We parked around back and just as we shut off the engine, four creatures came running up the alley toward us. They surrounded our truck before we had a chance to get out. As they pounded on the vehicle, I had a sense of déjà vu.
I cracked the driver’s window and pushed the silenced barrel of my carbine toward the nearest one. I fired once, hitting it square in the forehead at point blank range.
Another one took its place and I repeated the process. Albert watched me wide eyed, doing nothing to help. I kicked open my door, knocking a third one to the ground. I shot him before he had a chance to get up.
The forth one stopped pounding on Albert’s window and looked at me across the cab. It raced around the front of the truck to get to me and before I could do anything Albert opened his door, stepped out and shot the thing through the back of the head. The report from his suppressed M-1 carbine was louder than I thought it would be. I cringed at both the noise and the red mist the .30 caliber round produced as it blew through the things skull and out the front.
Without a word Albert and I crouched down and waited to see if we had attracted anyone else. After several minutes, once my heart stopped pounding, I stood up and shook my head at Albert. He produced a key from his pocket and went to the back door. It opened easily and we silently entered the building.
Inside it was quiet and peaceful. We cleared every room without incident. The front of the building looked like an old-time dry goods store. Most of the shelves were bare. Albert led the way to the back storage rooms. There were a dozen sealed large buckets, some containing dried corn, others wheat, and several with barley and flour. Two rows of canned and jarred goods sat neatly on shelves, all of them displaying dates on their labels.
All totaled, there were thirty two cans of vegetables and fifteen jars of fruits. Albert retrieved a half dozen broken down boxes and began to assemble them. I wandered into a walk-in freezer and found a few boxes of perishable fruits and vegetables. Some were already rotting.
I found Albert loading up every roll of toilet paper in the building into boxes. Good call. I hadn’t really thought about the other side of Albert’s eating habits.
We spent almost an hour stacking up supplies next to the back door. I found a case of batteries and took them. In an office, I found an enormous safe. Albert had no idea what the combination was and as I stared at it, I wondered about the safe’s contents. Oh, well. We hadn’t found as much as we hoped for but I decided it was time to take what we had and get out of dodge.
We quietly went out the back door and looked around first before loading up our supplies. I was a little repulsed when I thought of the fact that twenty four hours ago, this very pickup bed had been loaded with rotting dead corpses and now it was going to be hauling food that we would eat. The rain had washed away most of the excess decomposed flesh, but the thought still made me want to hurl.
The storm had let up but the clouds overhead were still black. I was getting a little nervous because every clink of jars and every thump of boxes being loaded sounded like fireworks to me without the patter of rainfall to cover our movements. We were securing a tarp over our load when Albert froze in place and cocked his head. In a moment I heard it too. The sound of engines…a lot of them, were headed our way.
We put up the tailgate just as the first motorcycles roared by on the next street over. I could hear them yelling as they passed. I could also hear the moaning wails of the dead coming from everywhere at once. A sudden volley of gunfire made me jump. I told Albert to get in the cab of the pickup and be ready to make a run for it.
The smart thing to do would have been to go back into the Bishop’s storehouse and wait it out, but if they discovered our truck loaded with supplies, it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that someone was nearby. I didn’t want to be trapped in a building having to defend myself against both the living and the undead.
Albert looked at me nervously but I told him we’d be ok. I wanted to find out exactly what we were up against. Next to the Bishop’s storehouse building was a parking lot that stretched all the way up to the next street.
As I peered around the corner of the building and looked across the lot, I saw over a dozen motorcycles and just as many vans and trucks. They were parked in the middle of the street in a rough circle facing outward. There were probably thirty or so men all dressed like typical bikers, most of them beer gutted, trailer trash. They were armed to the teeth and firing at the undead that swarmed the streets with an assortment of shotguns, fully automatic weapons, and hunting rifles.
I heard the muffled crack of Albert’s M-1 carbine and spun around to see him taking aim on several undead racing up the alley toward the noisy din. I dropped to one knee and aimed at the closest one to Albert. I hit it in the throat on the first shot and followed up with a second that nailed it in the eye. It dropped instantly.
Albert fired two more times in succession at a charging creature and managed to miss it both times. He swung the butt of his carbine at the thing as it grabbed for him and struck it in the temple. The creature stumbled and fell. Albert butt stroked it twice more and it was still.
The third creature raced right toward me and then shot passed me, heading across the parking lot and toward the bikers.
The bikers were having the time of their lives. They slaughtered the creatures with reckless abandon. I had been concerned that the noise from Albert’s carbine may have attracted their attention, but they were oblivious to everything except the raging Infected.
I moved back up the alley toward the truck. I figured we could probably make a clean get away with all the noise the bikers were making. Just as Albert and I opened the doors to the truck, the gunfire started to die down. Random shots were being fired but the main event seemed to be over. We could hear the bikers laughing and howling it up. Several bottles shattered on the street and I heard the whoosh of fire.
I suddenly heard a voice yell, “Whooee, look at ‘em dance!” Several more shots rang out, followed by more laughter.
Albert and I eased the doors to the cab shut and quietly moved back up the alley to the edge of the building. As I looked across the lot, I could see the bikers spreading out to finish off the undead who were incapacitated but still moving. More Infected were arriving on the scene but the bikers were unconcerned, gunning them down as fast as they appeared. For all their apparent disorganization, these guys were pretty efficient killers.
Albert and I moved along a low wall separating the alley from the parking lot and settled in between two large dumpsters. This not only hid us better, but gave us a view of the street the biker gang was occupying, as well as the entire length of the alley. Several more undead ran past us after the noisy gang and were shot as soon as they got in range.
Albert and I looked at each other, helpless to do anything but wait it out and hope they moved on. It dawned on me that drunken humans with loaded guns scared me more than zombies. I smiled at the thought. When I glanced at Albert, he looked at me like I was nuts. This just made me grin even more.
As scared as I was at that moment, I almost started laughing. I have no idea why. Albert frantically motioned me to be quiet, and I almost did laugh. Albert really missed his calling as a street mime. As he scowled at me and pantomimed silence it occurred to me all he would need to complete the picture would be a black-and-white striped tee-shirt and a beret. I buried my face in the crook of my arm, squeezed my eyes shut, and bit the inside of my lips, trying to regain my composure.
When I finally looked up, Albert was shaking his head slowly, horrified by my behavior. I couldn’t look him in the eyes without smiling so I concentrated on our Jerry Springer rejects instead. What I saw sobered me instantly.
A skinny guy in a leather jacket and grimy jeans was strolling across the parking lot toward us. He stopped in front of a Ford Focus parked about thirty feet away from our position.
As I looked over the wall, I noticed that an infected woman was trapped in the vehicle, clawing at the windows and trying to get out. The biker tapped on the hood of the car with the barrel of his shotgun, aggravating the occupant. He yelled some lewd comment back to his companions.
From across the lot I heard one of his buddies reply, “Hey, lookey there, Lou’s got hisself a new girlfriend.”
The comment was followed by laughter.
“Naw,” Lou yelled back “I already got myself that purty little girl back at the yard.”
Someone else said, “Jesus, Lou, she ain’t no more than seven years old. You’re going to break that little thing, you try to ride her.”
“Yeah, well. Git ‘em young and train ‘em right.” Lou hollered. “I’ll teach that little bitch to like me.”
The bikers turned and focused their attention on a dozen or so Infected that had just arrived from another direction and opened fire on them. Lou, irritated that his buddies had dismissed him, took it out on the creature in the Ford. As he walked around the car toward us, banging on the vehicle with the butt of his weapon, I ducked down and sat with my back against the wall.
I glanced over at Albert to find his face red with anger. His hands were balled into fists. I remembered Albert’s nine year old sister and understood his feelings.
I jumped when Lou discharged his shotgun. I heard window glass shatter and then a low wailing moan.
“Open wide, bitch.” Lou said.
He racked the slide on his shotgun and fired again. I saw Albert flinch at the sound and he swallowed hard.
We sat there listening to Lou’s crew as they gunned down the undead and whooped with joy. Suddenly, I heard a scraping sound and saw Lou balancing on top of the low wall ten feet away. He jumped down into the alley and walked up toward our hiding place. As he came level with us, he looked right at us and stopped.
“What the f--k we got here?” he drawled.
His attention was focused on Albert. Albert glared at him, shaking with rage. I was sitting with my knees up, my M&P carbine in my lap. Without bringing my weapon up I casually aimed the barrel at Lou’s torso.
He finally glanced over at me, a look of distain on his face. “And who the f--k are you supposed to b…” he started.
I didn’t let him finish. I tapped the trigger twice. Both rounds buried themselves just below Lou’s heart. He grimaced and clutched his chest, his shotgun clattering to the pavement. I remember hearing the two spent .22 cases clink off the side of the metal dumpster and bounce to the ground.
As Lou opened his mouth to cry out, I tapped the trigger again. The bullet went in between his teeth and tore up through the roof of his mouth. He made a short coughing sound and staggered forward a step. He dropped to his knee and fell over sideways, dead. I sat there unmoving, steadying my breathing. Across the parking lot, Lou’s pals were still killing everything that moved.
Albert had finally gotten his carbine up. He aimed it at Lou’s body, the barrel shaky. I hissed at Albert and he glanced over at me. I shook my head once. Albert reluctantly lowered his weapon but continued to glare.
I crawled out into the alley and dragged Lou’s body in between the dumpsters with us. I went through his pockets looking for anything of value. His shotgun was rusty and worthless to me. I ignored the cheap bowie knife strapped to his belt, but pocketed a dozen rounds of 00 buck shot.
As I turned him over, I discovered a 1911 .45 long slide pistol tucked into his pants. I put it in my mark 7 bag. He had two extra mags for the .45 and I took those as well. I pulled his legs in and covered Lou with trash bags.
I grabbed Albert and we duck-walked behind the low wall and back to the Bishop’s storehouse. Twice stray bullets ricocheted off the wall near us but I don’t think anyone was aware of our presence.
Once safely back behind the storehouse building I looked around the corner and watched the bikers as they finished off the last of the undead. They had lit a parked car on fire and were forced to move their motorcade away from the flames. The gang mounted their bikes and jumped into their vehicles.
My heart skipped a beat as I heard one of them yell for Lou. Another of Lou’s buddies opinioned that he was probably screwing the girl in the Ford and that he was on his own. They started their choppers up and took off down the street, hollering and firing their weapons the whole way. Finally, the roar of their engines faded into the distance.
I let out my breath, not even realizing that I had been holding it in. I turned to Albert. He was staring at me with an angry look on his face.
“What?” I whispered. Even though he didn’t respond I knew what he was thinking. I shook my head. “Don’t even think about it. There’s nothing we can do.”
Albert ignored me and walked back to the truck.
Once we were in the truck I started it up and drove down the alley in the opposite direction that the bikers had gone. As we came to the end of the alley, several Infected came running at us from down the street. Albert looked at them and then looked straight ahead, his jaw set. I put the truck gear into park and stared at Albert until he looked at me. The undead closed in on us.
I remembered the same look of determination on his face when he told me he had to go find his sister and I had given him permission to take the patrol vehicle. He didn’t have any plan then, either. I shook my head. The Infected reached our truck and banged on the windows. I put the vehicle in drive and gunned it up a side street away from Them.
DAY 21
After we unloaded our supplies from our excursion yesterday, Albert went off to sulk in his room.
He didn’t eat or speak to me the rest of the night. I knew what he wanted to do, but the idea of a rescue was insanity.
This morning he tried to broach the subject twice and both times I shut him down. He went storming off to the garage for a while and when he came back, he asked me if he could borrow the gardening truck. I pointed to the keys hanging from a magnet hook on the refrigerator. He grabbed them up and went to his room.