Winter's Salvation (11 page)

Directly across the filled street is a large parking lot and then a dark shopping center.  To their right they saw a few undead rocking back and forth in between some of the wrecked cars.  From this vantage point they were u
nable to tell if the zombies were trapped in between a few wrecked cars or were they just waiting for the next meal to come wandering past.  The vehicles to the right for the most part were still.  To the left they could hear the sounds of a random car honking and the sporadic sound of metal grinding on metal. 

With his head low Rod crept forward to the next stripped vehicle.  Through the bloodied windows of
a few of the closest cars facing his direction, he could see dead passengers sitting in the front driver’s seat and passenger windows.  Further down the line of cars he could see a few vehicles headed in the opposite direction rocking upon each other.  From the rocking vehicles he could see a pair of hands reaching from the passenger side windows writhing and twisting in the confines of their seats.  The undead passengers reached as if there was a living being taunting him just outside the car. 

             
The others moved to the next car.  “There seems to be something going on up there.” Rod said as he pointed to the distant left.   

             
Eric looked directly across the street to the Grocery store that had been broken into.  “That’s fine just as long as whatever it wants stays over there.  What we want is in there,” pointing his finger at the store.

             
Scanning the street for an open section between the cars seemed impossible.  They all knew they would have to climb over some of them if they expected to get across.  Getting close to the street was not a problem because many cars tried to swerve through the auto shops parking lot to gain a few inches in the traffic, but the drivers quickly realized when everyone had the same thought as they did, you wind up putting yourself in a worse position than you were in before.  

             
They had to leap over a few cars, but always made sure the cars they leapt over did not have any habitants in them.  They made it to the double yellow line that separated the two opposite directions of traffic by a few feet that to them felt like an open plain. 

             
Rod led the way down the painted double yellow line.  Traveling through the cars detoured them a little out of the way and with the yellow path clear they moved as silently as possible down the narrow open lane.  He was the smallest of the group and found that he was rather comfortable moving quietly ahead.  Drew was not far behind him, then Eric then Dave. 

             
As they moved closer to the Food Lion, Eric noticed Rod’s uncanny ability to keep the canned food in his gym bag quiet.  It may be because with every movement Eric made his canned goods clanged against each other in some sort of angry food fight.  He tried to hold the bag tight against his body, but that did not help.  He pulled the shoulder strap tighter over his neck and shoulder just tight enough so he was not cutting off the circulation to his head. 

A few more cars forward, Eric felt a tug on his black tight gym bag as he was on his hands and knees crawling.  Immediately he dropped to the ground and thrust himself as close to the car to his left making a loud crash along with the sound of food cans banging together.  He turned to see a dried bloodied skeletal hand lose its grip on his bag as it reached frantically through the cars busted drivers side window.  It’s eyes were wide either with extreme excitement or the fact that it’s eyelids were ripped from its face.  It wanted to scream, but could not.  The ghoul was missing it’s lower jaw and the front part of it’s throat.  A long fat tongue swung wildly from the top of its chest as it thrashed in its buckled seat.  It rained blood from the zombies relentless, but useless efforts to scream, and followed by the sound of it sucking the blood back down into its lungs just to let out another bloody shower. 

Dave looked sternly at Eric and hit him on the soul of his shoe. “Keep going!” He would have hollered it, but instead gave a commanding whisper.  “This one can’t harm you.”  He waited for Eric to start moving and then continued to covering the back of the line.

Peering between two crashed vehicles Rod looked to see what the commotion was.  At the other end of the parking lot about a hundred yards away and the furthest point away from the grocery store was a crowd of undead devouring some poor soul.  Zombies were ripping the flesh away from something that was unrecognizable anymore.  They acted as vultures, reaching in, eating whatever it was that they grabbed and filling each open space with another undead body.  To Rodriquez it looked as if there were thirty bodies fighting over a handful of flesh. 

To their surprise the parking lot was nearly vacant.  A few cars were still parked in the lot, but between each car there was a running span in between them.  From the right they could see the silhouettes of two zombies walking side by side as if they were a couple, headed in their direction as the sun started to set behind them.  There was no way they could have seen the four of them, so they assumed they were coming to enjoy the feast.  At the rate these walkers were moving the body would be completely devoured before they got to it. 

Dave and Eric moved up with Rod to analyze their situation.  The feasting zombies to the left would not be that big of a problem if they just maintained their appetite, but the ones on the right were going to see them either way.  “I say we run in, get what we need to get and get out.”  Dave said as he peered at the couple. 

“What is it that we need to get?” Drew asked.

“Canned foods, Spam, cans that have protein in them.”   Dave said,

“Rice,” Rodriquez chimed in.

Eric looked at him and smiled a little.  He thought of a hundred things he could say and the way Rod looked at him, he knew he had opened himself up to whatever was going to come his way. 

Eric nodded to Rod, “Rice lasts forever.  Good call.  We need to stick together though, we can’t separate.” 

“Power bars and those body building shakes and stuff.” Drew spoke out.

Dave looked to him and said, “That’s what we should focus on.” He patted him hard on his back, in a sign of appreciation.  “We gather up all that stuff.  Power bars, muscle shakes and vitamins.  We will need them probably most of all.  We should rush the health food isle.”  They turned their attention to Eric.  “You know where that stuff is?”

Eric looked at Dave as if he were speaking a foreign language.  “Do you honestly think I know what isle that stuff is in?”

Dave peered at Eric’s stomach and raised an eyebrow.

“When this is over I’m gonna kick your ass.”  Eric said with a smile.

“Ok.” Dave took a breath.  “We get the health food stuff.  We run on three.” He looked them all in the eyes and waited for any disapproval.  “One…” No breath or noise rose from any of them, “Two….” They all took a breath, “Three.”  They all took off in unison down the long stretch of parking lot.  Eric led the group and Drew started to fall behind.  Rod hung back, but only just enough to encourage Drew. 

Dave started to slow, but it wasn’t because he was tired.  He was looking at what was going on around him.  The others did not seem to hear the moans rising from the couple to their right and because of their moans, they caught the attention of the crowd eating the corpse.  Looking in to one of the cars as they ran past he noticed movement from inside and that movement started to crawl out of the passenger window. 

Eric slowed when he got to the window and started to tread on the broken glass.  As he turned he saw Dave pushing the other two to keep them moving.  They weren’t moving slow because they were tired, but they just could not move as fast as Dave or Eric.  To Dave, that was not acceptable and he forced them to move faster. 

Dave saw Eric turn his attention to them and could see the expression on his face change from out of breath to absolute terror.  He could only imagine what he was staring back at and was scared to turn to see for himself.  “Look inside, see if it’s safe!” Dave hollered breathing heavily.  He knew the zombies saw them and there was no use hiding the fact that he and the others were running across an open parking lot. 

Eric stepped over the busted glass wall and entered the store.  It was separated into two halves.  The sun seemed to cut into the store like a wedge leaving dust and fine particles playing and shining back through the light.  Directly above the dancing debris, complete darkness cut through the top of the store like a black wedge.  The only light that shone through was from the front wall that was nothing, but broken glass.  The store was already ransacked, but random food still lay about.  There were plenty of cereal boxes that lay on the ground, stepped on and turned into fine powders of bright colors littered the front of the store. 

He tried to look at the isle signs that hung from the ceiling, but could only read half of every sign due to the lowering sun casting a shadow through the middle of the hanging signs.  Eric thought he remembered the health food isle was close to the tooth paste, deodorant and soap section so he immediately moved in that direction.  The isle was all the way to the right of the store and as soon as the rest of the crew got to the window he waved them to that direction.  They all moved without saying a word, but everyone of them knew exactly what they needed to gather.  The sound of crashing and shuffling broke their silence.  

“Come on you fucking shit for brains dead head.”  The voice came from a man.  It sounded like he had just had enough and wasn’t going to take any more.  “Come and get me.  There’s plenty of me to go around.”  The words came from a man with a strong southern accent. 

They were slowed by the voice and Dave waved them to continue.  As they made their way to the right of the store, they could see the undead couple working their way to the store.  It would not be long before they are on top of them.  They had to get the supplies and leave. 

They got to the isle and the sound of a gunshot echoed through the air bouncing off of every wall in the grocery store.  “Did you come to steal from my store?”  They were spotted, Rod and Drew ducked into the isle and Dave and Eric stopped short of the isle.  “This is my store!”  The man shouted.  Signs hanging from broken windows cast a shadow covering his face leaving the only part of him visible was part of his chest and his pants. 

Dave and Eric immediately noticed the revolver in his right hand.  “You fucking niggers come into my store and steal everything.”  The man stepped into the light revealing his face.  He has a face full of uncombed peppered facial hair and wrinkles that
lined his facial features from a life time of stress and hard living.  He wore a camouflage ball cap and a blue collared polo shirt with a name tag on his right breast.  This man must have been a manager or some faithful grocery store employee that relied on his position to get him through life. 

“This is my sto
re.  This is my STORE!”  He was infuriated.  His eyes were wide and he wildly waved the silver revolver in his right hand.  He screamed at them bending over as if he were just punched in the stomach. 

             
Dave leaned close to Eric, “Look at his hand.”

             
The wild man was waving his right arm franticly at them and the end of the revolver shook vigorously.  The handle on the revolver was covered in black coagulated blood that stuck to it as thick as maple syrup. 

             
“He was bitten,” Dave said in a whisper.  “Maybe we should be headed out?” He leaned back and paused for a second.  They stood there watching the gunman in his frantic stomping.  “We could come back in a few hours.  More than likely he would have changed and ran somewhere else.”

             
“Or he could be here waiting for someone like us to grab some food.” 

             
Rod and Drew quietly emptied the canned food from Rods gym bag and started filling it with muscle building bars and vitamins that no matter how quietly they tried, the pills rattled together inside the bottle. 

             
Eric took off his gym bag lowering it to the ground as close to the end of the isle as he could.  He slowly raised his hands, “We’re sorry we didn’t know anyone was in here.”  He was quickly silenced by the sound of skin rubbing on the front glass closest to them. 

             
Dave and Eric turned to the glass and were immediately relieved to see a glass barrier protected them from the two undead that were traveling down the parking lot.  The pane that was next to that one was broken and the zombies were mere inches from reaching around the glass and realizing they could get in if they just stepped sideways.  One smeared its face across the glass biting at the smooth barrier.  Black blood flowed from the ghouls mouth and smeared in small circles with its face and long hair.  The other tried to reach through the glass not understanding what was stopping it.  Reaching hands turned to fist as it smashed them against the glass. 

              “We were just coming to get some food.” Eric said taking a step back, “Let us leave through the back and we’ll be out of here.”

             
At the sight of the undead couple, the employee started to rock side to side on his heels nervously.  His eyes shifted back and forth between Eric and Dave and the two zombies that were now beating on the glass shaking it and groaning loudly.  “There is no back for you.  That is for employees only.”