greeter’s vest, the name tag, which is askew and partially visible, says WALMART on the top, and ELMER K on the bottom. The big yellow happy face insignia is stippled with blood. Lilly stares at poor headless Elmer K for quite some time as they make their way deeper into the empty store.
The air is almost as cold as outside and smells of coppery mold and decay and rancid proteins like those of a giant compost pile. Constellations of bullet holes crown the lintel above the hair care center to the left, while garish Rorschach patterns of arterial spray mark the doorway of the vision center on the right. Shelves either stand empty—already plundered—or overturned on the floor.
Josh raises one of his huge hands and orders his cohorts to stop for a moment as he listens to the silence. He scans the acres of retail space, much of which is littered with headless bodies, unidentifiable streaks of carnage, overturned shopping carts, and trash. The rows of checkout conveyors on the right stand silent and stained with blood. The pharmacy center, cosmetics counter, and health and beauty on the left are also riddled with bullet holes.
Signaling to the others, Josh cautiously continues on, his gun at the ready, his heavy boot steps crunching over debris as he moves deeper into the reeking shadows.
The farther they get from the entrance doors, the darker the aisles become. The pale daylight barely penetrates the far grocery aisles on the right, with its spills and broken glass mingling with human remains, or the home and office and fashion sections on the left, with their scattered clothing and dismembered mannequins. The departments in the rear of the store—toys, electronics, sporting goods, and shoes—lie in utter darkness.
Only the dry silver beams of battery-powered emergency lights illuminate the shadowy depths of the far aisles.
They find flashlights in the hardware department, and shine the beams into the far reaches of the store, making note of all the useful provisions and tools. The more they investigate, the more excited they become. By the time they’ve circled the entire fifteen thousand square feet of retail space—finding only a few scattered human remains in the early stages of decomposition, innumerable overturned shelves, and rats scurrying from the sounds of their footsteps—they are convinced that the store is safe—picked over, certainly, but
At least for the moment.
“Pretty sure we got the place to ourselves,” Josh says at last as the threesome returns to the diffuse light of the front vestibule.
They lower their weapons and flashlights. “Looks like some shit went down in here,” Bob says.
“I ain’t no detective.” Josh gazes around the walls and floors awash in bloodstains that could pass for Jackson Pollock paintings. “But I’d say some folks turned in here a while back, and then you got layers of people comin’ in and helpin’ themselves to what was left.”
Lilly looks at Josh, her expression still tight with nervous tension. She glances at the headless greeter. “You think we could clean the place up, maybe stay here a while?”
Josh shakes his head. “We’d be sitting ducks, place is way too tempting.”
“It’s also a gold mine,” Bob pipes in. “Plenty of stuff on the high shelves, maybe stockrooms in back with merchandise, could be damn useful to us.” His eyes twinkle, and Josh can tell the older man has taken careful accounting of the top shelves of the liquor department, still brimming with unopened bottles of hooch.
“I saw some wheelbarrows and hand dollies in the garden department,” Josh says. He looks at Bob, then he looks at Lilly and grins. “I think our luck just changed for the better.”
* * *
They load up three wheelbarrows with down coats, winter boots, thermal underwear, stocking caps, and gloves from the fashion department. They throw in a pair of walkie-talkies, tire chains, towlines, a socket-wrench kit, road flares, motor oil, and antifreeze. They get Scott to help them, leaving Megan in the truck to watch for intruders.
From the grocery department—where most of the meats, produce, and dairy products are either missing or have long since spoiled—they procure boxes of instant oatmeal, raisins, protein bars, ramen noodles, jars of peanut butter, beef jerky, cans of soup, spaghetti sauce, juice boxes, cartons of dry pasta, canned meats, sardines, coffee, and tea.
Bob raids what is left of the pharmacy. Most of the barbiturates, painkillers, and antianxiety meds are long gone, but he finds enough leftovers to open a private practice. He takes some Lanacane for first aid, amoxicillin for infections, epinephrine for kicking a heart back to life, Adderall for keeping alert, lorazepam for calming the nerves, Celox for stanching blood loss, naproxen for pain, loratadine for opening air passages, and a good assortment of vitamins.
From other departments, they acquire irresistible luxury items—items that aren’t exactly paramount to their survival but might nonetheless bring momentary relief from the grim business of staying alive. Lilly chooses an armful of hardcover books—novels mostly—from the newsstand area. Josh finds a collection of hand-rolled Costa Rican cigars behind the courtesy desk. Scott discovers a battery-operated DVD player and selects a dozen movies. They take a few board games, some playing cards, a telescope, and a small digital voice recorder.
They make a trip out to the truck, stuffing the camper to the gills with the goodies, before returning and starting in on the treasure trove of useful items in the darkness at the rear of the store.
* * *
“Shine it over to the left, babydoll,” Josh asks Lilly from the aisle outside the sporting goods department. Josh holds two large heavy-duty duffel bags appropriated from the luggage department.
Scott and Bob stand nearby, watching expectantly, as Lilly sweeps the narrow beam of her flashlight across the disaster area that once trafficked in soccer balls and Little League bats.
The yellow shaft of light crosses mangled displays of tennis rackets and hockey sticks, cannibalized bicycles and heaps of workout clothes and baseball gloves strewn across the blood-spattered floor. “Whoa … right there, Lilly,” Josh says. “Hold it steady.”
“Shit,” Bob says from behind Lilly. “Looks like we’re too late.”
“Somebody beat us to ’em,” Josh grumbles as the flashlight plays across the shattered glass display case to the left of the fishing poles and tackle. The case is empty, but from the look of the indentations and hooks left behind, it’s obvious the enclosure housed a wide variety of hunting rifles, target pistols, and street-legal handguns. The racks on the wall behind the display are also empty. “Shine it on the floor for a second, honey.”
In the dull cone of light, a few stray shells and bullets are visibly scattered across the floor.
They walk over to the gun counter and Josh drops the duffel bags, then squeezes his massive form behind the case. He takes the flashlight and shines it down along the floor. He sees a few stray boxes of ammunition, a bottle of gun oil, a receipt pad, and a blunt silver object peeking out from under the case. “Hold on a second …
Josh kneels. He reaches under the counter and pulls the blunt steel end of a muzzle out from under the bottom of the case.
“Now we’re talking,” he says, holding the gun up in the light for all to see.
“Is that a Desert Eagle?” Bob steps in closer. “Is that a .44?”
Josh grips the gun like a boy on Christmas morning. “Whatever the hell it is, it’s heavy as shit. Thing must weigh ten pounds.”
“May I?” Bob takes the gun. “Holy Christ … this is the goddamn howitzer of handguns.”
“Now all we need are bullets.”
Bob checks the clip. “Manufactured by bad-ass Hebrews, gas-operated … the only semiauto of its kind.” Bob looks up at the high shelves. “Shine that light up yonder … see if they got any .50 caliber express up there.”
A moment later, Josh finds a stack of cartons marked “50-C-R” on the top shelf. He boosts himself up and grabs half a dozen cartons.
Meanwhile, Bob thumbs the release and the magazine falls into his greasy hand. His voice goes soft and low, as though he’s speaking to a lover. “Nobody designs firearms like the Israelis … not even the Germans. This bad boy can penetrate tank armor.”
“Dude,” Scott says finally, standing behind Bob with a flashlight. “You planning on shooting that thing or fucking it?”
After an awkward moment, they all burst out laughing—even Josh can’t resist chuckling—and despite the fact that their laughter is brittle and fraught with nerves, it serves to break the tension in that silent warehouse of blood
