Decaying Humanity (18 page)

    “Are you okay?” Shay asked.

    “Yeah, my back just hurts. Did you feel anything like this when you … changed?”

    “Not like that, but my hands were sore for days after my first … clawing. I’ll look you over after we get out of her. You just have to push through whatever it is.”

    We threw the door open and moved further into the store. The sound of gunshots still echoed throughout. I holstered the pistol and tugged at the strap on the shotgun. I held it firmly as we moved through the layaway section. There in front of us was the electronics section. There were video games and movies strewn across the floor. The display consoles were being used to play the latest games. I was so jealous. We were stuck watching the grass grow while they had an endless supply of entertainment. The lights in the store were much dimmer than when they were powered by the city, but we could still see our way around.

    We hugged the back wall and moved towards the camping supplies. I had no qualms about taking someone down, but I wanted to avoid turning a corner and running face first into a wall of shotguns. One, two and three aisles passed and then down the fourth aisle were two teenage girls.

    They were huddled together looking towards the front of the store before they heard us. They spun around to reveal one blonde and a brunette. I hesitated while I thought to myself that not everyone here was a killer. Of course the store isn’t filled with just brutish men; there would be others, right? There would be women and children that had just managed to stay here for safety, family members of the killers right? Did that mean by relation alone they deserved punishment?

    In my hesitation the blonde haired girl drew a pistol and fired three shots into my chest. While I knew it wouldn’t cause any real damage, the surprise of being shot really pissed me off. I raised the shotgun and pumped out two shells worth of buckshot into them. The blonde fell backwards and the brunette covered her face as blood oozed from her cupped hands. Shay dashed over to them and proceeded to surgically remove the pistol hand from the blonde. She screamed and Shay grabbed her by the throat and lifted her nearly three feet off the ground before slamming the back of her head into the linoleum. There was a hearty cracking sound and skull and brain matter exploded onto the floor. The dark haired girl was still sobbing into her bloody hands.

    Even though I knew I shouldn’t, I hesitated a second time. It was just a girl, barely older than Nikki. Shay, on the other hand, did not hesitate. She took a swipe that didn’t even look like it connected, but the girl’s neck gushed all over her green “
Stop reading my shirt
” shirt. She fell to a knee and then collapsed into a fetal position. As her hands fell limply at her side I could see the damage the buckshot had caused to her face. It was a saddening sight, her skin punctured and torn, destroying her once pretty young face. One of her eyes had been blown out and it left an empty crater.

    “Stop feeling sorry for them, they shot you without saying a word,” Shay said while the dark haired girl rose to her feet moaning quietly. There was a soft plink as my body rejected and healed over the bullets. I looked down at the bullets and then at the dead girls, it still didn’t sit well with me. Harvey caught up to us and pointed at the blond girl.

    “Ungh!”

    “I know that was wasteful. I got a little carried away,” Shay replied.

    The blonde girl in the pink shirt never got up.

    I had feared that the screaming and gunshots would attract a multitude of hunters. My fears were lifted as the ambient noise from the front still seemed to drown out any other sound. We made our way past the last couple aisles and entered the outdoors section. There were sleeping bags laid out all over the floor and empty petroleum cooker cans littering the aisles. I didn’t see anyone around and the gun case had been completely emptied.

    “We should have made a shopping list,” I said.

    “We can’t take much; we just need the basics to get started. Find a shopping cart so we can get this stuff and go.”

    “Pushing carts, I thought I was done with that part of my life,” I said sarcastically.

    I looked around the area and there were items we could use: sleeping bags, rope, paracord, camping saws and a wood cutting hatchet. There were even some bags of wasabi peanuts left on the shelf. Not my favorite, but then again my tastes had changed recently. I found a cart full of bird food against the wall. At this point I didn’t even bother asking what it was for and just dumped it onto the floor.

    “We are still missing things,” I said.

    “Nails and stuff,” Shay said.

    “Let’s go.”

    “We gotta hurry. You grab those while I get something else really fast. We’ll meet back at the layaway door in two minutes,” Shay instructed.

    “You never split up, that’s one of the first rules,” I said.

    Shay leaned in and kissed me. “I’ll be fine, two minutes is all.”

    She ran off down the dimly lit hallway towards the center of the store. I took a nervous breath as she disappeared from my sight.

    I pushed my cart with the clunky wheel towards the hardware section. I was followed by Harvey and a few of the other zombies. They seemed to follow me in hopes of a fresh meal. I turned the corner and an eerie silence had set upon the store. The sound of gunshots and fighting had dissipated and the only noise was the
ker-thump
of my shopping cart wheel. I had made it a few steps into the building supplies and a voice came screaming through the PA system.

    “Attention Allmart customers, this is Captain Neves. It has come to my attention that you have failed to uphold your portion of the bargain. The person you were supposed to find has eluded you for weeks and now she has come to you. Not only that, but she is kicking your asses. Our teams will be sweeping the building and we will find Tiffany Mason. I am a very understanding person and if you happen to capture her first, well then, you have just extended our deal. Otherwise we will shoot you like the animals you are.” The PA system threatened before crackling off.

    “Oh, and Tiffany, you are surrounded so I suggest you come with us quietly. We’ll be seeing you soon, honey.”

    I began to panic and my heart was racing. There was a pulling to search for her, but I knew that I would only get more lost. I just needed to grab some nails and a hammer and I could meet up with her. We’d bust through the back door, kill a few soldiers and sneak away … right?

    The sound of shotgun blasts nearby startled me. I turned around to see my entourage of undead splayed out on the floor. Two hunters stood across from me pointing their weapons right at my face.

    “Donchu move or I’ll blow yer head off,” the bearded man said. He was dirty and unkempt, as if he used the apocalypse as an excuse to give up on hygiene.

    “Yeah, clean off,” his friend said. This man was clean shaven and had a buzz cut. He looked like he used to be military or possibly just mimicked their style.

    “Look, we can work this out,” I stalled while trying to think of a way to take them down without losing the top half of my head.

    Gunshots began to ring out from the front again. Only they didn’t sound the same as before. They were in short, controlled bursts from automatic weapons. The two men didn’t seem fazed by the sound and kept their guns trained on my face.

    “We’re gonna turn you in and sit pretty till these biters all die out,” the bearded man said.

    “Yeah, you’re coming with us, cash cow. Don’t try anything or I’ll take you apart and give them the pieces.”

    I could hear shuffling coming from the aisle next to me. The shelving full of nails and screws began to creak slightly. I could see through the slats in the shelving that there was a humanoid figure pressed up against the other side.

    “Hey, don’t worry ‘bout that. We took care of all yer biter friends.”

    “Come on, slowly now. I’d hate to get startled,” the man said while making a hand gesture of buckshot coming out of the muzzle of his gun.

    Throughout this conversation, the sound of gunshots continued to ring out through the store, getting louder and closer every second. Clearly, the Army soldiers were sweeping the store toward us. Time was running out and these men were in my way.

    I had no choice. If I waited any longer the Army would reach me and tear me apart. My only option was to rush these two and pray their buckshot couldn’t penetrate my skull. I took a single deep breath before my desperate bull rush attack.

    A moment before I lunged in to attack, the pain in my back flared up so bad that it brought me to my knees. I couldn’t help but let out a pained howl.

    “What the hell is wrong wit chu?”

    “We ain’t fallin for that,” the other man said.

    Then the shelving began to screech as the metal bent and wobbled on the cheap connectors. The two men spun around as the entire shelving section of building supplies came crashing down on them. The one man fired off a shot towards the shelving before it came crashing on top of them. Standing on the other side of the aisle was Harvey, his arms still outstretched in the pushing position.

    “You saved me again,” I said.

    “Grrungh,” he moaned in response.

    My pain had subsided and I reached around to touch my back and brought back a hand caked in black blood. What the hell was wrong with me? I didn’t have to time to figure it out; I had to make sure that Shay made it out alive.

    Boxes and supplies had scattered all over the floor. I could hear one of the men making injured whimpers. Those shelves had some pretty nasty things on them, but I didn’t think it was enough to kill them. I didn’t stick around to find out, not with the Army firing squad moving our way. I scooped up a box of nails that had landed near my foot. I ran down the aisle a ways and grabbed a hammer.

    “Alright, shopping list complete,” I said to Harvey. “Go to the layaway section, I’ll meet you there.”

    Harvey squinted at me for a second and then wandered off in that direction. I still wasn’t sure
how
smart he really was, but having him around felt like a blessing. I climbed over the fallen shelving and as it shifted under my weight, one of the men cried out. I jumped off the wreckage and grabbed the shopping cart. I looked down the main row and there were small flashes of light that accompanied the gunshots coming from the side. They were getting really close.

    I pushed my noisy cart towards the layaway section and came around to the electronics section. I was almost there, almost out of this nightmarish place. Then I saw Shay in the center of the aisle, claws drawn and multiple bodies at her feet. All of the bodies at her feet were raiders. She stood there panting, ready to take on the next person she saw.

    “Shay!” I called out.

    She turned around and raised her claw to swing in my direction and then retracted them. I could see her relief as she moved towards me.

    “You took forever, I was afraid … you left me,” she said clearly worried.

    “I told you, you are stuck with me forever.”

    “I’m glad.”

    She came to me and I threw a hug around her and squeezed her tightly.

    “We have to get out of here now, the soldiers are closing fast,” I said. She looked me in the eyes and smiled. She nodded and I began to push the cart towards the back door.

    We walked beside each other towards the layaway exit. Four soldiers rounded the corner about twenty feet from us. I reached for Shay and threw my right arm in front of her and tried to push her back. This time I didn’t hesitate, I didn’t have to think about it, I knew I’d throw myself in front of danger for her. Shay instead threw me back and leapt forward. Damn her super strength.

    She flung herself down the lane at a ridiculous speed, claws drawn and ready to finish it. The soldiers fired their rifles in rapid succession. I got back to my feet and tried to chase after her. Silence seemed to overtake me and the sound I heard was that of a single bullet. The back of Shay’s head spit out tiny fragments of skull and brain matter. She fell in a clump on the floor, sliding slightly from her momentum. Her hands instantly changed back to normal. The item she had retrieved earlier spilled from her pocket; a Spanish-to-English dictionary.

    “Oh God, no,” is all I could mutter. My mind felt like it was on fire as the feeling of sadness and rage hit me like a tidal wave. There was a strong nausea that came over me and my body went cold. My legs went weak and I tripped onto the ground next to her. I scooped her into my arms and looked at her face.

    A gunshot hole directly above her left eye had coated her face in blood. Her eyes had already begun to glaze over and her mouth was left agape.

    “No, no, no no,” I whispered as I rocked back and forth with her body in my arms.

    “Stevens, that was her, you idiot,” one of the soldiers said in the distance.

    “Well, she was coming at me,” he responded.

    I stared up at them with a fire in my eyes, but it soon began to dwindle. What was my life without her?

    “Shay, use your healing. We don’t know how this works, you could still come back. Please don’t leave me,” I said while still trying to shield her with my body. “I don’t know what to do without you.”

    My body had ached before, but at this point something inside me was running rampant. The feeling was that of being struck with a baseball bat, hundreds of times. The skin of my back felt like it was being pulled off in burning hot strips.

    “Neves is going to be pissed,” one of the soldiers said.

    “That’s Captain Neves, private,” said a man coming around the opposite side.

    From behind me, the captain approached with a handful of equally armed troops. I held Shay closer and couldn’t help myself from tearing up. We had only been together such a short time, but I had dreamed of our lives after this terrible day. Destiny had brought us together and her blood had made me whole. Now she was being taken from me by these men. The soldiers began to step closer to me and I held her tighter and huddled closer to the shelving. I didn’t even know what I was trying to protect at this point, but the urge to keep her safe never left me.