Apocalypse Aftermath (21 page)

“Why am I in the middle?” Swanson asked.

“Shut up.” Peter explained as he moved up to the doors.

As expected, the interior of the store was
dark
.  Really dark.  He flicked on the tactical light mounted under his weapon’s barrel as he eased through the first of the double doors.  Their glass was broken, crunching under his boots as he stepped through the empty frames.  The inner doors were also broken.  Panning his light around revealed merchandise and a couple of overturned carts on the floor past the doors, but he couldn’t say whether it had been zombies or looters who’d been inside.  Probably looters; the shelves lining the cash registers looked pretty well picked over, with hardly anything left on them.

As shopping carts rattled behind him, Peter kept his AR moving in a back and forth sweep, slow and steady.  Some of the aisle end caps had stuff on them, so he figured even if there had already been some emergency shopping
, the store probably wasn’t picked clean yet.  The front aisles were close to the door, where sun could get in.  The tac-light was powerful and had a quality reflector and lens, but even then it still faded before hitting the back of the store when he shone it down the main aisle that faced the doors.

The store awoke a few tentative fears, but Peter forced himself to ignore his apprehension.  They needed actual food, not just snack food.  That meant they had to go into the darkness.  There was no way around it short of punching holes in the roof or something, and he knew that would be a far more involved process.  Assuming they could even do it.  Maybe with a construction crane . . . he shook himself mentally.  In and out.  Quick and easy.  Just get it over with.

“You guys ready?” he asked in a low voice.

“Uh, yeah.” Swanson said.

“All set.” Crawford reported, sounding like she wasn’t facing him, which was good.

The civilians all made less articulated sounds of assent.  Peter drew a deep and unobtrusive breath.  “Okay, everyone keep your eyes open.  We’ll take it slow.”

Peter eased forward cautiously, taking his time and trying to look and listen as hard as he could.  He kept his light slowly panning around, checking from side to side.  The floor was lightly cluttered with debris; merchandise that had been knocked off shelves or dropped by others and left.  A few bags or boxes or cans had split open, scattering the contents out to crunch and crack beneath the feet of the little team pressing in.  He tried to ignore the footing, winced against the noise, and kept reminding himself to take it calmly.

He wasn’t afraid of the dark, exactly.  No one who was could be an active Marine for over three decades.  But this kind of pitch black was quite rare.  There was almost
always
some sort of light.  Moonlight was actually quite enough to see by if you were accustomed to it, and gave your eyes a few minutes to adapt.  And while he had been a Marine, his motor pool MOS had made it rare for him to need to participate in the house-to-house fighting that had started coming up so regularly in Iraq, or the cave clearing that had been a regular occurrence in Afghanistan.

But he was really wishing he had a pair of night vision goggles as the oppressive darkness of the store folded in around him.  The darkness wasn’t just dark anymore.  Since Friday night, it now held things.  Hungry things.
  Things that made something hard even worse.

The gunshots outside were tapering off, and his radio stayed quiet, which he took as a good sign.  He’d seen zombie movies where people were treed up in stores, and he had no desire to reenact them.

“Swanson.” Crawford stage-whispered as they left the last vestiges of the doors’ sunlight behind.

“What?”

“If you get scared, I’m not going to hold you.” the female solider said in a calm tone that held a considerable measure of smirk.  “You’re on your own.”

“The more time I spend with you, the easier it is to understand how you don’t have any friends.” Swanson shot back.

“Friends are overrated.”

“Like you.”

“Shut it.” Peter said as he flicked his light up so he could start reading the signs on the aisles.

“Hey—” Swanson began.

“But—” Crawford said at the same time.

“Enough!” Peter said again, more sharply.  “Save it for later.”  About five aisles ahead he saw the sign for canned goods.

“Are they always this bad?” one of the civilians asked.

“You have no idea.” Peter sighed.  His light swept across an upright shape near the limit of the beam’s coherency, and he froze for an instant.  He centered the light on the shape, and it was definitely humanoid.  And it had no light of its own, which no living human would be without.  When he realized he was bring
ing his rifle up to his shoulder, he made himself stop and think for a moment.  The shape wasn’t moving.  What he’d seen of zombies, so far, indicated one would react to the light.  And a human definitely would.

“What’s wrong?” Harris asked from behind him, shining his own flashlight toward the back of the store where Peter was looking.

Peter shook his head.  “Lots of shadows.  We’re okay.”  He made himself resume his careful sweep of side to side scanning, moving toward the canned goods.  As he stepped forward again, he sensed movement on his left and spun, bringing weapon and light around.  A humanoid shape was in the midst of the clothing displays on his left, moving toward him.  Two more were behind it.  All three were close.

“Contact!” he shouted, tracking his fire up from the zombie’s chest to
get one through its head where it would count.  The weapon’s muted muzzle flash lit the area like a strobe light, giving him instant’s images beyond the circle of illumination created by his tactical light.  He saw stringy hair matted with blood, then the glint of bloodstained teeth, and stepped back as he fired.  His fourth round caught the zombie in the face and it reeled back and sideways.  The pair following it pressed forward, the one on the left stumbling over its twice dead fellow while the other staggered against a rack of sun dresses at just the right moment to avoid getting tangled up.

Peter shifted his aim, bringing his AR up a little more so he could put his eye to the scope.  It was only two more, even if they had startled the shit out of him.  No problem.

Cold, greasy, squishy hands grabbed at him from behind.  Peter’s yelp of surprise was genuine and halfway to a screech of terror.  He slammed his elbow back reflexively, desperately, feeling the impact as he hit someone –
something
– in the chest.  The fingers just tightened their grip.  A bullet cracked past his head more than close enough to strongly wash his face with the displacing air.  It was a testament to how rattled he was by the zombie’s grip on him that he didn’t even mind how close he’d just come to being shot.

The hands started to go limp, and Peter
tried to turn.  He heard both M-16s firing, which gave him hope.  His foot caught on something and he sprawled in a fall, managing to twist as he hit so he went down on his side but ended on his back.  Another zombie loomed in the wildly swinging flashlights of the civilians and he instinctively dropped his rifle into a cross grip that left it in both hands across his chest.

Silently, with not even a smile of anticipation, the zombie fell atop him as it tripped over the one that had been doing the grabbing.  Peter grunted as the weight of a heavy not-man came down on his legs and arms, the AR serving as a brace to let him hold the zombie up and off.  Fingers grabbed for his neck and shoulders, scrabbling against his utilities like so much meat.  The face hovering inches above him was empty eyed but intent as it struggled to close the distance between teeth and flesh.

“Move!  Fucking move!” Peter heard someone shouting over more gunshots.  He was abruptly in the dark, with no light outlining the creature atop him.  There was a snapping click as teeth came together inches from his face, and he grunted with effort as he tried to bench-press the zombie further away from his head.  A footstep landed, hard, beside him, then he heard a heavy, meaty thud.  The zombie on him spun off to the left as a foot swept across him in a kick.  Peter rolled right, toward whoever had just kicked, abandoning his AR and going for the M45 in his holster.

He bumped into someone’s legs, but only briefly as whoever it was stepped over him
quickly.  A M-16 cracked off three rounds, granting him three illuminated frames of a zombie rocking under bullet impacts.  Then he had the modified 1911 pistol out and clutched in both hands.  All the firing stopped, eerily silent finally.

“Gunny, you okay?” Crawford asked as she swiveled to cover down the food aisle opposite the clothing section.
  “I got right.”

“Clear left.” Swanson said tightly.
  “Covering left.”

Peter fumbled in one of his equipment pockets for the flashlight he’d picked up from the TravelCenter.  Getting it out, he thumbed it on and joined its beam with Crawford’s as he crossed his right hand with
the pistol over his left wrist to align with the flashlight.  The shelves of cereal and cookies bracketed an expanse of floor empty except for a scattering of discarded boxes and packages.  A body lay at the near end, the one that had grabbed him.

“Clear right.” Crawford said.  “Gunny, breathe.  Just breathe.”

Peter realized he was panting, hard and fast like he’d run a sprint.  He pushed himself from sitting on his ass up to one knee and swung his hands around the area.  “Everyone look in a different direction.” he got out, willpower making up for the shortness of breath.  “Don’t fixate, check everything.”

“Gunny, you okay?”

“I think so.” Peter said, sweeping pistol and light around again before holstering the gun and grabbing for the AR.  When he had it in his hands, he dropped the flashlight back into its pocket and stood.

“You cover front.” Crawford said.  “You, you cover this aisle here.  Now!  Gunny, hold still.”  He heard her click the M-16’s safety on, then she shined
her light on him.

“I don’t think it got me.” Peter said, feeling his heart hammering in his chest.  One mistake.  One fucking mistake.
  One little fucking mistake.  One
stupid
little fucking mistake.  Oh Jesus.

“Turn around.” Crawford said calmly.  Peter rotated,
holding his AR down as he did.  Swanson was covering the clothing section with a steady back and forth sweep, and the civilians actually had managed to point their flashlights in five different directions as commanded.  Three of them had pistols in their hands as well.

“I don’t see any blood.” Crawford told him as he completed the pivot and faced her again.  “
No torn skin, nothing’s wrong with your uniform.  You sure you’re okay?”

“Fine.  Thanks.  Fucking zombies.”

“Fucking zombies.” she agreed.  “Want me to take point?”

“I got it.” Peter said, willing his voice to come out strong and even.  His heart was still racing.  “Come on, let’s get moving.”

They made the turn into the canned goods aisle without further incident, though Peter took it slower as they advanced.  He knew he’d just burned up a lot of luck.  The shelves showed some gaps, but there were still plenty of cans left.  “Crawford, hold about three meters in and cover the main walk.  I’ll take the far side.  Swanson, middle and react as necessary.  Everyone else, load up.”

Cans began clattering into the carts as Peter moved to the end of the aisle and stopped ten feet from where the shelves ended.  This side of the aisle faced out against the bakery department, and was mostly open except for tables with breads and pies set out.  There were some open spaces on the tables, and the pattern of
discarded and knocked over merchandise on the floor continued.  He waited, sweeping his light back and forth across the width of the aisle and listened as the loading went on behind him.

“Okay.”
someone said as the sound of cans stopped.

“Full up?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Crawford, you okay to lead us back out?”

“Takes a woman.” she answered.

“Just do it.”

Peter turned sideways and slid back the way they’d come in, splitting his attention between where he was going and what was behind them.  He had to keep fighting the urge to quicken his pace, or to tell Crawford to hurry.  Instead he distracted himself with paying attention to his sector, panning the light around, switching from walking sideways to backpedaling, then turning to slide sideways in the other direction, covering all the angles.  Ignoring the nerves, the fear that kept dancing along his skin.

Still, he was glad to see the shafts of sunlight on the floor as they drew near the doors.  Then they were outside, and he gratefully inhaled a deep lungful of the late summer air.  “Empty the carts evenly into the trucks.” he said without turning.  “Whitley, what’s the word?”

“Solid Gunny.” she called over the tremendous racket of cans bouncing into the truck beds.  The Tundra had a bed liner of some sort, but it didn’t cut the sharp metallic rattle of the cans by much.  Peter kept his attention on the store, with occasional quick glances off to the sides along the sidewalk.  No problems were in view.  Whitley and Oliver had the area under control.

“You guys okay in there?  Heard some shooting.”