Cruel World(47)

“You did good, Quinn.”

~

They spent the next forty minutes making trips to the Tahoe. After walking through the entire store twice, Quinn found a small loading platform at the rear of the building and pulled the vehicle around making for a shorter route from the office. Alice picked out four AR-15s as well as three Sig Sauer handguns, explaining the benefits of each one as she handed them to Quinn to haul out. If she noticed the questioning looks he gave her, she ignored them, choosing instead to stack more ammunition in his arms.

The bin in the corner turned out to be full of MREs or, meals ready to eat, their contents displayed across the packages in small black print. They took the entire bin, and Quinn had to detach the third row seats from the rear of the Tahoe, leaving them beside a rolling dumpster. When Alice was satisfied with their haul, she picked up Ty, who had begun to squirm on his chair, and started for the door. Halfway there his small voice stopped them.

“I still need to go to the bathroom.”

“Oh honey, I’m so sorry; I forgot,” Alice said, turning in a circle to see where the nearest bathroom was located.

“Over there,” Quinn said, motioning with his light to the far corner of the store where two alcoves were cut in the darkness. “I’ll load a few more things that look useful.” Alice nodded and continued through the building, pausing in the right bathroom entry to turn on the lights inside.

After they disappeared, Quinn returned to the camping area and found a black, all-purpose duffel bag. He moved along the rows, the strangeness of being where he was compounded by the fact that they seemed to be utterly alone in the city. As he took items from the shelves and stowed them away in the bag, his hands shook. Not from fear but from excitement. The bizarre exhilaration hung about him like a fog, and he chided himself, thinking of the dead they had encountered already that day, the horrifying sights he’d seen only on TV before this—though those interpretations of death were weak when compared with the thing itself: the fetid smell, the slick of blood beneath your feet, the ravaged flesh. But he couldn’t deny there was something about being here, away from his home, in the company of others whom he didn’t know that moved him inside. The possibility of dying was only part of what he was experiencing.

The rest was life.

He caught sight of his dark reflection in a mirror near the rear loading door and stopped. He slid a palm up his cheek and then dropped it away. For a moment he’d forgotten. Being with them had done it, the action, the danger, the sickness and fear, but mostly them—although there would always be mirrors to remind him.

He stowed the full duffel in the back of the Tahoe and glanced around the empty space behind the store. The day had warmed some, but a cool breeze coasted continually off the ocean, the air thick with salt. It could’ve been any day. A tractor-trailer might have rolled around the corner with a shipment. People may have jogged or walked the paved path running behind the store and around the muddy pothole a quarter mile south. But there was nothing. No movement and nobody but them.

He went back inside using his light to guide him past the office and into the main area, heading toward the dim glow coming from the bathroom. He was halfway there when a sound stopped him, his guts contracting into a painful mass.

An engine revved once, and a newer pickup coasted across the parking lot, rolling to a stop before the blockading cars. The portions of its red paint not covered by splotches of mud shone in the sunlight, and when the doors opened, the sight of Rick, still wearing his bandanna, caused a wave of déjà vu so thick that Quinn, froze in place.





Chapter 12



Run and Hide



His thumb found the flashlight switch on the gun and toggled it off.

The brothers examined the entryway, their shotguns at waist level, eyes scanning the store’s depths as they waited on the far side of the line of cars. Ty’s voice echoed out of the bathroom, not loud, but not quiet either. Alice answered him, just a murmur.

Quinn broke from his trance and ducked, running in a straight line toward the bathroom. As he neared the doorway, Alice emerged, leading Ty by the hand.

“Get back, kill the lights,” Quinn whispered, nearly bowling them over as he forced them into the lit bathroom. His hand skittered along the wall and found a light switch, flicking it down with a snap.

“What is it?” Alice asked, instantly crouching, wrapping an arm around Ty’s waist as darkness invaded the bathroom and they became only shadows.