When I look back to the front to assess the situation, I realize that several of the injured people are on their feet,
dripping blood as they approach the lone gunman.
I want to cover my eyes, but can only watch as my ears
ring with the sound of human teeth tearing into flesh across
the short distance.
The gun in my hand shakes, but I’m afraid that if I take
a shot, I’ll have the zombie things’ attention on me because
of the noise.
Everyone’s heads shoot up when several shots sound
from the direction that Jessica had run in.
I’m not about to let my sister be the only one to help
out, so I stand up and brace the gun with both hands as I
line up the sight with the closest one’s head.
As the vibration moves up my arm, I have no time to
worry about aim as the next one turns in my direction. I
only have a few seconds to get the next shot off.
Instinct takes over and I fire until there’s no one left
standing in front of me. I start to approach the cash
registers, prepared to place a bullet in anything that moves,
but I hear Jessica call my name.
When something touches my arm, I pull the gun up to
fire, but it’s a customer that had been behind me. He’s
holding up my purse that I’d dropped behind me.
Jessica screams my name, but my ears can’t hear
anything from the rapid firing of my handgun.
I loudly tell the man, “Thank you.” His gaze lands on
something over my shoulder and I turn to see a zombie
thing almost on me when a hole appears in its head.
Jessica, with her gun braced, stands still, holding her breath, hoping that she hasn’t hit me.
As I glance around, only live humans seem to be
standing around while I make my way to her.
“We should go,” I shout out.
She shakes her head and carefully lowers the gun. Since
her hearing doesn’t seem to be any better than mine, she
points at our bags, reminding me that I need a new clip put
in my gun, just in case the trip to the truck takes the same
turn that our shopping trip has.
The other customers start to crowd around, so I start
walking toward the front door, hoping they’ll get the hint
and go home to their families as well.
Once I hit the sunshine and fresh air, I take off running
for the car. At my advanced age of thirty-eight, with boobs
and fat bouncing, it’s a sight you won’t see often.
Jessica makes it to the driver’s door seconds after I grab
the handle of the passenger door.
“Crap, you’ve got the keys,” I say, hoping that her
hearing has returned a little bit. Either she hears me or was
already in the process, I have no idea, but when the screams
erupt behind us again, I know that some of my hearing has
returned.
She pops the lock on my side and I climb in, closing the
door as she starts the truck. There’s no one in the next
space so we pull through and head for the end of the
parking lot.
“Do you know how to get to the gun shop from here?” I ask, still loud, but I’m drowned out as the sirens from the
flood of police cars and ambulances arrive.
Once we pass them on the divided road, she turns and
speeds away from the scene.
“Jessica?” I wave a hand to catch her attention. “Pull
over. You don’t know where you’re going.”
She ignores me and five minutes later, we’re sitting in
front of a little building in a rundown shopping center that
has bars over the windows.
The truck is placed in park, and Jessica bursts into tears.
I gather her into my arms and pat her head
comfortingly.
“I..I…ssshott…sssommonne,” she stutters.
“We both did, and we’d be dead right now if we hadn’t.
I hope the person upstairs can forgive us, but I plan to make
it home to our children. Don’t you?”
Jessica mumbles something into my shoulder, then sobs
harder.
“There, there. It’ll be all right.” I don’t know what else
to tell her, and we really need to get inside and purchase
our guns so we can go home before the roads here become
flooded.
Jessica sits up. “You don’t understand. I liked it,” she
whispers, ashamed to voice the thought out loud.
“Oh, is that all? I thought it was something serious.
This is something we can talk about as therapy later once
we’re home.”
“Trish, I pictured Billie’s face, and it didn’t really matter anymore. I just shot until they quit coming toward
me and the other people huddled together.” Jessica fumbles
around, looking for something to dry her face with.
“Here, use this.” I hold up a clean looking grease rag
from under the seat.
She brushes her long brown hair back behind her ears
and swipes at the tears dripping down her face.
I take one look at her and burst out laughing.
“What? I don’t have blood on me, do I?” Jessica
furiously wipes at her face again, spreading the grease from
the rag.
“You have a streak of grease across your face.” I point
to the offending mark.
She looks in the mirror. “Hmph.” Her finger takes the
streak and spreads it under both of her eyes, making her
look like a sexy version of Rambo.
“Let’s go get some guns.” Jessica is out of the truck and
halfway inside before I recover my wits.
As I catch up, I comment on her fast turnaround. “So,
did you just go bipolar on me?”
“Nope. I just learned to let it all out quickly because if
Billie caught me, then I’d have hell to pay. He hated crying
women.”
Jessica appears normal again as we approach the tough
looking man behind the counter, who’s eyeing us warily.
“She just killed someone for the first time and it took
her by surprise,” I inform the man, certain that he won’t
sell anything to two women if he doesn’t think we’re either tough or crazy.
“So what kind of stuff can I get for you today, ladies?”
he asks politely, as if he doesn’t believe me.
“Well, for starters…” Jessica pulls out the empty clip
and lays it on the counter. “We’re going to need all the
ammo you have that fits this clip. Then we need everything
on this list and we’ll pay extra for it too, off the books.”
I have no idea what she’s doing as she pulls on my
purse and removes the black credit card before placing it on
the counter.
“So you think the zombie things are real?” he asks
suspiciously, holding up my credit card to the light,
scanning it from all sides.
“Sir, you may not believe us, but turn on the news.
There was a shooting at the local store just up the street and we took down…” Jessica pauses, trying to count the total in
her head.
“A lot,” I supply. “Enough that we had to put new clips
in our guns. Can you help us or not?” I ask, trying not to
hurry him too much.
“Let me ring up the ammo and if your card works, then
I’ll let you pull around to the back and we can load up
anything you want, as long as your card holds up.” He
begins to drool when he sees the list of items that Linc and
Cooper had written down.
“Do you have everything on the list?” I question,
worried that he’ll now try to cheat us.
“I don’t, but I have most of it. I’ll even give you a ten percent discount.” He types in things quickly on his screen.
“Here, you can come look and make sure that everything is
on your list and I’m not cheating you.”
I give Jessica a look that I hope conveys “cover me” as
I round the corner so that I can see the screen.
He stands by respectfully as I scan the two lists. “Is that
the total?” I laugh at the ridiculous amount of money listed,
but each item on the list seems legit.
“Yes, ma’am. If she wants to drive around back, I’ll go
ahead and get this rung up and we can start loading all your
stuff into the truck.” He motions at Jessica while directing
his words to me.
I think Jessica scares him. “Hey, sis. Do you think you
can find the back of this shop?”
Before Jessica can answer, he says, “It has a blue
painted door. It’s hard to tell so I made it easy. Can’t miss
it.”
He swipes the card and we all wait to see if it will go
through. When the receipt starts printing, I breathe a sigh of relief.
I pick up the pen lying on the counter and sign the piece
of paper he hands me.
Jessica begins to walk to the door and he hurries to
follow her.
“Whoa. What are you doing?” I ask as I come around
the counter after him.
“I have to close the shop if we’re going to the back.
Anyone could walk in and rob me while we load your stuff
up.” His head bobs up and down as he tries to keep me
happy.
“Just remember, mister, my sister also shot at least ten
of those things today, so one more dead thing won’t really
matter to her. Got me?” Jessica points her index finger at
his chest in warning.
“No worries. If it’s as bad as you say, my shop will be
one of the first ones that people come to buy stuff from.
After you leave, it will be a cash only basis because I don’t
want to take a chance on bounced stuff.” He shuffles his
feet nervously.
Jessica nods in acknowledgement and heads for the
truck as I watch him lock the front and pull the bars across
and padlocks them.
“Do you normally close the garage door thingy at
night?” I’d noticed that it would be an extra layer of
protection against looters or those zombie things.
“I do, but I’ll reopen once you ladies are on your way. I
won’t open the door unless I know the person. I have a
special buzzer so that I can let people in one at a time so
they can’t jump me and take whatever they want,” he
explains as he opens the door leading to the back room
filled with crates of guns and ammo.
He doesn’t try to mess with anything, but goes straight
to the back door and removes the three boards across the
back to keep it from being kicked in.
I watch as he peeked through the peephole. When he
sees Jessica, he throws the door open.
“There’s a dolly over there. We can stack some of the ammo cases on that.” He motions to the corner as Jessica
enters.
“Just tell us what to load and we’ll be set.”
“Well, ma’am, for the amount of money you just spent,
it could take a few minutes to gather it all, but I’ll make
sure that you don’t leave without all your stuff.” He starts
looking on the list he pulled from his pocket and points to
crates and boxes that we lower to the floor.
I still don’t completely trust him, so we load the dolly
thing and Jessica takes it out to unload, while I follow him
around, moving the boxes to the floor.
“There. That should be it.” He crosses the last item off
the list, just as Jessica comes back for the last set.
“We don’t have room for much more back there,” she
announces when she sees the last four boxes stacked up.
“It’s a good thing bullets are small. How many rounds
of ammo did we get?” I inquire of the still mumbling man.
“Oh, um…I’m sorry. You have all the ammo I carry
here for each of the guns you bought.” He appears in a
hurry now that he’s done with the list.
“We’ll just wheel this out and bring it right back.” I’m
getting an uneasy feeling that we might not have long
before someone tries to take our purchases from us.
He stays back as I stand in the doorway, guarding
Jessica from anything he might try.
As she wheels the dolly back up, he pulls a gun on us, but she’d also sensed trouble and armed herself with a
knife.
“Both of you get in here and toss me the keys,” he
commands.
I back up just enough for Jessica to have a clear shot.
She throws the keys and the knife so fast, I don’t even
attempt to catch either one.
He doesn’t realize he’s been hit until he starts to bend
over to pick up the keys.
“What did you do, you crazy bitch?” he yells as he
slinks to the floor.
Jessica crosses into the room and steps on his hand
holding the gun. Kicking it across the room, she placed her
hands on her knife stuck just below his ribcage.
“I’m protecting my family.” She jerks up on the knife,
free.
I can’t believe she was willing to hurt someone that
wasn’t a zombie thing.
I grab the keys as she cleans her knife on his shirt and
walks past me without a backward glance.
The door closes as I kick the wooden block holding it
open and hurry after her, afraid to be left in the same room
with a man like that.
Jessica steps on the gas and we don’t speak for the next
few minutes.
“So no tears this time?” I ask tentatively.
“Nope. Nobody is going to steal the stuff we just paid
for or keep me from my kids.” Jessica’s defensive tone
begs me to argue with her.
“Technically, he wasn’t dead yet.”
“Can you imagine the surprise on the next person’s face
when they go to get guns so they can fight the zombies and
find one protecting the guns?” Her laughter dies out as it
sinks in. “I left him to die, didn’t I?”
“Shh. You did the right thing. You protected our
families and we’ll be able to see them in just a little while.”
I pat her arm, hoping we won’t have to pull over again.
“Do I have blood anywhere?” Jessica sniffles, trying to
hold it together.
“Nope. You left it all back at the gun shop. Just
remember your kids whenever you have the question of if
you did the right thing.”
&n
bsp; “You wouldn’t have done that to him, would you?” She
eyes me, weighing my reassurances against what she
knows of my personality.
“Honestly, I don’t know what I would have done. I was
contemplating trying to shoot him, but knew he would hit
one of us first. So, it was either an us or him situation. You just got to play hero before I did, that’s all.”
Jessica waves off my praise and I let her by changing
the subject.
“Can your children shoot a gun?”
“Drew and Roxanne have both been shooting BB guns since they were about eight, so not much training is needed
for them.” Jessica smiles at the thought of her children.
“Carson and Joy can both shoot, but Nicole can’t yet.
Trevor, well, that boy will have to wait a few years, even
with all the zombies running around.” I try not to think
about my children growing up on me.
“Hey, no sadness.” Jessica tried to cheer me up. “We’re
both alive and our kids might grow up and leave one day,
but that is a long time in the future.”
“I’m going to take your word for it.”
Home is sounding more and more like a good idea as I
glance at my watch. We’ve only been gone for six hours,
but it felt like we’ve lived years in just that short amount of time.
I had a feeling that the zombie scare was going to age
all of us much faster than I had planned on when I’d heard
that time flies when you get older. I don’t think this is
exactly what they were warning me of, but I’d have to see
what the next day held because this one was over in my
book.
Chapter 10
Cooper
When the taxi pulls up in the parking lot beside me, I
wait just a second, watching my wife and her sister walk
away.
I haven’t even left her and already I’m wishing that
duty didn’t call so strongly these days.
I can’t believe that I’d actually told my wife about the
unlimited credit card. It was always supposed to be a last
resort.
The private airstrip is nearby and it only takes a few
minutes outside the city by taxi with someone who knows
all the back roads.
As I pay the man, the pilot waves at me in greeting, but
he doesn’t look familiar.
To take attention away from the gun I need to draw out
of the bag, I put it down, acting like I can’t get it adjusted properly.
Upon closer inspection, none of the men around me are