The ghouls hit the fence and started climbing over it, and then over each other. One was just about to reach the top when the leader stuck his hand in the air and pulled it down. A crackling sound erupted from the other side of the building, and a low hum that made me want to bite through my gums sounded.
The zombies stuck to the fence were fried. The fence was apparently electrified, and it wasn’t that stuff they ran through animal deterrents—the little buzz that warns them to stay back. This was a full-on, nasty jolt that stuck many of them to the fence. Most were silent as they stood transfixed, like men and women at the Rapture. They shook and shivered, and the sound of crackling energy buzzed through the air.
They cut the power after about thirty seconds, and bodies slumped to the ground. Some remained stuck to the fence, but the others, ones that managed to avoid the fence, snarled and then slunk away. The smell of cooked meat made my nose wrinkle, but it also flooded my mouth with saliva.
“They never learn.”
The leader walked toward the entrance once again. I turned to Pat, the guy who had saved my life. Well, I guess it was a trade, more or less. He had a shotgun slung over his shoulder, and if I didn’t know better, I would’ve guess it was the same one I handed him six months ago.
“Come on, Erik, I’ll show you around.”
The leader’s name was Thomas, but he said he wasn’t really the leader. He had been a cop when the world changed, and he was used to walking onto a possible crime scene and taking charge. He said that people seemed to like that, to respect it, so when he started to organize the Walmart, they just kept him on.
The large store had two main entrances, but one was completely boarded up, so there was only one way in the front. The inside had been rearranged so that racks formed a maze at the door. The first few had somehow been welded together to make them reach to the ceiling. The back had racks, but on the front, they were flat and bare. I suspected that there was a shelf especially built on the other side, so gunners could sit up there and pick off anyone coming in. Pretty smart design. Then it was a veritable maze of shelves from here on that would funnel any invaders through a killing screen.
Once we navigated the maze, I found the area behind it to be neat and orderly. There was a section with a guard posted that had been set aside for food. Boxes and crates of canned goods were stacked high, as were giant bags of dog and cat food. Familiar brands like Purina, Iams—stuff that was obviously saved or set aside for the time they ran out of regular food. I found my mouth filling with saliva at the thought of something to eat. The emergency food on which I had lived for the last few weeks, while nutritionally sound, left me feeling strange, like I was buzzing. It also tended to give me terrible diarrhea.
There was a large section of tents, where everything in the store had been shoved aside and people set up their little houses. There were batches of flashlights taped together that pointed at the ceiling to provide light. I saw a kid running between them, picking up each bundle and then shaking it violently up and down to recharge the internal batteries. Clever.
There was another section covered by white sheets that were run up on poles or hung from the ceiling. I got a peek inside, and there were rows of cots, ten or so, with sleeping bags on them—this must have been the triage area.
“We don’t have to use that much, scrapes and bruises mostly, but occasionally we get into it with the natives and people get hurt.”
“Bites?”
“We don’t let them in. Everyone here understands that if they are bit, they are dead. Most elect to take the quickest way out. Some don’t, and we take care of the problem.”
I didn’t comment.
A woman joined us. She was probably in her mid-forties and had long, auburn hair. She grinned at Thomas and pecked him on the cheek. Attractive, she possessed an air of self-confidence that I found suited her.
“My wife, Ella. Although we aren’t really married, since there is no one to marry us.”
“We just live in sin,” she said and then grinned at him. I found their affection for each other infectious, and wished I had someone. I had lived in a tiny cabin all alone for four months, and I craved attention. There were times up on the mountain when I would talk to myself, going so far as to hold entire conversations about what to make for dinner, like I was some deserted island loon.
They fed me a mix of something that was warm and, I was pretty sure, made at least partially from the animal food I had seen. Not that it mattered. I was starving, and I would have eaten a raw rabbit if someone handed it to me. They seemed tense around me. A few asked questions about the early days, and whether I had seen others when I escaped. They probably held out hope that some of their loved ones escaped as I had and were also hiding out. I pleaded exhaustion and went to find a place to sleep.
They gave me a cot that first night. I lay in the dark, listening to all the other people around me, and I could not sleep. I was so used to the silence and solitude of the cabin that I found any noise pulled me back from the brink of slumber. Of course, there was more to it than that. I kept going over my arrival, over and over. Standing on my car, adrenaline jacking my system to the max as I unloaded a shotgun at a guy who was trying to sink his teeth into me. His body blown backwards as the shot took him in the chest and turned his heart to mush. I saw the terror in his eyes even before I leveled the gun at him, like he was driven to attack, like someone was pushing him on. I saw the pain and fear in his gaze, and I responded by killing him.
I was also hurt. Bruises ached all over my body. I felt like I’d gone twelve rounds with a champ. Only I was a punching bag instead of an opponent.
The ghouls—they were something that should not exist. Zombies were unnatural enough to begin with. But men who ate the dead and became the monsters I had seen simply should not be.
How did the zombie virus start? The next morning, I planned to ask questions. I rose and put my jeans on, having opted to sleep in boxers and a t-shirt. The building seemed well insulated, but it was cold nonetheless, after coming out of the sleeping bag that had been like a warm cocoon.
I slipped on my boots, laced them up halfway, and then wrapped the laces around and tied them in front. Then I left the sleeping area and wandered. It was dark, but some of the flashlights had been left hanging down near the ground to illuminate a path. There were port-a-potties set up along the far right wall, which made it a long walk, but it kept the stench far away from the sleeping area. I passed countless bodies huddled in tents and on cots. Some moved, as people did what they had done for years when the lights went down. When was the last time I had been with a woman? There was Cheryl, a friend who took pity on me and took me to bed about six months after Allison left. Sex felt out of place with her, and, in the end, we agreed it was a bad idea.
We drifted apart until, after a few months, we barely greeted each other at the gym.
A sentry looked me up and down, and decided I wasn’t a zombie sneaking in to terrorize the store. I moved along an aisle, finding metal walls built up to hold in other supplies. A whole locker that was fifteen or so feet square contained an armory of weapons. They all looked army issue, and with the amount of fighting and chaos that had gone on at the outset of the ‘war,’ it was easy to guess that the stuff was probably left lying around on bodies or in abandoned vehicles. I saw a few M-16s and planned to ask about getting one, if the need arose. It was probably a good idea to slip that suggestion in Thomas’s ear in a few days, once he got used to seeing my face.