“Explosives?” I smile.
“Rachel here is a clever girl,” Nova says mysteriously.
We all go
to the front of the truck to scope out the area for a couple of minutes before we head over to it, but barring the deaders stumbling around in the front parking lot, there are no other signs of life or death, which is a good thing.
“Head for the main entrance?” I suggest with a grimace. I don
’t really like that idea, but I can’t think of any other way in. I mean, that was always the way I went into a mall—what other way is there?
“
There’s always the loading bay, but those things are usually closed off to the general public, so unless everything went to shit here when a load came in, that’s a no-go. We can check it out, though—you never know when you could get lucky,” Michael says.
I frown at him
, confused by his optimistic and—let’s be honest—slightly cheery nature. It’s out of character for him. Nova laughs and pushes his shoulder as she flicks her cigarette butt away.
“Don
’t worry about Michael, Nina. He’s just excited to see if he can get some clean pants. He’s been wearing the same underwear for months now.” Nova laughs loudly.
We all turn and groan in unison when we hear the low moan of a deader.
Stupid deaders, always ruining the moment.
“Better get a move on then if we
’re going to get you those pants, huh?” I laugh and head to the driver’s side of the truck. “You on that?” I say to Michael and nod toward the deader making its way up the road to us.
He looks back at it.
“Nah, leave it to its shambling,” he says, sounding out of character for him, and heads for the back of the truck.
We set off again, at a slower pace so I can see the best route. The deaders turn
toward the sound of our truck and begin to make their way over to us right away. Damn things always know where a meal is, like sniffing out pizza in the dark.
I head around the back to see if there
’s a way in. There’s a small barrier over the road. It’s metal and I check to see if I’ll be able to drive through it, but it doesn’t seem possible. I try to lift it but the stupid thing is locked down tight. I climb back into the truck and sigh.
“Defeated by a length of metal,
” I grumble dramatically, and begin to back up the truck.
I hear a small pop of a pistol and watch in the mirror as a deader falls to the ground. I hadn
’t even seen that one getting so close. I roll my eyes at myself like a five-year-old. I need to get my game hat on and stop being so relaxed about this shit. I keep on reversing, turning the wheel as the road forks out. I hit the curb, riding it up a little; the truck’s so damn big it’s only by pure luck that I haven’t crushed something more substantial with it—yet, anyway.
I continue to swing round to the left until I
’m facing the right way again. By now a lot of the deaders have made their way over to see what all the commotion is about, and I take the opportunity to drive the truck into them. Sure, I could swing past them, but the creepy fuckers would only follow us. Might as well kill them—or at least maim them—while I can.
Rotten hands slam
onto the hood shortly before being dragged under the truck, which bumps and jostles as bones crush beneath the wheels. I’m beginning to wonder if this was such a good idea. Rachel rolls down her window and the sound of the dead fills the cab. You know that sound—the weird, gargling phlegm-type growl noise they make at the backs of their throats. Well, multiply that by thirty, throw in a couple of bags of rotting meat and shit, and you’re living in my world. Fucking joyous, isn’t it?
Rachel
’s gun begins to pop next to me. We’re high up, so I don’t worry too much about them getting at her, and she can easily take them out. I check the mirrors and see that Michael and Nova are taking out their fair share too. I press down on the gas and ease the truck forward over the heaving mass of bodies, the crunching from them sounding uncomfortably loud with the windows down, making my skin crawl.
Rachel continues to shoot from next to me, and I can hear that Michael and Nova are still firing away. Unfortunately, though the mass is shrinking in size, as I come back around the corner to the front of the mall, all our noise has been attracting even more attention.
“Holy shit,” I shout.
Deaders are coming from all different directions, across
the parking lot, dodging around cars, dragging themselves from under bushes. I try to think of the best plan of action while still keeping the truck inching forward, but not going too fast as to let the next group of dead catch up to us.
“What do I do?” I ask Rachel, since my good idea bag is running on empty.
“Figure something out, and quick,” is her tense reply.
Fucking helpful
, is all I can think in return.
I continue to drive across the
parking lot, dodging deaders as I go. With the windows open I can hear Nova and Michael shouting to each other, and I’m pretty sure Nova is laughing at something—but that would be all kinds of fucked up given our current situation, so I shrug that off.
I head out of the
parking lot and around the east side of the mall, with twenty or so deaders following in our wake. There’s only one or two around this side—for the moment at least—so I floor it to the opposite end of the building. At this end is another gigantic parking lot and yet more deaders. The front doors here have all been boarded up from the inside, as have the arched windows that go along the entire front wall. It’s worrying but also relieving. If it’s been boarded up that means people are—or were—inside, meaning that hopefully the place is pretty secure with no deaders inside. That’s my thought process anyway. I just need to get us inside the damn place now.
As I pull across the front
and down the side, looking everywhere and nowhere for a great idea, I see a fire escape at the end, between a part of the wall that juts out and a security door. The door is flush against the wall, and seems only accessible with a key card, but across from that is the fire escape. I drive down to it and look up; it seems pretty doable. The fire escape leads all the way to the top of the mall and up to the roof, where there’ll definitely be doors to get inside. Effectively we’d be going in from the top—if we could get in through the doors, of course. I’m more than sure they will be heavily locked. After all, that would have been in the mall’s utmost interest—to protect everything inside. In fact, it’s more than likely only accessible with a key card, also, but it’s a helluva lot safer to work out a way to get through it when we don’t have deaders on our tails. Plus, Nova said not to worry about getting in, so I guess this is our best shot.
I pull up as close to the stairs as possible.
“This is the only thing I can think of,” I say, biting down on my lower lip.
Rachel looks up
and then back to me. “Let’s do it.” She climbs out, leaving me trailing behind her.
By the time I make it to the back of the truck, Nova and Mic
hael are shrugging on backpacks and holstering weapons as Rachel talks quickly and tells them the plan.
Michael slides a backpack to me. “Do you think you can carry that one?”
I nod yes, but when I try to put it on, it’s much heavier than I expected and pulls on my gunshot. It’s healing nicely, and much quicker than I anticipated, but I still don’t want to put too much weight on it. I shake my head. “It’s too heavy,” I mumble, feeling like a baby for not being able to carry it.
He takes it back and opens it up, pulling out some of the heavier items and distributing them between everyone
else’s bags while nervously looking over his shoulder as the smell of rotten meat gets closer. He hands the backpack back to me and I’m glad that it feels a shitload lighter. I try it on, and while it’s uncomfortable, it’s manageable.
“That
’s better, I can do that,” I say, and shift the position of the backpack so I can still get to my sword with ease. I have my gun at my waist in a holster, but I’m a terrible shot.
“
We’ve got company,” Nova whoops with a smile and jumps down from the truck, pointing to the deaders that are rounding the corner and heading our way.
We head
around to the front of the truck and climb up onto the hood one after another. I reach across to the fire exit ladders and start to climb, with Nova going first since she seems like a great shot and we don’t know what to expect once we get to the roof. The deaders reach us quicker than expected and the smell of them wafts up to me, making me want to rain barf down on top of them in retaliation. I won’t, though—that would be a waste of barf, and these creeps wouldn’t give a shit anyway.
It
’s only a three-story mall, more wide than tall, so it doesn’t take too long to climb all the way up. Even so, the higher I get, the more of a death grip I get on the metal rungs of the ladder. I’m not afraid of heights—living in the treetop houses put that fear to bed—but a large horde of the dead are underneath us now, and we have no idea what’s up at the top. I’m trapped between a rock and a hard place.
Nova
reaches the top and peers over. She’s quiet for a few seconds as she scans the area, but finally looks down at us with a smile.
“All good,” s
he says with a wiggle of her eyebrows, and climbs over the top wall.
One by one we follow her
over the side, glad to be away from the reaching deaders. She’s right that everything is clear, but it’s not a pretty sight by any means. There are blood smears all over the ground, with several piles of bones. There’s a small gray door, which must lead back inside the mall, covered in smears of dried blood. There’s no way that whatever was up here could get back in, so it’s either still up here or it went over the side. I look at the piles of emaciated bodies and brittle bones, realizing that it could very well be one of those.
Michael
stands guard with his gun as Rachel applies a charge down the hinge side of the door. I wander off to the edge of the building to check on our truck. There’s a shit-ton of the damn things down there now, all scrambling around the truck. I frown and tut as I see their smears of gore over the hood.
“
’Sup?” Nova says from next to me. She peers over the side and then looks at me questioningly.
“They
’re fucking up the truck,” I pout.
She looks back over and then back to me. “It
’ll wash.” She shrugs and reaches into her pocket. With a grin, she pulls out a stick of gum. “You want?”
“Yes!” I grin back and reach for it.
She pulls it out of my reach just before I grab it, and I frown again. “What the fuck?” I snap.
“Nearly ready,
” Rachel yells to us, stretching out a long fuse.
“I need you to get something for me when we
’re in there,” Nova says, all traces of humor gone. In fact, this is the most serious I’ve ever seen her.
“Well
, I’m curious enough to ask what it is, but that doesn’t mean I’ll do it,” I retort, trying my damndest not to look at the stick of gum and give away how desperate I am for it.
Nova runs her tongue across her lips before replying, quickly checking
that the other two are far enough away from us. “I need you to find me…” She looks away shiftily, her face flushing a little.
“What?” I whisper, fearing the worst.
“I want you to find me a motherfucking Baby Ruth bar.”
I gasp, and then
realize that it isn’t dramatic in any way. “What? That’s it? Why can’t you find it yourself?” I frown and reach for the gum again. She’s clearly playing a joke of some sort.
“Because I al
ways look, but I never find one,” she pouts.
My hand grasps the gum and she looks me in the eye and lets it go. My mouth is already watering for it, and I quickly unwrap it and fold the little stick into my mouth, groaning as
flavors explode on my tongue.
“I need
you to look for one more thing,” she says, while I’m mid-chew. I nod and gesture for her to keep going, not wanting to stop chewing for a second. “I need you to find me a pregnancy test.”
I cough on all the extra saliva that
’s built up in my mouth and nearly swallow my gum. “A what?” I gasp.
Yep, totally appropriate time for gasping now.
“You heard me.” She watches me for a second, and I see the hint of vulnerability there. I nod an
okay
and she smiles. “Thank you.”
I stand there struck numb for a
minute; I didn’t even know she was with anyone, never mind pregnant. Jesus, what will she do if she is? What kind of world is this to bring a child into? I can’t imagine anything worse.
“
Fire in the hole,” Rachel yells.
I look across at her as she clambers up from her knees and jogs some distance away, and I look for a suitable place to
take cover.
“
Get down, in five, four, three…” Rachel shouts over to us and coves her ears. I mimic her but don’t look away. “…two, one.”
There
’s a loud explosion, and a ball of orange and yellow blows from the bottom of the door where the charge was, and gray smoke quickly follows.
“Stand clear,
” Rachel’s voice carries over the ringing in my ears.
A minute or so passes before I see anyone getting up and moving
toward the door. I do the same, and am surprised to see that the door is still perfectly intact, but the lock has been blown clean off, leaving the door swinging in the breeze.
Nova laughs, raises her gun, and heads into the gloom without another word. Michael follows her with a wide grin.
Jesus, these people are bat-shit crazy.
I pull out my sword, excited and nervous to get inside. I glance at Rachel over my shoulder as she throws everything back into her backpack and slings it over her shoulders quickly. She follows me down, and I feel the security of the gun in her hand behind me.
As we reach the first landing, we
head into a long gray corridor and I realize that this must be an employee area. It’s ridiculously dark, but one by one we grab our flashlights and light the way. I scan the walls and floor with my limited amount of light, trying to see if there is any sign of blood and gore; I guess I’m looking for any sign of deaders. It’s only a short corridor, with one small door leading off from it on the left and one door at the end. We stop by the door on the left and count to three, and Nova yanks the handle and pushes it open wide. It swings with a creak and I hold my breath, waiting for the usual groan, but nothing happens.
Michael swings
his flashlight around the dingy-looking staff room, but other than a couple of overturned chairs, nothing seems out of place. Michael closes it back up and we head toward the end of the corridor, reaching the end sooner than I’d like. Sure, this dark hallway is creepy as shit, but I’m comfortable in the knowledge that there’s nothing in here with us—unlike out there.
Nova and
I stand either side of the door while Michael and Rachel stand in front. On a whispered count of three, Rachel opens the door and we rush out, weapons drawn and hearts beating so hard they might just pop right out of our chests.
I crouch
down low and swivel left and right, waiting for the surge of dead, but other than a distant smell of dirty laundry and bad breath, things seem pretty normal for a shopping mall. I straighten my spine and shoot a questioning look to Rachel. She shrugs, points left without saying anything, and moves off. I keep my ears keen as we move along the top balcony of the once busy mall, but I can’t stop my eyes from straying to the mannequins in the window, all dressed in their best Spring/Summer collection.
The plac
e is silent apart from our booted feet making their way from storefront to storefront. I edge over to the side to look down on the lower level, but don’t see anything down there—no humans, no deaders. I frown; this doesn’t seem right at all.
I move closer to Nova, giving her a poke in the back. She turns her head a fraction and raises an eyebrow.
“This is weird, right?” I whisper as quietly as possible, but even as quiet as I am, it seems incredibly loud.
Mi
chael puts a finger to his lips but doesn’t actually make a shushing sound at me. We all stop, heads craned to one side as we listen intently. Nothing. Could it be we’ve stumbled upon an untapped resource? Surely we’re not that lucky. Surely
I’m
not that lucky.