“We’re getting close to the town. Let’s keep the talking to a minimum. Stay alert. And think about the fact that Korn is the greatest of all time.” Nick pulled his rifle close with a smug grin on his face. Phoenix scoffed, and Kate rolled her eyes.
Though the city was not as populated with buildings as the one that homed the hospital, several monumental structures loomed against the skyline. Vehicles blocked off portions of the street. Bodies that had long since decayed lay in piles along the sidewalks and in the grass.
The first building they passed was a bank, the ATM couched in the brick outside had been smashed open. The group continued until they came to a grocery store. Nick peered into the windows, finding the shelves empty and the floor covered in corpses. As he stared in at the bodies on the floor, he realized they were not decayed. Clothes did not hang loose on bones. He thought about the Infected that appeared to be sleeping in the ravine when he and Kate tried to cross the bridge of the small town.
Nick gestured for them to keep moving until they spotted a hardware store. The unconnected buildings were separated by narrow alleyways with dumpsters and cardboard boxes that had long melted into the pavement.
As they stood facing the store, laughter crept up from the street behind them. Nick looked over his shoulder to see a crowd of Infected milling about, weaving through stalled vehicles and the detritus left behind from a panicked world.
To avoid detection with the smatter of monsters, Nick pushed open the hardware store’s door, and the three filed in. Nick closed and locked it, then prepared for any danger they might find within the building. The place was quiet, which was to be expected, yet Nick knew that the most vicious situations oftenstarted as a quiet building. A quiet forest. A quiet street. The quiet couldneverbe trusted.
Phoenix gripped a baseball bat in tense hands and followed Nick closely as they walked the first floor. Kate kept in line behind them, machete in hand. The store looked to be ransacked. Tools, batteries, and various materials were scattered across the floor.
The Infected’s laughter traveled through the walls as their horde grew closer. Nick led his group up to the second floor, grimacing at every creak of the wooden steps. His rifle preceded him, ready to decimate anything that posed a threat.
The second floor was used for storage. Consisting of boxes and tools still in their packaging, the area was cluttered, and a clear view of the entire area was impossible. There was only one room upstairs, which Nick assumed would be an office, and its door was shut.
Thumps against the building told the group that the creatures were just outside now. Though they were acting as docile as a group of former humans who had developed a taste for flesh possibly could, Nick wondered if they could sense the nearby presence of a meal.
Phoenix and Kate pressed against the same wall as the door to avoid detection. Nick turned the handle, pushed open the door, and returned his hands to the rifle. Two panicked, untrained gunshots zipped past Nick’s torso and head.
Nick pulled away from the open door and pressed his back to the wall. A man and a woman rushed past him and toward the stairs. Nick raised his rifle and aimed.
“Don’t!” Phoenix shouted. “They’re just people.”
Before Nick could decide whether or not to pull the trigger, the people had fled down the stairs. Except now they were headed straight for the horde.
“Shit, we can’t let them go out the front door!” Nick lowered his weapon and sprinted down the stairs with Kate and Phoenix close behind.
The Infected barrelling against the front doors must have given the fleeing strangers a clue, because when Nick reached the bottom of the stairs, the back door was closing. Glass shattered, and cackling creatures flooded the hardware store. Afraid of crossfire and drawing more of the undead, Nick dropped his rifle and joined Phoenix and Kate in a battle of melee.
The number of Infected started to dwindle, and the chorus of howling no longer pierced their ears. Nick swung around when the back door shot open, and the man who had fled from it minutes before rushed inside. He slammed the door shut and rested his back against it as the undead pounded against the metal.
“That girl you were with, where is she?” Nick demanded as he closed the distance.
“My sister… she couldn’t keep up. They surrounded her,” the man chuffed out between exasperated breaths. Then, the room erupted with noise as something pounded against the door from the other side.
“Josh! Open the door!” the woman’s voice cried from outside. The man holding the door squeezed his eyes shut, his face contorted in ambivalence. Though, his hold on the door never ceased. Nick’s eyes widened as he watched the man decide the woman’s doomed fate.
“Move!” Nick shouted.
“They’ll come in! They’ll kill us all!” Josh whimpered. His sister’s desperate attempts had desisted, which grew Nick’s panic further.
“Move out of the fucking way, or I’ll put a bullet in your head!”
Josh shuffled away from the door, and Nick shoved him across the room. He fell to the floor and let out wheezing sobs.
“Hold off the Infected. Phoenix, keep Kate safe or I’ll shove that bat so far up your ass,” Nick ordered. Phoenix gave a salute in response just before Nick slipped through the door.
The laughing horrors were butted up to the back entrance. As usual, they showed no interest in Nick, bumping against him and passing him by. Nick pushed through the crowd, careful to watch his step as the back alley was cluttered with corpses. As he navigated the Infected, he tried to view the face of each body on the ground to see if it resembled the woman he had briefly seen.
The bodies on the ground were badly decomposed. Nick sifted through the sea of creatures, craning his head to observe both ends of the alley. The woman was either dead on the ground or hiding elsewhere, though he could not imagine she would have made it through this many perils.
Nick slipped back into the hardware store without allowing any of the Infected in. He pulled Josh up by the collar of his shirt, slammed him against the wall, and patted him down. When he felt the pistol in his waistband, Nick ripped it away.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Nick barked. The man cowered in his grip.
“I—I was afraid. I didn’t know what else to do,” Josh wailed.
