*****
It was impossible to stay completely off the grid, and as we encountered people, everyone was either freaked out and fleeing, or freaking someone else out, causing them to flee. Or causing them to die. We had talked a bit when we first left Jamie’s house and had decided not to be heroes. The world had changed today, and people were pretty much on their own. We’d just have to worry about us for now.
If we saw a child being pursued by one of them, or if one was in immediate danger, we’d play it by ear. We knew that. But around us, right here just in the state of Florida, there were thousands of children in danger right now. Logically, we knew we’d better just worry about the little girl sitting between us at the moment.
When we hit the city limits it became obvious that we were going to have trouble shielding Trina from what was happening around us. A child could only take so much horror, and this one had seen enough from her own mother to carry her for the rest of her life.
I pulled the car over in a secluded spot. Jamming the gear lever into park, I looked at Gem and mouthed the words, “We need something for her.” I put the palms of my hands together and put them to my cheek with my eyes closed. I quickly looked down at Trina, who was staring blankly through the front windshield. We needed to put this kid to sleep. Even on the floorboard of the truck she could hear what was happening, and at this point I don’t know what exactly I expected would happen. I just had a feeling that stuff would be happening.
Gem nodded and punched the GPS a few times, pulling up Points of Interest. She entered Pharmacy and got several. There was one just five minutes away. A Walgreens.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s get there first. Then after we’re done getting what we need – or trying a second pharmacy, you use that trick to pull up a police or FBI building in this area.”
The GPS worked flawlessly. We pulled up to the Walgreens in the exact time it estimated.
Gem looked around, scanning the parking lot and beyond. I did the same. There were seven cars in the lot, so it had to be a 24-hour location. I guessed at least three or four of the cars belonged to employees.
I looked at my watch and saw it was 1:30 in the morning.
“You go inside, Flex. Take my gun. I’ll take your .38 and stay here with Trini.”
“If the employees know what’s happening with these things, I might be able to convince them to help.”
“And if not?”
“You’re my secret weapon. If I can’t convince them with charm and good looks, then I’ll show them your gun and tell them that for fucking sure they’d rather deal with me than you. Of course, that would carry more weight if they actually knew you.”
“Good cop, bad cop. Got it. Go get the stuff, but don’t be stupid. There are lots of pharmacies.”
“Here.” I handed her the .38 and she passed me the Uzi. “There are only three rounds left in it, but I’ve got a box of fifty in the glove compartment.”
“Check. Reloading now.” Gem popped open the glove compartment.
After closing the door, I banged on the glass with the heel of my hand and said in a loud enough voice to penetrate the glass, “If everything goes to shit, I want you to take off. The keys are in the ignition. Just go if you see trouble. I won’t say not to check on me later if you can, but don’t wait, Gem. Go.”
Gem nodded, and I didn’t believe her for one second.
Walking to the entrance of the store, I looked back at the truck and scanned the parking lot again. I pulled on the door handle, but it was locked. Slinging the rifle over my shoulder, I put my cupped hands to the door, and peered in. The fluorescent lights blazed, lighting up every aisle like daytime, but nobody was visible inside.
At first glance, that is. Then I saw it. Near the entrance to aisle 5. A foot on the floor sticking out of the row of merchandise. I’m sure it was connected to a body, but I could only see the foot from outside. I could see some blood by the foot, but not much. I imagined there was much more near the source of the deadly wound – if the owner of the foot was indeed dead. It didn’t move, so it was my conclusion that it was so.
Now I scanned the rest of the store more carefully. On the same wall as the entrance door, to my extreme right, was a middle aged woman who had apparently been pouring coins into the machine that tallies how much change you saved in your peanut butter jar over the last year, and gives you a receipt to convert that change into paper money. She never got her receipt. Her throat was ripped open, and she lay on her back. Had it been just her throat, I might have been able to lie to myself and make up some other reason she was dead, but her eyes were . . . gone. The two sockets had been torn at and – what? hammered on? – until the skull beneath cracked and pushed inward, and the two individual sockets joined together.
I turned and headed back to the Suburban and motioned to Gem to roll down the window fast. She did.
“Dead people inside. I’m not comfortable leaving you out here. This is getting sketchier by the minute.”
“Babe, it got sketchy for me in Miami, but I know you’re just getting used to all of it. Did you see anyone alive . . . or, well, moving?”
I shook my head.
“Then get what you need and hurry. We’ll be fine. Just do me a favor and check on your trailer cargo before you go back inside. And if they have an electronics department, pick up some of those two-way radios. They come in pairs, and tourists like to buy them.”
“Are you sure you’ll be –“
“Go,” she said, sternly.
She rolled up the window again and showed me the Smith & Wesson. She’d already put Trina back on the floor beneath the comforter again.
I went to the trailer and reached down to check the tie-downs holding Jamie. She-It was moaning now, a steady, low hum almost, seemingly vibrating the bundle. If she was starving before, now she had to be near insatiable with hunger. I felt like a kid who had found a turtle. I had no idea how to feed it or what it would eat.
The truth was, subconsciously I knew what it would eat, but if that was how it was going to be, then my sister would die. I would not be feeding her that. Ever.
Satisfied she was secure and harmless to the occupants of my truck, I ran back to the store entrance again. I saw two flashlight beams in the distance about a quarter mile away, but they bobbed off in the opposite direction. I had no idea what percentage of the population had succumbed to this sickness or whatever it was, but if it was just ten percent, it was still a huge problem.
I reached the door, held Gem’s Uzi out in front of me and kicked it hard. The latch snapped and I pulled it outward, swinging it open easily. In Florida, all doors, either commercial or residential, pulled outward. Hurricane force winds could easily blow doors in if not, so this was an ordinance. From the outside, they’re all pulls.
I stepped inside the store and swung the barrel of the rifle from side to side, moving toward the front of the store. I went to the cashier’s counter which ran the entire length of that wall, from the side where the registers were located to the photo processing department on the far end. Leaning over the counter and scanning the length, I saw nobody back there, either crouching there hiding, or dead. I almost instinctively called out, but I checked myself. No sense in alerting any of the . . . I just didn’t know how to think of them yet. The infected.
Moving along the front row, I found a hinged access flap and lifted it to get behind the counter. I grabbed three or four of the cloth shopping bags and some flashlights hanging on pegs on the wall, and took handfuls of the right batteries for them. On instinct, I snatched four packs of Marlboro reds from the cigarette rack. I’d quit years ago, but fuck it. My last worry right now might be cancer. I tossed six or seven Bic lighters in the bags, too. No telling when making fire would become important again, besides lighting my smokes.
I scanned the length of the aisles as I moved laterally along the store, but saw no m
ovement. I laid the gun on the counter quickly, then undid my belt buckle and pulled the wide leather belt almost all the way off. I re-threaded it, feeding it through the handle loops of one bag on my right hip, then through my back belt loops and through the handles of the other two bags before re-buckling it. I didn’t need to try to shoot and hold bags, too. I hefted the gun again and continued moving down the front toward the opposite wall from the entry. That was where the photo and electronics department was. And right where Gem said they’d be were the two-way radios. I grabbed two sets and threw them in the bag. Likewise, I took about ten two-packs of 9 volt alkalines and added them to my shopping bag.
I turned to head toward the pharmacy when I stopped dead in my tracks. They had been relatively quiet, but in my defense, James Taylor was playing over the speaker system in the store, so I might not have heard them over Fire and Rain. Three of them. Two women and a man – or three of the infected that might have once been described in these human terms. Now, since the infection – since the hunger – their skin was yellowish gray, and the veins, blue-black and very visible now, ran like little roadmaps under the thin opaque skin. They were on top of a man who was dead, and they were gnawing on him, deep into him. He was very dead. There was almost nothing left of him, but these were apparently very efficient eating machines, and felt he was still worth the time and effort.
While I can’t say it was steady, my gun was pointed directly at them, and I stared. I didn’t fire. It was a morbid fascination. In the back of my mind, I thought: How sweet. They’re sharing.
I’m not entirely sure why, because there were other bodies around, and each could have had their own. So why this one? What was especially attractive about this flesh? It appeared to have been a white man, but there wasn’t enough of him left to determine age. His clothes looked blue collar, and there’s a certain diet associated with middle vs. upper class, possibly more meat and fried foods as you made your way down the food chain – which was a strange choice of words, I admit – from elitist wealthy to dirt-poor. Could it be his diet just gave him a more irresistible fragrance?
All of this took place in a split-second in my head. I made a mental note of this sharing behavior. Something I might mention to the CDC personnel when we got up there, if anyone was there to meet us who might want the information.
My eyes sharply focused on the three diners, I stepped slowly backward until I was out of the aisle, then cut over by three rows, reaching the body of the man attached to the foot I’d seen from outside the store. In his open palm, partially on the floor, lay a gun. It was a 9mm Glock. I reached down and picked it up, and from my new angle, I discovered how he had died.
With the Glock. He had taken his own life at the sight of the creatures eating his customers. An efficient single bullet to the temple. His name, according to his nametag, was Tony.
Thanks for the gun, Tony.
I looked behind and in front of me, then in both directions over the top of the aisles. No immediate danger. I leaned the rifle against one of the aisle-long merchandise racks and popped the magazine. It was a 17-round mag and it was missing three. One in the chamber, so he’d fired only twice. So fifteen rounds at ready. I shoved the pistol into the front waistband of my pants and fed the Uzi’s strap back over my shoulder, holding it in firing position as I made my way down the aisle again. The pharmacy wasn’t necessarily what I needed. Just half a Benadryl allergy pill would put Trina out long enough for us to get her away from the scary stuff, and that included our scary conversations about the scary stuff. Jamie had mentioned to me some months earlier that she’d used this amount for Trina’s allergies in the past, and she tolerated it well, though it did pretty much send her to la-la land.
As I scanned the ceiling-hung signs to find the location of allergy medications, I heard it and froze.
Shuffling sounds came seemingly from all directions, and all at once. I looked behind me at Tony’s body, sprawled on the floor at the entrance to my aisle, and realized there was no time to get back there. I knelt down and aimed the weapon.
And then they appeared. At the opposite end of the aisle. Five of them. Two females and three males. Meat and gore stained the front of their clothes, and I recognized a couple of them as the ones who had been dining in the far aisle. Onward to fresh meat, and I suppose that was me.
As though confirming this, they stared at me. Gnashing. Just like Jamie. And her neighbor. It was as if their lips would no longer cover their teeth, maybe like the skin had been purged of all moisture, and the now parched lips just dried out and pulled back. No matter, the teeth just showed, and it added to the visual horror of the presentation. And to make matters worse, their black, dead tongues flitted in and out intermittently as the gnashing went on. This group was moving steadily toward me, and not as slowly as I would have liked. A fast shuffle. Textbook zombie lore, but just a bit faster. The difference between watching INDY racing on television and in real life. You just can’t get a feel for how fast the fuckers really go.
I turned to make a break toward the front of the store, but stopped short. Two more stood by that end of the aisle, and they, too, stared at me. Were they operating like a wolf pack? Working together to trap me? They may not give me much credit, but had I been faced with this crap without a gun, I’d have leapt over the top of the merchandise rack and into the next aisle on adrenaline alone, and would’ve still had enough energy left over to run the Walgreens floor polisher for an hour or two.
The two new zombies didn’t seem to care about Tony’s body. They ignored it and started moving up the aisle toward me. Having had only one encounter with these things before, and believing in my mind that Jamie did hear me, no matter about her lack of response, I tried an appeal.
I held the gun up, my finger on the trigger, and I talked loud. “Look. I want out of here, and I don’t need to fuck anyone up in the process,” I looked for signs of understanding, acknowledgement. It didn’t appear that was going to be the case. As I stood dead center, the seven infected shuffled toward me, their pace neither slower nor faster, and not one of them attempting any negotiations with me.
“Stop the fuck right there!” I screamed at the two coming up on my rear, but they kept sliding toward me, gnashing, flitting, and looking very hungry.
I sprayed the Uzi’s 600 round-per-minute blast at them for a split second, aiming low. The rounds tore through their midsections, and nearly cut them in half. They flew backward and dropped to the floor.
Two down, I thought.
And as I watched in amazement, these zombie things began crawling with their arms and hands, dragging their destroyed bodies toward me, resuming their even slower, but no less determined progress up the aisle in my direction.
I looked back at the five, who were now within fourteen feet of me. I didn’t know how much ammo was in Gem’s gun, and I didn’t have time to check now, but I now figured that head shots were my best option. To test my theory, I pulled out the Glock, turned toward the two crawlers, took four steps toward them so I wouldn’t miss, and put a bullet in each of their skulls. A reddish-black fluid leaked out, and they lay motionless, gnashless.
Then I turned, slung the rifle around to rest against my back, and with my shopping bags dangling from my belt and the Glock in my hand, I walked determinedly toward the five zombies walking toward me, and I stopped six feet in front of them.
“Last fuckin’ chance,” I said.
Two more shuffles and I’d had it. Five taps, five bullets in five brains. I had a pile of five zombies in front of me.
I could have stood there for a long time, looking at that pile of dead bodies. But the longer I stood there looking at them, the more they just looked like people. Like I’d just murdered five human beings right there in the Walgreens.
But they weren’t that, were they? Not by the time I got to them – or when they almost got to me. They weren’t people anym
ore at all.
They were creatures. Damned TV zombies, only real. I wanted to know stuff, like did they have heartbeats, audible skills, any vocal skills. I’d heard Jamie moaning, but these had been quiet or unintelligible.
Jamie. Jamie the zombie.
My mind suddenly snapped to the present and I realized if there were seven in here, there could be more. I ran down each aisle, the Glock ready. Eight rounds left, plus what remained in the machine gun. I found nobody else, but I did find the Benadryl. I put three bottles in my bag, then ran to the food aisle and put several cans of pop-top canned chili, some canned tamales, two six-packs of water, and two boxes of Cheerios under my arm.
Heart healthy. To balance out the chili and tamales.
I ran from the store to the truck, all my goodies bouncing on my belt. Gem had flung the door open and slid to the passenger side again before I got there. Focusing on the open door, I tripped on something and nearly fell into the cab. Two bodies lay outside the passenger door, stacked almost on top of one another.
“What the fuck, Gem!” I said, slamming the door.
Her face was calm. “They came up on the driver’s side, and Trina saw them. I pushed her back down, got out the other door, walked around to your side and put two bullets in their heads.”
I stared at her.
“Flex, they were fucking with Trina. With this baby girl who’s had her share of being fucked with. I did what I had to do.”
“No apology expected or deserved, baby. Thank you.”
“We fired at exactly the same time,” she said. “I heard your gun discharge at the same time I shot these two. You’re lucky I could restrain myself from going inside, but I have a good sixth sense, and I knew you were okay.”
“So I guess we’re through keeping the scary talk in hushed tones? Trini? You okay, baby?”
Gem shook her head. “She fainted, Flex. The poor thing fainted when she saw those lipless fucks outside the door.”
I tossed all the stuff into the back seat. “We’ll talk about what happened inside later. I think we’d better start taking some notes. For now, I think you should wake her up and make her take half of one of these.” I pulled the Benadryl out of the bag and gave the bottle to her. Gem lifted Trina from the floor and bounced her in her lap gently. Trina moaned.
“Are there any more of those things in there?” Gem asked.
“None . . . moving anymore. But I can tell you, there were more of them in there than us. And all the ones like us were – ”
I looked at Trina, who was stirring awake from Gem’s bouncing. I just ran my finger across my neck in a slashing motion.
“I get it,” she said.
I nodded. “Oh, and I got us a new gun.” I spun the tires and headed north. “It works pretty good.”
Gem put ‘Police Stations’ in the Points of Interest in the GPS and we pulled out.
“Want some chili?” I asked.
She hit the “GO” button, and the GPS routed it.
“It says we’ll be there in ten minutes,” she said. “I’m pretty sure I can eat a can of chili in ten minutes.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Dead Hunger: The Flex Sheridan Chronicle Page 9