The King of Clayfield - 01 (34 page)

That particular cart had
 
five cases of Diet Coke, several cans of condensed soup, a new computer, and a large bag of rice. The next cart had bottled water, three bags of cat food, and lots of Spam and powdered donuts.

"We can probably find everything we need by picking through other people's carts," I said.

"We'll probably have to," Jen said. "Look over at the grocery section."

The shelves were almost bare. We emptied those two
 
carts of everything except for the water, donuts, rice and soup then proceeded to the bakery. The front doors on the food side of the store
 
were obliterated. Someone had rammed a truck through them, and it was still there halfway in, the tires flat.

I found a bag of rolls on the floor. They'd been stepped on. I put it in the cart. Jen raised her eyebrows.

"For the chickens," I said.

Other than that, there was no bread. There was still the actual bread aisle to check, but I didn't expect much.

The produce section had been cleaned out, too. There was a lonely bunch of beets
 
and some black
 
bananas left. I was going to miss bananas...and oranges...and avocados. There was so much produce that I loved to eat that
 
didn't grow here.

"Look," Jen said, putting the beets
 
in the cart, "your favorite."

I remembered the canned beets from our first day together and smiled. I spied a couple of small sweet potatoes on the floor next to one of the center produce displays.
 
I picked them up and brought them to the cart.

"These aren't for eating," I said. "I'll use them to start plants for the garden."

"We have a garden?" Sara said.

"We will," I said. "We'll have to. I
 
should have put seeds on our list."

"Won't
 
we be able to collect enough food to eat on for a while?" Sara
 
asked.

"Maybe, but when that runs out, then what? Even if we don't need it right away, we should at least plant one so we can have seed for when we do."

"We'll check back in the garden center," Jen said.

"It's too early in the year," I said. "I doubt they'll have seeds out. We'll probably have to find them in houses. We can go back to my house. I have a few partial packets
 
left from last year, but not enough to feed all of us."

We opened the freezer cases. They weren't full, but there was considerably more in them than on
 
the other shelves. Nothing was frozen anymore, but it was still cold.

"We can get some of this stuff," I said, "so long as we eat it today or tomorrow."

"If we get another cold snap, it might last us longer," Jen said, pulling out a pizza.
 
"I've been jonesing for pizza."

We got a pizza for each of us, a
 
dessert for each of us, and tub of whipped topping for each of us. We knew this would be the last time we'd have anything like that
 
for a while. I collected a few bags of frozen vegetables (now thawed) for the goat. I noticed Jen standing in front of the juice concentrate.

"Have you ever made wine?" she
 
asked.

"No."

"I had an ex that
 
used to make it out of this juice," she said. "It tasted awful, but it did the job. We're going to need to have alcohol on hand at all times, and there are a few left in here."

"Do you remember how to do it?"

"I think so," she said. "It was just juice, sugar, and yeast...I think. One of those containers can make a whole gallon of wine."

"Get the supplies, and we can give it a try."

Next was the bread/coffee/tea/peanut butter aisle. There was nothing left except some trampled coffee beans on the floor.

The canned goods aisles were empty, too. We went to every aisle and found nothing except broken bottles and spills.

"We'll have to do our grocery shopping out of the other carts or empty houses," I said. "Let's get the other stuff we need. I'm starting to get nervous about how long we've been in here."

"We're just getting started, hon," Jen said. "No need to be nervous. Mr. Somerville is throwing a party downtown, and we have the place to ourselves."

We spent the
 
next half hour or so
 
quickly
 
collecting things from the store. Jen seemed comfortable and wanted to take her time, but I felt rushed.
 
We got some batteries of different sizes, including two car batteries. We all got some clothes and boots
 
in our sizes, but we didn't try them on or worry about fashion.

The pharmacy had been raided, but there were still some things left. We found a couple of bottles of amoxicillin--an antibiotic--but that was just a fluke.
 
I picked up a few
 
bottles of pills at
 
random, but I
 
didn't know what the medications were, and I didn't have time to go through them all. I considered taking all of it anyway, but without proper identification,
 
it would be useless to us.

We took
 
what was left of the vitamins, protein bars, over-the-counter medications, and first aid supplies--which wasn't much. Then there were things like eye drops, feminine hygiene products, toothpaste, toothbrushes--things we took for granted that just wouldn't be made anymore.

Jen started tossing boxes of condoms into the cart. I could tell by the look on Sara's face that she
 
was uncomfortable.

"Sara," I said, "would you mind looking on the next aisle to see if there is any soap left?"

She nodded and walked around to the other side.

Jen continued to pull condom boxes off the racks.

"Jen, don't you think that's enough?"

"I'm getting them all," she said. "I know they aren't on the list, but this is one of those unlisted necessities, don't you think?"

"You could be a little more discrete about it," I said.

"Does this offend you or something?"

"No, but Sara looked kind of embarrassed."

"She'll be okay," she said.

I pushed the cart around and found Sara smelling a bottle of shower gel.
 
She wouldn't look at me. She put some soap and shampoo into the cart and moved to the next aisle.

We
 
filled three
 
carts and parked
 
them in Automotive. We found
 
four more
 
carts that contained supplies we were looking for anyway, and we just pushed them back without going through them.

There were no seeds.
 
We found two dead bodies in the garden center, but we didn't know if they were really dead, or if they'd be getting up at some point. We
 
pushed some smaller display shelves on top of
 
them in case they woke up while we were there. We thought it might slow them down.

The boxes of
 
ammunition that
 
were left were .223 and .30-30. I collected the loose bullets and shells from the floor, too. I found
 
three loose
 
.38
 
rounds on the floor, and I
 
loaded them into the little revolver I'd found in the parking lot at city hall. They'd
 
have a lot more stopping power than the .22.

The camping and fishing supplies were all gone. We didn't do nearly as well as Jen had hoped. We didn't even get enough stuff to fill one truck.

I didn't like how long it was taking us.

"Let's load this stuff," I said. "Then we'll go over to Tractor Supply. They'll have food for the chickens and horses. Maybe they'll have seed there."

As we started loading the supplies into the truck I noticed the sound of distant gunfire. I went outside. It was coming from the north, same as the siren. There was also smoke that direction, too.

"Jen! Sara!"

They came outside. There were a lot of guns going off--more than just one person.

"Do you think he's in trouble?" I said.

"Sounds like he has help," Jen said.

"We should check on him," I said. "That smoke concerns me."

"Shit," Jen said. "We have a plan, remember? Let's at least load this stuff first."

"He needs us," Sara said.

"We're going, Jen," I said. "We'll come back."
 

We
 
drove one of the moving vans and took
 
the bypass again and circled around, coming in on East Broadway. The siren
 
originated at the fire station next to city hall. It was
 
loud, almost disorienting. The smoke
 
billowed up black.
 
The gunfire was
 
steady, and it sounded like there might even be an automatic weapon going off.
 
We couldn't actually make it close to city hall or the court square, because the mass of infected people pressing toward the noise extended
 
out more than
 
two blocks in every direction.

We stopped on
 
East Broadway between 2nd Street and 5th Street. People were coming in from every direction to join the others. They'd been making their way here for at least an hour by this time, so some of these creatures had probably walked in from outside of town. They
 
stumbled past us, more interested in the siren and guns.

"Can you tell what is going on?" Sara said.

"I'm going up to take a look through the scope," I said.

I took the .30-06 and got out of the truck. A man nearby saw me and came at me. I was able to get around the front of the truck and climb up on the hood before he could get to me. I then crawled onto the top of the cab, then onto the top of the box. The man stared up at me for a few seconds.

"You want me to shoot him?" Jen called out from below.

"No," I said. "He can't get me."

I got down on my belly and looked through the scope.

The smoke was coming from the street, from the infected. The ones in the middle were on fire. They were walking around, bumping into each other, burning. In the crowd
 
were two fire trucks. People were standing on top of them with hoses, pumping arcs of water against the buildings.
 
Two people--merely silhouettes in the smoke
 
from this distance--were
 
on the roof of the C&S Drugstore. One was
 
lobbing Molotov cocktails down to the street while the other fired into the crowd. Others on the fire trucks were armed and picking off people in the crowd, as well. Bodies lay in the street, being walked on
 
by the others.

"What the hell?" I said.

The smell of burning flesh and hair and clothes was sickening. Behind me I could see a vehicle approaching.

"Jen, you two get down!" I said.

Not knowing who they were, I didn't want them to see me, and I didn't think they would notice me where I was. I lay still and watched them.

It was a
 
Ford
 
F-350--one of those large pickups
 
with the diesel engine--pulling a flatbed trailer.
 
It pulled up next to an infected
 
woman who was staggering down the road. The driver
 
let down his window and shot her in the head with a
 
pistol. She dropped to her knees, then to her face. The doors opened on the truck. A man and woman, both wearing masks and rubber gloves,
 
got out. The man shot the dead woman again in the head. Then the masked couple picked the woman up by her wrists and ankles and threw her on the trailer.
 
The trailer already
 
had several bodies on it.

The man that had been interested in me
 
came out at them before they made it to the truck, and they dispatched him the same way. When they got close to the moving van they stopped. The driver looked up at me. He'd noticed me after all.