There was a bad smell in the air, like spoiled food. It got stronger as Angela made her way past the abandoned and emptied stores. There was a big Hudson’s Bay outlet at the end of the walkway. Maybe she would find someone there. The smell got worse. Angela had to plug her nostrils as she entered the store. And then she found the people she was searching for. Hundreds of them.
Dozens of display bins filled with clothing, cosmetics, shoes, and earrings had been pushed up against the far walls, leaving an immense space for dead bodies. Angela prayed that someone had gathered all the store mannequins and placed them there as some kind of sick joke. But even a shopping mall the size of North Kilpatrick didn’t have that many display mannequins to spare. These were people—men, women, and children—and they had been slaughtered. They had been herded into this open space and shot down. A few had gaping holes in their chests and stomachs, most had taken it square between the eyes. Angela was standing in the outer edge of an immense pool of blood. She stepped back and tried to wipe it away from the bottom of her shoes along some cleaner sections of white tile.
She started to gag and turned away, reaching for the gun in her pocket. She ran back the way she’d come, gasping for cleaner air and finding none. Angela staggered to a bench and vomited into the potted plant sitting next to it.
You don’t have much of a stomach for this kind of thing, do you?
She wiped her lips dry against her sleeve. “Shut up, Dad.”
There was a toy store in front of her. The windows were intact, and the contents on the shelves seemed untouched. Nothing of value to thieves and mass murderers in a toy store. Angela would be safe there. She could hide along the narrow aisles and gather her thoughts amongst the dolls, teddy bears, and video games. She entered, holding the heavy gun in front of her, wagging the dull black barrel from side to side. “If anyone’s in here, don’t get any ideas. I can defend myself. I’ll shoot, swear to God, I’ll pull the freaking trigger and end your life.” Angela had started to cry during the last part of her shaky warning. She had never held a gun in her hand until a few short hours ago, and she wasn’t even sure she had the strength to pull that freaking trigger.
She heard a soft padding sound coming from the back of the store. Moments later a red rubber ball rolled up to her bloodied shoes. Angela wanted to scream and run, but she held her ground. She aimed the gun down the aisle and carried on. “I’m not fooling around here. I killed a man this morning with a knitting needle, and I’ll kill you, too.”
Angela moved further into the shadows. She stopped in the corner, bracing her back up against a display of jigsaw puzzles and pre-kindergarten picture books. The gun was becoming too much in her hands, the barrel end starting to droop down at the floor. She took a deep breath and crept towards the back room door.
EMPLOYEES ONLY the sign read above. Dirty fingers shot out from within and wrapped around her wrist. The gun fell and three more hands scratched at her arm.
Angela was dragged into darkness.
Chapter 9
“I know you’re hurting.” Hayden pressed the rifle barrel into the back of the man’s neck with more force. “But don’t try anything stupid. We have a place just west of here, an area that survived the worst of it. I can help treat those… burns of yours. Get some food and clean water into you.”
The man released the boy’s shoulders. He tried turning his head, but Hayden kept it in place with the rifle. He spoke. “Hayden? Oh my God… Hayden Gooding, is that really you?”
Hayden kept the gun stuck into his neck and reached around for the boy’s hand. “Come back here, Nicholas. He won’t hurt you.”
The boy did as he was told. He went and stood next to the big man. Hayden pulled the rifle away and stepped back, pulling the child along to a safer distance. “Turn around, let me get a better look at you.”
The burnt man shifted sideways on his knees until he was facing them. The hair on his head had been fried away, the skin melted into his skull red and brown. The flesh of his right cheek was gone, leaving behind a gaping hole of gums and teeth. The rest of him wasn’t any easier to look at. Most of his clothes were missing, and every square inch of exposed skin was blistered over and raw. But through it all, Hayden had recognized the man’s voice, as rasping and weak-sounding as it had become, he knew the man kneeling before them. And the man knew him as well.
“Jake?”
Jake nodded. “Been walking for days… heading north, trying to find others.” He reached for Nicholas, and Hayden pulled the boy away. “I never thought I’d see him again. Thank you, Hayden… thank you for saving my son.”
“Maybe it would be best if you didn’t touch him. You’re in rough shape, a real mess, Jake.”
Jake Heez lowered his hand. Hayden was right; when his son had found him, he hadn’t gotten a good enough look. Now he could see full-on what had happened to his father—what he’d become—and the boy looked terrified.
“It’s me, Nicholas, its Dad.”
Hayden lowered the gun and helped Jake to his feet. “Can you walk?”
“I made it this far.”
“Come on then. Let’s get you back to the farm.”
Jake staggered alongside him. Nicholas held Hayden’s hand on the opposite side. “How did he get here? There’s nothing left of my place. Was… was Mandy with him?”
“Easy, Jake. I’ll explain it all back at the hole in the hill.”
Jake knew what the hole in the hill was. He’d been to Hayden Gooding’s farm a few years ago a half dozen times or so. The two men weren’t close, but their wives had been friends since high school. Teresa Gooding—Teresa Philips back then—had been Mandy’s bridesmaid at their wedding. Teresa hitched up with Hayden a year later. Teresa had always been a loud-mouthed, spoiled brat; the isolation of living on a farm hadn’t agreed with her, and after half a year the two split up. It had been during that six month period of marital bliss when both couples got together for the occasional backyard barbeque. Hayden’s farm yard sat on top of a hill, and on the north side, the hill dropped steeply off into the fields and pastures. Sometime in the seventies, Hayden’s father had removed a substantial section of that hill to provide shelter for horses.
That’s where Hayden was taking Jake and Nicholas now. He was taking them there because it was the only place to go. The house was no more. The sheds, garages, and barns had all been levelled. Like Jake’s property, there wasn’t a single structure left standing.
Hayden could see him surveying the devastation. “How bad was it at your place?”
“The same, maybe worse.”
They started down the steep incline; Hayden kicked rubble and dried clumps of baked mud out of their way, revealing steps made of two-by-sixes built into the hill. They had been put there less than four decades earlier, and likely replaced in the years since, but to Jake they looked more like ancient ruins hidden beneath the dust. They came to the bottom and stepped in front of two big wooden doors resting in a foundation of crumbling concrete set into the hillside. Dead, grey grass clung to the dried out soil around the door frame, and hung over the header beam like a dirty toupee. The grass higher up had turned black, and nearer to the top of the hill it had burned away altogether.
“Mandy isn’t here,” Hayden said when Jake started for the doors. Jake turned and gave him a questioning look. “I’ll be straight up with you… she was here, but she isn’t anymore.” He stepped past Jake and lifted a wooden beam from the rusted brackets holding the doors closed. He pulled one of the doors open and the three stepped into blackness.