Slow Burn: A Zombie Novel (36 page)

Stephen and I were enjoying ourselves, turning zombies into disgustingly messy hood ornaments. Mattie leaned in between us from the rear of the ambulance and shook her head in disgust.

“
You two are not right in the head,” she said in a not very impressed tone. “How could you possibly think this is funny?”

Stephen leaned past Mattie’s head to give me a serious look. I also did the same to look at Stephen as the big ambulance still rocked from zombie body strikes. We both simultaneously began to laugh. Mattie rolled her eyes and found herself something to do in the rear of the ambulance muttering about our mental status. Finally, we whittled their numbers down enough that we could do the job by hand. While most used firearms to take out the shambling mockeries of humans, I preferred to do the job by hand and conserve ammunition for when really needed. Exiting the cab of the ambulance, I dragged my Oakley goggles down over my eyes, hefted my ballistic shield and aluminum bat and began crushing the skulls of the undead that came for me moaning and howling for blood. Chris and Dan carefully walked around checking the nearby bodies and shot several downed zombies in the head.

“
We can’t have one of these sneaky fuckers pulling you down by your ankles and taking a bite out of that pretty little ass of yours,” Dan told Mattie with a wink as he shot a snarling skull between the eyes. “Just ask Stephen about that.”

Soon we had the remaining reanimated corpses down and dead for a second time. We made a quick head count to be certain everyone was accounted for and uninjured. Adam was quite worked up. It looked to be his first real contact with the zombies and he was reacting as such.

“
Holy fuck, this is insane! How the hell are these things even still alive?” he exclaimed. “Some were missing entire arms or legs or were tripping on their own intestines! I killed a couple on my way to the high school but didn’t see anything like this!”

Dan paused to light up a smelly cigar, hawked up some phlegm and deposited it onto the crushed skull of a zombie. “Does it really matter how they stay moving, son? It is either them or us, the how is a moot point. We deal with it, or we’re dead.”

Stephen, who was peeking into the now vacant store, got everyone’s attention. “Hey guys, we came here for supplies, not to discuss whether or not zombies are possible.”

Stephen, Adam, Mattie and I gathered to enter the store. Dan, Chris, and Robert were to pull security outside the building and around the vehicles while we were inside. When we entered, we discovered that we needed our flashlights. Even though it was daytime outside, there were not any windows, which made it quite dark just a few yards beyond the doorway. A quick scan of the area indicated that it had been looted to a certain degree. Many of the electronic device display cases had been smashed open and the flat screen TV shelves were bare.

“
Okay,” Stephen said, “Mike and Mattie, you two make your way over to the canned foods section. Adam and I will head over to the snacks and bottled drinks area.”

“
Sounds good. Mattie smells better than Adam,” I said jokingly. “Come on, let’s go find ourselves some food.”

Turning on the light mounted to my Colt M4, I carefully headed over to the area I faintly remembered being the canned foods section. Mattie had her rifle mounted light on and followed a step or two behind me off to my right. We passed row after row of merchandise, but it was empty of human life. All was quiet and I could hear Mattie’s rapid breathing.

“
Slow and easy…” I reminded her.

Countless products were scattered all over the ground. It was impossible not to step on the debris that littered the floor, and the crunching under my boots was loud. We eventually made it to the canned food section without incident. Pallet after pallet filled with every imaginable canned food disappeared into the darkness.

“
We’re going to need a forklift or one of those hand trucks to move this much stuff.”

“
They have those all over these kinda stores,” Mattie responded. “Let’s look for one and start moving this stuff back to the doors.”

We continued searching the huge store until we located a hand truck a few aisles over.

“
You watch my back,” I told Mattie. “I’ll do the grunt work.”

“
I can work the floor jack, Mike, if you would rather pull security,” she offered.

“
That’s probably not a good idea,” I replied. “I’d end up watching your backside rather than looking for zombies.”

“
Well, we wouldn’t want that to happen,” she replied. “You’re up then.”

Wheeling the hand truck back, we got the first pallet, which appeared to be canned raviolis, and started heading for the doors.

We were about halfway back to the entrance when screams of pain immediately followed by gunshots broke the eerie silence.

* * * * * * * *

Stepping quietly around fallen products that littered the floor, Stephen headed directly to the bottled drink location near the rear of the huge store.

Behind him, Adam didn’t watch his foot placement as it sounded like he was walking on bubble wrap.

“
Hey, can we stock up on Slim Jims?” Adam asked in a loud whisper. “I haven’t had any since the shit hit the fan, and I’m dying for one.”

Stephen rolled his eyes. “If we happen to see some, then sure you can grab as many as you can carry.”

“
Really?” he said loudly again, “Sweet!”

Stephen hissed at Adam to be quiet as they neared the beverage area.

“
What is it?” Adam asked nervously.

“
Swore I heard movement up ahead. Something that made a thumping sound.”

Not seeing anything, Stephen shined the weapon light on his rifle around and located a hand truck for moving pallets.

“
Watch my back and I’ll move the pallets back to the doorway,” he told Adam.

“
I’m on it,” Adam replied and yet again checked the chamber on his rifle to make sure he had a round seated in the chamber.

Stephen moved the hand truck under a full pallet of bottled water, jacked it up, and pulled the pallet out, grunting from the weight. He pushed the pallet in front of himself, and began pushing the water towards the small square of light in the distance that was the open entrance doors. Following closely behind Stephen, Adam walked, scanning the darkness around them for any signs of zombies. The beam of his patrol rifle light swung back and forth, and the light stopped on a very familiar looking package lying on the floor. Glancing down, he could see that it was an original flavor Slim Jim. Swinging the flashlight back up to the nearby shelf, Adam was rewarded with the sight of several cases of the delicious jerky lined up along the shelf like bars of gold.

“
Sweet mama today is my lucky day,” Adam gasped.

Rubbing his hands together eagerly, Adam slung his rifle, grabbed two cases of the succulent treats and ran back to catch up to Stephen, who didn’t even know Adam was no longer behind him. He caught up to Stephen and told him the great news.

“
I hit the jackpot, brother!” Adam said loudly. “Got me two freaking cases of these bad boys, and there are several more back there that we can grab next!”

Stephen paused his pushing of the pallet to look at Adam. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching my back?”

“
Don’t worry. This place is empty,” Adam said with cockiness.

“
Don’t be so sure,” Stephen warned. “They’re sneaky bastards!”

Stephen turned back around and began pushing the pallet once again but stopped as the outline of a person stepped out into his aisle in between him and the front door.

“
Contact to the front!” Stephen said, immediately whipping up his AR-15 and taking aim.

Just as he was about to pull the trigger, his peripheral vision picked up movement to his right. Swinging his rifle to the right, Stephen let loose a controlled three-round burst. The blood-stained creature collapsed to the floor missing most of its head from the rifle rounds. When Stephen swung back to the figure to his front, he noticed there were now three of the infected bastards rapidly approaching.

Behind Stephen, Adam stood frozen with indecision. With his hands full of beef jerky treats, his brain was overwhelmed with the dilemma of dropping his beloved snacks and engaging the zombies with his rifle or standing there and hoping Stephen was successful with his battle. While he waited, Stephen fired six more times. Adam breathed a sigh of relief as Stephen dropped the last of the three zombies to his front. Unfortunately, Adam neglected to secure the rear of their position. He screamed as pain surged through his right leg. Looking down as he stumbled to the left, his face paled in dread when he found that his source of pain was a zombie, missing both legs, that had crawled up to him and locked its teeth onto his right calf. Falling down as the disgusting creature thrashed and ground its teeth into the meat of his leg, Adam managed to draw his Glock 17 service pistol and shoot the creature in the top of its skull. Infected blood and brain matter splattered all over the floor and also into the open bite wound on his leg.

Stephen caught the final part of Adam’s skirmish and stood motionless as he looked from Adam’s leg wound and up into Adam’s eyes. Adam followed Stephen’s gaze down to stare at the heavily bleeding leg wound, and it finally dawned on him exactly what his near future had in store for him.

He scrambled to his feet while Stephen bent down to retrieve Adam’s handgun that he dropped after shooting the legless zombie.

“
Maybe he didn’t bite me well enough to infect me?” Adam said in a panicked voice. “Maybe I won’t turn into one of them.”

Stephen grimly shook his head. “You know that isn’t true, Adam. Once bitten, you
will
turn. There’s no maybe!”

Adam stood there wide-eyed and speechless as Stephen held his own loaded handgun out toward him.

“
The only options you have left are to take yourself out of the equation or become one of them.”

Adam began backing up from the offered firearm. “Fuck you, Stephen! I’m not infected!”

“
Get back here, Adam, and end this, or I will!”

Adam bent and picked up two cases of Slim Jims that he had dropped and threw one at Stephen and ran off into the dark warehouse.

By the time Stephen had evaded the meat missile and looked back up, Adam was disappearing down an aisle screaming obscenities and something about Stephen having sexual relations with farm animals. Stephen sighed, not really wanting to put a bullet into the skull of a former colleague and friend. Hearing footsteps behind him, he spun around and lifted Adam’s handgun up to a ready position and then lowered it to his side when he saw it was Mike and Mattie coming to his aid.

* * * * * * * *

We arrived at Stephen’s location, and the reasons for the gun shots were plain to see. A handful of zombies had attacked him and were subsequently killed for a second time by precise headshots. Mattie looked down at the bloody corpses and then at the blood trail leading away.

“
Where were they hiding?” she wondered aloud, not expecting an answer.

“
Where’s Adam?” I asked.

Stephen shook his head. “He got bit in the leg then ran off when I told him to eat his pistol. Guess he thinks that if he ignores the bite then he won’t turn into a zombie.”

I turned in the direction Stephen motioned to where Adam had run off and cursed loudly. “That is just what we didn’t need, a casualty. Now we’d better get what we can grab fast and get back to the safe zone before we get too much contact outside.”

Speaking of which, I grabbed my radio and reached Dan to get an update of how it looked outside.

“
Dan, this is Mike, give me a sit-rep.”

Dan replied that they had been sniping random groups with his suppressed rifle the entire time we had been inside. As of right now things were manageable but we needed to hurry up in case any large concentrated groups passed by.

I advised him that we lost one of our guys to a bite wound.

The radio was silent for a few seconds then crackled to life. “But Mattie is unharmed correct?”

“
No, Mattie’s not hurt,” I sighed, glancing over at her and Stephen before lowering my radio. “Come on, let’s get this stuff loaded into the trucks so we can get the hell out of here.”

We got right to work, and it went fairly smoothly with us wheeling pallets to the entrance of the store, and having Chris and Robert load the supplies into the truck while Dan pulled guard duty. An unexpected score was also made. Chris located a frozen food section that still had a working freezer due to an automated propane generator. We were able to load up on frozen food that would soon become a rare commodity, including pizza and ice cream, the latter of which Mattie was eagerly awaiting a taste. In short order we had both trucks loaded, and we then began our trek back to the safe zone. Dan and Chris drove one truck, Stephen and Robert the other, with me and Mattie in the ambulance. There was no radio traffic between our vehicles, and we were in low morale, for we’d lost another one of our own to this damned curse.