“Shit, you’d better stock up on supplies, looks like this isn’t gonna end any time soon,” he mumbled to himself as he pulled into the market parking lot and got out. The daylight was edging down taller buildings making long heavy shadows. From those areas, he could hear groaning. He rubbed his arms, trying to smooth the goose bumps down. Danger sirens were screaming in his brain, they’d been with him the last few days, but soft and in the back of his brain. He checked his weapon and tucked it into the holster at his waist and pulled his jacket closed. Standing outside his car, Ethan looked around him. He detected the soft crying from women who ran to their cars, shoving bags of food and supplies into the back seats. As he walked past them, they looked up with uncertainty and fear.
He was nearly run over by a man shoving a shopping cart through the door of the store and he cursed him. The man’s eyes were wild with fear so Ethan left it alone. He walked into the store and all around him was bedlam. People ran up and down the aisles and grabbed at whatever their hands touched. He could feel the panic and fear as though it were a living, breathing creature. He saw a woman with two children trapped between her arms and the shopping buggy she was pushing. Her eyes were wild and rolling, her mouth pulled back into a tight grimace. The children looked as though they were in shock and moved like automatons. She was at the canned vegetable aisle and was putting cans of beans into the cart.
A large man blew past and then stopped, sweat dripped from his flushed face. He backed up quickly and started raking cans of beans off the shelves with his forearm. He rammed his buggy into the woman’s cart and knocked her and the two children back. The handle of her shopping buggy knocked into the little boy’s forehead and he fell against his mother’s legs. The large man rammed his cart again, moving the mother and her children backwards. Ethan felt a boiling rage consume his body and he pulled his weapon, even knowing he shouldn’t.
He walked up behind the man who was snarling at the woman to get out of his way. Ethan wasn’t a big man but he had a deep voice and he laid a hand on the big man’s shoulder and squeezed hard and placed the barrel of his weapon into the notch at the back of the man’s skull and spine.
“You got one more fucking time to juke her cart and I’ll paint the ceiling with your brains,” he whispered softly. He could feel the man freeze and stiffen beneath his hand and he jammed his weapon deeper into the back of the man’s neck.
“Ma’am, take your time and get what you need. This man here is just gonna wait. Aren’t you?” he asked and squeezed harder. He was satisfied with the rumble from the man. The woman’s eyes darted to him and she seemed to calm down a bit, though fear was still bracketed across her face. She nodded slightly and picked more cans from the shelf and moved past. She shot the big man a filthy glare and moved quickly away.
“Now, I’m gonna let you go and if you behave yourself, I won’t blow your fucking head off. I see you do that shit again, I won’t say a word,” Ethan hissed and tapped the man’s head with his weapon and stepped in front. The bigger man’s eyes widened as the smaller man stepped in front of him and he eyed Ethan’s weapon, still pointed at him. The big man’s mouth moved like he wanted to say something and hate filled his eyes. That caused Ethan to grin and he put the weapon back in the holster.
“You wanna give it a shot asshole?” he asked softly. The big man’s eyes narrowed and Ethen knew the man wanted to take a swing at Ethan but he snorted and then moved on and away, slowing down his rampant rush. Ethan chuckled to himself and walked over to get a cart. A lot of the shelves were bare and he sighed. He’d have to locate the garage and hole up near it so he could watch for Wilder, if the man hadn’t already come. He sighed heavily as he moved up and down the aisles and he kept his eyes peeled for the woman and her children.
He wasn’t sure how long this thing with the zombies would last, but he figured if he laid in enough supplies for the time being, he should be good. He still couldn’t believe he was calling them zombies. Shit. This just couldn’t be real and no one was answering in Washington. What was that about? Should he still hunt down and kill Agent Zed? Was this his own time to retire and disappear off-grid? He had the apartment in Chicago but he was sure the agency knew about that. He pulled out his phone and checked again. Nothing. No texts from anyone. He shoved the phone into his back pocket and moved to the register. He looked out the large window and saw that the shadows were longer now. He needed to get over to the storage garage to check it
