Day 17

Edgar entered the stockroom, following the girl who had been pushing the empty cart. The stockroom was darker than the store was, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust as he stepped into the darkness. When he finally could discern anything, he noticed Dani standing, supporting the weight of a woman who had a limp, bruised, and battered left leg.

The teenage girl rolled the cart over to the other women, and Dani glanced up at Edgar expectantly.

“Can you carry her?”

“Sure. Who are these two?”

Edgar shrugged and made his way to Dani and the woman. Dani turned her face to the woman she had been bearing the weight of.

“Mary, this is Edgar. He is with me, he’s going to carry you, okay?”

Mary seemed apprehensive – likely alarmed by Edgar’s size – from what he could tell. She nodded. 

“Alright. But what about my leg?”

Dani shook her head. “It’s really going to fucking hurt when it dangles. I will splint it when we get back to our camp. It’ll be safer there.”

“Dani’s right. I am seeing a few of those dead guys wandering out there. Makes me nervous,” Edgar added.

Mary grit her teeth and nodded rapidly. Edgar stepped behind Dani and lifted Mary’s arm over his shoulder and the back of his neck and, with a sudden motion, scooped the woman into his arms. Mary let out a sudden scream, but covered her mouth with her free hand. 

“Sorry,” Edgar said as gently and apologetically as he could. 

Dani took a few steps back and turned to the teenager.

“Alicia, right?”

“Yeah?”

“I need you to push that shopping cart in front of the door back there.”

Alicia looked puzzled. “I thought this was to carry mom?”

“We need to come back to this place… I want to block off any of the doors with carts, so we know if something or someone came in here later.”

“Someone?”

Dani didn’t say anything further. Alicia shrugged and rolled the cart to the back door as she was told. 

Edgar began carrying Mary out of the stockroom. “Ms. Mary, we’ll get that leg looked at soon.”

“Thank you.” She winced. “Hurts like a motherfucker.”

Edgar snorted at that.

Dani hung back so Alicia wouldn’t get separated from the group. Edgar noticed Mary fidgeting and paused for a moment, allowing Mary to track her daughter as she did her task.

As Alicia rested the cart in front of the door next to the sliding loading door, it began to rattle violently. As the metal shook, a muffled moan could be heard from outside. She yelped and darted back toward the rest of the group as the door continued to shake.

Edgar watched this and had hoped the ghoul wouldn’t be smart enough to move around to the other side of the building.

…

The group of four made their way to the front of the store, where Jimmy was waiting, somewhat agitated, by two shopping carts of salvaged supplies. Dani noticed the nervous tapping of his right foot.

He spun around, shocked to see the group had grown by two more.

“Alright, so this is not what I expected out of a supply run,” he said. He adjusted a pair of glasses on the bridge of his nose. He looked good, complete. Dani noticed four other pairs hanging from the neck of his shirt. He looked like a dork, now that she thought of it.

Dani made the introductions. “Edgar, Jimmy, this is Mary and her daughter Alicia. They were trapped in the stock room. They were here maybe about an hour before we showed up.”

Dani grabbed a walkie-talkie from the cart and handed one to Alicia. “Found a couple of these; they have chargers, but I think they have battery backups, too.”

“Cool,” Alicia added, studying the new gear. She clipped it to a belt loop on her hip.

Jimmy looked the two new survivors over and turned his attention toward Mary’s bruised leg. He glanced at Dani and was about to say something, but she cut him off. “It’s a break, a nasty one, but we should be able to set it. No cuts or anything.” 

She made sure to emphasize the “anything” as she spoke – no need to worry about an infection just yet. Jimmy shrugged, seemingly convinced for the moment. Dani shoved a walkie-talkie at him as well. He nearly dropped it at first, but bounced it between his hands, juggling it for a few moments until he caught a good grip, drawing it to his chest.

Jimmy turned back and gestured to the carts – they weren’t exactly full, but it was still a rather nice haul. “I think we’ve done pretty well… we can stretch this. I am worried about getting back, though.” 

He pointed across the street, and Dani glared into the distance. Six ghouls were wandering in a parking lot. Right between them and Dani’s position was their car… right in the middle of the street.

She’d wondered how good their hearing was. She had thought about the noise she had made in the storeroom, and she wondered whether it had carried somehow. A low, steady moan echoed from the other side of the Walman’s building, and Dani realized it was the ghoul that was at the other end of the loading door. At least a ghoul – singular. She was not sure if there were more clawing at the door back there or wandering between the building and the wall that separated the different business parks.

Jimmy continued, “I think if we are very, very quiet, we can get this stuff loaded into the trunk. It’ll be a tight fit in the seats, but-“

Edgar shifted Mary’s weight in his arms, and she yelped as pain shot through her leg. Everyone shuddered and glanced back at her, alarmed by the sudden jolt of noise.

“It’s gonna be harder with Edgar having his hands full…” Alicia whispered.

Jimmy turned to the teen and nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.”

“Sorry,” Mary said sweetly.

Dani shook her head and looked at her, “It’s nothing to apologize for. We just need to think this over. Also, take this,” Dani handed over another walkie-talkie, “just in case.”

Mary nodded and clutched the walkie.

Dani weighed their options for a moment. The six ghouls in the parking lot were toward the far end of the strip mall, near a clothing store. A couple of ghouls could also be seen at the gas station kitty-corner to the drugstore. That was eight. Another small cluster across the street to her right had motion in the window of a liquor store. No telling how many lurked there.

Dani turned back to the group. “I think what we need to do is head out there quietly and open the doors and trunk. We can then have Edgar take Mary and Alicia to the cab, and then Jimmy and I can run the carts out and dump everything into the trunk as fast as possible. Scramble.”

Edgar shrugged his shoulders, but the motion moved Mary in his arms, and she grimaced from the pain that shot through her leg. He looked at her with a furrowed brow. “Sorry, Miss.” 

He turned his gaze to Dani and Jimmy. “That should work,” he added. “But there are three carts. You’ll need to rush a second trip. Or have me run back to do it.”

Alicia crept toward the entrance. “I can open the doors, if that will help?”

Mary glared at her. “Absolutely not!”

Everyone cast a hard gaze at Mary, chiding her for the sudden burst in volume. She flinched but continued, “I don’t want you out there by yourself.”

Alicia rolled her eyes. “Keys?” she asked, looking to Dani’s crew. “We need to hurry.”

“The doors are unlocked already,” Jimmy said. He tossed her the keys. “You just need to get the trunk.”

Alicia smiled and crept out the door. Mary began to wriggle in Edgar’s arms, but he held onto her tightly.

“Easy, Mary. Easy. We’ll keep her safe.”

Mary relented and fell limp. Dani and Jimmy rolled the carts into position as the girl made her way down the dried grass embankment. Within moments, she had opened the rear passenger door and then, climbing back out, moved to the back of the car and unlocked the trunk, ducking back out of sight from the ghouls wandering the lot across the street. She scanned the area quietly and waved Edgar over.

Edgar, ducking slightly to no effect given his size, carried Mary as quickly and gingerly as he could across the parking lot of the drug store and down the embankment. With Alicia’s help, he managed to load Mary into the back seat, but the process was painful and far from silent. Dani and Jimmy heard her whimpers and yelps all the way back at the Walman’s entrance, and stared at one another nervously.

Mary was finally loaded into the back seat, along with Alicia, after a few minutes had passed. Now, Edgar had crouched near the front of the passenger side. He scanned the area and nodded at Dani and Jimmy. He edged toward the front of the Cadillac, still crouched, his hand resting on the hood.

Dani saw him perk up and shift his gaze over the hood, west. Something nearby was making noise; he was the first to notice, then her. It was hard to tell what the sound was at first. It grew closer as she and Jimmy began to roll their carts out from under the drug store awning. Several high-pitched whoops echoed between the various plazas at the intersection where their drama was playing out.

The sudden sound of a police siren tearing through the air changed everything.