The Horror Squad 2 (6 page)

CHAPTER NINE
STEVEN LAID down in his bed and

started thinking about being left behind. It
royally pissed him off just at the mere thought
of not being there in case something happened.

“This is bullshit!” He stated out loud.
His anger made him groggy and he fell
asleep.
***

Steven opened his eyes and started looking
around while feeling the pressure under his feet
from standing and then looked down to see he
was wearing a black tux with a black bowtie,
black slacks, dress shoes and a white button up
under shirt. He had a red rose pinned to the left
of his chest that was popping in and out from
his heart racing from a bit of anxiety. His
mother approached him from the right side.

“Hey honey, you ready for your big day?”
She questioned as she straightened his bowtie.
“I-II guess.” He muttered while still looking
around.

“Oh honey, don’t be nervous. I am so proud
of you and this is your day. I only wish your
father was alive to be here.” She followed up
with.

Music started coming from behind two
closed doors that stood directly in front of him.
“It’s time.” His mother proclaimed in
excitement.

She took his arm and started walking him
forward. The two doors opened from the other
side as they approached them closer and they
walked through and onto the aisle. Both sides
of the aisle were covered in benches that were
filled with his and his wife’s families. There
was a preacher standing directly in front of him
in the direction they were walking.

“I’m getting married?” He questioned.
“Of course you are, baby.” His mom stated
while never missing a step.

His mom released him once they reached the
front and took a seat in the front row on the
inside aisle.

The music paused for a moment and then
started back up and the two doors opened once
again. He could see his wife in a beautiful white
wedding dress walking into the room with a
white wedding veil drooped over her face and
holding a bouquet of flowers. It was almost like
watching a beautiful dance the way she walked
toward him with the flow of the music.

The preacher started in on the wedding
service, but Steven had gone deaf and lost to
everything in the room as he starred into the
sparkling eyes of his wife through her veil.

Laughter broke the silence he had fell into
and he started looking around.
“Do you take Mandy to be your wife?” The
preacher repeated.
“I definitely do.” He answered.
“Do you take Steven to be your husband?”
The preacher asked Mandy.
“I do.” She answered.
“You may now kiss the bride.” The preacher
ended the service.

Steven stepped forward and Mandy lowered
her head as he grabbed the veil to lift it over her
head to kiss her. He pulled it back and jumped
back once the veil was lifted, she was a rotter;
her lower jaw was dangling. He looked around
the room to see both families were rotters too
and had become a hoard walking his way.

“What’s wrong? Don’t you want to kiss
me?” Mandy gargled from her hanging jaw.

The rotters crowded Steven until he fell to
the ground and started devouring his flesh. His
wife started scrapping her top jaw across his
neck.

“Forever and ever, babe.” She gargled some
more.
Steven started screaming while choking on
his own blood.
***
Steven jumped up drenched in sweat once
again.

I headed south and was able to see the eyes
of some of the rotters lingering on the side of
the road as my headlights scanned across them.
I was thankful that they were not in the road so
I didn’t have to chance screwing up any of the
vehicles by running them over. Kris kept a safe
distance off of my ass, since she knew my
joking attitude well and knew that I would slam
on brakes just to keep her on her toes.

The nearest place that might have anything
left that we would need when it came to
generators and such, was going to be the
Lowe’s store that was about a hundred and
thirty five miles down the road, however, on the
way we would pass numerous places that may
be helpful on our mission.

“I think we will hit up all of these abandoned
cars on the way back and get the gas from
them, I want to get this other shit done first. I
am going to send the girls to Lowe’s once we
find a gas station down here.” I told the guys.

“You are sending the women to Lowe’s, are
you kidding.” Donald belted out.

“Bitch our wives are tougher than you are
and probably know more. Shut the fuck up
stupid!” Gizmo turned around raising a
backhand at him.

“Whoa, I was just saying, shouldn’t they be
on a mission for women shit or something?” He
asked.

Gizmo just shot him a look that warned him
that it was time to really shut up.

Donal
d sat back and didn’t say another word.
I came upon a small convenient store that
looked to be a little ‘mom and pop’ hole in the
wall. There were two gas pumps and a small
porch, you had to climb three old wooden steps
to go through the screen door to get inside. I
pulled next to the large tank that sat off to the
side of the building that the gas was kept in;
which was quite a bit more convenient than the
underground wells that the bigger stores had.

“Too bad we can’t just take that with us.”
Howard stated.

“I agree, but there isn’t even a way to move
that thing, even with all of us together. So get to
filling.” I told the guys chunking empty gas
cans to them.

The girls made their way onto the porch. I
laughed as I listened as the four had a whole
conversation on who was going to be where and
how they would enter the store in case rotters
lurked around. The small flashlight sprang back
and forth between them and finally landed on
the door handle of the screen door and I hear,
“Ready, set, go!” and the door slowly squeaked
open.

“Like they are running a fucking race or
some shit. Those bitches are great!” I laughed
to the guys.

“Hey at least they got plans.” Gizmo joked.
“At least they got their shit together.” Bo
stated.

Cans were filled with the last bit of gas that
was in the container and loaded up. We decided
that since we had not heard from the girls, that
we would join them inside and see if anything
good was to be had.

I lit our way with the small mag lite I had
taken from my stash of flash lights back home
and opened the squeaky door.

“What y’all got ladies?” I asked.
“A dead guy, some food and batteries.” Kris
rang out.
“I found some hygiene stuff and a few
meds.” Karen said.
“I got beer!” Lisa belted out at them.
We headed for Lisa’s voice and grabbed a
hot beer she held up to us.
“I mean really, I tell y’all I have some dead
guy and y’all go for a beer?” Kris shouted.
“We got thirsty.” I said walking up on Kris.

The dead man laid with an axe splitting his
skull and flies had gathered around him. I
covered my face from the smell and stepped
over him to go behind the counter. I rummaged
through what was left and found another flash
light and two packs of opened cigarettes. I
stuffed the cigarettes in my pocket and turned
the flash light on and slid it across the counter
to Gizmo that was making a face after taking
another sip of his hot beer.

“Quit being a whiney bitch. At least it’s
beer.” I told him.

“Hey, I found their stash of shit, bring me a
flash light!” Tina called from the back of the
store.

We all headed her way and found her
through an open door with only the moonlight
shining through a window. I shined my light in
to show boxes marked with Frito Lay and Little
Debbie.

“Well hell, load that shit up!” I demanded.
“Everyone needs a Little Debbie.” I joked.

Everyone grabbed a box and headed out with
it. I turned to see that the shelves were empty
except for a few boxes here and there.

“Load up, let’s move on and cover some
more road.” I demanded. “Once we get into
town a little more, I need y’all to head to
Lowe’s and get whatever generators are left.
We are going to do the whole gas thing and we
will meet up back here later.” I explained.

“So can we stop other places on the way?”
Karen asked.
“If it will help bring things back home, sure
what ya got in mind?” I asked.

“There is a mall that I saw
when I was on the
way when this all started. So, we can maybe
stop there and rummage through some shit.”
Karen half asked.

“Haha, we get to go shopping!” Tina belted
out.
“Oh God, Tina, you don’t need a bunch of
shit. She has shopping problem.” Gizmo stated.

“I bet they have some awesome shoe stores
there.” Karen leaned over and whispered to
Tina.

“No, No god damned shoes!” Gizmo yelled
at them both.

The two girls turned and headed to the truck.
Kris ran over to kiss me and shot back to the
driver’s seat of the truck.

“Hey the turn off is going to be up past the
next place we stop!” I hollered to Kris.

She threw her hand up and hopped up in the
truck. We continued on, taking note of all the
cars that had to be checked on the way back
through. The next gas station came into view. It
looked like it used to be an old Exxon, but the
sign had been broken and all you could read on
it was the ‘N’ at the end of the sign.

“Let’s see how much gas has been left here.”
I opened the door.
The girls honked as they drove on past us.
“They are gonna go to that fucking mall
aren’t they?” Gizmo said pissed off.
“Maybe Tina will bring you back something
pretty.” Donald joked.

Gizmo shot him a look while we all laughed.
I threw him the syphoning hose and went on to
check out the store signaling Howard to come
on.

“Why me?” Gizmo asked.
“Cause I wanted to give you something else
to cry about.” I said walking away.

Howard and I carefully pushed opened both
doors. The sun was just coming up and gave a
bit of a glow inside to where we didn’t have to
use our flash lights. We both readied our
weapons and turned the opposite way of each
other to look for any rotters.

“Clear.” Howard whispered.
“Me too.” I stated back.

We split up and went our separate ways
down the aisles. The shelves had already been
cleaned out except for a few sodas that
probably fell out of a twelve pack. Howard
grabbed them and stuck one in each of his camo
pants pockets and moved on.

“Not much here huh?” He stated out to me.

“Nah, someone has cleaned it out pretty
good. We will move on to the next, we still got
awhile before meeting the girls.” I told him.

Donald, Gizmo and Bo were putting the full
gas cans back into the back of the Tahoe when
we came out. Far off down the road, I could see
two rotters walking.

“Early riser rotters.” I pointed. “Let’s move
out.”

We headed out and made our way down the
road. We passed the two rotters that turned as
we passed them and began walking the way we
were going. I watched them from my rear view
while they disappeared the further away I got. I
couldn’t believe this was our new normalcy.

“Look, stop there!” Gizmo pointed toward a
car dealership. “They will have gas in service
area in the back.”

I pulled to the back of the lot and stopped
behind the service warehouse. Gizmo hopped
out and started looking through the small
windows of the building when a rotter jumped
in front of him from inside, making a loud
roaring growl at him.

“Oh shit!” Gizmo jumped away from the
window.
“You think he can tell us where the gas is?”
Howard laughed at Gizmo freaking out.
Gizmo made his way to another window and
cupped his hands around his face.

“There are gas cans inside.” He stated as he
watched the rotter walk across the concrete
floor inside to make his way to the window
where he stood.

“Well, let’s get this shit done, we could use
them.” I stated.
Gizmo grabbed onto the door and gently
turned the door knob.

“It’s unlocked. Y’all ready?” He made sure.
“Let’s rock and roll!” Donald said.

Gizmo threw the door back, Donald and
Howard were in first and I followed them in
and then Gizmo and Bo. The one that had
scared Gizmo was on his way. Howard noticed
two more standing to the side, all wearing work
shirts covered in grease.

“Poor guys, just trying to work for a living.”
Gizmo stated before stabbing the window
banger in the head.

Howard and Donald went straight in and
took care of the ones standing off to the side.

“Gather up those cans
Bo. Gizmo, grab some
of these fucking tools.” I demanded moving
quickly in case anymore showed up.

We grabbed what we could when Donald
tripped over one of the ramps that hoisted the
cars up. His face hung over the hole next to it
where the workers were able to go down into
the floor and work on the cars.

“Oh shit!” He yelled.

We ran to see if he had been taken by a rotter
and stepped back when we saw what he was
peering over. A horde of rotters had fallen
down into the hole and wandered around each
other bumping back and forth from wall to
wall. They would try and come up the small
steps from under the ramps, each time falling
back down.

“They are secure right there, let’s leave them
where they are.” I stated. Howard helped
Donald to stand and we all moved out with our
armfuls of new things.

“That is a lot of them.” Donald stated
brushing himself off.

Loaded back in the truck, we moved on. The
sun began to blind me as it flashed through the
trees while I drove. I lowered my hat a bit and
blocked out a bit of it before seeing another gas
station on the opposite side of the road than
where we had stopped before. I pulled in and
stopped.

“What’s wrong? Bo asked. “Why aren’t you
going over there?” Pointing to the where we
could get the gas.

“Something is wrong here.” I told them.
“Those two cars are in front of the store and the
doors are open, that tells us either, someone
stopped, got out and got ate; or they got out and
made it inside either when this started or
recently. Just don’t like the feeling.”