The Renegades (A Post Apocalyptic Zombie Novel) (7 page)

“
W
hat the fuck
do you think this is? Mario Kart?” I asked Baja. When we swung around the back of the grocery store he had this bright idea that eclipsed the five he had on the way here. He planned on dropping us off. We would take cover under one of the trucks that was pulled up to the dock. From there he would drive to the far corner of the parking lot, get out and start firing at the Z’s. He expected them to come towards him, and in the process draw them away long enough that we could slip in unnoticed.

Though I knew he just wanted to plow some of them down.

“You got any better ideas?”

We were all silent.

“I thought so. Now jump to it, and don’t forget the Pop-Tarts.”

We slipped out and ducked under the cargo container. Baja zipped away, though not before he burned rubber by doing a few donuts in the car park and activating the blue and red flashers. In among the smoke cloud he left behind we watched as Z’s followed him.

It was working.

Baja parked up on the furthest side, got out and starting taking potshots at them.

Z’s started dropping.

“I just hope he watches his back,” Jessica said.

“Let’s go,” Specs said, pulling out from underneath and vaulting up onto the concrete platform. The cargo container was backed into a loading space. The door was up and there was plenty of room to get through.

“Remember, use knives if possible. Guns are a last resort,” I said.

Inside it seemed strangely quiet. While everything looked normal at first, it wasn’t. Blood smeared all over the floor, boxes, and walls painted a picture of what had gone down here. We moved fast. Baja would keep moving to the corners of the parking lot while we dashed in and filled black plastic bags. I was carrying an empty duffel bag for cans.

Before we had even made it into the store area, we encountered four Z’s. One of them had a name tag that read Dave and the word supervisor below that. I stabbed him in the back of the head. The others took out the other three.

When we reached the thick plastic curtains that separated the storage area from the frozen fish section, we slipped through them and kept low. The store was full of the undead. The aisles had at least six Z’s in each. This wasn’t going to be easy. There was no way we could knife our way through them. I pulled my automatic assault rifle around, and gave a gesture for Jessica and Specs to do the same. We all knew the moment we started firing we would bring in more. But there was no way around it.

The smell of fish that was beginning to rot was masked by the stench of the dead corpses filling the store. The sound of snarling and moaning made us alert. Low, and with our backs against the fish display, we kept an eye on the back entrance.

“How are we gonna do this?” Jessica asked.

“We each take an aisle. Specs, you take aisle twelve, Jessica, three, and I’ll take one. Oh and Specs, don’t forget the Pop-Tarts.”

Aisle one was where all the frozen goods were. I wanted a damn T-bone steak and I wasn’t going to all this trouble to walk out of here without it.

“Ready?”

We nodded and then popped up. Now grocery store floors are usually slippery at the best of times. I don’t know why they wax them up so friggin’ shiny, but when you add blood into the mix, it makes them like an ice rink.

The snap of the first few bullets made those ugly motherfuckers turn. We each ran towards our aisle and for at least five minutes all that could be heard was the echo of gunfire. One after another we dropped them. Once my lane was clear I pulled my bag open and scooped up as many steaks as I could. Peppered, T-bone, rib-eye, the whole nine yards.

Surprisingly, most of the food had been untouched. I could tell that whoever was here when the shit hit the fan, didn’t even think about grabbing whatever they could before running. Some never made it. That was only evident by the shopping bags on the floor, and cans sprawled all over the place.

I kept moving fast. Once I had loaded up the bag I returned to where we had come from, but Specs and Jessica were still not back. I dropped the bag and raced over to aisle three. Jessica was still tossing bits into the bag. As she turned her back, a Z came around the corner. I tapped it in the head with one bullet. Its blood splattered all over the shelf as it dropped.

“Fuck yeah.”

One thing for sure, our shooting skills were going to improve. If we stayed alive long enough.

“Guys, there’s too many,” Specs shouted.

Jessica looked as if she was doing OK. I hammered it over to aisle twelve. As I got closer to the corner I slipped on a pool of blood and slammed into the shelving unit. Cans of beans, potatoes, and God knows what came down on me. It was like experiencing a mini avalanche, except this shit was metal.

Swearing, covered in blood, and trying to catch my breath. I could now see what Specs meant. He had been blocked in by Z’s from the front and the back. He had the good sense to grab a couple of trolleys in the aisle and spin them sideways, but he wasn’t going to be able to hold them off both ways. All it would have taken was one bite and he would have been toast.

“Specs, get down,” I yelled.

Still on the floor with my side in pain, I started shooting. I just peppered the tops of their heads. I kept my finger on the trigger until the ones behind him were no longer a threat. Likewise he was firing at the ones ahead.

I pulled myself up. The left half of my body was drenched in blood. Whose it was, was anyone’s guess. But it stunk to high heaven and it was as sticky as fuck. I would have rather bathed in my own semen than had that shit on me. It felt like molasses.

“Thanks, man.”

“Any time.”

“Shit. You need a shower.”

“You think?”

By the time his bag was filled up, Jessica had joined us.

“Now let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Roger that.”

We had made it back into the storage area, when we saw the exit that had served as our entrance was now overrun. As far as we could see there was the dead crawling and stumbling forward in our direction. We backed up.

“Shit, let’s…”

We were about to go back the other way when we found ourselves in the same predicament. Our gunfire had drawn even more in.

“Quick, in here,” I said.

There was a massive storage freezer. I yanked on the metal handle and pulled back the vault size door. It had to have been ten inches thick.

“I’m not going in there. We’ll freeze to death,” Jess said.

“Do we have any other option? You want to shoot your way through that?”

“Fuck,” Specs said as he dashed inside. I slammed the door behind us. The moment it clicked closed, I knew this was a bad decision. The power was still on, so the fans above were spinning and pumping in cold air. The room was huge. Metallic. The floors were made of grated metal. Metal shelves held large amounts of packed meat. Some of it was hung on hooks.

From inside we could hear the Z’s banging against the door. As solid as the door was, there was a slim chance they could open it. All it would take was for one of them to get its arm hooked on the door handle and fall back and it would have cracked the lock.

Our breath could be seen in white wisps of smoke. We immediately started rubbing our arms before shoving our hands into pockets.

Jessica’s eyes began to well up with tears. “This is crazy. I want my father.”

I tried to comfort her by pulling her in close to me and wrapping my arms around her. I didn’t say anything. There was nothing that could be said to alleviate what she was feeling. The earth-shattering noise of Z’s pounding against what would likely become our tomb was enough to break any of us. There was only one way out, and we had made the stupid decision to seal ourselves in.

All we could do was hope that Baja was OK. That he would realize we were in trouble and go get the others. There was no way he was going to come inside. He wouldn’t have stood a chance against the herd.

I’m not sure how long we were inside that freezer. Time seemed to freeze. It felt like hours, but was likely only five minutes. Our lips were starting to turn blue. My ears stung and what little warmth remained in my toes and fingers was gone. We all knew if we didn’t get out of there soon, we would freeze to death.

When you are in an extreme situation, your mind searches for answers. Anything to keep you alive. You begin to think of things that may not even be possible, but anything was better than death.

I looked up at the large fans pumping cold air down onto us.

“We’re going up.”

“What?” Jess said.

“Step back. Move.”

Jess and Specs moved behind me. I aimed my assault rifle at the fan and began shooting. You see, the idea seemed doable. Shoot the fan motor enough times, it would stop. We could then yank off the cover and bend the blades or pull the whole unit down, then we could go up through the vents. By the size of the hole behind it, I imagined, it had to have been large enough for us to fit through. What I hadn’t banked on was bullets ricocheting. I unleashed a furious amount at the fan. Sparks ignited, and bullets ricocheted, one of them hit Specs in the leg. What made it worse, was the fan was still was in one piece. It hadn’t even been scratched. But now Specs was wounded.

“Shit!”

Specs fell to the floor, reeling around in agony.

“God, man, I’m sorry.”

Jessica immediately tore apart his pant leg. That’s when we realized he’d only been grazed, but he was rolling around as though he had just stepped on a land mine.

“Dude, your leg is OK.”

“Am I going to die? Shit, I didn’t want to die this young.”

I grabbed hold of him. “Specs. Snap out of it.” I gave him a slap.

“Fuck, dude. You didn’t have to hit me.”

“Look.”

I pointed down. I had taken a small chunk out of the back of his calf, but the bullet hadn’t gone in. A bandage and he would be fine. Jessica took the piece of pants that she had ripped and wrapped it around his calf.

“There. That should be good until we get back,” she told him.

“Get back? We are going to die in here,” he said.

And then he was off again. I just ignored him this time, and continued to think about how the hell we were going to get out of there. I walked over to the door and tried to hear if the Z’s had dispersed as it had gone quiet. By quiet, I mean they were no longer smashing against the door. Now it was just the odd knock or two.

“I can barely feel my hands,” Jess said.

I looked up at the fan, it was still spinning.

“Here, help me,” I said.

Specs got up and hobbled over.

“Move this into position.”

We shimmied over a shelf that was mostly empty and positioned it directly below the fan.

“This is what we are going to do. We are going to jam that frozen piece of meat into it.”

“Are you off your head? Dude, it will slice that to shit,” Specs said.

“Maybe. But have you ever tried to cut through frozen meat with a knife? We just need it in there long enough to blow the fan’s motor.”

Jessica pulled on a chain that controlled the meat that was hanging. I gave her a hand yanking a large piece of frozen meat closer. It took all three of us to get it off the hook. I directed Jessica to get up on the shelf. Specs and I were going to get underneath it and shove it upward. All she had to do was guide it into place.

“Ready?” Specs asked.

Jessica tried to balance on one of the flimsy shelves.

“You got it, man?” I asked.

“As much as you can for someone whose leg has been shot off.”

I laughed. He was such a hypochondriac.

“One. Two. THREE.”

We heaved with all our might and shoved it up. Jessica pushed it one way, then another as we tried to balance it.

“OK, it’s good,” Jess said.

“Now push with everything you’ve got,” I said.

“If this is just a chunk of the cow, can you imagine trying to lift the whole thing?”

“You telling me Darla wasn’t this heavy when she was riding you?”

We both started cracking up laughing which made it even harder to lift. Darla was a girl Specs had gone out with. She was little on the heavy side. Nice girl, but man did he get ribbed over that one in school.

One more massive heave and then the whole piece of meat shook like a washing machine in full motion. Sparks flew and smoke came from the fan, then it stopped. At least that’s what we assumed. We could only hear it. When we dropped the piece of meat, we gazed at the top which was chewed up, then looked at Jess and burst out laughing. She had got a face full of meat. Some of it was in her hair, and the rest dripping off her cheeks.

“Glad you find it funny.”

“C’mere. I’ll give you a hand.”

I helped her down and then cleaned her up. We stood beneath what had been a perfectly functional fan. The blades were now fucked up and two of them had come off. All of which meant we now had a way out.

“You coming?” I had stepped up onto the shelving. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Jess and Specs grabbed the bags and I was the first one into the vent. I reached down and grabbed a bag. Next up was Jess, then Specs followed. Inside the vent it was pitch dark. I wasn’t one for close quarters. I tended to feel claustrophobic really quick. But the thought of facing those Z’s was worse. I turned on the flashlight on the end of my gun and we crawled our way through the vent system until we saw sunlight coming down.

“Jess, did I ever tell you, you have a nice ass,” Specs said.

“Hey,” I said.

“Sorry, man, but who knows when I could bite the dust. Might as well appreciate the view. And right now I have a pretty damn good view.”

Jess started laughing.

The vent system went up to the roof. Climbing up was the hardest part, we had to lean back and press our legs against the side and pray that we didn’t slip. If we had, I would have landed on Jess and she would have crushed Specs below.

When we reached the top, I used the butt of my gun to knock the cap off the vent. The moment I felt the sunlight hit my skin, its warmth it felt like heaven. We rolled out onto the roof and for a few minutes just lay there, letting the sun breathe life back into our almost frozen limbs.