The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (16 page)

Mike left, walked to the Suburban and
came back a few seconds later with a massive sledge hammer and a
long heavy crow bar. He set the end of the crowbar into the steel
jamb at the place were the lock-set was. He tapped it lightly a few
times to wedge it into the door. After the easy taps he swung hard
twice, driving the heavy bar into the door. The door easily dented
inward, the lock-set pieces flying out onto the concrete of the
sidewalk as he drove the end of the heavy crowbar home.

The door itself bent out of the frame
with a soft squeal of metal.

Mike started forward into the small
circle of light when the odor from inside the space suddenly leapt
out to assault him. At the same time, a distinct sound reached his
ears, the sound of dozens of buzzing flies. Mike moved back quicker
than he had thought to and nearly tripped over the others as he
did.

Ronnie stepped forward, snagged what
was left of the door and pushed it shut. The broken lock mechanism
jammed in the steel door unit and held it closed.

Ronnie’s face was gray. Sweat popped
out along his brow. He had seen dozens of bodies inside, just
within the small perimeter of light that had come through the open
doorway, and what looked to be dozens more just beyond in the
shadows.

“
Jesus,” he managed as he
quickly made his way past the others, around the side of the
building, away from the odor. He almost kept his breakfast down,
but as the picture of the devastation inside replayed in his head,
he lost the brief struggle. He came back after a few
minutes.

Everyone had walked further down what
was left of the sidewalk, away from the door. His face was still
pale, but he felt marginally better.

“
All right,” Patty asked as
she rested the back of her wrist against his forehead. Her eyes
were worried.

“
Better,” Ronnie said. “I
just wasn’t prepared for that. I’ve never seen anything like
that.”

“
Looked like they were
stuck in there,” Candace said.

“
Except they could’ve just
knocked the lock off like we did.” Mike's eyes met Ronnie’s. They
had both been close to the door as it opened and they had both seen
the same things. Weapons scattered everywhere. There had been some
sort of battle in there.

“
What?” Candace asked. She
looked at Ronnie.

“
Looked like a lot of
weapons just lying around by the bodies…like maybe a gunfight took
place and then the ceiling caved in. But they were dead before
that… shot for some reason. Shot each other?” He looked over at
Mike.

“
Maybe,” Mike allowed. “Or
shot and then whoever did it just shut and locked the door and
walked away.” He shrugged helplessly.

“
Well, they must have
killed each other,” Patty said.

“
Maybe,” Ronnie said. “But
like Mike said…” He shrugged too. “Some weapons looked like they
might have been thrown in on top of them… It doesn’t
fit.”

Mike nodded.

Candace looked from Mike to Ronnie, a
look of disbelief on her face. She glanced back down at the door,
back at Mike once more, then spun and walked back down to the
door.

“
Candace,” Mike called. He
started after her, but she reached the door and tugged it open
before he reached her. “You don’t,” he started.

She drew in a short breath; her hands
came up and cupped her nose and mouth. Her legs were planted
firmly, her posture rigid. “It’s true,” she mumbled through her
hands. Mike leaned past her shoulder and took a closer look at the
room.

There were many more bodies than his
first quick look had shown him. The weapons were lying on top of
the bodies, as though they had been shot and then someone had
tossed the weapons into the room, shut the door and walked away.
Just as it had seemed to both he and Ronnie in their first short
view.

What hadn’t appeared in their first
short view were the other things that were, at first, not readily
seen.

They had, every one, been shot in the
head. But that was not the only thing. It was the way some people’s
hands weren’t showing. That in itself didn’t actually register for
a few seconds until he realized no one's hands were showing. Then
his eyes took in the bodies in more detail than his eyes had wanted
to provide, and he realized the reason their hands were not showing
was because they were behind their backs.

He saw two people that answered the why
of that. Bright glimpses of metal showed between the bloated skin
of their wrists. Handcuffed… His mind had supplied tied, but it was
not tied, it was handcuffed. And handcuffed was not a mistake.
Handcuffed could not shoot back at all. They had been herded in
here, for whatever reason, handcuffed and shot… Murdered, his mind
supplied.

“
Come on,” he said quietly
to Candace. “We don’t need to see any more of this do
we?”

She shook her head, turned back towards
him, and then suddenly found herself running around the side of the
building the same way that Ronnie had. A few minutes later, she
came back out and joined the others. Everyone was silent. The
morning had moved on and the afternoon was bright sunshine and
warmth on the cracked sidewalk, but none of that warmth seemed able
to touch her.

“
Probably never know why,”
Ronnie said after a long silence. He spun the cap off a bottle of
water, took a deep drink, rinsed his mouth, spat and then drank
again. They were all gathered around the trucks.

Mike stared off down what was left of
State Street. The street itself was more dirt and sand than
pavement. The buildings that were left tilted crazily. Some looked
almost untouched until you got close to them. From here they looked
fine, just like from the sidewalk the steel door hadn’t seemed to
be hiding anything special, his mind jabbered.

“
There’s another drug store
up the street,” he said, just to be talking. “I didn’t check it. I
wasn’t thinking about it. It’s an actual drug store… So I was
thinking what could there be there that I would need. But
drugstores sell all sorts of things. We could go see.”

“
Let’s go see,” Patty
said.

They all piled into the trucks like
they had only been looking for an excuse to go. As they drove away,
Mike knew he would never come back to the supermarket for anything.
Silence held as they maneuvered their way over the shattered
pavement and made their way down the street.

~ More Trouble ~

Tom and Bob were loading up the last of
the space that was left in one of the pickup trucks when Tim came
running in their direction.

“
People,” he gasped,
pointing to the side of the building. “People with guns and
stuff!”

Bob and Tom both reached inside the
truck and grabbed their rifles. Bob reached out and snagged Tim by
the wrist before he could tear off around the side of the building
again.

“
Calm down. Take a deep
breath,” Bob said in a calming voice. “Where are they?”

“
Coming into the parking
lot. They’re on foot,” Tim said. Both Nell and Lilly stepped out of
the shattered back door that lead into the department store, their
arms loaded down with clothes in various sizes.

Tom sighed in relief, reached down and
unsnapped the strap that held his gun in its holster. Checked the
safety on the rifle, flicked it to off and turned to Nell and
Lilly. “We have visitors,” he turned to Tim “Did they see
you?”

“
I don’t know… I don’t… I
don’t think so, but I’m not sure,” he answered, still
breathless.

A frightened look came into Lilly’s
eyes. “How many, when? Are they armed?” she asked.

“
Two guys… A couple ladies
and some kids… Little kids… And a dog too,” Tim said. Thinking as
he went along.

“
Okay,” Tom said. “We’ll
all walk out. Have your safeties off. You may really have to shoot.
For Christ’s sake don’t shoot yourself… Or me... Or one of us.
Point at who you want to hit, and shoot, like Candace showed you.
But don’t shoot unless you have to. Maybe these people are okay.”
He waited until everyone had nodded.

Nell and Lilly took the safeties off
their guns, held them briefly and then returned them to their
holsters. Nell kept touching the curved metal butt of her pistol
nervously.

“
Bob, you’re up front with
me. You guys in back of us. If you have to shoot,
shoot
,” he told them
again. “Just make sure we’re not in your way…
Jesus… I hate this,
” Tom finished. He
took a deep breath “Everybody ready?” he asked. No one answered
except Bob who nodded quickly before his eyes darted back to the
corner of the building and the bright sunshine beyond.

Tom stepped around the edge of the
building, his rifle aimed at the ground, his finger resting on the
trigger guard.

~

The drug store and a small convenience
store took up the space in the small strip mall building. An auto
garage occupied the building next door. Both buildings were
damaged. They walked around the exterior of the store building and
looked it over.

The large front windows were spider
webbed with stress fractures but were still intact. The front door
to the convenience store was bent outward at an odd angle, the top
of the door actually out of the frame, the bottom still jammed
tightly in it. The brick wall that fronted the building was warped
but still upright. The frame had apparently twisted as the wall had
warped.

It was difficult to see into the
darkened interiors through the spider webbed glass, but both stores
appeared to be uninhabited. They chose the convenience store first.
A few well placed blows from the sledgehammer and crowbar
combination popped the twisted door from the frame. It sprang
inward and caught on the floor, screeching to a stop.

Mike put one booted foot against the
warped wall and pushed experimentally. The wall didn’t budge. It
didn’t even creak or groan like he expected that a wall about to
fall down might do. He looked around at everyone, shrugged and
stepped inside, snapping on the big flashlight as he
did.

The interior seemed in remarkably good
shape. Some metal shelving units that had served as dividers had
toppled their merchandise to the floor, but it was much better than
the supermarket had been, or most other places he had wandered
into.

“
Looks safe,” He said, and
the others stepped inside.

Case upon case of bottled water, soda
and sports drinks found their way into the trucks in the parking
lot. Boxes of crackers, candy bars and other snacks went in as
well. In a short period, the remaining space in the trucks was
filled up.

“
Well,” Mike checked his
watch. The sun was not yet overhead. The watch was really no
indicator of actual passing daylight, only elapsed time. Looking
into the sky and judging the position of the sun was probably a
better indicator of relative daylight left than looking at a watch
was. “Probably better than half again as much daylight
left.”

“
You sound so sure of
yourself,” Candace teased.

Mike smiled. “We could go unload this
and probably come back for another load.” Everyone agreed. Mike and
Ronnie muscled the door back into its frame away from where it had
wedged into the floor. Then they started the vehicles and drove
slowly down lower State Street towards the Old River Road and the
cave.

~ Death And Sin ~

Tom took the corner wide, allowing Bob
to emerge at nearly the same time as he did. The others were right
behind them, spread out slightly. He spotted the small group
immediately: Two men; three women, and two small kids walking
warily across the cracked parking lot towards the store they were
in. All five adults were heavily armed.

The dark skinned young man in the lead
wore military fatigues and carried what looked to Tom to be a
military issue rifle of some sort he was not familiar with. The
next man back was dressed in jeans and a lightweight jacket, but he
also seemed to be carrying a military weapon. Both men had their
weapons in their hands like they were on patrol, Tom
thought.

The women came next, the first one
carrying a lightweight pistol, small, possibly a three eighty, Tom
thought. The other two women carried the same sort of small light
duty pistols, Tom saw. He tried to get a better view of the
pistols. They could be Nine Millimeters, he told himself. It was
hard to tell, and he was no judge of weapons like Candace was. It
was about then that the dark skinned man stopped. His eyes were
fixed on Tom. Tom took a deep breath and waited.

The two men swiveled their rifles
around quickly pointing them at Tom and Bob. Tom and Bob already
had their weapons up. Suddenly there was a stand off. Silence
descended and held. Tom could hear every little noise clearly: sand
and small pebbles gritting beneath his boot as he shifted position,
birds calling from the tops of nearby buildings and the occasional
tree, even the far off sound of the river which was still running
higher than normal.

The young man in the lead wore
reflective sunglasses; the sun shot darts of light off the lenses
hiding his eyes.