especially the ones that were closest. But they couldn’t have cared less if I got on my knees and poured A-1 on the top of my head, at least I think. I’m not willing to truth check that statement.
I thought carefully before I answered. “I think they’re pissed off.” That was the only thing that seemed to make sense. Before Tracy could ask for clarification, I continued. “I mean, look at them,' pointing towards the zombies, 'obviously the people on the roof are potential food for them, but hell, we’re a lot closer. I think that pellet gun is irritating them to no ends.”
“Can they be mad? Do they even have emotions?” Tracy asked.
“Umm Hon, you’ve known about the zombies for thirty seconds longer than I have. It’s just a theory. Maybe they just can’t smell us over the exhaust of the car. Let’s just keep the windows rolled up in the meantime.” This time no one argued.
I drove around to the side of the building where I had motioned Justin to meet us. He was peering over the edge when we pulled up.
I rolled down the window. “Justin, is there a way down?” I yelled. Almost instantly, two zombies began to shuffle our way. In life they most likely were twins, albeit not like the kind you see in the Doublemint commercials. Both were more than 200 pounds, wearing midriff shirts that showed off their expanding muffin tops. Whereas the sister on the left was wearing purple spandex, her twin on the right was adorned in the much classier Daisy Duke shorts. In life this would have been a vision hopefully never to behold, but now with their purple mottled flesh and fresh puss oozing out of every orifice I nearly gagged. You have to love Wal-Mart customers. I don’t know if it was the noise or the smell of a meal that had them coming my way. My guess was the promise of food. These two didn’t ever look like they passed up a chance at something to eat.
“Yeah, through the sprinkler room, but that’s on the far side of the store,” Justin answered.
“Travis, keep an eye on the double-fat twins over there,” I said nervously. I tore my glance from the approaching horrors. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. “You won’t be able to get out the front, if you went back downstairs could you go out an emergency exit?” I yelled.
“No, those things are in the stairwell leading up here. We can hear them banging against the door,” was his reply.
“Any ladders up there?” I asked.
“No but there’s a ladder section over by household goods,” he answered helpfully, or so at least he thought.
“Yeah that’s not going to work so much,” I replied, remembering the hundred or so zombies still shopping for blue-light specials. We were at an impasse.
“Dad!” Justin yelled. Travis appended the point by blasting a round through the Mossberg. Muffin top one in the spandex went down in a heap, most of her belly liquefied by the impact of the pellets. Her sister screeched, I’m not even sure that’s the right adjective. It was an inhuman sound. Something only dead, taut, rigor mortis induced vocal chords could produce. Travis almost dropped the shotgun out the window. Tracy and I could only stare in frightened bewilderment. But what came next stunned me even more. Daisy Dukes Girl didn’t help her fallen sister up but she waited until the other one got up of her own accord. The wound was fatal, but fatality only applies to the living. I could see what I had at first thought were maggots roiling around in and about her guts, but at an inch or so long these weren’t any ordinary maggots. They were worms of some sort. And I could tell from looking at the size of Spandex Girl, these weren’t tapeworms.
Those things had to be the cause of whatever was going on here, but I wasn’t a biologist. I stepped out of the Jeep with my M-16 and emptied a magazine into the two women. Most of my shots didn’t even hit the desired target but I only needed one round in each of their heads for the job to be done. At fifteen shots a zombie we wouldn’t make it through the night. I turned the selector lever on the M-16 from ‘automatic’ to ‘single;’ my hands looked like I suffered from a severe case of palsy.
“Dad!” Justin yelled again.
I couldn’t tear my eyes off the two women I’d shot. Their fat was still jiggling from their impact with the ground, or was it the worms? I turned and puked. There wasn’t much to it, I hadn’t had a chance to eat dinner.
“Yeah?” I answered Justin as I stood back up dragging my sleeve across my mouth. The metallic, acidic taste in my mouth did little to contain the storm brewing in my stomach.
“There’s a ladder in the docking bay,” Justin responded eagerly. Thank God, I had something else to think about than this macabre scene behind me.
“Is it going to be tall enough?” I asked, looking into the car to see how everyone else was doing. Travis had pulled the shotgun into the car and rolled the window back up, but he still couldn’t stop from looking at the carnage a mere ten feet from the car. Tracy had lit up a cigarette. Where she found it I have no clue. She HAD quit almost six months ago.
I didn’t think now was the time to berate her for the infraction. If she had another one I would have taken it right there and then, and I had never smoked.
Justin shrugged in response to my question. “They use it for maintenance around the building, it should be,” he replied without much conviction. It wasn’t the definitive answer I was looking for but it was what I had.
“All right, you follow us on the roof and keep a look out.”
Justin pulled back from the edge in response. I got back in the car, handing the empty magazine to Travis. “Could you please hand me a loaded magazine and reload this one?” I asked him, my hand a little more under control. Now I only looked like I had Jell-O for a wrist.
I know he was only trying to help, but when Travis said “Dad, you know you should take it easy on the ammo,” I almost snapped. I’d probably still be there, chewing him a new one if I had ever gotten started.
I put the Jeep in gear, mumbled something to the effect of smart-ass kid and left it at that. Tracy was hot boxing her cigarette. If there was a Guinness record for downing a smoke, she was sure challenging that mark. I drove the Jeep to the west side of the building and around to the back. When I got to the rear of the building I was relieved and apprehensive at the same time. Relieved because there were no zombies around but apprehensive for a couple of reasons. The first reason being that the dock was bathed in darkness. I couldn’t see more than two feet into the store. I don’t think zombies have the ability to lay a trap but if they did this was the perfect set-up. My other concern was the overturned semi; it looked as if it had been strategically placed to entirely block off the other entrance into the docks. That meant that by car, at least, there was only one way in and one way out. It was a narrow entrance, maybe twelve feet across. A six-foot high retaining wall ran along the parking lot directly opposite the building. Running on foot was always a choice but I’d witnessed firsthand the success rate of those on the ground.
CHAPTER 4 
Journal Entry - 4
“Tracy, you stay in the car,” I said as I got out.
“Yeah, that won’t be a problem,” she answered, dark circles forming under her eyes.
If I had a chance to get to a mirror I could probably witness the same thing happening to me. My life had only been turned upside down for less than an hour and I already felt like my soul was wrung out.
“Okay,” I responded. “But I meant more in the driver’s seat, with the car running.” Was that degree of explanation needed? I don’t know but I didn’t want to leave anything to chance.
“Travis, you’re going to have to come with me,” I let him know. He didn’t seem thrilled with the prospect at all, but he knew what he had to do.
His mother however let me know how she felt. “You can’t!” she yelled.
Travis rushed to my defense. “Mom, Dad needs my help.”
“He can do it on his own,” she retorted. “You’re my baby!”
“Hon…” I started.
“You shut up!” she spat fiercely. “Travis is my baby, he’s my flesh and blood!”
“And who am I!” I yelled back.
“You’re just some guy I met!” she shrilled.
I physically felt like someone had swung a hammer at my stomach and connected. The feeling was that intense. I was dumbfounded. I staggered back as if the blow had been physical and not metaphorical. Right now running into the midst of the zombies seemed like a viable proposition.
Tracy watched my eyes hollow out. “I’m, I’m sorry,” she cried. She knew she had gone too far.
