Dead, but Not for Long (33 page)

Lindsey thanked him and stepped inside, pulling
out the list to look it over. Normally she would have been concerned about
taking too much from the store. Now that they knew that the military was
pulling out of Lansing and writing off the city as a loss, it didn’t matter so
much. It was evident that most of the survivors who had been able to evacuate
had already left. Those who were left were most likely trapped inside buildings and unable to get to the shops anyway.

They took everything that they thought they might
need and, as an afterthought, Lindsey left a note mentioning that they had
taken the supplies to St. Mary’s Hospital and that survivors were welcome there.

“Too bad we didn’t think to make that sign before,”
Snake said. “We could have made copies and left them around town.”

“We could still do that,” Lindsey said. “The hospital might be the only safe place left.”

As they drove on, they were able to find a gas
station that had electricity and was still taking credit cards, though the
place had been abandoned. A few of the bikers went inside to salvage any food
they could find. Others stood guard as Snake filled the truck with diesel.

“Wow,” Lindsey said, watching as the total came up
on the pump. “That’s ridiculous. This is why I drive a Honda Civic.”

“Well, one good thing. You may never have to pay
that credit card bill. I doubt anybody will come and hunt you down for it, anyway.”

“Now that’s what I call looking on the bright
side,” she said with a grin as Snake put the gas cap back on. “Where do we go next?”

“Now that we know we can get diesel here, we need
something that’ll hold some fuel so we can take it back for the generator,”
Snake said, looking at the sky. It would be dark before long. “If we can’t find
anything, we can just haul the diesel in the tank of the truck, then siphon it out
to use for the generator, but I’d rather not do it that way if we don’t have to.”

“Probably the fewer trips we take, the better,” Lindsey agreed.

“Let’s do some grocery shopping then head home,”
he suggested. “We can keep our eyes open for a container along the way.”

They stopped several times to check out shops that
had storage yards behind them. Their perseverance finally paid off when one of
the men spotted a rusty fifty gallon tank inside one of the yards. He called to
Snake from his perch on the roof of the building to let him know.

“Got a pretty big fence around it, though,” he added.

Snake got out and walked over to look at the fence
before returning to get a set of bolt cutters from the truck. It didn’t take
long to cut through the padlock but when the gate swung free, two of the
walking dead lumbered out and grabbed for the big biker. Snake stumbled
backwards, not having expected the onslaught. He glanced at the bolt cutters
still in his hands and decided that they weren’t the best weapon but maybe they’d
work. He closed them and lifted them in one hand, bringing the metal down hard
onto the head of the closest zombie.

“Guys!” he yelled, when the creature stumbled but
kept coming. “Could use a little firepower here.”

Two of the men had been watching the parking lot
and a couple of the others were nearby, waiting to help with the tank, but they’d
been having a conversation and not paying attention. At Snake’s words, they all jumped into action.

The first of the two was now close enough that
Snake could see the rotting flesh in its teeth and the missing nail on one
hand. The second one was also closing in fast. Snake kicked the first one high
and hard, sending it back at the second one. It didn’t take them down but it
bought him the time he needed to move away so the others could come in with
weapons and finish off the two ghouls. When the biker who had been on the roof
climbed down, Snake grabbed him by the front of his jacket. The man’s eyes grew wide.

“S-sorry, Boss, I was so busy looking at the tank that I forgot to check for zombies.”

In the old days, Snake would have probably taught him a lesson that would have taken him years to forget.
Instead, he growled in a low voice, “Don’t let it happen again. Got it?”

He let the grateful man go. Snake knew that the
move had been a sloppy one on his part, too. Normally he would not have opened
the gate without someone standing by with weapons, but he was tired and so were
the others. It was the kind of move that could get them killed, and he knew it.
They had to be alert at all times on the supply runs.

He stepped into the yard and looked around as two
of the men grabbed the tank and carried it back to the truck.

“It’s not in great shape,” one of them said, “but
it’ll probably do the job as long as we can find a way to cover the top. Looks
like it’s broken off.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Snake said.

“You know,” Wolf said, appearing to be deep in
thought. “That gate would be just about the right size for the wall at the hospital.”

Snake looked it over and nodded. “If not, I’m sure
we could make adjustments. It’s a good, sturdy, iron gate. There’s a pile of
sheet metal we could bring along to cover the front of it. What would it take to dismantle it?”

“The gate panels just lift off the pins,” Wolf
said, “though that’s something we may want to change. The hard part would be
getting the bolts out of the wall, but we could do it.”

“This should help,” one of them said, walking over with a sledge hammer.

“Let’s keep that hammer, too,” Snake said. “We’ve
already got one, but it wouldn’t hurt to have another.”

It took a while for them to get the gate and
hardware removed and packed into the truck with the tank, but Snake felt that
the time had been well-spent. He knew they would all rest easier once they had
a gate in place. When they reached the grocery store, Snake yawned and stepped
out of the truck. The lack of sleep was getting to him and he took a moment to
let the cool air clear his head.

“Okay, guys, let’s make it quick,” he said. “You know the routine, look up, look down.
They could be anywhere. Let’s grab some stuff and get out of here.”

One of the men opened the back of the truck and
got some help lifting out the tank they had found earlier. It would go back in
after the groceries so they could reach it easily to fill it later. The bikers
silently took care of the handful of infected that were scattered around the
parking lot. The glass doors to the store were shattered and Snake had little
hope of finding much, but they had to try. He backed the truck up so it was close to the entrance.

They hurried in and were surprised to find the place fairly zombie-free, though bodies littered the floor.
Many of them were still moving, though most were not.

“Looks like someone else got here first,” Snake said. “Made things easy for us.”

“They left a lot of crawlers,” Lindsey noticed. “It almost looks like the legs were intentionally broken on some of them.
I wonder why. Why not just kill them?”

In the aisle across from where Snake stood, a figure waited, eyes fixed on the big biker.
When it moved, it was faster than any zombie they’d encountered yet.

~*^*~

Snake moved fast when he saw the large shape coming toward him. He grabbed his aluminum bat and was ready to swing when he stopped suddenly.

“You son of a bitch!” A tall, blond woman stood in front of him, her face inches away from his.

Snake froze. The voice was a ghost from his shady past and Helga was the last person he wanted to see.

Although he’d had a promising future at one time,
the war had left Snake with some scars that he’d tried to cover with drugs and
alcohol. He had spent the remainder of his youth indulging himself at the
expense of others. When he had found God, later in life, he had tried to
reconcile himself to those he’d hurt. The problem therein was that the list was
so long, he was constantly running into those who hadn’t been aware of his
change of heart, or didn’t care.

Although Helga was two decades younger than Snake,
theirs was the most serious relationship he had ever had. They’d lived together
for a while and he’d even agreed to marry her when she had told him that he had
to. When they’d finally set a date, she’d been ecstatic. As the date had grown
closer, Snake had grown more uncomfortable. Finally, the day had come. Her
family had come into town the night before to attend the noon wedding. As she
had visited with them, Snake had told her that he had to go grab a pack of
cigarettes. He had hopped on his bike, never to be seen by her again, until
now.

“H-hi, Helga,” he stuttered. “I’m still looking for those cigarettes.”

“Cigarettes!” the blond said as she stepped even
closer. She was 6’1 of solid muscle. As she grew more agitated, her Ukrainian
accent grew stronger. “You left me standing there with over a hundred guests
and made me look like a fool. I spent four hundred dollars on a dress for the
wedding! Leather isn’t cheap, you know!”

She glared at him then growled and landed a hard right cross to his face.

Snake stumbled backward and caught himself. He’d
been hit countless times in his life and this ranked up there with some of the
hardest punches. He rubbed his jaw and looked around to see if anyone else had
witnessed what had happened. Unfortunately, Lindsey and some of his men stared
slack-jawed at him, waiting for a response.

“Guess I might’ve deserved that,” Snake said as he
cautiously watched her curled fist for any more signs of aggression.

“Yes, you deserve that!” she said, still yelling
as she rubbed her sore hand. “I got your name tattooed on my ass for a wedding
present to you! Not too many men around named Snake, you know. I had to find a
Jake and change the first two letters!”

She looked like she was thinking about hitting him
again but then she let out a deep breath and glanced away, finally waving at
some of the other bikers that she recognized.

Lindsey decided she’d be wise to make herself scarce, worried that the woman
might get the wrong idea since she and Snake had walked in together. She only hesitated
a moment before quietly moving away with the cart, not looking at Snake or the Amazon.

Snake was curious and he almost asked Helga if he
could see the tattoo. He quickly came to his senses when he saw her scowling at
Lindsey, who was hightailing it down the aisle. His men gave Helga a courtesy
wave and, like rats abandoning a sinking ship, quickly followed Lindsey out of
sight. Suddenly, Snake found himself alone with the mostly-dead zombies and
Helga. The zombies now seemed like better company. His heart raced and a
trickle of cold sweat dripped down his forehead as he tried to think of
something to say to break the ice in her glare. In his panic, he pointed to
where Lindsey had exited and blurted out, “That was my girlfriend.”

Helga’s eyes narrowed as she turned her head
toward the aisle where Lindsey had gone.

“I kill her,” she growled. She thought about going
after the other woman immediately, but she wasn’t done with Snake yet. When one
of the zombies finally made its way over to her and started to moan as it
reached for her foot, she stomped on its head without even looking. It sounded
like an over-ripe melon as it burst. Snake flinched.

“That is who you left me for?” Helga finally
asked. “That little woman? Can she rebuild transmission? Can she pick you up
and throw you on bike when you’re drunk? Nah, that one is way too little!” She
was growing more agitated and she erupted into a string of Ukrainian profanities
before finally calming down again.

“Fine, Snake. You go. You leave me here again,
with zombies this time,” she said, pouting.

Relieved, Snake ran for the door. As he stepped outside, he turned to see the hopelessness in the eyes staring back at him.
They seemed to beg, “Please, don’t do this to me.” He’d never seen such despair.
He couldn’t do it. He felt like all the anger and ferocity was just a mask, and inside was a childlike innocence.
Leaving would be a death sentence; the results could be beyond horrible. Yes, they were zombies, but even zombies
didn’t deserve that. Then he looked at Helga. She was extremely volatile, even in normal times, and these times were far from normal.
He regretted lying to her about Lindsey, but there would still be a chance that she would eventually give up if she thought he was attached.
Besides, her fighting skills could prove to be extremely useful. He hoped the comment she had made about killing Lindsey was exaggerated.

“So, you coming with us?” Snake asked reluctantly.

Helga thought about it for a moment. She hadn’t
seen Jake since he’d gone for cigarettes two weeks earlier, and she was tired of being alone.

“I will go with you,” she said. She reached around
the corner for her M16 and slung it over her shoulder then grabbed the bag of ammo.

There were several gunshots as she finished off
the zombies that she’d mutilated in the store. Once done, she went outside and
disappeared around the building, returning moments later on her Harley. She
came to a sliding stop in front of the store.

Lindsey and the bikers came out with their carts
filled to the top. They made more trips into the store, leaving the carts at
the truck and getting new ones to save time. Two of the men began quickly
loading the groceries into the truck.

By the time they had gotten all that they thought
they could carry, the dead were beginning to drift into the parking lot, drawn
by the sound of the gunfire inside the store.

“Where will we go?” Helga asked Snake.

“We’re staying at a nearby hospital,” he told her.
“We have to finish loading up then you can ride back with the boys. Xena and I
will be driving the truck.”

He turned to Lindsey and gave her an exaggerated smile so that Helga could see.

“Right, Honey?” he asked, winking at Lindsey.

Helga glared at Lindsey then whipped the bike
around the parking lot. She began to methodically take out every zombie in sight.