“Please don’t, please don’t kill me. I’m fine really I can make it I’ll be okay,” the whimpered pleas for mercy were muffled by the heavy wood shelving between Eric and the small group of men huddled on the other side. Devin was spewing his words in panicked gasps between the staccato sharp intake of breath. His system was going into shock and Devin had already lost control of his breathing. He’d hyperventilate and pass out if he didn’t get control of his lungs. Eric knew what had to be done. Devin’s cries for mercy were all the evidence that Eric needed to know that Devin wasn’t going to take things into his own hand like Charles had done. There were few options left but Eric knew what to do. Relatively confident that if there were any other zombies in the store that they would have been riled up, barking and hissing as they imagined the meal they were about to fall on Eric moved to the front of the store without concern.
At the front of the store he found an electronic cash register at least ten years old and two vending machines that just about as old. Eric took a look at the soda machine and counted his lucky stars that the images of the bottles plastered across the found of the machine showed plastic bottled coke’s and root beers. Fishing in the right back pocket of his jeans Eric grabbed his wallet and pulled it out. The brown leather wallet had been a gift from Lindsey three Christmas’ ago after his old wallet had nearly disintegrated. He opened the flap and plucked one of the last few dollars out of it and shoved the crumpled bill into the slot of the machine.
As the machine registered his dollar Eric punched the button for a clear soda with his knuckle. There was a hollow thump as the bottle tumbled to the open maw of the slot at the front of the machine. Eric grabbed the bottled twisted the top and took a deep swallow of the clear bubbling liquid. The rush of carbonated bubbles tickled his nostrils and his throat and he coughed as his eyes began to water. He couldn’t remember when the last time he had had a soda was and this was likely the last one. Eric took a more reserved swallow of the soda before turning the bottle upside down. The soda splattered and fizzed on the floor creating a sugary trail behind Eric as he headed back towards the group of men sitting in aisle 4.
Owen was kneeling at the left side of the aisle, the bulk of his massive back and shoulders hiding the other two men completely from Eric’s view. The big man turned his head as the last drops of the soda splashed on the floor at Eric’s feet. His eyes were drained and haunted but in them Eric could see the gears working inside the man’s head. He knew what had to be done and he knew why Eric had gone for the soda in the first place. Eric wondered what the giant had done before he had joined the small community around the farmhouse, who had he seen die, who had he been forced to kill? Those were questions for another day.
Steps echoing down the hallway like the hesitant feet of a death row inmate on his march to the chair Eric’s own footfalls drifted in the silence the only thing audible besides his steps the gasps and sobs of Devin who Owen set gently down on the floor. Tears were leaking down the corners of the young man’s eyes as he looked up at the ceiling. A few seconds later and Eric’s head and shoulders drifted into view. Eric looked away from Devin’s terrified eyes for a second and he pushed the handle of the hammer through his belt and his jeans holstering the steel.
Devin’s lips wavered as he tried to form the words his racing mind tried desperately to grab a hold of. If he could find the right words maybe they’d spare him, maybe they’d let him live, find a doctor, save his life. “I can make it, I’ll be okay.”
Eric sighed, “No Devin you won’t,” his words were heavy the weight of them falling across his shoulders like a lead vest. His heart ached with the realization that he was here to be this poor man’s executioner. If they let him die and come back as one of those things then they’d risk other lives. The lives of anyone left alive in Davenport. Eric couldn’t risk the lives of any one of their party today or the lives of some other survivor of their group who might have to come back this way some day for supplies. It had been just a week since he had hardened himself to the task of killing any and every zombie he could safety kill in order to give the next person a better chance of survival. Eric recalled that moment when that particular piece of his humanity head died. If he could spare five living people for one dead person or dying person then the choice was obvious.
Eric put the empty soda bottle in front of the barrel of his gun fitting the mouth of the plastic bottle over the black eye of the guns barrel as best he could with his lone free hand. Staring down the sights of the handgun Eric placed the bead of the sight in the center of Devin’s forehead.
With a grunt Devin swallowed his dry throat scratched and tight his words barely choked out through his cracked vocal cords, “do you think I’ll get to see me parents again?”
“I hope so,” Eric pulled the trigger and a muffled snap like twigs breaking exploded in the pop bottle as a few small green shards of plastic fell to the floor like snowflakes. He turned away. He let the soda bottle fall to the floor. Blood seeped out the back of Devin’s head and was soon forming a small lake around the discharge plastic.
Sanchez was at the mouth of the aisle. How long he’d been there Eric didn’t know. If it had been him Eric knew he’d have dashed into the store the moment the first screams filled the air but he couldn’t recall seeing the Hispanic officer before this moment. Sanchez’s mustache drooped like it was weighed down with the sadness and regret that was pushing on Eric’s back. “What happened,” the words weren’t accusing like Eric had expected them to be, they were bewildered looking for an explanation.
Eric’s words were as flat and calm as the Dead Sea, “Devin got bit, he didn’t make it.” Sanchez stared blankly down the aisle as Eric skirted around the man and out the front doors. Outside in the pale sun and crisp air of the spring day he could breath. He took a few deep breaths letting the reality of what he had done trickle out of him with every lungful of air. It was easy when it had been someone else doing the shooting but the truth of what he would be forced to do again someday in the future was overwhelming. The dead weren’t going to be the only one’s put down with a bullet, the bitten were just as lethal as the zombies and before they could wreak havoc on their fledgling community they’d have to be executed.
Untold minutes passed while Eric empty gaze drifted up and down the surrounding streets. There were a few shambling zombies dotting the landscape like weeds springing up through the asphalt of the streets but they didn’t seem to notice the living men who’d brazenly come into their town and were striping it bare.
A short drum roll of heavy thuds the truck bed brought Eric around. Owen, Dan, and Sanchez were dropping bags of cement into the truck bed. As Sanchez hefted a second bag of cement off his shoulders and dropped it into the truck bed he called waved his hand towards himself calling Eric over.
Pushing himself off the small ledge of brick that framed the store window Eric walked over to the Officer as he fought to catch his breath. Sanchez was huffing like a marathoner at the end of the race. He was spitting out words in between deep gulps of air, “I know taking care of Devin was hard on you and I won’t ask it of you if it wasn’t important but I’m not cut out for this kind of work anymore. If you’d help out Dan and Owen and get the rest of the cement and the useful tools I’ll make it worth your while.”
Eric wanted to smile but he couldn’t, Sanchez was full of tricks and surprises and on a different day Eric would be beaming at the thought that Sanchez was going to cut him in on a deal but putting a bullet in Devin’s head had pulled all the joy out of him. “What do you have up your sleeve this time?”
“I found a half empty bottle of whiskey in Davis’ basement. If the labels right then its nearly thirty years old, nice and smooth and I’m the only one who knows about it. That good enough for you?” Sanchez cracked a sly smile thought his growing beard that was quickly conquering his face.
“Better save what’s left for a celebration. If you end up drinking it every time something goes wrong that bottle will be empty by the end of the week.” Eric wanted to share a stiff drink with Sanchez to celebrate that fact that they were still alive a week after escaping Spokane but the social worker in his head knew that using alcohol to regulate your mood was a fast track to alcoholism and with resources as limited as they were there wasn’t enough booze in the world to be a successful alcoholic anymore.
“If that’s the way you want it. If you change your mind let me know. It’ll be our little secret.” With that Sanchez grabbed the shotgun he had stowed in the truck bed while he unloaded his cement bags and took up a guarding position between the truck full of cement bags and then the grill of the empty baby blue truck to his left.
Heading back into the store Eric passed Owen and Dan, each man had a single bag of cement draped across each shoulder. Eric moved to the back of the store and hoisted first one bag and then the other onto his shoulders and marched towards the front door making sure to avoid Devin’s body in aisle 4.
Loading the cement bags took a little over an hour but by the time they had cleared out the store they had over eighty bags of cement distributed between two of the three trucks parked out front. Halfway between moving the cement bags out Fred and his partner Trevor had come around the front of the store with their truck loaded with planks of wood from 2x4s to 2x12. Most of the planks were so long that they poked out the back of the truck.
With the weight of the loads starting to weigh heavy on the groups mind they began prioritizing what they took from the store. Small items that would be vital to any defensive construction were the first things load. The number of nails and screws that were moved from the store to the last empty truck had to number in the millions. Other items like hammers, drills, screwdrivers, and axes were added as space allowed. A half dozen chainsaws were the last thing to be added to the supply and the men were just sitting catching their breath when the high pitched buzz of an engine broke the general silence of the small town.
Fred was the first to spot the source and yelled out from the back of his truck, “We’ve got a guy on a dirt bike coming his way. Coming through the trees over there,” he pointed with his barrel of his pistol at a cluster of trees splitting the block between 7th and eight in half. The dirt bike spit out oily black exhaust as it tore through the trees on a beeline to the hardware store. The bike was splattered with layer upon layer of mud, whatever the original color of the bike it was a dried bud brown.
The person on the bike was screaming but from over fifty yards away it was inaudible over the infantile growl of the bike. They driver kept the bike pointed in their direction as he heaved around a white rusted early 90’s sedan and a zombie darted out trying to grab a hold of the biker before he was out of reach. The zombie fell face down in the muddle but it was already pushing itself up as biker corrected his erratic course and continued towards the hardware store.
“Help me, my sister and I need help,” the biker’s scoured throat finally managed to break over the top of the engines whine. “Help me please.”
Without thinking Eric started running towards the kid on the bike who had stopped for a quick second trying to punctuate the urgency of his request with the force of his fist against the seat. Eric was halfway between the biker and the trucks when the empty serenity of the desolate town was shattered. Zombies broke through windows and pushed through doors like rats fleeing a sinking ship. Their milky cataract eyes looking in every direction as the abundance of their feast became clear. Eric didn’t have time to count but was sure there had to at least two dozen if not more and with so many zombies and so few men the only chance any of them had of surviving was to run. Eric turned to run back to Fred and his truck but already a small pack of zombies were moving towards Fred who was scrambling over the shifting planks of wood in the truck bed and trying to get to the door. One of the zombies moving towards Fred turned its head and locked eyes with Eric. It screeched a hungry cry of excitement and began to run towards Eric. Its strides were awkward its arms swinging like an apes and it cover barely move at a slow jog but as more of the zombies spilling into the area spotted their comrade closing in on a live meal they turned towards Eric creating a small stampede.
Eric heard the first truck’s tires squeal on the asphalt and take off headed West down highway 2. The other engines were fired up and grumbling like thunder and Eric was completely cut off from his group. Sanchez, standing on the floorboards and pushing his head over the top of the flood of the undead yelled over the gurgles and growls and screeches of the zombies closing in on Eric, “We’ll come back for you.” He pulled himself into the cab of his truck and pulled out onto the street followed behind by the baby blue truck and then finally Fred’s gray truck. The small convoy moved west but were quickly swallowed up by the flood of the zombies who, having seen their meal reduced to a few scraps had all turned their attention to Eric and the biker.
He turned back to the biker who had his hand stretched out across the back of the bike. Eric grabbed it and with the hard tug of the biker’s arms leapt into the back of the seat as the Biker pulled back on the throttle and they took off down East down highway 2 the horde of zombies falling quickly behind. The growls and wails of the dead were quickly drowned out by the bumblebee buzzing of the dirt bike’s engine but the itch their continued pursuit created between Eric’s shoulder blades was not so easily ignored.