Containment (12 page)

Dr. Caldwell answered, “When all of this started.”

Art disbelievingly asked, “And that’s the best plan that we can come up with?”

Meghan, irritated with Art too now, asked him, “You got any better ideas?”

Art didn’t answer and chose instead to look back out the window.

Neil changed the direction of the conversation slightly. “Before we get away from the city I want to make sure that we’ve got everything we need. And that includes gas.”

“So, we goin’ shoppin’?” Claire asked. “I always loved to shop, even when I didn’t need anything.”

Jerry asked, “And what about now?”

Claire sniffed her shirt. “If my shirt smells this bad, I’d hate to think what my socks and my underwear smell like.”

Jerry’s faced reddened slightly with the mention of Claire’s underwear. He said, “Thanks for the image.” The continued and enticing vision blooming in his mind caused him to blush even more.

“Ah, don’t mention it.”

Neil added, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but away from the fire last night I was a bit chilly.”

“Yeah, and it’s only gonna keep getting colder,” Dr. Caldwell noted.

“Maybe it would be worth the effort to do a little shopping,” Neil said. “Where to though?”

Jerry said, “Well, if there have been other survivors like the scumbags that Claire and Art ran into on Spenard, they may have cleaned out a lot of obvious places.”

Meghan said, “I wouldn’t count on Fred’s for supplies.”

Neil added, “Or Wal-Mart, Target, Carrs...”

Emma asked, “Are we in a rush to get somewhere?”

“Why?” asked Dr. Caldwell.

“Maybe it would be worth the effort to swing by each of those. You never know. Maybe the infection swept through quickly enough that some of those places didn’t get hit. It’s probably worth the look, ya know?”

Neil nodded his head. “You’re right. Doc, give Maggie a shout and let her know the plan. I think we’ll shoot down Jewel Lake and then go across Dimond. There are lots of options down there.”

Everyone seemed in agreement, or at least any dissent was not forceful enough to warrant comment from anyone. Dr. Caldwell called Maggie on the two-way radio and told her the plan.

She smiled when she heard the details. She had been to Dimond a few days ago. It was a mess and swarming with those things. She’d just barely made it away herself, and there would be some new ones down that way now. Oh the possibilities. She needn’t do anything.

The Carrs grocery store at the intersection of Dimond Boulevard and Jewel Lake Road didn’t look very promising. There were dozens of cars parked haphazardly in the parking lot, some quite literally atop others. Many of the store’s large windows were either shattered or missing. Much of the building’s facade was scarred with blackened wavy streaks of soot.

Meghan thought aloud, “What the hell?”

“People, scared and looking for help,” Dr. Caldwell surmised, “flocked here because it was open and well lit.”

To which, Jerry added, “And that’s what drew Them here too. I wonder how long it took?”

Moving beyond the scope of that question, Neil said, “I wonder if there’s anything of any value still in there?”

Emma, leaning forward to get a better look out the front window, said, “I wonder how many of those things are still in there?” She pointed to a single ghoul walking toward them from the parking lot. It wasn’t moving fast. In fact, it was hardly able to move at all. The thing was as stiff as a cadaver.

Neil and Dr. Caldwell looked back at her and wondered the same thing. It would be dark in there. Even with the light coming in through the front and with their flashlights, the cavernous depths and corners of the store would be frightening. With the one staggering through the parking lot, they could count on more of those things being inside. Maybe they would luck out and that thing was just a late arrival who missed all the festivities and there wouldn’t be others. That was a lot of maybes and they couldn’t bank on maybes. There could well be a time in the future in which a maybe would be as good as it got, but for the time being they could play it safer. There were too many opportunities for something bad to happen in there, so Neil was leaning toward just moving on.

It was several minutes of sitting at the intersection while they considered what to do. Finally, getting fed up with just sitting, Maggie barked into the radio, “We goin’ in or what?”

Still watching their lurking and slowly approaching predator, Neil said to Dr. Caldwell and everyone else in the van, “I’m thinking we move on. What do you think?”

The doctor suggested, “We can always come back. That might even encourage any others still inside to come out. Makes for much easier picking.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Neil turned the van onto the broad empty lanes of Dimond Boulevard and headed east. Ahead of them was the true commercial district of Anchorage with a string of stores, strip malls, and culminating with the Dimond Center Shopping Mall. It all started with a Fred Meyer store that shared a parking lot with a Burlington Coat Factory. There were cars there too, but the numbers were far less intimidating and the destruction, though present, wasn’t nearly as dramatic. For one thing, there didn’t seem to be any evidence of a fire.

As they slowed, Maggie’s voice came across the radio, “Why we stoppin’?”

Dr. Caldwell answered, “I think we’re going in for a closer look.”

“I thought we were goin’ to the Dimond Center?” Maggie’s voice seemed doubtful somehow, maybe even a little desperate.

“Why the hell would she want us to go to the Dimond Center?” Jerry asked the people in the van. “Talk about a zeke magnet.”

Dr. Caldwell said into the radio, “I think we should be able to get what we need right here. We can always head down that way if we still need to...but we’re going to start right here. Copy?”

Again from the radio, “I just thought...”

Jerry shook his head and leaned back into the seat. “I don’t know what she was thinking. If she has been surviving all these days and weeks, then she knows what attracts those things. How could she possibly be that clueless?”

Art said, “I think she’s just as scared as the rest of us and is trying to help out any way she can. I can’t imagine that she would actually want to see any of us hurt or worse. She just sounded scared to me. How can you say that?”

Jerry shook his head again and started to say something but thought better of it. He wanted to say that he thought Maggie was a complete loon and felt that she was trying to get them all killed. He didn’t know why yet, but he was convinced that she fully intend to see all of them dead. Maybe he was just being paranoid, but maybe a little paranoia was what was keeping them all alive. It was no longer his practice to argue with people though, so he let Art have the last word. Maggie didn’t sound scared to Jerry. She sounded desperate, like someone sounds when a plan unravels.

They pulled into the parking lot and drove slowly toward the store entrance. There weren’t a lot of windows on the facade, so most of the store’s interior was obscured from view.

Art said, “It’s going to be dark in there too. How is this any better than Carrs? Maybe Maggie’s right. Maybe we should just head down to the Dimond Center. I was in there once when the power failed and all the lights went out. It was dark but it wasn’t that dark. The big skylights on the ceiling above the ice rink lit up that side of the mall really well.”

When no one seemed to be listening to him, he ended with, “That’s an option is all.” And then he fell silent again.

Neil emerged from the quiet with an upbeat, “I’ve got an idea.”

He steered the vehicle blithely through the random cars and shopping carts scattered across the otherwise empty parking lot. He pulled into the covered lane just outside one of the main entrances and then drove up and onto the curb, angled the van into the glass doors, then turned on the van’s high beams.

There was some comfort in being able to see something inside the otherwise dark store, although the lights had about the same effect as trying to put out a house fire with a squirt gun; sure every little bit helps but....

It was decided that Meghan would go in because she was familiar with the standard Fred Meyer layout after having spent the last few years working at one. Dr. Caldwell, Neil, Jerry, and Art were to go in as well. They got out of the van and gathered themselves into a circle, each checking his firearm and the flashlights that they would carry with them. Malachi, standing next to Maggie’s car, checked the load in his Glock and then made his way over next to the doctor.

Kim climbed out of the back of the van. “For Christ’s sake! It’s gonna take more than six people to grab what we need from this place. I guess I’ll go too, but if I get killed, Neil I am going to be really pissed off.”

Also getting out of the back of the van, Claire said, “She’s right. Where do I get a gun again?”

Emma, sitting at the wheel of the van, pulled a small automatic from the glove box, along with a pair of extra magazines filled with shells. “Here. Do you know how to fire and load this?”

Claire took the pistol and held it out in front of her, targeting the liquor store sign across the street. “Haven’t got a clue. Until earlier today, I’d never even held a gun before, but I’ve got to say that I kinda like it.”

“Malachi, can you give her a very brief introduction to safe firearm handling?” Dr. Caldwell requested.

The former police officer strode over to the young woman and walked her through a thirty second tutorial on how to load and fire the pistol. He showed her the safety switch and told her to leave it in the safe mode until she needed to fire the gun.

When Malachi was done, Dr. Caldwell said to her and everyone else, “We’re not here for revenge or to start a war with those things. If we run into trouble, try to get away. Use the gun as a last resort. If they are in here, then there are probably more of them around. Gunshots will only attract more of them to us and that’s not going to help in the slightest.”

Echoing those sentiments, Neil said, “Okay, let’s get in and get out as quickly as possible. We’ll work in teams of two. We need food and drinks, more ammunition, batteries and anything else that looks useful. Emma and Maggie, if either of you see any of those things out here, lay on your horns and wait for us.”

There were nods all around. Claire stuffed her pistol into the front pocket of her University of Alaska Anchorage sweatshirt and stood next to Jerry. For his part, Jerry elected to leave his hunting rifle in the van and was sporting two pistols instead.

And so they entered the store, with the van’s lights casting a cone of light into the immediate entrance and shadows across the deeper aisles and walls. Neil could feel his breathing already start to quicken. He and Meghan made their way to the electronics department at the front of the store. Amazingly, most of the flat screen television sets, Blu-ray and DVD players, and video games consoles were gone, along with most of the movies and video games from the walls. The glass cabinet at the front of the area was still intact. Inside were digital cameras and video cameras as well as more of the two-way radios. Neil broke the top pane of glass and reached in to grab out those radios. He also grabbed a couple of digital cameras and a digital video camera. He stuffed those into the empty backpack hanging from one of his shoulders. Meghan was deeper in the department and was loading every battery she could lay her hands onto into her own duffel bag.

Kim and Dr. Caldwell went to the sporting goods area to look for needed supplies. Not surprisingly, most of the guns were gone from the racks and about half of the ammunition as well. There were a couple of pistols and smaller caliber rifles scattered on the floor as well as several boxes of ammunition. Ignoring the guns themselves, Dr. Caldwell started to pick up the boxes of shells.

Kim asked, “You gonna get those guns too or do you want me to grab them?”

“No, I think we’ve got enough guns. Hell, we’ve got some that are still stacked under the seats in the van that haven’t been used yet. It’s bullets that we might be needing down the road.”

Kim countered, “Grab them all. You never know what we might need tomorrow.”

Hoisting a .22 caliber semi-automatic carbine onto his shoulder, Dr. Caldwell conceded, “You’re right.”

They went into the aisles and found some dehydrated camping meals and some more backpacks into which they loaded a lot of what they found. They also grabbed some more binoculars and multipurpose knives. Dr. Caldwell located several pairs of gloves and some camouflaged stocking caps as well. Kim had her hands on some battery powered Coleman lanterns when she saw what appeared to be a dried slime trail left by a slithering red snail. The crusty ooze led away from the Sporting Goods Department further into the store.

She stopped and grabbed the doctor’s arm. Using the flashlight they carried, they both examined the rust colored mess on the floor. Dr. Caldwell pointed the beam of light in the direction in which the trail disappeared but couldn’t see anything. He drew out the new automatic pistol from the holster he had taken from the fallen police officer and which he was now wearing.

“Should we go take a look or do we just get the hell out of here?”