Dead Outside (Book 1) (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-One: Supermarket

6:00
AM, December 11

I
opened my eyes and stretched. The couch wasn’t the most comfortable place to
sleep but considering how mad Sarah was with me, I opted for the more
comfortable location.

It
didn’t matter how many times I’d woken up covered in sweat, I wasn’t going to
get used to it any time soon.

My
rifle was on the table next to the couch, next to my pants. It was still warmer
than usual this time of year, even for Florida. Maybe all those politicians
were right about global warming. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and stood up
to put my pants on only to trip while doing so and wacked my head on the side
of the coffee table. It was going to be a long day.

I
cleaned up the blood as best I could and went into the kitchen to find something
better to stop the bleeding than the napkin I was holding against the new gash
stretching across my forehead.

I
finally found some bandages to cover the wound when Roxie came in. “Are you
serious?” she asked, charging over and ripping the bandages off to examine the
deep gash.

I
let out a yelp of pain when she pulled the wound open, “Son of a bitch.” I went
to push her hands away, “What are you doing?”

She
swatted my hands away with ease. “Stop being a baby, we need to stitch this
before we leave.”

“Well
stitch it then,” I sat down complaining. “Just stop with the torture.”

“Please,”
she laughed as she hooked the stitching thread to the needle. “That was hardly
torture. This on the other hand, might sting a little bit.”

I
couldn’t help but notice she was already dressed and ready to go. She must have
been more anxious to get out then I thought. She stuck the needle in and began
to stitch my forehead back together.

“How
long you been up?” I asked mostly to distract myself from the pain.

“Almost
an hour,” she answered, tying the end of the stitch up. “I already put all the
bags back in the truck.”

“Pretty
excited to get out of here I take it?” I asked as she cut the excess stitching
off.

“You
have no idea,” she put her needle and scissors back in the drawer she got them
from. “What else do we need to get?”

“Well
if you got all the bags in the truck already then all we need are guns and
ammo.” I sat up and rubbed the freshly stitched cut.

“Stop
rubbing that,” she put a large bandage over the wound. “That’s all we need is
you getting this infected.”

“Yes
mom,” I answered sarcastically. “Just let me grab the guns and we can get out
of here.”

“I’ll
go wait by the truck,” she said as she tied her hair up in a ponytail. “And
hurry up, we don’t have all day.”

I
decided against using the yes mom joke again, I didn’t want it to get old too
fast. My bow was still in the back seat of the truck so I just needed to grab a
couple boxes of .22 rounds for Roxie’s rifle, and a few clips of ammo for our
side arms.

“This
is a stupid idea and you know it.” Nick was standing in the doorway. “It’s not
safe for her to go out there.”

“Would
you relax Nick,” I put the last box of ammo in a small duffel. “I’ll be there,
if things get too heavy we’re out of there, no harm no foul.”

“Don’t
give me that bullshit. It’s an unnecessary risk and you know it,” he yelled at
me.

I
dropped the duffel bag and got within inches of his face. “We wouldn’t be in
this situation if you had the balls to do what you should do,” I yelled back.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me I have to take Roxie on a supply run.”

I
picked the duffel bag back up and started walking out the door when Nick put
his hand on my shoulder, “If you take her out there we’re going to have words
when you get back.”

After
letting out a sigh I turned my head just enough to see Nick in my peripheral
vision. “When we get back, you’re going to have a choice to make, so you might
want to think hard about those words we’ll have.” I didn’t wait for him to
answer. I grabbed the two rifles for Roxie and I then kept walking out the door
and toward the staircase.

He
opened the door and followed me out. “And what choice is that exactly?” he
scoffed.

“You’re
either with my sister, or you’re not,” I answered loudly enough for him to hear
me without having to turn around. “Either commit to her or break up with her,
your choice. You have till we get back.”

He
didn’t say anything back that I could hear, although I wouldn’t be surprised if
he was mumbling to himself about how it wasn’t my decision, but I didn’t care.
Roxie was standing next to the truck when I got to the auto garage, and so was
Sarah.

“Morning
Sarah,” I said as I walked into the auto garage.

“Oh
don’t morning Sarah me,” she sighed. “Why did you sleep on the couch last
night?”

I
was a bit surprised by her asking that, “Well you were mad at me, so I assumed
you wouldn’t want me to be in the bed.”

I
glanced over and saw Roxie was standing next to the truck, looking up at the
ceiling awkwardly trying not to bother us, before getting into the passenger
seat of the truck to avoid getting caught in the middle of what looked to be an
inevitable argument.

“Not
on the night before you go on a supply run you idiot,” she wrapped me in a hug,
“Just be careful please.”

I
wrapped my arms around her and kissed the top of her head, “Don’t worry I’ve
got Roxie to protect me, we’ll be fine.”

She
couldn’t help but laugh, “You always did find odd ways of cheering me up. Go
on, I’ll open the door for you guys.”

“We’ll
be back before dinner,” I reassured her, then got into the truck and fired it
up, “Ready when you are babe.”

She
pulled the chain to open the gate, there were a few zombies outside, but none
close enough to the gates for me to be worried. I hit the gas and we were off.
Before we were completely out of the door the truck jolted like someone dropped
a boulder in the bed.

“What
the hell was that?” Roxie screeched and grabbed her rifle.

I
turned around and saw the door had closed on the back of the truck. Sarah must
have let go of the chain too early. The zombies were still relatively far away
so I rolled down the window and leaned my head out, “Maybe next time you should
wait for the truck to get completely outside before you close the door.”

“Oh
shut up,” I heard Sarah yell back.

I
laughed and rolled the window back up. Roxie was impatiently looking at the
Zombies that were heading our direction. “Could you stop flirting and get us
the hell out of here.”

I
hit the gas again and the truck lurched forward with a horrible squeal as the
metal door scraped the paint off the bed rails. As soon at the door reached the
end of the bed the truck built up speed and took off.

Roxie
was looking a little nervous so I stopped at the stop sign at the end of the
street and shifted the truck into park. “What do you want Roxie?”

She
looked over at me perplexed, “What do you mean?”

“Do
you really want to go out here, gather supplies, and walk around without the
walls around you?” I asked, “Or do you just want to scare the shit out of
Nick?”

Roxie
shook her head with an offended look on her face. “I’m not doing this just to
scare Nick into wanting to marry to me, that’s not the point.”

“Well
what is the point then Roxie?” I took my hat off and scratched my head above
the bandage on my forehead. “Why are we out here?”

“I
just want to know he’ll be there for me no matter what,” she sighed. “It’s not
like we have a lot of time left.”

“This
isn’t a game Roxie, we could die out here!” I reminded her a bit more angrily
then I should have.

“Do
I look like I want to play a game?” she yelled. “I can be more useful than just
putting band-aids on you guys whenever you get a damn scratch.”

I
smirked, my sister may have been a bit hot headed at times, but she wasn’t an
idiot. “Alright then, let’s do it.”

Rather
than going through houses which could be dangerous, what with all the small
spaces and hallways that could be potential deathtraps, we went to the local
Wal-Mart. The parking lot was relatively spacious, which was a good sign.

“Okay,
this is the plan. We’re going to leave the truck here and then go in the front
door,” I informed Roxie as I parked the truck and shut down the ignition.

“Really?
That’s the plan?” Roxie asked sarcastically, checking that her rifle was full
of ammo. “Go in the front door?”

She
caught me off guard, “Well I didn’t say it was an intricate plan.” I reached
into the back seat and grabbed some of the bags. “We fill these up one or two
at a time, dump the bags in the truck and grab more bags. Simple, safe, and
quick.”

“Well
what are we waiting for? Let’s do this,” she said rather gung ho, throwing two
bags over her shoulders and opening her car door to get out of the truck.

I
slung my rifle across my back, grabbed the bow from the back seat, and clipped
a quiver of arrows to my belt. I didn’t want to make any unnecessary noise, so
I’d use the bow until I ran out of arrows to buy us some time before they came
out of the woodwork.

“Okay,
just be careful in there, try not to fire if you don’t have to,” I told her as
we started walking toward the front doors. “But don’t risk your life trying to
stay quiet.”

She
nodded, “What if there are too many inside?”

“If
there are too many we leave as quickly and quietly as possible, and then go
somewhere else for supplies, we have Target, K-Mart, grocery stores, No
unnecessary risk.” We reached the door, and I didn’t see anything lingering
inside. “I’ll go in first, you cover my ass. If anything goes south, and I mean
anything, you get your ass back to that truck.”

She
nodded, “I’m right behind you.”

I
pulled the glass doors open enough for Roxie to get through and then let them
close. There were surprisingly few bodies lying around, I only saw two within
eyesight of the doors.

“Okay,
let’s start with the food,” I said to her quietly. “And then anything else we
might need, clothes, medicine,”

“Ammo,”
Roxie added, checking down the aisles for zombies as we made our way to the
grocery section.

“That
too,” I agreed. Moans echoed from somewhere in the store, they were definitely
here, it was just a matter of where.

We
got to the canned good aisle, and I was surprised to find that there was still
quite a bit on the shelves. Not a truckload, but enough to fill a dozen or so
duffel bags.

“Okay,
grab as much as you can, but don’t overfill your bags so that you can’t carry
them.” I started stuffing cans of soup into my first duffel bag, “We can always
make more trips.”

“What
if we run out of bags?” she asked, filling her duffel bag up with canned
vegetables, corn, green beans, and tomatoes.

“If
we have room in the truck we can grab some more bags from in here, I’m sure
there are some left somewhere.” I finished filling the first bag and grabbed
the second, “But I think we’ll be alright with the bags we have in the truck.”

I
reached for a can but it fell down and smashed to the ground. The sound seemed
to echo through the store. The distant moans stopped for a moment then grew
louder.

“Shit,”
I cursed myself, for attracting them to us. “Fill up your second bag as fast as
you can, we’ve got to move.”

Roxie
must have noticed too, because before I finished telling her to hurry up she
was already stuffing cans into her bag as fast as she could. The moans and
snarls were getting louder. I zipped up my bag and threw them over my
shoulders, “Let’s go! Forget the rest, they’re getting too close!”

I
walked toward the end of the aisle as fast as I could while weighed down by the
heavy bags. I got there just as the undead did. One of them reached out and
grabbed my shoulder. “Fuck!” I shrugged it off and fell backwards onto my ass.
Roxie was right behind me and just barely missed me knocking her over too.

“Go
the other way!” I yelled kicking the zombie that grabbed me so that it fell
over too. Roxie fired her rifle, putting a hole between its eyes.

“Not
without you,” she yelled, grabbing my arm and helping me up.

We
started off toward the other end of the aisle with a crowd following us, I
didn’t have enough time to count them, but it was more then a dozen for sure.

“Oh
fuck me,” Roxie muttered, observing another group just as large coming down the
other side of the aisle, “They have us trapped.”

I
took a quick glance at the shelves to see if we could climb them, but
immediately decided against it, they were too close, we’d never make it. “You
take the ones on this end. I’ll take the ones behind us”

“What!?”
She screeched. “You can’t be serious!”

I
dropped my bags and threw my bow to the side, there were too many for me to try
to use that. I drew my sidearm and fired at the closest one. “Roxie, focus!” I
yelled, firing again at the next closest.

She
fired at the three closest to her, taking them all down, “There are too many!”
she yelled, clearing a jam in her rifle. “We’re going to get overrun!”

“Roxanne!”
I yelled as loud as I could. I never used her full name. I’d been calling her
Roxie my whole life. The last time I called her Roxanne was when we were
playing tag in the woods as kids. It was winter time and she ran onto a frozen
pond, but it wasn’t thick enough to walk on, even for someone as small as her.
I’d called out her full name then too, just before she broke through the ice.

I
didn’t have to utter another word, she knew I was serious and shouldered her
rifle. We fired at them one at a time, taking them out as they got too close.