Winter's Salvation (12 page)

             
The sound of shifting broken glass caught the attention of the employee and he turned to his right looking behind him out through the broken glass wall and into the sun.  From behind the gunman, a walker was working its way into the building.  This zombie’s bare right arm was bandaged as if she was not eaten alive by the undead and tried to bandage herself.  She had long hair that covered her face, with white eyes that showed through the strands of bloody black hair.  She wore a purple sports bra and a pair of blood stained grey sweat pants.  She was in front of the walking crowd many feet behind her.  She was faster and had more dexterity than the other walkers.  She bent down and balanced herself as she made her way into the store over the busted shelves and random scattered boxes. 

             
The employee bounced back and forth between Dave and Eric and the newly turned undead girl.  The revolver never stopped shaking at the two as he turned back and forth worriedly.  He decided to turn his full attention to the girl when she raised her reaching hands for him, followed by a loud hiss that exploded from deep inside the zombie and out through her bloody mouth. 

The revolver followed his attention and Dave and Eric ran into the isle.  Eric grabbed the bag and started loading it with random boxes of food.  He was not sure what he was picking up, but he shoved whatever he could over his canned foods.  Dave had his back to Eric and with his pistol drawn watched the direction of the changing employee.  Three rapid shots echoed through the store. 

“You mother fucker you!  Stealing my shit,” The
Silhouett
e
of a revolver made it’s way around the isle shelves, followed by the body of the beaten man.  Dave fired two shots both hitting the
Silhouett
e
in the chest.  It stumbled, fired and fell backward over some crushed boxes of cereal. 

             
As the man fell the sound of shattered glass hovered past the second bang.  The second bullet went through the man’s chest and broke the glass that the zombie couple was banging on.  As the man lay flat on the ground the two ghouls fell forward over the half wall that the glass was attached to. 

             
Drew’s feet were the only visible item at the end of the isle.  The rest of him was cut off by the darkness that was making its way into the store.  “We found the way out through the back.” Drew ran forward out of the blackness and waved to Eric and Dave. 

             
David was still in shock.  He walked backwards slowly looking at the employee hoping he was going to move or get up.  The thought of killing a man was too much for him.  To kill the undead was one thing, (he never really thought too much about it) but this man had been living and breathing. 

             
Eric found that he was going to have to be the sensible one this time.  “He was going to kill us.  There was nothing we could have done to convince him.  He was changing and going crazy just like Julie.” 

             
Dave stepped back a little quicker and turned to him.  He looked Eric straight in the eye and raised his eye brows as if he were giving him a none verbal “what the fuck.” and ran to Drew.  With the raising of the eye brow it was as if he wiped his slate clean and was ready to continue moving.  

Chapter 7

Mrs. Kim

              They had crossed into Georgia a few days back and on this day darkness fell on them faster than expected and large single family houses blocked the moons light creating dark shadows on the street they traveled.  They haven’t heard any groans of undead for quite some time, but they still walked in silence with the occasional small verbal “watch out behind that truck” or “don’t get to close to those trees”.  

             
“Oh hello there,”   They all turned to the set of houses on their right, poised and ready to be assaulted in some way.  They had not heard another’s voice in over a week and to openly announce their presence shocked all of them.  The voice was from a woman which comforted them for a split second until they realized she greeted them loud enough for a zombie to hear three blocks away. 

             
They looked in the direction of the voice that came from a house they just passed and could just make out a woman hanging half way out of her white metal screen door.  Shadows surrounded the covered porch and they were not able to make out any real detail about the woman.  They could tell she was wearing something long like a robe, but were unable to see anything else.

             
The woman stepped onto her porch, “Oh come on over, I’m not goin to bite ya.” She spoke with a sexy not too southern accent, but it lingered with her words.  She giggled to herself, “I guess that was a little inappropriate,” stepping a little further away from the metal door, but remaining on the porch, “You know the bite ya part.”

             
Eric was shocked about the volume this woman was talking and commenced to shush her while waving his arms down as if he were landing an airplane.  “Good Lord woman, your gonna get us all killed.” He said in a loud whisper.

             
“I haven’t seen any of those crazy peoples walking around here in days.” She paused, “Look I have food for yas if, you wants it.  I just need some company, and I’m willing to cook if I can just have an educated conversation for a night.”  Dave was already walking toward the house and Rod and Drew were not too many steps behind him.  Eric realized stopping them would be pointless and followed them to the woman. 

             
The woman stepped to the side holding the metal screen door open as they all stepped past her into the dimly lit living room.  She wore a fuzzy blue robe that swayed just over the tops of her feet and her blondish red hair was white at the roots.   She looked to be in her mid to late forties, but was very good looking for a woman her age. 

             
They were about to start looking for a house to sleep in, so this was actually a welcome surprise.  They had seen no signs of life for quite a while and for a person to just openly greet a stranger seemed kind of odd to them, but this night they would not have to completely clear a house just to make sure they weren’t invading a home in which a few undead were trapped in.   

             
They had lost track of all time and really were not sure exactly what day it was.  When they began to feel tired they started looking for a house or a secure place to lay their heads and more than likely they were going to find a place on this block anyway.  If they were going to sleep outside someone was going to have to stay awake, as look out, and if they slept in a house they had to run through all the rooms barricade all the doors and cover the windows.  This took no less than an hour and if they ran into some undead it sometimes would take them several hours because after killing the residents they had to move to another house way down the road, because they were very seldom able to kill it without it getting the attention of all the other zombies near it. 

             
They were actually contemplating sleeping throughout the day in the next house and start traveling at night; this was Dave’s idea, and made sense to everyone.  The undead could see them during the day and they may have a better opportunity to sneak around them at night. 

             
Eric and Rod had started to rely on Dave’s advice.  A week or so ago this would not have been the case, but because of his obsession of horror and action movies he created his own form of education.  Back in the real world everyone saw him as being a playful and joyful character, but in a time when the unthinkable has happened, Dave turned out to be their best commodity.  So when Dave started walking into this woman’s residence, they all just seemed to follow. 

             
The house was lit by a plate of small candles that sat in the middle of a coffee table, directly in front of a couch that was decorated with farm equipment stitched into it.  The dim light shown on the dirty white couch with gold embroidery caught Rod’s immediate attention.  He could not think of a couch more hideous than this one.   He looked at the love seat and saw it was of a different color and type.  It was a clean brown suede love seat that obviously cost more than the dirty white one.  He thought the couch must have been pulled from a dumpster somewhere.   

             
As Eric and the other three walked in they were hit by a strong odor of pine and they all looked to identify the smell. The dimly lit candles on the coffee table were all burning at the same height and Eric immediately recognized that the candles were just freshly lit.  No wax rolled from them and the pools were not fully developed. 

             
The woman closed the door and rubbed Eric’s shoulder.  She squeezed past him between a matching love seat to his right and looked him in the face smiling.  “Ya’ll must be thirsty.  All I gots is some water though.”  As she squeezed past, the worry lines showed clearly on her face.  She tried to cover the wrinkles of worry and her age by distracting them with her big smile, that exposed her pearly white teeth.  “I’m sorry, where are my manners, my name’s Kimberly.” 

             
Dave and Drew sat at ease on the dirty couch not noticing the difference between the living room set.  Eric and Rod found the love seat surprisingly comfortable and as the wax started to melt, the room started to fill with different scents.  The mixing of scents started to make Eric’s throat itch.   

             
The woman came back with four multicolored plastic cups of water.  “I got the fireplace going and I’m gonna start some tea and cook us up some soup.  I got some Campbell’s vegetable beef left and I’ll throw that on as soon as the tea’s done.”

             
Eric heard the low moan of a lost zombie coming from down the street.  He leaned back and spread two sections of the blinds apart with his index and middle finger.  There must have been six or seven undead shambling aimlessly in the middle of the street.  “So when did you say was the last time you said you saw a dead person.” He asked quizzically.

             
The woman smiled and said.  “So y’all have my name?” She walked toward Dave and sat down on the arm rest on which Dave rested his arm.  She looked down at him and handed him the first cup of water. 

             
Dave pulled his arm from the couch and introduced himself as he took the cup.  “Is it just you living here?”  He took a large drink from the cup.

             
Kimberly grew a small forced smile and looked at Drew.  “There were three of us that lived here.”  The smile disappeared, “My husband, Keith, just showed up from work a little early and was going to jump in the shower before we went out to that restaurant down the street.” She pointed down the street, “God, what the hell is the name of that restaurant?  I don’t know, it really doesn’t madder much anyway.  He wanted to jump in the shower and when he was done we were gonna go pick up Lil Jimmy from the day care and head off.  I just got home a liddle before him and was gonna do the same thing.  I got cleaned up and was sitting on the couch just watching some T.V.  That’s when I saw what was going on.  Keith got out of the shower and saw it to.  He told me to stay here and he’ll be right back.  He got in his truck and took off.” She raised her eyebrows the same way Dave did back at the grocery store. 

             
Drew pointed to a picture on the entertainment center directly across from him.  “Is that him?”  The picture was of a man with a dark goatee and scruff all over his unshaven face.  A large smile was pressed against the cheek of a small blond haired boy that looked to be about six or seven, that shared the same big smile. 

             
“Yup that’s my boys, Keith and Jimmy.”

             
“He went to pick him up?” Dave said rubbing the small of her back trying to comfort her. 

             
Eric and Rod both looked to Dave and knew what he was trying to do.  He was trying to comfort her with the intention of doing something else, a little more lustful later on that night.  To both of their surprise, she looked down at him and squeezed his right shoulder and smiled.

             
“Yeah.  I never saw them again.  I’ve stayed here waiting, but I think I have just about given up completely.”  She forced another stiff smile, “Until y’all came.”  She got up from the arm of the chair and grabbed hold of the plate of scented candles.  “Lets go into the dining room and I’ll put on that soup.”

             
The dining room was dark with the exception of a flickering glow that radiated from the fire place.  Kimberly placed the collage of horribly mixed scented candles on the center of the table adding to the glow.  Flames licked the bottom of a black tea pot that hung from a hook in the fire place.  “Please sit down.” She said as she pulled out one of the dark wooden chairs for Dave to sit on.  They all pulled the chair out closest to them and sat around the dark stained wood table. 

             
Rod sat with his back to the fire, but moved closer to Eric who sat to his left, at the head of the table across from Dave.  Kimberly pulled the pot off the hook with one of the log pokers and placed it on an oven mitt on the table.  She walked into the kitchen and started opening the cans of Campbell’s with a manual can opener. 

             
Rod leaned over to Dave, “So what are you planning?” He whispered quietly.

             
“What are you talking about?”  He said with a chuckle.

             
Rod gave him a you’re not fooling anyone stare, “Are you serious?”

             
“Dude, she’s lonely, so am I.  Kind of.  What do you think?  You saw the way she was rubbing on me.”  Whispering back.

             
“I just think it’s a little early.  You have no idea who or what this woman is.”

             
“No I know exactly what and who this woman is.  She’s lonely and needs a man’s attention, and you know what?   I’m willing to give it to her.”  He stated quickly and sat back against the chair, and crossed his arms, as if to say the conversation is over. 

             
Just then the woman walked out with another black pot, placed it on the poker and then into the fire.  “It should just take a few minutes.  These pots are actually really good at cooking without burning.  My husband was into camping and hunting and all that stuff, so he only got the good stuff.”  She pulled a stool up next to Dave and sat.

             
They all waited patiently for the soup to finish.  Drew sat thinking about how good something warm and salty would be, rather than a cold Power Bar.  He was so excited when Kimberly began to divide the soup that he gripped his spoon in anticipation.  As soon as she finished scooping his portion he immediately dove in.   

             
Rod reached over the table, “Calm down, and take small sips.  Try to savor and enjoy it, a little at least.” 

             
After they all had finished their portion of the soup, she began to make more pots of soup.  She had a stock pile of all kinds of canned goods.  After the vegetable beef, she began to open cans of beef stew.  She told them she was saving this one for a special occasion and believed this was about as special as she was going to get.  

             
Before long they found themselves sprawled out on the living room furniture, holding their bloated bellies, completely comfortable with their surroundings, Eric stretched across the couch, Rod lay on the love seat, and Drew beside him on the floor.  Kimberly had given them all pillows and blankets.  Dave stood against the entertainment center, knowing where he was going to sleep that night, even though no words were spoken about where he was going. 

             
Dave kicked his white sneakers that were covered with brown mud off next to his back pack by the door.  They all had gotten comfortable.  Their pants unbuttoned and shoes laying neatly next to the back packs they found in the random houses they had slept in. 

             
Drew stretched out next to the love seat and his foot rubbed a rough section of carpet just under the dirty sofa.  He pulled his foot back and looked at his feet and the bottom section of couch swung back as his foot pulled back.  Not thinking too much of it he tucked his feet up and in seconds was fast asleep.