Surge (7 page)

Moving quickly, John and I remain in the shadows of the tall buildings and houses in the area. We agreed upon raiding a supermarket eight miles away in the city, since we’ve already cleaned out the closer ones. The trip should take about eight hours round trip, leaving us with plenty of daylight to guide our way back. Maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll even have some extra time to hit the sporting goods store for some much needed weapons.

The inbound journey is pretty uneventful. Since its daytime, we only see the occasional Gene K wheezer. Some are munching on the remains of some variety of mammal or trash, a couple sniff the fresh meat in the air so we take them down silently with our knives. For the most part, we leave well enough alone so as to not attract too much attention.

A huge parking lot announces our arrival at the local chain brand supermarket. With all the abandoned cars, it looks like a fucked up, apocalyptic version of musical chairs. Many have their doors open with long dried blood smears telling the tale of their unfortunate owner’s demise. Trash, glass, shopping carts and torn clothing litter throughout the spaces between the parking spots. A gridlock of cars blocks the entrance to the store, so John and I have to climb over them in order to enter.

We climb through the smashed glass that used to be a window to gain entrance. It’s dark as night, even with a strong twelve o’clock sun shining bright outside. The stagnant air smells of decay, must and mold, not the most appetizing, but I’ve smelt much worse. This doesn’t even earn a nose wrinkle compared to the spoiled meat and curdled dairy smells that ranked supreme in the beginning of the end.

John silently motions that we should split up now. I nod before we ready our guns and knives in order to head in different directions and do our individual sweeps. After a few close calls in the first months because of ignorant raiding, John and I have learned our lesson to not assume a place is empty, but to clear it out prior to collection. Walking down each of my half of the aisles, beginning with produce and ending in baking goods, I ignore the gore staining the floor and pick my way through trash to clear my side and wait for John to signal safety on his. Within a couple of minutes, he gives the all clear and we get to work.

With relative safety confirmed, we pull out our flashlights to inspect the shelves and floor for stuff that’s still edible. Every canned good, that isn’t bloated, is packed into each of our backpacks. Seeing as this store has been looted many times before us, we only gain about ten measly cans. Pretty disappointing finds until we reach the jackpot in the next aisle. Jars of pickles, olives, peppers, cans of ready-made sauces, boxed pasta, flour and spices galore are added to the stock. With backpacks fit to burst, John and I make our way back out the window.

When we’re back outside, I watch John’s back while he plots the course to the sporting goods store via an old fold out map. It’s still pretty quiet outside; actually, it’s eerily silent. But after living in close quarters with fifteen other people, I’ve grown to appreciate the silence because you don’t know when, or if, you’ll get to experience it again.

“Two blocks down,” says the peace destroyer himself, “It’ll be on the left side of the second right.” Huffing out a sigh, I adjust my backpack into a more firm position on my shoulders.

“Are you sure?” I press. “The last time it was on the right side of a left turn.” John shoots me a quelling look, after all,
‘How was he supposed to know the map was upside down?’
Yeah, he’s still paying for that mistake months later.

“That was months ago,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “Can you blame me? I was used to the creepy robotic bitch ordering me to take a right in two hundred feet, or screaming to make an illegal U-turn.” Rising to his feet, John adjusts his bag before continuing. “Now, I have my manly instincts guide me,” he continues. “Left side, on the second right.”

Taking his word for it, because I can mock his ass later and revoke his man card if he’s wrong again, I lead the way. Again keeping to shadows, the few daytime wheezers that we run by don’t see his with their poor eyesight. With our quick pace we reach the storefront to Hal’s House, a huge sport emporium, in ten minutes.

The parking lot is similar to the grocery store’s, but with way fewer cars. We pick our way through the debris on silent feet and weapons ready. John pulls the door open just a crack to see if we trip a bell, which we thankfully don’t, before he steps inside. After we’re both through I give the nod to sweep and we split off in different directions. Overall there are no strong odors that stick out, which can be an indicator of a relatively safe marathon shop. It’s confirmed when I find nothing amiss, so after finishing out my end, I meet an already finished John waiting by the checkout stand.

“Looks like it could be a good hit,” he remarks indicating the full shelves.

“This place hasn’t been ransacked yet,” I agree. “Baseball bats and hunting knives should be priority. Half of us don’t know how to handle a gun, and I’d rather not be taken down by a lousy shot.”

“Or a great shot,” John remarks with a grin. “Your sullen ass isn’t Mr. Popularity right now.” I shrug in response, since it’s not in my nature to kiss ass in order to appease the whole. My motto is deal with it, or hit the bricks. And if you’re a real douchebag, you could earn the high honor of a meet and greet with my fist.

The plan is to grab weapons first since they’re our priority. Pending time, we’ll double back for protective clothing, shoes, medical supplies and any other extras the store carries. Reaching our main goal, I start grabbing aluminum bats and handing them to John. With our backpacks already full of food, John snatched a few empty duffel bags from the shelf and is stuffing the bats inside. With a quarry of four bats, varying in sizes and weights, he stands and hefts the unfilled duffel from the floor. I look from the small number of bats in the bag; which isn’t enough, and the remaining hundred on the walls, before raising an eyebrow at John.

Leaving the aisle, he calls over his shoulder, “I saw something else along the back wall.” Following his lead, John walks to a display case in the back of the store. “This is what we really need.”

Looking at the case, it feels like Christmas in August when I spot the crossbows, hunting rifles and huge ass knives locked inside the case. With great effort, I’m able to restrain the urge to hurl myself at the case, drool on the glass and praise baby Jesus. Barely.

I make an attempt to keep my tone bored, when I’m borderline hyperventilating, and say, “That’s a great find and all, but unless you’ve acquired the great art of lock picking in the last ten minutes, I can’t see how those are going to help us.”

John flashes me a shit eating grin, which says he has it all under control. He holds up a finger to indicate waiting before disappearing down an aisle. When he reemerges a few seconds later with a couple of towels and boxing gloves, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see where he’s going with this. Quickly stuffing his hand into the glove, John holds the towels out to me.

“If you hold these over the glass,” he says. “It should muffle the noise.” I nod and do just that. Just as he’s about swing, I stop his hand.

“Wait, let me try something first.”

Without explaining, I pull out my knife and score the glass with a deep grooved
‘X’
to weaken it. Jerking my chin for him to try again, I set the towels back up. Taking a deep breath, he pulls his fist back, and lets his arm fly. Holding my breath, I watch as John’s fist makes contact with the glass. A small cracking noise is all that escapes, but the glass is merely bent in the middle. Stifling a laugh at John’s glare burning holes in the glass, I finish the job with a well-placed elbow. The window gives with the
‘X’
splitting apart, but not falling to the floor.

“Show off,” John mutters.

He begins slowly removing the triangles of glass from the wooden frame one piece at a time. After all the glass is out of the way, he reaches up to the highest crossbow on the shelf. With a crazed smile plastered on his face, he gives the bow a tug and a high pitched wail rents the air. John’s eyes widen, but I spin with my knife ready to gut the bastard keeping me from my prize. It takes me a minute to comprehend that it’s not a wheezer making the noise, but an alarm.

“Fuck!”

I exclaim the curse as a pack of wheezers comes sprinting down the aisles like its Black Friday at Walmart. John rips the boxing glove off of his firing hand and comes up shooting in a blink, as the knife that was in my hand lodges its way into a skull. Communication is futile as we fight off the massive army of smelly bastards coming in droves. I spend my first clip of ammo in six bodies, and reload within seconds.

John’s gun takes out another handful. I zone in completely on head shots, but even with so much concentration focused on the task, a half dozen shots miss due to the speed of the wheezers. Especially the ones that are actually using their fists to run on all fours instead of dragging them along like dead weight. I’ve never seen anything like it before, but I don’t want that fucking animal anywhere near me, so I dial in on those creatures. There are only three or four of them, but they’re fast, so it takes six shots to put them all down. Zipping through the remaining four clips of ammo in my 9mm, I pull out the spare.

“I’m out!” I hear John roar over the crowd.

“Find an exit!” I shout back and fire off more rounds.

Reloading my spare with the last clip of ammo, I follow John’s retreat. We make it two aisles toward a door before we’re cornered. Tipping a display case down, I hunker down next to John and hand him my remaining gun as I pull out knives. We must have taken out thirty wheezers already, but they’re still coming on strong. I’m hurling knives left and right, until only my eight inch hunting blade remains, and then I have to revert to stabbing eyes and temples. This happens to be pretty fucking hard to do, when there are seven sets of bloody teeth snapping at you like hungry sharks. Over the alarm’s screeching, I almost miss the clicking of John’s gun.

Empty. We are so fucked.

“Nice knowing you, you sulky bastard,” John swears at my right.

“Fuck you, pansy-assed pretty boy,” I retort. Ah, male bonding at its finest. Even in the face of death.

John’s distracted swinging away with a bat like a home run slugger in a derby, when another wheezer dives over the tipped shelving unit and goes for his neck. I’m shouting warnings and diving to cut the fucker’s head off, but I don’t make it. But that knife sure as fuck does. Said knife comes whizzing from who the fuck knows where, spearing the wheezer’s head to the wall behind a bewildered John.

Looking in the direction of the knife thrower to see who are hero is, I find a short dude in head to toe skin-tight leathers and a motorcycle helmet, standing on top of the next row’s shelving unit, and now toting our crossbow. A great number of the wheezers switch their attention from us to him, leaving John and I with an easily dispatched handful, and allowing us to watch the dude going to town like a pro.

Shooting off arrows with deadly accuracy, twelve bodies drop so fast, it’s almost in unison. After he’s out of arrows, we’re expecting our conquering hero’s going to turn tail and save his own skin from the twenty remaining bastards who are reaching out with hungry arms, and are currently pawing at him like he’s a performer at a sold out concert. But not this crazy bastard. Instead, he pulls out a freaking machete and jumps into the fray. Arms and legs are flying, and heads literally roll, while the machete blurs in rapid arcs. If a wheezer latches on to his arm or back, he doesn’t panic. Instead the guy buries a knife into the offender’s eye, or head-butts the fucker off. This dude’s a wheezer killing machine.

John and I are too stunned to realize that the alarm is now off, since we’ve been distracted watching the action, but we notice it when Motorcycle Man finishes off the last wheezer with a strike to the center of its head, splitting it open like a nasty version of piñata. Finding that mobility is in fact a possibility, John and I climb over the tipped shelving. We begin picking our way through the destruction to thank our savior, who is now kicking the last wheezer, which is more than dead already.

A few steps away we hear a muffled, “Asshole.” Followed by another kick. “Break my mother flipping nail, why don’t you?” The speed of the kicks picks up double time, while John and I exchange raised eyebrows. Obviously, the guy’s a metro, but who the fuck cares when he has mad skills? “I just fixed them you cocksucking, mother fucking, two ball bitch!” John clears his throat, fighting off a laugh, but the dude must’ve heard it because he spins away from the corpse to face us.

“Don’t think I forgot about you two fucking geniuses!”

The masked crusader shouts and points a leather-covered finger in our direction. John puts on his placating hat and holds up his hands, which fall along with our jaws when the helmet comes off. Revealed is the most gorgeous woman I’ve yet to see, with her black hair pulled back in a sweaty braid, exquisitely symmetrical feminine bone structure, a tiny perfect nose, full red lips pursed in anger; which is really a shame since they have better uses that have Junior downstairs rising to attention, and large dove grey eyes that could mesmerize a room if they weren’t shooting daggers, as they are right now. And she’s pint sized. I want to stick the mini Tomb Raider in my pocket, take her home and play doctor.

“I think it would be great idea to be eaten today,” she mocks in a poor imitation of a male voice. “What do you think, Fred?”

“Actually, the name’s John,” the fucker beside me corrects in a husky tone, revealing his arousal. “This ugly bastard is Jared, and you are?” He’s practically purring, and I’m waiting for him to drop on all fours and go wind around her ankles, begging for a scratch.

“The name’s kiss my ass,” she snaps in answer.

“It would be my pleasure,” John quips with his dazzling smile. Just as he steps forward to do just that, she reaches inside her leather jacket. He doesn’t make it more than a foot in her direction before she has a gun aimed at his chest.