Cruel World(45)

“Looks like they had themselves a shootout,” she said.

“I suppose this was one of the first places people came when it started to get bad,” Quinn replied. “When the hospitals wouldn’t take them, they decided guns were the next best thing.” He studied the interior of the business. The lights were off and darkness shaded the inside after forty feet. The outlines of clothes racks and cardboard stands were the most prominent before the rest of the merchandise faded into obscurity.

“Okay, you two stay here and I’ll run inside to check it out,” Alice said, unbuckling her belt.

“No, mama,” Ty said from the back seat.

“No. We go together or not at all,” Quinn said. The finality in his voice gave him a start, and it must have surprised Alice also because she stared at him for a moment before looking past him to the waiting store.

“Okay, but the first sign of trouble, we run and get back in here, yeah?”

“Agreed.”

Alice shut the Tahoe off and complete silence rolled in. They waited for nearly a minute before climbing out. Shell cases crumpled and rolled beneath his feet when he stepped to the ground. A gull sailed overhead and in a graceful turn, landed on top of Thor’s sign. It leaned forward and screeched at them. Quinn drew his pistol as Alice rounded the vehicle carrying Ty on one hip while pointing the revolver with the other.

“Oh gross,” she said, stopping near the front of the Tahoe. Quinn took a step forward and followed her gaze.

A bloodless, elongated arm hung down over the bumper, it’s fingers snagged in the grill’s holes. The opposite end was a ragged stump, worn off from being dragged.

“That’s…” Quinn searched for the right word as he tried to control a bout of nausea. “…peculiar.”

“Peculiar? You’re an odd one, Quinn.”

With the barrel of the XDM, he pried the stiff fingers free from where they’d latched on in a death grip. The appendage fell to the ground with a dry slap.

“Now that that’s out of the way,” Alice said, focusing on the storefront.

They moved together in a line past the bullet-riddled cars and stopped in the entryway. Glass crackled under their feet, and Alice was about to take a step inside when Quinn touched her arm.

“Wait.”

“Did you hear something?”

“No, but that’s the idea,” he said, reaching out with the XDM toward the door’s aluminum frame. He rattled the gun against it for a few seconds and then stopped, watching the gloom filling the rear of the store for movement. He did it one more time, and when nothing launched itself toward them, he glanced at Alice. Her lower lip scrunched up and she nodded once before striding into the store.

Quinn turned in a slow circle after stepping inside. The space was large, the biggest building he’d ever been in. The ceiling stretched away into steel support girders, and the walls were decorated with banners depicting smiling sportsmen casting into rivers with long poles or taking aim through scoped rifles at enormous deer. The first area was dedicated to outdoor clothing and camping gear. Next were shelves laden with fishing supplies, kayaks, trolling motors, and camouflage blinds. Most of the merchandise hadn’t been touched, but there were empty hangers as well as several displays overturned, their contents splayed across the shining floor.

Alice moved without sound between the racks of clothing, her handgun sweeping back and forth while Ty held tightly around her neck. Quinn walked behind them, the utter quiet adding to the eeriness enshrouding the store.

They reached the back wall and came to the long glass cases that he assumed were supposed to display handguns like his own. Instead of shining weapons, there was only blank, red velvet. One section of glass was shattered, and there was a splash of dark blood, dripped and dried, down the front of the case. Behind the handgun displays were stands meant to hold rifles and shotguns. Most of these were empty too, but a few long-guns still leaned in their places.

“Mama’s going to set you down now, honey. Stay in one place; there’s broken glass.” She set Ty down, and the boy didn’t utter a word of protest. He waited with his hands at his sides, looking past Quinn into space.

Alice stepped between two adjacent cases and began to make her way to the rear displays when she tripped and nearly fell. Quinn moved to catch her, but she’d already righted herself and was staring down at the body she’d stumbled on. In the dim light there was no way of telling how old the man was but Quinn guessed somewhere in his thirties. Not that they could have told by his facial features even in the brightest light because everything from his mouth up was missing. The blood beneath their feet was still tacky. He hadn’t been dead long.