In order to get the roof door open, Jeff first had to find something that could open the elevator doors. The door locks were mechanical, not electrical, which meant he could lift the bar with a stiff wire. It took a while, but he got it open. He entered the shaft on the floor below and climbed the narrow ladder between elevators to a catwalk at the very top of the shafts. This catwalk was inside the building on the roof. He opened the door, then propped it open.
Within minutes, Mary, Donna, Ana, and Lisa were crowded into the small room.
Several minutes went by. The man screamed a few times, but no one understood what he was saying. Ron and Sal went to the edge of the garage and looked into the dark. They thought they could see several figures standing on the ground below and planned to speak with them. The gun boomed, and Sal fell on the ground next to Ron. Ron ducked to hide from the next bullet and went to Sal’s side to help him.
§
A light flared up, and Weed’s face danced in the darkness. He looked like an old wizard sucking on a giant joint by the firelight. He got it glowing and offered it to Fats. They were several yards away from the others.
“Hit?” Weed quickly added, “Banano.”
Fats waved him off.
“Oh right, you’re some kind of retard. Well, bless the simple and the sage.” Weed, true to his namesake, pulled a mighty drag on his blunt, making it glow like a demon’s eye in the dark, and held it in. Fats was wondering what he should do. The other bikers were eventually going to murder those people.
Weed exhaled. “Say, Fats, you understand me when I speak?”
Henry nodded in the affirmative, watching Weed’s eyes faintly visible in the dark.
“Good. You understand me if I tell you we need to move off even farther? We’ll need a head start in case this shit gets nasty. I don’t think either you or I could make a run for it should the need arise.”
Henry nodded. He debated talking but decided against it.
“Good, let’s go. The others will do what they have to do and meet up with us.” Weed started walking, still dragging on his joint. He stopped to relight the joint with his fire stick. It flamed up bright, and Henry noticed that a few feet in front of them was a huge hole. He had no idea how deep it was. He motioned for Weed to hand him the fire stick.
“You want my flame?” Weed asked as Henry shook his head and motioned his hands as if to say, “Give it here.” Weed handed it to him.
“Careful with that, son. Fire. Hot.”
Henry sparked up the flame and walked to the edge of the hole. He could only see black past the edge and had no idea how deep it was. Weed stepped up next to him.
“Well I’ll be. Good job spotting that hole, man.”
Henry ripped a piece off his tattered T-shirt and lit it. It flared up, and he dropped it down the hole. It fell for quite some distance before he lost it. It could have gone out, hit bottom, or dropped behind something, but one thing was certain, the hole was plenty deep. The flaming scrap of shirt fell at least twenty-five feet before disappearing. He stepped back, a little nervous so close to the crumbly edge.
“Shit, that’s a deep one. Maybe that’s where we can toss the bodies when the boys are done. I got to remember to suggest that. No sense attracting none of them dead.” Weed was standing on the edge, looking down into the darkness. The hole was barely visible in the night, and had Fats not pointed it out, Weed might have just stepped right into it. Even the aluminum ladder spanning the hole, clearly visible in the darkness, served to disguise the hole by drawing the eye. The hole and black tarmac around it appeared to be the same color in contrast to the metallic ladder.
Henry was conflicted. He could easily push the biker into the hole and have one less evil killer to deal with, but he hadn’t witnessed the man commit a crime and he seemed pretty mellow. Henry didn’t like the idea of killing. He believed in God and the afterlife. He was really torn between the two options and pretty much decided he couldn’t commit a cold-blooded murder.
“I tell you, Fats, I wish I was up there right now. Suck’s getting old—don’t do it.” He chuckled, a rasping hoarse sound. “But don’t worry, I know my brothers. Even though we disbanded they’ll still want to honor me as an original member. They’ll save us any pussy they find and give me slaying rights to any prisoners, but I know your brother Banjo wants to string up the coon something awful, and I won’t deny him that. Shit, I’ll cheer him on.”
Henry had heard enough. With one hard shove it was done. Weed was so startled he didn’t start yelling until he was deep in the darkness. His yell was cut short several seconds later. That was a hell of a deep hole, Henry thought. He didn’t feel bad. He knew it had to be done.
§
The old man was gone, and Alanis was alone with the other girls. He’d been nice to them, but what they really needed was a fix and not some soup and crackers. She went down the stairs and opened the door. It was quiet and dark. She entered the store and, although it was very dark, she could feel that she was in a huge cavernous space. She walked forward, almost blind.
The skylights overhead glowed but offered no useful illumination. She felt her way along shelves and plastic-covered stacks of boxes until she came to the end. She debated turning back. If she did, she could go straight back to the office. If she went forward much more, she would possibly get turned around and lost in the darkness. But she knew Banjo kept a major stash in his saddlebags and wanted to get some of his shit, needed to get all of his shit. So with a serious jones egging her on, she walked forward, hands spread out and waving back and forth in the dark.
She knew her chances of stumbling upon Banjo’s bag in the dark were not good. The bags might not even be in the building.
What if he took them with him?
she thought, as well as many other things she should have thought of before she stumbled into the dark warehouse.
She couldn’t see, didn’t have a light source, and didn’t know where she was. If the gang came back, she would most likely be trapped in a hiding place and they would likely find her.
Where the hell is the old man? He left almost an hour ago.
She was deep in thought, inching through the darkness, when a loud boom startled her. She jumped, but then there was silence and a bright light across the warehouse from her.
Alanis froze. She wasn’t sure what to do, but she knew it had to be something other than standing in this spot for much longer. She crept forward to check things out. She could always hide from a human and climb a shelf to get away from the creepers. She moved quietly, almost invisible, and soon came upon an open door in the darkness. Light streamed in, making rays through the dust in the air. She heard an engine shut off, but the lights remained on.
Alanis snuck away from the open door, open to the night and whatever was out there. She quickly worked her way back through the store, intending to get to the office to hide from whoever just busted down the door, when she saw the grouping of sofas and chairs and garbage where the gang had been hanging out. She ran over to do a quick search of the area and came across Banjo’s saddlebags. She snatched them up. They were heavy, but she lugged them back to the office despite the great effort.
In the office she set to work administering the much-needed substances to her and her sisters. Soon they were all floating off on a cloud of bliss away from the hunger, the fear, and the horrible world. They were living, but not alive. Their lives had ended when their friends and family died along with most of the population. Some of their lives had ended long before that.
§
Jeff was in the garage when the first shots were fired. He looked over the edge, saw the shadowy shapes of men on the ground in front of the structure, and took off immediately. He raced to the rear of the structure, away from the men, and went down one of the rear stairwells all the way to the second level. He threw a rope over the edge and slid down. He threw the rope back up to the second level and jogged off into the darkness.
No way he was going to be trapped in the structure if they were under attack. After hearing Ron’s story about the bikers, and seeing the shadowy shapes in front of the parking garage, he knew it was only a matter of time before they made it to the upper levels and killed everyone.
He was almost to the office park when he heard more gunshots ring out.
§
All was quiet as they crossed the lot. Dale was getting nervous.
Shit, I hope they’re friendly and not a bunch of assholes.
Suddenly gunshots boomed and echoed around the lot, startling both Dale and Cooper. Flashes of light illuminated the front of the parking garage, and Dale instinctively crouched and took Cooper down with him. They both lay flat on the ground in the darkness, still and quiet. After a few minutes of silence, Dale whispered to Cooper, “I need to get closer and see what’s happening.”
“What do we do?” Cooper whispered.
“Approach cautiously.” Dale stood and Cooper followed.
§
Wendy pulled her car at an angle right up to the rear door of the Costco. The corner of her bumper was inches from it, so when she tapped the accelerator and then the brake, the door was blown off its hinges but the car didn’t hit the frame of the door. An old boyfriend had taught her how to break down a door using her car, without causing any damage to the car or the structure. She cut the engine but left the lights on so she could see inside the building. She also left the car wedged in the door to keep any wandering corpses from getting in and surprising her in the dark.
She sat in the driver’s seat and listened for a minute, ready to start the car and drive off. The gang didn’t seem to be inside, so she climbed over the hood of the car and slid into the building. She walked around in the dark until she found the two dead dancers in the cage. She had no idea where the other girls were and didn’t see anything else she could do, so she headed back to her car. As she came close to the door, the lights blinding her, she heard moaning and thumping.
The dead were gathered around her car and straining to get into the building. The corpses piled up on both sides of the car, leaned in at her, and reached for her. She felt like she was back on stage, when all the disgusting men leered at her and reached for her to stick a warm, moist dollar down her G-string just to cop a feel. She smiled and shook her breasts at the corpses, finding the dead less objectionable and probably less dangerous than the living men she had danced for. She missed the world as it was, but not that part of it.
She couldn’t get to her car and was trapped in the Costco, unless she wanted to use another door and go out into the night on foot.
§
Ron knelt next to Sal, not knowing what to do. “I’ve never dealt with a bullet wound.” He wasn’t sure where to put his hands. “We need to stop the bleeding.”
“Need to stop the pain,” Sal hissed between clenched teeth. “I feel like I’m going to pass out.”
“I think that’s shock. Stay awake if you can.” Ron could see blood running out of the wound and knew he had to stop it, but he had no idea what to do.
Donna appeared next to him. “Here, let me help.” She nudged Ron aside and knelt by Sal. She was wearing only a bra. She used her shirt to compress the wound. Sal groaned in pain.
“Sorry,” she said to Sal and turned her head to the side. “Ron, honey, we need to clean this as soon as possible and dress it.”
Ron stood and backed up, amazed at how calm and confident his wife was. He turned and ran to get hot water and whatever else he could find. He was scared. He didn’t want to lose Sal. He seemed like a great guy and there seemed to be very few of them these days. And he was angry at these psychopaths who acted this way even though the world had ended. They made it crystal clear to Ron that killing them was the only option.
He gathered water, clothes for bandages, soap, and a lantern and gave them to Donna. Then he ran down a few levels, stood behind a pillar, and yelled, “What do you people want?”
“We want the spook!” It was Banjo.
“You got him. What do you want?”
“You and me got unfinished business. Turn yourself over and we’ll leave your friends alone.”
Ron was silent. He briefly considered turning himself over, but he knew there was no chance these scumbags would keep their word.
“Come on, Sambo, you ain’t leaving alive. If we have to come up there, it’ll be no good for your friends.”
Ron didn’t know what to do. He had no weapons, Sal was seriously hurt, and there were at least five bikers down there. It was only a matter of time before they found a way to ascend the sixteen feet between the ground and the safety of the second level. Ron felt as if his mind had been read when Banjo next spoke.
“You know it’s only a matter of time before we get up there. And I been dragging this noose around way too long.”
§
Jeff managed to climb to the roof and shimmy back across the thick power cables and through the window into the warehouse. He dropped to the ledge below the window and heard the reaction in the darkness below him. A rasping exhalation of air, the shuffle and scrape of the hundreds of bodies below him, the stench—it all threatened to unnerve him. He crept along the wall in complete darkness until he found the chain. He started pulling, and the metallic rattle and faint glow beneath him was what he had hoped for.
After the door opened far enough, the zombies spilled out of the warehouse and Jeff stopped pulling the chain. He started back the way he had come. He made the window with no problems and back across the wires to the next building. He sat on the roof and watched as the army of dead he’d unleashed flowed like lava toward the garage. He wished he could do more for his friends.
§
Cooper stopped, and Dale followed his lead. Cooper was still, silent. Suddenly he started walking to the right and away from the garage structure, but not back the way they’d come in. He looked back briefly to make sure Dale was following him. Both men could hear yelling coming from the direction of the structure. A few more gunshots were fired.