The both laughed at themselves for looking over something that important. However, their laughter stopped when the noises that they heard from earlier started to get much, much closer.
Both of them knew that they had to be quiet and thus they were. They both knew what they were looking for and needed to get them fast. They didn’t know what to be more afraid of more: desperate, living humans, or hungry zombies.
The gentle ringing of a bullet hitting the floor began to sound off in the store.
Dave had found several boxes in almost plain sight. He then began to wonder if the last group of people that were here made the same mistake he and Jason did.
Just as Dave was about to turn to Jason and tell him of his find, he saw his friend standing over him, holding a shiny, chrome, single barreled shotgun and a desert eagle handgun.
“Oh, you found the bullets”, Jason said to a wide-eyed Dave. “So I guess you get first pick.”
Dave, without a word, motioned towards the shotgun.
“A fine choice, sir. Hold on, I found a bunch of shells in a random box behind the counter.” Jason handed Dave half a box of shells, it wasn’t much, but it was great for getting out of a pinch.
Jason looked at his new toy. He had found 4 magazines full of .50 caliber bullets for it.
Dave motioned towards the bullets that he had found. The friends spent a few minutes gathering the bullets and putting them into clips they had found strewn about the store. Each friend wound up with about 6 full clips each. Jason stored the rest of the stray bullets.
“You never know, dude”, Jason said, pointing at his full pockets.
Dave’s smile quickly faded when the noise of glass shattering and scurrying feet made themselves known practically outside of the store. Both friends looked at each other and turned pale.
They heard faint voices, both male and female outside the gun shop. They couldn’t make out what the voices said, but they were definitely there.
Jason went out to investigate.
He saw a silhouette running at him.
The light was behind the figure.
He couldn’t see a face, just the form.
It got closer.
It stuck out it’s arm.
Jason stuck out his.
Dave heard 2 gunshots and a body hit the floor hard.
“Jay?!”
Are we there yet?
Margie, Paulie, and Kara were tired. They had spent the last few hours both running and walking and hiding. Some cars were driving off road, shooting at anything that moved. Any distant outline of a human went down whenever the trucks went by.
“What the hell are those things?”, Kara said.
Paulie looked at the navy blue truck going by.
Margie cringed when she heard the people inside screaming victoriously and making cowboy noises.
“They look like vigilante squads. They kill anything that moves since they probably think it’s a zombie”, Paulie worriedly said.
Margie sensed the worry in his voice and clutched her gun tight.
“So, that’s good right. They kill those fuckers and step by step the world goes back to normal. It works”, Kara replied back quickly.
“Normally, that’d be fine, but did you see that last one? I don’t think one of those dead things would wave it’s arms like that and then cover it’s face when it sees a gun”, Paulie said back, now his eyes wide open, keeping a look out for that truck.
“We need to get to that mall, and fast. That truck might circle back and we could be next”, Margie said. She began to walk faster towards the mall now. It wasn’t too far anymore.
“What do you guys think happened to Tommy?”, Kara said sadly.
“Why should you care? You wanted Margie here to kill him!”, Paulie yelled back.
“It was for his own good! He was gonna die anyway! It doesn’t matter!”, Kara defended herself.
“But, still, it’s not right. He could have had a chance. You don’t know with these things!”, Paulie said back with tears in his eyes.
“I should have killed him”, Margie quietly said.
“I should have shot him right in the head”, Margie said louder
Paulie and Kara got quiet. They were both stunned.
“I could have put him out of his suffering and been done with it. God would have forgiven me. I was showing mercy to him! He had lost his father and I could have made it so that he joined him sooner, but now he’s probably just like one of those things! He’s doomed to walk the earth for…”, Margie began to rant, Kara cut her off.
“Y-You did the right thing. If it wasn’t for that distraction, we would all have a bunch of those things on our tails right now. We would not have been able to get this far”, Kara said back with sympathy in her voice.
“Tommy, Tommy was nuts already. He probably wouldn’t have done much good. Maybe even done more harm than anything else if we left him. I think Kara’s right. You did the right thing, Margie”, Paulie said back without any anger in his voice.
Margie nodded. “Then how come it doesn’t feel right?”, she whispered to herself.
“YIP YIP YIP YIIIIP”, echoed through the group. They all became paralyzed with fear.
“I GOT SOME MORE HERE, JEB!”, a deep southern accent yelled.
The blue truck sped towards the group quickly, kicking up dust behind it. The group ran as fast as they could towards the mall. It wasn’t too far now.
“Th-The noise. Won’t it attract those things?”, Kara forced out.
“Yeah, it will, we need to get to the mall, and fast!”, Tommy yelled.
Crack
Crack
“YIIIIP YIP YIP! YOU BETTER RUN, YOU SUM BITCHES!” Those words echoed as hard as the gunshots to the group.
One whizzed by Kara’s head as she dropped to the ground.
“KARA!”, Margie yelled. She stopped to pick her up.
“Come on! HURRY!”, Paulie yelled. He slowed his run to a jog so the girls could catch up to him.
Kara grabbed his hand. The crack of the gunshots rang through their minds and seemed to echo for an eternity.
Margie ran past Paulie and Kara and hid part of her body behind a tree.
“Margie, what are you doing? We need to get to that mall right now, it’s our only chance!”, Paulie yelled.
Margie ignored him and uttered a short prayer. She drew her gun and held it out with both hands.
“Lord, let my aim hold true. Protect us in our hour of need.”
She carefully lined her shot, growing more and more anxious by the second at how close the truck was getting. Margie saw the man in the passenger seat pointing his rifle at the biggest target.
He was aiming at Paulie and Kara.
With the driver in her sights, she fired, but she heard two shots.
The truck swerved around before flipping over several times, rolling a few dozen feet.
Paulie fell to the ground, screaming in agony.
The rifleman in the passenger seat managed to hit his mark.
Paulie was shot in the leg. Kara was able to catch him before he hit the ground. She carried most of his weight as they continued to limp past Margie, who was still stunned at what she had done.
Kara was right though. Many of the ghouls that were freshly killed and, ironically enough, some of the victims of the men in the truck were beginning to come to and descend on the wreckage.