Aftermath (Book 1): Only The Head Will Take Them Down (22 page)

Unfortunately for John however, it was too late, the bodies closest to the store had seen his torch, and thanks to the almost complete darkness of the cold night outside, were now utterly compelled to investigate the sudden source of brightness that had grazed over them for all but a second. In the doorway, John could see a small break, the shoulder of one biter lodged through it, no doubt rammed into the glass so many times by its comrades that the double glazing had eventually given way. Worse still though, was that as more of the creatures now realised what was going on, the pushing became more vigorous, and the hole began to grow.

Chapter 23: Cleaning House

John ducked back into cover, flicking on his torch once more to view his potential weapons haul for a final time, the glimmer of metal bodies reflecting in front of him, as he attempted to weigh up the benefits and drawbacks of taking each weapon. It was a decision that until a moment ago, he doubted he would have had to make, knowing that the close proximity of the truck to the door meant he could have taken just about every item in that godforsaken store if he had wanted to. Now though, he was forced to make a decision quicker than ever, as the group of biters outside got closer and closer to gaining entry.

The first choice was simple, the unknown shotgun had little going for it save for the fact that it appeared to be in working order. The ammo type was unknown, the weapon itself was not one John had seen before, and although seemingly working, John had no idea how well it would perform. Next John turned to the Remington 700. Although beautiful, its ammunition was far too uncommon, and the rifle itself only being able to take four rounds at a time was a huge drawback in a close quarters situation, and so John quickly decided to leave this too behind, rather begrudgingly. Last but not least John looked to the AK, and made the quickest and easiest decision of them all. John knew only too well that it would fire as well as the day it was made, and that its ammunition was at least reasonably common, and so he placed one magazine into his bag – loading the second into the weapon itself – and slotted the AK through the straps of his backpack. Finally, he picked up his own shotgun, and readied himself to leave.

Looking around his immediate vicinity, John quickly ascertained that a secondary exit at the rear of the store – which was partially obstructed by a filing cabinet – would probably be exactly the sort of route that he so desperately needed. Even better, it could potentially lead straight into the rear alley, so that he could circle back around the Amish store and emerge back in front of the shop. Moving quickly to the door, John weighed up the potential impact of removing the huge metal cabinet, from the time it would take – making a perfect window of opportunity for the biters, who were already using every second to break further through the shop front’s glass – to the noise, which John was certain would arouse any other creatures waiting at the rear of the store.

John’s decision was quickly made for him, as the first of the flailing creatures came crashing through the store’s front door, carving a path for those that pushed from behind it, and taking away what was essentially the only other exit. John turned back to the cabinet, placed his dirtied and blistered hands on its left hand side, and pulled with all his might. What he found however, was that the huge metal container moved not an inch, and simply stared back at him, almost spelling out the impending death sentence he might face if he failed to find a way to budge it.

Immediately John’s brain clicked into life, telling him to abandon his efforts to move it as a whole, and to instead lighten the load by removing its contents. Quickly he obliged, pulling out each drawer from top to bottom, all of them so full with odd scraps of metal and engraving tools he could barely lift a single drawer as it was. Eventually he reached for the bottom entry, pulling out the final box of entangled junk, and twisting his body round to throw it clear of the area, just in time to see the first biter enclose on John’s position.

It was one of the quicker attackers, most likely a recent turn, still able to manage a jog, albeit clumsily. As it lunged forwards, a quick sidestep saw it flail aimlessly at the space John had just been, colliding instead into the cabinet head first, promptly followed by it collapsing to a heap on the floor. John responded hurriedly, taking out his knife and stabbing down on it, only narrowly catching the side of its head, in a move that did little more than simply anger it. As it grabbed out in John’s direction, only narrowly missing the laces of his left boot, John struck again, this time with more success, the sharpened blade plummeted through the skull of the now fully deceased creature.

Back at the front of the store, more of the undead were beginning to slowly amble through the growing hole in the glass, and so John turned his attention once more to escaping. Throwing his hands back around the cabinet, he gave another pull, this time exerting more than enough force to bring the hunk of metal tumbling away from the wall, falling onto its front on top of the downed biter, the corpse’s bones cracking and squelching under its still reasonably heavy weight. John looked on though, unaffected by its landing, his attention now drawn to the door, which unfortunately for him, refused to open with a simple twist of its handle. It was locked.

John took a step back, and turned to inspect the front of the store once again, another enthusiastic biter now getting to its feet, having successfully breached the front entranceway. John turned on the spot and stepped firmly towards the hard, metal door, his foot rising into the air and then crashing forwards towards the doors left side, using every ounce of strength in his right leg to try and break it off of its lock. To John’s dismay though, there was no luck, the door stood strong, unwilling to relinquish its heavy duty metallic lock from just one kick in the right spot. John retreated once more, coming down again with all of his might, only to be left standing on the spot, his foot throbbing from two consecutively failed attempts, as the low groan of an approaching enemy reached the back of his ears.

Turning to face it, John quickly sized his next battle up. The creature was smaller than the last, most likely female from what he could tell, though at this point most of them were so deformed and covered in God-knows-what that gender was often indeterminable. In any case, he chose not to take any chances this time, confronting the biter head on and plunging his blade directly into its forehead, withdrawing the blade milliseconds before it started its deadened descent to the hard-wood floor below.

At this point, a small group had ambled through a much bigger hole that had formed in the main window area, marking what John felt was his last chance saloon for an escape, knowing only too well how difficult they could be to bring down when a large group of them worked together. With that in mind, John turned one final time to the exit, this time firmly gripping the shotgun in both hands, and fired off a shell almost point blank to the doors lock. Instantly, the entire mechanism – along with a large portion of the frame itself – blew clean through and out into the night, followed by the door, which swung violently open. Immediately afterwards came John, relieved at finally being able to exit the now overrun store, and quickly moving through the newly created passageway.

Out in the open air once more, John looked round for signs of any further complications, sighting two biters straight away as they moved slowly in from the right hand side, blocking the path John had hoped he might take back to the road. It was of little concern though, as John knew he could go to the left instead, opting at least to avoid the potential group of undead that might have been following close behind the two. In any case, going left allowed John to circle back at a bigger radius, hopefully meaning that he drew the biters at the entrance to the gun-store further away from the Toyota parked out front.

Moving along the rear of the various stores that lined Tomah’s main road, John shone the shotgun torch at every available crevice, keen to ensure no surprises came lunging out. But what he saw instead, just three doors down from the store he had emerged from, caught his eye much more.
“For food deliveries, ring buzzer on right”
, read a sign taped to the door.
That one word, “
Food
”, was enough to send shivers of hope through John’s already tense spine, as the prospect of food – or water for that matter – in even the smallest of quantities, filled his mind.

John reached for the door handle, hoping and praying that it might have been left open, but there was no such luck, and so John was once again faced with a difficult decision. Looking back where he had come from, he saw the first two biters, who had as he had expected been followed close behind by a number of friends, all of them now approaching the rear of the gun store. Clearly none of the group were capable of much speed though, and so John raised his Remington once more, taking aim for what he hoped was the last time today, at the metallic lock of the rear door. The round fired the lock clean through into the inside, the shells contents hitting the door with such impact that it was severed from the top hinge, and now hung loosely on the bottom joint, swinging open and closed slightly with an almighty creak.

Pulling it further ajar, John clambered in through the mess, and tried unsuccessfully to close the mutilated door behind him. Eventually disregarding it, he turned his attention to the building he now stood inside of, his torch shining on rows of what seemed unfortunately to be empty shelves. Undeterred, John pushed forwards, entering into the main shop front of what appeared to be an independently run supermarket of some sort, its contents trashed and thrown around in what was at this point considered more or less the norm for all remaining buildings. Nevertheless John hurriedly inspected every inch of the small store, looking into every corner, turning out every abandoned box, grouping together every scrap of usable food and drink he could find and stuffing them all into his backpack, finishing his ransacking of what little remained just in time to hear the familiar sound of the undead colliding with a doorway to his rear. John knew that this meant it was time to leave, and so with that in mind, he turned his attention to the front entrance, which, mercifully, appeared to actually house the keys to John’s exit, still lodged in the old wood bodied keyhole.

Outside the entrance, the street was relatively clear, aside from the odd straggler only now making its way into the gun shop, still seeking to investigate the commotion, something that had worked exactly as John had hoped. Three stores down from the where the Toyota was parked, the door of
“Tomah Essentials”
slowly swung open, John’s tall well-built figure emerging from the dark unlit insides into the barely lit moonlight of the street, the tip of his AK47 – still lodged inside the straps of his backpack – knocking gently against the doorway as he moved outside. Finally he was free of the biter infested shop fronts that had thwarted his every move along this brief stop, his face now able to show the sheer joy he felt at having made it back out alive.

Strolling out onto the pavement, John began inspecting his surroundings, before quickly reminding himself that the double storied buildings that lined the street still presented as much of a danger as ever to John’s exposed position. Bearing that in mind, John opted to stop the expedition here, and instead hurriedly moved over to the Toyota, his weapon raised and aimed at the front of the gun store, knowing only too well how apt the many creatures inside were at sensing the presence of their nearest meal.

Arriving at the truck though, John was relieved to see that only as he threw his backpack and weapons into the passenger foot-well, did any of the biters inside the store begin to realise what was going on, at which point it was already too late. The Toyota’s engine roared into life, speeding away from the town centre in exactly the opposite fashion as it had arrived, no longer needing to obey any kind of stealthy tactics. Suddenly John felt almost comforted, at the thought of leaving behind the God forsaken, biter infested town, of Tomah.

*
      
*
      
*

Before long John was driving back up the path to the truck wash, the large metal door rising into the air as he approached, Donald clearly having kept an eye out for his arrival. For a moment John felt almost cared about by his companion, though he knew only too well that had he not been out gathering supplies – and in Donald’s own truck no less – he probably would have returned to an empty, ransacked building. If nothing else though, at least Donald understood how to survive in this world, releasing his grip on the chains he had manually operated, to slowly and quietly lower the door back into its closed position, before flicking on some of the smaller interior lights of the building.

“Well, you’re not dead”, Donald called across as John got out of the truck, “So that’s a good start, I guess”, he added, beginning a slow limp over to the truck.
“Funny”, John replied bluntly.
“Aww c’mon now sunshine don’t be mad. Come on over and tell ‘ole Donald what you got”, Donald said.
John rounded the front of the truck and lent through the passenger side window, pulling out different items stashed in his rucksack, describing them each before placing them onto the hood of the Hilux.
“Water…snacks…chocolate…and of course, our personal favourite, tinned crap”, he said, taking out the last few items.
“Well, looks like we’ll dine like royalty tonight…”, Donald responded sarcastically.
“Oh, and this”, John continued, ignoring Donald’s comment, and instead pulling out the AK still entwined in the straps of his rucksack.

“Well well well, what do we have here?”, Donald asked, taking the weapon from John’s hands.
It was the first time John had seen the weapon in the light, his eyes now drawn to the immaculate condition the body was in, its waxed wood gleaming away courtesy of the overhead lighting above, and the metal of it both unscratched and unscathed, giving the impression that it had been very well cared for, if ever used at all for that matter.
“Got a couple mag’s for it too”, John added, holding the pair of magazines he had found in the store out in front of him, before placing them with the remainder of his haul.
“Not bad Parker, not great, but not bad, I think you’ve earned the rest of the night’s sleep”, Donald said, turning and hobbling back to the office, still fully engrossed in inspecting the AK.