He was close to the back door when an old man in a gray wool suit lurched toward him. Noah stepped aside, allowing the suited man to fall forward. While he struggled to pick himself up, Noah sunk the machete into the back of his skull.
Dragging the dotard by the collar of his suit-jacket, Noah passed through a pair of swinging doors marked Staff Only and made his way down a dimly lit corridor. The only available light was beaming through porthole windows on the doors at the end of the hall, which led out to the loading dock.
Nearly twenty corpses pounded on the screaming car. Far from an endangered species, thought Noah. Thanks to the cover of the siren, he was able to roll the body off the dock and close the garage door without any of the dead noticing.
Noah returned to the store and stealthily swept through the rest of the aisles. He finally found Alvin among the section of rotting produce. A little girl in a white Sunday dress was slowly walking toward him. Other than her glazed eyes, she looked unspoiled. Noah watched Alvin with curiosity. Instead of bashing her head with his bat, he backed away. The little girl came within a foot of Alvin, but before she could land a bite, Noah darted at her, lodging his blade into the side of her head. She dropped onto the cool, tiled floor with a light thud.
“What were you doing?” said Noah, wide-eyed with bewilderment.
Alvin breathed heavily. “I—she,” he stuttered, “she looked like my sister.”
Noah looked at the girl. Her curly brown hair evoked a slight resemblance of Abby, whom Alvin had said also looked like his own sister. “She’s not your sister. None of these things are anyone anymore. You have to keep telling yourself that.”
Alvin swallowed and nodded.
“The store seems clear, but be careful. Grab what you need. I have to get antibiotics—for two people now,” he said, nodding at his blood-soaked shoulder. “I’ll meet you at the entrance in a half hour.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
As Noah headed toward the pharmacy, Alvin knelt next to the little girl and smoothed her hair over the fresh gash on the side of her skull.
Noah ducked beneath the pharmacy bar flap, blade extended in front of him. He believed that all the corpses had been rooted out of the store, but he knew better than to take anything for granted. Despite almost a complete lack of cognizance, the dead had a strange knack for surprise.
Noah pawed through the medicine bottles looking for any drugs with names ending in “-cillin” or “-mycin.” Although not thoroughly looted, the shelves had already been picked over enough to indicate that Noah wasn’t the first person to come in search of medicine. Whoever else had been there was most likely pounding on the car in the backlot now.
After dressing his wound and swallowing a few Amoxicillin capsules (the same antibiotic he was prescribed for acne when he was 13), Noah went in search of the sporting goods department to scavenge for ammunition.
As he rounded an aisle leading back to the produce section Noah stopped, frozen in disbelief. Alvin was kneeling next to the dead girl, his hand rooting beneath the skirt of her dress. His other hand was in the crotch of his unbuttoned pants.
“What are you doing?” Noah said, not entirely sure what he was seeing.
“What?” said Alvin surprised. His hands snapped back into the open.
“What are you doing!”
“Nothing. Nothing,” he said, springing to his feet. I was just—I was seein’ if she had anything useful on her.”
“In the skirt of her dress?”
Alvin’s face flushed. “No, I—I just—I meant—”
Noah shook his head. “You are messed up, man.”
“Oh, come on.” He opened his arms, trying to entreat his friend. “You said it yourself, these things ain’t people anymore.”
“You just said she looked like your sister! And now you’re—” Noah abruptly shut up. His eyes widened as a whirlwind of memories spun around inside his head before falling into a coherent line: Abby’s despondency, her loss of appetite, the nightmares, the bedwetting, her pelvic pain, and at the end of it all: Alvin—always eager to watch over her.
Noah’s mouth opened, but no words came out. After a moment, he finally spoke. “Dad was right,” he said to himself. He pulled his machete from its sheath and pointed it at Alvin. “You get away from her!”
“Hey now, Noah, relax. She’s dead!”
“I don’t care! She was a little girl,” he said, his voice catching in his throat, “and I’m not going to let you defile her!” He stepped toward Alvin.
He put his hands up in the air. “Come on, man. You know how long it’s been since I seen a woman?”
“That’s not a woman!” He looked away, thinking of Abby, and then looked back to Alvin. “Did you touch her?” There was a hint of desperation in his voice.
“What?”
“My sister, did you touch her?”
“Of course not, buddy.” Alvin said, forcing himself to chuckle. “I would never. She’s like my own sister.”
Noah kept the machete pointed at him. “Yeah. I know how the Bartletts treat their sister.”
Alvin looked away.
“Who really got her pregnant, Al? Was it you? Or are your brothers just as sick as you are?”
The blade was now so close that Alvin could see the bits of dried blood stubbornly clinging to the scores in the metal. It made him think of an old war movie he had seen as a kid where fighter planes were plastered with kill markings on the sides of their fuselage. His lips quivered, but he said nothing.
Noah sheathed his blade. Disgusted he turned and headed toward the front door.
Alvin followed him. “Hold on now,” he said putting his hand on Noah’s shoulder.
Noah rotated his arm, shaking off his grip.
As they exited the first set of double doors Noah froze, startled by what lay outside. A drab sea of living dead was spreading across the parking lot like a barrel of spilt tar.
“Look, we gotta—” Alvin’s words were muffled by Noah’s hand covering his mouth.
“Shut up,” Noah whispered. He headed back into the store pulling Alvin along with him.
Once inside, they closed the second pair of doors.
“Oh my god. What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do!” said Alvin as he stared through the glass.
“Volume.” He strained to see through both sets of doors. Hundreds of living dead were headed their way. Where did they come from? He thought. Where the hell were they hiding this whole time? “Calm down. They’re coming for the alarm, not us. The car’s battery should die soon. As long as we don't do anything to draw their attention they should leave once they find there's nothing to eat—most of them anyway. So until then, just stay away from the doors and don't make a sound.”
“Yeah. Yeah, good thinking, buddy.”
Noah sneered. “This doesn't change anything between us. We're stuck here, for now, but after that, you're on your own.” He started to walk away but then turned back to face Alvin. And if I get home and I find out that you did something to Abby, I’m coming back for you.” He pointed at Alvin. “Do you hear me? I swear to god, I will come back.”
VI
It was dusk when Adam Fitzpatrick reached the gas station at the end of the Walmart parking lot. By then the car alarm had stopped. His glassy eyes shifted toward the highway that ran beside the store and disappeared over a hill into the vermilion horizon on the edge of town. He stared long and hard at the road. It looked inviting—almost familiar.
Adam broke from the mob and shuffled toward the highway. A few undead took notice and followed him. They, in turn, attracted their own followers and so on like a chain of magnets pulling iron stragglers. By the time Fitzpatrick made it to the intersection, he had thirty acolytes in tow. Thirty escorts to accompany him home.
Alvin and Noah didn't see much of one another throughout the rest of the day. Noah spent his time scavenging, organizing and reorganizing supplies, discarding some things he now doubted as useful, and picking up other it
ems he had overlooked. Alvin was lurking somewhere, Noah knew, but he didn't care where so long as the creep stayed away from him. Noah was thankful he would only have to see Alvin once more, at daybreak. They had agreed that it would be best to leave the store together before going their separate ways.
As the light from the skylights dimmed, Noah lay back on a faux leather recliner atop an elevated furniture display. He sharpened his machete on a mill file he'd found in the hardware department. What would he really do if Abby confirmed his suspicion? Could he really kill another man, a living man? He wondered. The only thing keeping him from snapping into a rage was the naïve optimism that Alvin was telling the truth. Perhaps he really hadn’t touched Abby, and the little girl in the produce aisle was the result of some undeniable, deviant urge brought on by months of celibacy. Either way, Alvin’s perversion had unleashed a revulsion in Noah that could never be undone.
Noah awoke the next morning to an alarm bell of paint cans toppling onto the floor a few aisles away. He bolted upright and the mill file fell onto the stage, making a clunking noise.
The sight of a corpse shuffling down the aisle confused him. He was about to hop down and kill it when he noticed another one further down the aisle. Noah looked in the opposite direction. Three more were headed his way.
“Damn it,” he said to himself.
Noah grabbed the rifle and slung his backpack over his shoulder. He crept across the display, weaving between the furnishings. He snuck past the three that were heading toward him before hopping off the shelf and darting into the corridor that led to the loading dock.
Perhaps if it weren’t so early, if Noah hadn’t been groggy and confused, then the soft glow of dawn coming through the round porthole windows at the end of the hallway would have signaled that something was wrong. But for whatever reason or combination of thereof, Noah forgot that he’d shut the garage door the day before.
As he pushed open the doors of the loading bay, his heart jumped into his throat. The garage door was wide open. The car alarm was silent. Three corpses meandered around the platform, and at least thirty more aimlessly milled about outside. They moaned and advanced. The pack of living dead on the ground also took notice and some of the fresher corpses began climbing onto the loading bay.
Noah’s breathing sped up as he took a few steps backward. He ran back down the corridor into the store. As he pushed open the doors, he was surprised to find six corpses there to greet him. There were too many to take out with the machete, not without risking a pile-on. Noah put the rifle to his shoulder and shot the nearest two in the head. As the echo of gunfire faded, it was replaced by a cacophony of moans and the arrhythmic clomping of shoes throughout Walmart. They were everywhere.
Terror seized Noah. He spun around and ran back into the hallway with the dead close in tow. At the other end of the corridor, the three corpses had already pushed through the loading bay doors. He took out the first few that entered, but as soon as he shot one another filed in. If that weren’t enough trouble, the door leading back to the store creaked open as more dead entered.
Noah ran to the center of the hall, establishing a fifteen-foot buffer zone in both directions. His hand trembled as he pulled a box of rifle rounds from his pants pocket. A few shells clanked against the tile floor as he hastily reloaded. Noah looked to one end of the hall and then the other. Throngs of dead were closing in from both sides, their ranks growing so thick that they blotted-out the light coming through the doors.
His fingers tightened around the grip on the rifle stock, imprinting the hand-etched crisscross pattern into the meat of his palm. A variation of this moment had haunted his dreams many times before, and each time, after waking up beaded in sweat, he vowed he would never let those things eat him alive—not if he could help it.
Noah swallowed hard. With one hand on the forestock and the other on the grip, he awkwardly positioned the rifle muzzle beneath his chin. In his dreams the dead moved like a slow-burning fuse, and he always had time to reflect, but, in reality, the moment was unfolding too quickly. And maybe that was better. He took a deep breath. Three… two… one, he counted in his head. “I’m sorry, Abby.”
Just as he was about to press the trigger, Noah caught sight of a spherical shape protruding from the wall a few feet away. A doorknob. He moved the muzzle away from his chin and tried the knob. It wouldn’t turn. Noah aimed the rifle at the latch and fired. The door inched open.
Noah darted inside and slammed the door. The entry led to a large storeroom that had been converted into a makeshift office. Beside the entrance stood a green file cabinet. Noah pushed it onto its side, barring the door.
Muffled moans sounded from the hallway as the door began to thump against the cabinet. With so many dead congregating outside, Noah knew the barricade wouldn’t buy him more than a minute or two. His head frantically pivoted around the room. A dead man sat at a desk in the corner. Blood was splattered on the wall behind him, and a revolver hung from one crooked finger. Although the body hadn’t moved, this was no time for a surprise. Noah immediately put a bullet in its sallow forehead, and the corpse jolted like a marionette that had its strings tugged.
At the far end of the room, a metal staircase led to the roof. Noah sprinted to it and began to climb. Halfway up the stairs, he heard the screech of the file cabinet scraping against tile as the door was forced open. Two dead spilled onto the floor and were immediately trampled by the hungry mob that followed. Noah didn't look back. He ran to the top of the staircase and threw open a scuttle hatch.
The white gravel covering the expansive roof made it look like a desert dotted with skylight domes and secondary HVAC units. The only thing Noah could find to weigh down the hatch was a five-gallon bucket of roof sealant and a wooden chair. Better than nothing, he thought, setting the objects on the hatch.
He ran to the nearest roof-edge and peered over the side. It was at least a twenty-foot drop to the ground. There wasn’t much time, but a broken leg would only guarantee he’d be torn to pieces. That’ll be plan B, he thought. Noah jogged the perimeter of the store looking for another way down. As he made his way around the roof, he could see the undead wandering for miles in every direction.
He skidded to a halt, kicking up loose gravel. “No.” A dreary parade of corpses stretched down the road running in the direction of his house. “No!”
The roof hatch shuddered, startling him. Noah kept moving. His priority to survive was irrationally replaced by the need to get home. The dead moved slowly. Maybe, if he were fast enough, he could make it back in time to protect Abby.
At the front of the store, Noah discovered a pitched roof. The bottle redemption center had been tacked onto the main building a few years after the original store was constructed. It still left a ten-foot drop to the ground, but that was a height Noah could walk away from, assuming he didn’t thoroughly botch the landing.
The chair-weight fell off the hatch as the bucket of sealant hopped up and down. It wouldn't be long before they spilled onto the roof like ants fleeing a flooded colony. Noah looked over the parking lot, which was now a minefield of undead. He was trying to devise a route to the gas station when suddenly the sealant bucket was thrown clear and the dead began climbing through the hatch.
Noah held his breath, and with his pack in one hand and his rifle in the other, he jumped down to the redemption center. He slid down the blue tin roof and dropped onto the sidewalk below.
His feet stung when they smacked hard against the cement, but there didn't seem to be any real damage. The corpses in the parking lot began walking toward him. He raised his rifle and strategically picked off a few. Any dead that hadn’t noticed him before were certainly alerted to his presence now.
Noah bolted toward the gas station, weaving between pairs of reaching arms like a running back on the gridiron. Adrenaline seemed to slow time, yet speed up Noah’s reactions. In what felt like an instant, he was at the gas station looking for a functioning automobile.
&nbs
p; Car after car had either no keys or was perilously low on gas, and with each failed attempt the dead drew closer and closer. The last vehicle was an enormous gas tanker truck. Noah reached up and opened the door. A writhing corpse fell out of the cab and onto the ground. Noah stumbled backwards, but he was steadied by a teenaged boy in a green, pinstriped baseball uniform. The boy grabbed him by the shoulders and mouthed his upper back, trying to find a piece of anatomy protrusive enough to lock his jaws onto. As Noah tried to pull away, the former truck driver wrapped his arms around Noah’s leg.
With the number of dead within arm’s reach, he knew that if he were taken down now, he’d never get back up alive.
He grabbed the boy by the wrists and doubled over, judo-flipping him onto the truck driver. The boy flattened the driver, causing his arms to splay out.
Noah stepped on the boy’s chest, caving his ribcage, and leapt onto the truck’s running board. He swung his body into the cab, and no sooner had he closed the door than myriad fists began pounding to get in.
Noah sighed, first in relief and then again in defeat once he saw that the key was not in the ignition. He looked out the cab’s windows for the driver, who most likely had the key, but there were so many corpses clustered outside that he couldn’t find him anymore. Noah’s chin fell against his chest. Deflated, he stared vacantly at the rubber floor mat. Then a smile slowly spread across his face. He reached down and grabbed an object glinting faintly in the shadows. A keychain.
“Yes!”
His hand trembled as he inserted the key into the ignition and turned, praying that it would be simply too ironic for a gas truck to be out of gas while sitting in front of a gas station.
Fortune finally gave back. The engine roared to life.
Worse Than Dying Page 5