Darnell’s Sporting Goods was located on Highway 3, a quarter mile outside of the Trudy city limits. It shared plaza space with a McDonald’s and the Super Walmart. From the outside, it looked like your average sporting goods mega-store, but Darnell Burton, the owner, was a diehard gun enthusiast and a self-proclaimed anarchist. Most of the townsfolk didn’t have any idea of what an anarchist was, but a good portion of the male population could relate to Darnell’s infatuation with guns. During a time when the current economic crisis (which Trudy had succumbed to despite a stubborn small town defiance) and a proliferation of nearby big box stores were putting most mom-and-pop brick-and-mortar shops out of business, Darnell’s seemed to thrive.
The inside of Darnell’s reflected his personality. It had one of the widest selections of guns, knives, and bows for several hundred miles, and had siphoned off a fair share of business from the Scheels store in Sioux City and Cabela’s in Omaha.
But most of all, it was a customer’s wet dream if they were shopping for an impending apocalypse. All of this was evident by the fact that there was a small section devoted entirely to a display selling blueprints of underground bomb shelters.
Darnell’s parking lot was mostly empty except for a few abandoned vehicles. Among them sat a rather old ice cream truck. There was a shuttered window on the side, which could be opened so that ice cream treats and other goodies could be easily doled out to the anxious little kiddies. The truck had sat unused for quite some time, but it had been a fixture in Darnell’s parking lot for as long as Ryan could remember. Years ago (before he had finally hit it big with the sporting goods store), Darnell had had his fingers in a lot of pies; had started one failing business after another, each more grandiose than the last. Ice cream delivery had been one of them. Try as he might, Ryan had a tough time imagining Darnell in a sparkling white uniform and driving around town handing out ice cream as a tinny-sounding jingle blared from the truck’s overhead speakers.
They found a stray shopping cart standing alone in the lot, and with a slight twinge of guilt, Ryan used it to smash the glass out of the front doors.
Apologies, Darnell.
“That was loud enough to wake the dead,” Derek said. “No pun intended.” He glanced at Kevin, who, judging by the expression on his face, didn’t find the comment funny at all.
Mindful of the jagged shards of glass that still clung to the door frames, they made their way into the sporting goods store. Several safety lamps cast dim light from above, but the aisles were mostly dark. Ryan removed the Streamlight Stinger flashlight from his duty belt and turned it on. He shined it at the placards that hung from chains above each aisle.
“Let’s get some light first,” he said, leading them down an aisle where there was a wall of various flashlights. They came in all shapes and sizes; from ones small enough to fit onto a keychain to large ones with enough juice, Ryan thought, to be seen from space. After they had selected flashlights and put in batteries, they moved about the rest of the store.
In camping supplies, Ryan pulled four large hiking packs down from the wall, handing them out before they split up into two groups. “Stuff as much ammo as you can into these things. Something tells me we’ll need it.”
Ryan, Becky, and Fred went one way, and Kevin, Rhonda, and Derek went another.
The guns were in the far back of the store. Four long glass cases displayed the handguns; rifles and shotguns were lined up on racks on the wall behind them. Most of the guns had trigger locks, but after breaking into a room with a sign that said EMPLOYEES ONLY
on the door, and prying open a metal box that hung on the wall, Ryan managed to find the keys that would remove them.
Ryan said, “Bring that over here,” and Becky navigated the shopping cart behind the display cases. Ryan began plucking shotguns and rifles from the wall, barely taking the time to glance at the makes: Mossberg, Remington, Weatherby, Beretta, Savage Arms, and DPMS. He kept a Mossberg Tactical Shotgun which was already fitted with a shoulder strap for himself. From there, they moved onto the handguns, he and Fred swiping them from the shelves into the cart. Rugers, Smith & Wessons, SIG Sauers, Springfield Armory. Next, they loaded up on ammunition; scooping up boxes of 9mm, .40 cal, .45 cal, .270 with Nosler Ballistic Tips, and Federal Premium Black Cloud steel shotgun shells.
“I’ve gotta have that,” Fred said, standing on his tiptoes in order to pull down a Stryker crossbow that hung on the wall.
“Not very practical,” Ryan said.
Fred drew the bow’s string back until it locked, slotted one of the menacing-looking bolts that had four-blade broadheads. He aimed at a plastic deer that stood twenty feet away. A black target area was tattooed on its side. Fred squeezed the bow’s trigger, and the bolt fired, singing through the air. It pierced the side of the deer’s head, tearing off a chunk of plastic. “But efficient,” Fred said. “Is it wrong that I have a hard on right now?”
“Let’s focus on needs over wants.”
Fred browsed the other packs of arrowheads. Emblazoned on one plastic package were the words
Exploding Tips!
The words were written in flames. Fred held the package up for Ryan to see and said, “Are these even legal?”
Ryan shrugged. “I’m not sure old Darnell concerned himself much with that.”
Fred put the exploding tips in the cart. Ryan was staring at him. “What? They’re a ‘
need
’ item.”
Fifteen minutes later, they met up with Kevin’s group. Kevin opened the packs and showed them their haul. “Brain protection,” Kevin said, holding up a Kevlar riot helmet with a transparent face shield. “Certified zombie proof.”
“Nice,” Fred said.
“Don’t forget these,” Derek said, opening the other pack so the others could see inside. It was filled with mini propane canisters used primarily with “go anywhere” portable grills.
“Remember the
Dawn of the Dead
remake? Same concept,” Kevin said. “Only more portable.”
They spent another twenty minutes loading the weapons. Kevin donned a belt that he had rigged with two tactical holsters, and shoved handguns into each of them. Fred had the crossbow, a quiver of bolts strapped to his back. He tucked a .44 Magnum into the waistband of his pants. A machete in nylon sheathe dangled from his side.
“Still have the revolver?” Ryan asked
Becky held it up so he could see it. “Yep.”
“Good. Keep that within reach. That’s your back-up gun now. He handed her a pump-action shotgun and showed her how to work it. “Careful with this,” he said. “It’s going to have some kick to it.”
Becky said, “I don’t know if I can do this.”
Ryan hugged her. He could feel her heart racing a mile-a-minute in her chest. “Take a deep breath.” She did. “Now take another one. Better?”
“Not really.”
“Whatever happens, stay close. I’m going to get us through the night. I promise. Just do me a favor…don’t tell your parents about this.”
Becky smiled, the shotgun heavy in her arms. She loaded a shell the way Ryan had shown her to.
Derek had armed himself with a rifle equipped with a scope.
Rhonda had fashioned a belt similar to Kevin’s, looking like a sexy Old West outlaw wearing two high-ride holsters on her hips, each stuffed with a semi-automatic pistol. She had also thrown on a baggie camouflage parka she had found on one of the clearance racks. Despite the five-finger discount, she had tried to approach their illegal shopping spree with an economical mind.
“You look damn fine,” Kevin said.
“Why thank you, sir.”
“Are we ready?” Ryan asked.
“Hold up,” Kevin said. “We need a name.”
“What?”
“You know, like the
Avengers
or the
Justice League
. Every group needs a cool name.”
“Yeah, he’s right.”
“I’m not good at coming up with names,” Rhonda said.
“What about the Zombie Freedom Fighters?” Derek suggested.
Fred gave a raspberry to his forearm and said, “Totally sucks.”
“The Zombie Club?” Rhonda said.
“That’s close,” Kevin said. “The Z Club, maybe?”
“That has a nice ring to it.”
“No,” Derek said. “Drop the ‘the.’ Just…Z Club.”
“Shut it, Zuckerberg,” Kevin said.
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Are you guys finished?”
“Let’s kill us some zombie scum!” Derek shouted.
Ryan went first, pushing the cart, and the others followed.
They stopped dead in their tracks when they got outside. A string of zombies, maybe fifteen or twenty of them, formed a close-knit group, shambling toward them, on the other side of the parking lot.
“How’d they find us so fast?”
“Our brains,” Derek said. “Don’t you remember those zombie teenagers at the store? They smelled us all the way across the plaza. It’s like Peter Parker with his Spidey sense. Only instead of trouble, they can smell brains a mile away.”
“They’re slower than shit,” Fred said. “Sitting ducks.” He pulled a bolt from the quiver on his back.
“Wait until they get a little closer,” Ryan said. “We won’t be accurate at this range. I don’t want to waste any more ammo than we have to.”
They drew their weapons, aimed, and waited as the zombies shambled forward.
Waiting was oddly anti-climatic, and gave them a sense of renewed confidence they hadn’t had moments before.
As long as we can keep them at a distance,
Ryan thought,
it won’t be so bad.
But the memory of Branagan cropped up in the back of his mind. The Sheriff –
former
Sheriff, Ryan’s mind corrected – hadn’t been slow and clumsy. If anything, for a man that had grown old and sedentary, he had moved with uncommon vigor; almost as though whatever had infected him had also given him the strength and speed of a younger man.
Ryan wasn’t sure why the memory bothered him. It was an isolated case. Perhaps Branagan had been an exception to the rule.
The shambling undead were less than seventy feet away. Ryan said, “Get ready,” loud enough for the others to hear it. “Aim for the head.”
“Like you needed to tell
us
that,” Fred said.
Ryan had the Mossberg raised and ready, finger fluttering over the trigger. Sixty feet. Then fifty. He said, “Hold on,” and felt like he was re-enacting a scene from the Revolutionary War.
When the zombies were within forty feet, the word “fire” was on the tip of Ryan’s tongue, but before he could say it, the zombies suddenly surged forward, breaking into a full-out run.
“They’re
fast
zombies,” Fred yelled.
“Fire,” Ryan shouted. “
Fire NOW!
”
The sound of gunfire was deafening as the darkened lot lit up with muzzle flashes. Shell casings trickled to the asphalt, but Ryan’s ears were ringing something fierce and he couldn’t hear it.
They were messing with us,
he thought.
Made us think we had plenty of time until they were close enough.
Ryan kept his eyes on the zombies, firing the shotgun over and over again, watching flesh, blood, bone, and shredded clothing explode. A zombie fell to its side as its leg was sawed off by a bullet. A bolt from Fred’s crossbow sliced through a zombie’s open mouth, and stopped with the fletching caught between the zombie’s ruined lips.
Ryan’s ears were still ringing. He didn’t hear the dry click of the shotgun, but felt it, and let it fall to the ground as he drew his Glock from its holster and began firing again.
The remaining zombies were less than fifteen feet away now, almost within lunging distance, and Ryan could already smell their decomposing bodies.
To his left, Becky struggled with loading the shotgun. Fred was loading another bolt into the crossbow (
not practical,
Ryan’s mind screamed). Derek took aim, hesitating as he kept shifting his gaze from the rifle’s scope (
they’re too close to use the scope!
). Rhonda’s magazines were empty. She was trying to hold onto the spent ones as she loaded fresh ones (
just drop the empty ones for Christ’s sake!).
They were falling apart and Ryan knew it. He couldn’t blame them; they weren’t trained for this kind of thing.
Then again, who is?
These are zombies we’re talking about. The goddamned walking dead.
After a moment, he realized that him and Kevin were the only ones still firing. The zombies were nearly close enough to reach out and touch. Ryan strode forward, two feet separating him and the closest zombie. He brought up the Glock, inches from the zombie’s head, pulled the trigger, and watched the thing crumple to the ground. He felt blood splash the side of his face as Kevin shot a zombie coming up on Ryan’s left side.
One of them was on him, knocking him off balance. Ryan felt a sharp pain in his ankle as he put his weight down trying to stop himself from falling. He felt sharp fingernails dig into his shoulders, the zombie coming down on top of him. Ryan rocked his body to the side and used the momentum to roll over, sending the zombie onto its back, its teeth clacking together as it took a bite of the air. Half an inch, and it would have been Ryan’s nose. Ryan shoved the Glock under its chin and fired, brain matter jetting out of the top of the zombie’s head, a geyser of blood and pink chunks.
He fell back into a sitting position, taking a brief appraisal of the carnage as he tried to catch his breath. He was wheezing. As a child, he’d had asthma, but had outgrown it somewhere along the way. He closed his eyes until it passed. Kevin came over and offered a hand, helping Ryan up.
“Close call,” Kevin said.
Ryan nodded.
“Guess the rest of us need work.”
“We survived.” And in his mind he thought:
just barely.
There was a fiery pain in his shoulders where the zombie had dug its nails in, but as far as Ryan could tell, his shirt had prevented them from breaking the skin. Without knowing for certain how the infection (if it even
was
an infection) spread, they couldn’t take any chances.
“Are you all right?” Becky asked.
“Yeah. Got the wind knocked out of me, but I’m fine now.”
“I choked,” Becky said. “There’s no other way to say it.”
“It was a first run. Everybody chokes the first time. Some people never stop choking.”
Ryan surveyed the parking lot. They couldn’t risk taking two separate vehicles, but his patrol car wouldn’t hold all of them. Neither would Kevin’s Neon. There was a beat up Dodge truck, caked with rust, parked in one of the far slots. There was Darnell’s old ice cream truck, which at least ran, Ryan knew. Parked several spaces away was a big yellow Hummer. Even in the semi-darkness, it looked almost brand new; as though it hadn’t yet been driven off the showroom floor. It would be a little cramped, but it would seat the six of them comfortably enough, with room in the back for the guns and other supplies. He wondered what could have caused someone to abandon it in the lot.
Could be one of Darnell’s new toys,
he thought, but couldn’t recall seeing it parked in the lot before tonight.
“Let’s take a minute to reload. There won’t be time when we’re in the thick of it.” He thought about giving them a pep talk, instructing them on the tiny errors that turned into grave and costly mistakes when a person was in the thick of battle, but decided against it. It wasn’t easy killing a man or woman, even if they were walking corpses with an appetite for brains. After all, Ryan had never shot anyone until the scene at the hospital earlier that day. He didn’t regret shooting Branagan (he could feel the weight of Branagan’s bloodcaked Sheriff’s star in his shirt pocket), but shooting the kid haunted him a little. “And then we need to consolidate. There’s no sense in taking two cars. Makes it too easy to get separated if shit gets hairy.”
The others followed his gaze across the lot, settling on the bright yellow Hummer.
“No way somebody would leave the keys in something like that,” Fred said.
“They might if they were in a hurry,” Ryan said. The others gathered around him. “Besides, the only other choice is
that
.” He pointed to the ice cream truck.
“Okay, no-brainer,” Fred said.
“Can I drive?” Derek said.
“Shut it.” Kevin gave him a friendly shove forward. Rhonda stuck close to him.
As they walked toward the Hummer, Ryan’s cell phone began to ring.