“Allison,” I said.
“And we’re going to what? We’re going to walk from New York, from Rochester, all the way to Mexico? I’m no geography major, Chase, but I know it’s like twelve hundred miles from here to Orlando. To fucking Disney, Chase. Disney. So if we were headed to Disney, Chase – guess what? We would still have eleven hundred and ninety-eight miles to go. Eleven ninety-eight.” She screamed.
I grabbed her head, slapped my hand over her mouth. With gritted teeth I whispered, my lips pressed against her ear. “No screaming, Alley. I understand everything you just said. But keep your voice down.”
There was no threat made. It was there. Hung between us. She had done well on the expressway ramp, saved my life, even. I’d already thanked her for that. “We good?”
She nodded; eyes open wide, staring at me. I removed my hand.
“So we’re clear,” she said, voice barely above a whisper, “you ever touch me like that again and I’ll crack your skull.”
“Good. Then we both understand what’s going on here.”
She nodded again. I noticed her hand on the L-head of her iron. Didn’t bother me. She needed to toughen up. If she was mad at me, hated me, then fine. It would be good for her. Help her. She could thank me later.
Silence ensued. Between Ridgeway Avenue and Weiland Road, we were leaving the industrial part of the city, and entering the town of Greece. Residential areas. We could have cut down Weiland to Long Pond Road. Then north on Long Pond to the mall, but what made me say no, to continue toward Holmes Road was the thought of where Weiland hit Long Pond. Directly across the street from there was the hospital. Unity.
I had no reason to fear the hospital, but something just made me feel like with all the monsters on the street right now, the ones spilling out of the hospital would be worse. They might not be. It could be just irrational fears, but I couldn’t shake it. I didn’t want to go anywhere near the place. Allison didn’t argue. She didn’t ask why I wanted to keep on to Holmes, but she didn’t argue. I was good with that.
I saw the streetlight at the intersection. I also saw more cars dead in the road. Allison had been right. It would be difficult car jumping. Taking one vehicle as far as we could, and then scrounging around for another. It could be done. Might become annoying, but that was no reason not to at least try.
“We’ll check these cars up here for . . .”
“For, what?”
“Shhhh,” I said. The streetlights worked shining round domes of light onto the roads, but did little to battle the darkness that surrounded us. “I hear people.”
People had to be a loose term. Sounded more like animals. Grunts and groans. Moaning and yelping. What the hell were we going to do?
“Now what?” Allison had her Iron out. The belt loop had not infringed the weapon from coming free. Her other hand clutched at my forearm.
“We need to hide. See what’s going on.”
“Hide? Where?”
We were under the I-390 bridge. I backed us up to the stonewall. Slowly we crept forward, bent forward, staying low to the ground. It was difficult to see clearly. Ahead, I saw four, no five zombies. They looked lost, meandering about on a house’s front lawn. A sixth was on the front porch.
We got closer, on the opposite side of the street, and stopped between a hedge and a parked mini-van.
“Is he knocking on the door?”
“Scratching at it, I think,” I said. The guy on the porch mindlessly raked fingernails on the screen mesh. I could hear it.
I also heard a siren. It wailed, not far off. The sound brought hope. Not all was lost. Felt like it. If responders were still responding, it wasn’t the end.
“What do we do?”
I didn’t want to stay here, hidden on our bellies in someone’s driveway. That didn’t really mean we were safe. Just meant we hadn’t been spotted by the small horde gathered across the way. “We can’t move. Not yet. What if they see us?”
“We can’t just stay here.” Allison raised her head, looking left and right. “We should get closer to this house behind us. Stay low, and close, and keep moving.”
“What if they hear us?”
“We run.” She had a point. One that beat the hell out of mine.
Maybe I was tired too. Walking four miles had been a challenge, despite being focused, despite needing to get to my kids. Like Allison had said, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d walked this far.
It was nearly midnight. I now had three things on my mind. Getting to the mall for weapons. Saving my kids from being eaten. Finding a cold beer.
Chapter Thirteen
Allison and I came up on the backside of the mall. From where we crouched in the bushes, we could see the loading dock side of Target. Beyond that, Sears and Penny’s. The sporting goods store sandwiched between them. The mall had front entrances to all the stores. The back also had direct store entrances, as well.
The lot had parked cars, which was good. We’d need them. They provided cover. The roaming mass of zombies looked a bit overwhelming.
“There’s a lot of them.” Allison knelt beside me, one hand on my shoulder. “Look at ‘em all.”
“I can’t shake how it’s just like every stupid zombie movie I’d ever seen. They’re just, just roaming around. Like they are hungry for brains.”
“Don’t say that,” she said.
I didn’t need to say it. We’d seen it. Watched as people we worked with, attacked other employees. We’d barely escaped work. A hard fought walk to the mall. These things, although maybe not craving brains, did seem interested in biting non-infected people to death. Bad enough in my book.
“We need to get to the mall. Can’t imagine the doors are locked,” I said. I looked around the lit lot. There was no visible clear path. If we did a serpentine between vehicles, we stood a chance.
“Bound to be more inside the mall, too.” Allison merely pointed out the obvious.
“We get in, and weapons are all to the left.”
“Just got to get across the parking lot.”
“It’s what I’m thinking.”
I watched what could be a group of four meander toward a Lexus. Couldn’t be more than a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty yards to the left. They didn’t appear distracted, however, they all seemed to lumber forward in the same general direction. That direction was away from us.
On the right, zombies weren’t as congested, but scattered. It was the same kind of slow and sluggish . . . gait. I counted ten, no . . . eleven. Twelve. Yes. I saw twelve.
“Look at him.” I followed Allison’s finger. Straight ahead. Just past a light pole. A guy ran toward us. He was a ways out, but running in our general direction. “Sick?”
“Looks it,” I said. The guy’s arms flailed, pin wheeled. He looked like someone trapped in the midst of a swarm of bees. “What is going--”
He wasn’t sick. Not a zombie. This became obvious as he screamed for help. Although my exposure to the infected was limited, I had not heard a single one of the creatures talk. They moaned. They grunted. They bit. They ate. That I’d witnessed. Talking, not so much.
“Help! Please! Please, God, help me!”
I didn’t know where he thought help might come from. I did know his screaming sure as shit attracted the unwanted attention. The creatures that had reached the Lexus turned, almost as one, and faced the running man. The expensive sedan forgotten, they moved -- a bit quicker, as if with more purpose -- toward the screamer. The other twelve also seemed to zero in on the man.
“What do we do?” Allison had a hand on her iron.
“What do you mean?”
“How do we help him?”
This time I planted my hand on her shoulder. “We’re going to the sporting goods store. He’s created a perfect diversion for us.”