Murphy's Law (Roads Less Traveled Book 2) (6 page)

March 21
^st
: IGA Parking Lot

“Let’s hurry up and get this over with. This place is freakin’ me out,” Jake said as we rode into the grocery store parking lot.

We’d spent the night at the apartment above Hartley’s instead of loading and leaving after dark. I’d even allowed us to sleep in, and for one night, canceled the night watch. Apparently it was just what Jake needed. Sure, we all felt better that morning than we had the whole trip, but it was Jake who was the most refreshed and ready to go. He was almost back to his normal self. Seeing that made me decide that if we didn’t run across the cons shortly after crossing into Ohio, then I was calling off the search. It just wasn’t worth it.

I looked around for something to tie the horses to as we approached the storefront. The only thing on the sidewalk was a Pepsi machine. It was often an advantage having the horses. At times like this it was just a pain in the ass.

“Let’s check around back.” Mia rubbed her shoulder absentmindedly, which caused me to do the same. Our matching wounds ached from time to time. “There we go.”

There was a large loading dock behind the store with a railing along the side. Perfect for bringing supplies out and tying off the horses.

Everyone dismounted and tied off to the railing while Gus ran up the ramp and sniffed at the crack under the door. He whimpered and growled deep in his chest a few times. I wasn’t sure if he was alerting us to danger or simply smelling the food inside. Jake walked around and met Gus at the door, then turned to us after giving the door a kick.

“Won’t open from out here. Someone needs to go around and open this from inside.”

“Shit,” I whined.

Zack took my hand. “Come on.”

We walked around to the front of the store. “We need to get this done as quickly as possible so we can get the hell away from that church and back on the road. I’d like to be in Blueville by dark.”

Zack voiced his agreement and reached out to push the door open. Turns out it was the first locked door we’d encountered since before Z-day.

“Well,
shit!
” he yelled, his voice laced with frustration.

I covered my face with one hand, thought
What the hell else can go wrong?
, then watched Zack search the nearby grass at the edge of the pavement for a rock. He ended up prying loose a piece of asphalt.

“Stand back.” He gave me just enough time to take a few steps away before launching the chunk of pavement at the large front window.

The glass exploded with a huge shatter, leaving the pane clear of any shards as it fell inside the store and all over the sidewalk. A second later the walkie chirped in my pocket, causing me to jump and nearly fall inside the building. Zack caught me and helped me regain my balance, then stepped back and drew his pistol. I pulled the radio from my pocket and answered.

“What?”

I was pulling my pistol loose from its holster with one hand, and whispering into the radio in my other hand. The store was dark, but not so dark we couldn’t see to walk. The only light came from the large front windows, and there were no other windows throughout the rest of the store.

“I’ll find some flashlights,” Zack said, moving off down one of the aisles.

Nancy’s voice came back over the walkie. “What was that noise? Are you okay?”

I explained to her what the situation was, told her not to worry about bringing flashlights to us, Zack was looking for one now, and to just stay put until we got the back door open. After confirming that she understood, I stuffed the radio back into my pocket and caught up with Zack as quickly as I could. I hadn’t noticed the smell or the mess when I’d first came in through the window because Nancy had been distracting me. After I thought about it, the state of the store explained the look on Zack’s face just before he went looking for flashlights. It was a wreck. There were broken jars on the floor, smashed boxes and cans littered all around, and even toilet paper strewn up and down the aisles. The smell wasn’t a dead smell, just that of very bad hygiene. It reminded me of the smell when we’d first found Shannon.

I followed the noise Zack was making rummaging around on one of the shelves in the hardware department. When I finally found him, he was trying to put batteries into a flashlight, except he was shaking so badly he kept dropping them. I took his hands in mine, squeezed them tightly, and pulled the light away from him. After picking the batteries up off the floor, I slid them into place and switched it on.

“Hey, take it easy. Just stay calm.”

He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. I swept the light around on the floor and up and down the aisle; same as the rest of the store, a mess. Since the door was locked from the inside it was hard for me to believe that whoever had done this was gone. The store was too big for just the two of us to clear safely, so I decided we would go to the stockroom, open the back door for the others, then do a thorough sweep before taking what we needed. Zack agreed, and we began creeping our way towards the back of the store, taking the straightest route possible, our guns drawn and our heads down. Zack had tucked the flashlight into his back pocket; we figured sneaking around in the dark would be better than announcing our location by swinging a light around.

We stopped at the end of each aisle, crouched down, and listened for anyone following us. The only sound was our breathing. Whoever was here was holed up tight, most likely in the damned stockroom. At least that’s what I’d figured before rounding the corner at the end of the chip aisle.

That’s when something jumped up and nailed me in the face.

Zack was only a few steps behind me; we had been switching positions the whole way through the store. It all depended on who was on point at each corner and intersection. The other would go on, the point person covering. We’d been leap-frogging this way right up until I got hit. It just so happened I was point at this particular corner.

The force of the impact knocked me off my feet and into Zack, which knocked him backwards and we both crashed to the floor. I didn’t know what hit me, but I knew my nose was broken. At least I’d kept hold of my gun, which I automatically pointed straight ahead of us and began firing blindly. Zack was trying to squirm out from underneath me. He finally gave up and just wrapped one arm around my waist and started pulling us both backwards, kicking and scooting with his feet and legs. I kept firing even though I couldn’t see a damn thing; my nose hurt so bad my eyes were completely filled with tears. Whatever Zack was pulling us away from must have been bad, or scary, or both, judging from his incoherent cussing and yelling, and the frantic way he jerked and pulled on me.

“Kasey! Kick! Now!”

I certainly wasn’t in a position to argue so I did as I was told. I stopped firing long enough to kick straight out with my leg, putting all the force I could muster behind it. Whatever I hit made an awful, guttural noise and fell back. I heard it land with a thump just as Zack kicked himself out from underneath me and jerked me to my feet. I still couldn’t see so I let him lead me by the hand through the store. I didn’t know which direction we were headed, and we kept stopping every so often so Zack could fire off a couple rounds behind us. I remember asking him once what was after us, but he didn’t answer, just told me to keep running. It couldn’t be a deadhead, because there was no stink and the damned thing was moving too fast. By now we’d all learned their smell, and knew immediately when there were any around simply from that.

Finally we came to a stop and Zack shoved me down to the floor against something spongy, like bags of bread. I took off my coat while he kept firing his gun, then used my shirt to wipe my face. The walkie was making a racket in my jacket pocket, but shit was happening too fast for me to answer. I didn’t even know what was going on really. After I dried my eyes and got most of the blood wiped away, I squinted and looked around. Things were still fuzzy. Zack was in front of me, crouched down on one knee, firing over and over until his clip was empty. While he ejected it and loaded another, I glanced down the aisle in the direction he’d been firing.

“What the fuck is
that
?!”

I jerked my gun from its holster and opened fire on what I thought were three crazy, half-naked assholes. Assholes who were also missing chunks of flesh. Their guts weren’t hanging out (like
that
was a comfort), and they were wicked fast for being dead. Just as fast as
normal, living
people
. I couldn’t let my mind go there, couldn’t think that these were indeed zombies, but new ones.

Fast ones.

One was swinging a baseball bat around like he was Shoeless Joe or something. At least now I knew what had broken my nose.

It just wasn’t possible.

What
was
possible, however, was getting our asses torn apart and killed right there in the IGA if I didn’t get my head back into the game.

Zack began firing again, and since I had opened up, he settled himself down and picked his shots carefully. He hit two of the things between the eyes, dropping them flat. The third kept coming and was almost on top of us when I finally lucked out and nailed him in the forehead. It fell forward with its arm outstretched, and landed with its fingers touching my boot. We held our fire and listened for more of those things. That was it. There were no more. I was breathing so harshly I was starting to get dizzy. With my gun gripped in both hands I stared at Zack, who in turn stared back at me, and was unable to speak for quite a while. The radio snapped me out of it finally, so I kicked the thing’s hand away and climbed to my feet. My nose hurt like a bitch and my vision was still blurry, but I could see that Zack wasn’t injured, just in shock.

“Kasey, answer me! We’re comin’ in!” Jake’s voice screamed out of the walkie.

I swallowed hard, my throat making that clicking sound, and answered him as steadily as I could. Zack was bent over with his hands on his knees, trying not to puke.

“Jake, this is Kasey. We’re alright. Just get back to the stockroom door, we’re almost there.”

I finally got a good look at our surroundings and saw Zack had led us in a big loop around the store. The swinging door leading to the stock room was right in front of us. For a moment, I was too afraid to go through.

What if there were more of those things back there?

“C’mon, we need to get the hell out of here.” Zack kicked the door open. We wasted no time in getting to the back. He kicked that one open too, afraid to holster his gun.

I couldn’t blame him.

* * *

We were all but running as we carried load after load out to the packhorses. Nancy and Mia stayed outside to keep watch, both armed with rifles, and Zack, Jake, and I scavenged as much as we could and as much as the horses could hold. We’d quickly filled them in on what we had encountered, but of course Jake said we couldn’t leave until they’d had a good look at these “men.” After we finished loading the horses, Zack and I stayed outside while the others went in for a look. It didn’t take them long to come to the same conclusion we had: new zombies. The when and how, we’d have to discuss later. The day was getting away from us and we needed to get moving, especially in light of this new development. I didn’t want to be caught out in the open after dark. It was also safe to say we wouldn’t be sleeping under the stars anymore.

“First the church, now this,” Zack muttered while we waited and he fussed over my nose.

I couldn’t be certain, of course, but after what we had just experienced, I was positive that church was bursting at the seams with deadheads-that-should-not-exist. I’d definitely had enough crazy for one day.

Gus whined at my feet again, spotting the other three coming out of the stockroom. Their faces were pale and Nancy looked like she’d been crying. Zack and I mounted up and waited for the others to get over their initial shock before getting the horses moving. Everyone was quiet, riding up Main Street at a slow trot. I’m sure I could guess what was going on in all their heads. If it’s not one thing, it’s basically another. I didn’t dare think,
w
hat else can possibly go wrong?
Lots of things could still go wrong.

That’s how we were all feeling at that moment: Like regular deadheads weren’t bad enough!

The Z-Plan had contingencies for fast zombies, I would have been an idiot not planning for those. The one detail that was shared between those few contingencies was settling down in a good, defendable location. We’d have to rethink our plan for rescuing Shannon and Kyra.

“It’s thirty-three miles to Blueville,” Nancy said after we hit the main road and started west. This seemed to open the situation up for debate, because everyone began offering their opinions, talking over one another, and generally annoying the hell out of me.

“Guys!”

Daisy jumped underneath me, which I found odd. She wasn’t a bit skittish around deadheads, but me talking loud scared her. Everyone quieted down for the moment and waited for me to continue.

“We’ll ride straight through ‘til Blueville, even if we have to ride the horses hard to get there before dark. That doesn’t happen ‘til around seven, and it’s noon now. We should make it by then. Once we find a place to spend the night, we’ll figure this out.”