The Dead Don't Bleed: Part 1, The Outbreak (32 page)

Calvin was less than impressed with the damage and gave it only a passing glance as he jumped from the bed of the truck and continued stretching his aching joints.

"So, you seem to have all the bright ideas today,
what’s our next move?" Calvin asked as he reached back into the truck and retrieved one of the AK's from its bag. Checking that the magazine had remained seated, he chambered the first round and then slung the rifle over his shoulder.

"How is Kimberly holding up?" asked Garrett
ignoring the question for the time being having no idea what their next move should be.

"She has probably seen better days, but no change that I can tell. He
r fever seems to have slackened off some and she mumbled a little bit right before you picked us up, thought she was going to come out of it but that was the point when I had to start loading our gear and throw her in the back. Since we moved, I haven't heard another peep out of her."

Knowing so little about the underlying illness that had started this entire epidemic
, Garrett had no idea if that was a positive sign or not, for the time being she was still alive and if they could keep her that way he wanted to do all they could for her, "Ok, well, let’s at least get her situated in the back, it will be more comfortable for her and probably safer in case one them were to manage to climb on while we are moving."

Working together they moved Garrett's camping equipment out of the back of the cab and situated it in the bed, then they carefully picked Kimberly up and stretched her out on the back seat after taking a pillow from the camping supplies and resting her head on it. Garrett worked the seat belt
s in the back so that they would hold her upper body and legs in place in case they had do any more rough driving. That being done, the two men organized the gear that Calvin had provided and distributed weapons and ammo so that both of them were as well armed and ready for action as possible.

#

She had watched as the truck pulled into the parking lot and parked a discreet distance away from the entrance to the store. A man who she judged to be in his early thirties got out from behind the wheel and went to the back of the truck were a slightly older man climbed out and began stretching and massaging his muscles next to the back of the truck. She was only able to see the driver clearly from where they were standing and it struck her that he was handsome man, a little rugged in a way that she was not often attracted to, but the way he moved with confidence and ease despite being in the middle of what looked like a war zone
, automatically put her at ease in a way she had not felt before. She chided herself for actually taking an extra couple of seconds to size him up in a manner that she thought of as sexual in nature, taking an overview of his body shape and size as well as an approving and lingering glance at the tight form of a well-defined ass nicely framed in a pair of fitted slacks. She looked away from him and checked up the street, not so much as to look for any signs of approaching danger but more to get her mind back on the here and now and to stop letting herself indulge in a fantasy that was just not appropriate given the circumstances. Turning back to the two men, she continued to size them up from her hiding place and worked to pick up any clues about who they were and where they may have come from that could possibly give her an advantage. Neither of the two men appeared to be dressed in a way that would indicate they were with the police or any other official from an organization that might be involved in rescue efforts. They looked like just regular people who were caught up in the same frightening ordeal that she had awoken and found herself in the middle of. She started to feel a little uneasy when the man who had climbed from the back of the truck reached back into the cargo section and pulled out a long and menacing looking rifle, he fiddled with it for a little bit and then expertly slung it over his shoulder as if it was an action he was very comfortable doing. She now started to think that maybe the men were soldiers, the way they carried themselves and how they scanned their surroundings every few seconds, one of them would look left and the other right the entire time they were talking. After a few moments they began moving bags and pieces of equipment from the back seat of the cab to the inside of the truck and arranging it out of her sight in the cargo section. The cute one then dropped the tailgate door, easing it down gently to keep it as quiet as he could and together they reached inside and she saw them step gingerly down carrying a woman. It looked to Miranda like she was hurt, maybe unconscious but definitely not helping at all while she was being moved. They placed her across the seats on the inside of the cab and then the one with the nice ass spent a few moments carefully adjusting her, giving her a pillow and strapping her securely inside with the seatbelts. The way that he handled her so gently and caringly, it really struck home with Miranda that in the midst of all the death and destruction around them that he took the extra little bit of time to ensure she was comfortable and cared for. She wondered if perhaps that was his girlfriend or wife and actually felt a twinge of regret if that turned out to be the case. After finishing with the woman, both men rummaged around in the back of the truck, they passed items back and forth and then the cute one stood up also holding a rifle like his friends, he repeated the same inspection she had seen earlier with the other guy, but this time he cradled the rifle comfortably in his arms, not as if threatened, but in a position that convinced Miranda he was ready to bring it up to use it in a split second if need be.

In any other situation seeing two men on the side of a road in the middle of this suburban shopping zone with big scary looking guns she would have been scared to death, what she was feeling now was elation that it was just possible that even if they weren't part of some kind of rescue or response force they could at the very least offer her some measure of protection well beyond anything she could manage by herself. Gathering up all of her courage and keeping the reassuring piece of rebar tightly clutched in her hands
, she slowly stepped out into the open doorway and made her way cautiously outside into the parking lot.

#

Movement in the door of
the gas station's shop caught their attention and in a flash two rifles were raised and pointed ready to open fire. Garrett was a couple of steps closer to the store and in Calvin's line of fire, he would later learn that little scenario had likely saved Miranda's life because he had been about to pull the trigger but only stopped when he realized how close his fire would have been to Garrett if he had. The woman was younger than him, somewhere in her twenties, her clothing was disheveled and she looked like she had been through hell and back, but there was something in the beauty and innocence of her face that gave Garrett pause and forced him to take an extra second or two to study her more closely. She was pretty, that was the one thing that clued him in that he was not looking at a zombie. Of the creatures he had witnessed so far, even one that may have been attractive in life had such anger and blood lust etched into their face that any qualities which once could have been considered attractive were masked in a twisted face of pure evil. Then there were the eyes, instead of those lifeless dead eyes that seemed to be common with the zombies, this woman's eyes were alive and even over the distance he was viewing her he was sure he even caught a hint of a twinkle in the shine of her eyes. The final thing that convinced him without closer examination that she was just as alive as himself and Calvin was that she was walking slowly and cautiously out of the store towards them. Had she been among the ranks of the undead she would have charged full speed at them the second she became aware of their presence just like Carlos and the others around his home.

"Hold it", Garrett hissed to Calvin, "I think we've got another survivor here."

Calvin didn't reply and instead shifted slowly off to the side where he could have a better angle on the girl as well as the front of the store in case something started going bad. It was clear that Garrett was going to be taking the lead with the girl in this case.

She continued walking slowly towards them, Garrett noticed the length of rusted metal pipe gripped tightly in her hands and he smiled as he considered how desperate she must have been for some measure of protection to put her hopes on that small piece of metal. Given the alternative of nothing else
, he probably would have done the same thing but also knowing how vicious the zombies could be as well as their incredible strength and ability to absorb the most inhuman levels of punishment, a metal rod was not going to do much in the hands of a woman who probably weighed close to a hundred and ten pounds and that was only with the five pounds of metal she was carrying. Garrett let her approach to a point halfway between the store and the front of his truck, he saw that her eyes remained riveted on the barrel of his rifle as he tracked her movements across the open parking lot. Finally, he lowered his rifle to signal that he was not going to shoot her and started walking towards her to meet her far enough from the truck so that if she did suddenly change demeanor and became a threat, Calvin could deal with her from his angle before she could reach Kimberly in the back of the truck.

"Hello." Garrett said simply.

She pulled her eyes up away from his rifle and stared into his, Garrett detected a certain release of tension as he spoke the single word of greeting. If she had been on her own all that morning and facing the same horrors that they had, he imagined that the sound of a friendly hello was more than enough to lift some measure of stress from her shoulders.

The sudden rush towards him caused him to lift his rifle and tighten his grip on the trigger but she was on top of him and cradling him in a tight hug before he could have gotten a shot off even if he had tried. He could feel her trembling and shaking against his body and heard the soft sobs as she fought to find her first words. Out of his peripheral vision he saw the smile that crept over Calvin's face as he lowered his rifle and watched the two of them from several feet away. Garrett didn't need for him to say a word to know that the man was back to thinking with his dick and it wouldn't be more than ten or fifteen minutes before he made some comment related to the girls chest or backside. He held her without saying another word for almost a full two minutes until her sobbing and shaking finally started to subside and she pulled back from him a couple of steps.

"I am so sorry about that," she sniffled, "I am just so happy to finally see someone else."

Seeing her up close like this, even with the puffy
eyes, red cheeks and tear stains, he was captivated by just how pretty she actually was. It was the type of beauty that worked best when seen without layers of makeup or after hours of primping and prepping just as he was seeing her now. For the first time that he could ever remember, his heart actually seemed to skip a beat and he felt his own cheeks flushing with heat and he was sure that they were probably glowing red at that moment.

"No,
it’s really ok, I understand, we have all been through a lot today." The situation was awkward as it was and he could think of nothing else to say except to offer an introduction, "by the way, I'm Garrett." He offered his hand.

She smiled warmly and took his hand to shake vigorously, "Thanks Garrett, thank you for coming, I'm Miranda."

Garrett pointed towards Calvin and introduced him and then explained quickly who their passenger in the back of his truck was while pointing out that she was sick and had not in fact been bit.

"Bit?" Miranda asked quizzically.

"I guess there are a few things we still need to discuss, but let’s not get into it here. This is pretty exposed, we stopped only to get situated and then were planning on trying to find some form of authority, police or military." He could see that Miranda was about to bust with questions. He really couldn't blame her, most of what he had learned so far came from the bits and pieces that Calvin had picked up the night before and what he himself had witnessed that morning. He had few answers and lots of questions himself, none of which he thought she would be any help with.

"Hey, Happy Hard-on!" Calvin shouted as his college frat side once again made an appearance, "
let’s take this party down the road before some of the locals decide to come for lunch."

Without thinking
, Garrett cast a quick glance down towards his crotch, he hadn't felt anything stirring but would have been mortified to see any tenting of his pants. Luckily it was only a mild attempt to embarrass him and there was no actual evidence of excitement on his part. Miranda had caught on to the exchange and Garrett's glance downward, she tried to look away and hide the little smirk that had come across her face, but Garrett caught sight of it before her head turned. He thought that as a good sign, but then again also pushed it to the back of his mind, this was neither the time nor the place to get into flirtations and anything else not directly related to keeping all of them alive for the time being. Despite Calvin's unconventional manner in getting his attention focused back on their situation he was right, the longer they stayed out there in the open, the better the chances were they would be spotted. With the smoke building up on the street back, they could no longer see clearly into the nearby intersection and there could be zombies approaching them from behind and they wouldn't know it until they were just about on top of them, it was time to get going.

Miranda took very little convincing to agree to leave with them and then when she saw the seating arrangements in the truck
, quickly volunteered to sit in the back with Kimberly and look after her. She gently lifted the sick woman's head, slid underneath of her and then rested her head back on her lap. Before Garrett could climb in she instructed him to run into the shop and grab a case of water from the freezer in the back, she wanted to wrap a cold water bottle in one of Garrett's shirt she pulled out of a backpack on the floor at her feet and press it against Kimberly's head and neck to help with her fever.