Dead Evolution

by Tim Moon

  “We’ll have to see, based on the situation,” Ben said.

  “Just so you know, I’m not waiting for you to evaluate the situation. I’m going to shoot a motherfucker.” Anuhea had a stern look that dissuaded any argument.

  “What we really need is a quiet way to kill them at a distance. You could get a bow and go all Katniss Everdeen on them,” he said.

  She looked at him as if trying to figure out if he was making a joke or not. The corner of her mouth turned down.

  “I’ve never shot a bow. A crossbow might be possible. You shoot ‘em like a gun, right?”

  He shrugged. “I guess.”

  They continued towards the building. It only took a few more minutes before they were at the very last row of cars in front of the front doors. Less than thirty feet separated them from the darkened interior of BigMart and the treasure within. To their left were three infected chomping away at the bodies. The sounds made Ben’s stomach quake.

  Inside the shattered doors were fallen displays with big blue and white price tags declaring themselves the lowest prices. Glass littered the whole area. Walking in would be terribly noisy. Another set of doors to their right about one hundred feet away.

  “Look at all that glass,” he whispered.

  Anuhea nodded.

  “Let’s try those doors.”

  She nodded again.

  The wall in between the two sets of doors was inset about eight feet so the store could display items for sale right in front. Ben eyed the current selection of lawn mowers and leaf blowers sitting chained together.

  “We can use that area as cover,” he said, pointing it out to Anuhea.

  “That’s good,” she said. Rather than taking the long way through the parking lot, rushing from car to car, they could use the space to get to the other doors without being seen in one straight shot.

  “I’ll cover you,” Ben said. He gripped his golf club and watched the infected that were feeding.

  Anuhea dashed across the lane and stopped beside a large red lawn mower without a problem. Ben ran across and stopped beside her.

  “That was easy,” Anuhea whispered.

  “We still have no idea what’s inside.”

  The automatic doors were closed, and one was broken. Not enough that they could slip inside unnoticed and moving it might be noisy. Ben tested the manual door on the side and snickered softly when he found that it was unlocked.

  Inside, BigMart looked like a battlefield. Shelves were knocked over, products were strewn across the floor, and bodies were piled up in an open space. It looked like someone had tried to burn them. His nostril hairs stung from the odor.

  A blackened metal trashcan stood beside a cash register. It looked as if it’d been used for heat or cooking. Ben scanned all around. Pock marks on the walls and floor showed there had been a surprising number of shots fired inside.

  “You see that?” he asked.

  Anuhea nodded and then pulled him to a stop. Her eyes narrowed as she tilted her head. They stood silently for a few moments, listening for any sounds.

  “Thought I heard something.”

  “No problem,” Ben said with a nod.

  Light filtered in through the front doors, but it wasn’t much, especially for such a cavernous store. They could only see about twenty feet in front of them when the light wasn’t blocked by tall shelves of merchandise. Anuhea’s flashlight clicked to life. Ben remembered he had one too and took it out.

  Their path wound past several cash registers as they searched for clear floor. Products, bodies, and broken pieces of metal, glass, and wood littered the floor. Anuhea turned her flashlight towards one of the registers and gasped. She looked over at Ben and shook her head sadly. He aimed his flashlight in that direction, revealing the sight that had startled her. A young boy lay sprawled on the floor with a blank expression on his face. Dried blood stained his mouth and chin. The rest of him had been chewed down to the bone. Only sinuous white tendon held it all together.

  Ben sucked in a breath a turned away. When he closed his eyes, he envisioned the boy’s face as Oliver’s. He scowled at the thought and tried to shake it off. This was their new reality. He couldn’t let himself get distracted every time he saw something gruesome or heart wrenching. He had to press on.

  “Come on. We can’t help him now,” Ben said in a low voice.

  Tears glistened in Anuhea’s eyes as they turned to make their way towards the pharmacy.

  “I’ll keep watch,” Anuhea said. “Get what you need.”

  The pharmacy at this store had bank-teller style windows so Ben walked quietly to the door beside the counter. He twisted the handle to no avail, it was locked. He let out a small sigh and looked around. Breaking a window or kicking in the door seemed like his only option.

  Ben turned to Anuhea and whispered, “I don’t think I can get inside. The door is locked and the gap under the window is too small for either of us to fit through.”

  “Break something,” she said.

  Ben winced and held his hands up. “I thought of that too but it’s a terrible idea.”

  “It might be our only option,” she said. “I can do a lot of stuff, but I can’t pick locks.”

  “Me either.”

  “Go ahead then.” She walked out to the main aisle to scan the area with her flashlight and gun. Looking over her shoulder she added, “Just make it quick.”

  Ben didn’t hesitate. He walked up to the window, raised his rifle and slammed it into the glass.

  The gun stock bounced back, leaving only a slight crack in the window. He staggered backwards, surprised that it hadn’t shattered. Ben’s face grew hot and he couldn’t help glancing around nervously, hoping that nothing and no one had heard him.

  Anuhea took a few steps towards him and whispered, “Do you need a hand, tough guy?”

  Ben scowled at her. “I’ve got this.”

  “Then stop playing around and break it.”

  This time Ben wound up and slammed the rifle with all his might. The glass shattered with a loud crash and spilled glass onto the floor. His footsteps crunched as he stepped forward and cleared off the counter, so he could climb through. Before he hopped over though, Ben stopped and listened for any sign of the infected. After several long seconds, he was certain they weren’t in imminent danger.

  “Whew, that was tense,” Ben said.

  “Hurry up,” Anuhea said.

  Ben hauled himself onto the counter and dropped down on the other side. Other than the broken glass from the window, the pharmacy looked virtually untouched. That seemed odd to Ben since the rest of the store looked like a tornado of gun rights activists had raced through in a blaze of glory. In any case, relief washed over him, and he felt grateful there was medication left to scavenge.

  Following Anuhea’s example from the hospital, Ben pulled a plastic container off the shelf and emptied it. The refrigerators with insulin were his first stop. To his amazement, the fridge was both unlocked and packed with dozens of boxes of insulin and nearly as many tiny, loose bottles. He filled the plastic container with as many bottles as he could. After a quick search, Ben found a plastic bag and filled that with the remaining bottles.

  “You found what you needed?” Anuhea asked.

  “The motherlode.”

  “Great.”

  A few minutes later, Ben joined Anuhea in the aisle with a satisfied look on his face.

  “What’s next?” he asked.

  “Let’s visit sporting goods,” Anuhea said. “Backpacks are in that area, so we’ll be better equipped to stock up.”

  As they began their slow walk through the store, alert for infected, Ben had to ask a question that had been bothering him.

  “Are you glad that you left Hawaii and came here with us?”

  Anuhea raised an eyebrow. She didn’t answer right away, and it was obvious that she was thinking it through. Ben just waited for her to think it over.

  “That came out of nowhere.”

>   “Yeah, sorry,” Ben said, standing up with his bag of medicine. “I’d wondered about it before. It just jumped into my head, so I thought what the hell?”

  “I had no particular reason to stay in Hawaii. Like I told you before I’m sticking with Charlotte,” she said.

  They reached the aisle with backpacks and luggage. He loaded all the insulin into small duffel bag. Then he chose a big hiking backpack that he’d fill with other supplies. Looking around, he found carabiners and used two to attach the duffle to the backpack.

  “That’s the only reason?”

  “Do I need another reason?” she asked.

  “Not necessarily,” Ben said. He tried not to take her honesty personal. “It’s impressive, really. You went well out of your way for a friend.”

  “Hmm.” Anuhea shrugged. “Extraordinary times and all that.”

  “Do you mind if I ask what happened to your family?”

  “I’d rather not talk about it.” She faced the other direction to scan the aisles with her flashlight.

  Anuhea’s refusal to talk about her family piqued his curiosity. He could always ask Charlotte and see what she had to say.

  “Can we just focus on getting what we came here for?”

  Ben sensed it was less of a question than a statement. He cleared his throat and said, “Of course.”

  Just then, a shadow moved in the corner of his eye. Before he could react, a growling body lunged at Ben and knocked him to the ground. Anuhea spun and raised her rifle. Ben fumbled to get a hold of the creature attacking him. He turned to his back on the ground and managed to hold the zombie’s head back without losing a finger. Its teeth gnashed inches from his face, and its weight bore down on his arms. With a dull thud and a slurping sound, the writhing infected suddenly jerked and then went slack.

  A slimy gob of blood dribbled out of the things mouth, slid down the side of his forearm and dripped onto his neck. Ben shoved the body off him, scooted back a few feet and then wiped away the stinking gore. When he looked up, he saw Anuhea standing over the body, wiping the blade of her Bowie knife on her pants.

  “Did it bite you?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  Adrenaline was pumping through him and if he had been scratched or bitten, he wouldn’t necessarily have felt it right away. He stood up and walked over to a clothing rack. Ripping a kid’s t-shirt from the plastic hanger, Ben wiped down his neck and arms. Then he looked himself over with the flashlight.

  “I’m good,” he said, panting. “Do you see anything?”

  “No.”

  “Thanks for sticking him.”

  Anuhea gave him a tight smile. “Come on.”

  Ben checked the mini-duffel bag to see if anything had broken, but all the bottles looked fine. After scanning the area with their flashlights and listening for any more infected, they continued onwards.

  They turned left and followed the main aisle. The next department on the way to sporting goods was the toy section. Ben smiled at the thought of Oliver. The kid was still a mystery. He hadn’t done as well as he could have getting to know him. It always seemed like something got in the way of hanging out with him. He sighed. Although he didn’t know what his favorite toy was, he knew what he would have liked when he was younger.

  “Hold up. I have to get something for Oliver.”

  “Okay,” Anuhea said.

  Ben thought back to the time outside the airport when he asked Oliver to stand guard and protect Charlotte. Oliver had asked if he was going to be like Captain America and Ben had said yes. So, he went to the action figures and found a Captain America toy. Anuhea smiled when she saw what he picked out.

  “He could probably use one of these too,” Anuhea said, standing up with a small plastic shield just like the one Captain carried.

  Ben grinned at her and nodded his head. “That’s perfect.”

  They took the action figure and shield and continued to the sporting goods. Their luck turned sour when they saw what was left on the shelves. Other than some shotgun shells, in the wrong gauge, and some .22 ammunition, they didn’t find any useful ammo.

  Scratching his chin as he thought, Ben seemed to recall a few ideas for ways that shotgun shells could be used in booby-traps. He decided to take all the shotgun shells he could manage.

  The real gems were the camping supplies. Along with some camouflaged backpacks, fishing poles and tackle, they also found the freeze-dried packets of food.

  “These could come in very handy,” Anuhea said. “Some of them even taste pretty good.”

  “I’ve had a few before. They’re okay,” Ben said. “It never hurts to have extra survival food though.”

  “Everything is survival food these days,” she said.

  Ben tilted his head. “I suppose that’s true.”

  17

  The family sat around the dinner table in rapt attention, listening to the story of Ben and Anuhea’s trip. They had shared an abbreviated account of the events with the three men at the pharmacy, the trick at the hospital, and the attack they had witnessed at BigMart. Chadwick cracked a few jokes to ease the tension. It helped even though they all knew it was deadly serious.

  Based on their questions, Ben realized something that should have been obvious to him earlier. Experience levels in their group were seriously out of whack. Since arriving in Vancouver, Chadwick and Oliver had stayed in the neighborhood. That wasn’t going to change for Oliver. Charlotte had gone with them to dump the bodies, so she had a rough idea how things were outside. However, Chadwick and Charlotte would need to go out on more raids. Everyone needed to be proficient at dealing with infected and navigating the city, just in case. Ben and Anuhea couldn’t be the only two with experience outside the safety of their walls. Everyone needed to be competent at survival and defense. Weak links were liabilities and he didn’t want something they could control to be the reason they failed. He didn’t like to think that way, even though it was true.

  Nancy had gone out once for food and a prescription refill before hunkering down in the house. That was before the infection was widespread, and long before they arrived. Her contact with the infected was minimal at best. She had never seen one up close, much less killed one. Most of what she had experienced was second-hand, news reports on TV. Ben’s mom knew every place they talked about, better than Ben no doubt since she grew up in Vancouver, but she had not left the neighborhood since the onset of the infection. If he could, he wanted to keep it that way; if only to avoid her getting injured. As a diabetic, if she suffered a serious injury it could spiral out of control quickly, even with Charlotte’s medical expertise.

  “Thanks for another great meal,” Ben said as the conversation tapered off.

  It was a rather delicious meal considering it was mostly canned or preserved food. His mom could still work wonders in the kitchen. Chadwick wasn’t half bad either.

  “Of course, dear,” Nancy said.

  “What about those tossers at the pharmacy?” Chadwick asked. “Their mates aren’t going to let that slide, are they? I wouldn’t.”

  Ben shrugged. “We’ll keep preparing as we have been. They don’t know who we are or where we are, so even if they look, it’d take them a while to find us.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Charlotte said.

  “Have you thought about moving to a better location?” Chadwick asked. “Somewhere away from the city? Somewhere that’d be easier and better suited to defense?”

  “No. I haven’t considered that,” Ben said. “We need food, supplies and medicine. All of that is here.”

  In truth, Ben had thought of moving and even had a few locations in mind. Moving away from Vancouver, or any city, was a smart choice. It was also a difficult choice. He worried about his mom and their ability to scavenge the medicine she needed. He also worried about their ability to grow food and raise livestock.

  “Well, either way, I think we need to build a greenhouse and prepare a garden in the spring. We should also try
to find solar panels and batteries,” Chadwick said. “Then maybe we can have lights for the basement or hot water for a shower.”

  “Hot water. Now that’s something I can get behind,” Nancy said.

  “Amazon’s not working these days, so we’ll have to check the big box home improvement stores,” Ben said.

  Anuhea looked at them skeptically. “Do either of you know how to do that stuff? Because I sure don’t.”

  Ben arched an eyebrow at Chadwick, whose cheeks glowed like stop lights.

  “Well…” He shrugged. “I admit it’s all a bit theoretical right now, but it can’t be too difficult. Right?”

  Charlotte giggled which made both Anuhea and Nancy burst out laughing.

  “You can’t make it,” Oliver said, pointing at Chadwick as he joined the laughter.

  “All right, all right,” Chadwick said, scowling.

  Their laughter quieted after a few minutes.

  “Now, what about these new infected, you’ve seen?” Nancy asked as she leaned forward. “What’s your plan for them?”

  Anuhea flashed her eyebrows and leaned back in her chair. Her voice was sarcastic when she said, “They almost make me want to stay inside.”

  “Sorry, I’ve got dibs on indoor duty,” Chadwick said with a smirk. “My leg is injured, and no one is going to use me as bait.”

  Ben chuckled. “It does reinforce the rule that Oliver can’t play outside. At least not alone. In fact, all of us should avoid being outside alone. Those things are wicked fast and harder to fight than normal zombies.”

  “Normal zombies,” Charlotte guffawed.

  “There’s nothing normal about any of this,” Nancy muttered.

  “That’s true, mom. We do have the vehicle barriers, which will help slow them down.” Ben glanced at Anuhea, replaying the brief fight they had with the sprinters the other night. “But they’re not perfect. We’ve already seen that they don’t stop the runners.”

  “Sweet Christmas,” Nancy said.

  “One thing we can do…,” Ben continued. “…is to add material to extend the height of the barrier. If we can find chain link fencing, wire or, better yet, barbed wire that could help. Actually, chain link fence is noisy so that might not be great. I was also thinking that we could set up trip wires and snares throughout the neighborhood.”