Shop Till You Drop

All I Want Is To Not Be Alone: Stories From The Start #5

Three shadows park against the wall. They freeze like atomic aftermaths with halted breath. They suck in deeply and hold, then inflate like used balloons before moving again.

“Over here, come on!”

“Shut up! You’re being too loud.”

“Both of you pipe down... wait.”

Peter fumbles with the little pieces of the lock pick set under Lucy’s strenuous gaze. Her eyes fire urgency. Billy’s hand rests on the small of her back and taps out messages in quick pats. His head is bent around the corner they had just turned, keeping a stern look out and pushing the pace with each pat. He’s jumpy. They all are. Peter’s fingers aren’t working right. He keeps missing the keyhole.

“For fuck’s sake, hurry it up!”

In the two days that Peter has known Billy, he’s been nothing short of a constant asshole. A real ex-boss type.

Peter forces his hands to steady, though he only gets them to shake a bit less. He slips and twists. Finally, the lock clicks and the door opens. Billy pulls Lucy in, leaving Peter to take the last look before entering the building and clicking the door shut. He checks to make sure it’s locked. Twice. It doesn’t budge.

Inside is much cooler than out. The rows of tall shelves are like a deep, dim swamp. Their eyes take a full minute to adjust. If any were inside, they’d all be dead already. That’s the first good sign. The prolonged silence is the next, and Peter exhales through his nostrils.

He hates the zombies. More than Billy. More than anything else he’s ever come across in his life. And that’s even counting the time he and his friends jumped off a pier on a stupid series of escalating dares only to find the shadow of a large shark lurking within the pilings. It’s that feeling knowing you’re back in the food chain, back on the menu. It’s worse than any other fear he can think of. Tight spaces, spiders, and touchy-feely demons are all only a silly distraction from what’s truly haunting.

“You think there are any in here?” asks Lucy. Her voice echoes a little with a pitched crack.

They wait for a long moment, then Billy answers, “Don’t think so, babe.”

Sure, babe... Peter hates Billy all over again. It grows in the absence of any immediate threats. What a difference a few days make. As far as he knows, those two met just before their trio formed. They weren’t a hot item before that, and he wonders how much it is predicated on perceived protection. Lucy doesn’t seem a fool, but she acts it well enough. He’s pretty sure that’s lost on Billy, who pushes forward with a hand out to feel through the dark warehouse.

Peter secretly hopes there is one in here, wedged between the rows of shelves, that small purgatory where disregarded edges of cardboard boxes float, that bites at that outstretched hand. One chomp and old Billy would be out of the picture.

It’s not that he wants to be alone with Lucy. There’s no time to consider attraction, but there is time to consider survival. Above all else, Peter is sure that idiot will get killed, or get them killed. He stacks the odds only slightly more favorable that Billy will meet his own demise first, giving him and Lucy a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Peter doesn’t want anyone to die. Not anyone else. He’s not that type. But since all of this started, almost everyone around him has died. In terrible ways. Each one lasts as an afterimage on the back of his eyelids.

No, he doesn’t really want that for Billy, but since it is what happens, it’d be better if it’s Billy than him. Better Billy than Lucy. And if they come across anyone else, maybe better Billy than them.

It’s all just a long chain of speculation, but it gives Peter some hope, thinking that they will come across others and that the ones like Billy can be out of his picture as quickly as they came in. Hope is always the last thing to die. Outside of zombies. They don’t seem to die, no matter what you throw at them. Those old fictional tales were way off.

They finally reach some light coming through two small, oval windows carved into the middle of a thick set of swinging doors. They lead to the main sales floor, like they do in just about any store.

Peter knows them well. Not these exactly, but the type of doors. He’s worked for the last four years in a store just like this one. He used to penetrate this threshold hundreds of times every day. Lately, his visits to the back tended to get longer and longer. He mastered the look of looking. That one thing the customer asked for was just out of sight by another minute.

Billy pushes through the doors. They clamp back on his forearm, and he kicks uselessly at the scuffed bottoms. Peter turns and uses his back and shoulders to tip the doors open at even angles. Billy grumbles, as does something else in the store. It’s a rasping cry that catches the trio in mid-step. They dip behind the closest shelf and fall into a uniform silence. The rasp rises again, followed by softly shuffling pads.

There’s one in the store. Peter puts up his index finger in front of his pursed lips. Billy hisses, and Lucy buttons up. They all grow stiff.

A shadow shifts over the laminate flooring. It rocks to and fro, cast from the high-noon sun shooting through the glass facade. Other silhouettes outline the other side of the large glass panes. They must stick to the surface, like flies baking on a hot car’s windshield.

Peter knows if it’s just a single shambler, the three of them can subdue it and push it out the back door. Problem solved, but it takes careful planning and patience. Both of which Billy does not have, and the fool jumps into action, screeching like a banshee, prompting the group plastered to the glass to energize. The one in the store grows louder and quicker. Billy dashes around the cover of the shelf and launches into a flying tackle.

Peter’s earlier wish might just be granted yet. He sprints out to check the extent of the mess Billy’s got himself into.

Edging around the corner, he sees it’s bad. The ragged limbs of the thing scratch at the floor. Two of the blackened fingernails lay dislocated next to the lowest shelf.

Grunts and quick breaths escape Billy in his struggle with what used to be an elderly woman. He’s by far larger than she is, but her rampant snapping proves almost too much for him to handle. She has him pinned against the shelving post. Both of his plump hands grasp the sides of the zombie’s face as she pushes with her mouth like an eel rocketing out of its small rocky hole.

Peter is frozen. He wants to pull her off, but the risk of putting himself in danger is too present. Is Billy worth it? Up to this moment, his answer would be no, but he can’t just let the man get mauled like an animal. Those gnashing teeth jutting forward with ever more ferocity, those teeth and their will, they keep him glued to the spot.

It’s Lucy who breaks the trance with a lifted object. Peter can’t tell what it is through the side of his vision, but it looks heavy. She swings the object down, with a mighty crash over the back of the beast’s wobbling head.

The TV screen shatters into splinters, and the woman rolls off from Billy. He yelps and wipes his hands over his body and face. Lucy quickly takes an extension cord and wraps the woman into submission. Peter still stands in his dumb pose.

“A little help here!” says Lucy to either of the men.

Peter finally releases his frozen state and goes to Lucy’s side.

“There was an office in the back, we can lock her in there,” says Lucy, “Come on, grab her ankles.”

“Why keep it in here, with us? Shouldn’t we just throw it out the back?” asks Peter, slipping his fingers under a tuft of cord.

“Don’t be an idiot,” fires Lucy, “That’ll only attract more to the back. It was clear when we came in. Better to keep it that way.”

Peter nods in acceptance, and they pull the squirming woman back through the swinging doors. Lucy is right, and there is a smaller door directly to the left that Peter must have missed earlier.

They pull the woman into the small room and drag her to the farthest corner, check the binding cord, then leave her in the dark to calm down. Without any stimulation, they tend to go into a trance-like state. They move very little, or not at all, until something triggers them. Something that can be food. It makes Peter shiver, like that thin line of fin cutting through the waves.

They push through the swinging doors again to find Billy slumped over against the shelves. He holds his left forearm with his right hand and mumbles something soft. Peter thinks the man rocks a little, like a lost child.

“Get up, come on,” says Lucy, “It’s done, you’re fine.”

“No. No, I’m not.”

Billy looks to them with red eyes. He holds up his left arm to reveal a jagged circle of teeth marks and blood stains that leak from the open wounds. He starts to wail.

Lucy looks to Peter. He only shrugs. He’s seen people get bitten before. Most that have turned show signs of being bitten, or half the time are partially devoured, but he’s never actually seen the process. It’s an assumption that Billy will turn, but how and when is total guesswork.

“Now what do we do?” he asks Lucy.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen one turn. I don’t even know if one bite is enough. They usually look like they were attacked by a pack of wolves.”

They both stare at the downed man with an air of pity. Billy accepts it and lies on the floor.

“Well, he’s useless, that’s for sure,” says Lucy, “Look at him. Such a big guy downed by a little bite.”

She walks away and investigates the shelves. They landed in one of the last-standing large-scale electronics stores. The rows are lined with TVs, phones, toasters, and vacuums.

“This shit is as useless as he is,” Lucy pitches her head back toward Billy two rows over, “With no electricity, this stuff is just plastic and metal sculptures. What can we use it for?”

This brings Peter’s brain back into a working order, “Oh, I don’t know about that. I mean, any tool is only as useful as the user makes it.”

“We’re not talking about an Excel sheet here, buddy,” Lucy fires back, “No power, no worky... get it?”

“Most of the stuff, sure, but some of it uses batteries,” says Peter, already pulling a pack off a display, “That stuff will still work. It’s not like the batteries are bad. Not yet anyway.”

Lucy slows her step and looks Peter once over, maybe for the first time, “Alright, kid, maybe you’re on to something. But, still, what will that do for us? We can’t eat a flashlight.”

“No, you’re right, but I know two blocks over... well, it’s two blocks and a huge parking lot, but there’s a food store. One of those huge ones. If that place is empty like here, we could be set up pretty good.”

“From the sound of it, you have some kind of plan to get us there?” asks Lucy, looking at the display in front of Peter. She seems to get the idea without him having to spell it out.

“But what about Billy?” asks Peter. He wants to avoid the question. Asking it makes them answer. He’d rather Billy become an unknown, like so many others he’s come across.

“I’d say fuck ‘em,” Lucy says.

“Really? I thought you had a thing with him?”

“Oh, Jesus, no. Kid, maybe you are as dumb as I think you are. Hello? A woman running around the apocalypse on her own. Look, I know I’m not the best looking, but just having some titties and a vagina makes me a prime target out there. It’s like that idea that you need to align with a gang to survive in prison. I got the big guy sweet on me for protection, but look how useful he is now.”

“Yeah, yeah, OK, yeah, I get your point.”

“What do you think we should do with him?”

Peter thinks for a minute before answering, “Well, I assume he’ll turn at some point. I think he knows it, too. I’d say we leave him here, just as he is. No harm, no foul.”

“That’s probably what the people said who left that lady zombie behind. No, kid, we should do something with him. Something so he can’t make more of them once he does turn.”

“I guess you’re right,” Peter says. How disappointingly responsible.

They walk in stride back to Billy. The man has reverted to a fully infantile state and sobs on the floor. There is no consoling him. He knows he’s a dead man.

“Alright, big guy,” ushers Lucy, “Come on, sit up. Get up, let’s go.”

She claps her hands in three loud strikes. This gets Billy’s attention as well as the outsiders. The glass rattles with their eagerness. Lucy recognizes her mistake and looks to Peter. He feels a bit in a haze, but moves, nonetheless. He pulls at the whimpering man and drags him toward the swinging doors. They need to do whatever it is they’re doing, now. Otherwise, they’ll end up dead too.

The man, once so authoritative, gives in to his fate with little to no protest and allows his body to be pulled while he nurses the bite mark with wet eyes. Peter guesses he’s in shock.

Come on, babe... Peter almost smiles at the thought and pulls harder. He knows just what to do with Billy so that he won’t become a threat to anyone else.

The swinging doors flap, and they enter the dark warehouse. Peter looks for it. He knows they’ll have one. There’s always one in a store like this. They have to deal with too much cardboard not to have one. Some places even have two.

Off to the opposite side from the office door, he sees it lurking in the corner like Frankenstein’s monster. Its mouth open, ready to swallow.

Peter pulls Billy and rolls the man in.

“Hey, what... what are you doing?”

Peter closes the heavy metal door, and Billy becomes more lucid, registering his surroundings.

“Hey, hey now. Wait. Wait! What are you doing? Let me out of here!”

“No can-do, partner.”

Peter clamps the door and searches for the manual release. These things usually run on hydraulics, but with no power, he’ll need to use the manual crank. He’s done it before and finds the fail-safe switch and turns it to manual. The crank is on the other side. It looks like a big version of one of those spinning wheels with crank arms sticking out on his grandfather’s drill press. This one doesn’t turn as easily, but with a little muscle, it budges and starts to lower the flat ceiling inside the contraption.

“Oh, hey! What is this? Um, Peter, buddy? The door won’t open, and it’s... It’s getting a little tight in here. Can you stop it? Let me out? Come on.”

“Sorry, buddy, but I can’t do that.”

“What? Why not? What is this thing?”

“Relax, it’s a cardboard baler.”

“A what?”

“A baler. Stores get so much cardboard that they’d fill up the dumpster in a day with it all, so they use these machines to press it all into tight cubes. You know, it saves space. They can fit a week’s worth of cardboard cubes on one pallet. Usually they work by themselves, but you know... with no electricity, I need to crank this thing to get it to work.”

“For fuck’s sake! Are you going to crush me!?”

“Relax, babe. You’ll be fine.”

Billy’s lethargic condition fully disappears, and he bangs against the lowering ceiling. Each knock comes with a heightened sense of urgency.

“Come on, man! Come on! I didn’t do anything to you! Just let me out, OK?”

“No.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Let me out!”

“What are you doing?”

Lucy’s question nearly gives Peter a heart attack, “Jesus! Maybe don’t sneak up on people when there are zombies around. I almost jumped out of my skin.”

“Lucy? Baby? Is that you? Help me! This psycho is gonna crush me!”

Peter shakes his head, “Oh, relax, man. I’m not going to crush you. I’m just putting you in a spot that you can’t get out of, but if anyone else wanders in here, they’ll be able to find you easily enough. See, partner, you’ll change at some point, and I don’t want to leave you as a surprise.”

“I thought you were going to crush him,” says Lucy.

“Wow. I see we have a long way to go to build any trust. I’m out to survive, but I’m not a psycho killer. Now come on, he’s set, we need to take care of the ones outside and make it to that other store.”

“Other store? What other store?” moans Billy, “Don’t leave me here, please! Let me out. Take me with you.”

“Sorry, babe. But you’ve worn out your usefulness.”

Lucy gives a small nod to Peter, and they leave Billy to yell his voice to dust. They cross through the swinging doors, and Lucy points out the stockpile she’s made. They unpack the batteries and load them into the devices. Four double-A’s each. The small lights blink on.

“Alright, so out the front?” asks Lucy.

“Think so. With any luck, the back is still clear, but if not, this should draw any away.”

Peter grabs one of those bags that used to be for customers and goes through the swinging doors. He slowly opens the door to the office, but with Billy still yelling up a storm, being quiet is not really in the cards.

The corpse in the corner wriggles and slurps. He moves carefully and wraps his hands into his sleeves before readying the bag.

With a quick swoop, he bags her head and ties the handles around her neck. A tug on the cord pulls her up, and he directs her back to the sales floor.

Lucy makes quick work of stuffing the devices into the woman’s frayed clothing. Some fall back to the floor.

“Did you set them all?” asks Peter.

“Yes, they all go off in five minutes.”

“Alright, then let’s do this.”

They usher the bagged woman to the front door. Peter knows how this works in manual mode, too. It was more than once that he had to open the locked door for a customer banging to be let in after closing time.

He tips it open. Lucy kicks the woman to the curb while loosening the cord. It’s all as smooth as ballet.

Peter closes and locks the door, and they move to the back of the store to watch and wait. The woman wiggles like a worm and eventually finds her feet. The bag stays over her face. Like clockwork, they go off.

All the battery-powered alarm clocks ring their various tones into a chorus of cacophony. The street fills. All those pressed to the glass, those from across the street, and those unseen merge on the bait.

Lucy and Peter speed on last time through the swinging doors. They make their silent wooshes in and out. Billy catches the commotion and bellows out one last plea. The two ignore it completely, and after a quick peek, exit out the rear door they had once entered. The coast looks clear, and Peter leads the way.

They sprint in crouched form down the two blocks and skirt the rear end of the food stores’ parking lot. A quick nod between the two indicates their agreement that their plan has worked, and they make it to the back of the store.

Peter pulls out his lock pick set and fumbles about in the keyhole. Lucy checks around the corner from where they had just come.

“Hurry up! I see a few coming this way.”

“Pipe down... wait.”

Peter’s hands shake and shake and shake.