Immediately, Del Castillo and Harrison stepped through the entryway, sweeping the barrels of their guns from side to side as they’d no doubt seen so many times in movies. Once the front of the store was secure, Pugnowski and Hines followed. Cleese waited for them all to enter before closing the doors behind them. He hung back a bit allowing Bartlett to get well ahead of him. There was something that told him he didn’t want the man behind him, especially not with a rifle in his hands.
The men fanned out and quickly checked each aisle for hostiles. Pugnowski scuttled toward Cosmetics and found a young dead woman (who’d probably been an employee) sitting on the floor behind a counter slowly eating one tube of lipstick after another. Her face was a kaleidoscope of color and she looked like she’d just blown a clown. He managed to get behind her without being noticed and placed the barrel of his .22 pistol against the back of her head. When he pulled the trigger, her skull acted as a silencer and only a soft popping sound was heard. She slid to the ground, her bulging eyes bloodshot from the pressure change caused by the expanding gasses from the firearm going off inside her head.
Hines ran down the main aisle, took a quick left, and ended up in the aisle where kids’ toys were kept. He found a stock boy there standing next to a comic rack, retardedly spinning the wire frame around and around. As Hines came around the corner, the kid heard him and slowly turned toward the sound. The second the kid caught sight of the living man, he bared his teeth and came running. To Hines’ credit, he didn’t panic or freak. Instead, he took the brunt of the kid’s charge and hip-tossed. As the kid’s back slammed to the ground, Hines smashed the butt of his shotgun against the boy’s forehead repeatedly. Soon, the floor was covered in what looked like marinara sauce and cottage cheese.
The rest of the team’s searches came up empty.
When the store was given the 'All Clear,' each man immediately went about gathering items from the list of things he’d been assigned. Hines pulled a couple of foldable gym bags from his rucksack and went off at a run toward the pharmacy. His mission was the real reason they’d come to check the place out. There were a growing assortment of people at the compound and they all had needs: diabetics needed insulin, some people needed thyroid medication, antibiotics were always a necessity, hell, even pain killers would be worth their weight in gold should the need arise. Hines leapt over the counter and started gathering shit from his mental shopping list.
The rest of them made their way through the aisles and systematically pulled items from the shelves. Cleese was busy grabbing as much prepackaged beef jerky, Spam, candy, nuts, cookies, and crackers as he could and stuffing them into the bags he carried. Harrison and Del Castillo made hurried trips back and forth shuttling cases of soda, bottled water, beer, and powdered milk. In no time at all, they’d pretty much emptied the entire drink aisle as well as the cold cases. They soon had a substantial stack of goods piled near the front door. Bartlett and Pugnowski repeated the same routine only their booty was as many packages of toilet paper, paper towels, sanitary napkins and diapers as they could find.
Cleese decided not to point out the irony of Bartlett grabbing these particular items. Things were already rough between them. The joke just seemed too easy to make.
They’d stripped the store of anything of value and were soon reassembled at the front doors. Cleese took a quick look around outside and then, finding it clear, pulled the doors back open. The group quickly formed a fireman’s line and silently passed items to one another. In time, the truck was filled to near capacity. Finally, when everything they’d collected was loaded on board, Harrison eased the back door of the Self-Haul almost closed and they were ready to roll.
As he stood outside, once again feeling the heat of the day wrap its arms about him, Cleese was surprised at how smoothly it had all gone down and was almost impressed. There wasn’t a lot that could change his original opinion of these guys, but this was certainly points in their favor. In the end though, they were what they were… and what they were at the moment was a bunch of monkeys who’d done a good job of learning how to pull this particular lever for this particular treat. He knew that if they were to be dropped into a different situation with a different dynamic, things might not go so smoothly. Silently, Cleese wondered how many people had died for them to learn how to do this kind of thing with this level of proficiency.
'Ok, so…' Cleese said, 'we’re done, right?'
The guys moved their heads like bobblehead dolls.
'We’re good,' Hines said.
'Wait… where’s Bartlett?' Del Castillo asked.
Cleese looked around and quickly counted heads. Sure enough, they were one short. Suddenly, the sound of a rifle shot cracked from inside the store. Then, another. Across the parking lot, several of the dead near the dumpster raised their heads at the sound. Seeing nothing, they returned to digging in the trash.
'Fuck!'
Cleese was running back inside before he even realized he was doing it, the SIG 556 locked and loaded at his shoulder. He heard the footsteps of the other men coming up behind him as he moved down the aisles; their heavy boot falls echoing in the silence of the darkened building.
Nearing the back of the store, Cleese saw no sign of Bartlett. The aisles were empty with only the bodies of the dead they’d taken down earlier. Suddenly, the crashing sound of a struggle was heard coming from a side hallway leading to the bathrooms. Bartlett stumbled into view, making his way down the hallway and into the half- light with someone clutching at him. Cleese figured that he must have gone back inside to take a quick squirt and found more than a waiting urinal.
As the two bodies fell from the shadows of the enclosed hallway and into the dim light, Cleese could see that the thing holding onto Bartlett was a young kid. He couldn’t have weighed more than a buck fifty and was dressed in jeans and a blood-spattered leather jacket. His face was obscured by a full face motorcycle helmet. Underneath the jaw-line, at the point where the strap buckle was visible, you could just see where a large bite had been taken out of his neck. Cleese figured that the toppled Honda out front must have been his.
As the two of them continued to fight and thrash about, their legs slammed into a low-lying display and they fell into a heap to the ground. Bartlett pushed the kid away and Cleese saw two bullet hits on the brow of the helmet. Amazingly, the insulated brain bucket had held firm and deflected both shots.
Cleese had to smile as he imagined the look of surprise on Bartlett’s face after shooting the kid dead center in the forehead and him not going down. Man, he must have shit his pants. The funny part was that the very thing that had protected the kid from the rifle rounds was also what was keeping him from being able to take a bite out of Bartlett. The full face helmet not only covered his skull, it also covered his jaws and kept him from being able to sink his teeth into anything. The thing possessed—quite literally—all of the bark of the undead, but none of the bite.
By now, the rest of the men had arrived and could see what was happening. Behind him, Cleese heard Pugnowski raise his rifle and click off his safety. Cleese reached out and put a gentle hand on the barrel of his gun. He shook his head, silently reminding him that it was too dangerous to just start firing blindly. Bartlett was in no real danger and it would be too easy to hit him in the ensuing hailstorm of bullets. Not to mention that the noise would bring every zombie within a thousand yards running.
With Bartlett screaming and thrashing about like a stuck pig, Cleese stepped up behind the two fighting figures and brusquely grabbed the kid by the collar of his leather jacket. Putting his legs into the lift, he yanked the kid up and off Bartlett and casually tossed him aside. The kid hit the ground on his back and immediately scrambled back to his feet. Once mobile, he quickly moved back in the direction of the downed man. Cleese stepped into its path and slammed the butt of the SIG into his helmet’s windscreen. The force of the blow spider-webbed the visor and knocked the kid back. Cleese spun at the waist and kicked him in the sternum with a reverse round house. Stale air came rushing out of his chest in a muffled 'whoof!' Dazed and hurting, the kid crumpled to the ground.
Suddenly, a shot rang out and blood erupted from one of the kid’s knees. Meat and bone splashed across the linoleum. The kid gave a piercing cry of pain, its voice sounding hollow from within the tightness of the helmet. Then, another bullet slammed into the other knee. Cleese turned to see Bartlett holding his still smoking rifle.
'Christ, Bartlett,' Cleese said exasperated. 'You sure as shit are making enough fuckin’ noise. If you’re gonna kill it, kill it, but don’t fuck around torturing the damned thing.'
'Shut up, Cleese!' Bartlett shouted and fired two more rounds into the dead thing’s chest. Blood blossomed like red flowers on the shiny surface of the kid’s leather.
'Oh, come on… I know it surprised you, but look at it. It can’t bite you. Just fucking put it down, Man.'
'Shut. Up!' Bartlett repeated and angrily turned, pointing his rifle at Cleese.
Cleese glowered and his demeanor immediately turned serious; deadly serious.
