I must have slept wrong, because when I woke up, I had a serious twinge in my shoulder blade. It's been bothering me all day. My arm also has a nasty bruise where I blocked the bat the freshie swung at me with. I felt like crap, really. I just wanted to sleep more, but there's too much distance I still need to cover.
I walked roughly another 10 miles when I saw a sign for a Wal-Mart, so I got off the Interstate and headed to it. Draggers everywhere, along with lots of abandoned cars. I used the old rock trick trying to set off the alarms, but they either had none or the batteries were too dead to set them off. A couple spotted me, and came towards me, and at that point, I gave up trying to distract them. Instead, I herded them around the parking lot, gathering the entire crowd with me and once I was pretty sure I had most of their attention, I ran to the Wal-Mart's automotive side and hugged the corner to break their line of site. I then looked for a hiding spot, and found a delivery truck. I climbed between the cab and the trailer and worked my way up the ladder until I was on the trailer and then laid flat.
Draggers can be easily confused. They will chase you until they see you break their line of site, and then they'll keep heading towards the direction they saw you going. If you hide quickly enough, they'll pass you by and keep moving until who knows when they decide to stop. Now freshies, that's a different matter They're smarter. If you break their line of sight, they'll chase you in that direction, but once they don't see you, they'll start probing. They'll look around obstacles and poke their heads into nooks and crannies. Like I said before, if they never decayed, they would eventually hunt down every last one of us.
After most of the zombies were well clear of my truck, I rolled along the top, checking both sides to make sure there were none in my immediate vicinity. There was one, however, right underneath me, so I got up and jumped off the trailer, landing on him to break my fall. He snarled and I got halfway up and brought the bat down on his crown to shut up him. I looked back to make sure none of the draggers still chasing nothing turned around to see me. I was good.
I bounded around the corner and ran right into another, taking it down before it had a chance to gawk at me. A few were off in the distance but posed no threat, so I ran quickly to the front doors. They were shut, but that didn't stop looters from shattering the glass.
Whenever you come to a giant place like Wal-Mart, you always hope you're going to find a lot of supplies. It's practically a warehouse, but don't underestimate just how many people think the same thing. Also, many people have vehicles when they come to loot. I don't. All I can hope for is some scraps. I went down to their grocery department and their produce shelves were bare, picked clean. Anything left would have spoiled months ago. Refrigerated sections weren't entirely empty, and whatever boxes of food weren't in the refrigerators were strewn across the floor, opened and crushed with their contents spilled everywhere.
As I made my way to the dry goods, that's when I saw the bodies. Many, many of them. They were slaughtered from the looks of it, riddled with bullets. There was no discrimination. Women, men, elderly, children. Shell casings were all over the floor like a kid's Legos. None of these bodies looked like they were zombies before they were killed, so it suggested they were alive when they were shot. I could only attempt to piece together what happened. Somebody, or a group of somebodies came in to loot the place and saw others doing the same, but they wanted as much as they could get even if it meant killing others. They were obviously prepared to do it with the sheer number of casings all over the floor. Just absolutely horrible. Or maybe it was someone trying to do a "cleansing", someone who thinks they're doing the world a favor by killing people either before they turn, or by eliminating the zombies' food source. This isn't the first time I've seen a cleansing, but it is the first time I was viewing the aftermath without seeing it happen...
Lucky for me, there was still dry goods. There were some bags of corn chips, pretzels and even some licorice. Every single bag of flour and sugar was shot to shit. Not like to I could bake a cake anyway. All bottled water was taken, which must have been a lot of work, because the pallets were all empty. There was plenty of soda left, which made me wonder. I headed down the soda isle and grabbed a Sunkist. I opened it and took a long pull from the bottle. Because it was warm, it was extra fizzy and it took me by surprise. It backed up my nasal passage and I spewed out what I didn't swallow and coughed to clear my lungs....
... and that got the attention of the dragger... which got the attention of the freshie, which got the attention of three more freshies. The most I've ever taken on at once was seven, but I actually had a gun back then. All I have now is a bat and a serious urge to run, but I didn't. I was being stared down. The dragger kept walking towards me, but the freshies stayed still. When the dragger came within swinging range, I let him have it. The freshies remained further still. The one in the middle left made a gargling clicking noise and looked at the other three, and they moved down the isles adjacent to me. I knew what was happening. I was being flanked. They're pack hunting, a behavior I never saw before.
I wouldn't let them surround me, so I took the offensive this time and charged what I guess was the alpha standing across from me, and it lept back a full five feet as I went to swing at him. I just kept the momentum up and baseball slid into him, knocking him off his feet. We got up at the same time, but I was swinging in an upward motion as I rose and connected under the zombie's jaw staggering him back and I followed through with a downward bash. At this time, the three zombies realized their flanking wasn't going to work and doubled back and rushed me together. I bolted to the left and fled down as fast I could. I wasn't confident in my abilities to take on three at close range with just a bat.
They were on me, angry and hungry. No way could I outrun them, so I had to outmaneuver them. I reached out and grabbed the end of a shelf and jumped, swinging a hard 90 degrees and slammed into the shelf, and kept my back against it. I listened for the stomping feet and when they were close enough, I took a blind swing and was rewarded with a crunch that reverberated down my bat to my hands. The one behind him lashed out to claw me but the one behind HIM crashed into him and they both tumbled into a bargain bin. Now was my chance. I whacked at them while they were trying to get back to their feet. I'm sure if there was any other freshie in here, they'd be coming to where I was now, I just decided it was too dangerous to stay and search for more supplies, so I left.
Five more miles down I-80, I ended up finding the LeSabre. Out of gas. I looked around the car, didn't see any blood or signs of struggling. Kat's pack wasn't in it and I looked in vain for any kind of note she may have left for me. I was relieved to not see her body in the car, but at the same time worried because God only knows where she is now.
I saw on my map that there's a gas station about a half-mile down from where I am, but I'm just too tired right now. I don't feel like walking down to it, fighting off more zombies and then finding out there's no gas to be had. I wonder if Kat found the gas station. If she did, then that means either of two things. 1) She got killed there or on the way back or 2) she found no gas and didn't bother returning to the car.
My shoulder's really killing, so I'm just going to rest in the car. This time I got the comfy backseat that Kat had the other night. Kinda stupid to say this, but I think I can actually smell her. I wonder if I'll dream about her. I really, really hope she's ok....
I'll look for her tomorrow, if there is a tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment