The buzz of flies was heavy and once his eyes adjusted further to the darkness, it appeared as though every inch of the rear of the store was covered in moving blackness. He assumed it was flies. He prayed it was just flies.
For a moment his mind brought Dodger to his thoughts and he wanted to chuckle at the German Shepherd. He would snap at anything flying in the air. They used to joke that to him, they were air raisins.
That stupid dog would have had a good time in here.
He soon found the source of the smell. The meat counter had still been partially stocked, and now with the power off and the ungodly heat, everything was a wriggling mass of maggots. He instinctively covered his mouth with his hand to prevent flies from inspecting his oral cavity and worked toward the other side of the store.
He scanned row after row of destroyed goods, none of it salvageable. He glanced at the cooler doors and saw that anything bottled had already been pilfered.
“Screw this,” he muttered to himself as he made his way back to the front doors.
As soon as he was back in fresh air he took a deep breath and nearly vomited. The smell had left a coating in his mouth and he could taste whatever the funk was. He bent over and spit a long string of saliva out while fighting the urge to dump the peaches he had eaten earlier.
“There’s nothing in there but nasty.” He practically staggered out to his bike and barely noticed Slug pointing ahead of them. This time Squirrel caught the flash of light and squinted against the brightness. He pulled his sunglasses back on and looked back at the source of the flashes.
Almost immediately screams could be heard behind them and he mounted his bike. “We need to figure out what those flashes are.” Slug glared at him, still not speaking. “If it’s survivors, they might have what we need.”
Slug kicked the bike into gear and pulled ahead. Squirrel started his Indian and pulled out behind him, putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the screams behind them.
The pair rode up toward the ridge and parked on the closest paved road to where they saw the flashes. “I’ll take a look. You keep an eye out for the ragers.” Squirrel stepped toward the top of the ridge and saw where the dirt had been disturbed, but he couldn’t see any discernable tracks. Whoever it was had lain upon the ground and watched them. He could see where they had come and gone, but the ground was too hard to reveal tracks that could tell him which set was the approach and which set was the departure. He stared in both directions, hoping to see either a fleeing form or dust from their running.
Nothing.
He marched back down toward the bikes and shook his head. “I can see where they were, but can’t tell which way they went.”
“So, you ride an Indian, but you ain’t got none in ya?” Slug smiled through brown teeth.
Squirrel mounted his bike and decided he liked Slug better when he was quiet. He caught another flash in the distance and for a moment thought, Damn they were moving fast! After he watched the reflection a moment longer, he realized it was the other riders in their group. He slapped at Slug’s sleeve and pointed. “We need to gather the troops.”
Henry backed the two and half-ton truck to the front doors of the grocery store while others jumped out of pickups, vans, and any other vehicle that could haul goods and people. Wally appeared in his side mirror and waved him back. When he waved his hands, Henry set the parking brake and shut off the engine.
He hopped down from the cab and marched toward the front door with a crowbar. “Remember your roles, people!”
He shoved the bar between the doors and pried them open. Two others pulled the doors fully-open and held them while four men with rifles entered the building in a tactical formation.
Henry tossed the crow bar to Wally, then pulled his pistol. “Let’s clear this beast and beat feet.”
“I’m with ya.” Wally tossed the crowbar into the back of the truck and pulled down the loading ramp. He turned to Henry and nodded. “Ready.”
Like a well-oiled machine, once the building was cleared, the people shopping all grabbed buggies and began racing down the aisles grabbing anything that still looked usable. Some took the time to stack items in order to fit more, others used an arm clearing motion to sweep stuff into the buggies. Once full, they ran them to the front of the store and switched out for another buggy. People assigned to the front would either unload the buggies into vehicles or muscle them up the loading ramp of the bigger truck and park the buggies in the far end.
Wally and Henry had specific instructions from Vicky. Hit the pharmacy and clean them out. Nothing was to be left behind. Even an out of date medication was better than nothing in an emergency. She wanted every bandage, every bottle of alcohol, every medication, and anything that even remotely could be used in a medical emergency.
They filled three buggies with nothing but the medications behind the counter, and two more with the over the counter meds. They lost count of how many more buggies they filled with anything from the shelves that might be usable.
Their goal was to strip the store of everything but the fixtures, but it quickly became obvious that, even with the dozens of people gathering items, there was no way they could empty the large store in one trip.
Henry and Wally stood at the front of the store and wondered how the folks stacking the goods had lifted the overloaded buggies to stack on top of each other, but they did.
“I’m too old for
