Dead Highways: Origins (18 page)

He had a little bit of everything piled by the door. Cases of junk food. Twelve packs of soda. Twenty-four packs of water. As well as other essentials like lighters, road maps, foam coolers, motor oil, and batteries of various sizes, all shoved into plastic bags.

“What . . . no beef jerky?” I said.

Aamod ignored me. I had a feeling he was still pissed about the whole Jerry thing.

Douche.

Peaches stepped up into the firing line. “Hey, do you think I can get a carton or two of cigarettes?”

“Yes, go ahead.”

“Cool, thanks.”

Yeah. Definitely still pissed at me.

While Peaches went behind the counter to get the cigarettes, the rest of us, minus Mr. Cripple in the backseat, loaded the stuff Aamod had neatly stacked into the trunk of the car.

When we finished, I said, “Anything else?”

Aamod walked back into the store and came out a moment later with his shotgun.

Guns Unlimited.

We parked next to Robinson’s squad car. He had left the windows slightly open so Jax wouldn’t die of heat exhaustion in the back seat.

“You staying in the car, Diego? I could leave the air on.”

“No, I better get up and walk around again. Plus I don’t want you picking out my piece.”

“So you’re saying you
didn’t
want me to get you a pink Saturday night special?”

The windows had bars on them, but the door had no such safety apparatus. It was open, and by the look of the bent and busted doorframe, had probably been kicked open.

Oh, Robinson, what have you done?

I stepped inside, surprised not only that Robinson and Bowser weren’t there, but that practically nothing was on the shelves. On a normal day, there would be rifles and shotguns hung on every wall, while handguns, scopes, and other accessories would be inside one of the glass display cases. Today, however, there wasn’t one single gun on the wall, and the glass cases had been smashed to pieces, their contents totally cleaned out.

“Oh man,” I said, stopping in the center of the store. Glass cracked under my shoes. “This place has already been hit.”

The others cautiously came up beside me.

“Where’s Robinson?” Peaches asked, holding Olivia.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. He should be here. Wait a minute.”

I went behind the counter and slowly walked through the dark, windowless storage room. Nobody was back there. Likewise, the shelves were as empty as the rest of the building. Whoever had come here must have brought a couple of full-sized vans and backed them right up to the door. I came to a small desk in the corner with various forms and receipts scattered across the surface. I flipped through them but saw nothing of interest.

“What’s through here?” Peaches asked, as I came out of the storage room. She was standing by the door to the gun range, where on occasion I had played with Sally until she got too hot to handle.

Everyone followed me into the range except Diego, who had already tired of walking, and leaned lazily against one of the empty shelves. Aamod, on the other hand, held his shotgun waist-high and was ready to fire at the first mouse that scampered across the floor.

The range was darker and colder than the storage room, and the smell of gunpowder was stronger than I remembered. Past the six shooting stations was a final door that I assumed led outside, but it wouldn’t open. It was key-locked.

I suddenly got a chill that sucked the very air out of my lungs. Standing in the large, dark room, my imagination began playing tricks on me, and the walls felt like they were closing in. Claustrophobia, and the fear of being trapped in the dark, was enough to make me run for the open door.

Pronto.

Then a gunshot rang out.

The concrete block muffled much of the sound, though the echo in the hollow chamber seemed to hit us from all directions at once.

Everyone stopped in the dark, stopped going for the door. I pulled Sally out and flicked off the safety.

“Was that a gun going off?” Naima asked.

“Yes, Naima,” Aamod answered.

“Diego,” I called out. “Is everything okay out there?”

No response.

Holy motherfucking shit!

No way I was just gonna run out into a trap. I pictured someone kneeling down behind Robinson’s car, the barrel of their rifle resting on the trunk, waiting to pick us off as we came through the doorway.

Then another gunshot rang out.

And another.

“Diego!” This time I yelled as loudly as I could. “If you’re alive, say something!”

Aamod was creeping up to the door, getting ready to peek around the corner and probably get a bullet in the head, when Diego finally responded.

“Yes. Come here now!”

We rushed out of the range and back into the gun shop. Diego was by the front door, cautiously peering out.

“Who’s shooting at us?” I asked.

“No one. Look.”

We all gathered behind Diego and looked outside. Two black men lay in the road right behind the Buick, not moving, bleeding from their heads. My first thought was the worst thought—that the two dead black men in the road were Robinson and Bowser—but on further inspection, I could see that wasn’t the case. The two in the road were dressed in brightly colored clothing, and both were much younger and thinner than my friends.

Far off to the left, a bullet penetrated a parked car sitting in front of a body shop across the street. Somebody was hiding behind the car, the top of their head barely visible.

“You see that? Somebody’s behind that car.”

“And over there,” Aamod said, pointing to the right, where a different person was sneaking a glance around the corner of the red-bricked wall of a local bank.

Seconds later, a bullet took off a chunk of the wall, sending shattered pieces of brick exploding to the ground. The figure just missed being hit, and then disappeared back behind the building.

A third person, a woman with long brown hair, appeared directly center of us, between the two buildings. She looked around for a moment, and then began to back up the way she came. Then she stopped, her eyes like lasers focused on us.

Two consecutive shots hit the parked car again, one blew out a tire.

The young woman was still staring at us, or at least appeared to be.

“What is she doing?” Naima asked.

“She’s infected,” I said. “She probably doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

“Looks like she’s looking right at us,” Luna said.

“Who is shooting at them?” I asked.

“Kind of sounds like it’s coming from . . .” Peaches started to look around the building, and then up at the ceiling.

“From where?” Diego inquired.

“From up on the roof, maybe. I don’t know.”

“Hmm,” I mumbled. “You may be right.”

“I think she is,” Aamod said. “I will go check.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

Aamod again ignored me and slowly stepped outside, shotgun ready. As he made it to Robinson’s squad car, he turned around and pointed the shotgun up at the roof of the building.

Nobody made a sound. I think we all held our breath, hoping Aamod didn’t end up with a bullet between his eyes.

Then his facial expression changed from dead serious to—

Relief?

He lowered the shotgun to his side, and said, “What are you doing up there?” He waved us to come outside.

Robinson and Bowser were standing on the roof of the gun shop, smiles as wide as the sun. Next to them was a man with an unforgettable face. In his hands was a long range, bolt-action rifle.

The owner of Guns Unlimited.

Ted.

“Come around, y’all,” he said.

We walked around the building to the back entrance. An old green Jeep with a removable top was parked alongside a chain-linked fence that separated the commercial property from residential. Tall trees on the other side of the fence shaded much of the back lot from the harsh morning sun.

Bowser was already down from the roof when we rounded the corner, having climbed down an iron ladder connected to the building, just to the right of the back door—the locked one that led into the range. Robinson was next to climb down, then Ted.

“Hell, I thought you looked familiar,” Ted said.

“It’s me,” I said, shaking his hand.

I still couldn’t believe how many freckles Ted had. Freckles on top of freckles. It was unreal.

“Robinson told me your name and that you bought a gun from me, but not much else. I said I’d probably remember you if I saw your face. And lo and behold, I was right. I’ll never forget the first time you walked into the store. So unassuming. It’s good to see you haven’t killed yourself. You should really get a holster for that, though . . . don’t want to shoot your pecker off.”

I nodded. “That’s why we came here. But by the looks of it there’s nothing left.”

“Yeah, I got cleaned out in a matter of hours. The looters went mad. I left for a short time, and when I came back, it was all gone. Tell you what, this isn’t the business you want to be in when everything falls apart. But I’m just glad to be alive . . . or I should say, glad to not be like the rest of them.”

“The looters didn’t touch the bookstore,” I said.

“No, why would they?” Ted said, smiling. “Who are your friends here?”

I introduced everyone, and then turned to Robinson.

“Did you see us when we pulled in?”

“Yeah, we saw you.”

“How come you didn’t say anything?”

Bowser grinned. “Thought we’d have a little fun with you.”

“It wasn’t funny,” Aamod said.

For once, I agreed with him.

“We were keeping lookout,” Robinson said. “No safer place to sit and wait for you than up on the roof.”

“Still, I heard the gunshots and thought somebody was shooting at us.”

“Sorry. A couple of crazies ran up fast . . . wanted to follow you in. So Ted had to take them down.”

“Is that your Jeep?” Peaches asked Ted.

“Yep, that’s mine.”

“I used to have one just like it years ago.”

Suddenly, Jax started barking.

We hurried back toward the front of the building. Halfway there, Ted stopped and raised his rifle. A man was putting his arms through the partially open back window of Robinson’s squad car, trying to grab Jax. A moment later, he was face up on the pavement, dead.

Ted racked the bolt and looked around for other infected. Seeing none in the immediate vicinity, he lowered the rifle.

“Have you been here all morning?” I asked.

“Most of it,” Ted replied. “I came back here to retrieve some personal items I had left in my desk. Then as I was about to leave, I saw someone getting attacked across the street by two men and a woman. So I yelled at the attackers to stop, but then ended up running for my life.”

“They chased you onto the roof?”

“Well, I ran to get to my Jeep, but then I changed my mind, thinking with the top down they’d have an easy time getting a hold of me. So I decided to go up on the roof. Luckily, I got up there before they came around the corner, so they never saw me. They wandered around for damn near thirty minutes wondering where I went, and then finally headed off. After I was sure they were long gone, I came down and got the rifle out of my Jeep and went to check on the person they had attacked. Unfortunately, though, I was too late. He was dead.”

“We’ve had multiple close encounters ourselves,” I said.

“Yeah, I heard. I don’t understand what’s happening to people. It was gonna be hard enough to get by when they were all in comas. Now that they’ve lost their minds . . .”

“I just wonder where they’re going,” I said.

“Why do you think they’re going somewhere?” Robinson asked. “And not just wandering around searching for their next victim.”

“Because they’re all heading the same direction,” Naima said. “West.”

“All of them? Really?”

“Sure looks that way,” I said. “From what we saw on the drive over here.”

“Huh. That’s strange,” Ted said. “I hadn’t really noticed which way they were going. Of course, I’ve been trying to lay low as much as possible. But now that I think of it, the three that chased me up on the roof
had
headed off west. Didn’t really think much of it at the time.”

“So what are you suggesting we do, Jimmy?” Robinson asked. “Follow them?”

“I wasn’t suggesting anything, certainly not to follow them. I was just wondering.”

Robinson sighed. “Good thing. With the firepower we’ve got, we wouldn’t make it very far anyway.”

“Speak for yourself,” Ted said.

“What do you mean? I thought you got totally cleaned out?”

“The
store
got cleaned out. I’ve got my own personal collection back at my house.”

“How big?” Bowser inquired.

“Come back to my place and see for yourself.”

So we did.

Ted led the way in his Jeep, followed by Robinson, and then me in the rear. Aamod and Naima rode with Robinson and Bowser this time so the Buick wouldn’t be so squished. Peaches, Olivia, Diego, and Luna, all stuck with me.

Bad idea.

It would be the last time I ever drove my grandma’s car.