“We could just wait.”
“I don’t think we got the time to waste to do that. Winter’s coming.”
“Winter. Yeah,” Scott agreed.
“Those things are dead and as fucked up as I can make them with a bat. If they’re dead,
truly
dead, they’ll be here when we get back. If they’re gone, we’ll go to phase two.”
“What’s phase two?”
“Kill more and wait to see what happens.”
Scott gazed out onto the road. “Drive on, then?”
That sounded good to Gus. “Yeah.”
They drove past familiar sections of the city, old garbage hugging the sides of the road like a rotten fur lining. Gus directed Scott back to the street that had previously been cut off by the massive herd of dead.
“Keep going,” Gus instructed, looking at each house as the van went by it.
“How do you know, anyway?”
“I leave the doors open on the houses when I can.”
The van crept up the street until Gus lifted a gloved hand into the air. Scott stopped the vehicle and turned it, backing it into a driveway that had tall grass on both sides, buckled over with frost.
“Back in a flash,” Gus said and picked up his shotgun and bat. He jumped out from the rear and closed the door behind him, leaving Scott to watch the street and drum nervous fingers off the steering wheel.
Gus went up the stone steps to the front door. The house was a two-level affair with red plastic siding and a black roof. An older house, charming, but Gus wondered what was inside the place. He tried the door and found it unlocked. Taking a deep breath, he turned the brass knob and swung open the door.
Gus stood there for a moment, staring into the shadowy interior. Musty air reached him, but it didn’t bother him. He tapped the barrel of the shotgun on the frame and waited, wondering if any deadhead would answer. Elongated thoughts of what had happened in the Port William’s home stretched and snapped through his mind in disjointed black and white. Some bits were graphically recalled, while other pieces were missing. Shock, he supposed.
With a shake, he realized he’d been standing in the doorway for several minutes.
Feeling a grimace on his face, Gus went in.
He cleared the main floor and the upstairs. There wasn’t a basement, so that made life easier. In the living room, he found a dusty collection of
National Geographic
magazines, the cover of the top one showing a mosquito poised with a gossamer proboscis on a bed of flesh. Gus made note to take the magazines later as he enjoyed looking at the pictures. A collection of at least two or three hundred Blu-ray discs were arranged in an almost ceiling-high shelving unit, but Gus left those. Most of the titles he had back at the house on his terabyte, except for several Japanese animated cartoons that looked borderline triple X. A gas fireplace dominated the room, along with the usual living room furniture. He found two plastic ten-liter bottles of water, along with several cans of food, including instant noodles and the oatmeal he’d grown fond of having for breakfast.
Making note of those items, he came to a locked door with an old-fashioned keyhole. Gus knocked on it, listened, and stepped back. He kicked the door with several heavy connections of his new boots, and when the door finally burst inward, he took a moment to compose himself, feeling the sweat running underneath his gear. Bringing up his shotgun, he eased around the corner, into a home office area. A desk with one of the newer nano-desktop computers faced him, along with a printer and two small speakers. Bookshelves lined one wall, filled with names like George Eliot and Elizabeth Gaskell, including some books on self-improvement, world history, and an ample collection of military fiction. On a small table was a dust-covered model of a group of intrepid fantasy adventurers heading down into a dungeon area where a sleeping green dragon lay. Gus bent over it, admiring the detail of the miniatures pieces, from the weapons and armor possessed by the fighters, to the wizard wielding a magical staff.
Smiling, Gus straightened and looked at the wall behind the door. A glass cabinet filled it and inside, on display, was an arsenal.
His mouth dropped open. Well, he knew why the door had been locked. He didn’t wonder why the weapons were there and not with the owner; he only hoped they worked.
Guns and ammunition, arranged on hooks against a red felt background, lay ready for the taking. He had no idea what manner of firearms they were. A closed cabinet below the glass gave Gus hope that more ammunition was stored inside. The cabinet was locked, so Gus smashed out the glass.
A pair of sleek black pistols hung at the top, facing each other, each sporting sound suppressors. Ruger was stamped into their grips, while SR-9 lay across its short barrel length. Two foot-long Bowie knives with their blades crossed hung beneath the pistols, just above a small pedestal with a miniature ceramic skull, black-eyed and grinning. A tin-colored derringer lay on the bottom of the cabinet, as if tossed in as an afterthought.
But the item that took Gus’ breath away, the thing that made him place his shotgun on the desk, was the weapon placed straight up alongside the others. Gus took it out of the cabinet and looked it over, his mouth hanging open in awe. He had no idea of the reputation of the gun, but the sheer spectacle of it spoke military grade.
The word Benelli was stamped in the gun metal, just above the trigger, right next to “Made in Italy.” It looked like a shotgun, but with a pistol grip and a skeletal shoulder stock. Gus marvelled at the sleekness of the boomstick.
Combat shotgun
, that much he knew, with what looked to be a removable stock. He looked down the sights and got another surprise. It carried a mounted scope, which made Gus shake his head. It could not have come at a better time. God above, he
wanted
to go hunting for gimps with this beast.
“Sorry, Betsy,” Gus muttered, glancing at the shotgun on the table. “Think I just divorced you.” He looked down through the scope again. “Fuck me gently.”
Not wanting to release the shotgun, he reluctantly placed it on the desk and went back to the cabinet. The lower cabinet doors were locked, so he kicked his way through with his steel-toed boots. Clearing away the flimsy wooden fragments, Gus mouthed the word
yes
. Ammunition. Seven twenty-shell boxes of regular shot and seven five-shell boxes of what was marked on the box as sabot slugs.
Sabots
. The name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it. He felt as if he’d just found a thunderbolt. He opened a box of the copper solid sabots and took one out. An impressed whistle left him as he studied the green plastic shell casing and the inner copper top.
“Wow.” He knew they were special rounds, but didn’t know exactly
how
special. He looked over the boxes for anything to give a description to what he’d found, an owner’s manual perhaps, but there was nothing else. He did find ten loaded magazines for the Rugers, in addition to a heavy tackle box filled with what looked be another two hundred or so loose nine millimeter rounds––little brass shells with red tips.
“Christmas came early,” Gus muttered. He pulled out the ammo, checked the magazine loads, and found gun cleaning kits for both the pistols and the Benelli. Behind the boxes of shells were two brown leather bandoliers, which Gus looped over his head and under his arms, making an X on his chest. He rooted around for more goodies and felt genuine disappointment when he found nothing else useful.
Knowing he shouldn’t complain, he took what he could carry out to the van.
“Find anything?” Scott called when he opened the rear doors of the van.
“Yeah,” Gus replied. “A fuckin’armory.”
“What?”
“You heard me. A fuckin’ armory.”
“Like what?”
“Like this.”
Gus held out the combat shotgun, which pulled Scott out of the driver’s seat so he could see the weapon closer.
“Ho-ly
shit
,” Scott exclaimed softly, taking the weapon.
“Eh?” Gus nodded emphatic agreement. “Mine, though. I call dibs on it.”
“Aw, man.”
“I got you something, though, if you want ’em.”
“What?”
“Hand me the duffel bag, and I’ll bring it all out in one trip.”
“Man!” Scott admired the shotgun. “Where the hell did the guy get this thing anyway? Something smells illegal here.”
“Private collection probably. I once knew a guy from Truro who said his father had an old AK-47 in a seventeen-gun collection. And what do you mean
illegal
? If we’re gonna be finding guns, the
illegal
ones are the ones I want.”
Scott had nothing to say to that. He was too interested in staring down the scope of the Benelli. He aimed up the street and made gunshot noises.
“I’ll be back,” Gus said, and returned to the house.
They cleared seven houses, pulling in a bin full of canned peaches and pineapple, as well as fruit cocktails. Gus found some boxes of beer, but he left those for the several additional bottles of gin and vodka. Fourteen rolls of toilet paper were found and taken. Loading up what they found at the seventh house, Gus got aboard and glanced up at the overcast sky. He felt exceptionally good about what they had scavenged, and then realized where they were.
“Hey, guess where we are.”
“Where?”
“Near the liquor corporation.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,
oh
. Why don’t we head on over there?”
Scott looked out at the overcast sky. “I wonder what time it is.”
“There you go about the time again. Where do you have to be? Hmm? Where?” Gus looked over at Scott, watching him shrug. “You don’t have anyone waitin’ for you except me, and I’m right here.”
“You’re the big baby who wants to be back on the hill before dark.”
“Hey, now,” Gus said, feeling mildly defensive. “That’s just plain good thinking. You want to get caught down here if anything goes wrong again?”
“That’s what I’m sayin’. It’s cloudy out, and I don’t know if it’s one o’ clock or four.”
“It’d be darker if it was four.”
“So you want to go over there?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re an alcoholic, you know that?” Scott said pointedly.
“You’re not?”
Scott shook his head. “Where to, Budweiser?”
“Hey, if you’re going to give me a nickname, make it Jack. Or even better,
Uncle
Jack.”
“What kind of name is that?”
Gus shrugged. “Popular in the movies.”
“What movies?”
“Movies, man, movies.”
“Yeah,
bad
movies.”
Gus shook his head. “I think I like you better when you’re drinkin’. Head on down this street and take a left. One quick stop. Load up on some Mr. Daniels.”
“Whatever, man, I just drive here.”
“Use the name.”
“I’m
not
usin’ that shitty nickname. So drop it.”
The helmet hid Gus’ smile.
Ten minutes later, with the sky becoming increasingly sullen looking, the beast rolled into the parking lot of the liquor corporation. The building was built low, single story, and reminded Gus of an aboveground, red brick bunker. With so much cash generated for the crown-owned store, one would think they could splurge a little on the building’s design. Cars dotted the wide lot, some with their doors opened and others with smashed windshields. The van did a ninety-degree turn in reverse, and backed right up to the two main doors.
“Don’t take long,” Scott said.
“I won’t.” Gus brought up the Ruger SR-9 pistol with its suppressor.
“You’re not takin’ the shotgun?” Scott asked.
“Got this right here,” Gus said, thumbing the safety on the gun. “Thing’s got like a ton of bullets in the clip.”
“Mag.”
“Huh?”
“It’s not called a clip; it’s called a magazine. A mag.”
“How do you know?”
Scott shrugged. “I hear things.”
“What’s the difference?” Gus wanted to know.
“The difference is
those
things are mags that use a spring to feed bullets into the gun, while with a clip you can see the bullets. Like they’re stuck to this piece of metal, all exposed like. And don’t call that a silencer, either.”
“You mean this? What is it, then?”
“Called a sound suppressor,” Scott said and turned back to keep watch.
Gus regarded the length of black metal at the tip of his gun, and then Scott. “Knowledgeable fucker, ain’tcha?”
Scott shrugged. “Get a move on. Time’s wastin’.”
But Gus stood in the rear of the van, sizing up the sidearm and thinking about the new terminology he’d learned. He finally got a move on and slipped out the back, feeling a chill in the air, even through his gear. He looked inside the shop, seeing how dark it was. Taking a step into the entryway, Gus stopped and stomped his feet before slapping the doorframe with his free hand. He waited.
No reaction.
Feeling a little disappointed, Gus crossed the threshold and went inside. The gloom was periodically speared by sparse light from windows. Gus thought about going back to get a flashlight, but decided against it. If there were any gimps inside, they would’ve heard him slapping the wall. He kept the pistol pointed at the floor, dearly wanting something to appear so he could shoot it. Pushing his way through a turnstile, he walked by a series of cash checkouts and proceeded past shelves that still had a few bottles on them. He grabbed a shopping cart and wheeled it down the aisle, carefully checking the remaining bottles on the shelves. He knew he’d taken most of the Jack Daniels and Captain Morgan off the shelf, so that meant a trip to the storage room, and for that, he’d need a flashlight.