Into the Badlands (14 page)

Dave offered no argument. His rumbling stomach wouldn’t allow it.

As they neared the exit the girls followed the road as it veered off from the main highway. Suddenly Dave stopped walking. The girls stopped as well, then both of them turned around and looked at him, perplexed.

“What?” Tammy asked. Her tone was sharp, her body language impatient. She was tired of suffering him, Dave knew, but he had to ignore that. Kid gloves. He paused, thinking how best to make his case. “Look,” he began, “we’re about the head into one of these stores and we don’t know what the hell is in there. They could be full of carriers, or maybe thieves looking to do us in and take whatever we got.”

“And?” Tammy shot back. “We already know this. This isn't our first time, you know.”

Dave felt his frustration with her grow. He pushed it down and continued making his case. “And neither is it mine. I’m tied up,” he continued, holding his hands up for them to see. “I can’t defend myself, and I can’t defend either of you two, for that matter.”

Tammy chuckled. “No offense buddy, but we don’t need your help. You're slowing us down as it is.”

“Tammy, c’mon,” Brenda chided.

Tammy appeared incredulous. “What? It's true. He needs us more than we need him.”

“You may be right,” Dave replied, “but in any case I can’t do shit with my hands tied. Except die, I guess.”

“Or kill us,” Tammy added. “Don’t forget about that.”

Dave closed his eyes. His frustration simmered like a cauldron ready to boil. “Really?”

“Well, maybe. How do we know for sure you won't try something?”

“Well, I’m telling you now I have no intention of killing anybody, that's how. Look, you guys saved my life, and I owe you. I need to be able to help though. I also need to be able to protect myself. You’re taking me into a store, the kind of place we all know carriers frequent, with my goddamn hands tied. You might as well feed me right to them.”

He was becoming more irritated, and his voice was delivering a frustrated tone. He tried to reel it in a bit; if those girls took any notion that he was some sort of threat to them they’d never untie him. Then he'd be a sitting duck.

The girls thought for a moment, then Brenda spoke. “We’re gonna talk this over.” She and Tammy walked just out of earshot. He couldn’t hear the specifics, but he knew the gist of the argument. They talked for a few minutes, hands moving violently in the air through most of it, then they returned.

“Okay, we get your point,” Brenda began.

“Good.”

She continued. “But, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, if we untie you and try something on one of us, we’ll put you down. No bullshit.”

Dave nodded in agreement.

“Second,” she continued, “you pull your own weight. Carry everything you can, help us search, that kind of thing. Basically you do what we tell you.”

“Fair enough,” he replied.

Brenda looked at Tammy, then walked to Dave. Tammy pointed her rifle at him.

“Jesus, is that really necessary?” he asked.

Tammy just stared at him, saying nothing. Brenda untied the rope around his wrist, then unwound it. Once the rope was removed Dave rubbed his wrists, then shook out his hands. “You don’t know how good that feels.”

“Nothing funny,” Tammy warned.

“I'm at your service,” Dave replied sarcastically.

When the group stepped into the parking lot of the 7-Eleven, Dave began looking for a weapon. It didn’t take long to find one. He picked out a car at random then tried the front door; it was unlocked. He reckoned that when death was immanent, locking up one's car wasn’t a big concern. He reached inside, found the trunk release lever, and pulled. The trunk popped open.

“What are you doing?” Brenda asked.

“Self-defense,” he told her. Tammy shot at Brenda a glance, concern flashing across her face. Brenda shook her head.

Dave walked to the trunk, opened it, then began to dig around inside. Within a minute he produced a tire tool. He turned to the girls, imitating an infomercial host’s voice. “A versatile tool, sufficiently capable of changing a flat tire, or bashing in the head of an infected human.”

Neither of them laughed, so he dropped the act promptly. Truth was, he was nervous; the joking had been a cover up. He had a bad feeling about the building they were about to enter. He had little choice though; they needed supplies pronto if they planned to continue.

“Let's go, wise-ass,” Tammy said. Dave followed without comment.

As they continued through the parking lot, multiple decaying bodies lay all about, requiring they step over or around them. They quickly arrived at the front door to the convenience store. It had been almost completely removed from the hinges; it hung askew by the top hinge only. Mother nature had blazed a trail into the store through the weakness of the open door leaving dirt, dead leaves, and plants in its wake.

They stepped inside, Brenda in the lead, followed by Dave and then Tammy, her rifle still pointed at their new companion. They stepped very quietly, making almost no sound besides their gentle footfalls. After a whispered warning by Tammy they broke up and ventured out a bit more, the girls sticking together. Brenda chastised Tammy, who then allowed Dave to wander off on his own.

None of them spoke once inside the store. They kept their eyes and ears open for any sounds that might indicate carrier presence. The shelves were mostly bare; the store had been raided hard already. Dave looked under the shelves and in as many crevices as he could. His nerves were electric; places like this always bothered him.

Near the back of the store he found some candy bars and some beef jerky that had fallen behind a shelf and had gotten lodged halfway down. He thought he could get to them, but he’d have to move the shelves apart to do so. He was about to put down his tire tool to move the shelf when he saw something that made him freeze where he stood.

A female carrier knelt in the corner, chewing on the intestines of a raccoon. It had apparently been so engrossed in the activity it hadn’t heard them walk into the store. It hadn’t seen him yet either. It knelt there, covered in black filth, tearing away at the thing’s flesh, gulping down innards as if they were candy.

Dave’s stomach flip-flopped with butterflies. He couldn't warn the girls; the thing would hear him. He couldn’t run; because it would be on him in an instant. He wished he had his gun, but it was still lying beside his dead wife and friend along with the rest of his things. All he had was the iron tire tool.

He took a deep breath, gripped the iron bar tightly in his hand, and walked quickly up to the carrier. He was halfway there before it saw him. It hesitated for a moment, apparently not wanting to let go of its food, or maybe deciding if he was a threat.

That hesitation was all the time he needed. It screamed at him as he approached, but he was on it before it had time to get to its feet. He lifted the tire tool into the air then brought it down on top of the thing’s head as hard as he could. He could feel the skull split beneath the steel.

“Dave?” he heard Brenda yell from the other side of the store. Both girls came running. Dave brought the tire tool down on the thing’s head one more time. It dropped the raccoon from its grip, the innards hanging out of its mouth and onto to the ground.

Then from the front of the store Dave heard another scream. It was a scream of anger and fury; another carrier. He watched as it emerged from behind the counter. This carrier, however, was just a child. What had once been an innocent little girl now screamed and began to run after him, death on its damaged mind. It snarled and drooled as it ran. Dave fixed his grip on the tire tool and raised it in the air, waiting for the thing to make it to him. He reminded himself that this pitiful monster was no longer a child.

It ran at him, growling. In the distance he heard Brenda and Tammy talking to him but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. It was as if he was underwater; all that mattered was eliminating the carrier.

Suddenly the charging carrier stopped in its tracks. It turned and looked at the dead carrier with the intestines hanging from its mouth.

Then it made a sound that froze him where he stood.

The thing screamed again, bringing him out of his immobile state. Dave had just enough time to raise the tire tool and bring it down squarely on the thing’s small head before it got to him.

It reeled, stumbled, then fell on its back. It twitched and kicked, muscles spasming. Bloody drool leaked from its mouth. He wanted to turn away, to run screaming from the building and never stop. He couldn’t though; he had to finish what he started. He walked up to the carrier, then brought the tire tool down onto its head. The thing's skull and eye socket crumpled with the blow. It kicked violently once more, then exhaled a final breath, its head falling to the side. Blood began to pool under it as it stared absently into the distance.

Dave fell to his knees. He looked up and saw Brenda and Tammy staring at him. He took a moment to regain his composure, then stood back up.

“Let’s get what we need and get the fuck outta here,” he said, his voice wavering.

After procuring the candy bars and beef jerky, some more searching revealed some additional foodstuffs they felt were probably edible. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to get them by for a while. Another search behind the front desk revealed an old baseball bat, presumably kept there by the clerk for protection. Dave helped himself to it. He elected to keep the tire tool too, just in case.

Once they had finished collecting what little the shelves had to offer they exited the building. The two girls walked out first. As he walked out, Dave paused to look over at the two dead carriers on his left. He stared at them for a few seconds, long enough for Brenda and Tammy to notice.

“You coming?” Brenda asked from the parking lot outside.

Dave continued staring. Had he heard what he thought he heard? Surely not. If he had, it could change everything.

“Dave?” Brenda repeated.

He turned to look at her. “I’m coming,” he replied, glancing one last time toward the bodies as he stepped through the door and into the bright sunlight.

After they left the 7-Eleven they scavenged through a nearby Conoco station. They encountered no carriers within, but the supplies they gathered were even more meager. The Conoco find, combined with the small amount of food they already had, would hopefully be enough to last them until the next exit.

Having exhausted the only stores in sight they walked the entrance ramp back to the highway, dodging parked cars and bodies along the way. The blackened bodies littered the ramp, thinning out significantly by the time they made it to the highway.

They walked without speaking for most of the day, stopping once to eat and a few more times for water and bathroom breaks. He was happy to be walking for the first time in almost a week without his hands bound. He carried the baseball bat with him, along with the tire tool. Although he expected Tammy to cry foul she didn’t. She just walked, as silently as the rest of them.

As night set in they camped. There wasn't any wooded area nearby, so they took cover among the millions of decaying cornstalks. They built no fire; they didn't need it with temperature so mild. They sat in a loose circle, much as they had the prior night.

“Those weren’t the first carriers you ever killed, were they?” Tammy asked.

“No,” Dave replied. “I’ve killed a few before.”

“Hand to hand like that, or with a gun?”

“Both, but mostly hand to hand.”

“But that one was a kid, at least it used to be. First time for that?” Brenda asked.

“Yeah,” Dave replied.

Brenda paused, then spoke. “You okay?”

“I suppose.” He thought for a moment, wondering how best to phrase the next question. “You planning on tying me up again?” he asked.

“No,” Brenda replied. “We don’t have a gun for you, but keep the bat and the tire iron. You already know how to use them. What you did back there was brave. You helped us out that time. I’d say we’re about even now.”

Dave nodded in the dark, then realized they couldn't see him. He decided to just change the subject. “Ever wonder why we’re not infected?” he asked them.

“I guess we're lucky” Tammy replied.

“Is it luck? Don’t you think that virus was swimming around in the air back there?”

“Maybe,” Brenda said, puzzled. “What’s your point?”

“That shit spread like wildfire. Damn near everyone was infected. How'd we make it this far even?”

“Maybe we’re just
damn
lucky,” Brenda added.

Dave took a deep breath, then exhaled. “Or maybe it's us who are the walking dead, and we just don’t know it yet. Maybe the future is them.”

They sat for a while longer, not talking. Chipmunks scurried through the woods, birds chirped their indecipherable songs to one another. An owl hooted in the distance. Wind blew dead leaves along the ground, rustling as they moved. Dave became keenly aware that he couldn't remember the last time he'd heard an internal combustion engine.

“The small one back there at the store, the little girl,” Dave began. “She made a sound before I brained her. I may be going crazy, but I think she might have been talking.”