Eaters (32 page)

Upon leaving the storeroom to begin their stealth mission, they saw some of the prayer group members lining up at the bathroom. Others were laying blankets down on the floor near the coolers.

They found Jonah still at the front counter with his head in his hands like he was either resting or praying. He looked up at the sound of their approach.

Aidan covered their quest with an innocent-sounding question. “Do you have any toothbrushes and toothpaste?”

“Sure,” Jonah sighed. “Second aisle on the right. Help yourself, I think there’s some left.”

They walked to the aisle, and Cheryl wondered if her eyes looked shifty as they darted from side to side, casing the supplies. There was almost nothing in the store that wouldn’t be helpful if they were on the road or stranded somewhere for a long time: all the food and beverages, the first aid and emergency supplies, even simple things like a sewing kit or a nail file could come in handy. However, she knew that the duffel bag was heavy enough with the guns; it was important to pare down their loot to a bare minimum, so it didn’t become more of a burden. Also, the more they stole, the more likely it was that they’d be caught and booted out.

They borrowed a blanket from the stack that Liz offered then paced up and down the aisles like they were looking for the toothbrushes and a place to sleep.

Stealing supplies was difficult with the round convex mirrors in each corner. All anyone had to do was glance up into one and see them pocket things like a handful of candy bars, a Swiss army knife, or a bottle of lighter fluid. Nevertheless, they kept grabbing supplies every chance they got and only took things that they thought they might really need. Cheryl saw Aidan tuck a pair of binoculars into the back of his jeans and cover them with his shirt. He was so smooth about it, she wondered if he’d shoplifted before.

Once they’d copped a few necessities, Aidan took his blanket up front and said he was going to hang out with Jonah for a little while. Cheryl worked on setting up her blanket in the middle aisle where the ladies were bunking for the night.

Matthew came up just as she was trying to figure out how to roll the edge of the Indian-patterned horse blanket to use as a pillow. “I was just looking outside. There’s more of them now.”

Cheryl wasn’t surprised. She knew that there had probably been many meandering along the road or in the trees, and the sound of the gunfire had drawn them. “Are they trying to get in?”

“Not really. They’re just kind of wandering around the parking lot. It’s like they’re drawn to the area, but they don’t know why.”

“I don’t think they give anything much thought. It’s all instinct.” She saw a package of napkins on the shelf next to her and decided to use it for a pillow. “You should stay away from the window. If one of them sees you looking out—” As she leaned over, a Snickers bar fell out of her front pocket.

“And you should be sure to grab some Ace bandages and beef jerky as long as you’re loading up tonight.”

Cheryl felt her face turn red. She hoped he was the only one who had been watching them. “You know, we’re not going to stay here long. A couple days maybe. Then, we’re going to hit the road again.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about your shopping spree. Can’t blame you for wanting to bail. I’m just stuck here with all these living corpses out of fuckin’ bad luck.”

“Matthew?” Liz’s voice called from the back.

“Guess it’s my curfew.”

“She’s pretty strict with you, isn’t she?”

“I know, right? That doesn’t mean I always obey, though.” He gave her a salute and walked away.

Nice kid
, Cheryl thought. It was too bad for whatever was probably going to happen to him when this imperfect ark started to sink.

The two older ladies, Doris and Nancy, were already curled into fetal balls on their blankets. Juanita kept fussing with her makeshift bed, talking softly to herself in Spanish.

Cheryl suddenly realized that this aisle had been occupied earlier in the day. She turned to Juanita and asked, “Where’s Mary Ann?”

“Como? Oh, poor dear. I think she wiggled under one of the shelves in another aisle. I guess she’s trying to sleep until this nightmare is over.” Juanita made the sign of the cross over her chest.

Cheryl looked beneath the shelves on her left and right. The space under them was filled with dust and didn’t look large enough for Mary Ann to fit. Had she crammed herself into a dark corner somewhere? A closet? It was a little disconcerting to think of a somnambulist walking around while they slept. She hoped the woman snapped out of it soon, but that was only if she didn’t turn into a screaming idiot once the reality of their situation hit home.

Lying down like the others didn’t seem like an option; she was just too wound up. So, she decided to hang out with Aidan. A few seconds later, she found him leaning against the front counter, arguing with Jonah.

“We should reinforce the windows.”

“They’ve held well so far,” Jonah said.

“That doesn’t mean crap.”

“Even if the boards were torn off, I can’t imagine those dead things being able to move the steel shelves. Some of them have flesh that is so rotten, they’d probably rip their arms off in the attempt.”

Of course they could.
Cheryl knew that the first Eater that had broken into Aidan’s cabin had torn away the timbers from the windowsill and smashed the glass. The injury to his dead hands hadn’t slowed him down one bit. She silently wished Aidan luck convincing someone that hadn’t seen such a thing firsthand and decided to let the two men haggle it out as she left to see if the bathroom was free.

Aidan raised his voice. “Don’t underestimate them. They don’t feel any pain. They can barrel through damage that would put a normal human being in the ER.”

In front of the bathroom door, she found Norman and Matthew going at it too.

“God?” Matthew taunted “You really believe this is God’s doing? What happened to your Rapture then? Why are you still here?”

“You little heathen. We ought to throw you out there.”

“I’m sure that would give you some brownie points upstairs.”

Both of them had clenched fists.

Liz walked out of the bathroom and broke it up. “Knock it off you two. Things are bad enough. We don’t need a brawl in here.”

Cheryl took her turn at the toilet then decided to head back to the front of the store. Aidan and Jonah seemed to be at an impasse as they stood facing each other with folded arms.

“I want my gun,” she said as she approached them.

Jonah glanced at the duffel bag behind the counter. “It would make people in here too nervous to have you walking around with—”

Cheryl got in Jonah’s face. “I’m not asking you.”

Aidan backed her up. “Let the lady have her gun.”

Jonah shrugged with resignation and waved a limp hand, allowing Cheryl to go behind the counter.

She found her AK in the bag. “Thanks. Now if I just had my Snuggie, maybe I could rest a little.”

Ignoring her sarcasm, the men resumed their tussle about how to make the building safer. Cheryl headed back towards her makeshift bed, pausing at the end of the aisle to wonder if the
ooooohhh
sound she heard was the wind outside or a choir made up of rotting throats moaning a single note.

Back on the blanket, she lay on her side and curled up with her gun, cradling it between her knees. Juanita was just a foot away, lying down with her hand covering her face like a mask, and shallow breaths heaving the front of her striped blouse up and down. Cheryl wanted to talk to her and was wondering if she was asleep when the store went pitch black.

She gasped out loud.

“Don’t worry,” Juanita whispered. “We turn the lights out at night to keep a low profile.”

Cheryl thought about the sandwich shop. They’d turned the lights out there too, but the smell of the putrid meat drew trouble anyway. Just the scent of human blood and flesh was probably enough to draw them for miles. This group was starting to reek too. She knew they had been doing sponge baths in the sink, but it wasn’t enough. There was no air conditioning in the store, so the heat was making them all stink of sweat.

The things knew that there was some sort of prize inside this big box. Why hadn’t they made more effort to get in? She tried to push the question from her mind, not wanting it to be the last thing in her head as she fell asleep. She focused on memories instead like the few blissful nights camping with Mark before this apocalypse started; fishing for trout for their dinner in the mountain lake, roasting marshmallows over a campfire, making love under the stars. For three solid days, they hadn’t had a care in the world. In retrospect, it was the best gift that Mark had given her, even if she didn’t realize it at the time.

Norman’s snoring on the next aisle jolted her out of the pleasant thoughts. Then she heard Nancy flopping around, letting out a short scream in reaction to some event in her nightmare. Somewhere nearby, Liz whispered to herself, saying nonsensical stuff like, “On Saturday, I’ll make fried chicken and have the Taylors over for dinner; the bake sale for the church is coming up too, maybe I’ll make that caramel brownie recipe…or the shortcake…”

Cheryl listened to the nasal sawing and the babble until her eyelids grew heavy. As the line began to blur between consciousness and horrible reality again, she reminded herself that she’d had precious little sleep in the last week, and this might be her one night to power sleep just a few hours to make up for the deprivation.

Minutes later, her eyes snapped open.

There was a sound on the roof like the pitter-patter of a pair of rats doing a tango back and forth. Then it turned into stomping. Heavy thuds. Human (could they still be called human?) feet plodding up above, back and forth, retracing their steps, then circling around. Searching.

They were trying to find a way in.

Her fingers tightened around the gun as she thought about the fact that the Eaters outside had probably licked the bones clean from all the corpses and were desperate for fresh meat. She didn’t doubt that they could find their way into a steel safe if there was flesh inside.

She thought that she and Aidan would have a day, maybe two or three to figure out their plan, but it didn’t seem like the dice was going to roll that way as the noises above grew louder. The others around her were stirring now and starting to mumble amongst themselves in hushed syllables of paranoia.

Juanita whispered, “Cheryl, you have a gun, yes? You a good shot?”

“Usually.”

“I have a grandson in Pueblo. It’s his birthday next weekend. Do you think I’m going to make it to his party? This can’t go on much longer, right? The police will come, yes?”

The last policeman Cheryl had seen was back in Golden several days ago. He was the young man who’d made a Rambo-like effort to wipe out a group of hungry Eaters in the park, but there were too many of them. He’d been overwhelmed as they swarmed over the car.

“Yeah, I’m sure this will all be over soon.”

Cheryl thought to remind the woman about her faith, but changed her mind. What was she going to encourage her to do? Pray away the zombies? Liz and the others had already tried that. It hadn’t worked for them and, as far as that went, had it ever worked in
any
movie? Besides, if this was all just some sort of
Pranked by God
event on the human race, the jig should have been up by now. If God had anything at all to do with this disaster, he was in it to see it to the end. What end that was, she didn’t know. When she closed her eyes for a second, an end reel flickered. It was a loop of anonymous black and white faces until the camera paused on Mark’s blank stare. Holes burned into his cellophane eyes as blood dripped over the flickering tape. She shook the miserable image from her head as she opened her eyes. The darkness was still wrapped around her like a blindfold.

“Cheryl, is that you? Who is that?”

Juanita’s voice sounded panicked, and Cheryl wondered if she’d briefly fallen asleep and said something out loud that had frightened her. “It’s just me. I was—”

“Not you, down the aisle.”

Cheryl sat up. It was so dark it was like trying to see underwater in a brackish sea. She squinted and realized that a figure was standing at the end of the aisle in between the sugar confections and salted nuts. There was something odd about the way it lurked there without speaking as if it was watching them.

“Aidan? Jonah?”

Someone on the next aisle flicked on a flashlight, casting a circular beam of light on the ceiling above the shelf between them. The light illuminated a space near Cheryl, but all she could see at the end of her row was the hazy image of someone standing there with clenched fists.

The gun was in her hands when the figure came charging towards her. She fired multiple rounds, causing the human missile to slow and shudder, but it kept coming. In the split second before it closed the distance, it fell face forward into the light.

Juanita screamed as some of the others appeared behind her, clutching blankets with wide eyes. “Mary Ann! Dios mio! You killed Mary Ann!”

Cheryl looked down at the woman’s body and saw four exit wounds from the bullets in the back of her purple shirt. Her torso twitched, and Cheryl pointed the gun at her head, but Liz appeared and pushed the hot barrel of her gun down towards the floor, shaking her head.