This Would Be Paradise (Book 1) (13 page)

“Quick thinkin’,” John nodded in approval.

I knew all that education would come in handy one day.

We dug through the pockets of the dead infected in the back, managing to find four sets of keys. Whether or not they had the keys for the vehicles outside, who knows. I jogged back to the one I had downed in the pharmacy. It was still lying where it dropped and I rummaged through its disgusting pant pockets. I almost threw up, managing to only gag at the nasty substance that covered my hand, but at least I got a set of keys for my trouble. I copied what I did earlier and wiped my hand on the infected’s shirt.

Then I remembered what area I was in and headed off to find the baby wipes and antibacterial gel. A handful of wipes later, I finally got my hands clean, but I still itched to wash them with soap and water. If I was lucky, maybe the sinks in the washrooms would still work. But that was just wishful thinking on my end. All the power had stopped and therefore, so did the pumps that made the water run to the various locations in this giant building.

I met the others at the door that said Employees Only so we could check for more keys. John pushed it open to reveal a set of metal stairs leading to the top office area. With our flashlights in hand, we ascended the stairs. At the top was a long hallway with windows to the outside on the left and cork boards, lockers and doors to the right. We followed John as he slowly made his way down the walkway. The few offices that were up here had the doors open and were empty of people or infected.

The last door on the right was closed and had a frosted window on the upper half reading
Loss Prevention
. John’s hand went to open the door when a figure on the other side slammed itself against it. We all jumped back in shock, as the thing snarled and crashed against the door trying to get at us. Blood and spittle coated the inside of the glass as the door continued to rattle from the impact. I could see the outline of the nasty figure through the frosted glass and had an inkling as to what John was going to do next.

“Cover your eyes,” he barked, lifting his handgun.

I placed my arm over my face as he shot through the glass. The only sound I heard was the tinkling of the glass hitting the floor along with the thump of the body. John peeked in.

“It’s clear, I think.”

John motioned for Taylor to open the door while he stood at the ready with his gun in case anything tried to charge out. The door opened and the fading sunlight coming through the windows showed us the infected sprawled out on the ground not moving. Behind it was, well, a mess. A chewed up corpse was spread all over the back part of the office. I grimaced at the sight of half eaten intestines and the hollowed out chest cavity. The smell was beyond anything I had smelt before, and I fought the urge to vomit on the spot. The head was still intact and to my dismay, it started to stir. Its teeth clanged together as it snapped, defying all laws of nature.

Ethan paled at the sight. “That’s disgustin’.”

John approached the disembowelled corpse, lifting his knife from his belt and brought it down into one of the eye sockets. The head stopped moving, and we all looked at each other searching for answers we knew none of us had.

We checked the open lockers for keys and the pockets of the coats hanging on the hooks beside the lockers. Coming up here was a bust. We didn’t end up finding anything useful so we headed back downstairs.

“Should we try out the keys now or wait until morning?” I asked.

“I think we should try to get as much done tonight as possible,” Ethan answered.

John nodded, “We’ve got maybe an hour of sunlight left, so we should get to it.”

The setting sun shone through the murky doors as we approached the front. We opened the double set of doors and peered out into the parking lot. Nothing had changed. The cars were still parked in their spots, and the fallen infected from earlier were where we left them.

“Psst,” Taylor hissed and we all looked to where he was pointing.

A couple of infected were starting to walk over from the parking lot of the stores next to us. John handed me the keys he was holding.

“You and Ethan go try these while Taylor and I take those lurkers out.”

I nodded and started off toward the beaten up Chevy Cavalier with way too many bumper stickers on it. Two of the sets of keys had the Chevy symbol on them, so I tried those first. But neither one opened the door. We jogged through the parking lot, zig-zagging to all the other vehicles. I looked up to see John and Taylor use their melee weapons on the first two infected they encountered.

When it looked like we were shit out of luck, we finally got a key to work. It was for the old minivan with the cliché family member decals on the back window. I jammed the key into the ignition and the engine sputtered a few times due to it sitting here for so long, but after a few moments it roared to life. The fan belt squealed like an unoiled door hinge, and I held my breath.

“Figures,” Ethan muttered. “Pop the hood.”

I pulled the lever and the hood unlatched. Ethan looked but couldn’t really do anything without tools. The sound stopped, and I looked at him.

“Did you do that?”

“No, must’ve just needed to work the kinks out.”

He slammed down the hood as gently as he could and climbed into the passenger seat.

“I feel ridiculous driving this thing,” I muttered.

“Hey, at least it has lots of space.”

“Spoken like a true soccer mom.”

We pulled up to Taylor and John who were making their way to us.

“A van? Really?” Taylor tsked as he opened the sliding door.

“Good find,” John said as he joined Taylor in the back.

I dropped them off at the front doors and headed around back to meet them at the roll-up door. The truck was still blocking the loading bay, so Ethan jumped out to move the overstuffed truck. Once I backed into the bay, I killed the engine not wanting to waste any gas. The red needle was currently sitting at slightly over half a tank. Ethan parked the truck right beside the van and got out, so I did the same. The sun was setting on the front of the building, leaving a large shadow to eclipse us in darkness.

“Maybe we should wait in the van?” I suggested, not liking being out here in the open.

“I’m sure we’re fine. John will be quick about it.”

As if on cue, the metal door started to rattle.
I opened the back door to the van and shoved down the folding seats for more room. I would never say it out loud, but it was kind of handy. We threw in all the stuff as fast as we could and there was even a bit of room to spare, hopefully for clothes. After closing all the doors, we moved back out into the store.

“Well, how should we set up camp here?” Taylor asked.

“We could start with the furniture aisle. I think I saw a futon display,” I mentioned.

The aisle in question mainly had office furniture, but there was a set up futon that we could steal the mattress from and the boxed up sets underneath. We found three in total which meant someone doubled up, which was a pretty decent trade off in my books. Taylor came back with four sleeping bags and camping pillows in a cart and we started to move out the other furniture boxes to create a wall around us just in case. After a bit, we had quite the fort going on. Now all we needed were sheets as a makeshift roof to finish off the look.

“We need some food,” John said as he headed off to find us some snacks.

“While he’s doing that, I’m going to try to find some clothes,” I said, starting off toward the middle.

“Yeah, I could use some too,” Ethan said, pushing off our fort wall.

We kept a stern eye on our surroundings as we made our way to the clothes section in the middle. The department was out in the open with no walls to block it off, so the infected could come from anywhere. I headed straight to the T-shirt section and started to stuff my backpack, then moved onto the shorts. I didn’t think I would ever have use for pants here due to the Southern heat. I wandered to the underwear section while Ethan was picking out some clothes for himself.

Hand washing everything on a scrub board actually seemed like it was harder on your clothes than the regular spin cycle on a washing machine. So basically, I needed to replace everything I had with me. We had left our suitcases behind at the school emergency shelter when it was overrun; leaving me with just the clothes I was wearing and the emergency ones in my backpack.

“You done yet?” Ethan asked.

“What do you think? The blue or the purple pair?” I held up the lacy underwear I was looking at.

Ethan sputtered and turned a tad bit red, “I’ll be over there.” He made a quick retreat back to the guys’ section.

I grinned at my joke as I stuffed the items in my bag. I grabbed a pack of generic, unflattering underwear for Zoe.
What were friends for, if not that?
After, I found Ethan in the little girls’ section, which normally would have been a red flag, but he had a sister to get things for.

“You should get her only pink things,” I smirked.

“She would kill me.”

“Need some help?”

Ethan eyed me, still wary from the underwear incident, “Sure.”

We picked out some clothes that looked about her size and I found some T-shirts with snarky kids quote on them that she would undoubtedly love.

“I’ve never had to buy little kids clothes before,” he admitted.

“Me neither,” I shrugged. “You have to get her this coat.”

I passed him the little leather jacket.

“If you say so.”

“I promised her I would bring her back something good, any ideas?” I asked.

Ethan smiled, “She told me the same thing.”

“Sneaky kid. Probably got to John, too.”

“Well I was thinkin’,” Ethan sighed. “Hell, I have no ideas.”

“Let’s go check out the kid’s toy aisle.”

With our backpacks full, we moved onto the kids’ section. Our weapons were at the ready as we passed all the aisles, not sure if anything was lurking in them. I was beginning to prefer my knife because you didn’t have to be a good shot to use it. My aim was drastically improving, but it wasn’t perfect; there’s nothing like the apocalypse and end of civilization, to force you to learn. I had never really thought of it in those terms before.

Was this the apocalypse? The end of civilization as we knew it? There was no way of telling until we saw more of the world other than the southern U.S.A. I thought about my family more and more as the last two months passed by. I wondered if they were still alive; if it was as bad back home in Canada as it was here. They also had the cold to compete with. 

“Don’t you find it odd that we haven’t seen another person all this time?” I asked Ethan.

He was caught off guard by my sudden question and took a few seconds to think about it.

“Well, we’ve been holed up at my cabin for most of it.”

“True, but how about today? How come we didn’t cross another human?”

“Maybe there aren’t any left?”

I gave him a look, “There has to be. Hell, if I’ve survived this long then others more qualified should have.”

“You do happen to be with a group of highly functional people,” Ethan grinned.

“Be that as it may, I still feel like there should be others out there.”

“They’re probably holed up somewhere like we used to be.”

“Do you think we could find a radio for communicating?” I wondered out loud.

“Possibly, we just won’t find it here.”

“What about that police station in Duson that John was talking about?”

Ethan ran his hand through his hair. I noticed he did that a lot when he was struggling with what to say.

“Maybe, but we should definitely head back first.”

“I know you’re worried about leaving Chloe for this long, but we’re only about a half an hour away,” I reasoned.

“You wouldn’t understand. She’s my responsibility now,” Ethan said rather angrily.

I was kind of taken aback because he rarely got like that. I knew if I said anything back, a fight would just ensue so I held my tongue. Turning my attention to the aisles, I started to look for something to bring back to Chloe.

“You know, she’s also got all of us looking after her, too,” I admitted after a while. The kid sort of grew on you, like an unwanted cat that followed you home but you took it in anyways. She wasn’t the whiny brat that you expected a nine-year-old to be, but acted like a little teenager. This made it all the funnier.

After a beat, Ethan replied, “Sorry ‘bout that, didn’t mean to get all upset. It’s just that I feel like she’s my responsibility and truthfully, I don’t know what I would do if I lost her, too.”

I nodded in response, acknowledging his apology. Looks like I had finally found what to bring Chloe back. It was a make your own bookmark set, filled with everything she would need. I stuffed it into my already over flowing backpack.

“Good choice,” Ethan nodded his approval.

“What did you find?”

“High school Barbie.”

“Not even close.”