Running with the Horde (23 page)

             
I checked the interior of the store again with my mind, this time checking to see if I could sense healthy people like I had when I found Mark. I couldn’t sense anything. This meant it was empty or my power only worked when there were zombies present with their blue energy.

             
The van doors were all locked and I got a weird feeling someone was watching me from inside. I hurried back to the bike and fired it up. As I drove slowly through the parking lot I considered trying to hit a different store but it was too cold for another long ride and for all I knew it could be the same situation wherever I went.

             
I pretended like I was headed back out to the street to leave until I was out of the line of sight of the vans before I turned the headlight off and doubled back to cruise slowly around the rear of the store. I decided driving a big motorcycle in almost complete darkness was not my favorite.

             
A large construction dumpster was resting in the rear parking lot behind the store. I drove the bike behind it and killed the engine. I didn’t want to leave it out in the open for someone to sabotage and leave me stranded.

             
The helmet and my stocking cap were frozen together. I peeled them apart and carefully rested the helmet on the handle bar. The air smelled faintly of stale smoke and barbeque but I decided to ignore it. I wanted to be done with unpleasant discoveries for a while.

             
From the cover of the dumpster, I peered into the dark looking for a better view of the back of the store. Each door was blocked off by black vans just like the front had been. The loading dock garage doors were blocked by three large semi-trailers, I was getting that itchy feeling that I should just leave but it was getting late, Christmas morning was only a few short hours away. It was a fool’s errand I was running but it had become very important to me.

             
That smell again, sharp and acrid in my nose, it had to be coming from the dumpster.
Hell with it
, I thought to myself as I stepped up onto one of the safety bars and peered inside with my flashlight.

             
Bones.

             
I would have thought I was far past any sight that could turn my stomach but I was wrong. I have an extremely active gag reflex.

             
Charred bones from a lot of bodies covered in ash and soot. I couldn’t tell if they’d been healthy or turned before they were burnt. Either way something bad had happened here. Something I should probably have gotten to the bottom of before going into the store but I’d left my CSI kit back at my house in New Brightown.

             
That itchy feeling spread like a rash to my brain compelling me to jump on the bike and get the hell out of there. Instead, I held my nose and said a quiet prayer for the folks who’d been burned in the dumpster. Then I hopped down and did a silent jog to the side of the building. I am proud to say I only glanced back twice to see if anything had crawled out to chase me.

             
An entire run around the large building took me twenty-five minutes. I stopped to quickly check all the doors and the iron gates on the garden center. They were locked just like the vans and the trucks. On a positive note, cautious use of my flashlight revealed all the vehicles to be empty, my earlier notion of being watched was proving to be unfounded.

             
I couldn’t shake it though. That’s the nature of paranoia, I still thought I was being watched. I considered shining my light into the dark interior of the store but decided against it. If there were people hiding inside, they might be responsible for the contents of the dumpster and I wanted no part of that.

             
When I was almost back to my starting point in the back of the building I came upon the fenced in enclosure that held the building’s regular dumpsters. The gate was padlocked but the fence was easy enough to climb. Once inside I found that entrance locked as well.

             
I was just about to head to the front to take out my frustration on the glass doors when my light picked up the bottom of a ladder ten feet off the roof. I thought it was worth a try to see if there was a way in up there.

             
I could reach the ladder if I climbed the dumpster and got lucky with a jump. My first attempt earned me a slightly twisted ankle, preventing any additional attempts.

             
While massaging my ankle against the side of the dumpster, I was chagrined to notice it had wheels. I sighed and went to the other side and began pushing. It was heavy but moved easily enough. I lined it up under the ladder and climbed on top again. The bottom rung was just above my head.

             
The movies always make these types of activities seem so easy. I suppose maybe it is for some folks. For me let’s just say it was fortunate I could do at least one pull-up. I needed that one plus a desperate half of a second pull-up. My exercises were partnered with some rather dramatic leg kicking and a lot of grunting just to make it high enough to freely climb the ladder. I am sure I looked like a real boob to whoever it was that was watching me.

             
The roof was empty and full of all the things you would expect to see on a roof like that. This included a little brick enclosure that led to the stairwell inside the building. I was disappointed but not surprised to find this door locked up tight too. After a cursory examination of the rest of the roof I concluded there were no air vents I could get myself stuck in or sky lights I could fall through.

             
Disappointed, I sat down in a little alcove next to the brick wall of the stairwell to feel sorry for myself. It was beginning to look like I was going to go away empty handed. My only other choice was to smash the glass in the front doors and go in that way. If there were people inside, I would be caught and murdered immediately in a bloody gore fest.

             
The place felt deserted. It seemed so desolate and empty, yet those vehicles parked by the doors were very off putting. The color and blacked out windows reminded me of the SUV Steven had been riding in the day before, where they the same group?

             
Then a light bulb turned on in my head. There was no way I was going in but I could sure send in a delegate!

             
I pulled my stocking cap down lower over my face and drew on my hood. I huddled as deeply into my parka as I could, trying to achieve a measure of warmth and comfort. Between my coat and the alcove I was able to avoid most of the chilling wind. I closed my eyes to try and ping a member or two of the undead.

             
At first there was nothing, just a sea of eternal blackness. Then a single blue bubble appeared to the north. I focused on that bubble, drawing nearer to it until at last I was connected. The more I concentrated the stronger the connection become until I could feel that familiar vibrating energy.

             
It would have been a simple thing to summon the zombie to the store but while I was at it I figured experimenting with a little networking wouldn’t hurt. I jumped to my new host but did not try and use its senses to view my surroundings, instead I looked for more zombies. At first there was nothing. I was concentrating so intensely I could feel sweat beads forming under my hat and I was afraid I might accidently shit my pants.

             
This was silly, I was trying too hard. I was trying to complete a mental exercise not pass a cantaloupe through my butthole. I held the connection with my mind and just relaxed, feeling the tension leave my body. Just like that I was aware! The dark room I created in my mind lit up with blue dots like on a sonar dashboard. I connected to those dots through my original zombie and soon I had twenty of them hot-footing it for the store.

             
Most were coming from quite a ways off so I knew it may take a while for them to arrive. I opened my eyes and removed my hood and hat to dry my sweaty head the best I could. It would really suck to catch a cold from being stupid.

             
At first I really didn’t register the sounds of men talking and vehicles moving around the parking lot as something out of the ordinary but then I remembered I was sitting on the rooftop of an abandoned superstore in post-apocalyptic Minnesota.

             
I was instantly awake and army crawling from my nest to the edge of the roof. Three large military transports had arrived to offload a bunch of heavily armed guys dressed in military fatigues. Some fanned out to form a perimeter around the semi-trucks. Others were getting ready to enter the store.

             
A man was giving last minute instructions to the group preparing to enter the store.

             
“…clear for days…noise….we need…fast and silent…”

             
I got the gist of it. Get in and get out before the dead came to eat them was the basic message. I was irritated and scared, this was throwing a wrench in my plans.

             
Another man hopped out of the driver’s seat from one of the transports and jogged up to the group as they gathered around the rear entrance to the store. He said something to the boss in a loud whisper, the boss’s reply was almost a shout.

             
“Fucking Jones! I told you already you ain’t going in with us. You’re lucky I let I let you come at all after yesterday! Get your ignorant ass back in the fucking truck before I have you hog tied and left in the parking lot!”

             
Fucking Jones was clearly pouting on his way back to the truck.

             
I turned my attention back to the group now quietly entering the store. They must have had the keys.

             
This situation had just gone from bad to worse.

             
I skulked back to my hiding spot and pulled out my gun in case someone noticed the dumpster had been moved and decided to come investigate the roof.

             
The first of my zombies had arrived. I had them gather in silence behind an old produce truck abandoned in the northeast corner of the parking lot.

             
My plan was to have five zombies smash the glass and breach the store, four would distract the men inside while one would get the things I needed and get out of there. The rest, and I had already called for more, would act as reserves in case I needed them.

             
I suppose I could have waited the men out but if they were filling three semis, they could be a while and I didn’t have all night; the magic of Christmas only lasts until Christmas morning.

             
The men had been inside the store for ten minutes when I felt I had enough zombies queued up behind the truck to begin. When I snuck over to the other side of the store it didn’t appear any men had been positioned to guard the front but I could see lights from very bright flashlights occasionally shining over the glass in the front doors.

             
I sent two zombies to scope out the north and south sides of the building, hiding them behind landscaping trees. Looking through their eyes I could see two guards on each side nonchalantly guarding their areas. They were not expecting trouble.

             
The five zombies I selected to breach the front had managed to successfully navigate themselves to the front entrance without attracting attention. They were currently hiding behind the van, ghastly and silent, awaiting further instruction.

             
In this mode I had discovered they were virtually robotic. I was monitoring the heart rates of the guards I could see and they were all maintaining a steady rhythm. I took complete command of the biggest of the breaching zombies. This guy had to have been a bouncer or college football player at some point in his life but was rotund in his middle age when he’d been turned.

             
This was the first time I’d done this on purpose, it was entirely different than just using their senses. There was a moment of pure unfiltered physical pain during which I almost screamed but I was able to collect myself and turn off the man’s pain receptors. It was no wonder why Linus Peterson had been so hysterical locked in his little brain cell.

             
I had moment of panic when I thought I had lost myself and would not be able to return to my own body but then I sensed the link and found the bridge was still there. I could be back to myself in the blink of an eye.

             
My temporary body had seen better days. At some point, it had been shot in the chest with a shotgun. The man’s tee shirt had once said Pepsi but now only the P and the I were still visible. A sizable chunk of its right ass cheek had been bitten off with a matching hole in the sweatpants it was wearing. Sweatpants, I should mention, that were a size too small. I flexed my new muscles.

             
Tendons snapped and skin ripped but I could tell the man had been as strong as an ox. I stepped casually around the corner of the van, the other zombies following behind me. I spotted a steel ash tray just off the right side of the door. I picked it up and raised it over my head, spilling ash and stale butts on those behind me. I heard a grunt and assumed that was the zombie equivalent of yelling hey.