The Becoming: Ground Zero (15 page)

“Yeah, just as soon as the others quit their bitching,” Brandt said. He turned on his heel and gave Cade a light pat on her back. “I’ll go tell them to move their asses.”

Cade laughed and shook her head as she started across the parking lot. “I’m going to check out the lobby,” she said, “at least make sure the immediate entrance is safe for us.”

As Cade moved forward, Brandt caught her arm. “Hey, be careful, yeah?” he requested softly. He gave her arm a gentle squeeze, and a slight smile brushed his lips.

“Of course,” Cade said in surprise. She raised an eyebrow and looked from Brandt’s hand on her arm to his face again. “Who do you think I am? Remy? I’m never
not
careful, am I?”

“Maybe you’re not when you dive into a big mess of infected just to grab a bag?” Brandt suggested. His faint smile transformed into a huge grin.

“Hey, that bag is probably going to end up saving our asses, you know,” Cade pointed out. She punched Brandt playfully on his bicep as he started to walk away.

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll see,” Brandt said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Cade stared at the building for another moment before she eased her way to the front door. She paused outside the broken doorframe to pull her gun out again, mainly as a precaution. The whole building made Cade nervous. Her instincts jabbed at the back of her brain with a sharp stick, trying to get her attention, but she pushed them aside as she eased a foot over the door’s frame and stepped into the darkened lobby. Cade slid her flashlight out of her bag’s side pocket and turned it on. She shone it around the lobby and held her gun up at the ready.

The lobby was empty, save for the remains of a once-busy shopping center. Battered carts littered the lobby; several blocked the entrance into the store itself. A busted Coca-Cola machine rested on its side to her right, and several motorized wheelchairs—their baskets long since ripped from the arms—were lined up against the wall to her left. Next to the wheelchairs was a red machine that proudly proclaimed itself as RedBox. It bore a large advertisement for some sort of video-game-based movie. On the poster, a darkened figure walked through a desolate wasteland, his head bowed and his gun in hand. The man looked somehow sad and a fair bit menacing. Cade could definitely relate.

The sound of crunching glass interrupted Cade’s thoughts. She whirled around, finger flexed slightly on the trigger of her gun. She stopped herself just in time as Remy appeared in the beam of her flashlight. The younger woman stepped in through the doorframe. “Hey,” she greeted Cade. She glanced around and pushed her hair back from her face. “Man, this place is a dump. Think there’s anything left?”

“I sure hope so,” Cade admitted. She lowered her gun and eased toward the shopping carts that blocked the entryway. She was on high alert, her eyes darting everywhere, checking out the overturned black metal bench nearby, the closed door behind it through which she thought she heard the faintest noise, a sound she hoped she was imagining. She swallowed hard and motioned to the entangled pile of shopping carts, the only thing preventing their entry into the store itself. “Help me move these so we can get in, yeah?”

Remy nodded and holstered her gun, moving forward to help Cade. She grabbed a cart and dragged it out of the way, shoving it against the overturned drink machine. As they worked, sweat broke out on Cade’s forehead and back, dampening her shirts underneath her jacket and dripping down into her eyes. She wiped at her forehead with a grimace and pushed another cart into the cart well. Within minutes, the others joined the two women, and they chipped in to help. Once the entryway was completely cleared of carts, they stood, staring silently into the dark store and pondering their next move.

“Okay, so how are we going to do this?” Cade asked. She rested her hand lightly on the butt of her holstered sidearm and looked at the others. None of them appeared comfortable with the idea of going into the store, but they were officially in a position where they had no choice. Cade turned her gaze back to the darkened store and squinted, trying to make out anything inside. It wasn’t very bright; a little light leaked in through the skylights in the ceiling, but mostly everything was in shadow.

“Split up?” Nikola suggested. She grabbed Cade’s bag and shoved a hand deep into it, rummaging around, pushing aside Cade’s personal belongings and grabbing for one of the handguns in the bottom of the bag. Cade twisted away from Nikola and dislodged the girl’s hand from the bag.

“How many times do I have to tell you that you’re
not
getting a gun?” Cade asked pointedly. “You’re too young, and you can’t handle it.”

“I can too!”

“You shot a
hole
in the dining room
wall,
” Cade reminded her.

“And?” Nikola shot back defiantly, giving Cade a dirty look.

“And
the target was less than ten feet away!”

“We go in pairs,” Ethan interrupted. “Remy, Cade, you two go to the sporting goods department and scrounge up whatever you can for weapons, ammo, and camping gear. Theo, you and Gray handle the medical supplies. Nikola and Avi, I want you two to go to electronics and see if you can find some of those two-way radios. Then stop by the clothing and see what you can get. Nikki, you know everyone’s sizes. Brandt, you’re with me. We’re going after food. Nikki, you and Avi track me and Brandt down in the grocery section once you’ve got what I asked for.”

“Hey, if you can find any, get me some Cokes,” Remy said. She stepped into the store, stopping a few feet in to wait for the rest of them. Cade followed her in, resisting the urge to draw her weapon unnecessarily, and instead narrowed her eyes as she shone her flashlight at the cash registers in their immediate vicinity. “Vanilla, if you can manage,” Remy added cheerfully.

“Remy, they’re going to be hotter than the surface of the sun,” Ethan warned. Remy simply shrugged and gave Ethan a big grin, as if to say
who cares?

“Oh, so we’re taking requests?” Cade asked. She laughed and moved toward the nearest cash register. The rack at the end had been ravaged, but there were still a few things left. She picked up several candy bars and shoved them into her bag. “I’ll take that big cheeseburger I wanted, then. With extra pickles.”

“Yeah, sure, Cade. I’ll bring it back with my steak,” Brandt offered with a laugh of his own. He and Ethan turned left to go toward the grocery departments. Cade smirked and slipped out in front of Remy, walking slowly and cautiously along the main aisle between the registers and the clothing departments. The others trailed behind and alongside her, relying on her skill as protection. Just in case.

“So do you think we’ll run into anything exciting?” Remy asked, catching up with Cade. She plunged her hand into Cade’s bag, and Cade sighed and pushed the younger woman’s hand away.

“I sincerely hope not. And why is everyone so obsessed with rooting around in my bag today?” Cade asked in annoyance.

“But it’s such a
nice
bag. Why wouldn’t we want our hands in it?” Remy asked with a flirtatious wink and a laugh. Gray let out a chuckle behind them, and Cade rolled her eyes, offering her spare flashlight to Remy.

“Well, I’m
very
picky about whose hands end up in my bag, so keep that in mind before you start sticking them in again.” Remy accepted the flashlight with a huge grin, and Gray laughed again, prompting Cade to call out to him, “And you get those dirty thoughts about us out of your head, you perv.”

Before Gray could come back with a reply, the group reached the pharmacy section. Gray and Theo split off, heading for the first aid supplies without another word.

Once the men were gone, Remy turned to Cade, a devious look on her face. “So what about Brandt’s hands? Want them in there?” Cade gave her a dirty look and punched her in the arm as hard as she could. “Ow! What was that for?”

“You know what it was for,” Cade warned. “Drop it.” She stopped beside the hardware department and looked around, trying to get her bearings. “Think we should get a cart? We might end up having to carry a lot, and frankly, I don’t even want to think about it.” She shone her light down the aisles and hummed thoughtfully.

“Yeah, I think I saw one right back there. Let me go get it,” Remy offered. Before Cade could say anything else, Remy disappeared into the darkness. Cade followed the woman’s progress by the beam of her flashlight as she backtracked. Remy returned a moment later with a reasonably intact shopping cart. “And I hope we
do
run into something,” Remy said, continuing the conversation as if there’d been no interruption. “We need some excitement in our lives.”

Cade looked at Remy incredulously in the dim light produced by their flashlights. “Oh, for the love of everything holy. Tell me you’re kidding,” Cade begged. Her tone was heavy with dread. “Was what happened back in Maplesville not excitement enough for you?”

Remy laughed and shrugged, moving ahead of Cade with the cart. She pushed it hard, jumping onto the bar at her shins and riding the cart several feet before she dropped to the concrete floor. “So what do we need?” she asked after Cade caught up, avoiding the older woman’s previous question. Cade rolled her eyes again and shook her head, exasperated at the woman’s behavior. She’d never figure Remy out, and she suspected that the younger woman and her need for danger and excitement were going to be the death of them all. Cade also suspected that the woman was borderline certifiably insane.

“I think we should get behind the counter and see what ammo they’ve got left first,” Cade said, pointing in that direction and doing her best to ignore the freaked-out feeling Remy gave her. “If any, of course. And then we should hit the camping section and grab anything that looks usable.”

“Sounds good. Lead the way, fearless leader,” Remy joked. Cade smirked and headed for the sales counter. Somewhere nearby, she could hear Nikola laughing. “So how
are
things with you and Brandt?” Remy asked with a mischievous air.

Cade dragged a blue-and-silver metal ladder behind the counter. She paused in mid-movement to raise her eyebrow at Remy. “What?”

“How are things with you and Brandt?” Remy repeated.

Cade rolled her eyes again and finished pushing the ladder against the ammunition cases, unfolding it and climbing up several rungs. “There
is
no me and Brandt,” Cade grumbled, shining her flashlight into the glass-fronted cabinets to check out the merchandise. Thankfully, there was a sufficient amount left; this Walmart hadn’t been hit too hard. “There’s just me, and then there’s Brandt.”

Remy let out an undignified snort. “Are you sure? Because you two looked awfully cozy in the van on the way here.”

“Cozy?” Cade repeated incredulously. She tore her eyes from the case to look in Remy’s direction, shining her light in the young woman’s face and trying to read the expression there. Remy put up her hand to block the light from her eyes. “We sat beside each other.” She climbed down the ladder, landing on the concrete floor with a thump of her boot heels, and started to search under the counters for something with which to open the case. “That’s hardly ‘awfully cozy.’”

“Well, you two move at the speed of snail,” Remy quipped. “So for you, that
is
getting cozy.”

Cade shook her head in exasperation. “I’m going to hardware to get a crowbar so I can pop the lock on this thing. When I come back, you better not still be trying to make something out of nothing, or I’ll use the crowbar on
you
instead of the case.”

Theo studied the mostly bare shelves in front of him. He shone a flashlight over what few products remained. A sinking feeling that could only be described as despair settled into his stomach.

There wasn’t much left. Theo had managed to salvage a couple of crushed boxes of rolled gauze and some Band-Aids, but there wasn’t any medical tape on the shelves; Theo would have to find a suitable substitute. He wondered if duct tape would work. Medications? He could hang it up. Only a few random, broken bottles remained. Theo contemplated the pharmacy itself, its metal sliding doors and shutters, and wondered just how hard it would be to get inside—and if the attempt was even worth it. A lot of the drugs inside were probably expired, and Theo wasn’t sure how he felt about using expired medications. He supposed it was better than nothing, though; the only real consequence was a weakened potency on some of the drugs.

The only thing he needed now was a couple of crowbars.

Gray came around the corner from the next aisle before Theo could pursue that line of thought, his arms full of red boxes. “We got lucky. A ton of elastic bandages, splints, and braces,” he announced, dropping the boxes into the cart beside Theo. “And there’s still some stomach and heartburn meds if you want me to get some.”

“Yeah, you do that,” Theo suggested. “And some vitamins if there are any. The kind that have everything in them. I’m worried about us all getting malnourished. No way we’re getting all the shit we need eating all that canned crap.” Theo put a few of the cracked bottles of sleeping pills and pain medications into the cart, careful to not spill the pills inside. “I’ll tell you what I could really use.”