Ascension

looking worse than she had even after coming to in the ruins of the office building in Chicago. She let the family grieve and went searching for new clothing in the store. Katie used bottled water from the small food section to get the blood off of her and stripped naked and tossed every single bit of clothing she had, it was all ruined and why do laundry when there was a world full of clothing free for the taking?

She felt dirty and sick to her stomach; mostly she wanted to get away to somewhere that zombies wouldn't get her. 'And where would that be dearie?' She asked herself, 'Heaven? North Dakota? An island in the Bahamas? There is nowhere safe anymore. So get your shit together!'

This last thought was delivered in her mind in a voice very similar to Randy's. Katie was staring at her clothing lying on the ground in the center of the aisle when she heard a throat clear behind her. She glanced back and saw Kent in the dim light. He was looking away from her nakedness towards the front door. 'Maybe he is only half gay.'

'Sorry, I didn't…I didn't expect you'd be naked. I guess it is….well I guess I would take my clothing off too, if it had happened to me. We want to get out of here.'

'Sure, go ahead.'

'We'll wait for you.'

'No, go on. I wouldn't want to travel with the guy who let my daughter get killed.'

'We'll wait for you.' Kent said, turning and shuffling away.

Katie wanted to scream. She wanted to cry, to run after him and give him a hug…she wanted to feel something, anything. 'I don't even have tears anymore. Not even for this.' She pulled another gallon jug off the shelf, popped the cap up and dumped it over her head. 'I'll never be clean again.'

Fifteen minutes later she cautiously came out of the store. She hadn't seen anyone from the family inside as she gathered new clothing and a backpack to stuff supplies into. The store didn't sell firearms, but it did sell bullets, including more shells for her shotgun. She put four boxes into her pack, each weighed about two pounds, but the weight was comforting. She had also found some special packs of Winchester Military Grade #00 buckshot loads, there were only four packages of this ammunition, touted as being for 'home defense', but she was not going to pass it up. The #00 boxes only had five shells in each of them, compared to the twenty five round in each of the other four boxes.

It was known as 'Manstopper' ammunition in the military, because any man you hit with it; stopped. Katie still would have preferred a simple thirty ought six rifle to the shotgun, but being fully loaded did make her feel better. The others were waiting for her when she made it to the parking lot.

'You waited for me.'

'I told you we would. Can we clear out of here now?'

'Where are you headed?' Katie asked. They all had backpacks and gear.

'We thought we either go east or south. We want to end up in Florida for the winter, without heat Illinois gets too damned cold. You?'

The simple one word question stopped Katie, 'Where do I want to go? I've got nowhere left.'

'You okay?' Robert asked.

'Just thinking. I didn't really have a plan, just to get away from the zombies. Or to kill them all.' she said without smiling.

'All by yourself?' Kent asked with a touch of humor tingeing his voice, 'That's a tall order.'

Katie scowled, 'I hate them.'

'That's a sentiment I can agree with.' Robert said, 'But there are too many of them. Even if we each kill a hundred there will be millions left.'

'I've already bagged more than that.' Katie said.

'Are you joking?'

'No. Are we walking?'

'Unless you have a car?'

'I have a car, it's on the side of the road over there.' she said, pointing towards the highway, 'I ran out of gas.'

'Shoot. Do you know how to siphon gas?'

'Never learned how.'

'Us either. I think we would need a tube or something.'

'It would probably be easier to find another car. Maybe in those houses?' Katie said pointed across a field to a development.

'Alright we'll try there first.' Robert said. They set off across the street and then towards a housing development that looked recently built because none of the trees were fully grown yet.

'So, was the highway bad?' asked Kent, more to break the silence than anything else.

'Better than I thought it would be. There are wrecks, but you can see them a long way off. I came down here from Chicago this morning, it took about three hours.'

'That is about twice as long as normal, we decided to hike out this morning, a…zombie, it tried to get in last night. One of the smart ones. Rob was a hunter as a kid and inherited his father's guns a few years ago, not to mention he had one of his own. We shot at it, but I don't think we hit it. Today we decided to bug out, before it came back with friends.'

'No car?'

Robert shook his head, 'We had one, but it was in the shop, we sold the Subaru last year when things got so tight and Kent got laid off.'

'Bad timing.'

'We headed to the shop first, it was about a mile away. I was hoping to find the minivan in the lot, all repaired and ready to go, but it was still on the lift torn apart. Even if I knew how to put it together again I couldn't have gotten it down without power. So we just kept walking.'

Katie didn't say anything, for a few minutes. Kent cleared his throat and asked, 'What about you? What were you doing in Chicago?'

'I knew they would ask.' Out loud she answered him, 'Shooting zombies.'

'Were there a lot of them up there?'

'More than I had bullets for. I got treed on top of a building then artillery shells started coming down on me.'

'Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time!' Kent said.

'No.'

'No?' asked Kent puzzled.

'I called the artillery strike down on the building.'

'You did?'

'I was a sniper, the zombies were coming. I didn't expect to wake up again.'

'But…but that means the Army is active! There are people we can go to who will help protect us! We should head north!'

Katie shook her head slowly from side to side, the group had all stopped and were looking at her. 'No. No one is going to save us. They all died, the zombies won.'

'Are you sure?'

Staring at the fields north of them, Katie nodded curtly, 'Yes, I am sure.' then she turned and headed towards the houses again.

Chapter 13 — Max