Dead Hunger III: The Chatsworth Chronicles (40 page)

The doors closed behind us, and because the glass storefront was heavily tinted, it was darker than we expected.

“Windows are dark enough,” I said.  “I think we can switch to regular light.” I flipped my switch.  “Damn, it stinks in here.”

Dave followed suit.  “Stinks everywhere nowadays,” he said.  “Let’s get the bats and whatever else we find that looks useful and get the hell out of here.”

Kevin Smith didn’t come to greet us, but then again, he was either dead or the walking dead.  I hoped it was the former.
  I looked up at the ceiling where various sports equipment displays hung from the ceiling, and found the baseball stuff toward the middle of the large store.  The single, large room had to be at least eighty feet square with tall merchandise racks filled with equipment for every sport imaginable.

“Damn.  I could use some good hiking boots,” said Dave.  “Size eleven steel toes, here I come.”

“Love mine,” I said.  “They’ve come in handy for kickin’ zombie brain
.  I’ll tell you about my first experience one day.”

“Love to hear it,” said Dave.  “But save it for the trip back with Hemp.”

We reached the aisle and found racks of bats on each side.  There weren’t many aluminum bats anymore, but there were some.  Dave’s light shone on a DeMarini aluminum alloy model called Versus. 

Us Versus Them.™

It just sounded like something that should have a trademark symbol behind it, so I wrote it down.  Hey, I still have a sense of humor.  That should tell you something about me.

As Dave lifted the bat from the rack and gave it a test swing
, all hell broke loose.

I don’t have any idea how they surprised us.  I don’t know if they have the ability to coordinate and maintain some sort of silence while lying in wait.  All I know is we didn’t know they were there, and we didn’t clear the store.

We fucked up.  The shuffling grew louder, like a terrifying white noise.  The moans and hungering cries began as they began to fully smell us and long for what lay beneath our skin, our skulls.

Dave grabbed for the urushiol bottle hanging from his belt, and as his fingers went to curl around the bottle, it toppled to the ground, the cap popping off, and the precious liquid splashing onto the floor.

His eyes on the advancing creatures, he bent over to retrieve the bottle, but it was too late.  The lid and pump cap had slid to the end of the aisle, and neither of us was going toward the zombies to get it.

“Shit!” he said, frustration in his voice.

“
I’ll watch this end, you watch the other,” I whispered.

“
Damn, Charlie.  I’m sorry. 
Take this,” Dave said, passing me the DeMarini.  He lifted
another from the rack and hefted it, then stuffed the Glock into his pants
. 
The gunshots would be risky, and he’d only use it as a last resort.
I hoped there wasn’t going to be a need for a last resort. 

I laid my crossbow on the floor between us, along with the quiver of arrows.  It wouldn’t be effective here.

My fingers curled around the bat.

There was no strategizing for us or them.
  They didn’t come to the aisle,
see us and
glare
threateningly.  It wasn’t their style.  They reached our aisle, saw us, and what was left of their brains told them to walk as fast as they could toward us and quench their insatiable hunger with our flesh.

As for us, if we were to avoid firing weapons this close to town, we had to beat our way out of this mess.

“Jesus,” Dave whispered.  “I’m sorry, Charlie.  I should have known that barricade was to keep something in, not out.”

“
Quit apologizing, dude.  It’s not all your fault. 
I feel like a dumbass, too.” 

There had to be fifteen of them, which would ordinarily be a cinch, but not in tight quarters like this.

They mo
ved toward us
at a good clip
, and Dave dropped one of the
two
bats
he held
and let out what I could only describe as a primordial scream.  He charged the group on his side of the aisle and with two hands clamped on the handle just above the knob, he literally smashed in the heads of three zombies with three very fast swings of the bat.  The head of the first one, a very thin former man, slammed into the nose of the one beside him, rupturing it.  Green muck jettisoned into the air, but the creature quickly regrouped in time for Dave’s second manic-charged swing.

Dave brought the bat straight down on this one’s head, like he was at a carnival, and fuck if he wasn’t intending on ringing the damned bell so everyone in the town square heard it.

That one, a bare bones zombie, was down for good.
  Dave didn’t get too creative with the third one.  He was tiring.  I didn’t see the next hit, but I heard it, and the squishy thud that followed as the next one hit the floor hard.

I
was already charging my attackers.
  I wound
the DeMarini
up once, and slammed two of them so hard that
the majority of their
teeth skittered onto the linoleum floor like a
ripped open
bag of M&Ms candy. 

My arms were already tired, but adrenaline kept them going.  I kneecapped the woman who came at me next, her skinless face grinning, accented by pinpoints of pink eyes, even as both of her legs shattered beneath her and she went down.  Her arm reached for me, so I broke it at the elbow with a quick swing, and finally smashed the aluminum club into the back of her brittle skull.

Dave and I both jumped back, away from the remaining
zombies, still advancing.  We’d taken out fewer than half of them, but damned if we knew what lay around the next corner.

Then Dave had an idea.

“Stand still, Charlie
,” he breathed.  “
Spre
a
d your legs wide apart and get a swinging stance.”

I did, and so did he.  Then he pushed bat after bat from the many racks until they were like giant Pick-Up-Stix on the floor, impossible to walk over without falling.

I did the same on my side, upending one of the advancing walkers immediately.

As the zom
bies tumbled, we swung for the caps of their skulls
, wet thud after wet thud
, and when we saw their horrific noggins crack open, sending them to the already zombie-littered floor, we put one or two more direct hits to their brains, just to be sure
.

The floor was now slick with black, putrid goo that used to be the fluid of life, now, along with the bats littering the aisle, making it impossible for the undead monsters to get a foothold. 
The slime and rolling cylinders were an impossible challenge for one who already found it hard to think on their feet, what with being dead and all.

As long as we didn’t lift
our
feet, we
had dry floor beneath us upon which our feet could grip
.

There were three more.
  Just three.

They stumbled over their fallen brethren, and we both raised our bats and let them fly again, this time as if we were swinging a
t a low pitch.

The one on my side lost his head, literally.  I found a burst of strength, pulled that bat back, and gave it everything I had, right from the knob.  The octogenarian zombie’s head flew up and over the aisle.  It went so far, I believe I counted to three before I heard it land.

I heard the sounds of senseless beating behind me, and then there was silence.

Dave and I stood there, listening.

Silence.

He looked at me, and I at h
im.  He held out his arms, and
I
scooched across the mucked up, bat-ridden floor and
fell into them.  We held each other so tightly at that moment, and we didn’t let go for a long time.  He broke away first, leaned the bat that he still held against the rack beside us,
bent over and picked my sticky crossbow from the floor, followed by my mucked-up quiver.  He put the bow over his shoulder.
 

We were
still borderline
hyperventilating from our battle.  Dave looked
me squarely in the eyes
.

“Charlie,” he said.  “You are one of the most amazing women I’ve ever met, and I’m including Gem
and my sister
when I say that
.
”

He laughed a strange laugh,
and sh
ook his head, smiling.  “T
he love you have for Hemp drives you every bit as much as your will to survive and I am
fucking
proud that you trusted
our friendship enough – not to mention my capabilities – to
ask me to
help you.  Thanks
.”

I looked at this guy with the long hair down past his tits and the long-sleeved Harley tee-shirt on.  His beard seemed to have grown another two inches since we found him
at that church
, and ironically, it made him look a lot like Robb Zombie. 

When he had opened his arms, of course I had kicked the bats out of the way and walked into them, returning hi
s embrace.  Because I knew Dave, and I knew what he needed.  He needed what I did.

We were friends
offering o
ne another
human warmth and comfort in a fucked up world.

“
You’re my friend, Dave.  I think you were from the day I met you.  And more than that, you’re the only person I knew I could tell who would offer to come with me rather than try to talk me out of it
.  I hope that’s all I have to say to make you understand that no matter
how long
we’ve known each other, you’re one of my best friends.  And I’m
including every friend I’ve ever had
my entire life.”

“Keep an eye out for someone like yourself, okay?
” he said.
 
“
That’s what I want.  I want me a Charlie.  Only better looking
, you know,
and
with huge tits
.”

I laughed.  “Look,
asshole
.  I never put down my bat.”

“Cleanup on aisle five!” he yelled, and
pushed me, catching the material of my shirt just short of me slipping in the zombie blood and
falling
on my ass.

He steadied me, smiling.

“You’re a dick!” I said, and we
both cracked up, the insane tension of a few moments before evaporated - almost. 

Dave grabbed his bat and we held onto the rack as we slid
through the rank-smelling muck
and over the many expired zombies
.  We
made our way cautiously through the rest of the store
, and I
found two pairs of consignment binoculars at the
front counter
.  They were awesome quality lenses, and I hoped they’d come in handy
in our pursuit of Hemp
.

They carried no archery supplies, so what we had was it, unless the gun shop had anything.  We left and got back in the car.

“That seemed like a lot of trouble for two baseball bats,” said Dave, starting the engine.

“Yeah.  The crowds are thinner, though.”

A big smile spread across Dave’s face.  “I get it.  The crowds?  Thinner?
  Yuk, yuk, yuk.
”

We laughed again.  How long had it been since we’d had the release of laughter?  It really seemed like forever.

****

This time we both felt confident that we were far enough from Carville’s home to use a gun if necessary.  One of our shopping list items was a nice pistol with a silencer.  Didn’t matter what kind.  Just something we could shoot wi
thout worrying about the report as much as before.

It was cold tonight.  I wasn’t even sure if October had yet become November, because days didn’t seem as important now.  Of course it was eventually going to be important to know when the hell it was, but we always had battery-powered calendars to determine this.  I wondered if the Atomic Clock was still functioning, or even how the hell it functioned in the first place.

“We looked at one another, the splatter of zombie blood stinking and making each of us look pretty damned haunted.

“If they have hunting clothes, I think some camo might be a good idea,” said Dave.

“
Hadn’t thought of that,” I said as we approached the door.  “Good idea.”

Dave pulled on the door, and it didn’t budge.  “Shit.”

“Sure, the zombie-riddled sporting good
s
store is open, but the gun store is tight like drum.”