Danny was already on the first floor when she reached their camping spot. He was rushing Carly and Vera as the two girls struggled to get their supplies together. All three wore glow sticks around their necks, dangling from strings, which gave their faces and the immediate space around them a green neon glow. They looked like aliens moving in the darkness.
“Kate.” Danny handed her a glow stick with an attached string.
She bent it the way he had shown her this afternoon until she heard the sharp crack! and the stick began to glow an intense neon green. She looped the string around her neck and rushed to help Vera pack her clothes. The girl smiled at her, showing absolutely no fear, and went about collecting her coloring books and crayons while Kate scooped up their backpacks. They were light, housing only changes of clothing.
Luke appeared out of the darkness with Ted, both already breathing hard. Their faces were also lit up by glow sticks hanging from their necks.
“Is it time?” Luke asked, his eyes darting from Kate to Danny and back again.
“As good a time as any,” Danny said. He pressed the PTT switch dangling from his radio and said, “You still alive?” He listened for a moment, then replied, “Try not to die until I get over there.” He listened to Will’s reply, then grinned at the rest of them. “Always gotta have the last word, that guy.”
“Now?” Ted asked.
“Now,” Danny nodded. “Okay, everyone, just like we rehearsed this afternoon. Vamos!”
He led them through the store, holding a glow stick. Despite wearing his tactical gear and carrying the rifle and shotgun, he still somehow moved faster than them all, and had to slow down for them to keep up.
Kate looked at Vera, walking beside her. “It’ll be okay.”
Vera smiled back. “I know.”
The girl’s steadfast courage was contagious. Kate didn’t have children — had never even considered having them — but looking down at Vera now, she couldn’t help but wonder what she had missed out on.
Carly was shouting at Danny, “Where’s Will?”
“Don’t worry about him, he’ll be fine.”
“But is he coming?”
“Eventually.”
“Should we go back to help him?” Luke said.
“No,” Danny said, in a voice that told them the decision was already made. “Keep going.”
Kate heard gunshots like thunderclaps echoing through the store, through the racks of clothes and aisles of shoes and sports supplies and hunting gear. It didn’t sound like a Glock, which she had become accustomed to after the hour or so of shooting instructions from Will.
It sounded like a rifle.
Will.
Carly stopped and looked back, but Kate quickly grabbed her wrist and urged her forward. “Come on, Carly.”
Up ahead, Danny snapped at them, “Let’s go! Now!”
Kate tugged on Carly’s wrist and got her moving again. Vera, Ted, and Luke had already disappeared into the employee lounge. She led Carly through the door, trying her best to ignore the loud booming sound of gunfire behind her.
The lounge was lit up with Rayovac LED lanterns in the four corners of the room. Each lantern had 4-watt LEDs that were brighter than anything Kate had seen, despite the fact that they were barely bigger than two soda cans put together. According to Will, the lanterns ran on three solar rechargeable D batteries, which made them invaluable with the power grid down. They had gathered up every lantern from the shelves, about twenty in all, along with every rechargeable and non-rechargeable battery they could find.
Danny stepped inside and turned to Ted. “Remember what we talked about.”
Ted nodded back. He looked afraid, but was trying his best not to show it. He flinched each time gunshots rang out from the front of the store. They all did, except Danny.
“Close the door,” Danny said, “and don’t open until I give you the go-ahead.”
He tapped his earbud. Ted, who was wearing the same communications gear that Danny and Will wore, nodded back.
Danny jogged off, the neon green glow around him fading into the darkness of the store. Ted was already closing the door, sliding two newly attached deadbolts into place. The loud gunfire, which seconds ago had sounded so close and immediate, now receded into the background, reaching them as thudding echoes instead of pounding hammers.
Kate walked to the back wall and sat down on one of the sofas next to Vera and Carly. Vera had opened one of her coloring books and was already penciling in color to Dora’s camping clothes, blue where it should have been khaki brown. Carly sat quietly next to her sister, sweaty palms rested on trembling knees.
Kate reached across to Carly, took the other woman’s wet hand, and squeezed. Carly looked over and smiled, but neither said a word.
They both jerked a little at a new round of gunfire from the other side of the door. There seemed to be more urgency, the gunshots coming faster and faster. The ghouls must be coming in now, swarming the front doors, or Will wouldn’t be shooting so much, so fast. He wouldn’t waste bullets like that, would he?
Was this what being in a warzone was like? Was this what Will and Danny lived with every day when they were in Afghanistan? Was this what it sounded and felt like to live in a country turned into a battlefield? Loud, crashing violence and paralyzing terror?
The gunshots seemed to double in quantity and volume, and she knew Danny had made it to the front of the store and was shooting, too. Will had help now, and that made her feel better. But they were still out there, on the other side of the door, while she was safe in here. What if they didn’t make it back? There was no guarantee Will’s plan would work, but what if they never even got around to trying it?
She knew it was all in her head. The doubt, the fear, the what-ifs and indecision. Out there, Will and Danny didn’t have the same luxury. Their weapons fired non-stop now. Over and over again. How many bullets had they fired in the few minutes since their retreat into the employee lounge?
A few hundred? Maybe a thousand? How many bullets did they have left?
“There must be thousands of them in there. I mean thousands,” Carly had said to her about the Walmart next door.
Thousands…
Ted and Luke were at the door, Luke tapping his Nike sneakers nervously against the floor. Ted looked calmer, crouched in front of the door and staring at it intently, as if he could see right through to was happening on the other side.
“That’s Danny, right?” Luke said when they heard the new round of gunfire.
“Yeah,” Ted said. “They’re both up front now. They’re using the rifles. Soon they’ll switch to the shot—”
The unmistakable sound of shotgun blasts interrupted him. The rifles had sounded like thunderclaps, but the shotguns were like explosions going off next door.
“—guns,” Ted finished.
“What does that mean?” Luke asked.
“It means they’re about to head back. Get ready with the locks.”
Luke nodded and put his hands on the deadbolts, while Ted gripped the doorknob and waited, and Kate wondered how hard their chests were heaving at that moment. Especially Luke’s. She could see how focused he was on the locks, oblivious to beads of sweat dripping down his temples.
She counted down the number of shots from the other side. She learned this afternoon that each shotgun held seven shots, something she would never have known in her previous life. Seven shots didn’t sound like a lot to her.
Ted cupped his earpiece and turned to them. “They’re taking turns reloading and shooting, but they’re about to run out of ammo. Get ready,” he said, the last one directed at Luke, who nodded back and licked his lips. Sweat dripped down his cheeks.