As he weighed the pros and cons of such an action, he spotted a two-story building down a side street. It was off the main drag and hidden slightly by the building in front of it. "I think I found something," Epps said eagerly.
"Let's check it out," Tejada said, gasping in pain as he sunk deep into the snow.
Epps turned, and they moved around the first building, a bank that seemed all but abandoned. How much money was in that bank's vault? How many people had died and slaved away to make that money appear, and for what? Absolutely nothing. When the time had come, all that money hadn't meant shit. The rich had died just as quickly as the poor.
They did their trick, losing their tail, huffing and puffing across a snowfield, stumbling and falling. Were the dead smart enough to follow their trail? He hoped not. That would imply they could think on some level. Epps was more comfortable imagining they were mindless feeding machines operating only on instinct.
Actually, that didn't sound so great either.
As they reached the far side of the bank, they stood in its shadow, which was only slightly darker than the rest of the world. The wind whipped, sending a swirl of snow around them. Perhaps they would be lost visually to the dead behind them. As they looked at the building some thirty yards away, they tried to imagine what was inside. Epps noted the sign out front: Trinity Assisted Living Facility.
"Old people," Epps said.
"What?" Allen asked.
"It's gonna be full of old people."
"It could be full of the Lollipop Guild," Tejada said, "and I wouldn't give a damn. We gotta get in there."
Lollipop Guild? What the fuck is a Lollipop Guild? Epps sprinted across the thirty yards between the bank and the assisted living facility with Allen at his side. Somehow, it always seemed that way. Allen was probably his best friend out of the group. He was funny and chill at the same time. Most of the other guys were alright, but there was always something about them that made them not a perfect fit. Whiteside was an asshole, Brown could turn super religious at the drop of a hat, Gregg and Day were somewhat bland, and Masterson, well, Masterson just rubbed him the wrong way sometimes. But he always got along with Allen, and he knew Allen felt the same way.
The sliding glass doors didn't open upon their approach. Allen pulled his hatchet from his backpack and slammed it in between the two sliding glass doors. He wiggled the blade back and forth, and Epps wedged his fingers between the doors. He pulled and pulled until the gap was wide enough for people to walk through, even Rudy. He and Allen stepped to the side, eyeing the edges of the bank to see if any of the dead were going to show up. By the time Tejada hobbled his way through the door, none of the dead had appeared.
Together, Allen and Epps backed into the darkness of the building's entryway. With the palms of their hands, they slid the doors shut. As they slid closed, Epps spied one of the dead appearing from around the corner of the bank. Their tail had finally appeared.
With that, they sank into the darkness of the assisted living facility.
It was gloomy inside, and the air smelled of death.
****
Rudy eyed the interior of the assisted living facility dubiously. He and Amanda dragged Tejada over to a chair behind a big wooden reception desk. Tejada landed in the chair with a groan and threw his bag from his shoulders. He looked exhausted, and he grimaced in pain. Rudy had never seen the man like that. Whatever he had injured, the pain must have been excruciating. Rudy thought Tejada was the type of guy that could chew bullets and spit fire. To see him laid low by something like a muscle pull gave him a new perspective. He realized they were all just one pulled muscle away from joining the ranks of the dead.
"No lights," Tejada said to the group. "Sweep and clear."
With Tejada's orders clear, they split into groups and spread throughout the building.
"You stay here with the Sarge," Rudy said to Amanda.
"Where are you going?" she asked indignantly.
"To sweep and clear."
"I'm coming with you."
Rudy didn't like the sound of that. Perhaps he was being overprotective of Amanda, but hey, he wasn't going to let the only person that had ever really loved him risk her life. "Stay with Tejada. If those doors break, he's going to need someone to help him get away."
He saw the look in her eyes, the one that said, "I know that you're trying to keep me out of harm's way, and if it didn't make perfect sense, you'd be hearing about it."
Masterson called over to Rudy, "You can come with me. Keep an eye on our backs." Rudy nodded and readied his rifle.
"Hatchets only," Tejada called after them. "No screaming or hollerin'. Use knockdown protocol."
Knockdown protocol… that's what Tejada called it when you tripped one of the dead onto their face and bashed their brains in. It made sense. Swinging into a pawing set of arms had a tendency to get messy, especially if you were going to be swinging something like a hatchet. It could glance off an arm at any time. Plus, there was the potential for getting scratched or winding up with an Annie's thumb in your eye. But the Annies were slow and clumsy. If you could circle around them and push them down on their faces, they couldn't hurt you.
Rudy climbed up to the second floor, following Masterson and Gregg. While the soldiers were accepting of him, he hadn't truly become one of them yet, even after several months of living in the same
