Authors: Megan Berry
One of the women hands us each a towel, and I wrap it around my shoulders gratefully. “You’ll have to find a change of clothes in one of the stores. I don’t think I have anything that will fit you,” she says, eying my thin frame with a frown.
I wrap the towel around myself tighter. I’ve always been thin, but these last couple weeks on the road, I’ve probably dropped another ten pounds. I haven’t missed the way my rib cage sticks out now, or the way my pants have gotten looser.
“I’ll take you if you want,” she offers and I nod, jumping at the chance to get into some dry clothes.
“We’ll all go,” Silas says as he and Ryan get up to follow me. Jamie comes along too, probably because he doesn’t trust us either.
After passing a shoe store and a jewellers, we find a store that fits our needs.
The woman, Molly, stays close, chatting away about nothing while the guys spread out to the men’s department. I notice that they both keep me within their line of sight as they move around the store, and it makes me feel safe.
I flip through a couple racks before finding a comfortable pair of jeans, a thermal undershirt, and a warm hoodie.
I grab a new pack of underwear and a pair of thick fuzzy socks as I make my way to the dressing room. It gets darker as I go deeper into the store, and anxiety starts creeping up my spine like a great big spider, making my skin goose pimple. I start to lose my nerve though I sternly remind myself that zombies don’t hide, and these people have been living here for two weeks without incident.
I pull my flashlight out and aim it into the back where the change rooms are located. I take one step and then lose my nerve. I duck behind a rack of clothes instead and quickly strip. I force my ice cold legs through the jeans and struggle to get them up because I’m still wet and clammy.
“Jane?” I hear Ryan’s voice, and it sounds like it’s coming closer. I freeze, crouched down behind the clothes, topless, my heart pounding.
“I…I’m just getting dressed. Stay over there!” I call out, just as I see the beam of his flashlight coming my way. He instantly clicks the light off and turns around, and I have to smile despite my embarrassment.
“Sorry. I was too freaked out to go into the change room.” I admit as I hurriedly finish up. I hear his throat clear uncomfortably, but he doesn’t say anything else. I would never admit my fear to Silas, he would only judge me, but not Ryan. Ryan is the dictionary definition of a nice guy
I almost moan in euphoria when I slip my ice cold toes into the thick pink socks, I only allow myself a second to enjoy it, and then I’m on my feet gathering my stuff up in my arms. I go to slip my toes into my shoes but stop when I realize how wet they are. My new sock gets wet on the bottom, and I curl my lip up in annoyance as I pull my foot out as quickly as possible.
I choose to carry my shoes instead, and I emerge from behind the rack to find Ryan with his back turned towards me. “You can look now,” I say with a laugh, and he turns and blasts me with one of his mega-watt smiles, making me feel all gooey inside.
I sharply remind myself that this is the zombie apocalypse and not my senior prom. “I’m gonna need some new shoes until these ones dry out,” I tell him to distract myself from my emotions, and he holds out a plastic bag for my clothes. “Thanks,” I say, noticing that he’s already in dry clothes too—a pair of jeans and a hoodie with a dark down vest overtop.
He looks like he should be in a catalog modeling these clothes, and I have to force myself to turn my gaze away from him. He holds out his hand to me, and I slip my cold fingers into his warm ones as we walk back to Silas.
Silas has changed too, and everyone is holding a bag full of their sodden stuff. I notice the guys aren’t wearing their boots anymore either.
We walk back, stopping at the shoe store we passed on the way, and Silas insists that I trade in my sneakers for a pair of heavy duty hiking boots. They feel awkward at first, much heavier than my tennis shoes ever were. I give a metal pole an experimental kick and hear the metallic ring of metal on metal. I smile up at Silas. “That didn’t even hurt.”
Silas nods. “Steel toed boots are the way to go with zombies, trust me.” The smile melts off my face a bit as a lump forms in my throat, and I realize that I do. I trust Silas and Ryan with my life.
We get back to the furniture store, and they feed us better than we’ve eaten in a week. They have frozen dinners and a microwave, and I gorge myself until I feel a bit sick.
“How do you guys have all this stuff?” I ask after swallowing a mouthful of mashed potatoes. All this stuff should have been rotten a week ago.
“The mall has backup generators. Chico was able to figure out how to turn the breakers off to all the stores we didn’t need, so we were able to conserve fuel,” Jamie answers for the group. He seems to be their leader.
“We plugged in a few fridges and freezers, and stocked up on all the perishables we could fit from the grocery store,” Molly jumps in proudly, and I have to admit that it’s a great idea.
This place seems like the ideal spot to ride out the apocalypse. I would almost be tempted to stay here if we weren’t searching for Abby and Megan.
“That’s smart,” Ryan compliments them, and Molly blushes.
“We can dry your clothes for you too,” Molly says, blushing again. She points over to the appliance section of the store, and I see a row of dryers. All they have to do is plug one in.
“That would be great,” I say gratefully. In this new world where almost all of my clothes have gotten wrecked from infected blood and guts, the idea of being able to salvage a few is appealing.
“Just leave them with Molly and she will do it up for you,” Jamie offers, and we gratefully pass our bags over.
“So where are you folks headed?” Jamie asks us, and the three of us glance at each other, not sure how much we should trust them.
“Illinois,” Ryan says finally, keeping it vague. “What about you guys?”
Jamie nods like he’s thinking about our answer, “We haven’t left this mall yet, but we are running low on fuel for the generators. We’ve talked about going to Florida though, maybe find an island tucked away from the dead.”
No one talks for a bit, we are all thinking about their idea. It seems like a solid plan, if they could get there, but the idea of driving through most of the United States to reach the farthest State is just too terrifying for me to fathom.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Silas acknowledges at last, and we are all silent for a while as we think our own thoughts.
“Do you want me to set you up with some beds?” Molly asks when she comes back from the dryer, but Silas shakes his head.
“It’s not that we don’t appreciate the hospitality,” he says, and I can’t help noticing that his drawl has gotten thicker, “but the fact is, we don’t know you folks from Adam, and we would feel more comfortable finding somewhere else to sleep.” Silas says it pleasantly enough, but he’s still saying he doesn’t trust these people—which is a bit of an insult. I give them a small smile, hoping it will help to cushion the blow of Silas’ words.
Jamie stares at us with no expression on his face. Just when I’m beginning to get twitchy, he bursts out laughing. “We understand. I’m just messing with you… How about we meet back here in the morning?”
He’s really congenial about it, but there’s something shifty about him, all of a sudden, that I don’t like.
“Sounds good,” Silas says, standing up casually, but again I see his hand twitch towards his hip. We walk out of the furniture store, and Silas doesn’t turn his back on them until we get out of range.
“That was kind of weird,” Ryan says, saying what we have all been thinking.
We walk further through the mall, passing several stores until Silas finds one that makes us all start to grin. A camping store.
They didn’t give us a key to open the gates, but Silas pulls his lock picking set out of his pocket and sets to work. It takes him longer than a regular door, but finally the lock clicks and he grins at us.
Nothing comes up to investigate when we rattle the gate, but we still pull our guns out as we move through the store, to be sure it’s really as empty as it seems.
There is so much stuff that our flashlights land on as we do our sweep, that I begin to feel excited about all these supplies being at our fingertips. I want to dig through everything now, but Silas convinces me to wait until morning when we’ll have some light.
The camping store has the mall entrance we came in at, but it also has large glass doors that lead out to the parking lot. There are bars on the windows and doors, but we don’t want to risk any of the zombies seeing our lights and coming to investigate.
We find a large tent that was set up as a display in the middle of the store, and decide it’s as good a place as any. There are already sleeping bags inside too, and Silas says it’s because it’d been staged to show campers how spacious the tent could be, even with all your gear inside.
Silas slips away for a minute to pull the gate back across the entrance to the mall and lock it. We’ll hear if anyone rattles it in the night. I curl up in my sleeping bag and then worm my way a little closer to Ryan.
Ryan automatically wraps his arms around me, and I can barely keep my eyes open.
It’s nice to finally have enough food in our bellies and a feeling of relative safety, surrounded by metal bars. I wish this feeling could last forever.
I’m awakened the next morning by a rough shake. “Silas,” I mutter, reaching out a sleepy hand to swat at him, but he doesn’t go away.
I open my eyes blearily to tell him to piss off, but it isn’t Silas. Ryan is the one shaking me, and his eyes look a bit wild.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, sitting up, instantly on alert. “Are the zombies here?”
“Do you have the keys?” he asks, ignoring my questions, and I frown.
“What keys?” I ask, my brain still half asleep.
“For the truck!” Ryan practically yells at me. I see him take a deep breath as he struggles to calm down.
“No.” Why would I? After my incident back at Camp Freedom, I haven’t been allowed back behind the wheel. “What’s wrong?” I repeat, and Ryan shrugs his shoulders helplessly.
“Silas went up to the roof to check, but I think those people stole our truck!”
“You aren’t going to God damned believe it,” I hear Silas say angrily as he comes slamming through the security gate, pushing it aside with a grating rattle that makes me jump. My heart sinks, and I have a very bad feeling that I
can
believe it—we’re screwed.
“They took the truck,” Ryan guesses, and Silas nods grimly.
I rub a bit of sleep from my eyes, my mind reeling as I try to catch up with this latest development.
“Tell me what happened?” I say, looking from Silas to Ryan before finally settling my gaze on Ryan. Ryan runs an agitated hand through his hair and starts pacing.
“Those people seemed so nice, but they tricked us,” he spits out, and I nod impatiently. That has already been established, but I bite my tongue. Ryan is mad enough. “I went to see them this morning to grab our clothes and see what they were up to, and the furniture store people were gone. I looked all over for them—nothing.”
“How did they get out of the mall?” I ask, as it’s unlikely that the huge group of zombies just decided to leave their post.
Ryan shrugs, and it’s Silas who answers. “The zeds are all hanging out at the back of the mall still, where we disappeared, they probably walked right out the front door.”
I feel like someone punched me in the guts. Just when we start to get a little bit ahead in this shitty world, we get our legs kicked out from under us. We need that truck to find Abby and Megan!
“I came and got Silas and we searched through the mall again, but they were gone,” Ryan continues.
“They left our clothes, dried and folded neatly though,” Silas interrupts with a snort, and I stare at him wide eyed.
“Seriously?” I ask, and Ryan nods.
“Yep.”
“At least they didn’t leave the front doors wide open,” Silas says darkly, and the thought that we could have woken up to a mall filled with zombies, on top of our truck being stolen, makes things seem only slightly better.
“We would have been safe in here behind the gate,” Silas reminds us, but Ryan shakes his head.
“We would’ve been trapped,” he argues, and Silas gives a curt nod.
“Never said we wouldn’t.” I stare between the two of them, ready to grab them each by the back of the neck and knock their heads together.
“So now what are we going to do?” I ask, hating to be the girl who turns to them for everything, but they really do have better ideas than me.
“We look around, gather supplies, and make a plan,” Silas says, not giving Ryan a chance to answer.
I look over at Ryan, and he nods in agreement.
“Why don’t you come with me, Blondie, and we’ll go find something to eat?” Silas says, being uncharacteristically nice as he reaches out and starts to propel me along by my arm.
I dig my heels in and look over at Ryan. “What are you doing to do?” I ask, making him pause for a moment to think about it.
“Try and figure something out,” he says before giving me a half-assed attempt at a smile.
“It wasn’t your fault you know,” I tell him, but he just shakes his head like he doesn’t believe it.
“They took the keys out of the pocket of my jeans when I gave them to Molly to dry,” he admits.
“Still…” I say, hoping that conveys how much I don’t blame him for this.
I take a deep breath and release a sigh as I walk away with Silas. I know that Ryan feels guilty for the keys getting taken on his watch, but really, it could have happened to any one of us, maybe not Silas…but definitely to me.
‘I can’t believe this happened,” I tell Silas as we walk. Silas grunts. I turn to him and look at his face. “You aren’t surprised?” I ask, not sure if I believe him. Silas shrugs, not looking at me.
“People suck. You should never trust them, you’ll live longer,” he says, and his words echo in my chest and make it ache. That’s a sad way to live, but obviously, he’s right because those people stole our stuff. My heart sinks when I remember Abby’s parent’s wedding rings that I’d threaded through her Grandmother’s necklace and left in my suitcase. Anger rushes through me. I’d risked all our lives to return that to Abby, and now it was all for nothing.
“How about the grocery store?” Silas asks, pausing outside a food store that’s radiating a stink that could rival any zombie.
I wrinkle my nose up at it and shake my head. “I’m not really hungry yet, and I definitely won’t be if we go in there.”
Silas grabs my arm and pulls me in anyway. The smell of rotting vegetables and rancid meat makes me cover my mouth and nose with my sleeve. “Then this is the best time to do it—if you’re not hungry anyway, it won’t ruin your appetite.”
I’m a bit annoyed, but I let Silas press a grocery cart into my hands and watch as he grabs one too.
“Go crazy,” he tells me, and it makes me shiver as I remember the last time Silas and I went into a grocery store together. He’d cleared it, but someone had broken the back door down and it’d been crawling with zombies. That was the first place I’d ever shot a zombie.
We walk up and down the aisles shoving food into the cart. I’m not sure where we’re going to put it all, since we no longer have a truck, but I think it makes us both feel better to stockpile.
Silas loads up on bags of chips and I snort. “Really?” I ask, and he nods at me.
“I love chips,” he says, giving me a rare Silas smile.
I’m tempted to lecture him about apocalyptic priorities, but I keep my mouth shut. I try to be a little more prudent with my own cart selections. I fill mine with canned meat, veggies, fruit, and granola bars.
I crack a warm orange soda as we pass the pop, and shake my head when I see Silas throw a couple cases of pop on the bottom of his cart. He looks at me challengingly, but I don’t rise to his bait.
I chug another sip of the overly sweet drink as we round the corner. A shadow moves, and I drop my drink—soda spraying all over the floor and my jeans as a girly scream pushes from my throat. My cart crashes into the lone figure standing in front of us.
I fumble for my gun, and Silas already has his out and pointed. The zombie moans and clutches his shin. “Don’t shoot me,” the zombie cries, and I lower my gun in confusion.
“Ryder?” I exclaim in surprise, and the skinny guy nods.
“Yeah, it’s me.” He affirms and I lower my gun and clip it back into my holster, but Silas doesn’t.
“Silas,” I say wearily, not really sure what to expect.
“Where’s our truck?” Silas asks, and the anger in his voice sends chills racing down my spine. If I was Ryder, I would be pretty scared right now. I look over at him and see that he’s shaking like a leaf.
“I promise you, I had nothing to do with that. I didn’t steal your truck!” Ryder holds his hands up as though they’ll be able to stop the bullet that Silas intends to pop through his skull.
I sigh and flip my hair back out of my eyes. “You’d better start talking,” I warn him, moving over a bit so I’m not standing in the middle of my orange pop puddle anymore. My boots make a sticky sound against the floor as I walk.
“That
was all Jamie’s idea. They wanted to leave, and he didn’t think you guys would give them a ride.”
“To Florida?” Silas snorts, and Ryder nods. “Yeah, not bloody likely,” Silas confirms.
“They’ve been trapped in this mall since the outbreak, they didn’t know if their families were okay or not…” Ryder tries to explain, but I can tell that Silas isn’t softening at all.
“Why didn’t they leave before now?” I ask, interrupting, and Ryder turns and looks at me, probably because I’m less terrifying than Silas.
“They were scared. The zombies have been at the front doors since the beginning and every time they tried to find another way out, the zombies would follow. Yesterday was the first time they’ve left the doors…”
“Why are you still here then?” Silas asks, still holding his weapon trained on Ryder’s chest.
“I’m not going out there!” Ryder yelps. “I have no family to go look for, and it’s safe in here. There’s enough food to last me a long time…” He trails off when he sees the look on Silas’ face. Silas thinks he’s a coward, but I can see the appeal. If I didn’t have anyone out in the world that I cared about, I would consider this for myself.
“Put the gun down Silas,” I sigh, and Ryder looks relieved. A few seconds tick by before Silas complies, but thankfully he does.
“Do we have anything to worry about from you?” I ask, and Ryder vehemently shakes his head.
“God no! I don’t even carry a gun,” he says, motioning to his waist, bare of any weapons.
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Silas tells him, causing Ryder to look down at his feet in shame. “You know there are zombies outside right?” Silas demands, unable to understand how Ryder has survived this long.
“We’ll just be on our way then,” I say, hinting at both guys to move on. Ryder doesn’t have to be told twice, he ducks around the corner and runs off down the aisle, disappearing somewhere into the mall.
“I don’t like him,” Silas says shaking his head, and I chuckle.
“Not everyone can be as macho as you,” I tell him and then realize my mistake as I watch his chest swell.
“You really think I’m macho?” Silas asks, and I roll my eyes.
“Come on, let’s get out of this place before the smell sinks into my pores,” I tell him to avoid answering because the truth is, Silas
is
a bad ass.
Silas lights up a cigarette when we finally emerge from the grocery store. Usually I would cast him a look that left no doubt how I feel about smoking, but today I don’t mind it. The sweet tobacco smell helps cover up the smell of the grocery store.
I noisily make my way over to the fountain, my boots sticking with every step, and rinse the bottom of my soles off in the murky water. I don’t want to be sticking and making a bunch of noise when I’m trying to outrun the zombies.
Silas and I head back to the camping store, pushing the carts.
“What now?” I ask when we push the carts inside the camp store and Silas shrugs.
“I saw a guns and ammo section at the back of the store last night,” he says, and my ears perk up.
“Lead on.” I motion for him to go ahead, secretly wishing that I could actually just take a nap.
Silas leads us back to the far corner, and my eyes go wide at all the stuff in the display case and behind it inside a metal lock box.
Silas uses the handle of his pistol to smash out the top of the glass display and picks up a knife to examine it.
I move in beside him and spy an enormous hunting knife with a wicked curve in the blade. It’s set in a thick black rubber handle that looks like it will supply a good grip, even if I get it covered in zombie crud. I pick it up, pushing the broken glass out of the way, liking the weight in my hand.
I look over at Silas’ noticeably smaller knife and grin. “That’s not a knife…THAT’S a knife,” I say in my best Australian accent. Silas actually smirks at my badly done Crocodile Dundee impression.
“Never a dull moment,” he says, and I grin back.
“I’m keeping this thing,” I tell Silas, trying to fit it in somewhere on my belt, but only succeeding in poking myself.
Silas actually laughs out loud as he picks through an assortment of leather sheaths and hands me one that will fit my new skewer. I undo my belt and slide the loop along the leather.
“It looks very natural,” Silas remarks, unable to keep a straight face as he stares at the sheath, which is almost as large as my thigh.
“That’s what I thought too,” I say, giving in to the urge to be silly for a moment.
“Holy Mother of God!” Silas exclaims, the smile melting off his face as he turns and spies a large, black metal display case filled with guns. He’s frozen in awe, staring at the mother lode.
I know these guns are exactly what we need, and I’m excited to further our chances at survival, but Silas’ reaction is over the top. I catch him stroking the case like it’s his girlfriend.
“Really?” I ask, interrupting Silas and his creepy gun crush.
“Jane, you have no idea what these guns are do you?” Silas asks, and I shake my head.
“I know they will kill zombies, and that’s all I care about,” I tell him, and he takes a deep breath like I’m trying the patience of a saint–hardly. Silas rattles the heavy metal door that’s keeping him from his dream come true and frowns.
“Locked,” he mutters.
“Should we shoot the lock off?” I ask hopefully, having seen it done a lot in movies.
Silas turns on me with a scandalized look. “And risk shooting the guns? I don’t think so, Blondie!” I’m a little annoyed, but I ignore him—reminding myself that’s just how Silas is.
“What about the key?” I suggest, though I’m about done trying to come up with solutions.
Silas shakes his head again. “That idea is better, but a place like this wouldn’t just leave the keys sitting out. They’re either at home with the owner, or locked up in a safe we can’t open.”
I blow out a breath. “What’s your idea then?” I ask, sure that he has one.
“Bolt cutters,” he instantly replies.
“Do you have some?” I ask, sure he’s gonna pull a pair out of his backpack, but he surprises me by shaking his head.