Looking them over, they reminded Cleese of a heavily armed Our Gang.

Overhead, the sun had already begun its descent from the noonday sky, but its warmth remained. The group carefully made its way to the electronic front doors, grateful to be out of the heat and in the shade. Cleese put his hand up to the gla.s.s to cut the glare and peered inside the dark of the store. Row after row of shelving extended into the blackness. Signs that hung from fine filament declaring "Sweet Summer Sale" twisted in the air like the bodies of hanged men.

"Harrison..." Bartlett said breaking the expectant silence, "blow the door."

"Wait! What?" Cleese asked, turning and staring dumbfounded. "Why?"

"We need to get inside."

"So...?"

"Power's been cut. We'll smash the gla.s.s and get in."

"Are you f.u.c.king r.e.t.a.r.ded? You bust this gla.s.s and if there are any more of those things around than what we saw, they'll hear you. You might as well stand up on the roof and ring a G.o.dd.a.m.n dinner bell."

Bartlett looked at Cleese and sniffed in contempt.

"You got a better idea?"

"Maybe. Just let me try something before you go shootin' the doors off the place, ok, Wyatt Earp?"

Cleese slung his rifle behind his back and stepped up to the two sliding doors. He half-expected them to open on their own once he stepped onto the activator pads. When they didn't he raised his arms, slid the tips of his fingers into the crack between them, and gently applied increasing pressure outward. As he'd predicted, the doors weren't locked, just closed and unable to move now that the power was shut off. With a slight squeaking sound, the two heavy panes slid in their rails and opened.

"Open says me." Cleese said and extended a hand with a flourish toward the now open doors.

Immediately, Del Castillo and Harrison stepped through the entryway, sweeping the barrels of their guns from side to side as they'd no doubt seen so many times in movies. Once the front of the store was secure, Pugnowski and Hines followed. Cleese waited for them all to enter before closing the doors behind them. He hung back a bit allowing Bartlett to get well ahead of him. There was something that told him he didn't want the man behind him, especially not with a rifle in his hands.

The men fanned out and quickly checked each aisle for hostiles. Pugnowski scuttled toward Cosmetics and found a young dead woman (who'd probably been an employee) sitting on the floor behind a counter slowly eating one tube of lipstick after another. Her face was a kaleidoscope of color and she looked like she'd just blown a clown. He managed to get behind her without being noticed and placed the barrel of his .22 pistol against the back of her head. When he pulled the trigger, her skull acted as a silencer and only a soft popping sound was heard. She slid to the ground, her bulging eyes bloodshot from the pressure change caused by the expanding ga.s.ses from the firearm going off inside her head.

Hines ran down the main aisle, took a quick left, and ended up in the aisle where kids' toys were kept. He found a stock boy there standing next to a comic rack, r.e.t.a.r.dedly spinning the wire frame around and around. As Hines came around the corner, the kid heard him and slowly turned toward the sound. The second the kid caught sight of the living man, he bared his teeth and came running. To Hines' credit, he didn't panic or freak. Instead, he took the brunt of the kid's charge and hip-tossed. As the kid's back slammed to the ground, Hines smashed the b.u.t.t of his shotgun against the boy's forehead repeatedly. Soon, the floor was covered in what looked like marinara sauce and cottage cheese.

The rest of the team's searches came up empty.

When the store was given the "All Clear," each man immediately went about gathering items from the list of things he'd been a.s.signed. Hines pulled a couple of foldable gym bags from his rucksack and went off at a run toward the pharmacy. His mission was the real reason they'd come to check the place out. There were a growing a.s.sortment of people at the compound and they all had needs: diabetics needed insulin, some people needed thyroid medication, antibiotics were always a necessity, h.e.l.l, even pain killers would be worth their weight in gold should the need arise. Hines leapt over the counter and started gathering s.h.i.t from his mental shopping list.

The rest of them made their way through the aisles and systematically pulled items from the shelves. Cleese was busy grabbing as much prepackaged beef jerky, Spam, candy, nuts, cookies, and crackers as he could and stuffing them into the bags he carried. Harrison and Del Castillo made hurried trips back and forth shuttling cases of soda, bottled water, beer, and powdered milk. In no time at all, they'd pretty much emptied the entire drink aisle as well as the cold cases. They soon had a substantial stack of goods piled near the front door. Bartlett and Pugnowski repeated the same routine only their booty was as many packages of toilet paper, paper towels, sanitary napkins and diapers as they could find.

Cleese decided not to point out the irony of Bartlett grabbing these particular items. Things were already rough between them. The joke just seemed too easy to make.

They'd stripped the store of anything of value and were soon rea.s.sembled at the front doors. Cleese took a quick look around outside and then, finding it clear, pulled the doors back open. The group quickly formed a fireman's line and silently pa.s.sed items to one another. In time, the truck was filled to near capacity. Finally, when everything they'd collected was loaded on board, Harrison eased the back door of the Self-Haul almost closed and they were ready to roll.

As he stood outside, once again feeling the heat of the day wrap its arms about him, Cleese was surprised at how smoothly it had all gone down and was almost impressed. There wasn't a lot that could change his original opinion of these guys, but this was certainly points in their favor. In the end though, they were what they were... and what they were at the moment was a bunch of monkeys who'd done a good job of learning how to pull this particular lever for this particular treat. He knew that if they were to be dropped into a different situation with a different dynamic, things might not go so smoothly. Silently, Cleese wondered how many people had died for them to learn how to do this kind of thing with this level of proficiency.

"Ok, so..." Cleese said, "we're done, right?"

The guys moved their heads like bobblehead dolls.

"We're good," Hines said.

"Wait... where's Bartlett?" Del Castillo asked.

Cleese looked around and quickly counted heads. Sure enough, they were one short. Suddenly, the sound of a rifle shot cracked from inside the store. Then, another. Across the parking lot, several of the dead near the dumpster raised their heads at the sound. Seeing nothing, they returned to digging in the trash.

"f.u.c.k!"

Cleese was running back inside before he even realized he was doing it, the SIG 556 locked and loaded at his shoulder. He heard the footsteps of the other men coming up behind him as he moved down the aisles; their heavy boot falls echoing in the silence of the darkened building.

Nearing the back of the store, Cleese saw no sign of Bartlett. The aisles were empty with only the bodies of the dead they'd taken down earlier. Suddenly, the crashing sound of a struggle was heard coming from a side hallway leading to the bathrooms. Bartlett stumbled into view, making his way down the hallway and into the half-light with someone clutching at him. Cleese figured that he must have gone back inside to take a quick squirt and found more than a waiting urinal.

As the two bodies fell from the shadows of the enclosed hallway and into the dim light, Cleese could see that the thing holding onto Bartlett was a young kid. He couldn't have weighed more than a buck fifty and was dressed in jeans and a blood-spattered leather jacket. His face was obscured by a full face motorcycle helmet. Underneath the jaw-line, at the point where the strap buckle was visible, you could just see where a large bite had been taken out of his neck. Cleese figured that the toppled Honda out front must have been his.

As the two of them continued to fight and thrash about, their legs slammed into a low-lying display and they fell into a heap to the ground. Bartlett pushed the kid away and Cleese saw two bullet hits on the brow of the helmet. Amazingly, the insulated brain bucket had held firm and deflected both shots.

Cleese had to smile as he imagined the look of surprise on Bartlett's face after shooting the kid dead center in the forehead and him not going down. Man, he must have s.h.i.t his pants. The funny part was that the very thing that had protected the kid from the rifle rounds was also what was keeping him from being able to take a bite out of Bartlett. The full face helmet not only covered his skull, it also covered his jaws and kept him from being able to sink his teeth into anything. The thing possessed-quite literally-all of the bark of the undead, but none of the bite.

By now, the rest of the men had arrived and could see what was happening. Behind him, Cleese heard Pugnowski raise his rifle and click off his safety. Cleese reached out and put a gentle hand on the barrel of his gun. He shook his head, silently reminding him that it was too dangerous to just start firing blindly. Bartlett was in no real danger and it would be too easy to hit him in the ensuing hailstorm of bullets. Not to mention that the noise would bring every zombie within a thousand yards running.

With Bartlett screaming and thrashing about like a stuck pig, Cleese stepped up behind the two fighting figures and brusquely grabbed the kid by the collar of his leather jacket. Putting his legs into the lift, he yanked the kid up and off Bartlett and casually tossed him aside. The kid hit the ground on his back and immediately scrambled back to his feet. Once mobile, he quickly moved back in the direction of the downed man. Cleese stepped into its path and slammed the b.u.t.t of the SIG into his helmet's windscreen. The force of the blow spider-webbed the visor and knocked the kid back. Cleese spun at the waist and kicked him in the sternum with a reverse round house. Stale air came rushing out of his chest in a m.u.f.fled "whoof!" Dazed and hurting, the kid crumpled to the ground.

Suddenly, a shot rang out and blood erupted from one of the kid's knees. Meat and bone splashed across the linoleum. The kid gave a piercing cry of pain, its voice sounding hollow from within the tightness of the helmet. Then, another bullet slammed into the other knee. Cleese turned to see Bartlett holding his still smoking rifle.

"Christ, Bartlett," Cleese said exasperated. "You sure as s.h.i.t are making enough f.u.c.kin' noise. If you're gonna kill it, kill it, but don't f.u.c.k around torturing the d.a.m.ned thing."

"Shut up, Cleese!" Bartlett shouted and fired two more rounds into the dead thing's chest. Blood blossomed like red flowers on the shiny surface of the kid's leather.

"Oh, come on... I know it surprised you, but look at it. It can't bite you. Just f.u.c.king put it down, Man."

"Shut. Up!" Bartlett repeated and angrily turned, pointing his rifle at Cleese.

Cleese glowered and his demeanor immediately turned serious; deadly serious.

"Bartlett..." his voice slid from his mouth like venom. "Get. That. f.u.c.king gun. Out of my face!"

Bartlett took a step forward and kept the rifle pointed at Cleese.

"Or what, Tough Guy?"

Instantly, Cleese slapped the barrel up toward the ceiling and spun at the waist. He quickly grabbed the rifle and, with a quick tug, yanked the gun away. Behind them, the kid could be heard trying to get to his feet, but his wounded legs wouldn't support him. Without a second thought, Cleese flipped the gun around in his hands and slid the barrel of the rifle up under the kid's helmet just at the jaw line. An explosion of blood, brain, and bone erupted against the fractured surface of the kid's visor.

"You're making too much f.u.c.kin' noise, man," Cleese said, "and I won't have you endangering us all just because you want to get your rocks off torturing this thing." He pulled the clip out of the rifle and ejected the chambered round. The discarded bra.s.s tinkled brightly as it hit the ground. Cleese raised the rifle so that it could be seen. "And you'll get this back at the end of the semester, young man!"

Bartlett shot an angry look at his back as Cleese walked back down the aisle and toward the front of the store.

"f.u.c.k you!" Barlett barked.

"Oh and point another gun at me, f.u.c.kstick, and I'll drop you like the sack of s.h.i.t that you are," Cleese called back over his shoulder.

"Don't threaten me, Cleese!" Bartlett shouted after him.

"I don't threaten, motherf.u.c.ker," Cleese's voice came slithering out of the darkness, "I offer up prophecy."

The ride back to the compound was a quiet one. Cleese decided to sit in the back of the truck with Del Castillo, Harrison and Hines. They'd rearranged boxes and made little cubbyholes to sit in between the stacked fruits of their labor. Cleese noticed that there was a distinct separation between theirs and his.

Whatever...

It wasn't like he was ever looking to make friends.

As the truck rumbled along, he could hear Bartlett and Pugnowski as they talked in the cab. He caught muted mumbling that, from their tone, had all the earmarks of b.i.t.c.hing and posturing. Cleese had heard it time and time again, usually from some propped-up tough guy who'd just had his social standing diminished by someone tougher and smarter.

Cleese leaned back and got as comfortable as he could given the constant rocking of the truck as it rumbled down the road and back up into the mountains. He grabbed a package of toilet paper and set it under the back of his head as a pillow. He knew he'd not heard the last of Bartlett and his empty-headed cronies, but it wasn't like he was worried. If there was ever going to be a serious altercation between them, it would have happened at the drug store when they were all alone and everyone was well armed. Instead, Cleese had walked away without so much as a tussle.

It told him everything he needed to know.

Spines of water.

As he settled in deeper and tried to get comfortable, he took a glance over at the three men riding with him. As he met their gaze directly, they looked away or into their laps.

Cleese smiled to himself, closed his eyes, and promptly took a nap.

Back at the compound, Cleese turned in the SIG, but asked if he could hold onto the nine mil. Having a pistol in this day and age just seemed like a pretty good idea to him.

Luckily, Wolf agreed with him.

He felt almost like himself after his nap in the truck and as the sun slowly set he decided he'd go and dig up some chow. The smell of food being prepared caught his attention the second they'd made it back to camp. He figured now that he'd done a little something to earn a place here, he'd reap himself some of the benefits in the shape of a full stomach.

As he made his way through the encampment and toward the roach coaches, he saw that a line had formed and it suddenly occurred to him how many people had come under Wolf's protective banner. Dozens of men, women, children, the handicapped and the elderly stood waiting patiently for their food. Even though they'd all faced a pile of s.h.i.t, they were an orderly bunch; surprising since it'd been only a short time since what many had come to refer to as The Fall. A few of them still had that "What the f.u.c.k?" expression on their faces, but they all looked like refugees from some foreign conflict. What made it worse was that they were Americans who'd suffered while on American soil. Theirs had been a life of ent.i.tlement and plenty. None had experienced any calamity of note before, especially not "up close and personal" like this.

Never mind coming to grips with the whole "dead guy getting back to his feet and trying to eat you" thing. That s.h.i.t was too f.u.c.ked up to get a handle on for even the hardest of them. s.h.i.t, if the military lost their motherf.u.c.kin' minds over it, what chance did John Q. Public have? Some things were better left alone. Others were best left not even being considered.

Abruptly, a disturbance became apparent toward the front of the line. Cleese leaned out and saw the pony-tailed girl, Jenny, waving her arms and gesturing wildly. She repeatedly pointed her finger at someone as if in accusation and then another more heated exchange took place. Whoever she was talking to, it was pretty obvious that she was pretty p.i.s.sed at them.

Then suddenly, the object of her ire stepped out of line and made himself known.

Bartlett.

Man, that guy just has no skill at making friends.

The crowd around them was starting to become visibly agitated, due primarily to the fact that whatever was going on was keeping them from getting their dinners.

"What's that all about?" Cleese asked the small dark-haired women standing in front of him. She held a fidgety two year old boy tucked under her arm and her face was covered with a thin layer of dirt.

"Someone's jumping the line," she said, brushing a lock of hair from her boy's tired eyes. "It happens... especially when the Scavenger Squads come back with supplies. Some of them feel like, since they took all the risks, they deserve first dibs."

"Some of them, eh?" Cleese quietly excused himself from line.

With an amiable gait, he slowly made his way up alongside the queue. As he got closer, he was able to make out bits and pieces of the conversation.

"Look, we earned a place at the head of this line, Jenny," Bartlett said in his most c.o.c.ky manner. "I didn't see any of these people out there with us... when we were risking our lives!"

"Don't make me have to go get Wolf, Fred. You know what he'd say about this kind of bullying."

By now, Cleese was close enough that he could be seen by Jenny. She nodded slightly, but didn't acknowledge him. She had bigger problems.

Bartlett stood with his back toward the line so he therefore had no idea Cleese was coming up behind him.

"Go get him! I don't care!"

"These people are just as tired and hungry as you or any of your men. The line moves quickly. You know that. Just show a little patience."

"Honey, we risk our a.s.ses to get this s.h.i.t while the rest of you sit up here and do nothing."

"When exactly did you risk jack s.h.i.t, Freddie?" Cleese interrupted as he stepped up behind Bartlett. "Before or after Motorcycle Boy got the drop on you? The only thing I seem to remember is when you were rolling around on the ground with him, screaming like a b.i.t.c.h."

A wave of snickers rippled through the crowd.

Bartlett markedly jumped at the sound of Cleese's voice and quickly turned around. His expression spoke volumes as to how unwelcome Cleese's involvement was in all of this. A pain in his a.s.s since he first walked into camp, Cleese somehow managed to yet again show up and make him look like a fool. Bartlett looked back and forth between the diminutive girl who had stood up to him and the newcomer who'd managed more than once in less than twenty-four hours to make him look stupid and ineffectual.

Visibly angry, he mumbled a quick "f.u.c.k you both" and strode off sullenly toward the tents and campers which surrounded the Mess area. His boneheaded coterie was quick to follow close behind him.

Jenny sighed and stepped closer to Cleese.

"Thanks for that," she said diplomatically and then shrugged in resignation. "Fred's a decent enough guy... I mean... He means well, but..."

"Sister, Fred's an a.s.shole and could use a good paradigm shift, but... No problem," Cleese responded and turned to go back to his place at the end of the line. "Rest a.s.sured though... he's not going to let this go."

Jenny stared at Cleese as he stepped away, her eyes sparkling brightly in the diminishing light.

"He's someone who's fueled by his ego. And that ego now has a pretty big dent in it thanks to you and me. If I'm any judge, he'll be looking for an opportunity to regain some of his sense of self."

"Are you saying that he's dangerous?"

Cleese looked over his shoulder and grinned. "h.e.l.l, who knows? In the last few weeks, I've seen things that I thought were incontrovertible suddenly get turned upside down and become something out of a nightmare.

Knowing all too well what he was talking about, Jenny grinned and looked down toward the ground. She reflexively slid her hands into her pockets.

"All I'm saying is..." he said walking away, "that you should be careful."

Jenny nodded more to herself than anything and watched Cleese's broad back diminish in size as he walked away in the fading light.

The midnight moon shone down over the silent compound, bathing everything in a cool and subdued light. Lanterns were lit inside many of the tents and RVs where the camp's citizenry lay settled in for the night. The lamps gently pushed back a little of the darkness and made the meager domiciles almost feel like home.

Almost.