Whatever It Takes (5 page)

“You shouldn’t have given your light away then,” Evan quipped. He turned the light onto the crowbar and lock. “You realize tha’s probably still locked for a reason, right?”

“It’s in pristine, but dusty, condition. If someone had had the time to loot it, it would have been looted with the other two.” Percival gave the crowbar a sharp twist. The lock groaned as the shackle was pried up out of the body. Percival couldn’t resist grinning as he removed the lock and pulled the locker open. “Whoa.”

Inside the locker were a dozen handheld two-way radios. Each sat in a little charging station. “Yeah. This was still locked for a reason alright.”

“Want to bet that they don’t work?” Evan panned his flash light up and down the rows of radios.

“Sure. Two shifts of watch once we get back to the campus says they still work.” Percival picked one of the radios out of its cradle.

“You’re on.” Evan watched.

Percival clicked the radio on. A green light immediately blinked to life. He took his flashlight back from Evan and directed its beam to the top of the radio, checking to see what channel it was on.

“It turns on at least.” Percival picked another radio from the locker and clicked it on as well. He turned the second radio to the same channel as the first.

“Just ‘cause they turn on don’t mean they work.”

Percival held the first radio at arm’s length and depressed the call button on the second. “Testing.”

“Testing.” His voice echoed half a second later out of the other radio.

“Told you they worked.” Percival stuffed his crowbar back into his duffel bag and proceeded to do the same with the dozen radios after turning the initial two off once more. “We should head out the—“

Something crashed to the floor behind them. Percival let the duffel bag swing on his arm as he swept his flashlight around the room. Evan was doing the same. Both of them were silent.

Percival lifted his helmet’s visor and took a whiff from the air. It smelled like dust and motor oil. He didn’t smell the rank rotting of a zombie, but that didn’t necessarily mean one wasn’t out there in the darkness; or in another nearby room. He hadn’t been able to precisely pinpoint the source of the crash.

He pushed his visor back down and zipped the duffel bag closed before drawing his pistol.

“You see anything?” Evan asked.

Percival was more than a little amazed at how calm the kid sounded. Percival certainly didn’t feel very calm. In the tight confines of the shelves of spare parts and oil, it would be difficult to fend off an attack.

“Nothing. There’s a lot of shit to hide behind here.” Percival swept his flashlight along the shelves once more. “It’s bein’ quiet.”

“It’s been quiet all day…“ Evan said, his voice trailing off.

A growl erupted from the direction of the door they’d come through. It was low, threatening, and almost animalistic. It was distinctly disturbing to Percival. He immediately wanted out of the dark confines of the parts warehouse.

“Ain’t there a back door around here?” he asked in a suddenly hushed tone.

“How the hell should I know?” Evan spat back.

Another growl rose, between them and the door. It sounded louder, and closer. Percival didn’t want to meet whatever was making the noise. He trained his flashlight in the direction he thought the noise had come from.

“Loop to our right, head to the wall. Let’s get around this thing,” Percival said. His words were quiet and fast. “If we’re lucky, there’ll be a door leading to, like, a maintenance bay or something.”

Evan didn’t speak, he just acted. He moved away from the lockers and in the direction Percival had indicated. Percival followed him as another growl echoed through the warehouse. The clack of nails or claws on the hard cement floor now followed them. The sound reminded Percival of a dog’s nails on a hard floor. The effect was to make him feel further hunted and he dropped his flashlight’s beam to the floor rather than keeping it at chest level.

“I see light.” Evan was at the wall already.

“Go toward it. I think we’ve got an infected dog or something here that we’ve stumbled into.” Percival continued to back away from the lockers.

“Dogs don’t get infected, and that didn’t sound like no dog to me,” Evan said.

A growl erupted from the direction of the doorway and was answered by a second growl from the lockers.

Percival uttered a string of obscenities. He’d bumped into the wall and could see the vague outline of a door in the darkness. “There’s more than one.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Evan said. “You seen it yet?”

“No.” Percival closed the gap between Evan and himself. He felt only slightly safer having the young man at his back.

He watched his direction, listening to the slow methodical clack of claws on the cement. His heart pounded in his throat, and he let out a short scream as an arm sent parts boxes tumbling to the ground as it lashed out at him from the nearby shelves.

The arm clocked his helmet and turned his head away from his attacker. He saw stars for a moment, though it didn’t stop him from lifting his pistol and firing blindly, and point blank, into the screeching human face that the arm belonged to.

Percival pulled the trigger of his pistol until it stopped working and he felt Evan’s hand pulling him toward the door. His ears rang from the rapid succession of shots in the closed off area, despite his motorcycle helmet, and he felt a little disoriented as he followed Evan through the door.

He was thankful that it wasn’t locked. Another growl, followed by a screech, echoed through the warehouse. Percival was vaguely aware of something leaping past the door as he and Evan cleared it.

Percival lifted his pistol, noticed the slide was locked in the open position and cursed.

“Watch the door!” he shouted over the ringing in his ears as he ejected the empty magazine and stuffed it into his pocket. He dug another magazine out and pressed it into the bottom of the pistol and released the slide, loading the first bullet into the chamber.

“No need to yell, dude,” Evan said. He had his hunting rifle aimed at the pair of swinging doors.

“Sorry.” Percival didn’t feel sorry. He had only yelled to get over the ringing in his ears. The ringing was slowly subsiding. “What the hell was that?”

“Zombie, I think. It was tough to tell with all the flashes from your gun.”

“Zombies don’t act like that. Where are we?” Percival finally took a moment to look around.

They’d left the parts warehouse and burst into a large, open mechanics bay. It was mostly empty, except for various pieces of equipment for the maintenance of cars, and a red 1994 Dodge Spirit.

“Well, hello.” Percival backed away from the doors. “Watch the doors.”

“Sure, whatever.” Evan didn’t move, and simply continued to aim his rifle at the pair of swinging doors.

Percival turned away from the doors and moved to a nearby bench. He picked up a wrench from it and carried it back to the door. He listened for more growls or the clicking of claws before closing the distance and sliding the wrench through the handles and creating a makeshift bar for the doors.

Percival backed away from the doors faster than he had intended. The zombie, beast, animal, or whatever it had been, scared him. He turned to face Evan after he was well outside of arm’s reach. “Let’s go find the others.”

Evan lowered his rifle and checked his watch. “Half an hour before we need to meet up.”

“If there’re more of those things around, I want us to be together. Besides, we’ve got a car now. Maybe.” Percival wasn’t going to let this course of action change. He was fearful of more of the things and fearful that some of these stalkers had also set upon Sarah and Karl.

“Right.” Evan didn’t sound convinced, but followed Percival anyways.

Percival headed toward the back of the dealership. He wasn’t entirely certain he was going in the correct direction, the blow to his head had messed with his internal compass, but guessed it was right. He stepped out of the maintenance bay and looked around. He didn’t see the mostly empty car-lot, and assumed he’d picked the right way.

On a whim, he chose to turn right, and make his way around the building. He just hoped that when he came to the gas pumps, he’d find both Sarah and Karl alive and well.

Percival led Evan around the corner of the building. The feeling of being watched came back and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He didn’t like it and felt it was as though it were one of stalkers watching him silently from afar.

He was glad to see gas pumps as soon as he rounded the corner and broke into a run to reach them quicker. Karl was crouched a short distance from the pumps with their homemade hand pump next to him. Sarah stood facing the opposite direction, looking out at the city. She turned as Percival and Evan neared.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Sarah’s eyes were fixed to the side of Percival’s head.

“Huh?” He hadn’t even said a thing about being attacked yet.

“You’ve got gouges in your helmet.” Sarah reached out and touched his helmet. “Did you run into something?”

“You could say that,” Evan said.

“New type of undead. We think. Bloody zombies’re evolving,” Percival said. “But you’re going to be more interested in what we found.”

“Zombies don’t evolve.” Karl looked up from his position at the pump. “We found diesel. The regular is dry though. What’d you find?”

Percival pulled his duffel bag around and tugged a radio out. “It works too. There’s also an undamaged car in the maintenance bay.”

“Evan, take over for me.” Karl got up and Evan reluctantly took his place at the pump.

Karl walked over to Percival and took the radio from his hand. He turned it over a couple times and clicked it on, listening to silence for a moment before clicking it off.

“Was this in a charging cradle when you picked it up?” Karl asked.

Percival nodded.

“Where? We need to cradles as well.”

“What for?” Percival asked.

“These radios don’t have typical battery packs. They’re charged off a cradle, like the ones you left behind, instead of plugging in more double A batteries. If we want to use ‘em for longer than, probably, half a day, we’ll need those cradles.”

Percival frowned. “There are those new zombies in the building. I don’t want to go back in there.”

“Did you find keys to the car you said you found?” Sarah asked.

Percival was glad to have the conversation moved briefly away from the discussion to co back inside. “No. To be honest, we didn’t go near it.”

Karl nodded slowly. “Do you know how to hotwire a car?”

“No!” Evan called from his position at the pump.

“Then we’ll need to go back inside and find the keys to begin with. We can grab the cradles at the same time.” Karl’s argument was perfectly rational and that fact alone was why Percival hated it so.

“It’s not safe.” Percival knew he sounded whiny. “I think the entire building is infested with those things.”

“They’re zombies, hon. Just how bad could they be?” Sarah said.

“You’re not helping.” Percival looked from Sarah to Karl. “These things were quiet, except for when they attacked, and I think they were smart to some capacity. They followed Evan and I to a confined space and then cornered us.”

“They’re zombies, boy,” Karl repeated. “The darkness probably just played tricks with your eyes.”

Percival looked to Evan. “Back me up on this.”

“They were scary as sin.” Evan had switched the hose to the second jerry can they brought. “But nothin’ we couldn’t handle.”

“You weren’t attacked,” Percival muttered. He was losing this argument. “Fine. But we’re not going in for any longer than absolutely necessary.”

*

Percival had used the time that it had taken Evan to finish pumping diesel into the second jerry can to reload his spent magazine. He’d also taken his helmet off long enough to look at the damage. There were three gouges that swept from the side toward his visor. They weren’t too deep, but the fact that the stalker in the warehouse had managed to create them with a single swipe made Percival uncomfortable. If they could gouge hard plastic so easily, he didn’t want to think about what they could do to an unprotected piece of flesh.

And if it hadn’t used a tool, a knife or something, it meant the damned thing had grown claws; claws that would likely transmit the infection.

“You’re just making things up now,” Percival told himself. He tugged his helmet back on and secured it.

“You seem really shaken.” Sarah sat down next to him.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to go back inside.” Percival wracked the slide on his pistol, chambering the first round. “The stalkers around this building scare me.”

“Stalkers?” Sarah raised an eyebrow at the term.

“My label for the zombies that attacked Evan and I in there. You know, zombies don’t scare me any more. Stalkers do. They don’t act normal.”

“I think you’re blowing things out of proportion.” Sarah stood up. “Evan’s done, and it’s about time to go find the keys for the car.”