When the final undead were converted to dead, I turned the truck around and continued toward Chicago. Both trucks and trailers would have to be put through the high volume, high pressure deluge truck wash system our engineer, John Alton, had designed and rigged up at the beginning of the zombie onslaught. The two-thousand gallon a minute wash would clean everything off the equipment from the top of the cab to beneath the undercarriage.
All along the way, we'd seen the undead bodies wandering aimlessly through the streets of small towns or near the highway up close or in the distance. Three times we'd stopped to shoot the smaller groups and left the rotting hulks scattered in our wake. Several of the whole bodied fast runners were in the numbers we killed. They were a conundrum; we had no idea how or why they had recently appeared, but we had fast learned of the increased danger they posed. Their speed, coupled with a minimum of noise they made, let them approach much quicker and closer than the original undead we'd grown used to. Whatever evil madness had created the original zombie now seemed determined to improve on its original design.
Later that morning Ed drove. At North Aurora, on I-80, we were still almost twenty miles from the Chicago city boundary. The number of undead we saw on and off the interstate increased with every mile we traveled closer to The Windy City. A few of the monsters clambered across our east bound lanes to loll in front of us. If they were the dried out, rotted, stumbling, hulks he'd run them down. A few times we encountered the full bodied fast runners that were becoming more common every month. At those times we stopped the trucks and shot the beasts one by one instead of taking a chance on damaging the body panels or wrecking the truck.
We were on our way to visit a new Walmart distribution center on the southwest side of Chicago. It had been completed only months before the zombie apocalypse started in 2019. We hoped Walmart had followed the lead of many other international businesses in not advertizing the location of the facility with large gaudy signs. They'd learned the hard way that the identification only made them easy targets of crazy homegrown or international political and religious terrorist.
"How did you come up with the address for this place?" I asked.
"I didn't. We have to search for it. At the beginning of the zombie attacks on the coasts, I remembered reading about the new building because of its size. Its huge, one of the biggest warehouses ever built. That's the reason it was newsworthy, or I wouldn't have known about it. I looked it up on the internet three months before the internet shut down, but I didn't find the exact address. I have a general description of the location and a few photos. It's at Willowbrook, Illinois, and that sign ahead says we're there now." Ed handed me copies of photos and I passed them to our passengers in the back seat.
We'd driven all night, switching drivers every two hours. After four hundred miles, we were all tired of sitting and squirming around to change butt cheek positions.
At ten, we drove into an area of huge warehouses covering several square miles. After twenty minutes, the truck behind us called on the radio. Shane Holescheck said, "Janice thinks she sees the target building behind the one on our left. She said it looks even bigger than these monstrosities. The flat roof is covered with solar panels like Ed's pictures show."
"Okay," I answered, "if you see it, pass us and take the lead."
The black F-250 diesel crew-cab pickup passed us, and we fell in behind the orange and white trailer it pulled. We were in an identical rig with a white truck. As we circled back to the building we were looking for, more zombies emerged from wherever they'd been loitering. Minutes later, we stopped in front of the gates at the biggest damn warehouse I'd ever seen. I couldn't even guess how many acres of ground it and the asphalt parking lot covered. Inside the fence, I saw numerous parked semitrailers with the Walmart logo painted on their sides.
A dull brass bodied padlock and heavy length of chromed chain held the double gate frames where they met. Our security guy, Martin Radcliff, removed a step ladder from the top of the trailer and sat it at the gate. He'd put his coat on to work outside in the cold February breeze and pulled a pick set from a pocket. Silently he concentrated on picking the industrial grade lock, so we could relock it when we left. Ed stayed in our truck while Elsie, Kira and I moved outside to stretch and stand guard duty.
We slipped into our winter jackets and thin leather gloves as Kira glanced around the area. She said, "Oh no. Zombies coming."
Down the industrial parkway, a string of undead headed our way, at least forty or fifty stretched out down the block. As we watched, more joined the mob. We glanced in the opposite direction along the fence line and saw a similar sight. I called out, "Martin, get a move on if you can. Two bunches of zombies are coming to welcome us to the neighborhood, and it's their meal time. Get us inside as fast as possible."
Vince Gonzales, and Marilyn Deutsch joined us with their weapons. They fired at the advancing horde on the left, and our truck's passengers took on the other group. We had each gone through one extended magazine and started on a second when Martin yelled, "Got it. One of you, give me a hand disconnecting the operator on this section." The women continued laying down deadly fire
