In the Lone and Level Sands (29 page)

“My family,” John said, with a chuckle. His
eyes began to well up. “You shouldn’t leave. It’s just not safe out
there.”

“Our minds are already made up, Johnny,”
Christian said. “We’ll be outta here within the hour, and you
should come with. You’ll do better with others than on your
own.”

“I’m staying right here!” John said. He
stood straight up. Christian, Aiden, Ashley, and Evelyn turned
around and headed for the steps.

Jordan sighed. “If that’s how you feel,
John, that’s fine. We’re not going to force you to come with us.”
Jordan headed downstairs.

Many thoughts ran through John’s mind as he
looked around the empty and cold conference room. His eyes gazed
over the evidence of people camping out: Messy blankets crumpled
up, the unfinished game of UNO, the wrappers and bags and crumbs. A
couple of green baskets, marked with the Ferrington name, lay
abandoned on the table.

John didn’t want to be alone.

He looked at one of the other tables.
Resting on the corner was a knife.

****

Jordan and the others walked together in a
group, each with a green shopping basket, filling it with various
things: dry foods, first aid supplies, other necessities. Christian
thought about making a quick stop by the Wine and Spirits
department, but he decided, based on past experiences, it may not
be a good idea to have any alcohol.

The others regrouped at the front of the
store, but before they could leave, they heard a voice.

“I sure hope you all have plans to pay for
that.”

“John, are you really going to try to make
us pay for this stuff?” Evelyn said with a frown. “You can’t call
the cops without the phones, and even if you could, I’m sure most
of them are either dead, or tied up in this mess somewhere.
Whenever things return to normal, I’m pretty sure the Ferrington
can recover from however much we took.”

“It’ll make a difference, Evelyn!” John
said. “It’ll hurt the store! It’ll hurt the company!”

“That doesn’t even matter right now,” Jordan
said. “This could have spread all over the country, for all we
know. And if that’s the case, this will have happened at all of the
Ferrington stores. All of the higher-ups are probably dead,
John.”

“Tell you what,” Christian said. “If this
whole thing blows over tomorrow, I’ll pay the whole amount myself.
But right now, it doesn’t matter. It’s ridiculous that you’re
worried about this, and not our lives.”

“I am worried about your lives! I’m trying
to get you to stay!”

“We’re leaving, and we’re leaving with the
food. You need to come with us. I think you’ve let yourself get a
little too close to this place the past couple of days. Just let it
go. If things clear up later on, you’ll still have this job, but
for now, let it go. It won’t hurt a thing.”

“I’m not leaving, and if you were smart, you
wouldn’t either,” John said. “You’re obviously all idiots, leaving.
Going out there, essentially killing yourselves. I can’t stop you
from doing that, but I can stop you from taking the groceries! If
you want food, go rob a fucking Wal-Mart! I won’t have you stealing
from a Ferrington!”

“Why are we trying to get the asshole to go
with us?” Aiden said, leaning toward Jordan, who shook his
head.

“I don’t know. Let’s just get the rest of
the shit and leave him in his ghost town.”

“I’m all for that,” Ashley said.

“I’ve given too much, put too much into this
company for people like you to spit all over its good name! My son…
He was a store director at the Liberty Ferrington. My wife was the
dietitian there. I can’t just
let it go
.”

“Was?” Evelyn said, eyes widening. “John,
how do you even know they’re not still alive?”

“Oh, Evelyn,” John said. His lips cracked
into a smile, one that chilled Evelyn to the bone. “You were always
a hard worker. Been with the company for eight years, always made
me proud, but do you know what your problem is? You’re a moron. How
the fuck do you think I know they’re gone? I heard my wife’s
screams over the phone. I heard my son crying. I heard the whole
fucking thing like I was right there, clear as day. They’re gone,
they’re gone.”

Evelyn wanted to punch him in the face, but
she knew John was hurting already. She just said, “I’m so sorry,
John.”

His watery eyes pinched shut for a split
second, and the sadness in every feature of his face changed back
to anger. “It doesn’t matter! I’m not leaving. I can’t, and won’t!
My place is here, and if you don’t like me now, just keep pushing
it! I don’t take kindly to thieves in my store!”

“John, please,” Evelyn said. “Just come with
us.”

John lurched forward and grabbed her basket.
Some of its contents spilled onto the floor, and Evelyn’s eyes
widened with surprise. John grabbed her arm and pulled her up to
him, whipping the knife out of his back pocket. He pressed the
blade into her skin. Jordan and the others were in shock, and
Christian readied his gun.

“You try anything, and she dies where she
stands!” John said. Christian lowered his arm and sighed.

“What the fuck do you want, John?” he
said.

“Set the baskets down, and just get the fuck
out of my store! You let go of the merchandise, I’ll let Evelyn
go!”

They lowered their baskets to the floor.
Christian moved slower than the others. John loosened his grip on
the knife and pulled it away from Evelyn’s neck.

Christian raised the gun back up and fired a
bullet into John’s leg. John screamed in pain, dropping the knife
and limping back a little. Evelyn rushed toward Jordan and the
others.

“You stupid prick!” John said. “I hope you
all die out there! I’ll be safe in the Ferrington while you idiots
are being picked from the teeth of those creatures!” He fell to one
knee, holding the other leg where the bullet had entered. Blood ran
down his leg, darkening his gray slacks.

Evelyn looked back at John. She sighed,
wanting to say something to him, but she knew nothing would have
made an impact.

“Let’s go!” Ashley said as she grabbed her
basket and hurried past the others. They gathered their things,
quickly moved the pallets out of the way, and unlocked the doors.
The group headed into the foyer, and then into the warm
late-afternoon air. As exhilarating as the idea of leaving and
starting anew had sounded to them, it all changed the moment they
stepped outside.

When they left the Ferrington, the feeling
of death was in the air, and so was the smell. Dead bodies littered
the parking lot. In the distance they could see destruction: car
wrecks, smashed poles, a building on fire. They could also see
zombies.

Regardless, they couldn’t stay at the
Ferrington anymore, especially after what had happened with John,
so they swallowed their fear and moved forward.

34

Along the Road

Zoe woke up, and for a moment didn’t know
where she was. It was pitch black, and she could hear a steady
sound.

Memory slowly rushed into her head. She was
on a couch. It wasn’t hers; this house had been empty and seemed a
good place to crash. It was just off the road she had been
following.

Lightning flashed. The steady sound was
rain..

Zoe sat up. Her things were still on the
floor before the couch, and not a soul moved inside the house. It
had been empty when she arrived, and still was. Zoe had locked the
doors and windows before falling asleep in the living room. She’d
have slept in one of the beds, but sleeping in someone else’s home
already felt strange, and sleeping in their bed would’ve been a
step too far.

Another flash, and thunder followed. She
hoped the rain would pass by the morning. She didn’t have a
destination to get to in a hurry, but staying in one place for too
long didn’t sit well with her.

She wondered what time it was. The power had
gone out during the night, so she had no way of telling. Her MP3
player was plugged into the wall across the room for recharging,
but she had no idea how much progress it had made before the power
had gone. Zoe didn’t like the idea of making the next day’s journey
with no music. Listening to headphones while traveling was risky,
but she was never one to have her music loud to begin with. She
made sure to keep it low, sometimes leaving only one earbud in
(which did little justice to whatever she was listening to, but it
was a small price to pay for safety).

Memories of the dream she’d been having
peeked in and out of her subconscious, but she tried to brush them
off. She felt wide awake, though not much time could have passed
since she’d fallen asleep. Returning to sleep seemed
impossible.

She sat there for a while, waiting for some
unnamed thing. The dark house lit up from time to time, and her
mind raced with random thoughts that all bled into one incoherent
stream of consciousness, offering her little more than a minor
headache and a wish that her brain would just shut up and go back
to sleep. Rain pounded on the roof above her head.

Finally, Zoe got up, fumbled through the
darkness, and found her MP3 player. She saw that it was almost
fully charged. She unplugged it and brought it with her to the
couch. She put together a playlist of songs and listened to music
for a while. She would later recall listening to “Mad World” and
“Bury Me With It” and “I Never Told You What I Do For A Living”,
but not how far she got before falling asleep. When she woke up
again, morning was peeking through the windows, and no sound was
coming from her headphones.

****

Zoe continued down the road. The rain had
stopped during the night, but the world was still wet, and the sky
was still overcast. She hoped it wouldn’t rain again, but the
houses she passed gave her comfort that if it did, she’d be able to
find shelter.

Assuming, of course, they were empty.

As she walked along the road into the
afternoon, she put her MP3 player away. She had used up half of the
battery the night before and was not able to charge it before
leaving, so after a brief period in the morning, she decided
against using it further. After all, she didn’t know how long it
would be before she was able to charge it again, or how long she
would have until the power went out for good. She didn’t want to
imagine a world without her music.

A noise interrupted her thoughts. A few
seconds passed, and Zoe realized car was coming. A truck, by the
sound of it.

She moved off of the road and into the grass
(where she would normally walk, but had kept off due to the rain)
and waited.

The truck was red. It slowed as it came down
the road toward her. Despite her ducking off of the road, someone
had seen her. The truck came to a halt, and the passenger window
rolled down. There were two men inside. The driver wore sunglasses
and a cap, and the passenger wore a denim jacket and kept a
toothpick in his mouth.

“Hey,” the passenger said.

“Hey,” Zoe replied. The two men looked at
each other.

“You ain’t one of ‘em,” the passenger
said.

“No.”

“You doin’ all right? Been bitten? If they
bite you, you turn into one of ‘em.”

“I’m fine. Not bitten. You?”

“Nope.”

The three continued to stare.

“Where you headed?” the driver asked.

“I don’t know. Wherever this road goes.”

“The city,” the passenger said. “And then
what?”

“I guess I’ll try to find some safe
place.”

The two men looked at each other, and then
shared a brief, exaggerated laugh.

“Kid, there ain’t no place safe
anymore.”

“I’ll find some place saf
er
.”

“Now there’s a plan,” the driver said.

“You need a ride?” the passenger asked.

“No thanks,” Zoe said. She didn’t entirely
mistrust these two, but she questioned the safety of being in a
vehicle on the city streets.

“You sure?” the driver said. “We’re headed
down this road anyway.”

“Yeah. But thanks. A lot.”

“Sure thing,” the driver said. He revved the
engine, and the windows rolled up. The truck started off, but then
stopped and backed up again. The passenger-side window rolled
down.

“Just so you know,” the passenger said,
“there may not be any place safe anymore. But there are safe people
to be in them with.”

“I’ll remember that,” Zoe said.

“It’d do you good. Just be careful. There’s
a lot of depraved people out there.”

“I think we’re all a little depraved, these
days,” Zoe said. The two laughed again, even after the window
rolled up. The truck went on down the road, and Zoe never saw it or
its occupants again.

A few hours went by, and late in the
afternoon, the sun began to show through the thinning clouds. The
road widened and the trees thinned, and in the distance, Zoe could
see buildings. More houses lined the road, which had, at some point
unknown to her, become pocked with streetlights and power lines.
Zoe had reached the city.

It wasn’t as unsafe as she had imagined.
Strangely, she didn’t see anyone. There were a few wrecked cars, a
few bodies, but no people, living or zombie.

She saw a nearby building. It was tall, but
by no means a skyscraper. The land around it was occupied by
mud-caked sidewalks and curbs, cement trucks, and cranes, and it
occurred to her that she had reached a large lot of un-developed
properties. The nearest buildings, especially the tall one, were
most likely empty even before the world had gone insane.

Then it occurred to Zoe that she had found
what was probably the safest place she’d find in this city. That
building, most likely devoid of people, might have a few finished
rooms, a shelter with all sides covered. It wouldn’t be
comfortable, it might be cold, and there would almost certainly be
no power, but it was out of the way, and it was likely safe.