Doyle continued to search. “And then what?” he asked.
“Not a fucking clue,” Kowalski replied dryly. They continued to look, and then he finally found a ladder at the far end. “Bingo, let’s move,” he said.
They crept as quietly as they could, even though they were a good fifty feet above the ground. It was always good practice to make sure the zombies below didn’t know where they were. After a few minutes, they reached the ladder which went straight down into a mechanical room in the back.
Kowalski glanced over the railing down into the store, seeing several creatures shuffling around in the dark.
“Okay,” he said quietly, leaning in, “it looks like this room is closed off from the rest of the store. Bad news is, there’s a shitload of zombies in there.”
Doyle swallowed hard. “What do you want to do?’ he asked.
Kowalski pursed his lips for a moment, thinking hard. “What in here would make a shitload of noise?” he murmured. “Like noise that would resonate to the bridge?”
“Power tools ain’t gonna cut it,” Doyle replied. “What about an alarm system?”
Kowalski shook his head. “Home alarm system?” he asked. “Not even sure we’d be able to activate them.”
“Hell, what about a regular alarm?” Doyle wondered. “Like an alarm clock? Before all this went down, I saw some infomercial about the supersonic alarm clock. Claimed it was loud enough to wake up a coma patient. These stores usually carry shit like that, don’t they?”
His companion shrugged. “I don’t know, but it’s the best idea we got going,” he replied. “So we’ll need those, and batteries.” He paused as an idea came to him. “Oh, and maybe air horns?”
“Couldn’t hurt to look,” Doyle agreed.
They looked out over the store, checking through their night vision scopes, seeing lots of creatures, easily in the mid-dozens.
“This is gonna be a bitch,” Kowalski said with a sigh.
Doyle cocked his head. “You want me to stay up here and pick ‘em off?”
Kowalski contemplated for a moment and then nodded. “Yeah, get to the center of the catwalk,” he instructed. “You just follow my movement, hit what you can. Also keep watch and let me know if I'm walking into something bad.”
“How do I let you know?” Doyle asked.
Kowalski smirked. “Just yell,” he replied. “They can’t understand you, and if anything it’ll draw them away from me.
Doyle chuckled, shaking his head at his moment of stupidity. “Let’s do it,” he said, and extended his fist.
Kowalski bumped it and then began the climb down the ladder. He paused before he got to the bottom, using his scope to see where the door was. He had a hard time looking over the gun, so he removed it and slung his rifle over his shoulder, using the scope by itself.
He moved to the door, knife in hand, and took a deep breath. Okay, you got this, he thought to himself. It’s just like a Black Friday sale, only less chaotic.
Before he threw open the door, he looked down and spotted a couple of large tool bags. He gently and quietly removed the tools and then slung two bags over his shoulder. He gently opened the door and inched out into the back aisle. As he moved, a moan rumbled behind the door.
He darted away and then froze at the sight of a blurry figure moving towards him in the darkness. A booming shot echoed in the store, and the figure slumped to the ground.
Kowalski looked through the scope, seeing the zombie dead on the ground, and then raised his hand to give Doyle a thumbs up for the assist.
The shot excited the zombies in the store, starting up a dull roar of moans and shuffling as they tried to get a read on where their future meal was. Kowalski moved as quietly as he could, using the scope as a guide.
I know batteries are at the front of the store, he thought. So let’s start there. He looked around for a moment to get his bearings and then crept towards the front. A few aisle down, moans came from just around the next corner, and inched up to peek around it.
There were two ghouls there, shuffling dumbly, within striking distance. He motioned to Doyle, pointing to the far one, and then did a stabbing motion with the knife to show that he would be handling the closer one.
A second later, his guardian angel yelled out, “Okay!”
Kowalski counted down silently before striking. As soon as he lunged forward, a shot ripped through the far creature’s head, causing the closer one to whip around towards the noise.
He slammed the blade into the base of its skull, and as it dropped, he marveled at his skill in delivering a perfect strike in the dark. If I’m this good blind, no wonder I’m such a badass, he thought, chuckling to himself.
He continued to the front of the store, getting to the top of the aisle and looking through his scope. There were a dozen or so zombies around the cash registers, but he scanned past them to find the battery display.
With the target in sight, he checked past it to the front door, which had been completely obliterated under the sight of the horde outside. Most of the creatures were focused on the snipers on the roof, but one wrong noise inside could trigger a tsunami of death.
He plotted his course, so he could stay low and use the registers as cover from the zombies at the front. But that didn’t help him with the dozen between him and the batteries. He looked over at the shelf next to him, seeing some small bottles of bug spray. He picked one up, feeling the weight to it as well as a metal exterior.
Okay, so all I have to do is throw this close enough for the register zombies to hear, and far enough away that the mass at the front door doesn’t sweep over me, he thought, and shook
