Blake spun, the cowboy hat on his head hiding his eyes inthe shadows of the pawn shop. "Hell yeah, Mort. That oughta do."
Blake playfully slapped Mort on the shoulder and thensquatted next to him, pulling the guns out of the box. "No ammo. It's likehavin' a Thanksgiving dinner in a can and no damn can opener."
Mort looked around the room. Everything had been checkedexcept for an ancient, olive green filing cabinet in the corner. He limped overto it and tugged on the cabinet's top drawer. It wouldn't budge. It was locked.
Blake stood and looked out into the main part of thestore. He could see the first of the dead ambling through the entrance. Hepulled his hunting rifle from his shoulder, checked to see that it was loadedand the safety was off, and then he said, "Come on. Let's get out of here.We struck out."
"No, man. I'm tellin' you, the ammo is inhere," Mort said as he continued bashing on the file cabinet. He couldhear a clinking sound inside.
Blake held his rifle up to his eye, put the dead man'sface in his sights and exhaled before squeezing the trigger. The body wentdown, and Blake racked another round into the chamber of his rifle. He couldsee the shadows of more dead moving around through the paint on the storeswindows. The alarm was a dinner bell, calling the dead forward.
"Stand back," Blake yelled, taking aim at themetal lock in the top right corner of the filing cabinet. Mort dove to theground at Blake's words, and the shot he unleashed made the alarm pale incomparison. Mort put his hands to his ears, and wondered if he would ever hearagain. He shook his head, and the head-splitting screech of the pawn shop'salarm slowly switched places with the ringing in his ears. Mort walked over tothe filing cabinet and pulled on the handle of the top shelf. It slid open withjust a little effort. The drawer was piled high with a haphazard collection ofreceipts and pawn slips. Mort ran his hand through them just to be sure. Therewas nothing in the top drawer, so he slammed it shut. Mort flinched as Blakefired off another ear-cracking round. He pulled open the middle drawer, and itwas more of the same, and a bottle of whiskey.
Mort looked at the whiskey. It seemed like a fine thingto find, but he slammed the drawer shut as another round from Blake's rifleechoed through the pawn shop. In the confines of the back room, the noise wasso loud that Mort imagined that his ears might actually be bleeding from thetrauma. With hope in his heart, he pulled open the final drawer, the bottomdrawer, and there they were, faded boxes of ammunition, the cardboard aged withtime.
Blake looked over and tossed him a bag. "Fill itup!" he yelled before taking sight and blasting another tone out of Mort'saural repertoire. Mort spread the green canvas bag wide open, and scooped theboxes out of the drawer and into the bag as quick as he could. There were sixof them, and then a little something extra. Mort held the metallic-green eggshape up to his eyes. He had never seen a grenade before in real life, letalone held one in his hand.
"Whatcha got there? Some firecrackers? Woo!"Blake smiled over at Mort as he racked another round into the chamber of hisrifle. Mort found another grenade in the drawer and tossed them into the bag."What kind of ammo do we have in there?" Blake asked.
"We got some nine millimeter, some 12-gaugebuckshot, and some .300 Winchester Magnum rounds. Any of that mean anything toyou?"
Blake didn't immediately answer. Instead he put his eyeto the sight of his rifle and pulled the trigger. Mort was able to get hishands over his ears in time, though by now he fully expected that he hadsuffered permanent hearing damage. "It means it's Christmas, man."
Mort walked over to the crate full of guns, and Blakebegan pointing out which ones they wanted. In the end, they had two riflesapiece slung over their shoulders, and a couple of handguns stuffed into theirpants. "Let's get the hell out of here, get somewhere where we can take abreath, and load up."
As Mort headed to the back door of the store, he lookedout into the thrift shop's main floor. The dead were funneling through the onebroken window, stepping awkwardly over the now-still corpses that Blake hadcreated. There were ten or so bodies, yet still more came. Clearly, they werenot put off by seeing their brethren rotting on the floor, nor were theyinterested in eating the meat of the dead. Mort shivered. They only want theliving.
Mort headed to the back door, and tested it. He pushed itopen only to find that it was blocked by something. He pushed harder and heardsomething tumble over. He stepped into the alleyway to find that it was filledwith the dead. Blake bumped into his back as Mort attempted to head backinside.
"What are you doing, man?" Blake said as theymomentarily struggled to go in opposite directions.
"There's dead out there."
"There's dead in here, too. At least out there, wehave a chance of getting away." Blake pushed Mort aside and stepped intothe alleyway to see for himself. He brought the rifle up to his eye. Mortlooked back into the store. As Blake began firing, the first of the deadrounded the corner, bumping its shoulder against the corner of the wall andknocking it off-balance for a moment.
"Alright, let's go," Mort said, knowing thatdeath was creeping through the pawn shop. Mort stepped out into the alley withBlake, and closed the door behind him. Both sides of the alleyway were fillingwith the dead, and he could see more entering to the east and the west. Blakefired his rifle, but it was a losing battle. Without a chance to reload they wouldbe overrun. Mort pressed his back against the door to the alleyway to keep thedead inside trapped. He tried to think, his revolver in his hand, three bulletslabeled for the dead.
Then he saw it. The beautiful part of his mind, theescape
