The Walking Dead: The Road to Woodbury

and looted shelves. They have had a good day. They’ve hit the jackpot here in this temple of discount consumerism. More importantly, they’ve acquired something here far more valuable than mere provisions: They have found a glimmer of hope that they’ll make it through the winter … that they just may come out the other side of this nightmare.

Lilly hears the noise first. Her laughter instantly dies and she looks around as though waking with a start from a dream. “What was that?”

Josh stops laughing. “What’s the matter?”

“Did you hear that?”

Bob looks at her. “What’s wrong, darlin’?”

“I heard something.” Her voice is low and taut with panic.

Josh turns his flashlight off and looks at Scott. “Turn the flashlight off, Scott.”

Scott extinguishes the light and the rear of the store is plunged into darkness.

*   *   *

Lilly’s heart thumps as they stand there in the shadows for a moment, listening. The store is silent. Then another creaking noise penetrates the stillness.

It comes from the front of the store. A wrenching sound, like rusty metal squeaking, but faint, so faint it’s impossible to identify.

Josh whispers, “Bob, where’s the shotgun?”

“Left it up front, with the wheelbarrows.”

“Great.”

“What if it’s Megan?”

Josh thinks about it. He gazes out at the stillness of the store. “Megan! That you?”

No answer.

Lilly swallows air. Dizziness courses over her. “You think walkers could push the door open?”

“A stiff breeze could blow it open,” Josh says, reaching behind his belt for the .38. “Bob, how handy are you with that bad-ass pistol?”

Bob already has one of the ammo boxes open. He fishes for bullets with trembling, filthy fingers. “Way ahead of you, captain.”

“All right, listen—”

Josh starts to whisper instructions when another noise fills the air—muffled but distinct—clearly the sound of frozen hinges rasping somewhere near the entrance. Someone or some thing is pushing itself into the store.

Bob fiddles bullets into an empty magazine, his hands shaking. He drops the magazine, the clip hitting the floor and spilling rounds.

“Dude,” Scott comments under his breath, nervously watching Bob on his hands and knees retrieving the stray bullets like a little boy madly gathering marbles.

“Listen up,” Josh hisses at them. “Scott, you and Bob take the left flank, head toward the front of the store through the grocery department. Babydoll, you follow me. We’ll grab an axe from home and garden on the way.”

Bob, on the floor, finally manages to get the bullets into the clip, then slams the magazine into the pistol and levers himself back to his feet. “Gotcha. C’mon, junior. Let’s do it.”

They split off and move through the darkness toward the pale light.

Lilly follows Josh through the shadows of the auto care center, past ransacked shelves, past heaps of litter strewn across the tile flooring, past home and office, past crafts. They move as quietly as possible, staying low and close together, Josh communicating with hand gestures. He has the .38 in one hand, the other hand coming up suddenly and signaling for Lilly to stop.

From the front of the store, the sound of shuffling footsteps can now clearly be heard.

Josh points at a fallen display in the do-it-yourself department. Lilly creeps around behind a display of lightbulbs and finds the floor littered with rakes and pruning shears and three-foot-long axes. She grabs one of the axes and comes back around the lightbulbs, her heart hammering, her flesh crawling with terror.

They approach the front entrance. Lilly can see an occasional flash of movement on the other side of the store as Scott and Bob close in along the west wall of the grocery department. By this point, whatever it is that’s slithering into the Walmart seems to have fallen silent and still. Lilly can’t hear a thing other than her chugging heart.

Josh pauses behind the pharmacy counter, crouching down. Lilly joins him. Josh whispers to her, “You stay behind me, and if one of them things gets past me, give it a good whack in the center of the head with that thing.”

“Josh, I know how to kill a zombie,” Lilly retorts in a harsh whisper.

“I know, honey, all I’m saying … just make sure you whack it hard enough the first time.”

Lilly nods.

“On three,” Josh whispers. “You ready?”

“Ready.”

“One, two—”

Josh stops cold. Lilly hears something that doesn’t compute.

Josh grabs her and holds her steady against the bottom of the pharmacy counter. Paralyzed with indecision, they crouch there for a moment, a single incongruous thought screaming in Lilly’s brain.

Zombies don’t talk.

*   *   *

“Hello?” The voice echoes across the empty store. “Anybody home?”

Josh hesitates behind the counter for another brief moment, weighing his options, his brain swimming with panic. The voice sounds friendly … sort of … definitely male, deep, maybe a little bit of an accent.

Josh glances over his shoulder at Lilly. She’s holding the axe like a baseball bat, poised to strike, her lips quivering with terror. Josh holds his huge hand up—making a “give me a second” gesture—and he’s about to make his move, letting up on the pistol’s hammer, when another voice rings out, instantly changing the dynamic.

“LET HER GO, YOU SONS OF BITCHES!”

Josh lunges out from behind the counter with his .38 raised and ready to fire.

Lilly follows with the axe.

A group of six men—all heavily armed—stand in the vestibule.

“Easy … easy, easy, easy … whoa!” The leader, the guy standing out in front of the pack—a high-powered assault rifle in his arms, the muzzle raised menacingly—looks to be in his late twenties, early thirties at the most. Tall, rangy, dark complexioned, he wears a do-rag on his head. The sleeves of his flannel shirt are scissored off. His arms are heavily muscled.

At first, things are happening almost too quickly for Josh to track as he stands his ground with the barrel of his .38 pinned on Bandanna Man.

From behind the checkout lanes, Bob Stookey charges toward the intruders with his Desert Eagle gripped in both hands, commando-style, his red-rimmed eyes wide with drunken heroism. “LET HER GO!” The object of his pique stands behind the bandanna dude, held captive by a younger member of the raiding party. Megan Lafferty squirms angrily in the grip of a wild-eyed black kid, a greasy hand across her mouth, keeping her quiet.

“BOB—DON’T!” Josh bellows at the top of his lungs, and the booming authority of his voice seems to slam the brakes on Bob’s gallantry. The older man falters at the end of the checkout lanes, stuttering to a stop a mere twenty feet from the guy holding Megan prisoner. Breathing hard, the old juicer stares helplessly at Megan. Josh can see the emotions all stirred up in the older man.

“Everybody chill!” Josh orders his people.

Scott Moon appears behind Bob with the old squirrel gun raised.

“Scott, cool it with the shotgun!”

The man in the bandanna doesn’t lower his AK-47. “Let’s dial it down, folks, come on—we’re not looking to get into any O.K. Corral–type situation here.”

Behind the dark-skinned dude stand five other men with heavy-duty weaponry. Mostly in their thirties, some black, some white, some in hip-hop street attire, others in ragged army fatigues and down vests, they look rested