After the End (17 page)

Inside the store, Deb and Joe went on a quick sweep of the ground floor while he led the rest of the group to the furniture department. They dropped onto chairs and couches, exhausted more from anxiety than from walking a few city blocks. It was no Sunday stroll out there.

"I'm going to get some things for the baby." Doug Patton started to head off.

"Wait a minute," Ari called. "We don't know if the store's secure and you're not even armed."

"I'll go with him," Lila volunteered, hefting the rifle which she'd yet to use. It wasn't that Ari didn't trust she would if necessary, but he didn't feel comfortable having people disperse to all departments of this huge store on individual errands.

"Wait until the others come back with a report," he ordered.

Derrick grumbled something under his breath about dictators, but Doug obediently sat back down.

Ian cried and Ari cringed inside. What would it take to quiet that kid? He found out a moment later when Gloria draped a blanket over her shoulder and nursed the baby.

"I'm hungry," Ronnie whined.

"Have some more Fritos." Derrick tossed a bag at her.

"I don't want any more. I want
real
food."

"We're all hungry. Just shut up about it," her brother said. "Grow up a little."

Ronnie was right. They couldn't keep eating snack foods. They needed better nutrition to keep up their strength. Another stop at a grocery store or restaurant would be necessary before the day was through.

Joe returned from scanning the east side of the store. "I didn't see or hear anything. But there are two floors above this. It's too big to scan it all. I don't feel comfortable here."

Me either
, Ari thought. The sooner they got what they needed and got on their way, the better.

"I brought company." Deb approached from the other direction along with a group of about ten people.

Ari's stomach dropped. He should be glad to see more survivors, but the larger their number became, the more danger for everyone. Where two or three could move fast and hide well, bigger groups were slower and more obvious. Nevertheless, he held out his hand and greeted the leader of the group, a woman in her thirties. "How you doing? I'm Ari."

"Hunter." She briefly related their story. The group of survivors was mostly Humbolts employees, seven women and three men who'd hidden in a storeroom until the first wave of zombies had passed. They'd come out of hiding, barred the doors, cleaned up the place and were living on an upper level from with access to several fire escapes if need be.

"Until now it's been pretty quiet. We patrol and watch from the windows, but none of those things has tried to get in the building yet. Thanks for breaking our door, by the way." She fixed Ari with a hard stare.

"Sorry. We needed supplies and shelter." He indicated Gloria and Ian. "We've got a baby with us."

"Where are you headed?"

"The waterfront. We're going to get a boat." He didn't ask if they wanted to come along and hoped she didn't suggest it. If anything, he'd like to leave the Pattons here.

Hunter ordered a couple of her people to secure the door and invited everyone up to the second floor. "Do you have food with you? We'll trade whatever you need for more food and water."

It was ridiculous of her to claim the entire contents of the store as theirs to bargain with, but Ari let it go. No point in starting an argument. Besides, the Humboldt crew was armed with guns from their sporting goods department. He couldn't imagine it coming to a shootout. They weren't quite Lord of the Flies yet. But if these people continued to squat here instead of moving on, they'd soon become desperate for fresh supplies and likely to take them from anyone who wandered into their territory. The department store had a wide variety of useful items. Unfortunately food wasn't one of them.

"We'll share what we have," Ari said.

He and the rest of the group joined their hosts, who escorted them around the store to the various departments. Sondra seemed content to stay in women's clothing and try on one outfit after another. Maybe the act of shopping assured her the world still spun on its axis.

Soon they were supplied with everything they needed including personal care and baby items. In return, the Humboldt group took most of their provisions. Ari wasn't happy to lose the rest of their groceries, but he'd figured they'd need to stop for food today anyway.

When they were finished trading, everyone gathered near the top of the escalator. Ari stuck out his hand to shake Hunter's. "Guess we'll be moving on." He glanced at the Pattons and wondered if there was any polite way he could suggest they stay behind.

"Pam and I want to go with you," a woman named Lauren said abruptly. "We can't stay here. We'll all die before anyone comes to rescue us."

Hunter glared at her. "I told you a hundred times we're better off sitting tight. This is only the third day. Something's bound to happen soon. The government will fix this."

It seemed there were a lot more people in the "stick your thumb up your ass and wait for rescue" camp than Ari had thought.

"I'm sorry," he said to Lauren. "We can't take on any more people. It's hard enough to move with the group we've got." He looked around at their familiar faces. "In fact, if any of you would rather stay here with these people, you're welcome to."

"Nuh-uh," Hunter shook her head. "We've got all we can support right here. No one stays and no one goes."

"We do," Pam spoke up, supporting Lauren. "We want to get the hell out of here. Hunter, you can't keep us here. Why would you want to? You said yourself we're running out of food." She pointed at Ari. "And
he
can't stop us from going with them."

As the argument escalated, Ari sought advice by pondering W.W.V.D.—What would Vogt do? His sergeant wouldn't have put up with insubordination that was for sure, but this wasn't the army and these people weren't soldiers. He offered a suggestion. "Maybe we can trade, keep the numbers even. If a few of our members stayed and a few of yours wanted to join us..."

"You mean my family," Doug Patton interrupted. "You can't leave us behind. We won't be abandoned."

"I'm not talking about abandoning anyone. Only if you wanted to stay."

"Why would we? We're not crazy."

"Doug." Gloria set her new diaper bag on the floor and reached out to take her husband's arm. "Maybe it would be best for Ian. If we wait here with these people—"

"We'll end up dead. No, honey. I know you're scared, but we've got to keep going," the big man beseeched his wife. "We've got to think of the future. There isn't one here."

Great. At this rate Doug was going to talk the whole pack of Humboldt's employees into joining them. He should've been an army recruiter.

"Let's stay calm and keep our goal in mind," Ari cautioned. "The most important mission is getting Carl and the data to safety. Maybe it's time to split up and have just a few of us strike out for the marina." At last, he'd put out there what he'd been thinking, and now he held his breath, awaiting reactions. There was an immediate clamor of voices protesting the suggestion.

"Who would you leave behind, Ari?" Lila asked softly, looking up at him with questioning eyes. "The children, Mrs. Scheider, me? Anyone who slows you down?"

"No, of course not." Goddamn, why did this have to be so tough? "But the baby keeps crying, putting all of us in danger. I'm trying to consider what's best for the mission."

"Enough!" Deb snapped. "No one's staying and no one's coming with us. We got what we needed and now we're moving on. Just our group. End of story. Come on, Julie."

She headed toward the frozen escalator and that's when the bad day suddenly got much, much worse. There was the sound of shattering glass from below.

"Attack!" the watchman on the ground floor shouted. "They've broken in. They're coming!" A burst of gunfire followed his words.

Hunter ran to look over the balcony railing at the mezzanine below and Ari followed her. If the number of zombies was small, perhaps they could kill rather than run from them. But one glance showed the undead swarming through the ground floor.

Ari's heart stopped. "We've got to get everyone out of here."

He and Hunter ran back to the others. Many were already heading to the fire exits. There were two—one on either side of the store, and all of these people had to make it through the doors and down the stairs to the alley. Locating their camp on the second floor may have seemed like a good idea in theory, but in reality it might prove disastrous.

The nearer exit was already jammed with the Humboldts employees so Ari grabbed Ronnie by the hand and ran toward the exit at the other side of the store. They dashed through house wares and hardware toward the red glow of the exit sign, shining like a beacon in the dark. When they reached the door, he passed Ronnie off to Mrs. Scheider. "Get her out of here."

Deb already had the door open. She, Julie and Carl headed down the stairs. The rest of their group was still somewhere in the store. Ari went to find them and passed Derrick pulling Gloria Patton by the hand. She carried Ian in one arm and looked back over her shoulder, screaming for her husband as Derrick tugged her along.

"Come on, lady," Derrick urged. "Just run."

"I'll find the others," Ari promised as he went in the opposite direction.

The zombies were pouring up the stairs to the second floor now like frantic shoppers on the day after Thanksgiving rushing for the best deals. Bargain priced human cuisine. Some of the creatures were riddled with bullets from the watchman's rifle, but he'd missed their vital spot so they kept coming. There were at least a dozen monsters and most were focused on the people queued and struggling to get through the exit.

Ari stopped and shot into the running horde of zombies. Aiming for their heads, he cut a swathe across the group, the gunfire ringing in his ears as pretty as a choir anthem. Some dropped like stones and others tripped over them. Soon the creatures were tangled together, their momentum slowed.

Easy as bowling
. The cocky thought darted through his mind a second before he was tackled from behind by one of the silent predators. The zombie's weight bore him to the floor. Ari dropped his rifle and reached for the skinning knife at his belt while twisting to face his attacker. He wouldn't die this way—bitten in the back of the neck and never seeing the thing that had killed him.

Ari rolled and jabbed upward with his knife simultaneously. The blade stabbed through the revenant's chest before hitting bone and wedging there. He fought against the weight of the creature pinning him to the floor. Pushing it off him, he wrenched out his knife.

The zombie was a woman—had been a woman. Only a bag of rotten flesh now. She fell back when he pushed her off him, but immediately rallied and started toward him again, ignoring the gaping hole above her breast.

Ari leaped to his feet and rushed toward her, slicing at her face and cutting across the eyes. When she continued to stagger blindly toward him, he grabbed her hair, pulled her head down and hacked at the back of her neck. His knife cleaved cleanly through vertebrae, severing the neural connection. She went lifeless and Ari dropped the body, which sagged to the floor.
They aren't that hard to kill. There are just too damn many of them.

He whirled around, taking stock of the situation. The zombies had descended on the knot of fleeing Humboldts' people at the door, but the survivors weren't going down without a fight. Ari saw Lauren, the woman who'd wanted to go with them, using an acetylene torch to hold off a zombie. She set fire to its clothes and the fire quickly burned upward to catch the zombie woman's long hair. In seconds, her head was flaming like a birthday candle, but even then the creature kept after Lauren. Ari saw this with a glance before continuing to search for his own people.

Two zombies had someone pinned to the floor and were tearing into him like lions on a zebra. Ari's stomach lurched. The large figure in the green polo shirt and jeans was Doug Patton. His instinct was to drive the predators off Doug, but it was far too late for that. At this point, it was better to let them finish feasting, hopefully leaving nothing of Doug behind to rise again.

Joe appeared from around the corner of a display case. He ran toward Ari and grabbed his arm as he went past. "Come on."

"Lila's still in here."

Joe pulled on him. "You can't look for her. We've got to go."

Ari shook him off. "You go. Take the others someplace safe. I'll catch up."

Lila
. Despite everything he'd said about the mission coming first, he couldn't leave her behind. She might be alive, hiding somewhere, needing his help. He had to find her.

* * * * *

Chapter Twelve

Lila gripped Sondra's hand as if it was a life preserver and she was floating near the Titanic. Bodies buffeted them this way and that, people clawing and fighting to get to the door. An elbow cracked into Lila's ribs, pain spearing through her. A woman fell back against her, nearly knocking her off her feet, but she continued to cling to Sondra.

When everyone had started running, Lila had been swept along with them. She'd seen Sondra, standing with a deer in the headlights look in her eyes, and seized the woman's hand. Soon they were caught in the pile-up at the exit door. Immediately, Lila realized this was a dead end. People were panicking, pushing each other to get out first before spilling through the door like clowns exiting a tiny car.

The zombies would see this large, struggling group and attack them first. Maybe the few who had made it down the fire escape would get away, or maybe they'd be chased down. Either way, she and Sondra weren't going to make it through that door. Lila wanted to be free of the struggling crowd, but she was trapped by bodies.

A deafening round of rifle fire added to the mayhem of screaming, yelling people. Lila caught a glimpse of the undead coming toward them and surrounding the leader, Hunter like a horde of ants crawling over a dropped Popsicle. Lila jerked on Sondra's wrist, at last pulling her free from the melee and over to a rack of men's jackets. They dropped down behind it to hide.