This Would Be Paradise (Book 1)-A Zombie Novel

Chapter 16

Oh joy, back in my day stories.

I walked up to the front doors and peeked inside. Since the power had been out for quite some time, it was no surprise that the doors didn't part for me as I approached. The light from outside barely shone into the cart lobby and I had to wipe away some of the dirt caked onto the glass doors just to see inside better. From what I could see, there was no one nearby and the second set of automatic doors were wide open, unlike the set I was currently peaking in.

"Come on and help me pry these apart," I said, hoping they weren't dead-bolted.

I stuck my fingers into the little slot where the doors met and with Ethan grabbing the other side, we heaved. Slowly the doors parted for us as, squealing at the sudden use after being neglected for so long. If the doors weren't locked that meant anything could be in here. We gave the parking lot one last look to make sure it was void of infected and with our bags in hand, we reclosed the glass sliding doors behind us.

Once inside, we flipped the dead bolts which only required a key to get in, not to lock up from the inside. Then we did the same for the second set of doors.

"Should we be locking ourselves in without checking the place out first?" I asked.

"Well if anything is in here, it would be even worse if anything outside got in to," John pointed out, "At the least the front is secured."

"Well for all we know, the back door could be wide open," Ethan mentioned.

"Good point," John said as he took his gun from its holster, "Let's check the perimeter first."

I slid my backpack on and pulled out my Beretta.

"You and Ethan check the emergency exits and doors around the floor. Taylor and I will check the back," John dictated.

"Splitting us up? That's horror movie talk," I said nervously.

"We need to get this place locked down as soon as possible," John insisted, "Which means we need to cover as much ground as possible, fast."

We all rummaged around in our bags for our flashlights and clicked them on. The sunlight that was coming through the front doors only shone so far. I pointed my beam all around to see if I could spot anything but the immediate area seemed to be clear of infected. The smell of rotting food hung in the stale air but if you breathed through your mouth it wasn't so bad. The grocery section took up the left side of the store while the non-food items took up the rest of the supermarket.

The store didn't seem to be in as bad of shape as I thought it would. There were carts here and there and some of the shelves were picked over but that wasn't out of the ordinary for this store. John and Taylor took off down the middle aisle towards the back while Ethan and I decided to start along the left wall and make our way around.

I made sure I was breathing through my mouth as the stench of rotten food got stronger. The produce section had created its own compost heap so we pretty much ran past that part. The first door we spotted was the one that lead to the back room but John and Taylor had that section, which apparently ran around the whole building in a u-shape. I pointed my flash light along the wall while Ethan pointed his ahead.

"Ethan," I whispered as I spotted the first emergency exit door.

It was closed; I could only see the light from outside trying to peak through the bottom. Ethan wiggled the bar shaped handle to make sure it wouldn't swing open easily. Once we were satisfied that it wouldn't open from the outside, we continued on. At the thorough pace we were going, it took us close to an hour just to check the perimeter. We had made it all the way back to the entrance part which only left the washrooms and the janitor's closet; at least that's what I assumed it was.

We rounded the corner of the women's washroom. Ethan stepped in first to make sure nothing was hiding in the darken space. The sound of the creaking hinges rang out in the small space as Ethan pushed open all the doors one by one. I heard footsteps behind me and whirled around to see the half eaten face of a former employee. His blue vest was ripped and stained dark red. His decayed skin had taken on the same colors as his dirty vest. With a growl he launched himself at me, knocking both of us to the floor.

I focused all my energy on keeping his snapping teeth away from me. The thing was relentless with his snarling and snapping. I turned my head to avoid the dribbling blood and saliva that the thing was spraying with every attempt to bite into me. I was about to yell for help when the body was ripped from me and flung across the floor, its arms flailing. Before the zombie could get back up, Ethan stomped down hard on its head. The decayed skull gave way fairly easily to the pressure of his foot and soon a pulpy mess covered the white floor and walls.

"You ok?" Ethan ran back over to me and heaved me up.

I gave myself a once over and nodded, "Yeah, I managed to keep him from biting me."

I was shaking slightly from the adrenaline and fear. For a second I thought I might throw up. The nasty, rotting smell didn't help with that either.

"You gunna be ok to keep goin'?" Ethan asked, seeing that I was slightly shaken.

"I'll be fine," I said curtly and he let it go.

We stepped over the mess and checked the rest of the front area. So far the peeping tom infected was the only thing we had run into.

"Should we go look for them?" I asked, "They're taking a long time."

"Let's head down the middle aisles on the way then," Ethan said.

We passed by more empty lanes on our way to the back of the store. The growling was the first sign that we were not alone in the center. I shone my flashlight in the direction of the sound which in hindsight was not a good idea. The infected's attention was now honed in on us and we took a few steps back. Ethan whipped out his machete as the thing started towards us.

"Down here," I said, pointing my light to one of the home accent aisles.

Ethan nodded and we bolted towards the land of bathroom mats. The infected chased us but I suppose it couldn't see too well; it ran straight into the massive display of frying pans that was plunked down in the main throughway. The display was knocked over and the crashing noise was so loud I cringed. That would surely attract anything that was lurking in here.

"Shit," I heard Ethan hiss behind me.

The flashlight bounced all around in front of me as we ran, making it hard to keep a steady eye on anything.

"Turn back," I yelled at Ethan as I stopped dead in my tracks.

A handful of infected had managed to cut us off. Their mangled bodies created a blockade at the end of the aisle. Ethan yanked me back towards the way we had come with the six on our trail forcing us to keep moving. The first zombie that had caused the noise was still trying to get itself untangled from the display, making more noise in the process. As we ran past its reaching hands, Ethan brought down his machete on the things head. One swing was all it took and it stopped moving. Ripping the weapon from the things skull, we ran even faster away from the approaching crowd.

It seemed like we had garnered the attention of everything infected that was in here; somehow we had not run into them during our perimeter check. They must have been hiding in the aisles.

"Maybe we can try to lose 'em," Ethan grabbed my hand and pulled me towards another aisle.

We weaved through all the aisles, trying to lose the ones following us. I hoped this worked as well as it did in the truck. Finally, we had made it to the back of the store but I could still hear the mass of infected approaching somewhere in the aisles near us. They hadn't wandered off like I hoped they had. Having been trapped in here, they probably haven't come across fresh meat in a while and the thought made me grimace. The shuffling and groaning was getting louder by the second.

I looked over at Ethan, who had the exact same look of desperation plastered on his face as I did. Our eyes darted back and forth until we simultaneously spotted the set of scuffed plastic swinging doors that lead to the back room. Neither of us had to say anything as we bolted straight for them.