An hour passed. In all that time, they hadn’t heard the sound of running footsteps. The mob hadn’t passed by the window again.
Taylor unlocked the front door and opened it, cautiously at first, looking up and down the street. The town seemed silent and empty. The clouds had dispersed, the sky was clear, and for a moment Taylor admired the stars and the curved sliver of moon. The cold had arrived with the night, and he wished for a jacket. The sky was always clearer on a cold night. He didn’t know why that was. He thought there was probably a scientific explanation for it.
He stepped onto the sidewalk outside the store, Carl holding the door open behind him. “It looks clear to me,” he whispered. Before he had unlocked the front door, Taylor had emphasized the need to whisper from this point forward. Carl had rolled his eyes.
They walked alongside the buildings, both of them looking over their shoulders frequently.
“It’s not that far. It looked farther away from behind the glass,” Carl said, talking about the hardware store.
Several blocks up, the street dead-ended. It was like seeing the edge of the world, Taylor thought. Walk any farther than that and you were bound to fall off the edge. He pointed ahead and said, “The street dead ends up there. When we leave, we’ll have to decide whether to go right or left.”
“Left. Take a left and we’d be moving closer to the highway,” Carl said.
They crossed the street. Taylor figured they looked like a couple of dumb shits practically tiptoeing over the asphalt.
“Is this what it feels like? This what you were talkin’ about? Feeling like the last man on Earth when you’re walking around town by yourself in the middle of the night.”
“It’s close. Imagine this, but without the sense of impending doom.”
Carl reached the front door of Dave’s Hardware first. He gave the handle a quick tug and shook his head. “No dice,” he said. “Locked. Just like we figured.”
Taylor walked along the front of the building. Between Dave’s Hardware and the pharmacy next to it, there was a narrow alley, barely wide enough to drive a car through. “Let’s try down here.”
Carl could hear the sound of his own footfalls. They had never seemed so loud to him before, but now each step he took sounded like a thunderclap.
When they reached the lot behind the hardware store they both noticed the same thing first. “A
It was a battered Ford Escort that hadn’t seen a good day for at least a decade. A leftover from the nineties, Taylor thought. Carl ran up to it and tried all the doors. They were all locked. “Shit!”
“Whoever left it here parked it awful close to the back door. Can’t be more than two feet between the door and the front bumper.”
“Maybe they were in a hurry. Definitely belongs to a chick. No dude would have a stuffed penguin hanging from the rearview mirror.”
“Not in enough of a hurry to forget to lock their car doors,” Taylor said, and tried the handle of the back door to Dave’s Hardware.
It was unlocked.
“I’ll be damned,” Carl said. “What are the chances? Would have been a good day to buy a lottery ticket.”
Taylor entered the building first, hand instinctively touching his pocket to feel the comforting form of the box cutter.
The room was dark and smelled of oil and sawdust. They had grown up with the same odor frequently wafting out of their father’s workshop. Taylor had never cared for it; as a kid, it had played hell with his allergies.
“I can’t see shit,” Carl said.
“I know. So be careful. Just stay behind me.”
Taylor inched his way to the left, arms extended in front of him, slowly shuffling forward until the tips of his fingers brushed up against the wall. He pressed both of his hands, palms forward, against the wall and followed it until he reached the wall in front of them. He followed this until the texture beneath his hands changed from rough drywall to the smoothness of varnished wood. He allowed his right hand to explore until he felt the seam between the door and wall. Finding the doorknob was easy after that.
Carl’s hand was on the back of his shoulder.
Taylor said, “I found the door.”
He opened it and a moment later they could see again. Light from the streetlamps outside shone through the front windows, providing enough illumination to navigate through the store. Long rows of shelves lined one side of the store to the other. Shadowed things lined the walls, appearing somewhat ominous in the faint light.
“Looks a lot bigger on the inside,” Carl said. He had regained some of his former confidence. After they had crossed the street and found their way into the hardware store without incident, he was beginning to think that maybe things would be all right; that maybe the crazies had found something else to chase.
They wandered down the aisles. The streetlamps provided ample light to see if you were at the front of the store near the checkout area, but it became more difficult browsing the darkened aisles. Taylor searched for flashlights. He assigned his brother the task of locating batteries and grabbing a variety of them.
It took him five minutes to find the aisle where the flashlights were kept. He plucked several different ones from their pegs and used the box cutter to strip away the tough plastic packaging. He tucked them under his arm and carried them to the front of the store, aligning them along the floor where the ambient light was good.
Carl returned carrying several packages of batteries in each hand. Taylor sorted through them. He handed one of the packages to Carl and said, “Use these. They go with that one.” He worked on one of the other flashlights, screwing the end back on and sliding the switch to the ON position. The flashlight shot a beam of light down one of the aisles. Carl had his working a moment later.
“Okay. Now that that’s done, find anything useful. But make sure it’s something we can carry without too much trouble. Keep your eyes peeled for a set of car keys. Unless the owner of that Ford out back ran out of here with the keys still in their pocket, they’re bound to be here somewhere. I’ll check by the register. If you want, check the backroom. It was dark as hell back there when we came in. There might be an office back there or something. Worst case, we try to hotwire the damn thing.”
“And when did you learn how to do that?”
“I don’t know how, but if there was ever a time to try to learn, this is probably it. It would make things a lot less complicated if it worked out that easy.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” Carl said and started down one of the aisles, the beam of his flashlight dancing back and forth in front of him.
Taylor glanced out the front windows. The street was still empty. He was grateful for that.
He aimed the beam over the checkout area, across the counter and the cash register, and then along the shelves behind it. No keys. He started down the far left aisle. Various outdoor implements hung on the wall to his left: shovels, ladders, hoses, gardening tools, bags of soil, hedge clippers; there was an entire section devoted to different styles of gloves.
Taylor reached up and took the hedge clippers down from the peg. They were awkward and heavy to try wielding them with only one hand, and he put them aside, continuing his way along the wall.
Taylor found gas cans at the end of the second aisle. They were made of durable plastic, and he picked one of them up. Farther down the aisle, he found an assortment of spray bottles. He browsed the aisles until he found the paint section and located a canvas drop cloth. He carried it to the other aisle, spread it out on the floor, and dropped the gas canister and several spray bottles onto the center of the drop cloth. He folded the four corners and hoisted it over his shoulder, feeling a little like Santa Claus with a bag full of toys.
Carl came around the corner, shining his flashlight in Taylor’s face.
“Get that thing out of my face,” Taylor said.
“What you got there?” Carl asked, directing the flashlight’s beam at the makeshift canvas sack.
“Gas can and spray bottles. Figure we can fill them with water before we ditch this place.”
“See what I got?” Carl held up his hand. He was holding a machete. “Thought it might come in handy.”
