Undead 02 The Undead Haze (12 page)

The
womp womp
of the windshield wipers started. The snow came down harder. Beau leaned forward and looked intently through the clouding glass. I clicked the heater onto defog.

“I saw it across the street,” he said

I cradled Pickle with one arm while she ate. Snow stuck to cement outside. At the rate it was falling, we’d have at least an inch in a matter of hours.

“We hit the sporting goods store and get gear for this weather then get back on track,” I told Beau.

“Yes, sir.” Beau reminded me of Blaze when he said it. The authority problem, the sarcasm.

Frost crept inwards on the side view mirror. It obscured the proximity warning on the bottom, but didn’t block the view of distant figures following us. Some bodies slipped and disappeared, while others kept up their relentless pursuit.

According to our clock—which I doubted was accurate—we’d been driving two hours since we left the farm house. That meant we burned two hours of daylight and maybe, if we were lucky, had another six to go before we had to find somewhere to stay for the night.

We got onto Market Place again and came to an intersection. It seemed like a long way across to the shopping centers, but Beau had a plan and I wasn’t going to stop him. I’m no backseat driver. We turned left onto Highway 9 and started the inexorable job of navigating around abandoned cars.

Highway 9?
That’s what we were supposed to be on. I got the maps out and verified. 204 came to a T with Highway 9. Taking Market Place ended up being an alternate route to highway 9. Happy mistake. Farther north the highway would reconnect with 204, the original T we’d been headed for.

An undeveloped lot filled with dense forest loomed to our right. An assortment of evergreen trees were dusted white with snow. I could only imagine what lurked in its depths. We passed cars with broken windows, where truly dead corpses littered the ground. They were so decayed and rotten it took a seasoned eye to recognize what the heaps were.

After a while we came to a strange intersection. It was a one way street we couldn’t merge off of. Under different circumstances, we could’ve broken the law and gone down it anyway, but another three cars had tried and had become a tangled mess. A deep drainage ditch prevented us from trekking over grass, so we were forced to keep moving down the highway to find another entrance.

As we drove, I saw a huge building with red letters saying
Sports Authority
. The whole parking lot was filled up to the front windows, which were, surprisingly, still intact. I knew the store and had been in it before. They sold guns and ammunition.

We came up to an intersection that granted access into the shopping center. Beau turned right. We passed a bank and fast food restaurant before finally turning right again into the major shopping complex. Cars were packed tight against one another, and we only made it past one store on the strip before Beau pulled to a stop.

All of the shadowy metal crypts were on my side, and on his were two vacant shop fronts. “For lease” signs were plastered to the front windows.

“Well it’s on foot from here. I can’t get past any of this.”

I couldn’t argue. Directly in front of us was an overturned minivan. And the lanes to the parking spots were all filled with cars.

Beau didn’t have a gun, but he needed one for this. I took out my handgun and gave it to him. Even after what I took from the Marine, there were only a few rounds left. Better than nothing. I checked my rifle and made sure the safety was off.

When I stepped out I took my backpack, with Pickle inside. Beau turned off the truck a second later. The quietness only an apocalypse can provide was unsettling. Snow made it even worse, and I felt more isolated than ever.

Sports Authority
was three vacant shops and an eyeglass store away. We started walking. So far no undead were in sight, but they’d be there soon.

Glass crunched under foot as we walked around the minivan. No snow covered the front windshield, since it laid on an angle. Interior and exterior were darkened with dried sprays of blood. I heard shifting inside, then a rotting hand slapped against blood and dragged down glass. A zombie appeared after, pressing against the window. Half of the little girl’s face was eaten. Her vocal cords were gone, and her mouth opened and closed futilely.

Beau was ten feet ahead of me. Ten feet was too much, since we needed to stick together. I stopped looking at the girl and started towards him. He was walking around a black Honda Civic when he fell out of sight behind the car.

Chapter 10

“Help!”

The whole scene went down in the time it took to run to Beau. My rush left me vulnerable to open car doors and spaces Z’s could be hiding, but I had to get to him. I veered around the corner of the Civic and found Beau lying on his back, pushing the naked top half of an undead away.

Blood and body fluids dried up after a while. Zombies didn’t keep producing these, so eventually their exposed intestines and internal organs wither as they drag them along. This one’s were covered in mud and dirt. Rubbery. Almost looked fake. Pieces of glass glistened in its exposed bits. A bare back showed multiple bite wounds, almost hidden under dark tire marks. Strips of skin were rubbed off, revealing pockets of white bone beneath. Once shoved off, the stiff flailed like a turtle, trying to flip onto its stomach.

Beau reached under the Civic and pulled out the 9mm, sweeping the gun toward me. I backed up, unsure of what his problem was, and he pulled the trigger. My ear rang and I hunched over, clenching my rifle as though it would take the burden of my pain, but the pain never came. I turned to glance behind me as the zombie fell to its knees, then to the side with a loud
thump.

Straightening, I tried to ignore the pain in my left ear so I could get a better look.

It was a woman once. She wore a dark blue tracksuit, the fabric ratty and torn. She had been a soccer mom, no doubt. Her hair was no-nonsense short, and she still wore a wedding ring. One sleeve was ripped at the elbow, showing the tiniest of bites—those from a child’s mouth. I thought of the little girl in the minivan.

The stiff he shoved off was still on its back, wiggling. The thing grunted with each sway of its body. Beau leaned against the Civic, evidently deciding legless man wasn’t a threat anymore, and rubbed the back of his head with his free hand. He breathed hard.

Any Z that wasn’t truly dead was a problem. If you didn’t put them down completely, even the most decrepit undead could be your end. Pressing the heel of my boot into its chest, I slammed the butt of my rifle into its head until it stopped moving. I released a shaky breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding, and scanned the parking lot.

A few Z’s weaved through cars, bumping against them. They couldn’t assess their surroundings well enough to navigate tight spaces. One tripped and disappeared behind a truck. They hadn’t made much progress since I first saw them when we turned into
Sports Authority
. None came from behind us, near the sports store, or from the highway.

“I hit my head pretty hard.” Beau swayed as he walked forward. I pressed my rifle into my shoulder and held it downward with one hand, using the other to steady him. “That one was practically
waiting
for me. It was stronger than I expected.”

“Can you do this?” I asked. “Or do you want to head back to the car?”

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Just don’t rely on me.”

We reformed our line and kept moving. I wanted to thank Beau, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. After our power-struggle discussion earlier, saying ‘Hey, thanks for saving me’ seemed like a sign of weakness.

Yellow cement poles were evenly spaced in front of the sliding glass doors to
Sports Authority
. They were a safety measure, and I knew they’d been installed before the apocalypse, though I wasn’t sure what the point of them was. If their goal was to stop cars from going into the store, they worked.

Two small cars of unidentifiable make and model had smashed into a pole. They’d been traveling in opposite directions. The wreck formed a V. The disaster spiraled outward, cars compacting so tightly after they crashed that some of their doors were crushed closed.

We couldn’t walk in. We’d have to shimmy between cars, if we could. Our best route would be to climb over them or take the long route. If the circumstances were different—if I knew there were no Z’s approaching—these options wouldn’t have been a problem. The apocalypse often forced you to pick the less desirable, and more dangerous, method.

“We need to climb over,” I said. “I’ll go first, then you.”

I handed the rifle to Beau so I could climb over. I put one knee on the hood of an older tan sports car. It was slippery from the snow and my knee started sliding. Moving fast, I got my feet farther up on the car until I stood firmly on the hood. I leaned down and retrieved my gun.

The journey across the hoods and roofs of cars was tedious and frustrating. More than once the heel of my boot slipped against slick metal, sliding off the hood and wedging between cars. Each time I maneuvered my way out, my calves and ankles throbbed more.

I made it across the last car and jumped off the hood, landing in front of the broken sliding glass doors. Sunlight didn’t make it all the way into the store, and the back was bathed in inky shadows.

I kept quiet and peered into the blackness.

While Beau made his way across the hoods, I reached around and pulled my flashlight from the side pocket of my pack.

Beau soon followed and fished his light out. We scanned the front of the store. Debris littered muddy, checkered linoleum. Old blood streaked paths in and out of the store. The registers were close to the front, and metal shopping carts were packed tightly against one another there, blocking the checkout lanes completely.

The store must’ve been a hoppin’ joint for the undead months ago, but now it was as quiet as a mausoleum. Z’s abandoned it for greener pastures. At least I hoped so. If they hadn’t…Well, I didn’t want to be in a confined space with no easy exit.

I went in first. We didn’t walk more than ten feet into the store before I saw racks of untouched winter gear to our right—shelves of boots, jackets, and gloves. Some items were scattered on the floor, but I had a feeling other sections, like the ammunition and guns area, were trashed and empty.

Hard shadows created by our cylindrical light spooked me. They moved as the illumination moved. There were too many places where a zombie could hide.

“Planning a ski vacation in Aspen, Cyrus?”

Beau’s voice was barely above a whisper. He looked like he was still in pain, and the joke seemed forced, but I grinned anyway.

“Should we put stuff on now or check the rest of the store?”

The store was big. Clearing it now had advantages. If we did, we’d be more at ease while gathering supplies, and we could possibly find more supplies. Checking the whole store would take time, though, and the longer we stood around the more likely Z’s would gather. I doubted they could make it over the wreckage blocking the front of the store, but stiffs had a way of getting into places.

“Let’s do it fast. Just a loop around the aisles,” I said.

We began moving through the store, only walking where we were safe from potential zombie hiding spots. After going through the men’s and women’s sportswear, the videogame section, and tall aisles of boots, we came upon the guns.

The shelves were barren, as though they’d never been stocked. I was a bit disheartened, but we’d expected a lack of weapons. Partially eaten bodies crowded the floor, indicating a feeding frenzy broke out and everyone was on the menu. The smell grew almost unbearable as we approached. One corpse here or there wasn’t that bad, but five or more was downright nauseating. Plus they were still juicy. Our shoes squelched in unavoidable remains.

It was surreal not finding any undead in a store like this, though. We completed our circuit and came back to the snow gear without seeing a single Z. The whole process took fifteen minutes. If there
had
been any Z’s lurking about, they would’ve started making noise or following us by now.

I could only see past a few cars outside, but nothing appeared to be looming out there, either. While I kept watch, Beau tossed his old meager clothes and donned the new winter gear.

“We’re making good progress.” Beau looked snazzy in the new threads he picked out. When faced with hard times, people started looking older, but the snowboarder look he was sporting made him look more his age. It reminded me of the photo of him and his sister.

“Don’t jinx it,” I said, before wandering off to find new duds.

My first priority was to set the backpack down so it remained vertical. Then Pickle could be as comfortable as possible. I waited a moment before I heard rustling, indicating she was still alive, then got to work.

Before I stripped down to my skivvies, I gathered the clothes I wanted and laid them out. I found thermal long johns and a pair of Burton Baker gloves. They were warm and durable, but flexible enough to allow for good mobility when using a gun. I considered ski pants, but they were too noisy, so I opted for some heavier pants that didn’t make a
swick swick
noise when I walked. I layered on a fleece vest before donning a parka with a stylish fur lined hood. After I pulled on a pair of sweat-proof, ultra warm socks, I decided it was time to select new footwear.

“Hey,” I said, “I’m going to go get some new boots.”

Beau snapped out of his thoughts and nodded. We walked to the back of the store where the shoes were.

A spattering of automatic gunfire sounded off nearby, followed by the rumbling of an explosion. We stopped dead in our tracks and looked back towards the front entrance.

Hearing gunfire and explosions at this point in the apocalypse was rare. Whoever caused them could be hostile. Kevin’s face haunted my memory. If it was anyone, it was him. I knew it.

Beau rubbed his forehead. “Raiders?”

“Probably.” I sighed. “Let’s just finish this and get moving. We need to get back on Highway 9 and get some distance between us and whoever it is.”