He figured he probably could, and get them shut, but he wouldn’t be able to take out the ghouls at the cafe by himself. He’d have to run back to the sporting goods store and hunker down and regroup. But he wasn’t sure if Aaron was the type of guy that would be so overcome with fear that he’d lock him out. Especially if he had any zombies on his tail.
He chewed his lip. If only he could talk to Grace, try to figure out the best course of action. If he could plan with her from the outside, so that they could help from the inside, they could probably take out the zombies outside of the cafe without Aaron’s help. He grunted in frustration, ducking out of sight again as another pack of ghouls poured out of the store.
There were too many ifs, and not enough solutions.
“Doesn’t she have a radio?” Aaron suddenly said. “She’s supposed to call for help once it’s done, right? She’s probably figuring something out right now.”
Troy hated to admit it, but he had a sinking feeling that Aaron was right. She likely was relaying the information to No Name and figuring out what to do next. If he tried to play hero, which he really didn’t want to do, then he might throw a wrench into whatever plan they’d have going on.
He kept his eyes firmly locked on the cafe, waiting for some kind of signal, some kind of instructions. Come on girl, give us a sign…
CHAPTER NINE
“Grace, do you copy?” No Name asked through the radio.
She and Hawk sat at the cafe bar, sipping some surprisingly delicious coffee he’d managed to make with one of the pour-over stations.
“I’m here,” she said. “What have you got?”
“We’ve done some recon from the skylights on the roof,” he replied. “There’s a couple hundred zombies throughout the mall, with dozens still in the department store.”
Grace took a long, thoughtful sip of her hot brew. “Wonderful,” she said dryly. “So what’s the plan?”
“We have the opposite problem now, where the bulk of the zombies are in the mall instead of the store,” No Name explained. “So same plan, but I’ll need you on the other side of the locked doors, inside the store. You clear out in there, and then we’ll do the fish-in-a-barrel routine from the other side.”
Hawk took a sip of his coffee, and then motioned to the barrier, where there were now nine zombies—Aly included—pawing at the plexiglass. “What about them?”
Grace nodded, bringing the radio to her lips again. “We’ve got nine of those things boxing us in here,” she explained. “They don’t seem to care about the decoy team’s noise.”
“There’s an access panel just outside of the department store,” No Name replied. “I’ll get one of my men to shoot something loud to draw them away from you, so you can get into the store.”
She pursed her lips for a moment. “How close to the doors?” she asked. “What if it draws a bunch of those things out to us?”
“Pick your moment,” he replied. “There’s nothing else close enough that it would make a difference.”
Hawk scoffed. “No, of course not, you know there aren’t a bunch of dudes with guns outside that could come in through the same door we did and help us or anything,” he muttered.
“We’ll try,” Grace replied simply. “I supposed there’s no place near wherever the decoy team is to shoot out the horde?”
“Negative,” No Name replied. “That would be the easiest option, but there’s no roof access there.”
“Of course there isn’t,” Hawk said, shaking his head and downing the rest of his coffee.
Grace sighed. “Okay,” she said into the walkie-talkie, “I’ll report back soon, one way or the other.” She clicked off the radio before any reply, not wanting to hear his voice anymore. Regardless of him seeming more sympathetic than his comrades, he was still putting them through this, and she was sick of listening to his voice.
“So, this is fun,” Hawk said, voice high in sarcasm.
Grace nodded and drank the rest of the mug, smacking her lips together. “At least the brew was good,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Anytime,” he replied, and then got down from their stools.
They approached the barrier slowly, sticking to the shadows.
“I don’t even know why they’re still here,” she whispered. “You’d think that after no movement for a while, they’d have gone after the noise.”
Hawk shrugged. “Maybe they can smell us in here,” he suggested. “It’s hard to imagine they have any kind of memory with dead brains… like do they remember that we came in here and have the mental capacity to know that we’re trapped?”
“Don’t know,” she replied, and shook her head. It was unsettling to think about these things having any kind of thought process. But there wasn’t any use ruminating on it. They were stuck in here, and nine corpses needed to get out of their way before they could make a run for the doors.
She wished they’d have been able to communicate with Troy. She could see the sporting goods store, and wondered if they were close enough that if they made a bunch of noise, the zombies would go their way.
But again, these types of thought trains were useless. All she could do was hope that maybe he was watching, and would come out if they got into a grapple.
There was the crack of gunfire and the ghouls snapped around, all save for one. Eight of them took off, and Grace didn’t waste any time.
She threw the bolt and opened the barrier, lunging forward and swinging at the remaining zombie, dropping it to the floor. She took off for the doors, but the zombies were already disinterested in the gunfire.
She’d been hoping that they would get all the way under that panel so the mercenary above could take them
