Authors: Armand Rosamilia
"Stop with the pathetic pouting. It makes your face look weird," Bri said, trying to lighten the mood. Suddenly they'd stepped into another awkward fight, and she didn't want to have it out in the open.
"I'm not pouting," Hayden said. He was definitely pouting to Bri.
She continued up the street, looking for the couple. She hoped Hayden would shut up and follow, and lead them to wherever the two people had gone.
He did, which made her happy.
"They went right at the next corner," Hayden said. "Stop when you get there. I feel someone in an upstairs window across the street watching."
Bri didn't argue. She moved to her right, stepping over a torched body and putting her back against the wall just before the corner. Hayden caught up and stood a few feet away, out of range for prying eyes.
"There's a woman. She's alone. The building is filled with zombies but she doesn't seem to care. I'm not feeling fear or panic. She's just... she tried to lure the couple into the building but they kept going for some reason," Hayden said.
"One problem at a time," Bri said. As if they didn't have enough to worry about, now there was some evil bitch in the area as well. "Let's follow the couple and see where they go."
Chapter Ten
Tosha felt like a new woman. She'd found a pair of leather walking shoes that fit and a new pair of jeans as well as three black t-shirts, in a men's department, that were baggy but allowed her room to move her arms and fight.
She'd nearly cried when she found a rubber band on the floor. She used it to pull her wild red hair back and out of her eyes. It was the simple things in life that kept her going.
At some point, survivors had holed up in the mall offices, but the door had been breached and there was so much blood covering everything Tosha almost missed the four backpacks filled with canned goods and water as well as a loaded .22 and a new machete still in the packaging.
Higher ground was where she needed to be between searching the mall for more hidden treasures. If she could find her way to a loft in one of the department stores or the roof, she'd be safer. She hadn't encountered more zombies but knew there were enough open doors it was only a matter of time before they came wandering in.
She was worried she'd settle in and never continue on her journey, even though she had no idea why she kept moving north. What was the point? It should only be survival. Yet... she wanted to find the baby and then... Tosha had no idea.
Her sister was once again AWOL. Even though she never talked back it was nice and comforting to know Mathyu was nearby and watching over her. Tosha was confident her sister was guiding her journey and offering clues even though most of the time she had no idea what the clue was.
A trip through the back corridors of the mall brought her to the electrical room but the door was locked from the inside. She knocked on the door, feeling like she had nothing to lose.
"Hello? Anyone in there? Come on out if you can hear me," Tosha said.
A thump on the other side of the door wasn't surprising. Tosha tapped on the heavy door again and heard another thump. It sounded like one zombie was on the other side but there was no way she could open the door and find out. What if the ladder to the roof was behind this door?
Duh. Tosha wanted to kick herself. While she was inside the offices of the mall, she should've searched for blueprints or even a map of the place. Had she passed a security office? It would be in the same general area.
"I'll be back. Don't you go changing," Tosha said to the door and worked her way back through the maze of hallways. She'd need to find batteries soon for the flashlight. From so much use, the thin light beam was waning. She didn't want to be trapped in a pitch black corridor with real or imagined monsters surrounding her.
The security office was on the next hallway from the mall offices. The door was open and the dormant monitors and desks were covered in blood. There'd been a battle in this small space.
Tosha didn't want to risk going into the room and slipping on blood or whatever else was lying on the floor until she spotted the .22 on the ground in the corner.
She used her free hand to keep in touch with the walls and kept the flashlight, in her other hand, on the prize as she took her time moving, trying not to think about the dried puddles of blood her new sneakers were sticking to.
There was also a locker built into the wall with the lock broken and on the floor near the pistol. Tosha picked up the .22, covered in gore, and checked to see if it was loaded. It was. She put it in her waistband and sighed. Her new clothes and shoes were already filthy and it had only taken about an hour.
The locker wasn't filled with shotguns and bulletproof vests. It was where the security guards had stored their lunches, which were now mold and rot, and their personal items. Tosha sorted through three wallets, a ripped open carton of cigarettes and two small flashlights. She took the flashlights and the smokes. Maybe she could trade them at a later date. Everything was worth something.
Back into the mall offices and she found a map of the entire mall, as well as the location of two ladders to get to the roof. One of them was on the outside and the other in the nearest department store stockroom.
Tosha didn't want to go out of the mall unless it was standing on the roof so she made her way to the department store, moving slowly as she passed through dark areas of the main hallway.
Someone had tried to close the entry doors to the mall but the gate on one side wasn't all the way down and a severed rotting body was sprawled across the floor. Tosha imagined a rush of zombies crowding the entrance while associates and customers fought for their lives.
She was expecting an attack at any moment. The mall was big enough a survivor could be hiding anywhere and watching and she'd never be the wiser. If she got down on her hands and knees and crawled under the fence, she'd be vulnerable, but lifting the metal gate might make way too much noise.
Tosha turned suddenly, spinning on her heels with a .22 leading the way.
She was still alone.
Paranoid much? Calm it down
, she thought. There was nothing sneaking up behind her and she couldn't tell if the noises were real or imagined. It was too quiet all the time. Even the damn zombies didn't moan like they were supposed to.
Tosha slid under the gate as quickly as she could and got into a shooting stance on one knee on the other side. Nothing was out of place. It looked like every other store she'd visited in the past few months: blood coating the floors, everything of value gone or smashed, and way too many dark corners to hide an undead army.
She needed to find the stockroom and the ladder before her mind played so many tricks on her she'd curl up in the fetal position and lose her shit.
The shoe department was virtually untouched, tucked into a corner of the store. Tosha shined her light on the displays and saw a few really cute high heels she would've tried to wear when she went clubbing. She smiled when she thought of all the trips to the mall with her sister when Mathyu would roll her eyes at the latest fashions, preferring ugly old lady sneakers or men's work boots and never worrying about how she looked.
Tosha stopped and checked out the sneaker racks, finding another pair in her size of the same ones she had on. In this new world, she needed a backup pair or two with all the walking she knew she'd be doing.
The stockroom was dark but neat. There wasn't any blood on the floor and nothing looked out of place. A thin layer of dust covered everything, which was a good sign. Zombies hadn't gotten back here, at least from this doorway.
A pile of unopened boxes were stacked against the wall near a back door, product that would never get to the sales floor.
The footwear department stockroom led into the men's department one, and racks of suits were the first thing she saw, dust covering the material as it hung. The air was filled with dust as she moved, stirring up from the clothing and shelves.
Tosha went to a door in the last row of the stockroom and opened it, waiting for an attack. Her shoulders were hurting from the anxiety of never knowing what was around the next corner.
It was another stockroom, filled with baby items on all four walls and a pallet of boxes in the center. The room was no more than twenty feet by twenty feet.
Tosha took a peek out, making sure she hadn't been followed by anyone, before closing the door behind her to reduce the noise. She opened one of the large boxes and smiled.
It contained baby comforters. Maybe a dozen. Tosha pulled one out and ripped open the plastic, smelling the fabric as she pushed it against her face. This was wonderful. She couldn't remember the last time she'd smelled anything clean, free of filth and wear and blood.
She explored the shelves, peeking in unopened boxes and seeing if anything was worth saving.
All of it
, she thought.
This might be the last place to find baby clothes and bottles and rattles and sheets.
Tosha thought about finding Darlene's baby. What was her game plan once she found it? She wasn't a mother and had no real experience other than taking care of her sister.
What if she rescued the kid but could never find Darlene again, or what if she didn't want to find Darlene and kept the baby for her own, and...
Tosha shook her head. She was on a mission even if it made no sense. Survival should be the only thing worth worrying about, not some fucking baby that was probably dead by now anyway.
Mathyu was in the room, standing in the corner, and Tosha jumped as usual.
"Stop fucking doing that. I know it's on purpose, you bitch. You're always messing with me. I swear, you were probably trying to scare me in mom's womb," Tosha said.
The sisters stared at one another for a long moment before Tosha looked away.
"I'll never win a staring contest with you, alive or dead. I love and hate you, sis," Tosha said and began pulling baby comforters out of the box, unwrapping and placing them on the floor away from the door and with the pallet of boxes blocking the view.
Tosha looked back at her sister and shrugged. "I'll find the ladder to the roof later. I'm tired and I'm going to take a damn nap. Do me a favor and stand guard? Shout if anyone is coming."
It was ironic how quiet her sister had been since dying, especially considering all the noise she made when she played videogames. Mathyu would jump up and down in her seat as if the action on the TV screen was coming to life and she'd be drawn into it. She yelled on her headset for idiots all over the world to get in line and stop screwing up her mission. She yelled when she got a great kill or was killed. Their neighbors in the apartment building had often banged on the walls or called the landlord to shut her up.
Her twin was still staring as Tosha dropped onto the soft comforters. She'd go through the other boxes when she woke from a power nap and then find the roof ladder.
"Go wander around the mall and see if you can find me a good book to read or cheese. I'm really in the mood for crackers, too," Tosha said and closed her eyes.
Chapter Eleven
Bernie couldn't get the images out of her head and she feared it would drive her mad. She was shaking so much the car was moving and the zombies around her would hear it and try to get inside the trunk where she was hiding.
She closed her eyes as tightly as she could like she'd do as a scared child. The monsters were under the bed or in the closet and daddy would have to investigate, driving all the bad things away into the night.
Now the bad things were real and looking for Bernie in the daylight, no longer content with making a few noises underneath the bed.
Everyone was dead.
Bernie wanted to cry so she covered her mouth. Any noise would alert the monsters.
She didn't remember all of their names, even though only a few hours had passed since the attack. Since the slaughtering.
He'd been one of the smart ones, acting like a hurt human who only needed a place to crash. The gray eyes had finally given him away but by then it was too late. His laughter as he began ripping people apart with insanely strong hands still echoed in Bernie's head.
She felt responsible in part for their deaths, too. She'd convinced Ted and everyone else to not follow Darlene. If she was a smombie, she was too dangerous to hunt. What would it prove, anyway? If they killed her, they'd be no better off. In fact, by trying to track her, they were putting themselves in danger. Bernie had argued they'd dodged a bullet. Better to let her go her own way and double the guard in case she had any ideas to come back and catch them unaware.
Bernie knew in her heart Darlene wasn't a monster. Ted thought she was wearing colored contacts to hide the gray, but Bernie knew Darlene was something else completely.