The Survivor Chronicles: The Risen (24 page)

"I'd trade you for them," John informed him
with a straight face.

Carl looked as if he was tempted to throttle
him but he turned away to look at the building. Xander was trying
not to laugh as he shifted his attention from the street to the
enormous store. "There's an automotive center in there," Josh said.
"We should stock up on tires, oil filters, belts and anything else
we can use for the automobiles in the future."

"Are we really going to go in there?" Riley
inquired. "That's a lot of ground to cover."

"I'm not sure we can pass it up. They
probably have
every
thing we need in
there," Carl said and pulled the cigarette from his mouth.

"We don't know what else could be in there,"
she muttered. "And what if it's just as picked over as the gas
station?"

"There are a lot more supplies inside this
store than the gas station. The chances that it's been completely
raided are slim," Carl asserted.

"What about the grocery store across the
street," John suggested. "It's smaller; it would be easier to
search."

"And it's not going to have automotive,
outdoor supplies, hunting equipment or clothing," Josh said.

Xander remained silent as he studied the
tinted windows at the front of the store. He didn't like the idea
of going in there either but Carl and Josh had a point, everything
they needed could be inside of this
one
store. "I think it will be safer to search
this store than to go through two, three, four, or maybe even five
more places," he said.

Riley stared at him before turning her
attention to the store again. "There are so many places to hide in
there," she murmured.

"For us too at least," Xander said.

Riley cursed, shook her head and turned away
from the building. "Well, let's check it out."

They approached the front of the store and
peered in the windows but it was impossible to see past the first
ten feet of vending machines and shopping carts stacked there.
Xander walked over to the glass doors and pushed against them. One
of them was locked but he was able to pull the other sliding door
open.

"Wait." Carl placed his hand on his arm
before he went inside. "We'll check the other doors first."

They walked around to the other front doors,
most of them were locked but a side door and a door to the outdoor
gardening section were unlocked. "Let's check the back," he
suggested.

They moved the vehicles behind the store and
parked them near the metal exit door. Xander was the first to
approach the door, but the knob didn't twist beneath his hand.
"Step back," Carl instructed.

Xander stepped aside. Carl grabbed a rock
from beside the dumpster and stepped up to the knob. He lifted the
rock and smashed it against the door handle five times before it
finally gave way beneath the force of his blows. "Well if there is
anyone in there they now know we're coming," John said. "I'm just
going to state for the record that I don't like this."

"Noted," Carl said but he pulled open the
broken door and gestured for Xander to go.

Xander didn't like it either, but he still
poked his head cautiously inside. His gaze ran over the shadowed
recesses of the vast store. Light from the front windows spilled
into the store, offering dim illumination even all the way back
here. It took his eyes a minute to adjust but when it did his gaze
traveled up and down the aisles in front of him. Before him were
rows of boots, and just beyond, he spotted the jewelry counter. He
kept his gun in his hand as he guardedly stepped into the
building.

Carl and John moved in behind him, followed
by Riley and Josh. Riley's head tilted back as her eyes shot to the
rafters and the tops of the shelves. Xander followed her gaze but
he didn't see anything amongst the steel beams that ran across the
ceiling above them. There was an overwhelming sense of abandonment
surrounding the store that he didn't understand but he couldn't
shake the feeling. Outside of this store was where the chaos of the
sick, and the devastation of the quakes existed, inside this store
remained miraculously untouched by the insanity.

It made absolutely no sense to him but
trying to figure it out only made his head throb. He adjusted his
hold on his gun as he searched the rafters again, was this going to
be another ambush like the grocery store had been? But at least in
the grocery store there had been a sense of people having been
inside of it before; there was none of that now.

"Bizarre," Riley murmured as she stepped
forward and ran a finger over the toe of one of the boots. Her
finger left a clean spot through the trail of dust gathered on the
boot. She lifted her finger before her and inspected it before
wiping it on her jeans.

"Do you think this is another trap?" John
asked.

Xander shook his head as his gaze ran over
the ceiling again. "I don't know what this is," he muttered.

He crept down the aisle with Carl at his
side. Arriving at the end of the aisle, he poked his head out to
glance up and down the cavernous store. There were numerous hiding
places within the shadowed aisles that went in a multitude of
different directions. He strained to hear any sound but all he
heard were the shallow breaths of those around him.

"Where do we even start?" Riley
whispered.

"The food," Carl said. Xander focused on the
grocery area to his left. "But I don't smell anything rotting and
if this store has been untouched…"

His voice trailed off, there was no reason
to finish the sentence, they all knew what he'd been about to say.
If this place was as untouched as it appeared, they should be able
to smell the rotten food. No matter how big the building was the
scent would have been detectable anywhere within it. Xander looked
to his right to the electronics, sporting goods, and the tire
center beyond but he didn't see anything threatening that way
either.

"Josh, maybe you should stay here," Riley
suggested.

"By myself? Absolutely not," he
retorted.

"Someone should watch the door," John
said.

"There are more doors up front, and more
entrance ways in through the automotive center that we didn't
check, plus I'm sure there are other doors we don't even know
about. Watching this one isn't going to accomplish much. We're
better off having more eyes on the lookout as we move," Carl
said.

"Are we going to search to make sure no one
is here first?" John asked.

"I don't see the point of that," Xander
said. "If there's something in here they'll be able to stay ahead
of us the entire time we're looking for them. They could also set a
trap. We're just going to have to stay alert."

Carl nodded. "I agree."

Xander took a deep breath, glanced around
the store one more time, and stepped out of the aisle. He crept
down one of the five or six main aisles that crisscrossed the store
toward where the food was shelved. They moved past the shoe
department, the infant's department and women's sleepwear.

He kept waiting for something to rush out at
them, to attack them, but the store remained still. They were only
twenty feet away from the grocery section but he still didn't smell
anything rotten in the building. He couldn't shake the crazy notion
that everything within this store had become strangely mummified.
That they would get to the groceries only to realize they'd all
been preserved by some strange new threat that had been unleashed
by the quakes and would turn them into stone like a mortal looking
upon Medusa.

They stepped into another large aisle that
ran perpendicular to the one they'd been in. Some of the boxes and
cans had been pulled from the displays set up in the center of the
aisle but there were still a number of them left. Across from him
was the cleaning supplies section. It had been just as picked over
as the displays but there were still supplies lining the
shelves.

"What is going on here?" Riley asked.

"I don't think a lot of people in this town
survived." Carl lifted his hat and ran a hand across his forehead
before settling it back into place. "I don't know if they've become
The Lost Souls, the rabid freaky ones, or if they simply died from
the quakes and gas that the quakes released. Either way, I'd guess
that the population of this town is nowhere near what it used to
be. There would be nothing left in here if it was."

"How could it be in better condition than
most of the towns we've passed through and yet have a smaller
population?" John inquired.

"I don't know but where the coast was
leveled by natural disasters, this area was leveled by the
sickness."

"Why wouldn't the survivors take more from
here?" Riley asked.

"Maybe they only took what they could fit,
maybe they left some for others, or maybe they were killed before
they got a chance to come back," Xander answered. "They might just
come back once a week to stock up on supplies if they think that no
one else is around to raid them."

"Or this could be a trap," she said.

"Or that," Xander agreed. They all turned to
stare at the food again. "I don't think there's anyone in here with
us now."

"Why?" Josh asked.

"Those things aren't patient. If they were
in here with us, they would have come after us already."

Riley frowned thoughtfully before speaking.
"That's true."

"I don't care what is going on, we should
just get some food and get out of here," John said.

Josh nodded eagerly. "I agree."

Xander walked over and pulled an abandoned
cart from the infant section; he picked up the clothes sitting in
the seat of the cart and dropped them on a box for a crib. Riley
pulled another cart from the sports bra area. Carl and John had
walked toward the front and grabbed two more. One of their carts
gave an annoying clicking noise every few feet.

"Every time," Carl muttered and lifted the
back wheels off the ground to stop the noise. "There's no fruit
left in the produce section and all the bread and muffins are gone.
They did leave the cakes and cupcakes behind."

"No taste," John said and dropped a box of
cereal into his cart.

"Did they take all the perishables?" Riley
asked.

"Smells like it," Xander said as he sniffed
at the air again. This place should have reeked but all he detected
was the scent that all department stores had. It was a scent that
he could never place the source of, but that he recognized
immediately upon entering one. It was like walking into a high
school, they all smelled the same.

"Josh, you should stay up here. Follow us at
the top of the aisles and keep watch for anything unusual," Carl
said.

Josh looked a little uneasy at the
suggestion but he nodded and shifted the gun in his hand. "Want to
split up?" Xander asked Carl.

Carl shook his head. "It would go faster but
we're better grouped together. Separating is just offering smaller,
easier targets if something does attack."

That was about as pleasing an idea as
jumping into a bonfire, Xander thought as he nodded his agreement.
He pushed his cart toward the frozen food and dairy section. He
stared at the completely empty shelves in disbelief; this store was
beginning to make him feel as if he'd just entered a time warp. The
shelves that were normally filled with eggs, cheeses, yogurts, and
other assorted products were completely empty; there wasn't even a
single package of cheese left.

On his right, all of the frozen pizzas,
meatballs, lasagnas, and other frozen dinners were gone from the
darkened freezers. "This place just gets weirder and weirder. What
did they do with it all?" Riley asked.

Xander pondered that question as they walked
past the empty aisles. "I think they threw it all out," he answered
when they turned into the paper aisle.

"Toilet paper," John said with a grin and
began to happily toss it into his cart before turning to Xander.
"What makes you think they did that?"

"There's no way they were able to eat all
that food, not if Carl's smaller population theory is correct. But
let's say that he's wrong and there is enough of them that they
were able to eat all of the perishable food, there would be
no
food left in here if that were
true. I think they took what they could eat and threw the rest of
it away before it could go bad and possibly contaminate other food,
or attract animals and other unwanted things."

"I think you're right," Carl said as he
tossed some paper towels into his cart. "It makes a lot of sense
anyway."

They waited as John grabbed two more
packages of toilet paper before moving onto the next aisle. Josh
followed along the aisles with them while they moved up and down
until their carts were overflowing with supplies. They pushed the
carts to the broken door they'd entered through, emptied them into
the back of the truck, and returned to the store.

"More food or other supplies first?" Xander
asked.

"Let's get some other supplies first. If we
have enough time we can grab more food later and we can always
return tomorrow," Riley said.

Carl stopped by the jewelry counter on their
way to the clothing section and grabbed a handful of watches from
the display case. He shoved them into his pockets before following
them. They moved rapidly through the clothing section, grabbing as
much as they could fit into the carriages and guessing at the sizes
of the others at the cabin. Next they went through and gathered
supplies from the shampoo, soap and toothpaste aisles before
hitting the first-aid section. They stocked up on Band-Aids,
peroxide, bandages, alcohol, and any other disinfectants they could
find. Carl tried the door to the pharmacy but it was locked and the
window had a metal gate over it.