SEVEN
They search the area for tanks to siphon or gas stations to plunder, and they come up empty. Most of the wrecks along this desolate stretch of farm road are burned to crisps or abandoned with bone-dry tanks. They notice only scattered dead roaming the distant farmlands—lone cadavers wandering aimlessly, far enough away to easily elude.
They decide to sleep in the Ram that night, taking shifts sitting watch and rationing their canned goods and fresh water. Being this far out in the boonies proves to be a blessing as well as a curse. The worrisome lack of fuel and provisions is offset by the lack of walker activity.
Josh admonishes everybody to keep their voices down and make as little noise as possible during their exile in this barren hinterland.
As darkness closes in that first night, and the temperature nose-dives, Josh runs the engine as long as possible, then resorts to running the heater off the battery. He knows he can’t keep this up for long. They cover the broken sleeper window with cardboard and duct tape.
They each sleep fitfully that night in the cramped quarters of the truck—Megan, Scott, and Bob in the camper, Lilly in the rear of the cab, and Josh in the front, barely able to stretch his massive body out across the two large bucket seats.
The next day, Josh and Bob get lucky and find an overturned panel van a mile to the west, its rear axle broken but the rest of it intact, its gas tank almost full. They siphon eighteen gallons into three separate containers, and make it back to the Ram before noon. They take off and make their way southeast—crossing another twenty miles of fallow farmland—before stopping for the night under a desolate train trestle, where the wind sings its constant mournful aria through the high-tension wires.
In the darkness of the reeking truck, they argue about whether they should keep moving or find a place to light. They bicker about petty things—sleeping arrangements, rationing, snoring, and stinky feet—and they generally get on each other’s nerves. The floor space inside the camper is less than a hundred square feet, much of it covered with Bob’s cast-off detritus. Scott and Megan sleep like sardines against the back hatch while Bob tosses and turns in his semisober delirium.
They live like this for almost a week, zigzagging in a southwesterly direction, following the tracks of the West Central Georgia Railway, scavenging fuel when they can. Tempers strain to the breaking point. The camper walls close in.
In the dark, the troubling noises behind the trees get closer every night.
* * *
One morning, while Scott and Megan slumber in back, Josh and Lilly sit on the Ram’s front bumper, sharing a thermos of instant coffee in the early-morning light. The wind feels colder, the sky lower—the smell of winter in the air. “Feels like more snow’s coming,” Josh softly observes.
“Where’s Bob gone off to?”
“Says he saw a creek off to the west, not far, took his fishing rod.”
“Did he take the shotgun?”
“Hatchet.”
“I’m worried about him, Josh. He’s shaking all the time now.”
“He’ll be okay.”
“Last night I saw him sucking down a bottle of mouthwash.”
Josh looks at her. Lilly’s injuries have almost completely healed, her eyes clear now for the first time since the beating. Her bruises have all but faded, and she removed the bandages around her ribs the previous afternoon to find that she could walk almost normally without them. But the pain of losing Sarah Bingham still gnaws at her—Josh can see sorrow etched on her sleeping face, late at night. From the front seat, Josh has been watching her sleep. It’s the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. He longs to kiss her again but the situation hasn’t warranted such luxuries. “We’ll all be doing a lot better when we find some real food,” Josh says then. “I’m getting mighty tired of cold Chef Boyardee.”
“Water’s getting low, too. And there’s something else I’ve been thinking about that’s not exactly giving me a warm, cozy feeling.”
Josh looks at her. “Which is?”
“What if we run into another swarm? They could push the damn truck over, Josh. You know it as well as I do.”
“All the more reason to keep moving, keep heading south, below the radar.”
“I know, but—”
“More likely to find supplies, we keep moving.”
“I understand that but—”
Lilly stops when she sees the silhouette of a figure way off in the distance, maybe three hundred yards away, up on the train trestle, moving this way, following the tracks. The figure’s long, narrow shadow, outlined in the dust motes of morning sunlight, flickers down through the slatted ties and crossbeams—moving too fast to be a zombie.
“Speak of the devil,” Josh says when he finally recognizes the figure.
The older man approaches, carrying an empty bucket and collapsible fishing rod. He trundles along quickly between the rails, urgency burning on his face. “Hey, y’all!” he calls down breathlessly to them as he reaches the stepladder near the overpass.
“Keep it down, Bob,” Josh cautions him, walking over to the base of the trestle, Lilly at his side.
“Wait’ll you see what I found,” Bob says, descending the ladder.
“Catch a big one, did ya?”
He hops to the ground. He catches his breath, his eyes shimmering with excitement. “No, sir, didn’t even find the goddamn crick.” He manages a gap-toothed grin. “But I did find something better.”
* * *
The Walmart sits at the intersection of two rural highways, a mile north of the train tracks, its tall interstate sign with its trademark blue letters and yellow starburst visible from the elevated trestles along the woods. The closest town is miles away, but these isolated big box stores have proven to be lucrative retail outlets for farming communities, especially ones this close to a major interstate like U.S. 85—the Hogansville exit only seven miles to the west.
“All right … here’s what I’m thinking,” Josh says to the others, after pulling up to the lot entrance, which is partially blocked by an abandoned flatbed truck, its front end wrapped around a sign pole. The cargo—mostly lumber—lies strewn across the wide lanes leading into the vast parking lot, which is littered with wrecks and abandoned vehicles. The massive low-slung superstore in the distance looks deserted but looks can be deceiving. “We check out the lots first, make a few circles, just get the lay of the land.”
“Looks pretty empty, Josh,” Lilly comments as she chews on her thumbnail in the rear berth. For the entire fifteen-minute journey across dusty back roads, Lilly has chewed every available fingernail down to the quick. Now she gnaws on a cuticle.
“Hard to tell just by looking,” Bob pipes in.
“Keep your eyes peeled for walkers or any other movement,” Josh says, putting the truck into gear and slowly bumping over the spilled lumber.
They circle the property twice, paying closest attention to the shadows of loading docks and entranceways. The cars in the lot are all empty, some burned to blackened husks. Most of the store’s glass doors are blown out. A carpet of broken shards glistens in the cold afternoon sun across the front entrance. The store inside is as dark as a coal mine. Nothing moves. Inside the vestibule, a few bodies litter the floor. Whatever happened here happened a while ago.
After his second sweep, Josh pulls up to the front of the store, puts the truck in park, leaves the engine idling, and checks the last three rounds nestled in the cylinder of his .38 police special. “Okay, I don’t want to leave the truck untended,” he says and turns to Bob. “You got how many shells left?”
Bob snaps open the squirrel gun with trembling hands. “One in the breech, one in my pocket.”
“Okay, here’s what I’m thinking—”
“I’m going with you,” Lilly says.
“Not without a weapon you aren’t, not until we know it’s safe in there.”
“I’ll grab a shovel from the back,” she says. She glances over her shoulder and sees Megan’s face in the window, owlish and expectant as she cranes her neck to see through the windshield. Lilly looks back at Josh. “You’re gonna need another pair of eyes in there.”
“Never argue with a woman,” Bob mumbles, jacking open the passenger door and stepping out into the windy, raw air of the late-autumn afternoon.
They go around back, open the camper’s rear hatch, and tell Megan and Scott to stay in the cab with the truck idling until the all-clear signal comes; and if they see any trouble, they should blast the horn like crazy. Neither Megan nor Scott puts up much of an argument.
Lilly grabs one of the shovels, and then follows Josh and Bob across the cement threshold of the store’s front façade, the sounds of their footsteps crackling over broken glass drowned by the wind.
Josh forces one of the automatic doors open and they enter the vestibule.
* * *
They see the old man without a head lying on the stained parquet near the entrance in a dried pool of blood—now as black as obsidian—the ragged threads of his viscera blossoming out of his neck. Pinned to the little blue greeter’s vest, the name tag, which is askew and partially visible, says WALMART on the top, and ELMER K on the bottom. The big yellow happy face insignia is stippled with blood. Lilly stares at poor headless Elmer K for quite some time as they make their way deeper into the empty store.
The air is almost as cold as outside and smells of coppery mold and decay and rancid proteins like those of a giant compost pile. Constellations of bullet holes crown the lintel above the hair care center to the left, while garish Rorschach patterns of arterial spray mark the doorway of the vision center on the right. Shelves either stand empty—already plundered—or overturned on the floor.
Josh raises one of his huge hands and orders his cohorts to stop for a moment as he listens to the silence. He scans the acres of retail space, much of which is littered with headless bodies, unidentifiable streaks of carnage, overturned shopping carts, and trash. The rows of checkout conveyors on the right stand silent and stained with blood. The pharmacy center, cosmetics counter, and health and beauty on the left are also riddled with bullet holes.
Signaling to the others, Josh cautiously continues on, his gun at the ready, his heavy boot steps crunching over debris as he moves deeper into the reeking shadows.
The farther they get from the entrance doors, the darker the aisles become. The pale daylight barely penetrates the far grocery aisles on the right, with its spills and broken glass mingling with human remains, or the home and office and fashion sections on the left, with their scattered clothing and dismembered mannequins. The departments in the rear of the store—toys, electronics, sporting goods, and shoes—lie in utter darkness.
Only the dry silver beams of battery-powered emergency lights illuminate the shadowy depths of the far aisles.
They find flashlights in the hardware department, and shine the beams into the far reaches of the store, making note of all the useful provisions and tools. The more they investigate, the more excited they become. By the time they’ve circled the entire fifteen thousand square feet of retail space—finding only a few scattered human remains in the early stages of decomposition, innumerable overturned shelves, and rats scurrying from the sounds of their footsteps—they are convinced that the store is safe—picked over, certainly, but safe.
At least for the moment.
“Pretty sure we got the place to ourselves,” Josh says at last as the threesome returns to the diffuse light of the front vestibule.
They lower their weapons and flashlights. “Looks like some shit went down in here,” Bob says.
“I ain’t no detective.” Josh gazes around the walls and floors awash in bloodstains that could pass for Jackson Pollock paintings. “But I’d say some folks turned in here a while back, and then you got layers of people comin’ in and helpin’ themselves to what was left.”
Lilly looks at Josh, her expression still tight with nervous tension. She glances at the headless greeter. “You think we could clean the place up, maybe stay here a while?”
Josh shakes his head. “We’d be sitting ducks, place is way too tempting.”
“It’s also a gold mine,” Bob pipes in. “Plenty of stuff on the high shelves, maybe stockrooms in back with merchandise, could be damn useful to us.” His eyes twinkle, and Josh can tell the older man has taken careful accounting of the top shelves of the liquor department, still brimming with unopened bottles of hooch.
“I saw some wheelbarrows and hand dollies in the garden department,” Josh says. He looks at Bob, then he looks at Lilly and grins. “I think our luck just changed for the better.”
* * *
They load up three wheelbarrows with down coats, winter boots, thermal underwear, stocking caps, and gloves from the fashion department. They throw in a pair of walkie-talkies, tire chains, towlines, a socket-wrench kit, road flares, motor oil, and antifreeze. They get Scott to help them, leaving Megan in the truck to watch for intruders.
From the grocery department—where most of the meats, produce, and dairy products are either missing or have long since spoiled—they procure boxes of instant oatmeal, raisins, protein bars, ramen noodles, jars of peanut butter, beef jerky, cans of soup, spaghetti sauce, juice boxes, cartons of dry pasta, canned meats, sardines, coffee, and tea.
Bob raids what is left of the pharmacy. Most of the barbiturates, painkillers, and antianxiety meds are long gone, but he finds enough leftovers to open a private practice. He takes some Lanacane for first aid, amoxicillin for infections, epinephrine for kicking a heart back to life, Adderall for keeping alert, lorazepam for calming the nerves, Celox for stanching blood loss, naproxen for pain, loratadine for opening air passages, and a good assortment of vitamins.
From other departments, they acquire irresistible luxury items—items that aren’t exactly paramount to their survival but might nonetheless bring momentary relief from the grim business of staying alive. Lilly chooses an armful of hardcover books—novels mostly—from the newsstand area. Josh finds a collection of hand-rolled Costa Rican cigars behind the courtesy desk. Scott discovers a battery-operated DVD player and selects a dozen movies. They take a few board games, some playing cards, a telescope, and a small digital voice recorder.
They make a trip out to the truck, stuffing the camper to the gills with the goodies, before returning and starting in on the treasure trove of useful items in the darkness at the rear of the store.
* * *
“Shine it over to the left, babydoll,” Josh asks Lilly from the aisle outside the sporting goods department. Josh holds two large heavy-duty duffel bags appropriated from the luggage department.
Scott and Bob stand nearby, watching expectantly, as Lilly sweeps the narrow beam of her flashlight across the disaster area that once trafficked in soccer balls and Little League bats.
The yellow shaft of light crosses mangled displays of tennis rackets and hockey sticks, cannibalized bicycles and heaps of workout clothes and baseball gloves strewn across the blood-spattered floor. “Whoa … right there, Lilly,” Josh says. “Hold it steady.”
“Shit,” Bob says from behind Lilly. “Looks like we’re too late.”
“Somebody beat us to ’em,” Josh grumbles as the flashlight plays across the shattered glass display case to the left of the fishing poles and tackle. The case is empty, but from the look of the indentations and hooks left behind, it’s obvious the enclosure housed a wide variety of hunting rifles, target pistols, and street-legal handguns. The racks on the wall behind the display are also empty. “Shine it on the floor for a second, honey.”
In the dull cone of light, a few stray shells and bullets are visibly scattered across the floor.
They walk over to the gun counter and Josh drops the duffel bags, then squeezes his massive form behind the case. He takes the flashlight and shines it down along the floor. He sees a few stray boxes of ammunition, a bottle of gun oil, a receipt pad, and a blunt silver object peeking out from under the case. “Hold on a second … hold the phone.”
Josh kneels. He reaches under the counter and pulls the blunt steel end of a muzzle out from under the bottom of the case.
“Now we’re talking,” he says, holding the gun up in the light for all to see.
“Is that a Desert Eagle?” Bob steps in closer. “Is that a .44?”
Josh grips the gun like a boy on Christmas morning. “Whatever the hell it is, it’s heavy as shit. Thing must weigh ten pounds.”
“May I?” Bob takes the gun. “Holy Christ … this is the goddamn howitzer of handguns.”
“Now all we need are bullets.”
Bob checks the clip. “Manufactured by bad-ass Hebrews, gas-operated … the only semiauto of its kind.” Bob looks up at the high shelves. “Shine that light up yonder … see if they got any .50 caliber express up there.”
A moment later, Josh finds a stack of cartons marked “50-C-R” on the top shelf. He boosts himself up and grabs half a dozen cartons.
Meanwhile, Bob thumbs the release and the magazine falls into his greasy hand. His voice goes soft and low, as though he’s speaking to a lover. “Nobody designs firearms like the Israelis … not even the Germans. This bad boy can penetrate tank armor.”
“Dude,” Scott says finally, standing behind Bob with a flashlight. “You planning on shooting that thing or f*cking it?”
After an awkward moment, they all burst out laughing—even Josh can’t resist chuckling—and despite the fact that their laughter is brittle and fraught with nerves, it serves to break the tension in that silent warehouse of blood and looted shelves. They have had a good day. They’ve hit the jackpot here in this temple of discount consumerism. More importantly, they’ve acquired something here far more valuable than mere provisions: They have found a glimmer of hope that they’ll make it through the winter … that they just may come out the other side of this nightmare.
Lilly hears the noise first. Her laughter instantly dies and she looks around as though waking with a start from a dream. “What was that?”
Josh stops laughing. “What’s the matter?”
“Did you hear that?”
Bob looks at her. “What’s wrong, darlin’?”
“I heard something.” Her voice is low and taut with panic.
Josh turns his flashlight off and looks at Scott. “Turn the flashlight off, Scott.”
Scott extinguishes the light and the rear of the store is plunged into darkness.
* * *
Lilly’s heart thumps as they stand there in the shadows for a moment, listening. The store is silent. Then another creaking noise penetrates the stillness.
It comes from the front of the store. A wrenching sound, like rusty metal squeaking, but faint, so faint it’s impossible to identify.
Josh whispers, “Bob, where’s the shotgun?”
“Left it up front, with the wheelbarrows.”
“Great.”
“What if it’s Megan?”
Josh thinks about it. He gazes out at the stillness of the store. “Megan! That you?”
No answer.
Lilly swallows air. Dizziness courses over her. “You think walkers could push the door open?”
“A stiff breeze could blow it open,” Josh says, reaching behind his belt for the .38. “Bob, how handy are you with that bad-ass pistol?”
Bob already has one of the ammo boxes open. He fishes for bullets with trembling, filthy fingers. “Way ahead of you, captain.”
“All right, listen—”
Josh starts to whisper instructions when another noise fills the air—muffled but distinct—clearly the sound of frozen hinges rasping somewhere near the entrance. Someone or some thing is pushing itself into the store.
Bob fiddles bullets into an empty magazine, his hands shaking. He drops the magazine, the clip hitting the floor and spilling rounds.
“Dude,” Scott comments under his breath, nervously watching Bob on his hands and knees retrieving the stray bullets like a little boy madly gathering marbles.
“Listen up,” Josh hisses at them. “Scott, you and Bob take the left flank, head toward the front of the store through the grocery department. Babydoll, you follow me. We’ll grab an axe from home and garden on the way.”
Bob, on the floor, finally manages to get the bullets into the clip, then slams the magazine into the pistol and levers himself back to his feet. “Gotcha. C’mon, junior. Let’s do it.”
They split off and move through the darkness toward the pale light.
Lilly follows Josh through the shadows of the auto care center, past ransacked shelves, past heaps of litter strewn across the tile flooring, past home and office, past crafts. They move as quietly as possible, staying low and close together, Josh communicating with hand gestures. He has the .38 in one hand, the other hand coming up suddenly and signaling for Lilly to stop.
From the front of the store, the sound of shuffling footsteps can now clearly be heard.
Josh points at a fallen display in the do-it-yourself department. Lilly creeps around behind a display of lightbulbs and finds the floor littered with rakes and pruning shears and three-foot-long axes. She grabs one of the axes and comes back around the lightbulbs, her heart hammering, her flesh crawling with terror.
They approach the front entrance. Lilly can see an occasional flash of movement on the other side of the store as Scott and Bob close in along the west wall of the grocery department. By this point, whatever it is that’s slithering into the Walmart seems to have fallen silent and still. Lilly can’t hear a thing other than her chugging heart.
Josh pauses behind the pharmacy counter, crouching down. Lilly joins him. Josh whispers to her, “You stay behind me, and if one of them things gets past me, give it a good whack in the center of the head with that thing.”
“Josh, I know how to kill a zombie,” Lilly retorts in a harsh whisper.
“I know, honey, all I’m saying … just make sure you whack it hard enough the first time.”
Lilly nods.
“On three,” Josh whispers. “You ready?”
“Ready.”
“One, two—”
Josh stops cold. Lilly hears something that doesn’t compute.
Josh grabs her and holds her steady against the bottom of the pharmacy counter. Paralyzed with indecision, they crouch there for a moment, a single incongruous thought screaming in Lilly’s brain.
Zombies don’t talk.
* * *
“Hello?” The voice echoes across the empty store. “Anybody home?”
Josh hesitates behind the counter for another brief moment, weighing his options, his brain swimming with panic. The voice sounds friendly … sort of … definitely male, deep, maybe a little bit of an accent.
Josh glances over his shoulder at Lilly. She’s holding the axe like a baseball bat, poised to strike, her lips quivering with terror. Josh holds his huge hand up—making a “give me a second” gesture—and he’s about to make his move, letting up on the pistol’s hammer, when another voice rings out, instantly changing the dynamic.
“LET HER GO, YOU SONS OF BITCHES!”
Josh lunges out from behind the counter with his .38 raised and ready to fire.
Lilly follows with the axe.
A group of six men—all heavily armed—stand in the vestibule.
“Easy … easy, easy, easy … whoa!” The leader, the guy standing out in front of the pack—a high-powered assault rifle in his arms, the muzzle raised menacingly—looks to be in his late twenties, early thirties at the most. Tall, rangy, dark complexioned, he wears a do-rag on his head. The sleeves of his flannel shirt are scissored off. His arms are heavily muscled.
At first, things are happening almost too quickly for Josh to track as he stands his ground with the barrel of his .38 pinned on Bandanna Man.
From behind the checkout lanes, Bob Stookey charges toward the intruders with his Desert Eagle gripped in both hands, commando-style, his red-rimmed eyes wide with drunken heroism. “LET HER GO!” The object of his pique stands behind the bandanna dude, held captive by a younger member of the raiding party. Megan Lafferty squirms angrily in the grip of a wild-eyed black kid, a greasy hand across her mouth, keeping her quiet.
“BOB—DON’T!” Josh bellows at the top of his lungs, and the booming authority of his voice seems to slam the brakes on Bob’s gallantry. The older man falters at the end of the checkout lanes, stuttering to a stop a mere twenty feet from the guy holding Megan prisoner. Breathing hard, the old juicer stares helplessly at Megan. Josh can see the emotions all stirred up in the older man.
“Everybody chill!” Josh orders his people.
Scott Moon appears behind Bob with the old squirrel gun raised.
“Scott, cool it with the shotgun!”
The man in the bandanna doesn’t lower his AK-47. “Let’s dial it down, folks, come on—we’re not looking to get into any O.K. Corral–type situation here.”
Behind the dark-skinned dude stand five other men with heavy-duty weaponry. Mostly in their thirties, some black, some white, some in hip-hop street attire, others in ragged army fatigues and down vests, they look rested and well fed and maybe even a little high. Most importantly to Josh, they look as though they would just as soon start blasting as engage in any kind of diplomacy.
“We’re cool,” Josh says, but he’s fairly certain that the tone of his voice, the set of his jaw, and the fact that he too has refrained from lowering his gun—all of this probably sends a countervailing message to Bandanna Man. “Aren’t we, Bob? Aren’t we cool?”
Bob mumbles something inaudible. The Desert Eagle remains in its upright, locked position, and for a brief and awkward moment, the two groups stand each other off with guns pointed at key pieces of anatomy. Josh doesn’t like the odds—the intruders are packing enough firepower to take down a small garrison—but on the other hand, Josh’s side has three working firearms all pointed, at the moment, directly at the raiding party’s leader, whose loss might put a serious kink in this little posse’s group dynamic.
“Let the girl go, Haynes,” Bandanna Man orders his underling.
“But what about—”
“I said let her go!”
The wild-eyed black kid shoves Megan toward her comrades, and Megan stumbles for a moment, nearly falling, but then manages to stay upright and stagger over to Bob. “What a bunch of f*cking dicks!” she grumbles.
“You okay, sweetie?” Bob asks, putting his free arm around her, but not taking his eyes (or the barrel of the magnum) off the intruders.
“A*sholes snuck up on me,” she says, rubbing her wrists, glowering back at them.
Bandanna Man lowers his gun and addresses Josh. “Look, we can’t take any chances these days, we didn’t know you from Adam … we’re just looking after our own.”
Unconvinced, Josh keeps the .38 beaded directly on Bandanna Man’s chest. “What does that have to do with snatching that girl outta the truck?”
“Like I said … we didn’t know how many of you we were dealing with … who she was gonna warn … we didn’t know anything.”
“You own this place?”
“No … whaddaya mean? No.”
Josh gives him a cold smile. “Then lemme make a suggestion … as to where we go from here.”
“Go ahead.”
“There’s plenty of stuff left in here … why don’t y’all let us pass and you can have the rest.”
Bandanna Man turns to his gang. “Guns down, guys. Come on. Step it on back. Come on.”
Almost reluctantly the rest of the intruders comply and lower their weapons.
Bandanna Man turns back to Josh. “Name’s Martinez … I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot.”
“Name’s Hamilton and it’s nice to meet you and I’d appreciate it if you’d let us pass.”
“No problema, mi amigo … but can I just make a suggestion to you before we conclude our business together?”
“I’m listening.”
“First off, is there any way you could stop pointing those guns at us?”
Josh keeps his eyes on Martinez as he lowers his gun. “Scott, Bob … go ahead … it’s okay.”
Scott puts the shotgun on his shoulder and leans against a checkout belt to listen. Bob reluctantly lowers the muzzle of the Desert Eagle, shoves it behind his belt, and keeps his arm around Megan.
Lilly sets her axe—head down—on the floor, leaning it against the pharmacy counter.
“Thanks, I appreciate it.” Martinez takes a deep breath and lets out a sigh. “What I’m wondering is this. You seem like you got your head screwed on straight. You got the right to take all that merchandise outta here … but can I ask where you’re taking it?”
“Truth is, we ain’t taking it anywhere,” Josh says. “We’re getting it to go.”
“You folks living on the road?”
“What difference does it make?”
Martinez shrugs. “Look, I know you got no reason to trust me, but the way things are, folks like us … we can be mutually beneficial to each other. You know what I’m saying?”
“To be honest, no … I don’t have a f*ckin’ clue as to what you’re saying.”
Martinez sighs. “Let me lay my cards on the table. We could part ways right here and now, no harm no foul, wish each other the best…”
“Sounds good to me,” Josh says.
“We got a better option, though,” the man says.
“Which is?”
“A walled-in place, just up the road, people just like you and me, trying to make a place to live.”
“Go on.”
“No more running, is what I’m saying. We secured part of a town. It ain’t much … yet. We got some walls up. Place to grow food. Generators. Heat. We definitely got room for five more.”
Josh doesn’t say anything. He looks at Lilly. He can’t read her face. She looks exhausted, scared, confused. He looks at the others. He sees Bob’s wheels turning. Scott looks at the floor. Megan stares balefully out at the intruders through tendrils of curly hair.
“Think about it, man,” Martinez goes on. “We could split up what’s left in this place and call it a day or we could join forces. We need good strong backs. If I wanted to rob you, f*ck with you, mess you up … wouldn’t I have done it already? I got no reason to make trouble. Come with us, Hamilton. Whaddaya say? There’s nothing out there on the road but more shit and winter rolling in. Whaddaya say, man?”
Josh looks at Martinez for a long moment, until finally Josh says, “Give us a second.”
* * *
They gather over by the checkout counters.
“Dude, you gotta be f*cking kidding me,” Megan says to Josh in a low, tense whisper. The others huddle around the big man in a semicircle. “You’re thinking about going somewhere with these scumbags?”
Josh licks his lips. “I don’t know … the more I look at these dudes, the more they look just as scared and freaked out as we are.”
Lilly chimes in. “Maybe we could just check the place out, see what it’s like.”
Bob looks at Josh. “Compared with livin’ in tents on the ground with a bunch of hotheads? How bad could it be?”
Megan groans. “Is it just me, or have you people lost your f*cking minds?”
“Megan, I don’t know,” Scott says. “I’m like thinking what do we have to lose?”
“Shut up, Scott.”
“Okay, look,” Josh says, holding up a huge hand and cutting off the debate. “I don’t see any harm in following them, checking the place out. We’ll keep our guns, keep our eyes open, and we’ll decide when we see the place.” He looks at Bob, then looks at Lilly. “Cool?”
Lilly takes a deep breath. Then gives him a nod. “Yeah … cool.”
“Terrific,” Megan grumbles, following the others back toward the entrance.
* * *
It takes another hour and the combined efforts of the two groups to go through the rest of the store for heavy items required by the town. They raid the lawn and garden center and home repair for lumber, fertilizer, potting soil, seeds, hammers, and nails. Lilly senses an edgy quality to the uneasy truce between the two contingents. She keeps tabs on Martinez out of the corner of her eye, and she notices an unspoken hierarchy to the ragtag raiding party. Martinez is definitely the honcho, ruling the others with simple gestures and nods.
By the time they get Bob’s Ram and the two vehicles from the walled-in town—a panel van and flatbed truck—loaded to the gills, twilight is closing in. Martinez gets behind the wheel of the van, and tells Bob to follow along behind the flatbed … and the convoy starts out for the town.
As they wend their way out of the dusty Walmart lot and start up the access road toward the highway, Lilly sits in the back sleeper compartment, gazing through the bug-streaked windshield, as Bob concentrates on keeping up with the exhaust-belching flatbed. They pass tangles of wreckage and dense forests on either side of the farm road, behind which shadows are deepening. A fine mist of sleet rolls in on the north wind.
In the steel-gray twilight, Lilly can barely see the lead vehicle—several car lengths ahead of them—a glimpse of Martinez in the side mirror, his tattooed arm resting on the outer edge of the open window as he drives.
It could be Lilly’s imagination, but she is almost positive she sees the bandanna-clad head of Martinez turning toward his passengers, saying something, sharing some intimate tidbit, and then getting a huge reaction from his comrades.
The men are laughing hysterically.