The Walking Dead Collection (56 page)

From the front of the store, the sound of shuffling footsteps can now clearly be heard.

Josh points at a fallen display in the do-it-yourself department. Lilly creeps around behind a display of lightbulbs and finds the floor littered with rakes and pruning shears and three-foot-long axes. She grabs one of the axes and comes back around the lightbulbs, her heart hammering, her flesh crawling with terror.

They approach the front entrance. Lilly can see an occasional flash of movement on the other side of the store as Scott and Bob close in along the west wall of the grocery department. By this point, whatever it is that’s slithering into the Walmart seems to have fallen silent and still. Lilly can’t hear a thing other than her chugging heart.

Josh pauses behind the pharmacy counter, crouching down. Lilly joins him. Josh whispers to her, “You stay behind me, and if one of them things gets past me, give it a good whack in the center of the head with that thing.”

“Josh, I know how to kill a zombie,” Lilly retorts in a harsh whisper.

“I know, honey, all I’m saying … just make sure you whack it hard enough the first time.”

Lilly nods.

“On three,” Josh whispers. “You ready?”

“Ready.”

“One, two—”

Josh stops cold. Lilly hears something that doesn’t compute.

Josh grabs her and holds her steady against the bottom of the pharmacy counter. Paralyzed with indecision, they crouch there for a moment, a single incongruous thought screaming in Lilly’s brain.

Zombies don’t talk.

*   *   *

“Hello?” The voice echoes across the empty store. “Anybody home?”

Josh hesitates behind the counter for another brief moment, weighing his options, his brain swimming with panic. The voice sounds friendly … sort of … definitely male, deep, maybe a little bit of an accent.

Josh glances over his shoulder at Lilly. She’s holding the axe like a baseball bat, poised to strike, her lips quivering with terror. Josh holds his huge hand up—making a “give me a second” gesture—and he’s about to make his move, letting up on the pistol’s hammer, when another voice rings out, instantly changing the dynamic.

“LET HER GO, YOU SONS OF BITCHES!”

Josh lunges out from behind the counter with his .38 raised and ready to fire.

Lilly follows with the axe.

A group of six men—all heavily armed—stand in the vestibule.

“Easy … easy, easy, easy …
whoa
!” The leader, the guy standing out in front of the pack—a high-powered assault rifle in his arms, the muzzle raised menacingly—looks to be in his late twenties, early thirties at the most. Tall, rangy, dark complexioned, he wears a do-rag on his head. The sleeves of his flannel shirt are scissored off. His arms are heavily muscled.

At first, things are happening almost too quickly for Josh to track as he stands his ground with the barrel of his .38 pinned on Bandanna Man.

From behind the checkout lanes, Bob Stookey charges toward the intruders with his Desert Eagle gripped in both hands, commando-style, his red-rimmed eyes wide with drunken heroism. “LET HER GO!” The object of his pique stands behind the bandanna dude, held captive by a younger member of the raiding party. Megan Lafferty squirms angrily in the grip of a wild-eyed black kid, a greasy hand across her mouth, keeping her quiet.

“BOB—DON’T!” Josh bellows at the top of his lungs, and the booming authority of his voice seems to slam the brakes on Bob’s gallantry. The older man falters at the end of the checkout lanes, stuttering to a stop a mere twenty feet from the guy holding Megan prisoner. Breathing hard, the old juicer stares helplessly at Megan. Josh can see the emotions all stirred up in the older man.

“Everybody chill!” Josh orders his people.

Scott Moon appears behind Bob with the old squirrel gun raised.

“Scott, cool it with the shotgun!”

The man in the bandanna doesn’t lower his AK-47. “Let’s dial it down, folks, come on—we’re not looking to get into any O.K. Corral–type situation here.”

Behind the dark-skinned dude stand five other men with heavy-duty weaponry. Mostly in their thirties, some black, some white, some in hip-hop street attire, others in ragged army fatigues and down vests, they look rested and well fed and maybe even a little high. Most importantly to Josh, they look as though they would just as soon start blasting as engage in any kind of diplomacy.

“We’re cool,” Josh says, but he’s fairly certain that the tone of his voice, the set of his jaw, and the fact that he too has refrained from lowering his gun—all of this probably sends a countervailing message to Bandanna Man. “Aren’t we, Bob? Aren’t we cool?”

Bob mumbles something inaudible. The Desert Eagle remains in its upright, locked position, and for a brief and awkward moment, the two groups stand each other off with guns pointed at key pieces of anatomy. Josh doesn’t like the odds—the intruders are packing enough firepower to take down a small garrison—but on the other hand, Josh’s side has three working firearms all pointed, at the moment, directly at the raiding party’s leader, whose loss might put a serious kink in this little posse’s group dynamic.

“Let the girl go, Haynes,” Bandanna Man orders his underling.

“But what about—”

“I said let her go!”

The wild-eyed black kid shoves Megan toward her comrades, and Megan stumbles for a moment, nearly falling, but then manages to stay upright and stagger over to Bob. “What a bunch of fucking dicks!” she grumbles.

“You okay, sweetie?” Bob asks, putting his free arm around her, but not taking his eyes (or the barrel of the magnum) off the intruders.

“Assholes snuck up on me,” she says, rubbing her wrists, glowering back at them.

Bandanna Man lowers his gun and addresses Josh. “Look, we can’t take any chances these days, we didn’t know you from Adam … we’re just looking after our own.”

Unconvinced, Josh keeps the .38 beaded directly on Bandanna Man’s chest. “What does that have to do with snatching that girl outta the truck?”

“Like I said … we didn’t know how many of you we were dealing with … who she was gonna warn … we didn’t know anything.”

“You own this place?”

“No … whaddaya mean? No.”

Josh gives him a cold smile. “Then lemme make a suggestion … as to where we go from here.”

“Go ahead.”

“There’s plenty of stuff left in here … why don’t y’all let us pass and you can have the rest.”

Bandanna Man turns to his gang. “Guns down, guys. Come on. Step it on back. Come on.”

Almost reluctantly the rest of the intruders comply and lower their weapons.

Bandanna Man turns back to Josh. “Name’s Martinez … I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot.”

“Name’s Hamilton and it’s nice to meet you and I’d appreciate it if you’d let us pass.”

“No problema, mi amigo … but can I just make a suggestion to
you
before we conclude our business together?”

“I’m listening.”

“First off, is there any way you could stop pointing those guns at us?”

Josh keeps his eyes on Martinez as he lowers his gun. “Scott, Bob … go ahead … it’s okay.”

Scott puts the shotgun on his shoulder and leans against a checkout belt to listen. Bob reluctantly lowers the muzzle of the Desert Eagle, shoves it behind his belt, and keeps his arm around Megan.

Lilly sets her axe—head down—on the floor, leaning it against the pharmacy counter.

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” Martinez takes a deep breath and lets out a sigh. “What I’m wondering is this. You seem like you got your head screwed on straight. You got the right to take all that merchandise outta here … but can I ask where you’re taking it?”

“Truth is, we ain’t taking it anywhere,” Josh says. “We’re getting it to go.”

“You folks living on the road?”

“What difference does it make?”

Martinez shrugs. “Look, I know you got no reason to trust me, but the way things are, folks like us … we can be mutually beneficial to each other. You know what I’m saying?”

“To be honest, no … I don’t have a fuckin’ clue as to what you’re saying.”

Martinez sighs. “Let me lay my cards on the table. We could part ways right here and now, no harm no foul, wish each other the best…”

“Sounds good to me,” Josh says.

“We got a better option, though,” the man says.

“Which is?”

“A walled-in place, just up the road, people just like you and me, trying to make a place to live.”

“Go on.”

“No more running, is what I’m saying. We secured part of a town. It ain’t much … yet. We got some walls up. Place to grow food. Generators. Heat. We definitely got room for five more.”

Josh doesn’t say anything. He looks at Lilly. He can’t read her face. She looks exhausted, scared, confused. He looks at the others. He sees Bob’s wheels turning. Scott looks at the floor. Megan stares balefully out at the intruders through tendrils of curly hair.

“Think about it, man,” Martinez goes on. “We could split up what’s left in this place and call it a day or we could join forces. We need good strong backs. If I wanted to rob you, fuck with you, mess you up … wouldn’t I have done it already? I got no reason to make trouble. Come with us, Hamilton. Whaddaya say? There’s nothing out there on the road but more shit and winter rolling in. Whaddaya say, man?”

Josh looks at Martinez for a long moment, until finally Josh says, “Give us a second.”

*   *   *

They gather over by the checkout counters.

“Dude, you gotta be fucking kidding me,” Megan says to Josh in a low, tense whisper. The others huddle around the big man in a semicircle. “You’re thinking about going somewhere with these scumbags?”

Josh licks his lips. “I don’t know … the more I look at these dudes, the more they look just as scared and freaked out as we are.”

Lilly chimes in. “Maybe we could just check the place out, see what it’s like.”

Bob looks at Josh. “Compared with livin’ in tents on the ground with a bunch of hotheads? How bad could it be?”

Megan groans. “Is it just me, or have you people lost your fucking minds?”

“Megan, I don’t know,” Scott says. “I’m like thinking what do we have to lose?”

“Shut up, Scott.”

“Okay, look,” Josh says, holding up a huge hand and cutting off the debate. “I don’t see any harm in following them, checking the place out. We’ll keep our guns, keep our eyes open, and we’ll decide when we see the place.” He looks at Bob, then looks at Lilly. “Cool?”

Lilly takes a deep breath. Then gives him a nod. “Yeah … cool.”

“Terrific,” Megan grumbles, following the others back toward the entrance.

*   *   *

It takes another hour and the combined efforts of the two groups to go through the rest of the store for heavy items required by the town. They raid the lawn and garden center and home repair for lumber, fertilizer, potting soil, seeds, hammers, and nails. Lilly senses an edgy quality to the uneasy truce between the two contingents. She keeps tabs on Martinez out of the corner of her eye, and she notices an unspoken hierarchy to the ragtag raiding party. Martinez is definitely the honcho, ruling the others with simple gestures and nods.

By the time they get Bob’s Ram and the two vehicles from the walled-in town—a panel van and flatbed truck—loaded to the gills, twilight is closing in. Martinez gets behind the wheel of the van, and tells Bob to follow along behind the flatbed … and the convoy starts out for the town.

As they wend their way out of the dusty Walmart lot and start up the access road toward the highway, Lilly sits in the back sleeper compartment, gazing through the bug-streaked windshield, as Bob concentrates on keeping up with the exhaust-belching flatbed. They pass tangles of wreckage and dense forests on either side of the farm road, behind which shadows are deepening. A fine mist of sleet rolls in on the north wind.

In the steel-gray twilight, Lilly can barely see the lead vehicle—several car lengths ahead of them—a glimpse of Martinez in the side mirror, his tattooed arm resting on the outer edge of the open window as he drives.

It could be Lilly’s imagination, but she is almost positive she sees the bandanna-clad head of Martinez turning toward his passengers, saying something, sharing some intimate tidbit, and then getting a huge reaction from his comrades.

The men are laughing hysterically.

PART 2

This Is How the World Ends

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is often interred with their bones.

—William Shakespeare

EIGHT

The convoy makes two stops on their way to the walled-in town—the first at the junction of Highways 18 and 109, where an armed sentry consults with Martinez for a moment before waving the vehicles on. A heap of human remains lies in a nearby ditch, still smoldering from a makeshift funeral pyre. They make the second stop at a roadblock near the town sign. By this point the sleet has turned to a wet snow, spitting across the macadam on angular gusts, a very rare phenomenon for Georgia this early in December.

“Looks like they got some serious firepower,” Josh comments from the driver’s seat, as he waits for the two men in olive-drab camo suits and M1 rifles to finish chatting with Martinez three car lengths ahead of the Ram. Shadows thrown by the headlights obscure the distant faces as they talk, the snow swirling, the Ram’s windshield wipers beating out a sullen rhythm. Lilly and Bob remain silent and fidgety as they watch the exchange.

Full darkness has fallen, and the lack of a power grid and the bad weather give the outer rings of the town a medieval quality. Flames burn here and there in oil drums, and the signs of a recent skirmish mar the wooded vales and pine groves circling the town. In the distance the scorched rooftops, bullet-riddled trailers, and torn power lines reflect a series of past upheavals.

Josh notices Lilly studying the rust-pocked green sign up ahead, visible in the wash of headlamp beams, the signpost planted in the white, sandy earth.

WELCOME TO
WOODBURY
POPULATION 1,102

Lilly turns to Josh and says, “How are you feeling about all this?”