100 Days of Death (16 page)

I went up onto the roof to see if there was any remaining evidence of our activities. It was overcast and even though I could smell the faint odor of something burnt in the air, I couldn’t detect any signs of smoke.

This afternoon I showed Alison how to construct sound suppressors for both my 1911 Colt and my Walther P-22, we talked about what happened to me last night. She said she heard my screams and the gunfire and had been worried for me. She came out to the TV room to check on me when we returned, but couldn’t wake me. Albert had assured her that I was fine.

I told her about my fear of becoming infected.

Out of nowhere she said to me, “By the way, you know I don’t really have HIV, right? I just told the bikers that so they wouldn’t…” her voice trailed off and she looked at the floor.

“I know.” I said.

We worked in silence for a while.

When we finished modifying my weapons, we took them out back to test them. The .45 works pretty well. The sound of the slide racking back and forth is almost louder than the muffled pop of the round leaving the suppressor.

The Walther works perfectly except for the fact that the large silencer on the end covers the sight picture. Even so, Alison managed to consistently hit a pine cone across the yard with it. I gave her the gun and the extra magazine for it and told her to keep it with her at all times from now on.

I have been dog tired all day. Grace laughed at me when I almost fell asleep at the dinner table. I didn’t even notice that Roz didn’t eat with us until I saw Alison prepare a plate for her to take back to her room.

It has been a long day.

DAY 30

I woke up this morning in a cold sweat.
My throat was sore and my head stuffy. My watch read 4:47 a.m.. I lit a candle and went to the bathroom. My legs felt shaky. I wondered if I was infected after all. I looked in the mirror at myself but in the candlelight I looked worse than I probably was.

I got my backup Surefire light and twisted it on, aiming at the ceiling. The 120-lumen light bathed the room in brightness. I expected to see milky orbs staring back at me, but my eyes were fine. The only thing I was suffering from was moronic paranoia.

At breakfast, after Grace had excused herself, Albert told me he wanted to go to the toy store to get Grace something to play with. Roz dropped her fork on her plate loudly and rolled her eyes as she left the table.

I don’t get Roz. Her attitude makes it hard to have sympathy for her. I understand why both her and Grace are withdrawn, but while Grace just seems distracted (humming to herself and talking to Chloe incessantly), Roz is angry and defiant. I realize there is no real comparison, as Grace did not endure the same atrocities and violations, but Roz is going to have to open up if she is going to survive this.

Albert has been giving all of his attention to Grace. Neither Alison nor I have paid much attention to Roz, but then again it’s only been a couple of days. When things settle down maybe I’ll spend some time with her then.

Although I feel the same way Roz does about catering to Grace, I’m sure it is for different reasons. It is dangerous to leave the house, especially if it’s not absolutely necessary. The three of us talked about it and decided to make a list of everything we need and try to find it all in one place

I wanted to find a Sears or JC Penny’s, but Alison suggested Target. When we asked why, she shook her head at us like we were small children not understanding something obvious. She finally had to come right out and tell us it was because she was pretty sure Sears didn’t carry tampons.

I got out a map of the area and an old phone book and the three of us planned our excursion. There are Targets in both North Hollywood and Burbank, but I didn’t want to go anywhere near where Wayne’s bikers might be. We also didn’t want to have to travel too far so we settled on the Target in Van Nuys.

That just left us to decide who was going. Neither Albert nor I knew anything about feminine products (obviously), and Albert didn’t trust us to get the right items for Grace. I was happy to stay home and let them go, but neither of them would go for that. And we definitely were not going to leave Grace and Roz home alone.

Albert was being pigheaded and refused to stay, even though I warned him that we’d have to bring Grace with us and expose her to danger. I tried to tell Albert and Alison what a bad idea this was, but they didn’t seem to hear me.

My dad used to tell me that if you aren’t willing to take charge of a situation, then you need to just shut up and deal with it. I guess this was what he was talking about. I sat silently as Albert got up to go tell Grace we were going toy shopping.

Alison looked at me and said, “You know Roz isn’t going to want to go with us.”

I nodded. She suggested a round of paper, rock, scissors to decide who was going to go tell her.

Note to self; never pick scissors. I went into the girl’s room to tell Roz the good news. She saw me walk in but ignored me, feigning interest in the music blaring into her ear buds.

I wondered how the stupid iPod’s battery had held a charge so long. I pointed to my ear, motioning for Roz to stop listening to her music. She rolled her eyes, but turned off the unit. I told her that we were taking her shopping for better clothes. She wasn’t buying it. I let her know that where we were going had CDs and that she could pick out better music.

“How am I supposed to download it?” she asked.

I told her we’d get her a CD player that used normal batteries. I added that if she promised not to be a pain in the ass, I’d let her download music through my laptop and even let her charge the iPod next time we fired up the generator. She stared at me for a minute and then made a sound of disgust and got up.

We drove my Yukon down Ventura Boulevard, heading west. Albert sat in the back with Roz and Grace. I left Chloe at home. This trip was already a circus enough without adding a crazy border collie into the mix. We had given the girls strict instructions not to wander off, and to use noise discipline at all times.

This was going to be a disaster. Between the two girls, one of them had no discipline and the other couldn’t even spell it.

The roads were desolate and empty until we reached Coldwater Canyon. For some reason, there were cars all over the street and the undead population was soaring. Dozens of them appeared out of thin air and charged our vehicle. I was worried that they might stop us with sheer numbers.

I hit six or seven of them accidental when I turned up a side street to avoid the bulk of them. I cut into an alley and accelerated away from the crowd. I could hear Grace crying in the back seat. Albert was able to calm her down. I took Moorpark west as far as I could. Every few blocks, small groups of creatures would appear and chase after us.

Finally, we drove north up Sepulveda to the Target, just north of the freeway. The building had a parking structure attached to it and we drove cautiously into its darkened entrance. As we ascended the cavernous structure, I became more and more nervous. On the third level there was an entrance to the store, but I kept driving upward.

Just before we reached the roof level I stopped the vehicle, parking in the shadows on the ramp. I told Albert to keep watch and walked up the rest of the way and into the sunlight. I walked along the edge of the lot, scanning the world below me. Other than one taller building next door, the parking structure was the highest vantage point within a mile. I could see numerous undead milling about several blocks away.

There were burnt-out sections of neighborhoods nearby, where fires had destroyed entire apartment buildings and businesses. There were no signs of life anywhere. On the west side of the structure, I could see the 405 freeway stretching north and south. Nothing moved as far as the eye could see. I had seen enough. I walked back to the Yukon. Albert saw me coming and abandoned his post at the rear of the truck and got in the back seat.

We drove back down to the third level and parked in front of the entrance. Grace started to ask a question and Alison and I both looked back at her with our fingers to our lips. She nodded vigorously, remembering the rules.

I made the girls wait in the car while Albert and I approached the doors to Target. After confirming that all the doors were locked, I readied my pry tool. It took me several minutes of prying (because I would stop every few seconds to listen) to finally break the lock and open a set of doors.

I went first, twisting my weapon-mounted light on and playing it across the inky blackness as I walked slowly forward. To my immediate left was a mini food court. I scanned the area and moved on. Everyone in our group was armed with a flashlight. Beams moved across the store in a random pattern as we all tried to look everywhere at once.

Grace’s light found the toy section. I heard her excited intake of breath and we all made a “shhh” sound at once. I wanted to clear the store first before we went shopping. I moved us all into the toy section and quietly told Albert to keep everyone there while I looked around.

There were two floors to cover and a lot of places where something dangerous could be lurking. I had secured the doors we entered by zip tying the push bars together. If we had to leave fast, one swipe with my knife would sever the tie, but anyone pulling on the door would have a hard time opening it.

I moved clockwise around the perimeter of the store, moving, stopping, shutting off my light and listening, then repeating the process. It took me almost twenty minutes. At the center of the store was a large two-way escalator leading down into the pitch black first floor. There was no way to secure it properly, so instead I pulled out a roll of monofilament fishing line and secured one end to the railing to the right of the escalator. I ran the line at thigh level across the entrance of the escalators to the other side.

On the left side of the escalators was a display of furniture and six-foot-high free standing lamps. I took two of them and leaned them precariously against a shelving unit. I tied off the end of the fishing line to them. If anyone pulled on the line, the two lamps would come crashing to the floor, hopefully providing an early warning to us.

The store had been looted at some point, as most of the shelves in the food section were half empty. I made my way back to the toy section and knocked on the floor four times (our prearranged signal) before rejoining the group on the aisle they were waiting on. Grace had already selected what she wanted, so it was time to move on.

As luck would have it, the music and electronics aisle was next to the toys. Roz tried to act disinterested but found a dozen CDs she wanted, stuffing them into the backpack I had given her. I found her a portable CD player, extra earbuds, and a better iPod for her.

Albert and I found three large rolling duffle bags in the luggage section and made Alison and Roz lug them behind us as we moved through the store. By the time we made it to the food section, one of the duffle bags was almost full. I was carrying a forty-pound bag of dog food over one shoulder by this time, and realized that we needed to rethink our shopping plans.

We filled up one of the remaining duffle bags with all the food stores we could find. Most of what was left were crackers, oatmeal, nuts, and candy. We did find some large sized bottles of juice and several cases of water. We loaded what we could. While Albert waited with Roz and Grace in a secured aisle, Alison and I hauled our booty to the entrance. We left it there and made our way back.

As we were moving slowly down an aisle along the back wall, I heard a crash from the center of the store. Something had tripped the fishing line at the escalators. We froze and I switched off my light. I didn’t hear anything for almost a minute, but I was sure we were no longer alone.

I reached back and squeezed Alison’s shoulder to let her know we were going to move. She grabbed the drag handle between my shoulders on my vest and tapped on me to let me know she understood. I started to move forward in the darkness and stopped as I saw a weak shaft of yellow light reflect off the ceiling several rows over. It wasn’t Albert. None of our lights were that dim.

The light moved toward Albert’s position. We moved parallel to it thirty feet back and several rows away. I wanted to intercept whatever it was before it got too much further. My heart started hammering in my chest. It was going to reach Albert before we did. I heard the unmistakable sound of a round being chambered into a pump action rifle. My blood ran cold. I disengaged from Alison, snapping my fingers as a signal to stay put, and moved toward the light, fast and deliberate. I rounded the corner and stalked up behind a lone figure aiming a shotgun and light at Albert and the girls. Albert hugged the girls protectively, shielding them with his body.

I jammed the end of my carbine into the person’s neck. “I wouldn’t.” I growled.

The man froze and slowly lowered his rifle. He was a skinny little Hispanic guy and looked like he was in his mid-twenties.

“What are you doing here?” the man asked. “Probably the same thing you are.” I replied.

Neither of us moved. Behind me I heard two sets of footsteps coming toward me. I saw Albert raise his weapon on the man so I turned my carbine to the other end of the aisle, spearing two Hispanic women in the beam of my Surefire.

The older of the two, a woman in her late twenties put up her hands to show me they were empty.

“Please. We don’t want trouble.” she begged.

I glanced back to see Albert approaching the man with his weapon aimed at him. He motioned the guy to back up. The Mexican complied and slipped past me in the aisle with his hands raised, the shotgun aimed toward the ceiling. He joined his two companions and stood in front of them, facing us.

“How did you get in here?” I asked.

The man hesitated until one of the women whispered something to him. “We have a way in downstairs.” he said.

When I asked him if the first floor was secure, he smiled and said that it was. He told us that he was very careful. I began to relax a little. I told him we needed some things downstairs and suggested that we leave each other to our respective business.