They waited to see if any more would follow. After some time passed, Noah climbed onto the dock’s edge and threw the door open. It retracted with a clatter, flooding the loading bay with sunlight.
The center of the loading bay was mostly empty, aside from a few boxes strewn about the floor. The sides of the bay were lined with large racks stacked with various goods in cardboard boxes, and at the far end of the room was a barricaded set of double doors.
“We need to lure the ones inside through this door,” Noah said looking down at Alvin. “While they’re piling up out here,” he pointed at the boy, “we’ll go in through the front and seal the doors from the inside.”
Alvin nodded.
Noah walked to the rear of the loading dock. A handcart stacked with boxes of air conditioners blocked the doors. The kid—probably a stock-boy or cashier—must have holed-up in the backroom before dying from his wound. Noah unlocked the wheels and pulled the cart out of the way. Suddenly, a car alarm started blaring, and he nearly had heart failure.
He ran back to the edge of the loading dock to find Alvin struggling with the door of a locked car. Noah started to ask what Alvin was doing when the door behind him swung open and a fat woman in a polka dot dress shuffled through. He raised the machete, but before she could cover half the length of the dock a lanky man in a navy-blue jumpsuit joined her. And then, the door shuddered as it thumped against a third corpse.
Damn it, thought Noah. This could be bad.
He jumped to the ground and ran towards the front of the store, waving for Alvin to follow as he darted past. Alvin looked into the loading bay. Dead were filing out the back door like endlessly spawning enemies in a video game. He forgot the alarm and ran after Noah. After rounding the corner of the building, they stopped to catch their breath.
“What the hell did you do?” asked Noah.
“I was looking for something to draw them out and set off the car alarm.” He chuckled, clearly embarrassed. “Sorry.”
Noah peered around the corner. A small group was already pounding on the car. Another corpse fell off the dock, then picked itself off the ground and joined them. “Well, you got their attention. Let's get inside before any more come out of the woodwork.”
They circled around front and entered the store’s foyer, closing the doors behind them. Before passing through the second set of doors, Noah peered toward the gas station at the end of the parking lot. No movement.
A mile east of Walmart, a horde of corpses lumbered in the streets surrounding Saint Anthony of Abbot Church. Out of the hundreds of bodies, only one heard the faint honking in the distance.
Fitzpatrick moaned, triggering a succession of guttural groans from the other corpses nearby, which spread out further like ripples in a pond. He headed in the direction from where the sound emanated. The dead in his immediate perimeter followed, as did the dead in the secondary perimeter, and the tertiary, and on and on. In only a few minutes, every cadaver in the area was following Fitzpatrick toward Walmart. The mass of bodies shambled down the streets and, with the power no longer running, there was no carillon to call them back to the church.
Noah and Alvin split up with the intention of clearing out any stragglers before focusing on scavenging supplies. As he crept through the store, Noah couldn’t stop thinking about the car alarm. It would continue to blare so long as those mindless things kept bumping against the vehicle. But that car must have been sitting in the same place for months, Noah thought. It will have to die soon.
He was close to the back door when an old man in a gray wool suit lurched toward him. Noah stepped aside, allowing the suited man to fall forward. While he struggled to pick himself up, Noah sunk the machete into the back of his skull.
Dragging the dotard by the collar of his suit-jacket, Noah passed through a pair of swinging doors marked Staff Only and made his way down a dimly lit corridor. The only available light was beaming through porthole windows on the doors at the end of the hall, which led out to the loading dock.
Nearly twenty corpses pounded on the screaming car. Far from an endangered species, thought Noah. Thanks to the cover of the siren, he was able to roll the body off the dock and close the garage door without any of the dead noticing.
Noah returned to the store and stealthily swept through the rest of the aisles. He finally found Alvin among the section of rotting produce. A little girl in a white Sunday dress was slowly walking toward him. Other than her glazed eyes, she looked unspoiled. Noah watched Alvin with curiosity. Instead of bashing her head with his bat, he backed away. The little girl came within a foot of Alvin, but before she could land a bite, Noah darted at her, lodging his blade into the side of her head. She dropped onto the cool, tiled floor with a light thud.
“What were you doing?” said Noah, wide-eyed with bewilderment.
Alvin breathed heavily. “I—she,” he stuttered, “she looked like my sister.”
Noah looked at the girl. Her curly brown hair evoked a slight resemblance of Abby, whom Alvin had said also looked like his own sister. “She’s not your sister. None of these things are anyone anymore. You have to keep telling yourself that.”
Alvin swallowed and
