“Where did you learn to make noises like those things?” She asked as they walked toward the fence.
Tick-Tock shrugged and replied, “I’ve always been good at mimicking things
, that’s probably why I got into radio.”
“Well, you must have been saying something pretty interesting because they were all focused on you,” Denise told him.
“I was saying…eat at Luigi’s,” he said in an Italian accent.
With a renewed purpose, they walked the perimeter of the fence but couldn’t find
another way in. Heading to the back of the building, they decided to go in through the huge sliding glass doors at the rear since they now had control of the area. Denise retrieved her sledgehammer from the pontoon boat and Tick-Tock busted the lock.
Before entering, he asked, “You’ve been in here before?”
“Three times,” she replied. “If there were any uglies, they would have shown themselves by now.”
T
rusting her, but not the world they lived in, Tick-Tock held his rifle at the ready as he went through the door.
The inside of the building was well lit
, due to the huge windows at the front and the back. Facing west, the afternoon light beamed in through the wood framed glass that started ten feet up and ended by following the cathedral ceiling.
The area in front of him was a
wide-open space lined with shelves and racks. The store was huge and Tick-Tock didn’t know where to begin since they had so much to get. Denise took the lead as she pulled a list from her pocket, “Grab a shopping cart. We can get the stuff we need first and then take a look around.” Pointing, she told him, “We have to go over there first.”
She led
him through a maze of shelves, and then stopped at a corner with racks of boots and shoes in all different styles. Looking at her list, she said, “I’ve been getting clothes for everyone, so I have their sizes written down. I need three pair of boots size eight, four pair size nine and one pair size ten and a half.”
As they checked the boxes, Tick-Tock said, “It may be none of my business, but why did you stay with Sean and his crew? They seem pretty
useless.”
Denise picked up a pair of
Timberland boots and studied them before replying, “Because, besides the pirates, they’re the only living thing on the river. I lived alone before all this, but I’m not a hermit or anything. They may sound lame and act lame, but they’re human beings. Besides, I don’t take any shit from them. They do what I tell them, with the exception of going out on trips or carrying a gun.”
Throwing a
shoebox into the cart, Tick-Tock was overwhelmed by the urge to ask if she was seeing any of them but stopped himself. He was attracted to her, but it was too soon after Susan’s death.
Instead he asked,
“Why didn’t you just grab a couple of the least useless and head up river.”
Her answer caused him to break out in laughter.
“Because they’re all equally useless,” she told him.
They gathered the boots and backpacks as they talked about their previous lives. When Tick-Tock mentioned he’d been in the Marine Corp, she surprised him by saying, “Me too.”
“I was in for four years,” she said. “I decided to get out after I met my husband.”
“
I thought you said you lived alone.”
“The Corps lasted longer than the marriage,” she said with a laugh.
After loading the shoes, they headed over to the backpacks. As they passed through the main display area by the front doors, Tick-Tock could see that it was getting dimmer inside the store. They still had a few hours until the sun set, but they would have less light as its angle changed. He was about to suggest that they keep their search near the lit up spaces when he stopped in his tracks at what he saw in one of the displays. Looking at the sign near the front door, he saw it read, ‘Sporting Throughout The Ages.’
T
ick-Tock turned fully around, taking in all the mannequins scattered throughout the area dressed in period costumes and posed in mock-ups of different types of sporting events. The one that caught his eye though, was the medieval joust. There was a knight in armor, holding a lance, but that wasn’t what had attracted his attention. It was the one preparing for the sword competition.
His squires were dressing him in chainmail
.
“Now that’s what I need,” he said to Denise.
“I don’t want them getting close enough to me for it to do any good,” she replied.
Watching as he started to undress the mannequin, she said, “While you’re
being a pervert and molesting the mannequins, I’m going to grab the backpacks.”
Fascinated with his find, Tick-Tock only nodded.
He was too busy considering the protection it would give him as he ran its interlocking steel links through his hands. He forgot all about Denise until she screamed.
He d
ropped the chainmail grabbed his M4 and took off in the direction the noise came from. Moving forward without caution, he raced up the main aisle, slowing only briefly to check each intersecting walkway. When Denise came running around the corner of the last one at the back of the store, they almost ran into each other.
“What is it
?” Tick-Tock asked.
Denise
was breathing heavily and took a moment to answer, “I was digging through some packs when it jumped out at me.”
Looking around wildly for the Z, Tick-Tock barely heard what she said next. When it finally registered, he asked, “You saw a what?”
“A rat,” she said with fear. “It was a great big fucking rat that jumped out at me.”
With a laugh, Tick-Tock said, “You’re shitting me.”
“No! It was huge,” she declared.
Lowering his rifle
while trying to stifle his laugh, he said, “You sneak in and out of places like this every day, with thousands of Z’s around, and you got scared by a rat?”
Her mood
quickly turning from fear to anger, she yelled, “It was big!” Then, stomping her foot down on the floor, she spun around and stalked off toward the back door.
Well, I managed to piss her off really well
by laughing, Tick-Tock thought. Walking down the aisle to where he could see the backpacks, he wondered what he could do to smooth things over.
***
Pushing one shopping cart in front of him and pulling another behind as he made his way down the dock, Tick-Tock could see Denise sitting stiff backed in the captain’s chair. He kept his voice light as he said, “I found all kinds of good stuff in there.”
He received no answer
and she made no move to help him.
Deciding to try and talk his way through it instead of out of it, he called off the items as he loaded them onto the boat. “We got everything we came for, but look what else I found. I got a couple good pair of binoculars
, some baseball bats, and here are some maps and a couple compasses. I also got knee pads and elbow pads, and I needed clothes so I grabbed some pants and shirts.”
H
e held a camouflage shirt up to his chest, and asked, “What do you think?”
No answer.
Knowing he had to appease her in some way, Tick-Tock grabbed a plastic bag from the cart and stepped onto the pontoon boat. When he stood in front of her, he saw her avert her eyes and look off toward the river. He moved to stand in front of her again, then held his gift out and said softly, “And I found these for you.”
When she switched
her gaze to look him in the eye, he could see she was still pissed off.
Tentatively, she took
the bag from him saying, “I’ll check it out later.”
“But it’s something you need now,” Tick-Tock replied.
With a skeptical look, Denise opened the bag and glanced in. She did a double take, her eyes growing wide when she saw what was inside.
“Are these what I think they are
?” she asked in wonder.
“Found them in a storage room,” he replied.
Denise extracted one of the dozen 30 round clips for her carbine from the bag and said softly, “Thank you.” Looking at the carts still standing on the dock, she added, “Let’s get that stuff on board.”
***
Tick-Tock lay on the forward deck of the sailboat as he gazed up at the stars. The night was mild so he’d decided to take the sleeping bag he’d liberated from Cabela’s and give it a test drive. If they didn’t find somewhere to land tomorrow, they’d all be sleeping out on the open decks of the pontoon boats, so he wanted to be comfortable. Even if they did find a place to go ashore, they would definitely have a few nights sleeping on the ground.
When he and Denise had returned, they help
ed Brain and Sheila tie up all the boats side to side. This way, it would be easier to load the people from the battleship the next morning. It was decided that Steve would pilot the tugboat and Brain one of the pontoons. When Steve told Tick-Tock that he would take the other, Denise had immediately objected. With fire in her eyes, she told him that it was her boat and she would drive it herself.
Steve didn’t object to this, but
he did tell her that one of his people needed to be on board. Without a second of thought, she told him she wanted Tick-Tock go with her.
With his hands clasped behind his head as he adjusted his back to the slant of the deck
, Tick-Tock considered Denise. He was attracted to her but couldn’t tell if it was mutual. Despite his peace offering of the magazines for her M1, she’d seemed distant, and they had barely spoken on the trip back to the Battleship Texas. Needless to say, he was surprised when she asked specifically for him to go with her.
As he lay on the deck, d
eep in thought, it took him a second to realize that someone was standing over him. Thinking it was Steve, he said, “Everything’s cool, man.”
“No
, it’s not,” Denise replied.
With a start, he moved to sit up,
but stopped when she said in a low voice, “The problem is that I’m not in there with you.”
Flipping back the edge of the sleeping bag, he said, “Then why don’t you join me?”
She did.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Usual Suspects:
“
I say five,” Brain called out.
”At least nine,” Tick-Tock said firmly.
With a laugh, Sheila said, “I’m a little more confident in their abilities, I’ll go with three.”
Coming
up the ladder from below, Heather asked, “Three what?”
“We’re betting on how many of them fall into the water when they climb down the cargo net,” Brain answered
before asking her, “You want in?”
Interested, she asked, “What are we betting for?”
“The loser has to take Mary on their boat,” Tick-Tock told her.
“That’s not nice,” Connie said from her position at the rear of the cockpit. “
The pot was started with Tick-Tock throwing in a bag of gourmet coffee he found at Cabela’s.”
“So
what do I need to throw in?” Heather asked.
“
One full clip of ammunition,” Cindy said from behind her.
Spinning
toward her, Heather asked with horror, “They’re teaching you how to bet?”
“I’m the one who came up with the game,” she replied proudly
.
Shaking her head, Heather nonetheless said, “Alright, I’m in.”
“What’s your number?” Sheila asked.
Looking at the people standing along the rail of the Battleship Texas, she asked, “Is seven taken?”
Checking the list in his hand, Tick-Tock answered, “Nope, you’re good to go.”
When Tick-Tock finished pulling
the last of them in with the rescue hook and tallied up the numbers, it ended up being five. Brain jumped up and down in triumph while doing air punches as Pep barked and ran around him in circles.
Since she
knew the area from her daily foraging expeditions, Denise led the way as the people from The Usual Suspects and the Battleship Texas headed out of the quay and into the San Jacinto River. The people from the sailboat looked back sadly at The Usual Suspects, slowly settling into the water. Within a few days it, and the Battleship Texas, would settle slowly to the bottom.
At first they didn’t see many of the dead on shore, but after passing under the I10 Bridge into a more residential area, the
Z’s began to show themselves. Like the other bridges, this one was packed with cars and a few Z’s that stared hungrily at them as they passed below. Four jumped over the rail to get at them, with one landing only a few feet from the boat Tick-Tock was on. The difference between the two groups was immediately apparent when the people from the Texas rushed to the opposite rail while Tick-Tock and Sheila rushed forward with weapons at the ready when it looked like one of the dead things might land on the deck.
After passing through Bear Lake, they entered a nature preserve. Where before they had to go slow because of debris in the water, it was clear
through this stretch, so they sped up.