face with a badly decayed zombie. Its skin was pulled tight around its skull, emphasizing the tears in its bluish skin. Its arms were thin, but as Barnes turned around, the hand that was on his shoulder was matched on the other shoulder by the zombie’s other hand, which was missing three fingers and before Barnes could move or scream, the zombie’s head darted forward to sink its black teeth into his face. The private cried out as the zombie hung on and bore him to the floor, tearing at his face.
Private Ellis was up front filling his backpack with seeds from a display case. These were always good for trade when they found a community of survivors and sometimes went in for goodwill. He had a handful of packets when he heard Private Barnes cry out. He stood up and shouted, “You okay?” When he didn’t get an answer he started to move towards the back but found his path blocked by a large shape moving in his direction. Ellis dropped his pack and whipped his rifle up, but just as he was about to fire a searing pain exploded in his leg. He looked down and to his horror, saw a small zombie child furiously chewing on his calf, tearing off chunks of meat and drooling blood down its little chin. Private Ellis dropped his rifle as he fought off the little zombie, throwing it bodily away from him as he fell to the ground, unable to stand on his injured leg. As he fell, he saw the little zombie get back up and head back in his direction, followed by the large zombie. Ellis pulled his knife and waited for the little bastard to get closer, determined to take out the zombie that just killed him.
Private Hook and Private Gomez ran quickly down the street to the grocery store. They didn’t want to be caught out in the open and didn’t want to get cut off without a retreat in case the zombies swarmed them. That had happened in Missouri and all of them were still wondering what to make of the change in the zombies behavior.
Reaching the front of the building, Hook checked the door before declaring, “Locked.”
Gomez nodded and they trotted around to the back of the store looking to see if the supply door was open. A quick check revealed it was locked as well.
“Ideas?” Gomez asked.
Private Hook thought for a second. “No time to pick it, let’s go back to the front and break the glass.”
Private Gomez nodded and the pair returned to the front of the building. It was a generic grocery store, with yellowing posters advertising sales inside. Some of the posters had fallen down, revealing a glimpse of the dark world inside. Gomez put his face to the glass and looked around for a long minute, checking to make sure there were no leftover shoppers looking for fresh meat from the butcher section.
With nothing to see, he nodded to Hook, who used the butt of his rifle to break the bottom section of one of the doors. Clearing the broken glass with his boot, he ducked under the center bar and moved into the store, rifle at the ready. A small in-store bank was in front of him, with a small teller counter and smaller office. Behind the bank was a long hallway leading to the checkout registers. As he moved slightly to his left, he scanned the frozen food section in front of him and the cereal aisle next to that. Nothing was moving and he waited for Gomez to catch up.
“Which way?” Hook asked.
Gomez pointed to the right. “Looks like there might be some canned goods that way. Let’s check.” The floor was littered with discarded goods, scattered hopes of survival. A corpse was lying in the corner, a blood streak on the wall and a skeletal hand gripping a can of beans explained what this person died for.
The two men walked carefully past the packaged meat section, avoiding the dark and rotting packages still hanging on the brackets. The rice pudding had turned grey, much to Hook’s disappointment, since it used to be his favorite.
Gomez wiped his face as he moved to the next aisle. He hated these kinds of missions, where he never knew what was coming next. The next aisle could be full of zombies, just waiting to pounce. Give him a stand up fight with plenty of ammo any day.
They turned down the canned section and the shelves were nearly bare. There were a scattering of cans worth taking, so they put those in their packs. As they worked, Gomez stopped suddenly.
“You hear something?” he asked.
Hook immediately put down his pack and cans and picked up his rifle. “No. What did you hear?” he asked nervously.
Gomez shook his head. “I thought I heard a wheezing sound, like a dog or something?”
Private Hook relaxed a bit. “Could be. Might be one that got in here and is sleeping. Had a hound once that snored louder than my Dad’s uncle. And that was a trick to do, let me tell you.”
Gomez laughed softly. “Had a girlfriend who snored loud once. Denied it forever, but, hombre, she could shake the-wait. There it is again!”
Hook and Gomez listened and sure enough, they could hear a high-pitched sound, like a low pressure steam valve. It seemed to be coming from a nearby aisle. But in the building, it was hard to tell for sure.
Grabbing what they could, Gomez said, “Let’s see if there is anything in the dried goods, like rice or pasta.”
“Good plan,” Hook agreed. “You remember which aisle?’
“Should be the far one.”
“You go first.”
“Jerk.”
Private Gomez moved quickly to the end of the aisle and glanced around. Directly in front of him was the produce section, long rotted away. The air still had a sickly sweet smell of decaying fruit and vegetables and the floor had turned brown from the slime of the rotted food. Gomez swung out and trained his rifle at the dairy section and waved the other man forward. “Clear,” he said.
Private Hook moved out and darted around the end of the aisle, scanning for threats before he nodded to Gomez. “Clear.”
Private Gomez turned around and moved to the next aisle. As he glanced at Hook, he saw the other soldier’s eyes get wide. Spinning around, he raised his rifle just as Hook shouted.
“Behind you!”
The cry echoed in Gomez’s ears as he flicked on his weapon light to engage the threat. A fast moving zombie, probably no more than seven years old, was literally hurtling down the back of the grocery store, his teeth bared as his breath wheezed out of his mouth. His little bare feet pattered on the tile floor as he rushed to his prey. Gomez waited until he had a definite shot, then fired just as the zombie boy leaped into the air, the bullet passing harmlessly next to him.
The zombie was four feet from landing on Gomez, who raised his rifle to defend himself. At the last second, Private Hook fired, hitting the zombie in the head and spraying zombie brains all over Private Gomez.
Gomez wiped his face as best he could, hesitating a second to give the dead zombie a kick. “Stupid shit,” he growled.
“Umm, dude?” Private Hook said.
“What?”
“Get your gun up, we got company.”
Private Gomez looked and saw a sizable number of zombies moving in their direction from the Seasonal section. Their glowing eyes and pitiful moans made him sweat all that much more. “Oh, Jesus.”
“Come on!” Private Hook grabbed his partner and bolted up the aisle, trying to head for the door. The pair skidded to a stop at the end of the aisle, nearly running into a second group of zombies that had come to the store to shop and never left.
“Shit! We’re cut off!” Hook yelled, firing into the face of a nearby ghoul. “Get back!” He fired again, completely missing the horde and putting a hole in a bottle of soda. Orange mist sprayed over the zombies and some looked up as a citrus-smelling rain poured on them.
“This way!” Private Gomez sped back to the deli, darting around the case. He let Hook clear the opening before he and the other private started shoving a heavy stainless steel covered table over to the opening. Just before they got it there, they tipped it over, barricading themselves from the approaching undead.
Private Hook raised his rifle and took careful aim, killing the nearest zombie. Another took its place and as he looked, he could see many more coming from the far side of the store, their glowing eyes swaying slightly in the gloom. He turned back to Gomez.
“We got trouble, bro. There’s a whole lot more of them than there are of us. I think we need to… hey, you
