Rendezvous: Chapter 16

Chapter 16
A group meeting quickly assembled to discuss this new development. Those who hadn’t heard the zombie speaking in his cage were given the chance to listen with their own ears. After the facts of the matter were laid out, a heated discussion ensued regarding the ethics of the situation.
“If the infected people are still aware enough to speak,” Hank began, “I think it’s not too far of a stretch to imagine that they’re still aware of the world, if only dimly.”
“That’s always been the case,” Seamus said matter-of-factly. “In order to find and capture their prey, the zombies have to be somewhat aware. I don’t see how this changes anything.”
“Well, typically,” Cameron began, “Hollywood zombies have always been the walking dead. These, as we have seen, are more like the ‘nzumbe’ from the voudoun traditions. They’re still alive, not reanimated corpses.”
“Precisely,” Hank said. “And because of that, I think it’s safe to say that whatever the parasite does, it changes the person, and doesn’t replace or remove them. What I mean is that it’s still the person in there, and not a zombie in the philosophical sense.”
“So you’re saying souls exist,” Dee scoffed.
“No,” Hank replied, “I’m saying that, if Shep here - I’m gonna start calling him Shep - if Shep got infected, Shep is still in there. Changed radically, yes, but still a person and not just a meat puppet.”
“I still don’t see why this puts them on a par with us, morally speaking.” Seamus’ arms were folded across his chest.
“I’m saying that we don’t know enough,” Hank said, running his hands through his hair.
“We’ll never know enough, Hank,” Dee said. “We can’t. This is just the reverse of the philosophical zombie problem. Instead of wondering whether those who act like us also have first-person experiences the way we do, we’re just trying to work out whether those who look like they might not be like us still have the first-person experiences they probably used to have.”
“Exactly,” Seamus continued. “And since this is a matter of life and - well, whatever you want to call it, in thrall to the parasite - since that’s what’s at stake and they’re the aggressors, I say this puts us in the clear for putting them out of their misery.”
“How do you know they’re miserable,” Hank asked.
“Fucking whatever,” Seamus replied. “Bad word choice. I don’t care. If these guys are going to try to make me like them, I don’t want them to, and if they can’t be reasoned with, then I’m going to use force.”
“Why not just coexist?” Hank was getting animated now. “We can keep them at bay indefinitely, it seems. Why not just live and let live?”
“For one thing,” Dee responded, “I think letting the winter cold get to them is much less humane than shooting them in the head.”
“We don’t shoot them in the head most of the time,” Mary spoke up. “We bleach them. We burn them. Sometimes we beat them. Hypothermia and frostbite don’t sound so bad next to those, given their unusually high tolerance for pain.”
“Look, this is all beside the point,” Seamus said. “The way I see it, this parasite is a threat, and we’re dealing with it the only way we can.”
“No, we’re not,” Hank countered. “We rarely deal with the parasite directly, and even then only to stop it encroaching on our territory. Most of our efforts are concentrated on the human hosts. You don’t cure a cold by killing everybody who’s got one.”
Seamus sighed in frustration. “Look, even if you want to argue that these people are merely sick, but still fundamentally persons with moral worth, that doesn’t excuse the fact that they’re attacking us. Either they don’t have moral worth and it’s OK to kill them, or they do have moral worth and thus moral responsibility, and we’re justified in defending ourselves.”
“I think that’s a false dilemma,” Hank said after a moment’s consideration. “They could simply be mad - not in control of their actions, unable to take responsibility, but still possessing moral worth. I mean, come on, ‘Find them, get them, make them like me?’ Does that sound like something a person would say?”
“No,” Cameron chimed in. “It sounds like what a zombie would say if you gave it a voice.”
“Just what I was thinking,” Seamus said. “And since there’s no way to reverse the infection, at least not at this point, then I don’t really see the point in altering our current course of action.”
“I think this is a reason to look harder for a cure, actually,” Hank replied. “If we stop killing the zombies whenever they’re not an immediate threat, that’s more people we can potentially save.”
“I disagree,” Dee said. “The damage done to the brain is, as far as we can tell, irreparable. We’ve been able to stave off infection so far, and might be able to do it indefinitely, but I think it’s overwhelmingly probable that there’s no way to cure it.”
“I’m with Dee and Seamus on this one,” Sam said. “I mean, maybe with fifty more years of neurological research and state-of-the-art equipment, we might be able to develop some kind of therapy program. But the way things are now, even if some kind of cure is logically possible, it’s definitely beyond our reach. We have neither the knowledge nor the means to work on these brain problems.”
“I don’t think we should give up so easily,” Mary said. “I mean, the human mind is a pretty malleable thing, right? What if it just takes time for the damage to heal?”
Others started voicing agreement that if the hosts of the parasite were indeed still “human” in any way, then every reasonable effort should be taken to save them.
“Hold up a second,” Sam said, quieting the crowd. “Look, the human brain is not some sacrosanct magical thing, like some of you seem to believe. It’s actually very like a machine - an extraordinarily sophisticated machine, but a machine nonetheless. Has anyone ever heard of Phineas Gage?” Dee, Seamus, and Cameron had all heard the story from Sam, but half-heartedly raised their hands anyway. Nobody else did. “He’s the subject of one of the first and also most fascinating case studies in mind-related fields of study.
“Phineas Gage was a railroad worker. He was described by his coworkers and superiors as conscientious, responsible, even-tempered, an all-around stand-up guy. But one day, there was an accident, and a metal rod was driven into his head by an explosion. He recovered, but was never quite the same. After the accident, he became irritable, irresponsible, and lazy. He had to be fired. His friends said that he had changed, that he was hardly recognizable as the person he once was. His skull was kept in a museum or something, and years later, doctors examined it and found that the areas of the brain that the metal rod had passed through were those that had been found in other studies to be responsible for decision-making processes and mood regulation. The change to his brain had changed him.
“There are other cases where it’s been shown that the brain functions very mechanically. There’s a condition known as ‘pain asymbolia,’ which can be brought about deliberately and is sometimes used to treat patients in chronic pain that can’t be easily medicated or otherwise alleviated. Those who undergo this process just about universally describe the sensation in the same way: they say that the pain is the same, but they feel much better after their operation.
“Then there’s Capgras’ syndrome,” she continued, the crowd remaining attentive to her lecture. “This is where victims of head trauma have suffered a disconnection between the visual and emotional centers of the brain. What happens is that they will be able to recognize the face of a close friend or loved one, but since the connection to the limbic system has been lost, they don’t get the emotional reaction to the sight of the face, and they end up believing that the friend or loved one has been replaced by a doppelganger. People who have this condition can have the syndrome described and explained to them, and can listen to and understand all kinds of compelling arguments meant to convince them otherwise, but they are consistently unable to change their minds about the matter. The feeling that the other person is an impostor is so overwhelmingly compelling that they simply cannot be talked out of it.
“The point of all this,” Sam concluded with a sigh, “Is that the brain, while incredibly complex, is still a kind of machine that is ultimately beyond our control or understanding - at least at this point in time. If this parasite warps the minds of its hosts so that they’re driven by this single-minded urge to turn others, and reduces them to vegetables when it’s removed, then it’s more than likely the case that the changes it causes are not chemically induced - in which case the removal of the chemicals from the host’s system would probably cure the condition - but physical in nature, and cannot be fixed.”
The crowd was silent for a while, trying to comprehend what had just been laid before them. It was a lot to swallow. Many of them believed in the soul or something like it, and if asked, would have probably said that they thought a person’s personality - or however you want to describe what makes a person who they are - was a mysterious something-or-other that could only be described in quasi-mystical terms and oversaw the operation of the brain as a human oversees the operation of a computer. While not entirely familiar with the ins and outs of every causal event going on within the mysterious box, the “user” was, so they assumed, somehow able in principle to overcome any difficulties arising from “the machinery.” Except for Dee, Sam, Seamus, and Cameron, most of them were entirely unfamiliar with the myriad arguments and studies from the fields of philosophy, psychology, and neurology which seemed to lead to the inevitable conclusion that “the mind” is simply what the brain does. The idea that changes to people’s brains would result in fundamental changes to those people themselves was a foreign idea to which many of them were highly resistant.
“Look,” Dee said at last, “I know this is some heavy shit, OK? The fact that the hosts are able to articulate their state of mind, such as it is, is scientifically fascinating but emotionally disturbing. It puts a face on them that makes it harder to regard them as enemies, I know. But they’re still zombies, in a conventional, ‘close enough to count’ sense. They’re not exactly like Hollywood zombies, but few things are depicted in Hollywood with the same degree of complexity they have in real life. Just like Seamus said at the start of this conversation, this doesn’t change anything. The people out there in the parking lot are simply not the people they were before infection, and as far as we can tell, they live to turn us. From what we’ve seen of them, they don’t show any signs of what we would call a human way of life. For all intents and purposes, they are not human.”
“Dee, listen to me,” Hank said. “What you’re saying right now - and I’m not just saying this to play Devil’s advocate - but it sounds a lot like the ‘othering’ that goes on in any armed conflict. My concern is that we’re dehumanizing the infected unnecessarily.”
“And what if that worry is groundless,” Seamus asked.
“Well - look, I’m not going to lie. Staking our ethics on one course of action and then being wrong is going to be awful, either way. We could turn out to be mass-murdering innocent people, or we could wind up like them and be left to a truly miserable and inhuman fate. I don’t know.”
“How much information do you need to answer that question?” Seamus was pressing the attack now. “How much do you need to know to settle the issue in your mind?”
“I don’t know.”
“And what’s getting in the way of that? What can you find out to help you figure out what questions need to be answered, so we have an idea of the problem we’re solving?”
“I - I don’t know.”
“Then why should we change our course of action? This is surely cause to pause for thought, but we’ve all done that, and then some. And it will surely come up in the future. But can you really recommend any other course of action to us, with so much unknown?”
“Now, hold on - that’s all very pragmatic, but what I’m concerned with here is what’s right, morally speaking.”
“I’m concerned with staying alive,” Seamus said, eyes narrowed.
“But at what cost?” Hank’s arms were spread wide. “Is it really worth it to survive like this? Is this really how we want to live?”
“No,” Dee interjected. “I don’t think any of us prefer living like this. But we can’t go back to how things were, and like Seamus, I plan to cling to this mortal coil for as long as I can. If some morally hairy issues crop up, that’s a pity, but I don’t plan on letting them get in my way.” Sam stepped close to Dee and took her arm. Despite the resolute stoicism that Dee and Seamus were unapologetically displaying, the crowd was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the concerns that Hank was raising - concerns which they all shared.
At Sam’s touch, Dee became aware of her own agitated state. Her heart rate had elevated considerably, and she felt a cold sensation in the pit of her stomach. This, she thought, was the immensity that had been approaching in her dreams these past weeks: the horrifying, implacable, inevitable futility of it all. Hank’s words stuck in her head - Is it really worth it to survive like this? Some things, she had reasoned before the blackout, were not worth surviving - even if you made it through physically intact, the emotional toll could, in principle, be too great to justify a continued existence. Was this one of those situations? Were they really “surviving” the zombie apocalypse, or were they simply succumbing to a slower death from the inside out? She knew how to stay alive - that was the easy question - but what was the right way to go about things in a world gone wrong?
All this passed through her head in a flash, an intuitive realization that washed over her like a wave. Her words had silenced the crowd temporarily, and before anyone could think of anything to say in response, she said under her breath, “This is the way the world ends.”
Jack finished the line, his voice solemn: “Not with a bang, but a whimper.”

Rendezvous: Chapter 15

Weeks passed.
Working together, the group was able to jury-rig crude electrical and plumbing systems for the building. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked, and that was the point. The zombies returned, but the fortifications held strong. It appeared that the zombies would revert from “attack” to “shamble” in six to eight hours, provided that nothing came up to renew their interest.
Fitness and learning programs were quickly instituted to keep the group occupied and in shape. There was a dojo, a track, a weight program, an armory, and a library - sections of the store arbitrarily labeled to give a sense of order. Those who chose to take initiative were able to impart their knowledge and skills to others, and the group’s mood and survivability began improving in tandem.
Morale dropped as it was discovered that antibiotics only had temporary effects upon the parasite. Within days, the experimental groups showed growth as rapid as the controls. All the other over-the-counter medications found in the store were similarly ineffective. Alcohol did nothing, except in concentrations that would also be lethal inside the human body. Aside from the bleach bomb (a water balloon filled with a 10% bleach solution), nothing worked against the zombies that wouldn't also kill humans.
There seemed to be no way to reverse the infection once it had taken root, either. After constructing a cage, several zombies were captured in succession to try to undo whatever it was the parasite did. Every subject showed the same results: if the method of removing the parasite was not itself lethal, the host was left brain-dead, exactly as Cameron had guessed. They wouldn't eat on their own, they wouldn't swallow on their own, they would soil themselves periodically, and they had no response to any stimulus except for intense pain. The subjects who survived the removal of the parasite were kept alive for long-term observation, in the hope that they might show some kind of improvement.
The rooftop garden began to grow black fungus within days. They tried burning it off, which worked, but once the first sprouts came up, there seemed to be no way to get rid of the parasite without also destroying their food. Still, they waited for the plants to grow - with any luck, the parasite was around but not inside the plants, and maybe they could cook it off or neutralize it chemically before eating it. Canning and jarring would be a different matter entirely, though.
In mid-June, the tomatoes were ready. There seemed to be no interference from the fungus - it was everywhere, but it didn't choke out the other plants. Dee had been keeping a close eye on their growth, and the tomatoes were first to come up. She didn't know what to make of it; to all appearances, the tomatoes were ripe and healthy. Dee pulled one from the vine, and cursed as the outer part of the fruit came away, revealing a thick black root ball where the core of the tomato should have been.
“What’s the matter,” Kevin asked, walking over from his post on the rooftop.
“Fucking look!” Kevin observed the tangled, hair-like roots growing where he was fairly certain a tomato ought to be. Seeing the lump of tomato in Dee’s hand, he took it from her and inspected it.
“Well, it looks like this part’s fine.”
“Still probably contaminated, though.”
“Yeah, well, if you fry or boil it, it should be OK.” Dee grumbled and took a couple deep breaths.
“You’re probably right. Still - this shit is everywhere. I mean, even if that works, we’ll only be able to eat tomatoes, peppers, and other things where the core’s separate. Pumpkins, apples and oranges, carrots, potatoes - it’s gonna be all the way through those things.” She stooped down to take a closer look at the black roots. “What the fuck,” she spat more than asked.
“I guess we’ll just have to do what we can. Maybe we can grow some vegetables hydroponically during the winter.”
“Maybe. Maybe. I doubt it, though. If this thing can survive as a lichen, and the spores are in the air, it could stick around.”
“At least the zombies won’t be able to survive the snow.”
“That’s true.” No matter how much discomfort Zed was able to ignore, water in the host cells would crystallize and burst the cell walls, causing frostbite and thus tissue death. Since the parasite needed a host that was alive, if only barely, there was no way the zombies could hold out during the winter without migrating, and they probably couldn’t do that fast enough, anyway.
Dee gathered everyone up on the roof to share the news.
“So what now,” Seamus asked after she was done.
“Well, we ought to do the universal edibility test,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“You gradually introduce the substance to your body a little bit at a time to see if anything bad happens. If not, then it’s OK to eat. I think it goes, ‘rub some on the forearm, wait eight hours; rub some on the neck, wait eight hours; touch your tongue to it, wait eight hours; eat a nibble, wait twenty-four hours; eat a handful, wait twenty-four hours.’ If you feel fine, aside from the hunger, then it’s probably OK to eat. I might be wrong on the time intervals, though; I haven’t read up lately.”
“Why are we even bothering with that,” Cameron asked. “If we can’t grow food, then we’re doomed anyway. What’s the point in seeing if the only thing we can do is safe, if it’s the only thing we can do?”
“Well,” Kevin said, “I think if we can’t grow food in the open, we should build clean rooms and grow it hydroponically.”
“Oh.” Cameron shrugged. “Pain in the ass, but I guess that would work.”
“Exactly,” Dee said. “So - any volunteers?”
Dee, Jill, Sam, Kevin, and three of the Wal-Mart employees all volunteered. After deciding that they could only spare three people, they drew straws to see who would participate - Jill, Kevin, and Jim got the short straws. They would spend most of the time in their own individual cages, and would only be let out under supervision in order to cook their food or use the bathroom. For the first test, they would boil the tomatoes. Three days later, none of them had turned, so Dee, Sam, and Cameron decided to try them fried; again, it looked safe. Next, the first group cooked them in brandy, and once again, there were no adverse effects. The group began to dine on stews and soups, saving their canned and jarred goods for the winter.
The main problem with surviving a zombie apocalypse, it turned out, is that it takes a long time and is very boring. It's dangerous to go anywhere or do anything, and living strictly for survival loses its rustic charm rather rapidly. The activities that had been set up to keep everyone occupied, as well as all the chores that needed to be done, ensured that cabin fever would not set in; however, the situation took its toll just the same.
The parasite eventually covered the walls. They decided that it was a waste of bleach to keep pouring it down the walls when the lichen would just grow back up anyway, so they restricted themselves to keeping the roof and the store's interior clean. All wounds that broke the skin were doused in alcohol, bandaged with alcohol-soaked dressings, and checked daily for signs of infection. Everyone smoked at least one cigarette a day, and drank at least one shot of hard liquor a night. Plans were not made to raid the surrounding grocery stores for their canned and jarred goods - that could wait until winter, and was an unnecessary risk. However, the hospitals were a different story. Every couple of days, items were added to or subtracted from the "shopping list," and the plan was refined. Coming up with it was no small problem, but they decided to take their time and plan for as many contingencies as they could, and also give themselves time to prepare their bodies and minds for the trip.
For her part, Dee was able to keep her act together - but her thoughts were a different story. Every day, it seemed, she was creating new false memories for herself, inventing subtle details or filling in explanations that she could not possibly know, and it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to separate what she had actually experienced from her flights of fancy. Her dreams were becoming more specific, more focused, and increasingly disturbing. With effort, though, she was able to hide her problems from everyone else. Tending the garden kept her grounded in reality, distracted her from her delusions, and was relaxing to boot.
One rainy day, Dee was smoking on the roof, watching Zed through binoculars from under an umbrella. Cameron's voice squawked over the walkie-talkie from downstairs.
"Dee, you there?"
"Uh, yeah. What's up?"
"You, umm - you really ought to come take a look at this."
"Why? What happened?"
"One of the zombies we captured is talking."
"I'll be down in a few minutes."
"OK. Umm - hurry."
"What, has he got a train to catch or something? I'm on my way." She stood up and headed down the rope ladder to the shipping area where they kept the zombie pens, still smoking. "So what have we got here?"
"Just listen for a sec," Cameron said. Almost everyone was crowded around the cage, the solitary zombie inside struggling in vain to get at them. His moaning was inarticulate at first, but the more Dee listened to him, the more it sounded like speech. He was repeating the same set of monosyllabic grunts:
"Fuhh - umm - guhh - umm -"
"What are we supposed to be hearing here," Dee asked.
"Just listen a sec," Cameron said.
"Muhh - umm - luhh - muhh."
Dee kept listening. There was definitely a pattern to his grunts.
"Fuhh umm - guhh umm - muhh umm - luhh muhh."
And then again:
"Fuhh umm - guhh umm - muhh umm - luhh muhh."
The zombie kept repeating his mantra, and the more she listened, the more sense she could make of it. She was picking up on subtle accents in the utterings, little hints that made it seem more like language than random ravings.
"Fuhn ehm - geh ehm - meh ehm - luhh meh."
"That's - Christ, is he talking about us?"
"I think so."
"Fuhn em. Geh em. Meh em. Luhh meh."
Dee's jaw hung limp, and her cigarette fell from her mouth.
Find them. Get them. Make them like me.

Rendezvous: Chapter 14

The caravan arrived at The Home Depot without incident. Some isolated zombies had begun approaching from the South, out of town, but it seemed that the main push had been to the West, through the residential areas of town. Sam and Cameron stayed out front to keep an eye out and warn the group if Zed got too near.
The rest of the group quickly hashed out what supplies they would need: more lumber and hardware, rolls of insulation, tubes of sealant, spools of rope, and so forth. Dee went straight to the electrical department and started loading a flatbed cart with spools of wire, electrical tools, and how-to books. One of the trucks was loaded with empty five-gallon jugs which would be filled later with gasoline.
The group was loaded and ready to go in thirty minutes. By this time, the zombies had reached the parking lot. Sam and Cameron were taking them out in the ones and twos that got close enough to warrant attack, but they weren't too thick yet. As the caravan left, they could see that the zombies following them along the highway were getting within range of the store. Good - they had kept up their pursuit.
The group drove to a gas station on the East side of town, different than the one Seamus and Dee had hit on their last pass through, and filled up the trucks and jugs. The filling went a lot faster this time, as more people were available to pump. Seamus and Cameron fired their shotguns at the zombies that approached, wanting to bring as much attention as possible to this side of town in order to spare their headquarters on the other side. Dee broke into the shop to grab motor oil and snack cakes - not the most nutritious of foods, but they had a long shelf life, and that was what counted. The caravan then went on a tour of the grocery stores and hospitals in town.
Menard's, the Eastern Wal-Mart, and every grocery store were crowded with zombies. Cameron could see through his binoculars that they were both inside the buildings, and milling about outside. The areas around the hospitals and the mall were surrounded by dispersed zombies, just like the residential areas, but the group couldn't tell what things were like on the inside. These places would be easy enough to assault, but the problem was that once inside, there might be no coming out. No matter; they would just have to focus on getting a garden growing sooner. If they rationed their food, they could hold out long enough for the first harvest, such as it might be. Hopefully, they would then be able to occupy and fortify some of the farmland surrounding the town to grow crops in earnest.
With nothing left to do in town, the caravan departed for the country roads to the East, in order to loop around town and approach Wal-Mart from the South, as they had planned. Once they got South of town, there were no zombies in sight. They picked up the pace - with no zombie tail, every minute spent getting back to base was a minute Zed had to spread back out to them. When the store came in sight, Seamus tried to raise Jack on the raidio. By this time, the rain had stopped and the skies were clear.
"Hey, Jack, you there?"
"Yeah, I'm here. How did things go?"
"So-so. We didn't have any difficulties getting gear and gas, but food's a different story. How are things looking over there?"
"All clear. We can't see any zombies at all from up here."
"Excellent. Send someone down with the keys to the garden gate, we'll be ready to start our attack as soon as we get back."
"All right. See you soon."
"Yep."
As Dee drove into the parking lot, she could see a few isolated zombies shuffling about in the entranceways.
"Seamus, you see that?"
"Yeah. No way they could see that from the roof."
"They probably got pushed out when we took off, then didn't have anyone to follow once they got out."
"Shit, if they're thick enough inside to push out, this could be bad."
"My thoughts exactly. Radio back for some flashlights, will you?"
Seamus did as instructed. Without much to keep them occupied while the trucks were out around town, the group on the roof had set up a plan for ferrying supplies back and forth from the roof to ground level quickly and efficiently, so they could move gear even if access to the shipping bay doors was delayed. Jim met them at the garden gate with the keys and opened up. The eight from the trucks clambered over the barricade they had set there the night before, and approached the entrance to the store interior.
"Jack, we're just outside the entrance from the garden center. It looks pretty hairy in there."
"How bad?"
"Ehh, nothing we can't handle, but it'll be pretty tough." One of the closest zombies had heard their conversation, and had begun approaching the door.
"You think you need more people?"
"I dunno, I kind of like the supply chain thing you guys have going. Why don't you start moving tools and lumber up from the trucks? We'll need that stuff up there anyway to build the garden. We'll stick together in here, and I'll keep in touch with you."
"All right, sounds good."
Jim stayed at the garden gate. He didn't want to lock them in, but had to be on hand to lock up behind them if things got too rough and they had to evacuate. The roof crew began moving gear from the trucks up to the roof as Dee pried apart the sliding doors that led into the store.
Once inside, Dee rounded up the troops for a quick pep talk after the nearest zombies had been dealt with.
"OK, listen up. I want to try to conserve ammo here, especially because there's a lot of stuff we can use. However, there are a lot of places for zombies to hide in here. So this is the plan: we stick together as a group and clear out the store one department at a time. Then we'll split up into pairs to mop up the stragglers. We'll get one person with a shotgun on point, to look down each aisle - this will rotate every time, since it's fuckin' stressful to risk popping your head around a corner only to get a faceful of zombie. Then we'll work our way down the aisle with crowbars, then back out and do the next one. That sound good to everyone?" There were nods and murmurs of assent. "OK, let's do this."
The group soon fell into a steady grind, and the work went rather quickly. Sam almost got bitten by a zombie who had fallen down into a clothing rack in the men's clothing department, but other than that, the store was cleared without incident. Once they had made their second round of the store, Seamus radioed to Jack that they could come down from the roof and use the lifts to look around for isolated zombies that they'd missed the first time. They split into pairs, one shotgun and one crowbar, as they'd been in the trucks. Dee, Seamus, Sam, and Cameron stayed inside to work with a lookout from each lift; the other four went out front to clear the entrances.
Dee and Seamus stalked down the aisles with care; the lookout shouted down to them, which was fine because it would draw the zombies out of hiding, but they themselves stayed quiet so as not to advertise their presence, giving hand signals to the lookout to indicate their comprehension. Turning down the cleaning aisle, Seamus spotted a lone zombie at the other end, facing away from them, almost completely covered in moss. Large mushrooms were growing out of his torso.
"How did we miss that asshole," Seamus asked under his breath.
"Shh," Dee whispered. "Look. He's breathing." Sure enough, the zombie's torso was rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm.
"Well, they need their lungs to moan, it's probably just some muscle memory thing."
"But - look, later. This -" She was cut off as the zombie noticed them and grunted. Spinning around, he moved his arm out to the shelf for support, but his hand plunged into the merchandise and he fell against the shelf, knocking jugs to the floor. He tried to regain his balance as he went down, moving almost in slow motion, but his hand caught a clip strip that had been hanging from the shelf, and tore his hand open. Some of the caps had popped off the jugs as they landed, and the smell of bleach filled the air. The zombie was on hands and knees in the middle of the mess, trying to regain his balance but repeatedly slipping. Dee and Seamus watched in silent awe as the zombie began to convulse, the black moss turning a dull gray and then a chalky white in under two minutes. Finally, the zombie stopped moving and fell face down into the puddle, issuing forth a few last grunts as the moss and fungus soaked up the bleach. "What - the fuck?" Dee cautiously approached the fallen zombie and tentatively poked at the shriveled white fungus on his back with her crowbar. It crumbled apart. Seamus failed to suppress a giggle. "What's so funny? I don't get it."
"Hey, Jack," he said into the walkie-talkie.
"Yeah?"
"Cleanup, aisle twelve."
"Huh?"
Dee joined Seamus in his laughter. Soon, they were both doubled over, laughing out loud, holding onto the shelf supports to keep their balance. It was just too much.
With the store cleared, the group set about re-fortifying their position. The barricades at the entrances had held surprisingly well; they had been breached by going up and over, rather than through. Fiberglass insulation was stuffed in the gap above the shopping carts, and then the whole thing was filled in with an expanding foam sealant. Bodies were hauled out to the shipping doors in carts and unceremoniously tossed onto the grass beyond the curb of the back lot. Dee had the man who had fallen in the bleach hauled up to the roof for examination, as well as a couple other bodies for comparison. She didn't know how much she'd be able to learn from them, but she hoped it would be something.
With the store re-taken and secure, the supplies were brought into the store and the trucks re-positioned once again. Still no sign of Zed. Dee got a few people started on building frames for the garden they'd have on the roof. Without a robust ecosystem to support the soil, they would have to irrigate their mini-farm and rely on chemical plant foods. They would eventually have to raid the other stores in town for canned food to get them through the winter, but next summer they ought to be able to start farming at ground-level. If not, they were doomed for sure.
Dee then went to examine the corpses she'd had brought to the roof. A few people wanted to watch, some out of morbid curiosity, others out of a more detached interest. Most didn't think they could stomach it.
"OK, so - before we get started, here's what we've got so far," she said to the group, as she donned her gear: rubber dish-washing gloves, a particulate respirator face mask, and a pair of chemical goggles. "This black plant matter is what's responsible for the zombies. It starts out as a lichen, which you may have seen growing on the walls of the building already. After that, it develops into a moss, and finally, a fungus. Somehow, it's able to parasitize human hosts, turning them into zombies. Apparently, if the host is engulfed in flames, the parasite dies - of course, this is also lethal to the host. Bleach seems to have a similar effect, as you can see on whitey over here."
"How'd you figure all this out," one of the Wal-Mart employees asked. Dee thought his name was Greg - or was it George?
"Guesswork, mainly. And repeated observations. Just so everybody knows, none of this is 'Gospel Truth' or anything - we're just as much in the dark as you. If anybody finds the owner's manual for this stuff, please, speak up. And if you see anything of interest, tell everyone. The more we know, the better we're prepared. Knowledge is power, and all that." She took a moment to look at the group, but there were no other questions. "OK, well, let's get started, shall we?" Lifting a hacksaw, she removed the heads of the five non-bleached corpses, saving that one for last so any differences would stand out more. Then she started cutting the heads into left and right halves.
"Interesting," she muttered to herself, comparing the open heads after she had wiped away the viscous black ooze that seemed to have replaced their blood. "Here, at the base of the skull," she said, scooping tissue out to show the group. "There's a tangle of black stuff. Now, uh, I'm not a doctor or anything, but I'm pretty sure this shouldn't be here." She pulled what looked like black roots out of the pulpy mess. "Hey, looks like it goes all the way around the brain. There's also another knot up here by the frontal lobe. Huh."
Dee spent another couple of minutes poking around in the brains of the corpses, then used a steak knife to open up their thoracic cavities. "Oh, hey, that reminds me," she said, working the ribs free from the sternum on one of her cadavers. "You've all seen those things of like, 'healthy lung, smoker's lung,' right? OK, well, now compare that to - zombie lung!" She hefted a lung into the air before the group. It was recognizable as such, but there were thick tangles of black roots coming out of it in all directions. "We've figured out that infection can take root in the lungs. Err, we think so, anyway. Look, after a couple days of exposure, if you smoke a cigarette, you'll start coughing up black shit. We're pretty damn sure that means that spores get in your lungs and start fucking you up, so I would highly recommend that you all pick up smoking. Pray you live long enough to worry about lung cancer, huh?" Nervous laughter came from the group. Sam, working on a wooden frame nearby, exchanged winks with Dee upon hearing her previous sentiment restated. "Seriously, though. This is some pretty insidious stuff, so we want to try to take it out whenever we can."
Dee turned back to the corpse and rooted around in the organs for a while. Finding the stomach, she cut it open. "Son of a bitch," she said. "Check this out. I kinda thought earlier that stomach acids would kill it off, but if you look, it's like a slime mold in here. You can tell it's the parasite because the roots extend out again. Shit, this is bad news." Dee spent a few more moments contemplating the stomach before moving on to other organs. "We're going to have to start watching what we eat. Jesus." Rooting around for the heart, Dee found it similarly infested with the wiry black roots, as were the intestines. The kidneys, liver, and other organs were relatively untouched, though.
"What do you think that means," Cameron asked.
"Dunno. Could mean a lot of things. Might not mean anything."
"The liver stores toxins that the body filters out," Seamus volunteered. "If the parasite's so sensitive as to be dislodged from one deep drag off a cigarette, it might not be able to get at the liver."
"Ooh, good call," Dee said, struggling not to absentmindedly tap her forehead or chin in thought.
"Or, it might be that it's not needed. If that black slime is the equivalent of blood, then the parasite might need to keep the heart, lungs, and digestive tract working. The liver and kidneys would be fairly obsolete."
"Hmm - how would the goo function as blood? I mean, what would be the point," Dee asked.
"Err - I guess, maybe if the fungus photosynthesizes, it could hijack the host's circulatory system and use that to get nutrients to the roots on the inside. I mean, lichens, mosses, and fungi don't really have centralized - fuckin' - whatever you call the equivalent of a circulatory system in a plant."
"Yeah, but then how would it start growing in the lungs? No light, no exterior photosynthesis going on, no hijacked circulatory system."
"Well, we've already seen that it develops differently depending on the growth medium, maybe it metabolizes differently as well. Like aerobic and anaerobic respiration, it does what it can with what's available."
"Maybe, sure. Actually, that could also explain why we're seeing growth on the walls so soon, but it takes a couple days to get going in the lungs. Damn." Dee pondered this while she examined the organs in the other corpses, finding the same results. Then she started cutting open limbs to look at the muscles. What she saw made her curse, wishing she'd been taking notes.
"Now what," someone asked.
"Well, I kinda wish I'd made some notes on what the different organs had looked like, before I started poking and prodding and taking them apart, but I guess it's a moot point now. If you look at the areas where there are patches of moss on the skin, you can see that the roots are boring down from there into the muscle tissue." She peeled back a flap of skin that she had cut from a zombie's forearm. "My guess was that the parasite had a favored vector of entry - in this case, lungs or stomach - and then grew throughout the body and came out somewhere to spread to other hosts. But this - damn. This changes things. This guy over here, he's got this mossy patch on his shoulder blade. I didn't really think anything of it at first, but now that I look, it's at a spot he can't reach. And if you pull back the moss, you can see that he's got like an abscess or something here. What I don't know is whether this is an outgrowth or whether the parasite came in through here, by wound or otherwise. If that's the case, then the zombies might just have to bite us, like in the movies. And I don't know how we'd be able to clean out an infection in the blood."
"My vote goes to alcohol," Seamus said, grinning. "Alcohol kills everything."
"Look, sure, maybe that would work. But if it can get through the skin, too - I mean, what if it just looks like a rash at first? Then we might be well and truly fucked."
"I'm with Seamus on this one," Cameron said. "That's two votes for booze. Who else is with us?" There were nervous chuckles from the crowd, but for the most part, people were worrying about how to identify warning signs, without the knowledge of just what those warning signs were.
"Anyway," Dee continued, unfazed. "If I'd taken notes, I might have been able to guess, but - nah. Maybe if I weighed it, I could tell - no, shit, if it gets in through the blood, it could start anywhere. Son of a bitch. Where the fuck did this thing come from?"
"The moon." Seamus was losing interest. "Didn't they like send salmonella out to space, and it came back stronger or some noise? I want to get superpowers from space rays, instead of, y'know, die."
"Yeah, I think I saw that in the news a couple weeks ago," Cameron said. "I was all like, 'Hell yes, spacepowers!' Soon, we'll be able to harness this power for evil!"
"Dammit, guys, will you shut up for a second?" Dee was losing patience.
"Look, this Alien Autopsy reenactment is fun and all, but what are we really learning here?"
"Well, Seamus, aside from confirming that it takes root in the lungs, we've also figured out that it's got something to do with the brain and the heart, and it can live in the stomach."
"Well, I don't really like mushrooms, anyway, so I don't see as how this is really useful."
"It's - dammit, the whole point of this was to have a baseline of comparison so we could get a better idea of what happened to Bleach Boy over there."
"Well, crack him open, let's see what's up."
"Fine." Dee went over to the corpse with the whitened growths and started pointing out the external differences. "OK, as you can see, the plant matter on the outside of this guy has turned white. This happened within minutes of exposure to the bleach, so whatever it does, it does it quickly." Dee grabbed at a chunk of white moss, which crumbled at her touch. "Also, the stuff gets all dry and crumbly, as you can see. Now, let's pick this guy's brain." She removed and halved the head of the cadaver, as with the others. The smell of bleach filled the air. "Huh. Take a look at this. The clumps of the roots are all dried up and crumbled, and it looks like - yeah. Instead of that black viscous fluid, this stuff is much thinner. And, well, it smells like bleach." Dee took apart the corpse as she had done with the rest, and the results were the same all over: the parasite had become dry and brittle even in its root systems, making them impossible to pull out as she had done with her other specimens.
"OK," she said, standing up and removing her gear after the inspection was complete. "First, the obvious. Bleach fucks up the parasite, but it's fatal to the host, too. Aside from that, any ideas?"
"I don't know," Kevin spoke up. "Maybe we should hold off until we can do some proper science on this thing."
"Look, this basically is the scientific method," Seamus countered. "You come up with a bunch of ideas and try to test them one at a time until you get something that works. It's crude, but we don't exactly have a lab available. Or time."
"I'm just saying that I don't think we want to get sold on an idea that turns out to be wrong."
"I'd rather have any plan than no plan."
"Unless that's the plan that kills you."
"Well, hopefully it won't come to that, but still, better shitty preparation than none at all."
"Fair enough." Kevin shrugged his shoulders.
"Well," Cameron mused, "I think it's pretty obvious that if bleach kills this thing that quickly, it's really porous. Maybe we can weaponize the stuff. Even water balloons filled with a diluted solution should be able to do the trick. This guy just fell in some bleach and bought it, right?"
"Yeah," Dee said, running her hands through her hair. "Goddamn zombie killer death fungus from Hell. Can't stand up to household cleaners, though."
"Well, really, what can?" Cameron was scratching his head. "Also, if this thing is taking root in the brain, there's probably no way to cure the infection. Even if we managed to kill the parasite safely, the host would probably be brain-dead."
"Well, without healthy blood, there's no way you could survive, anyway," Seamus said.
"That's true," Dee said. "Oh, the thing I was going to say earlier, in the cleaning aisle. If you look at the zombies, I mean, I hadn't really noticed them breathing. Maybe they do, but really slowly."
"Gotcha. You think maybe the metabolism might be slowed?"
"I dunno. I don't know what starving people look like on the inside."
"Just an idea. That seems like it could help the host keep running with no food."
"Oh. Yeah, that's a good call."
"Hey," Cameron interjected. "This thing absorbs fluid quickly, but the host bodies aren't all dessiccated and shit. Maybe it's like a one-way thing, you think?"
"Could be," Seamus said. "Actually, I can't think of anything else to explain that."
"Shit, we're gonna have to disinfect everything." Cameron sighed. "We probably ought to raid the antibiotics, too. What do we have, penicillin, streptomycin, amoxicillin -"
"Anything ending in -cillin or -mycin is an antibiotic," Dee said. "That may or may not do anything. I mean, antibiotics work against bacteria mostly, and some fungi, sure - but there are side effects that could cause problems. If someone gets diarrhea and has to start drinking more water, this thing might be in the water and they could be doing more harm than good. I'm not saying it won't work, I'm just saying we ought to be cautious."
"Why don't we test it," Kevin asked. "We have antibiotics. We have the fungus. I'm sure we could jury rig something to test whether it's effective or not."
"Yeah, good call. OK, let's do that, then."
The conversation started winding down at that point, and the frames for the gardening project had been completed. They related their findings and conjectures to the rest of the group, as well as their plan to test the antibiotics. The corpses were dumped over the side of the building, and while they still had daylight, everyone pitched in to clean the floors so as to stop any zombie gunk from taking root inside the building. As the sun went down, there was still no sign of the zombies from town. A lookout was posted to the roof, with plans for relief every three hours. Tomorrow they would fill in their frames with dirt and start planting seeds, as well as work on purifying their water and testing the antibiotics. Everyone bedded down for the evening with a sense of confidence, tempered only mildly by anxiety. Sure, shit was hitting the fan, but they had a plan, and they were still all alive. That was more than they could say for the rest of the town.

Rendezvous: Chapter 13

The plan kicked off without a hitch. The rain had picked up a little, so the group was able to hide the noise of the ladders and get to ground level without alerting the zombies. Once safely down, Dee and Sam used their crowbars for hook-and-stomp maneuvers to dispatch the zombies on the way to the trucks. They noticed that black lichen was already growing on the outside walls, and the zombies were sporting mossy coats in places. Some had even developed mushroom caps.
The ride out of the parking lot was bumpy, both due to driving over last night's kills and running over the walking zombies who got in the way. Word of their departure quickly spread through Zed's ranks, and with Jack's help, Seamus was able to confirm that every zombie within eyesight was headed for the trucks. The group on the roof just had to stay quiet and hope that the zombies didn't lose interest in the caravan too soon.
"This is the most intense low-speed chase I have ever been on," Dee said to Seamus as they got on the street.
"I know, right?" Seamus radioed Jack once again as they neared the highway interchange. "Hey, are they still following us, or should we make another pass?"
"Nah, they seem to be concentrating on you pretty exclusively. Just stay slow, keep them in sight, and you should be fine."
"Ten-four. You guys stay safe."
"Thanks, you too."
Seamus placed the walkie-talkie on the dashboard, but kept it turned on until they got out of range of the store, in case of emergency. Sam was keeping pace with Dee, the other trucks staying about ten yards back. Once on the highway, Seamus yelled across for Cameron to keep an eye on the road ahead, and he'd make sure they kept within sight of Zed. Then he spoke to Dee.
"So what's going on?"
"Hm? What do you mean?"
"With you. Friday. When I came across you in the middle of the zombie mob, you looked like you were in some kind of trance."
"I was busy fighting zombies, Seamus." Dee's tone went flat. "I was probably just concentrating on the fight."
"Don't try to bullshit me. You were singing some song, it was like The Battle Hymn of the Republic, but it had different words. And it was in a minor key. Where the Hell did that come from?" Dee looked over at Sam's truck. Sam and Cam both had eyes straight ahead. She looked at Seamus for a long moment before speaking.
"Who else did you tell about that?"
"Nobody. I just want to know what the fuck's going on."
"All right," Dee said, lighting a clove. "Fine. But only if this stays between you and me."
"I can't promise that," Seamus said, lighting up as well. "If they don't need to know, I won't say anything. But if it endangers the group, then they have to know. The only reason I haven't talked to anyone else about this is that I didn't want to panic everyone. But unless you explain yourself -" Seamus stammered, not wanting to threaten her, but unsure of how else to communicate that there was no compromise on this issue. Dee, for her part, understood perfectly.
"Well, I don't know what to tell you, because I'm not sure of what's going on, myself."
"You're not doing yourself any favors. Start with what you know."
"All right, fine. Just - just give me a minute to organize my thoughts, OK?" Seamus answered by taking a long drag on his cigarette. "OK, I - Jesus. Look, when I was a kid - I was crazy, OK? My dad took me to a bunch of doctors, and they put me through a battery of tests, and what they saw was that I had vastly increased brain activity for a child my age."
"How old were you?"
"Like, three or four, I don't remember exactly. This went on over a couple years. Anyway, the conclusion they came to was that I learned extremely fast, but I made up things even faster, and like any kid, I got really wrapped up in the fantasies I was telling myself. I started believing them. Bullshit about past lives and whatnot. My mom eventually walked out, it was too much for her to handle. We took a trip to the library one day, I was in like kindergarten or something, and she found me looking up how to make pipe bombs."
"Look, what does this have to do with anything?"
"Well, the doctors didn't know what to do, so they put me on antipsychotics. I've been taking them ever since. They fuck you up, though, so they put me on a really low dosage and coupled it with some intensive therapy. Not like ECT or anything - just talking. But a lot of talking, with a lot of people. Eventually, I calmed down. But now I'm out of pills."
"So raid a Walgreen's and get more."
"Rosie and I tried, but that was the day the football team got us. We had already bagged the pills, and they assumed we were taking them for recreational use. We couldn't find them after we got out. I've been out since then. And there's been so much stress, I'm already starting to feel it. Like, everything is starting to seem really familiar, like it's happened before. That song - I know I never heard it before, but it doesn't seem like that to me. It feels like - it also seems familiar. But I know I just made it up."
"Yeah, you nearly fainted after fighting the zombies the other day. You said something like, 'Once you've seen one zombie apocalypse, you've seen 'em all,' or some noise. Is that all it is?"
"Mostly, yeah. Basically, I just don't know if I'm going crazy or not. Like, when the church started singing, I thought that was in my head, and when the zombies started screaming like people, I thought for a couple moments that I had just been making up the past week and projecting some delusion." Seamus took another long drag and reflected on the situation.
"Well, if that's all it is, then - I don't know. I mean, you seem to have a pretty good handle on things. I'm not gonna tell anyone. Not unless you start acting nuts. It wouldn't help anything."
"Thanks. And, actually, I'm kind of glad you know, now. Rosie was the only one who knew before, but - Christ, I mean, I love her, but I don't know if she'd be able to call me out if I snapped. Now that someone else knows, you'll be able to keep an eye on me."
"Yeah." Seamus watched the zombies slowly pursuing them. "Hey, there was one other thing that freaked me out. When you were fighting the zombies, you were - I mean - it looked like you knew where they were coming from, but without seeing them. I'm pretty sure I saw you nail a guy behind you without even looking."
"Maybe. I don't know. Why?"
"What do you fucking mean, maybe? Were you doing that, or weren't you?"
"I mean that I don't know. Sometimes, when I get in a fight, I just - it's like, I don't exactly lose control, I just lose track, you know?"
"No. No, I don't."
"Well, when I fight - I mean, I practically grew up fighting. I got in a lot of trouble at school for it. I was always tall for my age, and boys would make fun of me for it, and I wouldn't take their shit and I'd fight them. I'm better now, but when I get in the thick of things, it's like this red mist just creeps in from the edge of my vision. And then - it's hard to describe. It's not a danger to anyone else, as long as you don't attack me. But if I was really hitting people without seeing them -" Dee trailed off and took a long drag.
"Then what?"
"I know, I was just collecting my thoughts. Look, the Japanese have this term, 'sakki' - not to be confused with 'sake,' that's rice wine - what it means is 'the palpable desire to kill.' There's this school of martial arts, the one that Cam and Kev and I studied, they focus on that."
"Bullshit. You're telling me you can read minds now?"
"It's not mind-reading, and it's not bullshit. I mean, back in the day, they didn't really have any better terms for it, and the term just survived as a matter of convention. Like how electric current is shown going from positive to negative, when in reality it's the reverse. Anyway, as you develop in your training, you learn to get an awareness of what's going on around you, and at a certain point, you're supposed to be able to pick up on cues from your enemy that they don't even know they're sending. It's like mind-reading, in the sense that eventually it's supposed to become second nature, and your opponent isn't supposed to be able to tell the difference."
"You're serious? What if someone is able to - I don't know, do whatever so you can't pick up on it?"
"Yes, being able to mask it is also part of the training. It's basically so you can blend in with a crowd, or go unnoticed. The idea is that you slip under the instinctive radar. It's actually one of the tests they've got - the grandmaster of the order stands behind you with a sword and masks his sakki, and then just focuses it all at once right as he swings. You're on your knees, facing away, eyes closed, and you have to get out of the way. Too early, and you panicked - too late, you get chopped in half."
"That sounds like a myth."
"I did it."
"Really?" Seamus didn't even try to hide the contemptuous suspicion in his voice.
"Really. Cam and Kevin did it, too. I was freaking out when I first kneeled down, it seemed like I was sitting there for a year, panicking, thinking my teacher was going to swing at any moment. But I eventually calmed down, and quieted my mind, and then I felt - it's strange, it's like right then, I knew exactly what people mean when they say 'butterflies in your stomach,' you know? That was the only time I'd felt that. But I just knew it was time to get out of the way right then, so I did."
"As he swung the sword?"
"Yes. I mean, it was a dulled sword, so he would have whacked me pretty hard on the noggin, but it wouldn't have killed me."
"So that's what you were doing, in the middle of the crowd?"
"Maybe. I think so. I mean, zombies send a lot more cues than a trained martial artist. If you look closely, they do a little shuffle-step right before a lunge, they also inhale sharply and then grunt as they go into motion, there are a lot of little things like that. If you pay attention, you can pick up on them even when you're not looking at them."
"Huh." Seamis stared out the window, flicking the butt of his cigarette after one last hit. It was a lot to swallow - but, like the zombies and the bombed power station, he had seen it happen with his own eyes. He had no better explanation at the time. He'd have to keep a close eye on Dee, though. If she was on medication and had run out - fucking antipsychotics, of all things - she could be a big problem. But while she kept a grip on reality, she was a very valuable asset. Talk about a rock and a hard place.
The zombies were approaching the highway from every direction, tangling themselves in barbed wire fences and stumbling in ditches, hearing the sound of the truck engines from several hundred yards off but unable to catch up. Hopefully, their pursuit stayed this close all the way to their exit, then they could gun it to The Home Depot and lose them. If that worked, Zed would be on the Northeast side of town and would have to spread out all the way back to the Southwest side before he was a threat again. Seamus just hoped their luck held out that long.

Rendezvous: Chapter 12

Chapter 12
Sunday morning brought light rainfall. Those who had not awoken at dawn were roused at about half past eight by a warm sunshower. The group gathered in the middle to discuss the situation, and how to deal with it.
While the rain lasted, its noise would serve to mask their conversation to the ears of the zombies down below, so the group could afford to speak in normal tones. Once the group had exchanged greetings, Dee spoke up.
"Jack, you're usually up early. What have you seen?"
"Zombies. Zombies everywhere."
"And nary a drop to drink," Kevin said with a grin.
"Right," Jack continued. "They don't seem so intent on getting to us any more, though. They're kind of just spread out around the surrounding area, like they were around the apartment."
"OK," Dee said. "Cameron, have you spotted anything through your binoculars?"
"Yeah, a couple things. The wave that overtook us last night? That type of formation isn't anywhere in sight, but there are zombies spread around as far as the eye can see. The other thing is that the highway interchange looks pretty clear. From what I could see, people seem to have mostly pulled over before abandoning their vehicles."
"Good catch," Seamus said. "What about traffic? Anyone come through?"
"No, not that I saw."
"Damn. There could be clogs elsewhere around town."
"Not necessarily," Dee responded. "In dense urban areas like Chicago, yeah, that's probably the case. But we're practically out in the sticks, and as it appears from Zed's numbers, most people have just been staying in their homes like good, docile cattle, trying to wait it out. Besides, this junction here is the busiest one in town; it's where all three highways come together, and if it's pretty clear as Cameron says, then the others are probably even moreso."
"Fair enough," Seamus said. "But what kind of traffic did you see down there, Cam?"
"Uhh - mostly eighteen-wheelers. Only a few cars."
"Yeah, that's because this is where the business traffic mostly flows," Seamus continued. "The exit on the North side of town could be clogged with college kids wanting to go up to Chicago or the suburbs to see their parents. Or parents coming down to check on their kids. There's no telling."
"Good point," Dee said, after considering this for a moment. "I still think we should check it out, though. If we can use the highways to get around town, we can lure the zombies on there, where they won't be able to catch us as we pass. We could also use the terrain to our advantage: the ditches, overpasses, and fences are all good obstacles to put in Zed's way."
"OK," Kevin interjected, "But what then? If we re-supply and make camp somewhere else, the zombies will be able to find us there. I mean, it's almost a sure shot that they'll be around wherever we end up, and those that pick up our trail while we're driving around would just join in when they arrived wherever we stop. If we come back here, we don't know how many are inside, and might not be able to re-take the interior before we just get a repeat of last night."
"That's true," Dee responded. "We actually have a couple options."
"What do you think we ought to do," Bill asked. This lady had been responsible for a lot of the planning that helped them survive the night. He didn't know what her story was, but she and her crew were definitely making the difference between life and death for him and his.
"I don't know, actually. Each option has the potential to work, but there's also a significant amount of risk associated with each course of action, as well. Without the knowledge of just what the risk factors are, it's hard to judge which will put us in the best position. I think we should lay out our choices, and decide as a group which one we want to pursue."
"Makes sense," Seamus agreed. "So what are our options? Is it pretty much 'stay' or 'leave' again?"
"More or less. I mean, we can try to re-take the store here, or we can try to go somewhere else in town, or we can leave town altogether. There are good and bad ways of going about each of those, though. Let's call them Plans A, B, and C.
"Now, Plan A is going to be to take back the store. What we'd want to do here is get a crew of people down to ground level - I think we can lower the ladders to the roof of the auto garage, and from there down to the parking lot - and hop in the trucks out back. We can try to draw the zombies off from the immediate area the same way we did at the Dojo. We'd hop on the highway and take it up to the North end of town, and get off at The Home Depot. I want to pick up some electrical supplies there, wire and such, to get the generators running. We can also grab some insulation and what-not to seal off the entrances to the store, rather than clearing out the bodies. We should probably also pick up what food we can from grocery stores, if we get the opportunity. Then we'd come back and go in through the garden gate with Bill's keys, enter the store, and kill the zombies inside. We'd throw the bodies out the shipping bay doors, and basically be invisible from the outside. Now that we know to stay away from the edge of the roof, I don't think we'll have any repeats of last night.
"There are risks, though. For one thing, if the zombies to the West have linked up with another town, there could be more around than we'd be able to draw off. We have no idea how far their range is for whatever communication they've got - they may well just keep coming. We also don't know how many are in the store, as Kevin pointed out. It's possible that we will be unable to dispatch them all before the zombies spread out again, and they may catch us in the middle of things. That puts us back at square one."
The crowd was clearly divided. There were weeks of supplies in the store below, and it seemed a waste to just leave them behind. On the other hand, they didn't want to deal with an event similar to last night any time soon. Dee let them contemplate this option in the rain before continuing.
"Plan B is that we all leave and try to occupy another spot in town. There are some spots which are just out of the question - the mall is too much ground for our numbers to secure, and seems to have been the site of a recent battle, anyway. Menards is also out - lots of useful stuff in there, but the enormous picture windows by the front entranceways would be impossible to secure. The same goes for every grocery store I can think of. The Home Depot has smaller entranceways, no gigantic windows, and the supplies to secure it are right inside - but there's no food, save for what we bring. There's a more robust garden center there, though, which could prove more useful in the long-term. The Wal-Mart on the East side of town seems to have been the site of another attack, but it might be easier to take that one than to re-take this one.
"The most obvious downside to this plan, as Kevin pointed out, is that there very well could be zombies already surrounding wherever we end up. If that's the case, we won't have time to fortify our position before the onslaught becomes too much to handle. I think the risks are slightly higher, but so is the potential reward - we could get more space between us and Zed, which means better fortifications."
This did indeed sound better to the group, but the risk of the unknown was a rather frightening one - was it really so wise to abandon their position on a gamble? Staying where they were was also a gamble of a kind, but the dangers they risked here would do them in anywhere.
"Plan C has the highest risk, but also the highest potential reward. If the zombies from here have linked up with zombies from another town, and their chain of communication is able to reach that far, then they're going to keep coming until they kill us or drive us back to the roof of wherever we are. We may be able to re-take the ground level a couple times, but really, it's only a matter of time from there until people start dying. If that's the case - but only if that's the case - then our best option is to leave town and try to find another outpost of survivors or a deserted area where we can start over.
"The risk here actually isn't Zed, but our fellow humans. I mean, we're a fairly unlikely bunch, here. We're nerds - we made games of collecting knowledge, we even joked about how extensively we'd hashed out our zombie apocalypse survival plans, and most of our parents have imparted knowledge to us that's bound to help us survive. Rosie's parents grew up on a farm, Seamus' father is an auto mechanic, my dad worked as an independent contractor, and my step-mom's a nurse. Cameron, your dad's a career soldier; Kevin, your dad's an electrician; Jack, wasn't your dad a foundry worker or something? A good number of us have some martial arts experience, too, and from the looks of things, we'll all be able to get along in the long-term. My point is, how many other groups are there likely to be who are as well-suited to living this out as we are? Or, the other side of that, how many groups are there who would be able to survive, but who we would also want to hang out with?" At this, there were murmurs of agreement.
After some brief discussion, the group came to a consensus. In terms of zombies reaching other towns, they figured that even though the more urban towns around them could have experienced the zombie outbreaks quicker, there was a very small chance that the distances between had already been crossed. Plan C was the last resort. Plan B also took a backseat, as the other Wal-Mart was in the middle of a residential area with less visibility of the surrounding terrain, and The Home Depot lacked a gas station. Plan A seemed to have the lowest risk and to put them in the most secure position that they'd be able to maintain.
Dee laid out the details of her plan. The four rental trucks, each with a driver and passenger, would head out to the highway interchange, where they would drive North around town until they got to the exit by The Home Depot. If there were any knots of traffic along the way, the trucks would be able to go off-road at some point to get around the congestion. They wouldn't need to drive at high speeds, and actually wanted to give as much time as possible for the zombies to give chase, so that they could all be drawn off of Wal-Mart before losing interest. After getting more supplies from The Home Depot, the caravan would drive down the East side of town for gasoline and groceries. They would also check out the hospitals, and finally head out to the country roads that circled around town to lose their zombie tail and approach Wal-Mart from the South. With any luck, Zed would have vacated the area by that time, until he spread out again - they estimated that this could take anywhere from four to eight hours, depending on how long the zombies persisted in their pursuit.
"OK," Dee said, once the planning had finished. "Four trucks means eight people. Each driver should have a crowbar, and everyone riding shotgun should have - umm, a shotgun. I definitely want Rosie, Cam, and Seamus with me. I'll take volunteers for the other four spots." Eight other people volunteered, so they partnered up and played rock-paper-scissors to determine who would go. "All right. Seamus, you're with me. Cam, you're shotgunning for Rosie. Make sure to bring your binoculars, too. Seamus, grab a walkie - Jack, since you're staying behind, can you handle the other one? Good. Sam and I will drive the two trucks in front, you four just follow us. If we pull over, it's to talk, so make sure you pull over with us. Everybody clear? Great. Let's fuckin' roll."

Rendezvous: Chapter 11

The Wal-Mart crew was about a dozen strong, and once Bill explained the situation, they were quite receptive to the group from the Dojo. Most of them were happy to see other faces, glad for both the company and the knowledge that there were other survivors. The trucks were unloaded quickly, and then staged outside the loading docks for quick loading or, if need be, escape. The rest of the vehicles were parked in the auto garage.
Bill and Dee began sorting out priorities for securing the building against the coming zombie assault. With any luck, the leading edge of the zombie horde would pass without noticing them, if they could stay dark and quiet. However, they could not rely on that, and they would eventually be noticed in some way or another, which would inevitably bring Zed's full strength down upon them. They had to fortify.
There were two main entrances to the store proper, and a third through the garden center. The latter was enclosed within a sturdy fence and had locking gates, but the two main entrances were comprised more of glass than of stone or metal, and had to be further secured. They decided that the best course of action would be to simply forget about the outer wall and fortify farther in, making two choke points out of the inner passageways where the anti-theft tag detectors were located. They worked out a way to stack shopping carts by lashing them together with zip-ties, and laid them three high and three deep in a makeshift barricade, wheels at odd angles so that the whole structure couldn't be rolled in any direction. Next, right-triangle wooden frames about four feet high were constructed from two-by-fours to support the barricade from behind, with metal shelving screwed into the front, to prevent entrance in the event that the shopping carts were somehow removed. The frames were moved into position and bolted straight into the floor. Sand bags were piled over the two-by-fours where the bolts had been driven, in order to prevent the whole structure from being lifted out of the ground.
Bags of gravel were piled against the gate in the garden center so that it couldn't be pushed in. It was built to open out, but it was the only part of the structure that had moving parts and was not welded together, and was therefore the most likely to give under sustained assault. The store had two powered lifts, and these were positioned under roof access hatches at opposite ends of the store. After being raised into place, in order to conserve power, ladders were secured to the criss-crossing supports with metal pipe strapping. Free-hanging rope ladders would have to be constructed later, so that the lifts could be used elsewhere.
All this work was done by candlelight or flashlight, as the interior of the store had no windows. With the exception of the three entranceways, it made no difference whether it was night or day. Dee made a mental note that the generators would have to be installed as soon as the zombie assault was dealt with - she could probably scavenge wiring supplies from what was already in the store, but she would much rather take another trip to The Home Depot. The sun was setting, and the zombies were coming within a stone's throw of the building. Cameron gave his instructions on how to make Molotov cocktails again, this time with instructions on how to mix in motor oil to thicken the fuel, now that he had access to it. He explained how this process would make it sticky, like napalm. Dee and Seamus showed everyone how to use the shotguns and rifles in the sporting goods department. There was plenty of ammunition to go around. Those who had any experience whatsoever with firearms were selected for gun duty, and Cameron took the remainder for his grenadiers. All told, there would be eight shotgunners at the barricades, four riflemen and eight grenadiers on the roof, and the remaining ten would bring water or other supplies to the front, and provide relief if needed.
One ladder was designated 'up,' the other 'down,' and then everyone started carrying supplies up to the roof. With three trips from everybody, half of the ammunition and all the grenades were transported. Cameron was watching the advancing horde through his binoculars. Zed looked left and right, but appeared to have no interest in what was above him. Their presence had not yet been revealed. So far, so good.
Then a zombie hit the wall and stared blankly at it for a moment before looking straight up its face. Upon seeing Cameron, she began to moan and reach her arms up for him. She had no hope of climing the vertical surface, but the others took notice of her actions and joined in. Soon, the whole wave was converging on the store, wrapping around as it passed to surround the building. The derelict zombies that trailed behind the forward edge of the wave began howling and picking up their pace, leading those behind them to do the same, and so on.
Grenadiers were stationed around the roof and began lobbing Molotov cocktails as soon as Zed came within range. Dee and Seamus took three people each and stationed themselves with shotguns at the entrances, waiting to see if the zombies breached the glass windows and doors. If they did, the groups of four would take position atop the shopping carts, in the two-foot gap between the barricade and the top of the inner entranceway, and start shooting at the zombies that came in. They didn't want fire inside the building, if they could avoid it.
In just under an hour, the crowd of zombies was filling the parking lot and the surrounding streets and fields. There were still about a dozen five-gallon jugs of gasoline left, so Kevin and Cameron heaved half of those over the roof, where they smashed and spilled into the parking lot below. After each jug was tossed, a grenade was thrown down to ignite the spill. It had the desired effect. The motor oil in the grenades was throwing up a thick black smoke that made it difficult to see what was going on at ground level, but the gasoline fire was easier to see through. Cameron watched through his binoculars as zombies engulfed in flames eventually collapsed and began screaming. They had not completely burned away, but it seemed as though the fire killed off the parasite. Unfortunately, the human host could not be saved by this method, but maybe there was a way to cure the infection? If so, there might be light at the end of the tunnel yet - though it still left the questions of how the power stations had been bombed and how the two occurrences were connected.
Dee was having the same thoughts while she watched the zombies through the barricade. She also took heart at the fact that she had not been hallucinating the events while fighting Zed outside the Dojo yesterday. There had actually been a church full of people singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and the zombies actually started screaming like normal humans when the parasite burned away - but there was still that song that had been running through her head. Mine eyes have seen the horrors that have risen from the tomb - where had that come from? Paradoxically, it seemed both foreign and familiar at the same time.
No matter, Dee thought as she heard glass crack and shatter. Zed was breaching their outer marker. She had work to do. The four of them climbed up the back of the barricade frame and settled in the middle row of shopping carts, plastic shopping bags full of ammo at their sides. The fires outside were illuminating the night, giving them targets while lending a surreal atmosphere to the whole event. The zip ties held fast - they had used a lot of them to secure the barricade, and it would be exceedingly difficult to move or tip the whole structure.
"Wait for them to break the glass and enter," Dee told her companions. "We don't want to do any of their work for them." For the moment, only isolated limbs were pressing through the openings, the teeming mass outside crushing those in front against the walls. But soon, the doors gave way and broke inward. The clamor of shotgun-fire rang loud against the stone construction of the building. The noise drew the attention of more zombies from outside, and soon they were clawing at the windows, trying to break through rather than idly reaching for the group on the roof.
The zombies were literally climbing on top of each other to get through the windows. At each entrance, the living were holding off Zed with their shotguns, but he kept coming and coming. As they piled up outside and inside, it became hard to see as the firelight was gradually blocked. Seamus shouted for flashlights, and soon four more people had joined each barricade, painting targets with their lights, which served both to reduce redundant shooting and increase accuracy.
The zombies just kept coming. Cameron ordered supplies to be hauled to the roof to make more grenades: motor oil, glass bottles, and shirts. Ethan was able to haul up a jug of gasoline all by himself, so he did that while the rest of the grenadiers grabbed the other supplies. Fifteen of the last thirty gallons of gasoline were designated for use to make more Molotov cocktails - Cameron set half of the grenadiers to keep assembling them after two dozen had been made, who would then rotate after they had made replacements while the previous throwers made more. In that way, they could keep bombarding Zed without running out of grenades.
With most of the attention focused on the roof and the two entranceways, the bay doors to the shipping docks and the auto garage were holding, as was the fence surrounding the garden center. Back at the storefront, bodies had piled up so high as to seal the entrances. The gunners had a few minutes of respite from the assaulting mob, but soon, the dead bodies at the top of the pile began moving again. The flashlights revealed that they were not reanimating; the trampling swarm outside was beginning to churn the pile of bodies underfoot as they clambered up the mounting dead. Runners were sent to fetch more shells, and a few minutes later the assault renewed.
Zed just kept coming. His numbers were in the tens of thousands, and the defenders just didn't have the supplies to fuel their resistance. It was three hours into the battle, and the corpses at the entranceway were piling up within arm's reach of the top row of shopping carts. The zombies were coming in steadily over the churn of dead bodies, but the view to the outside was still blocked. With no idea how many more there were, and shells running low, Dee gave the order for retreat. She told everyone to head to the roof, then went over to Seamus' barricade, where he was in the same situation.
"Seamus, let's get to the roof!"
"The fuck, Dee? Just give 'em the store?"
"No. We'll have to take it back. But we can't hold them here. They're piling up, and soon they'll just crawl in over the barricade."
Seamus grumbled in protest, but was powerless to argue. He didn't like this option, but couldn't think of a better one at the moment, so he complied. They still had some time before the zombies entered the store proper, so everyone grabbed backpacks and brought food, water, and weapons up to the roof. They made as many trips as they could, until the first zombie was spotted clambering over the barricade. Then they removed the ladders from the lifts, lowered the lifts to just within the ladder's reach, and finally hauled the ladders to the roof after everyone was up.
The hatches were shut. They were safe for the moment, but Zed was still coming. They had nothing to do but get what sleep they could, and hope that the zombies lost interest by the morning. The screams died down as the fires went out, but the moans persisted long into the night.

Rendezvous: Chapter 10

Saturday morning was beautiful, with the sole exception of the zombies in the streets. Cameron, who had minored in anthropology, was up early to keep an eye on Zed. He wanted to know as much as he could about the enemy, the better to fight him. Apparently, zombies didn't retain long-term memories, as they were milling about in the streets below rather aimlessly, with no discerinible desire to get into the Dojo. They had thinned out quite a bit, too. With his binoculars, Cameron could see that some of the charred corpses in the street were not entirely burned up - there was still plenty of muscle tissue on some of them, and their brains had probably not liquefied. If the black fungus was in fact responsible for the zombie outbreak, and functioned as some sort of parasite, then -
His reverie was interrupted as others stirred from slumber. Jack and Kevin were waking everyone up. It was probably around nine. They would want to head out soon to make the most of the day and get situated at Wal-Mart before nightfall. Sam came over to the window to join Cameron in his observations.
"See anything interesting?"
"A little. They're not bunching together. If you look out the different windows, you can see that they're spacing themselves out about half a block apart. They're staying within earshot of each other, probably so that when they detect prey and start moaning, others can join them in short order. It's actually a pretty sophisticated dispersal pattern. For zombies, that is."
"Huh. You think they know what they're doing?"
"Dunno. Could be deliberate thought processes. Could be blind instinct. Could have something to do with the parasite. But I'll give you ten to one that as soon as someone in the middle of that mess gets noticed, they'll have zombies coming from all over within an hour."
"Yeah. Jeez. Good thing we have cars, huh?"
"Yeah, if they're carpeting the city like this, we'll need to keep moving once we start, or we'll just get surrounded and overwhelmed."
Once everyone was awake, Cameron shared his observations and conjectures with the rest of the group. Then they went over the plan. The truck and the station wagon were still out front, so a load of people would jump into the wagon, with two people in the truck to clear the way if necessary. Once at The Home Depot, everyone would pile out, two to a truck, and load up on supplies. Once back to the Dojo, the rest of their food and gear would be loaded up, and they'd head out for Wal-Mart. Cameron would have a small supply of Molotov cocktails at the ready, should the need arise.
As the group headed out, the zombies started moaning and shambling after them, exactly as Cameron had predicted. None of them seemed interested in investigating the Dojo further. The drive to The Home Depot was fairly uneventful. Seamus and Kevin, leading the way in the truck, were swerving to run down the zombies in their path, which were rather thinly dispersed now that the front wave had passed.
Upon arrival at their destination, Seamus and Kevin stayed in the cab to keep watch. The trucks were lined up by the main entrance, which Dee found undisturbed, and loaded with lumber, pipes, screws, nuts, bolts, various tools, batteries of various sizes (mainly those which wouldn't be found at Wal-Mart) and a generator each. Lane and Cole were sent to raid the garden department for seeds, soil, and gardening books, to which one entire truck was devoted. As a last-minute inspiration, they also grabbed water filtration supplies from the plumbing department, hoping to purify their water without the need for distillation.
The drive back was considerably more exciting, as droves of zombies had picked up their trail in the time they had spent gathering gear. The caravan had to take several detours to avoid impassable knots of undead. Dee and Sam were at the rear, alone in the station wagon, and only had to follow - the trucks were plowing zombies out of the way whenever necessary.
"So how are you holding up, hon," Sam asked, behind the wheel.
"OK, I guess," Dee responded, smoking a cigarette.
"Well, I mean, your medication and everything. You know how long it'll be before - well -"
"I don't. And I think it's already started. But I can't be sure."
"Why not? What makes you think that?"
"I've been having dreams. Not quite nightmares. I just get the sense that some big, vast, fuckin' - thing, I don't know. Something. It's approaching. It keeps coming. And it scares the shit out of me."
"Just something huge? Could it be, I don't know, the zombies?"
"I don't know. The dreams started before the zombies, so I don't know. There's been so much stress lately, I can't make heads or tails of any of this. Everything's starting to seem familiar. Like I've been here before. It's fucked up. And the situation itself isn't helping. I keep questioning whether I'm still sane or not. I mean, when zombies are in the fucking streets, how can you tell when you've lost it?"
"You haven't lost it, love. Yeah, everything's fucked, everyone's under a ton of stress, but you're keeping it together, as far as I can tell."
"Thanks, babe. I just - it's hard, you know? I wish I could - dammit, why can't I just have a light or a gauge or something, up in the corner of my vision, that tells me whether I'm crazy or not? Like in a video game."
"Ha ha! That would be too easy. Also, magic."
"Yeah. Still. Every power station on the planet is out. From the looks of things, it's by bombing. Who would do this? And fucking how? And what the fuck zombies?"
"I know. It's fucking weird. Shit, I'm starting to think I'm going crazy, at times. But whatever. I mean, we just have to get everyone to Wal-Mart and hole up there, then wait out the bullshit until things get back to normal. Right?"
"I hope so. But - fuck, what if there is no back to normal? I mean, what if this is really it? There are probably scattered outposts around the world, I'll bet the Green Berets are having a fucking field day with this, but what if nobody makes it in the long run? What if this is just the death throes of the human race?"
"Then I guess we go out with a bang, huh? I mean, we all gotta die some day. The Sun's gonna go out eventually. It can't last forever. Right?"
"I know, it just - shit. That sounds like something I would say. When did you become the stoic one?"
"Heh. Maybe somewhere between 'zombie' and 'apocalypse.' Hey, can I bum a clove off you?"
"Sure." Dee fished the pack out of her jacket pocket and handed it to Sam, along with her Zippo.
"Thanks. Here's hoping I live long enough to die of cancer."
"Fuckin' A."
Sam lit up and took a drag, inhaling deeply. She had smoked before, both cigarettes and marijuana, but she started coughing fiercely. She almost had to pull the car over. Something foul came up from her throat, and she spit out the open window. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, it came away black.
"Oh, shit!"
"What is it?"
"Fucking - ugh! I just coughed up black shit!"
"Well, Christ, get it out!"
Sam kept hacking up black slime. The globules of sludge felt like swallowing an oyster, but backwards. Dee pulled a tissue from the glove compartment and spit into it. Clear. Strange. Finally, Sam stopped coughing.
"Gross. Tastes like shit. Blech." She kept smoking.
"Look at the road, Rosie. You can see those little black lichens everywhere. It's hard to pick 'em out from the blacktop, but we're going slow enough, you ought to be able to see 'em."
"Fuck me running, you're right. You think - Jesus, I think I just hacked that stuff out of my lungs. What the fuck is this thing?"
"I don't know. Once we get things stabilized at Wal-Mart, though, we should raid a hospital. I don't know what we can find out, but we need to figure out as much as we can. This is some heavy shit, here."
"You said it."
By the time they got back to the Dojo, there were no zombies in sight. While everyone loaded the rest of their supplies into the remaining truck space, Dee went to the smoke shop below the Dojo to grab all the cloves she could find. She went to the truck and handed a clove to Kevin.
"Smoke this."
"What? Why?"
"Rosie just had a drag and started coughing up black slime. She smoked pot on - what was it, Tuesday? Wednesday night? Look, I think the spores might be infecting our lungs, so smoke this. If you cough up black shit, then I think we'll know for sure."
"OK - whatever." Kevin lit up with Dee's Zippo and started hacking immediately after taking a drag.
"OK, keep coughing that up, get it all out. When you smoke, inhale as deep as you can. You want to kill it all and spit it out."
"Jesus fucking Christ, Dee," Seamus said. "You mean this shit's in the air?"
"Looks like it. Try to get everyone to start smoking. Let's just hope that smoke keeps killing it."
Kevin's car had the back seat filled with smoking paraphernelia. By the time the group left the Dojo, there were puddles of black ooze on the sidewalk. A few people vomited. Nobody missed the irony that smoking was now saving lives. Someone pointed out that there was already black lichen growing fresh on the charred corpses in the street. It was taking root in the mortar of the buildings. There was no outrunning it - it was everywhere.
On the drive to Wal-Mart, the caravan passed the leading edge of the zombie wave. It was still about a quarter-mile East of their destination, but they'd close the distance by nightfall. Cars were still in the parking lot, though it seemed that there were fewer now, only a dozen or so. Seamus and Kevin were still in the lead, and as they pulled up, they saw a teenager sitting in a lawn chair in the entrance. Upon seeing the truck, he got to his feet and grabbed a rifle from behind where he had been sitting. Kevin got out and knocked at the door.
"Go away!"
"Look, we don't want to start any trouble. There's some major shit going down in town, though, and - well, there's about eighteen of us out here. We'd like to join you."
"We're fine. We don't need any help."
"Hey, I bet you guys are safe and sound in there. We want to be safe and sound, too. How many of you are there."
"Enough."
"Enough for what? I see about a dozen cars out here."
"We're fine. We're just gonna stay here until the power comes back on and things get back to normal."
"I don't know if you've heard, but the power station has been bombed or something. There's not going to be any 'back to normal' for a very long time. What's your situation?"
"I told you, we're fine. Just go on an' get outta here."
"Do you guys have a generator going?" At this point, Seamus got out of the truck and joined Kevin at the entrance.
"Don't need one."
"Well, are you growing food on the roof?" The boy stammered before saying that they were not. "You're probably going to want to do that, too." As Seamus got to the door, the boy raised his rifle to aim at them.
"Hey," Seamus said, "We don't want any trouble. We're looking for a safe spot."
"Well, it's not here. Now get going."
"I think we could help you out," Kevin responded. "We have a few generators, more people to help do some work, and a lot of know-how between us. Who's in charge?"
"The night manager."
"Why don't you bring him out here, and we'll talk this over?"
"Don't need to. You folks just move along."
"How long have you been here," Seamus asked.
"Since the power went out."
"Well," Seamus continued, "It sounds like you might not be aware of what's going on. We'll just wait out here, if you want to go get the boss, and we can tell you guys what the situation is." At this point, Dee joined them at the door.
"Look, we're fine, and we don't need anyone else. Now get going, or I'll have to shoot." He adjusted the rifle at his shoulder, but his posture was clumsy.
"Your safety's on," Dee said, after sizing up the boy. "Is that even loaded? Do you know how to fire it?"
"I'm not joking. If you don't leave now, I'm going to shoot."
"You don't have any ammo. Even if you shoot one of us, we'd definitely overrun you by the time you got back to the sporting goods department."
"Dee, shut up," Seamus said. "Listen, kid - no, I'm sorry, what's your name?"
"Jim."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Seamus. OK, Jim, look: the power's out all over the country. It's probably out all over the world. And, I'm not joking, there are zombies out there."
"Bullshit," Jim interrupted.
"I'm serious. They're about a quarter-mile away from us, and they'll be all over this place by nightfall. Now, if you just want to turn us away, fine, we're not going to fight you. But if we go, you'll be losing out on a lot of helping hands, as well as the supplies we've brought with us."
Jim hesitated for a few moments, then lowered his gun and said he'd be right back. Dee went to get Cameron's binoculars, and he came back to the entrance with her. Soon afterward, Jim returned with a taller man with short, black hair.
"Jim says you have information and supplies?"
"Yes," Seamus responded. "We've been in the middle of town since the blackout started. We've also done some scouting around, and from what we can tell, things aren't getting back to normal any time soon."
"What's this about zombies?"
"They're about a quarter-mile away. You can probably see them from out here, if you take a look through these binoculars."
"And how do I know you're all not just crazy?"
"Look, if things were fine, we couldn't get these trucks and all this gear. Just come take a look, OK?" The manager thought this over for a moment, then unlocked the door and came outside. He didn't want to have people he didn't know in his store, but they looked civil enough, and it sure was mighty strange for the power to be out for over a week. At this point, zombies weren't that much of a stretch.
"OK, what's this I'm lookin' at, here?" Cameron handed over his binoculars and spoke.
"Take a look at the horizon to the East. You see all those people?"
"Yeah."
"Look to the North. OK, now look to the South."
"Shit. That's - that's a Helluva lot of people." He stared out the binoculars for a good long moment. He couldn't see them clearly, not individually, but he saw that a whole lot of people were making their way in his direction.
"Yes. And they're all zombies, and they're all coming this way." The manager kept looking at the horizon. After a solid minute of silence, he spoke again.
"And you folks plan to help us out against them?"
"Absolutely. We've had to fight them off before just to get out here. We don't want any trouble. We're actually glad you're here - more people give us better odds for survival."
"Well, we haven't seen anyone since Wednesday, so - what the Hell? I don't see as how it's any worse to let you in than give you a reason to fight with us." He handed the binoculars back to Cameron. "Why don't you folks bring those trucks around back to the loading docks? We'll get you settled and introduced." He shook hands with each of them as they introduced themselves. "My name's Bill. Welcome to Wal-Mart."