The Survivor Chronicles: The Risen (25 page)

"We'll have to come back and see if we can
break it open," Riley whispered.

Carl scowled but nodded his agreement. The
theory they'd been lured into the store nagged at Xander, but he
shook it off as they left those aisles behind. He told himself
they'd been in here for too much time already for this to be a
trap. He relaxed further after they dropped the clothes off and
returned to grab sneakers and work boots.

"Too bad they didn't have some winter
supplies," John said as he dropped two boxes of sneakers into his
cart.

"I think we're going to have to go through
homes to find those," Carl told him.

John made a face and shook his head. "I hate
going through people's houses even more than I hate entering these
giant stores."

"I have to agree," Riley said. "I feel like
I'm invading their privacy or something."

Xander squeezed her hand as they turned
their carts into the sporting goods section. He understood her
feeling but if the people were gone, was it even private anymore?
Even if the answer was no, it didn't make searching through
people's things any easier.

"Whoever has been coming in here must be
pretty well supplied already," Josh said as he peered into the long
glass case in the center of the sports section.

Xander stepped closer to the case and peered
in at the guns inside of it. "They're all hunting rifles," Carl
said as he walked around the display. "Three thirty aught six's,
four two-seventy Winchesters, four twenty-twos, and five three o'
eight Winchesters. There was more here before." He pointed to the
empty spots inside the cabinet.

Xander stepped behind the counter but he
didn't know which rifle was which. The key to open the display
cases dangled from one of the locks. "Why did they leave all these
guns?" John asked. "I can understand not being able to take all of
the food but why wouldn't they take more of these?"

"This is a large hunting community," Carl
said as he continued to study the rifles still in the case. "They
know how to take care of themselves, how to hunt, and fish, and
trap. The population may not be as small as I'd originally assumed.
They may actually be finding their own food supply right now. They
didn't take many of these rifles because they didn't need them or
maybe they only took what they could carry out of here. Either way
I doubt there will be much ammunition left here."

"There's not," Xander said as he pulled out
two boxes and placed them on top of the case. "Twenty-two
bullets."

"Of course they are," Carl muttered and
shook his head. "Better than nothing. We'll still take some of
these rifles. We might be able to find more ammunition
elsewhere."

Xander nodded and grabbed two of each rifle
from the cases. He handed them to the others to load into their
carts. They moved through the rest of the section, picking through
the lanterns, tents, and knives that had been left behind. Riley
proudly hefted a crossbow she'd found beneath a raft that had blown
up when it was knocked off a shelf. Xander grabbed a boxed raft off
of the shelf and a couple of oars. He put them in his cart and
turned to lift the blown up raft so that Riley could climb
underneath it. She came back with a few boxes of arrows and another
crossbow.

"Those will come in handy," John said as he
eyed the weapons in Riley's hands. "Less noise."

"I'm not so sure you should be allowed to
touch them, you might shoot yourself," Carl said.

"I'm doing just fine with a gun."

"If you shoot yourself in the leg I'm
leaving your ass behind."

John gave him the finger, put the bow back
in the cart, and turned away from them to examine the rest of the
supplies on the shelf. "Let's unload and hit automotive," Riley
suggested.

It was almost three o'clock when they
returned to the store and headed for the automotive center. "At
least we'll be able to make it back to the cabin before dark," John
said.

"Why do you always have to say something
when we're still in the middle of everything," Carl muttered from
where he searched through the tires. He pulled out two large tires
and rolled them over to set them against the wall. "It's like
you're trying to get us attacked."

"Yeah yeah," John said dismissively as he
dropped some oil filters into his carriage. "Maybe saying it out
loud will have the opposite effect this time Mr.
Superstitious."

"You really do just want someone to attack
us," Riley told him and dropped a couple cans of fix a flat in her
carriage.

Searching behind the desk, Xander pulled out
his flashlight to read through the manual he discovered behind the
counter. He flipped through the cars listed on the pages until he
found the truck and belt sizes they would need for it. Turning, he
searched through the shelves for the right belts. He'd look for
supplies for the other cars afterward but the truck was the most
important vehicle they had.

A distant sound barely even nudged at his
consciousness as he finally succeeded in locating the belts for the
truck. Josh slipped around the corner of the doorway from where
he'd been keeping lookout by the sports section.

"Someone just entered the building," he said
in a low hiss that drew Xander's attention away from the shelf.

Carl flattened himself against the wall next
to the garage-sized door that led to the main store and gestured
for Josh to do the same. Riley stood on the opposite side of the
door, her back pressed against the wall as she held her gun before
her. Xander tried to hear anything else within the store, but the
eerie, otherworldly hush that had enveloped it since they'd entered
had descended once more. Carefully placing the belts on the counter
so as not to make a sound, he hurried over to Riley's side.

John emerged from behind a row of tires with
a cart full of antifreeze and wipers. Carl's face was thunderous as
he pointed at John and then made a slashing motion across his
throat with his hand. 'I'm going to kill you,' he mouthed to John
when he stopped walking.

John frowned at Carl in confusion and held
his hands up in a questioning gesture. John's head shot up when
something clattered to the floor with a loud rattling noise that
echoed inside the store.

John,

John was trying to decide if he wanted to go
anywhere near Carl as his friend continued to shoot daggers at him
with his eyes. Another rattling bang followed by the maniacal laugh
of those things made his decision for him. He scurried in a crouch
through the shadows to the opposite side of the door that Carl
stood beside. He squeezed in next to Xander and a high metal shelf
stacked from floor to ceiling with tires.

John kept his back against the wall. He
strained to hear anything outside of the beat of his own heart in
his ears as silence descended. Beside him, Xander slid his hand
into Riley's. She pointed to Carl across the way and then at the
floor. Carl frowned at her as she knelt down and made another
gesture with her hand to indicate she intended to peek around the
doorway. Xander kept hold of her hand while she rested her free
palm on the ground and poked her head around the door to look in
the store. She ducked back again and rose to her feet.

Lifting her hands, she shook her head in a
gesture that John took to mean she had no idea where they were or
from where they had entered. She held out her hand, pointed around
to all of them, and then made a walking gesture with her index and
middle finger across her palm. John knew what the gesture meant,
but he broke out in a sweat at the idea of going through that
door.

John shook his head as Carl knelt and poked
his head around the side of the door too. He stared out there for a
few minutes before gesturing to Josh. The teen bent down beside
Carl who whispered something to him. Josh shook his head but Carl
rose to his feet, took hold of his arm and said something more.
John watched as the color faded from Josh's face, he nodded and
looked over at them. Before John knew what was happening, Josh
rushed across the massive door to join them. Riley and Xander
flattened themselves against the wall to make more room for him but
he hurried past them to rise beside John.

John held his breath as he waited for a
reaction from outside of those doors. Carl knelt again and rested
his hand on the floor. He slid his head around the door before
hurrying across the opening at a low crawl to their side. Somewhere
in the store something rattled and clattered to the floor, John
could hear it spinning across the linoleum but the rest of the
store remained still.

The hair on his arms stood on end. He began
to get the distinct impression they were being hunted, that those
things somehow knew they were hiding somewhere within the shadows
of this store. All he could imagine were velociraptors steadily
creeping toward them, minus the oversize claw clicking across the
floor.

He bit on his bottom lip to suppress a curse
as he twisted the gun in his hand and leaned his head against the
metal shelving housing the tires. His gaze slid over the floor to
ceiling glass wall across from them that led into the large garage
bay. He hadn't tried the doors but he'd peeked into the area enough
to know that the garage doors were closed. There had been another
regular door across the way from the bay doors though. He couldn't
shake the belief that the door could be opening even now to admit
new monsters into the building.

His eyes were riveted on the garage area as
Carl stepped in front of them and huddled in like a quarterback. "I
think we're going to have to make a move," he whispered.

John glanced at him before focusing on the
glass wall across from them again. "If they come into this area
we'll be able to take them out," Josh said. "We have the advantage
of surprise."

Carl gestured to the doors across from them,
the same ones that John couldn't look away from. "The doors in
there could be open; they could be coming inside even now. If they
pin us in here, we're screwed."

John muttered a curse as he shifted his gun
again and wiped the sweat from his brow. "We might be able to make
it to the backdoor," Xander said. "Do you have any idea where they
came in from?" he asked Josh.

Josh shook his head; he'd taken on the hue
of Kermit and looked like he was trying not to vomit. "It sounded
like they might have come in from the front but I didn't see."

Xander's face drained of color, his hand
briefly went to his head before he moved closer to the rest of
them. They were all so close that John could feel Xander's breath
as he spoke. "It was
them
," Xander
whispered. "They're the ones that emptied the store of the rotten
food, and set it up so that it would be a tempting place to come
into. There are a lot of supplies still left in this store because
it's
their
hunting grounds."

John imagined he looked much like Josh now
as his stomach threatened to empty its contents onto the ground.
Those things were so damn smart and apparently getting smarter with
every day that passed. "Why didn't they come in here for us
sooner?" Riley hissed.

"I don't know. Maybe they move between all
the stores in this area. Maybe they were hoping we would take up
residence in here. They might also just check it once a day, but we
have to go,
now
," Carl
insisted.

Even as he said the word 'now' John saw a
shifting of shadows through the glass windows across from them.
"Yes, we do," he breathed.

Carl followed his gaze to the doors and
nodded briskly as more shadows began to shift and coalesce within
the large garage bay. If they didn't move now they were going to
get pinned in between both groups. As of now, he didn't think those
things were certain they were in the store. He had a feeling they
would be moving with a lot less care and a lot more excitement if
they did.

John had to fight the compulsion to move
with a lot more speed but he stayed low and followed carefully
behind Carl, Riley, and Xander. Glancing back at Josh, he took a
step back to allow the younger kid to move past him into the
sport's section. He took one last look at the glass wall of the
automotive center just as the first sick person crept into view.
Sliding around the door, he held his breath as he waited to hear
the unearthly howl that usually accompanied those things when they
were on the trail of their prey.

He rested his head against the wall and took
a steadying breath before following the others at a low crouch.
They reached the area where the raft had inflated to cover most of
the aisle. Carl crept around it and stayed against the back wall.
It was the most direct route to the door they had entered through
but John had a feeling they weren't going to make it there that
easily.

Something else rattled to the floor. The
noise echoed through the building, making it difficult to pinpoint
the location of the sound, but he knew it had come from somewhere
nearby. At the front of the group Carl froze and Xander crept up to
sit beside him. John couldn't hear what they were saying but the
two of them changed direction and led the group into an aisle
filled with toys. John glanced at the assorted dolls, stuffed
bears, and dinosaurs that appeared to watch their every move.

Images of Chucky haunted him; he glanced
away from the soulless black eyes of the dolls above him as he
paused in the middle of the aisle with the others. He glanced
toward where they had entered the aisle but thankfully it remained
clear. His head tilted back as he caught Riley searching the tops
of the shelves.

Relief filled him when he saw they also
remained clear. His palms were sweating on his gun; the forceful
beats of his heart could be felt against the inside of his ribcage
as it pounded out a frantic rhythm. The others slid around the
corner of the shelf and into the electronics section. John adjusted
his hold on his gun and rapidly followed behind them.