by James Barton
“You aren’t a monster. Monsters try to hurt people, on purpose. You have done nothing but help people ever since I met you.”
“I infect people just by sharing the same room with them. Hell, I may have infected the whole city,” she snapped. “I was too scared to end it all and I convinced myself it was okay, because I found a box of dried shrimp. It wasn’t until we saved you that day; that I truly felt like I had redeemed myself. I fell for you and I became selfish again. I just started thinking about us, to hell with everyone else.”
“That’s not selfish, it’s human.”
“I kept that paper from the Army next to the bed and stared at it all night. I could just turn myself in and everything would be forgiven. My sacrifice would save hundreds or thousands of people. I could save humanity. Whatever they would do to me to extract a cure was nothing compared to what I deserved.”
“Don’t talk like that; you didn’t cause this.”
“I know, but I could stop it.”
We didn’t talk much after that, she had quickly gone from her fun-loving light mood to a dark and self-loathing one. She was upset and asked for a minute alone. When I made a remark about that being difficult when surrounded by a horde of zombies, she didn’t laugh.
A few minutes later she walked up to me and forced a smile. It was fake, but it still made me feel better.
“Sorry, I’m better now. Camping huh, I always wanted to go camping,” she said.
“I would have chosen the weekend playing video games, watching movies, and eating junk food, but yeah, camping was my second pick,” I joked.
We neared the turn into the Allmart and there were signs everywhere. They had originally been road signs, but they were turned around and had spray-painted messages. They warned of trespass and threatened death to any that went further. The final turn to Allmart had a large sign with a message on it. Sprayed in red were the words “Hostile occupants - do not approach.”
Tied in chains around the metal leg of the sign was a single female zombie. It was wrapped around her waist and her arms were held up over her head by wire and screws. This girl of probably twenty years old stood there groaning and staring into the emptiness. Her shirt had been torn and revealed both her breasts, which may had been appealing before the turn. Her pants or skirt had been removed and lay on the ground nearby.
“Oh, I hope that’s not what I think happened,” I said shocked.
Shay didn’t say anything, but she looked furious. She marched up to the sign and began to rip the screws from the sign, freeing the girl’s arms. The girl made a single chomp at the air and looked towards the Allmart. I started to pull at the chains, trying to find where to unhook them. Shay snapped them in half with her bare hands and they fell to the soggy ground. The zombie just started walking towards the super store without any hesitation. I thought to myself, “We will all get our revenge today.”
I wondered if there was a leader, some shadowy figure pulling the strings of these thugs, hunters, and convicts. If so, they had become more of a monster than we ever could be.
“Let’s go,” Shay commanded. I simply obeyed.
The two buildings that shared the area, a hardware store and an office supply store, had been burned to the ground. Ashes and rubble surrounded a partially erect skeleton of the once sturdy building. Some beams and parts of the building remained, but there was absolutely nothing of value left. No one could find anything of use or even use the building as shelter ever again. I figured the raiders didn’t like having neighbors and dealt with it harshly.
We continued to walk up the road and the parking lot of the super store came into view. There was a mangle of cars wrapping around the parking lot creating a sort of makeshift barrier. We scanned the building, looking for snipers on the roof and saw nothing. We approached the first car in the barrier and looked through the side windows. The parking lot had been cleared almost entirely of cars and its emptiness seemed so out of place it made me nervous. Inside were a few wandering zombies, and then I began to see the horrors.
A zombie dangled from one of the light poles, tied up with chains. Its legs had been chewed off and it swayed back and forth, reaching towards the front door. I nudged Shay and pointed at it.
“These people are sick,” she said.
“Why would you tie up a zombie like that?” I asked.
“Look at his legs and the height he is dangling. He wasn’t a zombie when they strung him up,” she replied coldly.
It hadn’t hit me at first. They tied up a living person and suspended him just high enough for the undead to eat his bottom half. I had originally thought their sick and twisted messages were about survival. You know, scare the hell out of people so they would stay away, but this was simply too much.
Our entourage of dead began to paw and slap at the barrier of cars. In time, one might accidentally trip or crawl under a vehicle, but their wall of SUVs proved rather effective. Shay and I continued to scan the building before moving any further. The last thing any of us wanted was for our story to end abruptly with a well-placed bullet to the head.
The building never had windows, and for us that was a huge advantage. The two entrances normally had large glass sliding doors but they had been blocked off by boards and slabs of sheet metal. They had very low visibility and with no one posted on the roof, I felt we had an opening to get around the parking lot and look at some of the emergency exits on the side.
“Oh hell no,” Shay said and began to push on the green SUV.
“What?” I asked.
She glared at me and her face had gone slightly feral, something I still hadn’t quite gotten used to seeing. She pointed through the gap and continued to push on the vehicle.
I peered between the gaps and saw a tall black man chained to a light post. Desmond! He was restrained and exhausted. Around him were the corpses of about a dozen zombies. “Oh hell no was right,” I thought as I leaned in and helped push. The vehicle slid sideways, leaving a light trail of black rubber on the pavement. We faced each other as we put our backs into it. I could feel my face straining from the weight. She gave me a disfigured smile that while creepy, was still comforting. We are the boogey men and we are coming for you, raiders.
We cleared enough space between the vehicles that we could squeeze in and we sprinted over to Desmond. He stood slumped over with his head staring down at the ground. In his hand was a yellow painted fragment of concrete. It was drenched in blood and chunks of brain matter.
“Desmond!” I called out.
He instinctively swung the hunk of concrete in our direction and barely lifted his head.
“Desmond, it’s us,” Shay called out.
He lifted his head and he looked like he had been awake for weeks.
“What are … is that you?” he said hoarsely.
Shay threw herself at him, wrapping him partially with a hug. He dropped the concrete weakly as she hugged him. He looked like he was about to tear up and then pulled away, wiping his face with his sleeve. He cleared his throat loudly.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” he said.
“We would never leave you behind,” I said.
“Ungh!” a zombie moaned, only a few steps behind me.
I spun around to see a dozen zombies, only paces away.
“Stop them! We have to get Desmond out of here!” Shay cried out.
I unsheathed both machetes and began to effortlessly decapitate the undead. It felt wrong, not because I was practically one of them, but because they just stood there.
“Stop it!” Desmond shouted as Shay snapped the chains from the post.
As I swung the blades, I could feel my forearms pulsing with a strength I never had. My veins stuck out and were almost black underneath my skin. I stopped after the fifth zombie fell to the ground with a thud, its head rolling away from its body. My veins began to fade back to their normal appearance.
“Stop, I said,” Desmond struggled to say. Shay had jumped between him and a zombie
. The zombie dressed in skater apparel just stood there staring at the building. I scrunched my brow as it showed no reaction to Desmond.
“Um, Shay,” I said.
She noticed the motionless zombie and stood up straight. She turned around and looked at Desmond. He pointed at one of the original corpses at his feet. It was a spreader that had practically exploded. Piles of loose skin were strewn about the ground and a huge gaping hole in its chest revealed a nearly empty, liquefied center.
“You can’t dodge their goo when you are chained to a pole. I hit it with this concrete and it exploded all over me,” he said sadly.
I was upset, but losing people had started to become routine. The lack of emotion made me feel even more hollow. Shay dropped to her knees uttering a low roar. She began to slam her fists into the pavement and it sent small cracks rippling through the ground. Desmond put his hand on her.
“Stop it, girl,” he said. “I have until I fall asleep right?”
“Yeah, but you look exhausted,” she said wiping the angry tears from her eyes.
“Are you here to finish this?” he asked.
“We came to save you and hopefully get some supplies. We were going to make a go at the whole forest thing. After this, I’m not just here for supplies, I am here to wipe them off the map forever. So yeah, this ends today.”
“Count me in. How come the zeds aren’t attacking you, Jim? Did you get splashed, too?”
“Not exactly, it’s a long story,” I responded.
“Never mind then, stories make me sleepy.”
We had retreated back to the exterior of the super store barrier. Many of the zombies had slipped into the parking lot and moved towards the front doors. Desmond began to help us understand what we were about to face.
“I never got inside, but I seent a lot of their movements from here. They use this main lot as a sort of funnel trap. The zeds that manage to get past the cars get stuck in here. Then they basically act as guard dogs against the living.”
“What about the front doors?” I asked.
“They don’t use them at all. They all boarded up with scrap wood and some sheet metal. They use the side doors and the auto-center is where they park all them damn trucks.”
“What about guards?” Shay asked.
“Sheet, they don’t even think about that. I heard them talking and they said no one would dare come for me. They were confident bout that.”
“Jim we have to figure out a plan,” Shay said.
“I already got it; I’ve had plenty of time to think it through. I knew you would come for me an all,” Desmond said. “I’m gonna rip them front doors right off their hinges. You brought friends and I figure we let them crash the party. I’ll get both doors open and then I’m going in for blood.”
“Desmond … that’s suicide,” Shay said sadly.
“I ain’t Harvey. I don’t want to see the other side. I haven’t always been the best Christian, but I can’t turn into one of them. It just ain’t right.”
Shay and I looked at each other and didn’t have any grounds to argue with his beliefs. His plan was simple, yet solid. It would provide us with the distraction we needed and give him a release from a fate he didn’t deserve.
I pulled Desmond’s hammer off of my belt and examined it for a moment. I held it out to him, “Give ‘em hell.”
He took the hammer and gave Shay one last bear hug. I shook his strong hand.
“See you on the other side,” he said.
We dug our heels in and pushed two of the vehicles at an angle, allowing the swarm of undead to flow into the parking lot. We didn’t control them, but they wanted to eat the people inside that store and we had just given them the keys to the front door.
We ran along the line of cars and the side lot was full of vehicles that had been moved with a bulldozer or something similar. It seemed that they had pushed all the smaller vehicles away and used the SUVs and trucks to build the barrier. Shay and I moved quickly through the crowded lot and towards the side entrance.
Then a black car caught my eye. I stopped and laughed as I verified the license plate.
“What is that?” Shay asked.
“It’s my car,” I replied.
“Well it’s not like you have the…” she began.
I pulled out the keys and shrugged my shoulders. “Carrying a wallet and keys, it’s just a hard habit to break.”
“Well that’s convenient. We can use it once we get all the supplies,” she said.
“Sounds good,” I said while running my hand against the car.
As we came around the corner, we could make out large squared objects or structures up in front of the door. The sound of multiple motors came grumbling from that direction as well. We glanced at each other with confused looks and began to move closer. From behind us, I could hear the sound of gunshots. It would seem that Desmond had gotten the first entrance open. We picked up the pace as we clung to the wall. As we got closer, it was clear what the large cubes were.
We were staring at a military pallet full of supplies. This pallet of supplies had to be at least ten feet high and ten feet wide. It had mesh straps running around the sides and it was all connected to a huge metal pallet. It had a heavy duty clear plastic cover as well. I reached into the pallet and pulled out a dull brown pouch. It read, M.R.E. Pizza Dinner.
“How did they get a military pallet full of food?” I whispered.
“I don’t know, but that looks like enough food to feed a hundred people for a month.”
The motor noises were louder here and it sounded like they were coming from the other side of this pallet. I walked around the pallet and almost ran right into a man sitting in a folding chair. His attention was on a group of zombies in the distance that he was taking shots at with his rifle. To his side was about ten electric generators wired into each other. Their wires snaked across the ground and ran through a hole in the building. To his other side was a second military style pallet with large gas cans. The sound of the generators had muffled our approach and he sat unaware of our presence.
He fired off another shot at the group in the distance. Shay came around the corner and without even uttering a word and put him in a chokehold that lifted him out of his chair. His eyes lit up with surprise as I snatched the rifle from his hands and he flailed and struggled to escape her grasp. After struggling for a time, he was only seconds from passing out and then she released her grip. He collapsed onto the ground gasping for air loudly. She kneeled in front of him. She locked eyes with him before blowing one deliberate puff of air in his face. She slowly walked behind him and he looked at me with eyes that plead for mercy. She put him back into a chokehold and had this murderous grin that sent a chill down my spine.
I hadn’t noticed it earlier, but there were actually two chairs. There had to be a second guard and I searched the area for him while Shay finished her business. She strangled the man to death and didn’t let go even when I was sure he was long dead. Her lip had curled into a snarl. A whole minute passed while she held the lifeless corpse in her grip. Then the body shook violently and kicked its legs. She let go and it crumpled onto the ground and moaned loudly. It simply picked itself up and began walking towards a small ditch full of trees and brush.
“That’s where the second one is,” she said with a determined look.
“Damn, it’s a walking radar.”
We let our new friend lead the way while we split up to flank both sides. I figured that we would catch our second guard with his pants down. I mean literally, as that was probably a decent spot to relieve himself. What I can say is that, yes, we did catch him with his pants down, and yes he was relieving himself … just not in the way that I had predicted.
I could make out the sounds well before I could see him. At first I had thought there might be two people having sex down there. It didn’t take long for me to distinguish the difference between real people and well, porn people. I could see a small electronic tablet leaned up agai
nst a rock displaying an illicit video. He was very in to his movie and I saw Shay’s face from the other side of the brush. She put the back of her hand over her mouth and tried not to laugh. The man’s undead partner snuck up behind him, despite not being quiet at all. Perhaps the moans of the walker were drowned out by, well, other moans.
The zombie lunged onto his back and brought him face first into the leaves. It dug its teeth into the back of his neck and took a few nasty chunks out. As the man struggled unsuccessfully to get it off of him, his screams intermingled with the finale on his tablet. The man was now an unwilling star in his own sexual snuff film. Two or three bites later, his legs shook and the attacking zombie stood up and began to walk towards the store.
“How is that possible? It’s happening so fast now,” I said.
The man on the ground let out a raspy groan and staggered to his feet.
“I don’t know, did I … get stronger?”
The man spun around to follow his friend to the store. As he stumbled through the brush, his still erect penis stuck out of the fly in his jeans. I cringed and looked away.
“Ugh, I could have done without seeing that,” I said.
Shay busted out laughing. “That’s not something you see every day.”
We returned to the pallets and it didn’t appear that anyone had come out to check on these two. I stared at the generators like they were some alien technology.
“I can’t believe they have electricity,” I complained.
Shay was looking at the metal door and ignored me. There was a knob and a deadbolt lock. She just kept examining it for weak points.
“Should we cut the power?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. I don’t want them to come investigate back here yet.”
“That makes sense. Why are you looking at that door so hard? You could just rip it off the hinges.”
“Probably, but I don’t want to go busting in if we can help it,” she said while looking over her shoulder.