Dying Days (2 page)

She decided that she would stay, go back inside her house and board up the windows and doors, and get as much news as she could before the power went out or the television stations stopped broadcasting or the radio signal died.

But first, she needed to go inside the McCrory home. She was positive that the wife was home. If her husband hadn't killed her the smoke and fire might.

Or Darlene.

Rechecking her bullets in her pocket, Darlene moved across the lawn.

Chapter Three

Mall Food

The last can of tuna went down hard. Darlene wondered what had possessed her daddy to purchase twenty cans of tuna on sale. She was getting sick of tuna but with no power there weren't many choices. The stale crackers - she guessed they had been stale before the neighbors turned into flesh-eating zombies - didn't help, either.

Three weeks after she'd shot her daddy and buried him in the yard she was running out of options. They lived like any typical middle class American family: paycheck to paycheck, and grocery day hadn't come up yet before the world took a crazy turn.

She needed food, supplies, a quieter weapon than her Desert Eagle, and an idea of what was happening in the world. The power had gone out, cutting her off from the television and radio. Unlike those zombie movies that freaked her out, the streets weren't teeming with shambling, moaning corpses. She was too scared to venture out again after the debacle on the neighbor's lawn. Inside the house the undead woman had attacked her and it was all she could do to push her into the fire of her blazing home and then vomit the entire escape.

Her stomach recoiled, either from the memory or from the tuna.

Darlene decided a recon would be necessary, but where? She could list every one of her friends on one hand, and they all worked with her at the mall.

"Trip to the mall?" she whispered. She remembered when she dated Jason Nagle and he tricked her into seeing some scary zombie movie where they got trapped in a mall. Maybe that was the answer.

The drive was only forty minutes in light traffic, but she didn't know what it would be like now. It could take her five with a straight drive and no stopping, or it could be blocked off.

Or it could be gone. Darlene glanced out the window. There were plenty of smoke plumes in the air, and the fire across the street had taken down at least six houses before puttering out.

It was now or never. She had no idea what she would need besides her weapon, all the spare bullets she could carry, and her car keys. "So much for preparing for the end of the world," she muttered. She hoped the mall's power was still on so she could buy a cup of coffee and a cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese. "Yes, yes, that is stupid, but damn I'm hungry for something good," she whispered.

She took her daddy's F150, glad that it had a full tank of gas. She would stick to the side streets as much as possible, since the highway would most likely be crowded with cars and... She started the truck and pulled out of the driveway.

Darlene wondered if she'd ever see her house again.

*   *   *   *   *

At the corner of Main and Goddard, even though the power was out, Darlene automatically stopped for the red light. In the ten years since she'd been driving she'd never once made this light.

To her left was the Goddard Grocery, where she'd walk to as a teenager and play the Ms. Pac Man machine and buy candy. Now it was a burning husk of a building, smoke drifting and mingling with the rest of the destruction.

Darlene looked closer at the building and was shocked: two zombies were ripping apart Old Man Goddard. She couldn't look away even though she now saw exactly what they were doing.

Both zombies, obviously males, were attacking her orifices with their bloated sex organs in a grotesque parody of sex. Not content to bite her and eat her like the news had reported initially, these two seemed to be raping her.
This is insane
.

The sound was subtle at first, a dull tap on her tailgate. She glanced in her rearview mirror and her first instinct was the woman was sick from the way she shuffled.

Darlene hopped out of the truck to help but stopped when she saw the tell-tale glazed eyes and blood-ringed mouth. She got back in and put it in drive, hitting the gas pedal just as a score of undead swarmed the street to either side.

The pickup clipped one of them as she sped away and for a second she felt horrible for hitting someone.
Not some one, some thing
, she reminded herself.

*   *   *   *   *

Bangor Mall boasted Macy's, Dick's Sporting Goods, Sears and JC Penney, where she worked the makeup counter. The one-level mall had nearly eighty stores, most of which looked ransacked as she pulled into the parking lot. The far end was smoking and Macy's was just a pile of ash.

Cars stood silent in neat rows and she wondered who remained in the mall alive and who had turned into a monster. Three weeks was a long time to stay alive, although she guessed smart people would have gathered food and supplies from the mall and barricaded themselves.

Unlike the zombie movie she'd seen as a teenager, the ride over hadn't been as bad as she'd thought. The back streets were crowded with abandoned cars and she was forced to use I-95 the last few miles, but she weaved around the staled traffic and made it here.

The far parking lot seemed to be crowded with people, but they were moving slowly and she knew what that meant. She pulled up and parked in the fire lane outside JC Penneys and stared at the still-intact doors. Worth a shot.

They were locked and as a part-time associate she didn't have keys. She put her hands in front of her face and looked inside, searching for movement.

When Robin Landry appeared, just off to the right in the shoe department, Darlene ducked. She didn't want to be spotted by a zombie and especially one of her only friends. She hadn't thought of anyone else she knew turning into one of those creatures, and Robin had always been one of the only things about her job that she enjoyed.

Robin smiled and ran to the door, unlocking it as slowly and quietly as she could.

"I thought you were…" Darlene said, hugging her friend as soon as she entered and the door was locked behind them.

Robin smiled but pushed Darlene away. "I need to check you."

"Huh?"

"To see if you've been bitten."

"I haven't been." Darlene tried not to get defensive but her nerves were beyond frayed.

"That's what Nichole said, but she had a chunk missing from her leg and turned on us. We can't take chances. I'm sorry."

Darlene understood. "Frisk me."

"My pleasure," Robin said with a smile and began checking Darlene, pulling up her shirt and her pant legs.

"Lesbian," Darlene said with a laugh.

"Bull dyke," Robin said and patted Darlene on the ass. "Looks like you've been eating well the last month."

"Looks like you've been bitten on the face… oh, no, wait, that's just your ugly mug."

The two shared a laugh. Darlene looked at her friend and knew it was probably the first time Robin had laughed in weeks as well.

"Who's left?" Darlene asked.

"Only a few of us. We were all working when it started, but Ray Banner had the presence of mind to lock everything up when the newscasts started coming in. At first we fought him to let us leave but now we're glad he didn't."

"Ray Banner?"

"The cute visual manager. You definitely know who I'm talking about," Robin said and winked. "Let's get away from the doors. Most of the monsters flooded through the other side of the mall. There are dozens of them marching around near Sears."

"Do you have food?"

"Plenty. We took all of the cooking gear like the fryers and stuff and set them up in the break room."

Darlene followed Robin through the dark store. For a second it felt like another early morning shift before the store was open and flooded with customers. "What about power?"

"We're running generators in the main stockroom."

"Isn't that dangerous?" Darlene asked.

"Yes, but better than not getting a cooked meal and cold soda."

Darlene snorted. "Wow, you guys are roughing it. I've lived on tuna for three weeks, three meals a day."

"Excellent. We have tuna for you," Robin said with a laugh. They entered the office area. An older woman was sitting at the receptionist desk trying in vain to get something other than static on a portable radio.

The break room had been converted into a mish-mash of fast food cookers, soda fountains and grillers. People swarmed around the areas preparing food and serving others.

Darlene estimated there were at least twenty-five survivors, and she knew a few of them from work. The others she figured were customers.

"Grab a plate and get some food before they shut it down. After that we can go clothes shopping." Robin grinned. "You smell like shit."

Darlene got right in line, listening to her stomach growl. The smell of burgers, fries and onion rings was a nice welcome. She hesitated when the woman handing out food asked if she wanted two cheeseburgers.

"No, just one."

"Seriously? You look hungry, and this stuff will all go to rot in a couple of days. We're trying to cook it all and hand it out before it spoils." The woman glanced back. "I have about fifty burgers that need to be eaten and a ton of fries."

"Thank you. Pile it on," Darlene replied.

She finished her food and when the woman caught her eye Darlene smiled and went back up for a plate of onion rings. She washed everything down with freshly made iced tea.

"Ready to shop?" Robin asked.

"I guess." Darlene followed her back into the main area of the department store. "Why are the lights out?"

"We don't want to advertise we're here." Robin stopped. "It's not only the zombies that we're worried about, it's the looters. We lost the other part of the mall thanks to a riot and not the zombies. People are greedy bastards, you know?"

They passed a few more people, busy cleaning up and moving racks of items around.

"We're trying to board up all the doors except one and make a communal area in the middle of the store, for everyone to be comfortable. The only problem is the generators, which you can't keep wasting all the time. We only turn them on when we're cooking. Ray says if we can find more of them and get to the nearest gas station and get fuel we might be able to turn on one of the fifty-inch TV's and watch some videos, once we get settled."

"Sounds like you've got a nice plan here," Darlene had to admit. "And you've been keeping busy."

"What were you doing?" Robin asked, hesitation in her voice.

"I had to kill and bury my daddy," she said quietly.

Robin hugged her when Darlene began to cry and she was grateful for the human contact. Three weeks alone is too long.

Darlene pulled away gently and wiped her eyes. "I'm here to shop, not cry. What's on sale?"

Robin grinned. "First, let's get you a towel and a bar of soap. Go wash up and then we'll start trying stuff on. Girl, you stink."

"Sure that's not you?" Darlene asked.

*   *   *   *   *

Darlene stood in the dressing room, freshly scrubbed and wearing a matching thong and bra set, staring at her body in the full-length mirror. "A man definitely invented these giant mirrors, because no woman in their right mind wants to see every curve like this," she whispered.

Particularly troubling were the lines forming around her mouth and eyes. She was almost two years from hitting thirty but in this light she looked older. Darlene had never been a petite girl but she was far from heavy, preferring the expression 'chunky', especially her ass. She turned and looked at it in the mirror and smiled. At least three weeks of nothing but tuna had trimmed it down. The thong underwear still accentuated her shape but she'd lost some of the 'dimple' effect of her ass cheeks.

Satisfied and feeling a little better about herself, she began trying on the pile of clothes her and Robin had pulled from the racks. Try as she might to go comfort and common sense over fashion, she still managed a clingy shirt and tight jeans. After three pairs of boots she found a perfect fit, and they matched with her outfit.