Every Wrong Reason(102)

“Haley, we need to go,” I whispered harshly.

I heard her zip up her pack and shoulder it, but I could barely make out her form anymore. We’d learned to act as soon as a command was given between us. There was no time to hesitate anymore, so by the time I’d slipped my heavy backpack on again, she was already moving toward the exit.

One of the weirdest parts of the Apocalypse was the quiet. I couldn’t get used to it. Back in my old life, before the infection, there seemed to always be noise around. Cars on the highway, music from my iPod, airplanes overhead, my parents talking at me; there was always something in my ear. Now, there was nothing, no background elevator jazz to soothe us while we shopped, no other shoppers bustling around and bumping into us. The only sound to break up the silence was our careful footsteps and the heavy mouth-breathing from a Feeder in the next room.

Oh shit!

I grabbed the handle on Haley’s backpack and tugged her backward. Her head whipped around and she opened her mouth to probably ask what the hell, but I held my finger to my lips and motioned with my head toward the way we just came from. It took her a second, but as soon as she heard the panting and wheezing in the next room she was instantly game for my plan of retracing our steps.

There was plenty of food for the bastard in the room he was in now, but I knew he would be able to sniff out our live, fresh flesh in the next two minutes and that was like the difference between prime rib and an old, moldy hot dog.

Best case scenario, he was going to lick the hot dog first, and come back for it later, after he ate his prime rib.

Which was me.

I stepped carefully until we were back in the Junior’s Department, always keeping my gun trained on the direction of the Feeder. Haley stood a little bit behind me, her gun aimed to the left where this area opened up to the children’s section.

“Son of a bitch,” she breathed on a strangled whisper.

A quick glance toward the direction of her pointed gun, showed the glowing red eyes of two different Feeders. That was the signature of the last stage of their digression into Zombie-hood: first came the cravings for flesh, then the heart stopping in a semi-death, the disgusting process in which their brain still worked, but their bodies started to decay and then the tell-tale red eyes, showing basically that all humanity was lost. By then, they were stronger, didn’t feel pain and only craved brains.

Basically, this sucked.

They could smell us, but couldn’t see us yet, and so they were still trying to pinpoint us before they attacked. Unfortunately, we could also smell them. What really sucked was that there were at least three of them, these two and the one munching away on all that delicious dead flesh.

They weren’t exactly pack animals, and usually they traveled-wandered aimlessly-alone; but if they ever found themselves together it was like they shared a hive brain or something. They acted as a team, without speaking or seemingly communicating, and once their eyes were red they were a hundred times harder to take down.

Our backs were against the wall, literally, and I wasn’t exactly sure how we were going to get out of this one.

I glanced over my shoulder again and noticed for the first time an exit toward the corner of the room. A discounted clothing rack had been pushed up against it, and it was barely visible in the almost completely-dark room, but a reflected Exit sign was still pasted on the top.

As quietly as I could, I whispered, “Behind us, Hale. An exit. Lead or Cover?”

Haley let my noise settle before she answered. The Feeders had already started moving toward us. Despite every Zombie movie I had ever seen, the real life versions were not exactly the dumb and easy to kill version of walking corpses. They were hunters, fast and intuitive. While humanity still had the advantage of a rationalizing, fully functioning, not-addicted-to-living-flesh advantage, they weren’t exactly a helpless opponent.

“Cover,” Haley finally whispered back.

And with her blessing I turned on my heel and sprinted for the door. I could feel her behind me, but out of experience, I knew she was keeping her gun trained on the Zombies that were now chasing us down to make snacks out of our innards. I gave up on being quiet and threw anything that stood in my way.

The trip across the room took maybe five seconds, but it felt like the longest run of my life. I could already hear the Zombie from the other room tearing his way to join his friends. My heart was hammering in my chest, my vision focused only on the exit and my ears trained to listen for any surprises.

As soon as they were in my reach, I grabbed onto the tightly-packed, discounted clothes and went to toss the rack, but it only swayed. Something was holding it to the ground.

Pure panic prickled my blood and my eyes watered immediately from the stress of the situation. I heard Haley’s gun go off behind me, but because the mouth-breathing was so loud I knew she had missed.

That meant she had four bullets left in her magazine.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I pulled again on the rack of clothes and this time it moved an inch. I realized then that it was tethered by something on the ground. While Haley shot off another bullet, I dropped to my hands and knees and felt blindly for whatever was holding onto the base of the rack. Once I found the thick rope that was tied to the base, I whipped out my pocket knife I kept in the pocket of my pants and began cutting at the rope frantically.

Another shot from behind me and one of the Feeders dropped to the ground. Good shot, Hales. There were still at least two more Feeders left, and I could hear more commotion from the front entrance. All these shots were probably drawing everything out there in here.