§
Jack and Banjo drove up to the Costco. The lot was full of the dead, and they were all clumped around an open door.
“What the hell?” Banjo looked pissed. “Man, what the hell is going on here?”
They circled the building until they came to Wendy’s car.
Damn whore
, he thought. The door was busted open and the dead were all around her car. They kept circling until they came back to the open door. Banjo drove slowly against the wall, often scraping the sides of the car against the wall, pushing the dead away from the opened door. Banjo hopped out of the window and into the Costco. He was ready with Crow and cracked a few heads. Although the door was open, the first of the dead had wedged themselves into the frame and got stuck. He only had a handful to deal with inside. Jack joined him shortly after.
They closed and braced the doors and searched the warehouse for any remaining dead. They found the dead cage hookers in the cage, but three of the others were missing. There was no one else in the place. They sat down for a drink and stewed.
“Ah shit!” Banjo roared. “My goddamned bags are gone.” He kicked a chair and sent it flying. He was going to find those bastards, and he was going to do it now.
“Brother, I know we came back here to rest up, but I can’t wait. I’m taking off now. I know about where they are, and if they move we may never find them.”
“Right behind you, man.”
Banjo wished he had some dust, but his bags were gone.
§
“Just to be clear, I am not going near that place.” Wendy was emphatic, worried these two kids were going to get themselves killed and her too. She tried to talk them out of it, but they wouldn’t listen. They were going in no matter what, so she decided to help them in any way she could. She described the layout of the Costco, the apparently unknown office, the catwalks, and the broken skylight.
She was behind the wheel of the ambulance as it crept up the street and stopped about a block from the Costco. She cut the engine. There were no dead around that they could see.
“OK, lock the doors and stay out of sight,” Cooper told Wendy as he and Jeff prepared to go. They both habitually dressed in dark clothing and could move quietly. They weren’t worried about anyone, living or dead. “If we’re not back in an hour, leave. Don’t drive past the Costco, just drive to where we told you to go.”
Wendy nodded and the guys left. They walked in silence. The world was silent. There was no one living or dead about. All they planned to do was take a look around.
§
Banjo was getting ready to go back out. Jack didn’t want to just yet, but he followed Banjo’s lead anyway. They dug around until they found some coke in Weed’s bag. It was what he used to make his banano he was always sucking down. Weed’s saddlebags were stuffed with pounds of weed and very little else. Banjo smiled and showed it to Jack, who grinned too.
“Looks like he was traveling light.” Jack wandered off and came back moments later.
“Banj, you don’t mind if I call you Banj, huh? What do you think of us donning some of these fine black hoodies and going out ninja style?”
Banjo looked up and a thought occurred to him. Jeeter, rest his soul, was gone. He pulled the heavy metal helmet off his head. He ran his fingers through his hair.
“Ah, fuck, that’s better.” Banjo slipped off his cut and removed the chain that led from his belt to his wallet. He put on the black hoodie. “That’s much better.”
Jack was almost identically attired, and the two prepared to leave.
§
Cooper and Jeff were at the rear of the Costco. They found the car right where Wendy said it would be. It was at an angle and looked to have rammed the door open, just as Wendy described. They slowly and carefully went over the hood and into the dark store.
Once inside, they listened carefully and heard nothing. There seemed to be no one inside, and after cautiously and thoroughly searching the store, they came to the conclusion there was in fact no one home.
They left the store and walked back to the ambulance. They had been in the store less than thirty minutes, so they were surprised that it wasn’t there.
“Do you think she ditched us?” Jeff asked.
“I don’t know, maybe. Why would she?” Then a thought hit Cooper, and it seemed to occur to Jeff at the same time. They looked at each other as the parts clicked together. The bikers were gone, Wendy was gone, and she knew where their group was hiding. Without saying a word, both guys started looking for a vehicle they could use. It took them longer than they had hoped to find one. Too long, as it would turn out.
§
“Wendy! What a small world.” Banjo was ecstatic. Wendy was terrified. Jack was enjoying Wendy on his lap and could barely wait to slap her around and make her beg.
“Tell me where they are.” Banjo sat in the driver’s seat, the smashed-in window letting in the night air. Wendy didn’t have a chance when he and Jack appeared next to the ambulance in the dark. Banjo had punched through the glass, grabbed her by the hair, and dragged her out.
“There is no one else,” Wendy insisted. A slap from Banjo drew blood from her lip.
“Who is with you, and where are they? Jack, hold her head still so I can get a good shot in.” Jack grabbed Wendy’s head in both hands and immobilized her. Banjo punched her in the face hard, breaking her nose and knocking out a tooth. She was trying to scream through jaws held shut. He cocked back and hit her again. Her eye was black and swollen shut shortly after. He cocked back again, and she was trying to talk through the gushing blood.
“OK, Jack.” Banjo nodded and the biker let her go.
Wendy fell forward, sobbing and holding her hands to her face, but unable to touch it due to the pain. Blood dripped and bubbled from her mouth as she spoke.
“Jack, looks like you might…”
Wendy sat up, waving them off. She spoke with great difficulty and pain. “There is no one else. I stole this vehicle to come get you. I was scared and was waiting here, trying to talk myself into knocking on the Costco door.”
“Waiting for me?” Banjo sounded truly perplexed.
“I don’t want to be in this world alone. I want you to take care of me. I will take care of you.”
Banjo looked suspicious. “Why not stay with the group? Why did you bust the door down? And where the fuck are my bags?”
“Sally. You remember Sally. She took off in my car and left me stranded. She claimed she was going to drive in there and kill you all. I wanted to stay with you, so she took off. It took me all this time to find my way here.” She choked a little. “That group found me and took me in, but they are weak. They will lose in the next fight they have. I know where they are hiding out.”
“Tell us where. I hope you can get us there, I really do. I would hate to pulverize that pretty face any more than I have to.” Banjo started driving, and Wendy told him where to go.
§
“The commotion must have attracted them.” Jeff was watching the dead, a huge crowd of them, shambling down the street. Cooper was busy busting the window out of a Prius. There was a dead person of the nonmoving type in the driver’s seat, so Cooper used his baton to take out the driver-side window and pulled the corpse from behind the wheel.
“Shit, I don’t think we can get in there.” Cooper withdrew quickly from the horrible smell of putrefaction.
“We kind of have to.”
“It’s not the smell. This car can’t handle a crowd. We need something bigger.”
“OK, let’s run.”
The two took off at a fast jog. They put a quarter of a mile between them and the dead. Only now they were facing a new group of corpses coming from the opposite direction. They were between two large groups that both knew they were there.
“Now what?” But Cooper was already running to the high fence that ran along the highway, and he started climbing it.
Jeff followed. He was more winded than Cooper when he got to the fence, but he climbed it faster.
It’s amazing what one can do when fueled by intense fear
, he thought.
They both hung-dropped to the other side of the fence. They were walking away when they heard the fence rattle as the dead came in contact with it. As their numbers increased, the fence started leaning and buckling. Cooper pulled his guns from under his hoodie, not to shoot the dead that had just started to pour through the fallen fence but the ones in front of him in the highway.
“Let’s fight through that thin part there.” He clicked off a few bullets as he ran at top speed in the dark past bloated white corpses that seemed to glow in the moonlight. He felt like he was shooting ghosts. He was almost to the clear road where they were surely going to find a vehicle, when he heard Jeff fall. Jeff grunted and cursed, but before he could scream for help a zombie was on him.
Cooper raced back to him, surprised at how far he’d fallen behind. A huge crowd of the dead came from the fallen fences, and several were on Jeff. One was already on all fours, bent over his body, its face right against Jeff. Jeff was fighting frantically, but Cooper couldn’t tell if he had been bitten. Sadly, he couldn’t see how it was possible he hadn’t been.
Cooper ran as hard and as fast as he could and leapt when he was still a distance from Jeff. For a split second, he thought he’d jumped too soon, that he was going to land facedown and short of the corpse. He was aware, but presently unconcerned, of the other zombies descending on Jeff’s body.
He hit the zombie full on and rolled with it in the grass. He thrust the dead thing away as quickly as he could and jumped to his feet, but it had a firm hold on his ankle. It pulled its mouth full of cracked, brown teeth toward him. He heard that awful clicking as the teeth crashed together. Two more zombies were within arm’s reach, one bending down. He caught sight of Jeff standing. There was blood running from his neck, but he seemed not to notice as he took out first one then the other of the zombies next to him. He ran over to Cooper and kicked the zombie shambling up to him, sending it on its ass. Cooper whipped his baton out and brained the one on his leg and quickly snapped the baton up and shattered the skull of the other one standing near him. They ran for the highway.
This time Cooper made sure Jeff was nearby as they fought through the thin crowd of rotting corpses before they could be overcome by the massive crowd behind them.
Cooper was worried about Jeff. He looked as if he was handling the bite well, but a bite was a bite. At the very least, a human bite would get infected if not cleaned soon and very thoroughly. But Cooper wasn’t sure if a bite turned a person. So far he hadn’t seen any evidence it did, but he would have to keep an eye on Jeff.
They were on the highway jammed with cars, and the dead were coming from all around. Their options were very limited. He saw Jeff rubbing his neck and grimacing.
§
Wendy felt terrible. She didn’t want to lead Banjo to the group. She didn’t know who they were or how prepared they might be for the likes of these two. At least she’d given the two guys a chance to survive. She directed Banjo turn by turn to the office where the guys had told her to meet them should they not come back. When they pulled up to it, she was sad. When the office door opened and a black man came out, she felt defeated. She knew what would happen to everyone in that building. She knew what was going to happen to her, no matter what she did. Wendy inhaled and screamed as loud as she could, a warning to the man walking toward the vehicle, toward his own torturous death.
§
“Where have you guys been?” Ron was anxious to see what had taken Jeff and Cooper so long. A female scream came from the ambulance, and he paused a split second before he turned and ran back to the office.
§
“RUN!” Wendy screamed. She tensed up, waiting to get punched or stabbed, but only heard Banjo growl, “You stupid bitch.” Then the doors popped open, and she heard their heavy footfalls as they ran after the man.
Wendy bolted at the first opportunity. As Jack and Banjo chased the black man, she ran across the wide street and into the darkness. She couldn’t believe her luck. She was smiling, despite the pain. She took one last look back as she pumped her legs, rocketing her body forward. The scumbags were still not in sight. She ran between the two office buildings across the street and plowed into bodies in the dark and sent them all sprawling to the ground. Before she could stand she was grabbed and held fast. The pain was incredible, and she screamed despite herself. She was no longer afraid of the bikers.
§
“We might as well call ourselves the Febreze Brothers because it’s feeling so fresh right now.” Jeff yelled a quote from a movie across the roof of the van. He was smiling, and Cooper wondered if that was the infection kicking in or his reaction to the fatal bite. From what he knew, the infection had passed. No one was getting infected anymore, only dead.
“Love that movie!” Cooper tried to sound cheerful for Jeff’s sake. He was driving standing up, holding the wheel so he could hold his body half out the window.
They had seconds to find a vehicle, and the large passenger van was the first useable one they came to. Every seat was occupied by a corpse, the unmoving kind. Cooper pulled out the driver and Jeff the passenger. The stench was incredible, unbearable, worse than the Prius. In the rear seats were the corpses of eight nuns, all with hands still clasped in prayer. They tilted right and left together every time the van turned or swerved.
Jeff was sitting on the door and hanging out the passenger window. “We should have taken the Prius! This is fucking terrible.”
“Prius? We’re about to have us a little screw party in this Prius if you want ‘a join us?’” Cooper threw a quote at him from the same movie. Jeff finished the line.
“Hey, are you Dirty Mike and the Boys?” Jeff laughed. He seemed in good spirits for a dead man. Cooper pulled the van over.