The Horror Squad 2 (8 page)

The group of little girls came at him from all
sides and the little boys grabbed each of his
feet. Instead of eating him right away, they
dragged him back to the park and onto the
small pebbles that he could feel imbed into his
stomach. They turned him over and Sarah stood
above him, with a mass of her head smashed in
where he had kicked her before. The group let
go of him and Sarah dropped to her knees and
took a bite from his neck. Steven screamed as
the others dropped down and took bites from
the rest of his body. He flailed his arms and
legs trying to get them off and could feel the
sweat pouring off of his body. He peered up at
Sarah with his own blood smeared across her
mangled jaw and watched tendons and muscles
being pulled from his body by the rest of the
children that were supposed to be his friends,
with stares from the children looking at him
while they chewed on his dismembered parts.

***

Steven sat up and gasped deeply, he opened
his eyes to the classroom that he had slept in.
His blankets were on the floor twisted up, he
lifted his hand and wiped his face as he sat up
on his cot.

“What a fucking nightmare!” He said out
loud.

He brought his hand back down and looked
at it full of sweat and rose from the cot to stand.
He almost fell back down from the pain that
was in his knee.

“The swing.” He thought. “I jumped off of it
and hurt my knee.” He rubbed his knee
wondering how his dream could be a part of his
reality.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
I WOKEup with my wife compressed

against me like a suction cup and about to
sweat me out of my clothes. I could tell that I
had been super tired because I never even felt
her lay down next to me, much less push her
whole body against me. My arm was asleep and
numb, I raised my head up to look around, and
the lighting wasn’t that great. I got up slowly so
I was not to wake up my wife. I walked to the
door of the store to look out through the caged
door. From the light coming down the hallway
of the mall, I could tell it was getting close to
about six o’clock in the morning. I inched the
door up while trying not to make a sound. It
was hard since the door sounded as if it hadn’t
been oiled in centuries. Fortunately for me, Bo
was the only one that I woke up. He wiped the
sleep from his eyes and got up. I raised the door
up far enough for me to slide under. Bo must
have been real sleepy because he just kind of
rolled out behind me.

“What’s up bro?” He whispered.
“Not much, just getting a head start on re-
fueling the vehicles.” I whispered back.

I cracked open the back door of the Tahoe
and pulled out one of the gas cans and handed it
to Bo and then grabbed another one. He started
filling the truck while I filled the Tahoe. Each
only held the one can. I grabbed a spiral out of
the Tahoe’s dashboard and found a black
permanent marker from behind the counter and
wrote in big letters, “Be back soon” and stuck
in front of the door.

Bo and I left out to explore the mall.
“Shouldn’t we take one of the vehicles?” He
questioned.

“Na, we’ll just set whatever we need out and
drive through and pick it up on our way out.” I
responded.

“Sounds good.” He stated.

We walked down the corridor, the next store
was Hot topic. I looked at Bo and smiled. We
both walked in and split up down each side of
the counter in the middle of the store.

“Hell yeah!” Bo said a bit quietly.
“What’s up?” I asked looking over the
counter full of gothic jewelry.
Bo popped his head up showing the earrings
he just put in his ears.
‘I haven’t had anything in since I left. What
ya got over there?” He asked.

“Just some shit Kris would like. We should
grab whatever normal clothing we can find in
here, might make some of us feel a little
normal. I’m sure this is where Kris got the shirt
she already has for me.” I said.

“Here ya go bro!” Bo danced around.
He held up a red leather sexy lingerie piece.
“Not sure that will fit you man, but hey if
that’s what you want!” I laughed at him.
“Not me asshole, for one of the girls. Maybe
your wife?” He stated.
Hell, I thought you were gonna put it on and
model it.” I joked.

Bo through the piece to the floor and gave
me the finger. I collected some jewelry that I
knew Kris would like, since I am sure that she
didn’t get anything for herself and some t-shirts
along with a few wallets that hung on the wall.
I knew the guys back home might like them just
for the normal feeling of having one in their
pocket. A few adult games that were lining the
shelves that maybe could bring a little fun to
the late nights and a few pair of shoes that sat at
the front. I placed everything I had found
outside the door and scanned the store for Bo. I
could see the top of his head over the shelves as
he rounded the register with an armful of stuff.
He placed it all with mine and we moved on.

The next store was Burlington. Bo and I
entered, but with a bit of caution. The store was
quite large and four register aisles covered the
front entryway.

“We may want to stick together in this one.”
I stated to Bo.

He nodded and fell in next to me. We
rounded each aisle grabbing some different size
jackets off the racks since winter was coming
and long sleeve shirts. We cleaned the aisle of
winter wear and headed out to set our armfuls
outside of the store and headed back in. We
moved onto the aisle that we had cleaned out
and began grabbing all different sizes of blue
jeans. We laid them over one arm to keep our
other arm free for rotters that may come up.

We heard a clatter towards the front of the
store and both of us pulled our knives to get
ready for the rotter. We kept the pairs of jeans
on one arm and walked to the edge of the aisle.
I looked at Bo to make sure that he was close
and stepped out.

“What y’all got!” Gizmo half shouted on
purpose laughing. “I scared the shit out of
y’all!” His voice trailed off in laughter.

“You’re an asshole.” I stated laughing with
him. “Payback is a bitch, just remember that.
Help with some of this shit.”

Gizmo followed us back down the aisle and
began grabbing pairs of jeans and we all moved
to the other aisles collecting what we thought
anyone might be able to wear back home. The
store was clean of what we wanted and we
ended with a big pile of greatness by the door.

“Look at that shit, a Lids!” Gizmo stated.

Bo and I looked at each other with a bit of
confusion since we didn’t even know what the
store was. Gizmo headed over and lifted the
closed gate at the front of the store.

“Hold up man! You don’t know what’s in
there.” I jogged to catch up.
“Sure I do, fucking hats!” He stated turning
back to us.

A rotter came from behind a small display of
ball caps and grabbed Gizmo from behind. The
tall rotter’s arm slid around his neck and if it
weren’t for the bill of the cap he was wearing
hitting the back of Gizmos head, he would have
been a goner. Bo, with his knife still out, raised
up and whizzed his knife passed Gizmo’s head
and through the ball cap that had tipped forward
and covered the rotter’s face and into his
forehead. His grip loosened from Gizmo and he
fell to the floor.

Gizmo’s eyes were huge and he lurched
forward into Bo’s arms.

“Got ya little guy!” Bo laughed.
“Fuck you!” Gizmo quickly stood back up.

He turned and looked at the rotter and picked
the hat up off of its face.
“That was a nice hat to.” Gizmo stated sadly
turning to Bo and I. “Thanks for the help Bo.”

I laughed a little at the sight of Gizmo falling
into Bo. “That was great, Bo caught you like a
little bitch!” I laughed harder.

Gizmo glared at me and pushed me with his
elbow as he turned and walked away with a bit
of a red face.

Bo and I laughed following behind him. We
grabbed a few of the ball caps off of the wall
and flung them outside of the front of the store
to pick up on our way through. I reached up and
grabbed a black hat that had a red open
mouthed skull smeared across the front and
removed my old worn hat and put that one on
my head. I stuck my old one in my back pocket.
I watched Gizmo standing by the wall trying to
reach a hat at the very top. He stood on his tip
toes and then hopped a bit to only touch it with
his fingertips. Bo walked near him and reached
up and grabbed a few of the hats that were too
high to reach for him and handed them to him
and walked on.

“Guess it’s my day to help the little guy?” Bo
questioned with a smile.

“That guys a pretty good smart ass, def
initely
a buddy of yours TJ.” Gizmo said with a sour
look on his face.

I stood at the front of the store and laughed at
Gizmo getting pissed off about the short jokes.
I could hear the rest of the crew loudly coming
down the corridor. Both Gizmo and Bo quickly
exited the store and came out thinking
something was wrong with the chaos sounding
from everyone.

Karen, Kris, Lisa, and Tina strolled down
with armfuls of things that they had found from
the other end of the mall.

“Fucking girls!” Gizmo whispered so they
couldn’t hear him.
“Hey, look at all this stuff we found!” Tina
stated.
“Why do we need all of that?” Gizmo asked
her while picking shit up out of her arms.

“Most of it is for the kids and stuff that we
can wear and use, quit your bitching!” She shot
back at him.

Kris, Karen and Lisa dropped their loads
onto the floor.
“Any Rotters?” Kris asked me.
“Just one, but he was partial to Gizmo before
Gizmo became partial to Bo.” I laughed.

“We found two, but Lisa took them out
pretty quick with a hi-ya. We decided to stick
together from then on out. We are going to hit
up a couple of the stores down here. We saw
the piles y’all were making so we did the same
outside some of the stores. Donald and Howard
headed to the bathrooms to see what bathroom
supplies they could find. We also need to hit up
Sears and see what things we can use.” Kris
rambled on.

“We planned on getting there babe. Calm
down.” I told her.

“I found some great stuff for the girls in the
chow hall from one of the kitchen stores and
some extra food from a small discount dollar
store that they had down the way.” Karen
belted out in accomplishment.

“I found a new hat!” Lisa lifted off of her
head.
I laughed at the group of girls being just what
they were.

Donald and Howard joined after a few
minutes with what seemed like hundreds of
rolls of toilet paper and paper towels.

“Jackpot in the bathrooms!” Donald stated
dropping the wrapped items to the floor.

“There are shoes down the way!” Tina
whispered. “The kids need shoes!” Tina quickly
turned to Gizmo before he opened his big
mouth.

Kris pulled Tina’s arm away from our group
and Karen and Lisa followed laughing at
Gizmo’s stern look telling Tina to leave the
shoes alone.

We moved on from store to store going the
same way as the girls had, making our way to
Sears while gathering up necessities.

We soon came to a small camping store.
Guess I had never seen a camping store inside a
mall, but it was there. We made our way inside
and started gathering everything we could.
Howard and Bo began to gather all of the
batteries near the counter, Donald and Gizmo
were enthralled with the small kerosene
lanterns and gathered all of them along with the
kerosene for them and I moved straight to the
guns that were on the racks. I began searching
for the ammo that went with them. I got behind
the counter and stepped on something that was
not that of the floor texture. I looked down to
see a man lying on the floor looking up at me.
He didn’t look to be changed, he looked
normal. He had blood running from his
shoulder where he had been bit and was
reaching to me with his other arm.

“What the fuck!” I whispered.
Donald rounded the counter. “Oh shit!”

The other three made their way. I started
scanning the store looking for what bit him.
They had to be here, his bite looked fresh. He
had survived all of this time here and now he
gets attacked? That means that there are rotters
here and that more than likely they are ones that
had not found him after all of this time until
now.

I plowed my way through the guys and stood
in the middle of the store turning circles pulling
out my knife. Donald, Bo, Howard and Gizmo
followed suit and we all stood back to back
ready for them.

I slowly crept around a tent thinking I heard
a quiet chomping. Sure enough, there it was, a
rotter laid on top of an older woman chomping
at her insides. I dropped my head and my knife
to my side wishing we had been able to find
them sooner.

I pushed my knife into the rotters head and
slid it back out.

“I’m not sure if there
are any others, so keep
your eyes open.” I told the rest. “I guess
someone needs to go check on the girls, while
we gather the rest of what we can here.” I
suggested.

“I’ll go.” Gizmo volunteered.
“I’m on it.” Bo followed.

“I don’t need you saving me all damn day.” I
heard Gizmo tell Bo on the way out.
“Apparently you do. Third time is a charm.”
Bo laughed.

I smiled at the two going back and forth as
they left. Howard, Denson and I gathered tents
and knives and anything else that we could
from the store. Anything here would end up
being helpful. We set it all by the door. We had
cleaned out the full stock of inventory,
including the small back storage of boxes. I
looked down the corridor at the large sign that
read Sears.

“Finally, the end of the mall
. I have always
hated malls. Too many damn people in them.” I
told the guys. “Plus we need to find everyone
else, since they seem to be lost.”

I figured that we needed to gather everyone
back up to go get the vehicles and start loading
everything.

Our small group rounded displays and racks
that were empty and finally found the escalators
that of course no longer worked. We made our
way up the one time moving stairs and to the
top. We saw the group all laid up on already
made up beds in the bed department.

“Are you fucking kidding?” I asked.
Heads popped up on each of the beds.

“Babe, come check this out!” Kris hollered
from the last bed on the row.

I walked to my wife, not being able to help
but smile at her lying sprawled on the king
sized bed. I laid next to my wife and kissed her
cheek. I snuggled close to her for a moment and
felt the urge to need to get out of bed with her
since an audience wasn’t the ideal situation on
what was coming to my mind.

“Let’s go!” I stated to the group.

Everyone raised from their lounging and
made their way over to where I stood except for
Tina and Gizmo.

“Where the hell are they?” I asked.
Karen pointed to a bed behind a display
where the blankets were being bounced around.

“Apparently an audience was okay for
them.” I stated. “Hey, fuck birds. Let’s go.” I
hollered.

The blankets stopped and I turned to lead the
group in the opposite direction. We need to
head down and see what tools we can find.” I
instructed.

Howard, Bo, and Donald headed to the other
end of the store to find another way downstairs
to look for tools as to not to have to pass the
bed that had continued on with its bit of
squeaking. Karen, Kris, and Lisa started
grabbing sheets and blankets and had found
some smaller pillows that were easy to carry.
Making our way down a few other aisles, and
came across soaps and shampoos.