The busted windows weren't a good sign. They ran towards the building, and Walt's breath came in gasps. Half-a-mile through the snow was a whole lot more exhausting than half-a-mile through grass. Another inch of snow had seemed to fall as if by magic since they had jumped over the wall. Cold wind cut across his face, and snot dripped from his nose. He didn't even bother to wipe it. He wasn't out here for a fashion shoot. He suppressed a smile. That sounded like something that Tejada might have said.
As he expected, the doors to the Fred Meyer were already broken, and they crunched over shattered glass, switching on the flashlights mounted to their rifles.
"Get inside," Tejada hissed as he waved each soldier into the store. Walt tossed a glance over his shoulder. Rudy was a good twenty paces behind him. No one bothered to carry him this time. Tejada had made it damn clear that no one was going to be picking up his slack on this mission. He either carried his own weight, or the Annies would chew it off of him.
Behind Rudy, the dead hit the crest of the small hill, and they tumbled down the side, gravity and snow turning it into an obscene snow park. Walt ducked inside and clicked on his flashlight. It illuminated only a small bit of the darkness, and he wished that he could have blown the roof right off the building for a little light. The hair on the back of his neck stood up as he tried to peer into every dark corner at once.
Gregg tapped him on the shoulder, and they moved as a pair. Crushed items and forgotten cans of food littered the ground. The grocery store reeked of rot, from the dead or long-spoiled meat was unclear. They found the aisles of groceries at the front of the building. Allen's main squeeze had given them the basic layout of the store, and they had each been assigned an aisle to scavenge. For Gregg and Walt, their aisle turned out to be a bust. It had formerly been the aisle where bags of chips and snacks had been stored, but there was precious little left on the shelves. They grabbed anything they could, even cans off the floor and bags of chips that had been crushed flat. Every little bit of food could be helpful. Then they crossed a path that ran perpendicular between the shelves and entered the other half of the aisle. A few cans of soda littered the ground. Walt stooped to pick them up, and then he heard and saw Gregg's M4 burp a few rounds. Something in the darkness fell to the ground with a thump, and Walt's heart pounded in his chest. By the time they had reached the end of their aisle, Walt's bag was only half full. He was pretty sure he had scored a bunch of diet soda and a couple of crushed bags of plain Fritos. He had room for more, though. He wanted to cruise another aisle, but Tejada had been clear. "Quick and fast. Run and grab."
They turned left at the end of the aisle, Walt keeping his rifle trained on the Annie that Gregg had taken down. He didn't trust things to stay dead any longer. That was just common sense now. It was cold in the store, but he could still smell all the rotten meat that had spoiled in the cases. They stood, searching the darkness around them as the others emerged from their assigned aisles. They had been able to cover four today.
As everyone appeared, they heard the groans of the dead in the darkness behind them.
"Head down that aisle," Tejada said softly, pointing in a direction that headed away from their entry point. They moved smoothly through the aisles, avoiding stepping on anything that could give away their position. They passed a rack of random junk, the words "As Seen on TV" highlighted in a red bubble. Then they moved through rows of houseware type items, garbage cans, pots and pans, bedding. Some more blankets would be nice. But they had to keep moving. They reached the end of this aisle and turned left, passing past a stack of multicolored bouncy balls confined in place by a black metal cage, and then they were in the garden area. Soft light filtered in from the snowy outside world, and they found a set of glass double doors just past a row of two check-out lanes. As they moved through the lanes, Walt reached out and pocketed a couple of stray candy items.
They reached the sliding glass doors, shocked to find them intact. They ignored the double doors and headed for a single glass doorway off to the side. When Allen went to push it open, nothing happened. It rattled in its frame, locked.
"You want us to shoot out the glass?" Allen asked.
Tejada thought about it for a moment. "Fuck it," he said.
Allen stepped back and fired a couple of suppressed rounds through the glass. It shattered, the sound of broken glass echoing throughout the building. The sound was greeted by the moans of the dead. One by one, the soldiers crawled through the bottom of the broken door, underneath the metal bar that crossed its middle and acted as a door handle.
They had made it through the store and into the frigid morning air. More pockets of dead greeted them. How long had they taken? 5 minutes? 10? As adrenaline dumped into Walt's body, time seemed to dilate. Every step
