They plunge into darkness and overwhelming stench—rotting meat, acrid pukelike smells, ammonia odors—the door slamming behind them, making them jump. A single skylight way up above the cobwebbed gantries provides barely enough illumination to reveal silhouettes of aisles and overturned forklifts scattered between the high shelves.
Each one of the intruders—including Lilly—pauses to smile as their eyes adjust enough to see all the canned goods and packaged food rising to the rafters. It is, indeed, the gold mine Martinez had hoped for. But as instantly as they all register their good luck, they hear the noises building in the deeper shadows, as if on cue with their arrival, and one by one their smiles fade—
—as they glimpse the first of the shadowy figures emerging from behind well-stocked shelves.
FOUR
On Martinez’s signal, they start firing, the collective snapping of silencers and flickering muzzle flashes lighting up the dark warehouse. Lilly gets off three quick blasts, and takes down two at a range of about fifty feet. One of the targets—an obese man in tattered work clothes, his flesh the color of earthworms—jerks against a shelf, his skull gushing cerebral fluids as he knocks over a row of canned tomatoes. The other biter—a younger male in greasy dungarees, perhaps a former forklift operator—collapses in a cascade of blood jetting out of the fresh hole in his skull.
The dead keep coming, at least two dozen or more, from every corner of the warehouse.
The air thumps and crackles with strobelike light, as the shooters stay clustered tight near the door, their gun barrels fanning out and blazing. Austin drops the duffels and starts working with his Glock 19, another acquisition from the National Guard depot, featuring a noise suppressor and an attachment below the barrel that sends a narrow thread of red light across the darkness. David picks off a female in a stained Piggly Wiggly uniform, sending the dead girl spinning against a rack of stale bagels. Barbara hits an older male in a blood-speckled dress shirt, clip-on tie, and name tag—maybe the former store manager—knocking the creature down in a red mist that paints a light fixture in pointillist profusion.
The dampened gunfire emits a surreal racket, like a round of mad applause, accompanied by a fireworks display ripping through the fetid stillness, followed by the jangle and clank of spent shells hitting the floor. Martinez edges forward, leading the group deeper into the warehouse. They pass perpendicular aisles and fire at lumbering figures with milky white eyes coming headlong toward them—former machinists, stock clerks, assistant managers, cashiers—each one collapsing in gushing baptisms of blood. They lose count by the time the last one sinks to the floor.
In the echoing silence, Lilly hears the metallic squawk of Gus’s voice coming through Martinez’s walkie-talkie. “—the hellfire is going on?! Y’all hear me?! Boss?! Y’all copy? What is going on?”
At the end of the main aisle, Martinez pauses to catch his breath. He grabs the radio clipped to his belt. “We’re good, Gus,” he says into the walkie’s mouthpiece. “Ran into a little welcoming party … but we’re clear.”
Over the air, the voice sizzles: “’Bout gave me a heart attack!”
Martinez thumbs the TALK button: “Whole fucking staff must have hid out in here when the shit went down.” He looks around at the carnage behind veils of blue smoke, the air stinking now of cordite. He thumbs the button. “You just be ready to roll, Gus. Looks like we’re gonna be loading the truck to the gills with goodies.”
The voice returns: “That’s good news, boss. Copy that. I’ll be ready.”
Martinez thumbs off the radio, puts it back, and turns to the others. “Everybody okay?”
Lilly’s ears ring, but she feels steady, alert. “All good,” she says, thumbing the catch on each of her Rugers, dumping the spent magazines, the clips clattering to the floor. She pulls fresh mags from the back of her waistband and slams them in place. She scans the aisles on either side of her, where the remains of walkers lie in gore-drenched heaps. She feels nothing.
“Keep an eye out for stragglers,” Martinez orders, glancing around the shadowy aisles.
“Damn this thing!” David Stern is complaining, shaking a flashlight. His gnarled hands tremble. “I checked the battery just last night.”
Barbara rolls her eyes in the darkness. “The man’s hopeless with technology.” She takes the flashlight from him. “I thought these batteries might be a little iffy.” She unscrews it and fiddles with the C-cells. It doesn’t help; the thing will not come on.
“Wait a second,” Austin says, shoving his Glock back behind his belt. “Got an idea.”
He goes over to a shelf on which bundles of firewood are stacked alongside sacks of charcoal briquettes, cans of lighter fluid, and packages of wood chips. He pulls a long piece of hardwood loose, pulls a bandanna from his pocket, and wraps it around the end of the log.
Lilly watches him with interest. She can’t quite figure this kid out. He seems older than his years somehow. She watches him douse the fabric with lighter fluid. He pulls a Bic and sparks the bandanna, and all at once a plume of brilliant orange light illuminates the center aisle in a radiant nimbus. “Very moody,” Lilly says with a smirk. “Nice work, Huckleberry.”
*
They split up into two groups. Martinez and the Sterns take the front of the building—a maze of shelves brimming with packaged goods, household supplies, dry goods, condiments, and kitchen staples—and Lilly and Austin take the rear. Martinez orders everybody to move quickly, no fucking around, and if they see something they’re not sure about, leave it. Take only the items with a shelf life.