“Allison, get to the mall, run for the mall!” I shouted, as I changed direction. Down an aisle, I saw the mall.
“Guns,” I heard. She was behind me. I didn’t think she was following me. I didn’t want to look back. I didn’t need to see the zombies closing in on me. Didn’t want to see them trapping her in the corner section of the store where weapons were kept.
The boom echoed.
I chanced a look back, just as another shot was fired.
Shit. Only one of the zombies followed me.
The rest were on her ass. She’d never make it. She did have a gun.
A third shot resounded.
I stopped fast, snatched a composite hockey stick from the rack, and spun around. The slap shot was a wide arc cutting up through air and slicing the side of the zombie’s neck. The cut wasn’t deep, but the artery severed. Blood jetted from the wound as I pulled back on the stick and swung at its throat a second time for good measure. The thing dropped to its knees, and face planted onto the tiled floor. I stepped over the beast as blood pooled around its head.
“Allison!” I started toward the back of the store. Two more shots were fired. At least I knew she was alive.
“Chase!”
Alive and calling for me. I ran as if on ice, the hockey stick in both hands. Only thing missing, the pads. I’d of loved to have been decked out in some hockey gear.Zombies’ would have a hell of a time gnawing on my flesh through all of that gear!
Allison ran out into the main aisle. It almost got her slashed with my stick. It also almost got me shot. The handgun was aimed at my face. I ducked, and swatted the space between us, as if I could bat a bullet out of the way like a fly, had she pulled the trigger.
“I killed like five,” she said. Her arm fell to her side. The threat averted.
“No time to brag,” I said. They followed her. Fast. “This way.”
We ran back the way I’d just come. The body of the bloodless zombie sprawled out on the floor was a small hurdle. Jumping over him was not the issue. It was the sticky blood around its head that became the problem.
Allison slid. A red smear trailed two feet out of the puddle. I clutched her arm as she fell backwards. It did nothing to stop the fall. She cried out as her shoulder popped from the socket.
“Give me the gun,” I said.
She wasn’t listening. I wretched it free from her limp arm, knelt beside her and nothing. Empty. I dropped the gun, scooped an arm under Allison and lifted her to her feet. “Run,” I said, needlessly.
Staying back, I swung the hockey stick at the next closest zombie. I was not lucky enough to slice an artery, but the stick did the job and smacked hard enough into the creature’s head to knock him off his feet. He went down hard. Sprawled out on the linoleum for the count. I straddled its body, raised the stick like an ax, and swung at his skull over and over as if splitting firewood.
“Chase!”
I almost couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to stop. My adrenaline was surging through my body like crazy. I could feel it pumping through every limb. I hacked at the smashed head one last time, and the blade on the hockey stick lodged into the gash. I needed to step on its shoulders and pull with both hands to free my new weapon of choice.
Then I ran.
Chapter Fifteen
Greece Ridge Mall turned out not to be the sanctuary I’d hoped. Allison and I were now inside a mall with zombies, and no closer to saving my kids than we had been when on the road. There was no more time to kill. I needed to figure out how to get to my ex’s house, fast.
“We need to get out of here,” Allison said.
There had been a zombie movie I’d seen. People gathered and took refuge inside a mall. Maybe that had been part of the reason I’d thought to come this way. The weapons in the sporting goods store influenced the decision, sure. The difference had been that the zombies were outside the mall. Not shoppers and employees and . . .
“Mall security,” I said. “We need to get to the food court.”
“Security isn’t going to be able to help us,” she said.
We squatted by the Piercing Pagoda Kiosk. Right now, I didn’t see a single zombie in the mall’s aisles. Maybe they were all inside the various stores. Maybe the few we’d led into the sporting goods store were it. Wherever they were, I was thankful for the reprieve. I worked on calming my breathing, settling my nerves. “I don’t want security’s help. I want their guns. The keys to their vehicles.”
Arming mall security guards came not long after the town curfew. Teens under 18 were not allowed to be in the mall without an adult. It was meant to keep riff-raff to a minimum. Worked for a while. The gangs of teens had people 18 years old with them, and so by the mall’s own rules, could stay. And wreak havoc. And did in fact, wreak havoc. For some time, Greece Police kept a presence as well. Eventually, they needed to pull back. The town was too large to tie up officers patrolling the inside of a mall.
“But the roads. You saw how bad they were. We won’t get a mile in one of those pick-up trucks,” she said.
“Even a mile, driving, is better than a mile walking. Safer.”
She pursed her lips, nodded. She agreed. “Okay. The food court.”
When I had been a kid, this mall used to be two separate malls. A transformation took place in 1994. The two were joined. The extension that connected them was filled with additional stores, and at the center -- a huge food court was added. In total, the place took up over 1.6 million square feet. We were at one end of the mall. Had to go halfway, since the security office was located in the food court.
I lifted my head and peered around spinning displays of gold earrings and necklaces. I still did not see a single zombie around. “If we stay close to the center of the aisle, we have plenty of plants, and garbage receptacles and kiosks to hide behind. Looks like nothings out here, but we’re gonna move like the military, okay? I go, I check the area, and then you go -- moving past me to the next spot to hide behind. You check the area, then I’ll pass you and move on to the next spot. See what I’m saying?”
She nodded. “I get it. Like S.W.A.T.”
“Exactly. Like S.W.A.T.”
She had no weapon at all. I had the blood and brained hockey stick. I should give it to her. Would she be able to swing it hard enough to kill a zombie? Truth is, if I kept it, I’d have a better chance of saving her and me, should another attack occur. That was just a fact. Or was it that I just trusted myself more than I trusted her? No matter. I was keeping it. Decided.
I took out my cell phone. No new calls. I sent a fast text to my daughter: Daddy’s coming. Stay where you are!
“Anything?” Allison asked.
I just looked at her. “You ready?”
She let out a breath of air that made her hair blow. “As I’ll ever be.”
“I’ll go first. You see anything, don’t yell. Okay? No yelling.”
She frowned, clearly not happy with so much instruction. I wish she understood, while I hoped to get us safely from point A to point B, my kids were the priority. She had to concede to doing things my way. No questions asked, or I’d leave her ass behind. It was that simple. I didn’t want to have to say it though. I just needed her to know it.
“On three?” she said.
“What?”
“You going on three?”
I closed my eyes for one long second, avoided shaking my head. “On three.”
“One, two,” she said, and then silently mouthed, “three.”
I stayed hunkered forward and ran around and past a Pagoda, and stopped at the table and three 7-foot poster stands that promoted the fitness center near the movie theater at the extreme opposite end of the mall. The posters provided excellent cover. I could stand and be hidden. I didn’t. I stayed low. I did a 360 and made sure nothing saw my short sprint. Didn’t seem like anything had. My heart was racing once again. The calming I’d done earlier, forgotten. The blood was pumping fast. My cheeks felt hot.