Lake Yixa (4 page)

     
"Well, we will
have to kill them," Liam said, watching her closely. He wasn't sure and
never asked if she had killed a zombie. They stood there a while, not saying
anything. They both just watched the tiny boats. Finally, Liam added,
"There don't look to be that many zombies down there. If we can get down
there without any following us, we should be okay."

     
"I don't
know. It's risky." Sarah went back to the makeshift tent.

     
"We are just
about out of food. We are going to have to risk going to the stores around
here."

     
"But we can
get back here faster."

     
"Sarah,"
Liam said as he walked over to her. "We can't stay here. We have nothing
left. I won't let anything happen to you. Once we get a boat, we can head out
into deep water. They won't be able to get us at all."

     
"Okay,"
she finally said.

     
"Thank
you," Liam said. "I will figure out a plan to get there safely. We
will stay here another day or two. We will need to find what we can here."

     
Sarah stood up and
headed toward the door. "I will be right back," Sarah said, turning
to look at Liam.

     
"Do you want
me to come?"

     
"No."

     
"Be
careful."

     
With that, Sarah
disappeared down the stairwell. She worked her way quickly down to the basement
level and stopped a few feet from the door they had piled junk in front of. She
listened for a few minutes. The soft scraping and groans of the Dead on the
other side could be heard.
 
She slowly
made her way past the door to the far wall. A single door stood there. The door
clicked open as she turned the knob. She let out the breath she was holding in
as the door quietly opened up.

     
The room was
filled with rows and rows of metal shelves filled with tubes. She turned on a
tiny pen light and moved along, looking at each of the labels on the caps. She
grabbed a few and headed toward the door.

     
She let out a
scream and dropped the tubes onto the floor. A few of the Dead stood in front
of the doorway. She quickly picked up the tubes and headed to the back of the
room. The Dead followed as fast as they could shuffle. A pair of arms reached
through the shelves, sending tubes scattering across the floor. She dodged the
zombies but nearly fell over doing so. Sarah saw the open door behind them.
Fuck
, she thought. How could she forget
the other door? It went right into the big room where the zombies were trapped.
She found herself up against the back wall. Zombies were coming down each of
the aisles. She looked around and saw a fire extinguisher in the corner. She
grabbed it with one hand and swung it at the Dead that got within range. It
smashed hard into its shoulder, sending it to the wall. It stumbled and went
down. She swung again as it struggled to get up. Blood covered the wall and the
fire extinguisher as its head crumpled under the force of the attack. She
quickly stepped over it and attacked the next one. She was able to make her way
through a few zombies while the bulk of them got stuck on the bodies of the
fallen ones. She dropped the weapon, scooped up the last few tubes she had
dropped, and closed the door with a heavy thump. Looking around, Sarah saw
nothing to put in front of the door, so she ran up the staircase at full speed.

     
Liam turned as he
heard the door bang open. There stood Sarah, out of breath, carrying a handful
of long, plastic tubes.

     
"There . . .
there are . . . zombies in . . . stairwell." Sarah gasped for air. Liam
got to his feet and rushed over. He looked down at the group of zombies
starting to make their way up.

     
"What
happened?" Liam asked as he moved back to the tent.

     
"I went down
to the basement."

     
"Why did you
go to the basement alone?" Liam snapped.

     
"I figured we
needed these," Sarah replied, holding up the tubes.

     
"What are
they?"

     
"They are
plans for the whole city and the surrounding area."

     
"What?"

     
"Layouts of
houses, buildings, everything," Sarah said, putting the tubes into a bag.
Liam wasn't really sure how useful they could be, but he didn't say anything.
He returned to the door. In his hand, he held a heavy wooden leg of a chair.

     
"We are going
to have to kill the small group and seal off the basement level."

     
"Okay,"
Sarah said, picking up her own chair leg.
 
They slowly moved their way down the stairs, keeping an eye on the
zombies making their way up. A floor above, they waited for them to come up.

     
The first one
rounded the corner.
Thump
. Liam
slammed the leg of the chair hard into the skull of the first zombie. It
toppled backward onto a few of the other zombies. Sarah smashed the head of one
that had fallen. Liam looked over at her. He was unsure that Sarah would have
the stomach to kill a zombie, but clearly, he didn't have to worry about it.
Another reached out for Liam, and he kicked it. It rolled down a few stairs
before it stopped. They swung this way and that, smashing the heavy chair legs
into the zombies.

     
"Duck,"
Liam shouted as he swung the leg. The cracking of skull could be heard. After a
few minutes, all the zombies lay dead on the ground. Both Liam and Sarah were
breathing heavily. Liam sat down just a few steps up from where the pile of
zombies lay.

     
"Holy shit,
that was a workout."

     
"I'm
sorry," Sarah said, sitting next to Liam.
 
"I didn't mean for them to get in."

     
"It's all
right. We just have to be careful. I would have come down to help get the
plans."

     
"I
know," Sarah said. Liam put an arm around her and squeezed.

     
"Let's go
make sure the basement’s sealed." The two of them got up and stepped over
the bodies, doing their best to not step in the pools of blood. They ran into
two more zombies and quickly killed them.

     
Back on the roof,
Liam lay back under the tent. Sarah sat outside the tent, digging in the bag
full of tubes.

     
"Here,"
she said, holding one in front of the tent. "The plans for the town."
Liam sat up and pulled the large, rolled-up plans out. He rolled them out in
front of him.

     
"How old are
they?" Liam asked, looking for a date.

     
"A few months
old."

     
"What are
they doing in the library?"

     
"They had a
small flood in the City Hall. They moved a lot of plans here for safe keeping
while they remodeled. Look here." Sarah pointed at the layout of the town.
"Right by the harbor is a new store. Should be loaded." She pulled
another tube out. "And here is the store layout." She rolled it out
on top of the other one. "We shouldn't have any problem finding a way
in."

     
Liam looked over
the plans. It was a smart idea. The two of them went over the plans as night
fell. They made out the route they would take to the harbor, along with a few
key buildings that could offer a good amount of supplies. They would gather up
everything they could from the library and then make their way down to the
harbor. They would find a boat and stash the stuff, and then, if it wasn't too
hard, they would go back to the stores.
 
Liam and Sarah spent the next day gathering items. They got things they
would need and things to throw off the roof.

     
They awoke early
the next morning and ate a small handful of trail mix that Liam had found in a
desk.

     
"Will you be
okay, Sarah?" Liam asked, finishing the last few M&Ms he had saved for
last.

     
"Yeah."

     
"Okay, let me
get the rest of the stuff to the side door." Liam stood and picked up a
few bags. It didn't take them too long to move the shopping bags of items. Liam
wished they had found another backpack, but they only had the one Sarah had
found. Liam returned to the roof, leaving Sarah by the front door. He walked to
the front of the roof.

     
"AHHHH!"
Liam screamed at the top of his lungs. He lifted a metal folding chair up and
dropped it over the side. "Come on, you sons of bitches! Come get
me!" He watched as the chair hit a few feet from the front door.

     
"AHHH!"
Sarah came screaming from the front. "You want some of this!" she
shouted as she smashed a flower pot on the ground. She continued to scream and
throw things at the closest zombies. Liam moved to the side of the building
toward the door they planned to leave from. He could see a few zombies milling
about. He threw a few items and shouted. They slowly started to move toward the
front of the alley. He threw the last of the items and looked over the side of
the building. He smiled at the sight. It worked for the most part—only a few
zombies remained close to the door. He turned and headed down to meet up with
Sarah.

     
Liam grabbed a few
plastic shopping bags of items, including the remaining trail mix, while Sarah
picked up the last of the shopping bags and the backpack that had a few books
and the city plans. Liam didn't really want to carry the books, but at the same
time, he knew they would get bored on the boat once they just sat out there.
Sarah had made sure Liam would understand the need for the books. The two moved
down the stairwell and toward the side door. Liam looked back at the front door.
Dozens of zombies banged on the glass door.
There
is no turning back now
, he thought. They each picked up their wooden chair
leg and headed toward the side door. Liam slowly pushed the door open with his
chair leg. It made a creak, and they both winced. Liam looked out, seeing one
of the zombies only a few yards away. He pointed at it, and Sarah nodded. He
pushed the door the rest of the way open and went left, away from the zombie.
Sarah went right and smashed the chair leg into its skull before it even knew
what happened. Liam smashed his own club into a zombie that was even closer.
They both started to move down the alley away from the front. Liam stumbled
sideways as a zombie reached out for him from behind a dumpster, but Sarah was
already on it. The thump of the club hitting hard sent it crashing to the
ground.

     
"Thanks,"
Liam said, smiling at Sarah. She smiled back. Liam turned and paused for a
moment. It was odd how they had grown so comfortable killing zombies—they could
even smile at each other after the death of one. They were once people. Sarah
pushed him softly, and Liam snapped out of his thought.
It is war
, he thought. They moved slowly down the alley, keeping an
eye out for any more zombies. They killed two more before reaching the end of
the alley. Liam stuck his head out, looking for the closest zombie. It stood
just behind a car in the middle of the street. They moved slowly along the
road. The zombie moaned and turned toward them.

     
"Shit,
shhh," Liam said. The two of them waited to see if it would start toward
them. Time seemed to take forever to pass. It finally turned its head away and
remained by the car. They both let out a soft breath and started to walk again.
The sound of a tin can being kicked made them look down.

     
"Fuck," they
said in unison.

     
"Follow
me," Liam said, and they both moved quickly along the road, trying their
best not to get noticed by any others. The zombie by the car had started to
move toward them as quickly as it could. Luckily, it was slow—very slow. Just
as they were about to duck into a building, Liam turned to see the zombie round
past the car. Liam let out a small laugh at the sight of a cast on the zombie’s
leg. He ducked into the building.

     
"Any
zombies?" Liam asked, looking around. The room sat in darkness with shafts
of light spilling in through the front windows. They looked around the tiny
store. It was some kind of baby store. Liam hadn’t wanted to come to this
building, but it did lead to a hardware shop just on the other side. Sarah was
right again. Liam saw a few bags sitting on the shelves. They would be great
for carrying supplies. He gathered up two large bags and one medium bag and
moved to the back of the store where Sarah was standing.

     
"Here,"
he said, handing her one large bag. They both moved the contents of the
shopping bags into the big bags. Liam took a bit longer to move his stuff over,
leaving Sarah some time to look around the store again. She stood there looking
at a tiny stuffed elephant. Reaching out, she could feel the soft fabric. Her
mind started to drift back to when she was a kid.