K. T. Swartz (7 page)

She dropped back, leaning against a water fountain, and gasped for breath. No more moans filled the air or mingled with the thunder. Lightning illuminated the gory mess below, revealed no lingering threats. But she didn’t move, just sat there and closed her eyes as rain drummed a steady beat on the metal roof. It would have been soothing if she wasn’t coming down off an adrenaline high. Opening her eyes, she wiped the crowbar on her coat. She did the same with the machete. She’d have to clean it better later, but for now, she still had a goal, still needed their gore to hide her scent, particularly in this rain. She wouldn’t be able to leave the building until it stopped.

Only when her heart wasn’t pounding as loud as the thunder did she move, to hop down the slippery slope that the pile of fertilizer bags had become. One of the zombies moaned, grabbed her shoe. She jerked back, her hiss escaping her teeth, and kicked the female as hard as she could. The zombie’s head snapped back; her jaw clacked when it bounced off the concrete. May kicked her in the face; the toes of her boot sank through the nasal cavity, into the sinuses and eye sockets. She stumbled, hopped on one foot to regain her balance. One more time she kicked, and the skull flew off her foot. Like a bouncing ball, it skipped across the garden center and knocked against one of the shelves.

She looked down at her boot, tried to shake off some of the goo. And shuddered. She grabbed her bow and moved for the door. Lightning flashed, throwing her shadow across the store’s floor, across a display of hummingbird feeders. But nothing moved within. She stood at the door to listen. The sky rumbled overhead. Shoulders hunched, arms swinging, she shuffled into the store. Let her eyes get used to the darkness, to the soft pitter-patter of rain on the roof. She looked at the patio furniture, the display of hammocks and fun summer games Morrow’s sold.

With her crowbar and hammer in hand, she walked the first aisle. Seed packets, watering cans, gardening tools. She stopped, picked up a three-pronged claw, but its range was too short for killing, shorter than the hammer. She kept moving, passing the shower stall displays, the faucets and sinks. Some of the showers were barely big enough for one, much less two. In Jeremy's book, that would never do. She kept going, as the lightning briefly illuminated the warehouse. Her boots stopped with the steady dripping further up the aisle. The smell of rotten blood reached her nose. No shuffling footsteps, though.

With her hand over the plastic face, she turned on her flashlight. Instead of zombies, she spotted a small forklift. Its two prongs were lifted high above the cabin and buried in Styrofoam almost two stories high. On either prong, a zombie bled, had been bleeding for a very long time. They were skin-wrapped bones leaking the very last of their energy. Too weak to move, they hung in silence, stared at nothing with their cloudy eyes. Below them, in a shallow, wide puddle that reached in every direction, their rotten blood had stained the concrete, leaching out the grey in some places. She stepped around it, shone her light at the lumber.

This was exactly what she needed. Thick, sturdy 2x4s to secure whatever permanent locations she found. Finding those locations was another matter. So was moving all this lumber out of here. She left the dead where they hung, stepped through the hanging plastic to the back of the store. Morrow’s-branded trucks were parked side by side. All locked, but better for hauling wood than her bike. She’d have to find the keys, and that meant going back inside. The plastic shuffled behind her. She held still as the zombie stopped, with strips of plastic hanging around his shoulders and head. He was a tall one, broad-shouldered and hulking.

Clear eyes swept the back lot, as his breath rattled in his chest. This one was still alive. She watched him drag his lumbering body outside. He searched the gentle rain for movement; she couldn’t help but tense when he took a step toward her. Her crowbar was still in her hand, but as tall as he was, reaching his skull would be difficult. And if she moved, he would be right on top of her, so she did nothing while the breathing zombie shuffled another step. The stench coming off her clothes should have been enough to fool him, but though the disease was rotting his brain, synapses still fired. Some measure of intelligence showed in those clear eyes.

He reached for her. She back-pedaled, pulling her gun from its holster. He surged forward, his shambling gate pulling at his decaying muscles. Fresh tears in his skin had his black-tinged blood staining his pants. They spread quickly, but he only moved faster. She aimed, fired. The left side of his face exploded, showing white bits of bone before his blood ran like tears down his cheek. His tongue flapped against his jaw, and he moaned. Something cold slammed into her back; she looked over her shoulder. A truck bed. She opened fire. Emptied the clip. Cartilage shattered, collapsing his nose, his sinus cavities. One of his eyes splattered. Her last bullet kicked his head back as he grabbed her shoulders.

The zombie stumbled. She jumped to the side as he slammed into the truck, left a reddish-black streak as he slid down it. Her hands shaking, she reloaded her gun. Four bullets. Four bullets to put down one zombie. What on earth was this one made of? She kicked at his waist. Keys jangled. On one knee, she dug through his pockets, grimaced at the warm blood between her fingers. She wiped them on her pants, then stuck the lanyard and keys in her pack.

Crowbar leading, flashlight pointing the way, she stepped inside the store. There were more undead in here than she expected. A store that sold no food or guns had little to help anyone unless they planned to stay in Danville for awhile. So, why so many? She slid into another aisle. No undead. She kept moving, toe-to-heel, flashlight forward. The light froze on a creature crouched in front of a light bulb display case. Clear eyes lifted; pupils dilated in the bright beam. The zombie rose, dropped a skeletal hand on the floor. She slid forward, crowbar over her head.

Blood still stained his lips, his teeth. The scrawny punk, with a skullcap and sagging jeans, moaned and reached for her. His flesh still showed patches of pink on his cheeks and hands. In life he might have been attractive, with his long hair and angular bone structure, but he was dying, so far gone that he knew nothing else but hunger. She slammed the crowbar into his skull; his forehead collapsed, squirting blood and brain matter around the iron weapon. His skull cap soaked up most of it, but streams of bright red blood still ran down his face, into his eyes. A gurgle escaped his lips as he fell. Wide eyes stared straight up at the ceiling when he hit the floor. Motionless. Finally at peace.

She knelt in front of the hand he’d been chewing on. From what skin and muscle were left, bright pink flesh still covered the knuckles and wrist. This hand was fresh, with no sign of necrotic damage in the fingertips. Did that mean someone around here was alive? Where would they be hiding? Morrows wasn’t designed for zombie fortification. And considering someone was missing their hand, they probably wouldn’t be alive for much longer. She moved down the next aisle, past the lamps and ceiling fans, into the hardware section. The smell of blood saturated the air. She peeked around the next aisle; spotted the door torn off its hinges at the very far end.

‘When I found the door lying on the concrete floor, my heart sank. I didn’t have to see the room to know I was too late. Where the doorway had been was nothing but deep gashes in the wood and drywall. Stuffing from chairs covered the room. The file cabinets were overturned. Even the poor potted plant hadn’t survived. It was split and drooping, its pot shattered. Beyond this room was a hall, redecorated to match the room I’d just left. Blood slid down the paint, to puddle on the floor, leaving Rorschach-like designs everywhere. Absolute devastation painted in red. I stepped into the hall, could see the employee break-room, and had no hope of finding survivors, especially when I noticed a couple zombies seated at the table as if on lunch. At the same time, they looked at me. One of them was missing a hand.’

Pupils dilated in her flashlight’s beam. Neither one moved, just watched her as she slowly eased her crowbar back on her belt. She pulled her 9mm from its holster. The zombies stood, their chairs sliding back. Their skin still showed patches of pink. She fired as they moved. Faster than the truly dead ones, they walked instead of shuffled. Her bullets slammed into the guy’s skull, dropped him halfway between her and the table. The other one, a female, left a trail of shining blood behind as she bumped and stumbled into the chairs and table legs to get around them. The zombie’s jerking motion had the gun bobbing.

She backed up, kept the gun steady this time. The zombie moaned. Rushed her. She fired. The first round kicked the undead’s shoulder back, had her stumbling over her feet. The second punched a hole through her right cheek. The zombie dropped, her blood splattering the floor. Her chest heaved once, let out a rattling breath. May put her gun away, took out her crowbar. And caved in the zombie’s skull. Those clear, bright eyes faded, lost the light within them. She pulled out a chair; sat down. The woman on the floor was still mostly pink, with only faint signs of necrosis on her fingertips and around her lips. The woman was freshly turned.

She was too late. If she hadn’t spent those few days in that trailer, instead immediately starting the search for supplies, she might have been able to reach them in time. From what she knew of the disease, it killed very quickly. About halfway through, the body began to decay. By the end, the victim became a living zombie, much like these four she’d just killed. But honestly, if they were bitten, there was nothing she could do except put them out of their misery.

‘Jeremy used to squeeze my shoulder whenever we came across any of these living zombies. ‘No point letting guilt get to you,’ he’d say. ‘We can’t do anything for them.’ I knew that, but I still can’t help feeling guilty. What if there is a way to help them, to turn them human, and we just don’t know it? What if we are killing them when we don’t have to? Thoughts like that used to keep me up at night, but after awhile, putting a bullet through their skulls has become mandatory. It has to be because once the hunger consumes them, they can’t be reasoned with. No matter how bad I feel, it still has to be done.’

She stood. Flashed her light around. The vending machines were busted into, their doors hanging open, their contents plundered. These people had been here for awhile, surviving off vending machine crap and soda. They’d cleaned out the cabinets, drank all the coffee and tea and water. She walked through the ‘Employees Only’ area, but there was nothing here for her. She headed back out into the store, combed the rest of the aisles. Her flashlight beam illuminated the kitchen displays – the color schemes and appliances set up to resemble corner kitchens. They hadn’t changed since the last time she’d been here as a kid. She kept moving, past the refrigerators and washers and dryers, to the tool section. She grabbed a cart and started looting.

‘I used to play RPG’s and first-person shooters, and one of my favorite things to do was loot houses and use whatever lock-picking skills my character possessed to break into chests, locked rooms, and whatever else I could find. I don’t consider myself to be a law-breaker in reality. The thought of stealing someone else’s stuff leaves butterflies in my stomach, but as I pushed my buggy down aisle after aisle, picking up a couple rolls of duct tape, several packs of nails and screws, I can’t deny the thrill I got just loading my newly acquired stuff into the back of my newly acquired truck. Maybe I really am a thief at heart.’

She filled the truck bed with 2x4s and the passenger seat with carpentry tools, batteries, nylon rope, bags of supplies, and various chemicals. The truck actually started on the first turn. She put it in gear and slowly drove out into the rain, stopping only to grab her bike. Then she headed to the highest point in town, a towering hill with a Burger Boulevard on top. She passed an old restaurant that had never quite made up its mind what it wanted to be: be it a steak house or a Chinese buffet. She passed a movie rental store, all dark and empty. She could finally run in and grab a movie without having to wait in line. Too bad she had no tv. At the Burger Boulevard, she pulled in the front lot and dug her binoculars out.

‘I had a few places in mind for my fortifications, to store my supplies and actually sleep for eight hours.

Every one of them has to meet certain specifications: minimal glass, only one or two ground entrances, and a second story with a staircase that can be torn down. They can’t be stand-alone buildings, instead can offer easy escape routes to other locations should my position ever be compromised. I prefer high places, usually only accessible by rope ladder. Wide open places like warehouses are dangerous; with so much open space, they are difficult to defend. My qualifications usually rule out most commercial buildings pretty quick, including all large department stores and restaurants.

The old buildings downtown will be best, old houses with narrow stairs and multiple floors. Dangerous though, considering I’ll have to work my way downtown.

It’s always my goal to have at least three permanent locations and maybe a few temporary way stations across town, if needed. I already have the trailer outside town; I need one here in the shopping district and one downtown. And the best place to see it all is atop the highest hill in Danville.’