John complied and brought out the thirty eight pistol for himself. Bill aimed the rifle at the man and Ricky pushed the barrel up, “What the fuck are you doing?”
Bill stepped back and pointed the gun towards the ground at an angle that still included the man slowly shambling towards them. “We ran into the national guard on the way here. They told us to shoot first, not to let them get close.”
“Well you can't just shoot the guy! That is not right!”
Bill looked over at the man, maybe he wasn't infected. Maybe Bill had almost made a mistake. “Hey! You!” Bill called to him, the man came on slowly, persistently, he did not answer.
“There. He is one of them. Look at him, look at his eyes.” Bill said. He raised his gun again and took aim, bracing on the open door of the truck.
Ricky looked at the man, noticed the opaque eyes, the oozing head wound, noticed the black, rotted blood coming from the wound. He backed up a step, giving Bill a clear line of fire.
“Right, wrong, you're the man with the gun.” Ricky said, though his voice betrayed his belief that Bill was right.
Bill sighted down the barrel of the gun, looking at the man, who was about ten feet from the front of the truck. He tried to pull the trigger, then hesitated.
“Dad!” John said in a worried voice, “Dad!”
“I got him, let me do this, I don't want to miss.” Bill aimed the gun lower, aiming at the guy's leg instead of his head. In a loud voice he warned, “Last chance man, answer me or I am going to shoot you.”
The man took three more steps and Bill fired, the shot hit him dead in the center of his leg, blasting through his femur in a shot that was no less fatal than shooting him through the heart or head would have been. The thing fell over and Bill wondered why he had bothered shooting the leg. At this close range the shotgun was like a fist that punched through anything it hit. He lowered the barrel of the gun, keeping the butt secured to his shoulder.
“Shit you did it, I didn't think you would…hey, he is still moving.” said Rick.
The three of them watched as the man struggled to stand up, after a couple of tries with his leg offering no support at all he began to crawl towards them, a trail of black blood was left behind him as he moved.
“Holy fuck, he is one of them, look at his eyes, look at his eyes! Shoot him again Carson!”
Bill took aim and shot the man in the head, the close range flipped the man over on to his back, where he didn't move again.
“Now what do we do? Call the cops? Call the sanitation department? Who the fuck cleans up zombie bodies?” asked Rick rhetorically.
Bill started to answer, but stopped and listened, standing where he was he could hear Gail screaming from both outside and inside the building, it was a strange stereo kind of effect.
“John c'mon!” Bill said and he started running outside back towards the office.
“No Carson! Wait, come through the building it'll be faster!” Ricky shouted, Bill reversed course and turned to follow a running Rick. John, nervously ran after them, but not before switching the safety on his gun.
“Gail! Gail! Run back through the warehouse! We are coming through the warehouse, meet us here!” Rick screamed at the top of his lungs.
They all ran towards an industrial brown painted door, which was propped open at the bottom with a wedge of wood. Gail appeared there screaming hysterically, she saw the men and ran towards them.
“Ricky! Ricky! Its them, the infected they came inside. Ricky it's real!” She ran behind him and turned on her heel, all of them stopping and looking at the hallway that led to the front desk. Nothing moved. Everything was quiet.
“Where were they Gail?” asked Rick.
“They pushed through the front door, started coming towards me at the desk, while I was dialing Seth Peterson.”
“Seth? Oh yeah, good call on that, he only retired last year, his license is probably still active…”
“Not the time Ricky!” said Gail.
“They were on the other side of the desk?” asked Bill.
Gail nodded and Bill went into the hallway cautiously, followed by John, Rick and Gail. Bill checked each office as he went by it, but each was empty. He got to the front office and there were two of the infected there. They were both at the desk Gail had been sitting at. One was a middle aged woman, she was wearing a nightgown, which was blood stained and ripped, revealing a pallid, cellulite laden stomach that had a gaping wound. Bill thought he was going to throw up just looking at her, but the young man was worse. Something had happened to him. His left arm and shoulder were completely gone. Bill saw the sharp ends of ribs and bits of clavicle and collar bone jutting from the meat of his body. The fact that the boy was only fourteen or fifteen and completely naked just made the destruction seem worse. Both infected oriented on Bill as he appeared in the hallway, but neither, moved around the desk to get at him, it was as if they could only follow a straight line and now that they were blocked they were stuck.
Bill raised his gun and fired at the woman first, the back of her head splattered the office windows and walls, one of the pellets shattered the glass in the front door. Aiming at the boy, he was struck by how it looked right at him, up the barrel of the gun. The boy's eyes were not so opaque at the woman's had been, and he was edging around the side of the desk, another minute or two and he would have a clear shot at the hallway. The boy looked like a younger version of John, or maybe an older version of Will, Bill's thirteen year old. He aimed the gun at the boy's head, squinted his eyes almost closed and fired. The youth dropped soundlessly onto the floor.
Gail was screaming again in the background as Bill stood there next to the zombies he had killed, he felt almost…energized, then the adrenaline crash came and he was shaking all over. Ricky, was not so hesitant, he stepped around and twisted the lock on the front door, then moved a low table and several chairs over in front of it, John sprang to help him.
“We are closed.” Rick said, “Gail why don't you write up a sign telling any drivers who show up to pick up their loads, if they want, and telling the others to park along the street or pull them home if they can.”
Gail nodded and Rick turned back to Bill and John, “I will get you loaded up, let's go.”
It was Bill's turn to nod, as they walked back to the loading dock, he reloaded the shotgun and wondered why putting four rounds into three of the infected didn't bother him so much.
They cautiously moved to the truck, checking for any more infected, with John going to far as to get down on his hands and knees to look under the trailers out in the yard.
“Nothing dad, no legs anyway.” he said.
“Well I think you can drop it where it is.” Bill said referring to the large crate hanging over the back of his truck bed, as an afterthought he turned to John, “Thanks, keep half an eye out will you? I think Rick and I can get this stuff loaded, I am more afraid other infected will show up.”
Rick slowly dropped the crate towards the truck bed, they had to scoot the crate over a little to one side to avoid coming down on the truck wall, but it fit, barely.
“You are going to have a helluva time carrying the second package.” said Rick. The bed was blocked side to side by the crate, leaving about a foot on both the front and read side of it in the bed, but the bed was only four feet wide, and the package was eight feet long.
Bill reached into the cab of the truck and pulled out two red tie down straps and an old wool blanket. “I figure I will just lay it on top, with one end on the crate and the other on the top of the cab, then throw these around the middle and back, it should hold.”
Ricky looked it over and then nodded, “Yeah, that will work. You do this before or are you always this prepared?”
“Well the other one was delivered, so I kind of had an idea of what I was getting.”
“Ah fair enough, if you don't mind my asking, what exactly is this? What makes it so important to you that you would risk coming out to get it?”
“Solar array, it's a small one, but it will double the capacity we have at the house, actually more than double it as it is a little more efficient than the first one I bought. Everything is ready for it, we should be able to assemble it and plug it in to the other one we have already. The first one is the bitch, 'cause you have to have the electric
