell backwards to the cement. The sound of glass and plastic shattered as he fell to the floor. The camera around his neck had broken his fall.
Ben wheezed from having the breath knock out of him.
“Look out!” Becca yelled.
Ben looked up from the ground. The mutated Siamese beast was almost right on top of him. Shuffling forward, it stepped over the battered woman. It moaned again. Its voice was like that of two things linked to one set of vocal cords.
It reached down to touch Ben.
“Fuck this, yo!”
Z stepped forward unloading everything he had. With pistol in hand, his arm jerked as each bullet left the chamber. The creature kicked and squirmed with each shot as it did its damage.
“In the head!” Kyle shouted. “In the damn head!”
The next shot sent the monster to the ground. Sarah helped Ben to his feet. The creature continued its struggle to stand. It wiggled in vain on the cement floor, trying to find its footing. It hissed an angry call.
“Dawg, I thought you said a headshot would kill that motherfucker. What gives, yo? You know what I’m sayin’?”
“It had two heads,” Ben breathed, the wind still knocked from his lungs. “Got to shoot the other head.”
Without question, Z pulled the trigger. What remained of Mr. Hardy’s face burst, exploding in wet reds and pinks. The thing finally quit moving.
“Yo, we’ve got to get the hell out of here!” Z complained.
Ben reached for the door.
“Wait, man. You said so yourself, we can’t go out there unprotected.” Kyle grabbed Ben by the arm. “Hazmat suits, remember? We need something, anything to wear before we go out there. We need to be covered!”
“They have painter’s masks in the hardware section,” Sarah offered.
She was scared. They all were. He didn’t even have to ask if he looked scared. He had never been this frightened in all his life.
Kyle Turner just wanted to get back to his Jerry Springer marathon.
CHAPTER THREE
“Are you serious about what you said back there?” Kyle whispered, peeking around the hardware aisle.
“What?” Ben’s brow crunched up with curiosity.
“You know…” Keeping his voice low, he said, “Zombies. You really think that’s what we’re dealing with here?”
Kyle’s grip tightened on the metal rod in his hands, eager to find the masks and get out.
Having decided it was best to go back into the store for supplies, Kyle and Ben took a moment to search for better weapons. Kyle hoped like hell that they wouldn’t have to resort to using them, but at least he felt these would be more effective. Next to the bailer along the wall in the back room, Sarah had found a few four-foot long metal rods. The rods were makeshift tools used to troubleshoot the bailer when packing it with cardboard. At least, that is what Sarah said. Taking her at her word, Kyle was happy to know that she knew the store well..
Sticking with Ben’s initial remarks regarding hazmat suits, they came up with a list of items needed: Five painter’s masks, rubber kitchen gloves, white overcoats from the meat market, duct tape, and trash bags.
The list had been a bit more than Kyle had hoped. He dreaded going back into the store, but it had to be done. Kyle and Ben had left the girls with Z at the backdoor. Before actually going out onto the sales floor, Ben had to coax Kyle into realizing it was for the best to leave Sarah behind. He didn’t like the vibe that he was getting from Z, and the last thing he wanted to do was leave her with him. However, there was no time for strife. Ben was right. They needed to keep their heads in the game.
So far, the two men had acquired the gloves and duct tape. Sarah and the others were in charge of getting the jackets, since she knew where to find them. Staring down the hardware aisle, they had not yet seen any of the infected, but could hear them meandering about in the distance. Deciding it best to keep a low profile, they opted out on getting a grocery cart. Kyle had even left his flip-flops with Sarah. The tile was cold against his bare feet.
Kyle looked down the aisle toward the front of the store. Most of the black cloud that had blown into the store was mostly gone. The clouds outside had moved on. He may have not been as geeky as Ben, but he knew a thing or two. Clouds don’t just decide to up and leave. These must have dissolved into smaller particles too small for the naked eye to see. He wondered if being in the store was slowly exposing them to the chemicals. He found himself holding his breath.
“I don’t know, man. Maybe. You got a better explanation. They seem like zombies to me for the most part.”
“I guess not,” Kyle said, looking down at his dirty toes. “What happened in those movies?”
“This is definitely nothing like the movies.” Ben took a breath. “These things are similar in that they can be taken down with a brain shot, but that doesn’t mean anything. The human brain is like one big wave of electricity sending information to and from the...”
“No offense, Ben, but you’re kind of trailing off. I don’t want to know what makes a zombie. If these are zombies, what the hel
l does that mean for us?”
“Well… in the movies, the zombies eat their victims. Cannibalism.”
Kyle’s eyes widened.
“You really never saw any of the old Romero classics, dude?”
Kyle lowered his head.
“Wow, dude. That’s hard to believe. You and I are practically the same age.”
Kyle shrugged his shoulders. “Never really was into the gore.”
“Anyway, man, these things, zombies or not, act like zombies. The only difference is that they aren’t eating flesh. At least I haven’t seen that. It’s almost as if they’re driven by impulse just simply to spread the virus, or whatever it is. The way Hardy attacked that woman was crazy. The virus, those blisters, they just transferred to the victim in seconds.”
“Looked painful as hell if you ask me.”
“I hope I don’t ever have to see anything like that again in my life!” Ben sighed.
“Well, then…” Kyle slapped the metal rod down into the palm if his hand. “Let’s get what we came for and get back to Sarah.”
“You really do like her, don’t you, man?”
Kyle nodded.
“But you don’t even really know her…”
He shrugged, and then two men briskly maneuvered to the center of the aisle, reaching the masks.
“Does it matter what kind?”
“No… these will do. Just make sure we grab enough for everybody.”
“What about these heavy duty bags?” Kyle picked up a twenty-pack box of black garden trash bags.
“Perfect. Let’s go!”
Ben turned to start back the way they had come. His foot grazed the side of the counter sending a stack of small paintbrushes to the floor. The wooden handles colliding with the tile echoed across the store.
The moans followed.
“Crap! Cover is blown.”
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