After opening the door to the warehouse, Kyle jumped back up in the passenger seat throwing his metal rod in the back. He mentioned that he’d feel way more comfortable with a real weapon as we pulled out of the door.
I agreed, but knew my hammer would be staying by my side for some time to come.
Heading west of the warehouse, we began making our way toward the hill with the streetlamps that were still lit. We didn’t have the luxury of taking wide detours, as there were only a few roads that the navigation system showed going up to the area.
With a little finesse, I was able to push cars out of the way with the Hummer, and continue on the road that led to the secluded hillside. We didn’t see any creatures in the area. It was strange to not see anything at all, but we didn’t question the good fortune. Still, I couldn’t shake that uneasy feeling.
We hit an intersection on the outskirts of the town, where a stoplight was blinking red. It was the first one we’d seen working in days.
The intersection created a crossroad surrounded by a series of small broken down storefronts on each corner. Aside from the rhythmic blinking of the light above, the shops were devoid of any movement or noise. There was a blue post office box on one corner of the intersection and a yellow “Pedestrian Crossing” sign on a black metal post.
My eyes were drawn beyond the yellow sign, and focused on a liquor store which simply said, ‘Bottle Shop,’ painted on the window above a still illuminated and brightly glowing OPEN sign. Next door was a small deli, which was missing the front door.
Kyle nudged my shoulder and pointed my attention over to my right and through his window, and said, “Looks like a pharmacy.”
“Or what’s left of one.” I nervously shrugged looking over and noticing the front window had been completely blown out.
“We should check it out anyway. Might be some medicine for our friend in the back seat,” Kyle suggested.
Agreeing, I put the Hummer into park right outside the Pharmacy. Kyle and I eased out, leaving Michael in the back seat. I had my hammer in my left hand, and opened the broken door to the pharmacy with my right. I kept glancing around, looking for any signs of life, or worse, signs of the dead.
We stepped in to find much of the stuff on the shelves gone. Even the condom rack was completely empty. There was still a stack of newspapers sitting nicely piled by the cash register, frozen in time. The front story featured some politicians debating over some legislation that nobody really cared about. There was no mention of the dead rising. The whole thing had happened so fast, the newspapers never had a chance to print.
Kyle and I moved to the rear of the store. We hopped the counter, and rummaged through a bunch of tipped over boxes and pill containers. Neither of us were educated enough to know what we were looking for, so we just grabbed everything that had a child safety lock on it and filled up a plastic bag that was sitting behind the register. There wasn’t much left that had -cillin or -biotic on the labels.
We were heading back toward the front door when we heard a gunshot, then another.
We both ducked and hid by a magazine rack at the front of the store. No telling which direction the shot came from or how close it was. I looked beyond the D-cup boobs in the Hustler sitting next to my head, and toward where the Hummer was parked. I had pulled the keys out of the ignition, not wanting Michael to drive off with it. There was no movement.
We sat there for several minutes; listening to the silence. Finally, I ventured to whisper, “Can you tell what kind of gun that is?”
He gave a slight shake of his head and then motioned toward the Hummer. Remaining in a crouch, we started to make our way toward it. Nothing was in sight. No movement. No sound. No nothing. It was a little unnerving to know that the vehicle was bright yellow. It was like a giant blinking sign giving away our position. We slipped back into it and closed the doors as quietly as possible. The sound still seemed to echo between the buildings in the dead silence.
Kyle threw the bag back into the rear seat; Michael grabbed it and was savvy enough to pull a bottle from our loot.
“This will work,” he muttered while downing a couple of pills and laying back down. His face and arms were pale. In his daze, he didn’t even hear the gunfire. Kyle shot me a look that said he hoped that the pills worked. This was probably his last chance.
I started the Hummer, wincing at the noise, and guided it up the hilltop.
I pulled my cellphone off the dashboard, and felt my stomach drop, noticing that there were still no bars as we topped the hill.
The neighborhood was filled with multi-million dollar mansions. I only caught part of what Kyle was saying, something about the top one percent of the one percent living here, when he stopped in mid-sentence.
“Get the fuck out of here!” Kyle said, shifting his body down and over to get a better view of the side view mirror.
I spun around to see a police car behind us. We were getting the full flashing lights treatment. I kept driving.
“Pull over!” came a voice over a loudspeaker.
“Is it possible that this community still has people?” I asked, feeling my heart thudding.
“I guess so if there is still power. I don’t know… maybe,” Kyle replied. Michael popped his head up, and looked back.
“There is no way these guys are on the level,” he panted.
“Pull over!” We heard it once again from the cop car. We didn’t know quite what to do.
“Cops or not, they’re probably calling every zombie in the area towards us,” I said, hearing my own voice raise noticeably. Kyle held up his hands; he wasn’t sure what the hell to do either.
I pulled into the driveway of one of the mansions on our right. It circled around, and I drove all the way through to face the cop car blocking the exit. With a clear line of sight on the car, we could still get by on the grass if we needed to.
Two men stepped out of the police car. They were both clean shaven, and dressed in blue officer uniforms. Handguns drawn, they approached the Hummer. Kyle and I had opened the doors but didn’t step down. No way were we going to just sit there waiting for them to walk up with guns blazing.
“Put your hands up where we can see them and throw any weapons down to the grass!” one of the cops screamed.
“Is there a problem officer?” Kyle asked, as nonchalant as possible.
“This town is in lockdown. No outside visitors. We’re here to escort you out,” the officer replied.
“Lockdown? What do you mean lockdown?” I questioned in bewilderment.
“It means you need to leave immediately, before we’re forced to take more drastic action,” the other officer said. He coughed, and spit on the ground.
Turning my head toward Kyle while keeping my eye on the uniform, I asked, “I’m not married to this place, are you?”
He shook his head no.
“Okay,” I said trying to sound calm, “we’ll leave. We don’t want any trouble. Besides, we were just passing through trying to catch a cell tower signal anyway.”
The cops eased up a bit, still not dropping their weapons.
“Listen, we don’t want to overstay our welcome, but I have to ask; does anybody have reception?”
“No sir. The cell towers are all dead.”
The two officers glanced at each other, as if deciding what to do next. One nodded and then they looked back at us.
“The landlines work though.” My heart suddenly lurched.
With all the technology our modern world had created, it was the one developed in the 1800’s that wound up being the only thing still working when everything else failed. As it turned out, landline telephones plugged directly into a phone outlet that required very little power. Most of the telephone companies had huge generators and battery backups that ran for weeks before going down.