He saw Trish huddled in the corner, her arms wrapped around her legs, where he had left her. She was pale as a ghost from fear and she was still trembling. She looked at him with pleading eyes as he crawled over to her. He moved next to her and put his arms around her and hugged her.
He pushed her back a little so she could see his face.
He mouthed the words. “You’re safe. Trust me!”
A smile spread across his face as he looked at her.
Chapter 26
Tony opened his eyes. Trish was tightly wrapped around him. The sunlight coming in through the large hole where the window had been was blinding.
They had slept the rest of yesterday after the attack and through the night. Fear, exhaustion and the explosion had taken a toll on their bodies. After Tony was sure they would be safe, they quickly passed out and slept.
They slept on the hard floor. Both of their blow up mattresses had been destroyed by the explosion.
Tony did manage to find their pillows. The pillows were the most important find for them with the pounding in their heads, the soft pillows helped.
Trish had tried to ask him questions after he had come back in the room after watching Roy and Debbie meet their end. With the ringing in their ears it was impossible for him to try and answer. He finally mouthed the words. “You’re safe and Tomorrow.”
She understood and closed her eyes and gave in to the exhaustion. However, she had never let go of him. Whenever he moved, even though she was asleep, she moved with him, hanging on tightly.
Tony began to slowly look around the room. This was the first good look at the room he was able to get since the attack. Yesterday after the explosion, there was just too much smoke and dirt in the air to see much. It was also hard to examine the room when it wouldn’t hold still long enough for him to focus on anything.
Today the air was clear and thankfully the room had stopped spinning.
Tony cleared his throat and was happy to hear the sound. The ringing in his ears wasn’t completely gone yet, but at least it wasn’t deafening like yesterday. Things were beginning to sound normal again.
He looked down at Trish as she had her arms wrapped around his chest and he smiled. He had been hoping to be able to gain her trust and get closer to her.
He would have never have imagined that he would be able to get this close so soon. He enjoyed the feeling, but with all things considered, he thought it might have been better if it had taken a little longer and they had become closer by letting their friendship develop in a more normal manner.
Trish’s eyes opened slowly as he was thinking and she looked up at him. He smiled and whispered. “Can you hear me?”
She shook her head indicating yes.
“Good.” He whispered. “How’s your head feel?”
“Better.” She whispered back. A little smile appeared on her face. “What happened?”
“Roy apparently got his hands on some dynamite.” Tony answered. “He either never thought about the fact the noise would attract the dead, or he was so mad that he didn’t care. Lucky for us his plan backfired on him.”
Fear flashed across Trish’s face. “Are they going to come back and attack us again?”
“No. They won’t be bothering us again.” Tony replied. He could see the unasked question in her eyes. “He blew a hole in the one big door down front, but I used my rifle to keep them from getting in the warehouse. The dead surrounded them out front, they’re all dead.”
Trish looked relieved but also conflicted.
“I’m sorry about your sister.” Tony whispered. “I know she treated you terrible, but she was still your sister. I’m sure knowing that she is gone still makes you feel a little sad.”
“Did you have to shoot anyone?” Trish looked at Tony.
“No, I didn’t have to…” Tony stopped. “Yes I did shoot one of them. I shot Roy in the leg. I could have shot him in the head, but I decided to just shoot him in the leg.”
“Why didn’t you shoot him in the head?” Trish asked.
“I was going to shoot him in the head, but I thought about how he treated you. I thought about all the things he had done to you. I watched him tie you to that tree so the zombies could get you while he got away.” Tony smiled. “So I decided to give him some of his own medicine.”
“His own medicine?” Trish asked not understanding what Tony had meant.
Tony smiled again. “He was trying to get away from the zombies. If I shot him in the head, it would have been over fast. That would have been too good for him. I remembered seeing you hanging from the tree with the zombies coming at you. So I shot him in the leg so he couldn’t run away and I let the zombies get him.”
“Good.” Trish glared coldly. “He got what he deserved. They all did.”
Trish looked at Tony curiously. “Why are we whispering?”
“The last I looked there were hundreds of the dead out in the parking lot.” Tony said. “I don’t know how many are in the warehouse. I’m hoping they don’t know we are up here and will just go away. Trust me, if they know we are here, they will never go away.”
“I do.” Trish replied.
“You do what?” Tony asked.
Trish smiled. “Trust you.”
This time it was Tony that blushed. He changed the subject.
“Are you hungry?”
“Do we have any food that didn’t get blown up?” Trish asked.
Tony looked around. He gaze finally settled on one of his back packs lying in the corner across the room. It was covered with dirt and a few parts of what had been their door. “I think I can put something together. It won’t be anything as fancy as pop tarts, but it should fill you up. Stay here, I’ll be right back.”
Trish’s grip tightened. “Where are you going?”
“Relax, I’m just going to crawl across the room to the corner. My back pack is over there.” Tony answered.
“Just stay here. I’m going to look out the window while I’m up to see what’s going on outside today.”
“OK.” Trish said as she released her hold on him.
Tony got up and stayed low as he approached the hole where the window had been. He reached over and grabbed the pack by the strap and pulled it over under the window to where he waited on his hands and knees.
Then he took a glance out of the window. He was surprised to see that the parking lot and clearing were quiet. The zombies must have moved on.
Tony took the pack and moved quietly back to Trish. He set the bag next to her. “It looks good outside. I can’t believe it. I’m going to look down over the ledge and see what the warehouse looks like. Be right back.”
Tony got down on his hands and knees as he inched his way out the door way and on to the ledge.
He could hear scrapping sounds below, but overall it didn’t sound as bad as he had expected.
He glanced down towards the back of the building. The floor space between the shelves appeared clear.
Tony moved to the corner of the ledge and looked down at the door. He saw what had been making the scraping sound. He also saw why he didn’t see any of the dead roaming around in the warehouse.
Two of the dead had managed to get themselves impaled on the sharp jagged edges that protruded from the gash that had been blown in the door. Sharp knife like tentacles along the edges had pierced the dead that had tried to push their way inside, holding them firmly in place and effectively blocking the opening so nothing could pass through it.
Tony turned and crawled back to Trish.
“I think we lucked out.” Tony whispered. “Two of the dead are stuck in the hole in the door. After we eat, I think I can use the pellet gun to take care of them. After a little repair work I think we just might be OK.”
Tony opened the back pack and pulled out a box of granola bars. “Remember these?” Tony smiled.
He opened the pack and handed Trish four bars.
“I like these.” Trish grinned.
Chapter 27
Tony picked up the granola bar wrappers after he and Trish had eaten. He shoved them in his back pack. He always tried to clean up after he ate.
He looked around then laughed to himself. “With the debris from the explosion, the shattered door, the blown out window, mangled chair, and the dirt that now covered everything in the room, picking up granola bar wrappers didn’t make much of a difference on how the room looked.” But he guessed that would be one less thing they would have to pick up later.
Tony crawled over to the corner where his chair and window had been. He had kept his guns and ammo in the corner where they would be handy when he needed them.
He pushed the debris to the side and spotted his guns. He picked up the pellet gun and rummaged through the pile until he found a box of pellets.
He took them and crawled back over to Trish and whispered. “You just relax a little more. I’m going to move out to the ledge and see if I can kill the two things wedged in the front door. After I do that, we can go down and make sure the warehouse is clear and then see if we can fix the door.”
“Can we stop whispering then?” Trish asked.
Tony smiled. “After we fix the hole in the door we can stop whispering.”
Tony moved as quietly as he could towards the ledge. The splinters of wood kept jagging him as he crawled. He hadn’t noticed this yesterday, but then he had more important things on his mind.
He was finally in the position he wanted. He pulled the gun around and aimed. It took four shots to the head of the first creature before it went limp and stopped moving. The second one went down after three shots. Tony was thankful it hadn’t taken longer. He was also happy he hadn’t grabbed the pellet gun loaded with the rubber pellets. Shooting the dead with rubber pellets might be interesting under different circumstances, but Tony knew it was never a good idea to play around with the dead.
Dealing with the dead was serious business.
It seemed to be clear around the warehouse for now, but after the explosions yesterday, Tony knew that the dead would be close by. Getting that hole in the front door blocked was the key to taking back control of his life.
After the last creature stopped moving, Tony slowly rose to his feet. He walked back into the room where Trish waited
and dropped the pellet gun, then picked up his bow.
He spoke softly. “I’m going to go down and make sure that none of the dead got in the warehouse before those two blocked the opening. I’ll be back up as soon as I’m sure it is OK.”
Trish jumped to her feet. “I’ll help you.”
Tony looked at her. He didn’t want her to go down until he knew it was safe. He realized he was feeling protective of her for some reason. “No, you wait here, it won’t take me long.”
Trish stared at the floor. Normally she would never have dared to question what she was told to do. That had always ended with her getting smacked around. But that was before Tony and she liked being here with Tony. If it wasn’t for him she knew she would be dead. She was also worried that something might happen to him. She looked up. “You need someone to watch your back. I can do that. Honest, I know how to move around and watch for zombies.”
Tony smiled. “I know you’re right. In fact you are probably better at it than I am. I guess the sooner we learn how to work as a team the safer it will be for both of us. OK, come on, but stay close to me!”
Tony went down the ladder first with his bow over his shoulder. When he reached the bottom, he slid an arrow on to the bow and turned to make a quick scan of the ground floor. So far it all looked good, there was nothing moving.
He looked up the ladder. “OK, come on down.”
Trish came down and stood next to Tony.
“Why don’t you grab that metal bar to use as a weapon?” Tony pointed to the metal bar he had often carried with him when he had made his rounds to check out the warehouse. Now he just kept it by the bottom of the ladder just in case he ever needed it.
Trish bent down and picked it up. “This is too heavy!” She said as she let it drop back to the floor.
“Sorry!” Tony said. “Put your hand on my back and follow me. I have something better that you should be able to handle.”
Trish held on to the back of Tony’s shirt. He started walking. Trish held on and watched their backs as he moved forward.
Tony stopped at the first shelf, reached up to the second level and pulled down an aluminum baseball bat. “Here, try this.”
Trish took the bat and smiled. “I can handle this.”
“Good, now you watch the left side and I’ll look on the right side. We’ll go down the center aisle and if it’s clear, we’ll check the outside aisles next.” Tony instructed. “Tug on my shirt if you see anything.”
Trish nodded as Tony led her down the center of the warehouse. They moved slowly and studied every shadow as they went, watching for any movement that would indicate they weren’t alone.
It only took them a few minutes to reach the end of the building. Tony felt relieved when everything looked normal. “OK, I’m going to go around the last shelf and follow along the wall near the doors, then back up to the front of the building.“
Trish nodded again and smiled nervously.
They had circled the walls around the shelves, again all was clear, nothing had been disturbed. They were now standing back near the ladder at the front end of the warehouse..
“I think the warehouse is clear.” Tony now said out loud. “To tell you the truth, when I woke up this morning I was worried about how long it was going to take us to get all the dead out of the warehouse.”
“What are we going to do about that door?” Trish asked.
“First I’m going to get a pair of gloves and drag those two outside.” Tony replied. “I think I can take one of the doors off the back of that truck’s trailer out front. It’s like a big piece of sheet metal. I should be able to bolt it over the hole.”
Tony thought for a second then looked at Trish. “Come on. I’m going to get some screws and tools for the door.” Tony said. “Maybe you could get us a couple brooms from shelf number three. After we get that hole covered we need to clean our room.”
Trish laughed. “You sound like my mom, telling me to clean my room.”
“I hope you never blew up your room when you were little.” Tony smiled.
Trish grinned back at him.
“You didn’t?” Tony said.
“No.” Trish answered then smiled. “It only looked like it sometimes.”
Tony smiled and continued to look around the warehouse before moving on.
“Keep your eyes open, just in case.” Tony said as he put on a heavy pair of gloves. “After you find the brooms you can stand watch while I go out to take the door off the back of that truck.”
“OK.” Trish replied as she started to look over the shelves to find the brooms.
Tony picked up the metal bar that was too heavy for Trish and used it to pry the dead off the jagged edges around the hole on the left bay door.
“I should have wrapped something around my face.” Tony thought as the smell coming from the dead got really gross when their bodies broke apart as he pulled them loose.
He pushed the bodies out through the opening. He had to pull an arm and some unknown parts that remained hanging off the jagged metal and toss them outside with the rest of the body.
Tony used his gloves to wipe as much of the blood and dead smelly crud off of the door as he could. He would have to be careful he didn’t cut himself on the jagged edges when he went out or the results would be the same as if he had been bitten.
He had just finished wiping the edges of the opening and tossed his gloves outside when Trish walked up carrying two push brooms.
“I found these big brooms. There were some regular ones, but I thought we needed heavy duty brooms for that mess upstairs.” Trish said.
“Good thinking.” Tony smiled as he picked up a screw driver and a wrench. “Why don’t you set them over by the ladder? Then you can watch while I go out to get that door off the trailer.”
“OK, I’ll come watch your back.” Trish said as she leaned the brooms against the wall at the base of the ladder and ran over to Tony.
“Be careful not to touch the edges around this hole. There was zombie guts all over it. I wiped it off with my gloves but I still wouldn’t touch it.” Tony said as he looked outside through the gash in the door. “This should only take me a few minutes.”
“Be careful!” Trish said as she stared at the bloody smears around the ragged hole in the door.
Tony smiled as he watched Trish wrinkle her nose, then he turned and disappeared outside.
Trish stared out through the opening and watched Tony open the door to the trailer that had been backed up towards the warehouse. The trailer was empty inside. He hopped up in the back and started pushing at something near the hinges with a screwdriver.
Trish nervously looked past the truck and checked the tree line and the clearing to be sure nothing was sneaking up on Tony.
Finally the door started to come away from the hinges. Tony steadied the door and lowered it to the floor of the trailer. He hopped out of the truck and pulled the door out and lowered it to the ground. The door was heavier than Tony thought as he struggled to drag the door towards the building. He was trying to be as quiet as he could. He was a little nervous, but he knew he would feel much better when he had that hole securely covered.
Trish stuck her head out the opening. “Tony, you want me to come help you carry that? It looks heavy.”
“No, you stay there and keep watching the clearing. When I get it to the building you can help me by pulling it through the hole while I push.” Tony smiled. He knew the door was too heavy for Trish to carry. He only hoped she would be able to pull it some to help him get it inside the building.
Trish stood by the opening and waited for Tony to pull the trailer door over to where she waited to help him. When he reached Trish he pushed the door up on its side and angled the end of the trailer door in through the gash.
“I got it.” Trish called out.
“I’ll push and you pull!” Tony called out.
Tony strained to push. Suddenly everything went black as he felt a sharp pain shoot through the side of his head.
Trish pulled as hard as she could. “Wow this door is really heavy.” She called out to Tony.
She pulled but for a minute the door didn’t move.
Suddenly the door began to move again. Trish pulled and the door slid in through the ragged opening towards her.
Tony had his head down and his shoulder to the truck door as he pushed it into the warehouse.
After the door was fully inside, Trish stepped to the side and watched as the door fell on its side in front of her. She jumped as it banged loudly when it hit the floor.
Trish turned to look at Tony, The smile on her face vanished. She felt like someone had just poured ice water down her back. Her entire body started to shake.
“Trish, you don’t look very happy to see me.” Ken said.
Trish stared and tried to force herself to speak. Finally she managed to get the words out. “Where is Tony?”
“Tony.” Ken smiled. “Who is Tony?”
Trish shook as she watched the sickening smile on Ken’s face. “Where is Tony?” Trish asked again as tears began to fill her eyes.
“You mean that guy out there lying among the dead bodies.” Ken grinned. “I don’t think he will be bothering us. It’s just you and me and all this stuff.”
Tears started to run down Trish’s cheeks.
Ken looked around and started to laugh. “You fell into a damn gold mine. We’ll I guess I should correct that, we fell into a damn gold mine. I thought there would be some food in here, but I can’t believe all this shit.”
Trish shook all over. She wrapped her arms around herself to try and steady her shaking and to make herself think.
Ken turned back and looked at her. “I have all this and now I have you too.”
Ken stared. Trish couldn’t believe this. After all she had been through, just when she finally thought she was safe. Safe for the first time in a year. Just when she found someone she could trust, someone that was nice to her.
She looked past Ken out through the gash in the door.
Her worst nightmare was pressing in around her.
Ken laughed as he watched the agony on Trish’s face.
“You probably thought you would never see me again. You probably thought I would just wander off somewhere and never come back.” He laughed. “But I never had any intention of going anywhere. I just sort of hung around and watched and listened. I knew that bastard Roy was on to something. I also knew the selfish prick would never share and keep everything to himself. You see when I saw he was up to something I started to follow him. I watched the dumb ass using you to get food from the guy in this warehouse. What an asshole. I followed you all over here each time and watched. I am happy to see your little butt didn’t get eaten by those dead creeps.”