Zac managed to find lighter fluid, barbeque lighters and body deodorant in the next isle.
“Those freaks will be smelling like a field of daisies while burning in hell.” Blake said sadistically as he held up a bottle of deodorant.
“Sometimes…you scare me.” Zac admitted, stuffing more deodorant in the cart they snagged by the entrance. Blake stuck out his tongue.
“That's kind of my job.” Zac rolled his eyes and playfully shoved Blake, who merely laughed.
“Come on you big dork, we need to finish up so we can get out of here.”
The basket now contained some clothes, lighters, lighter fluid and cans upon cans of lady deodorant.
Now all that was left is first aid kits and back packs. The next isle had nothing of interest so the two of them moved in deeper.
Blake had almost walked past an isle that had shelves full of school bags and vacation bags if it weren't for Zac who pulled him back by his collar.
Zac grabbed one big bag and stuffed everything else in that was in the cart inside and then proceeded to roll up smaller bags up (with some difficulty) and stuffed them into another bag.
“Alright, medical supplies.” Zac muttered to himself as he slung the one bag over his shoulder.
The deodorant bottles clinged against each other which made Zac freeze. “Maybe you can stash some more stuff in that bag.” Blake said as he turned and went to the end of the isle.
“Medical stuff…probably that way.” Blake said, pointing at the back side of the shop.
“Okay, let's go then.” Zac said and stood next to Blake.
They moved side by side, Blake lightly bumping into Zac's side. Zac looked at Blake and smiled at him but then Zac pulled his nose up in sudden disgust.
“Ugh, what's that smell?” Blake asked as his expression mirrored that of Zac's. Pinching, their noses shut to avoid breathing in the putrid smell, Blake shone the torch out ahead a bit and saw what caused the smell.
An isle filled with rotting meat.
“Ugh, gross…” Blake said as he stepped closer.
“What are you doing!” Zac hissed, trying not to gag at the smell.
“Relax, I'm only checking something…” Blake said, shining his flashlight on one of the pieces of squirming meat, and took a small hook he picked up from the ground, lightly poking it. He yelped and dropped the hook when thousands of squirming maggots burst out of the meat.
“Gross.” Blake laughed, before turning to Zac, who had his hand over his mouth, his face a sickly shade of green.
“Blake, please get back here, this place is making me sick.” Zac said, leaning forward and resting his hands on his knees.
“Fine!” Blake groaned exaggerating.
They walked over to the farthest side of the shop, Zac walking a little bit faster than Blake so he could just get away from the smell.
Zac looked up at where they were and saw they ran into the cashier's side of the shop. “Okay…that way then…” Zac said pointing the way they came before they smelled the putrid smell of meat.
“Yes…” Blake said as he took a deep breath and started to move. Zac followed behind him and sighed a breath of relief.
“I didn't expect that…” Blake said.
“To be fair, no one was here to eat or take the meat away…and some of it was still in plastic bags.” Zac said. It wasn't long until the pharmacy side of the store came into view.
Zac went to one of the small isles and found bandages, gauze, disinfectant, salve, cotton swabs and band-aids.
He stuffed as much as he could in the already full bag and some in the other bag that was full of other bags.
“Is this everything?” Zac asked, mostly himself. Blake didn't answer which made Zac turn around to look at him to see Blake was blowing balloons out of the surgical gloves.
“I almost forgot!” Zac said, grabbing a box of surgical gloves as well.
“So you got everything?” Blake asked.
“I think so. Now all that's left is to pack the bags once we get back to the hideout.” Zac said.
Blake nodded and slowly made their way back to the exit where they stopped dead in their tracks. There were two zombiens, sniffing the air.
Blake immediately got his flamethrower ready and shot a whole stream of fire at them. They groaned and moaned as the fire started to burn away their skin.
They plopped down as their moans quieted down. “That was bound to create attention…” Zac said as he used his other rod to get the burning cloth off from the rod.
He and Blake quickly dashed to the alleyway where they had killed the rat zombie and took a deep breath.
“That was close…” Blake said.
“Yeah…we should get back to the hideout…maybe use the rooftops this time like Diana did.” Blake looked up at the building in front of him.
“How?” He said. Zac looked around and saw the building they leaned against had a fire escape.
“Here, come on.” Zac said as he climbed the dumpster and got onto the ladder that hung above it. Blake followed him up the fire escape.
When they arrived on the roof, they peered over the ledge to see the undead freaks were going like normally. Shuffling around and sniffing the air.
Zac looked at the distance between the building they were on and the next one. “This is going to be hard…” Zac groaned.
Blake grunted. “Let's just take a break up here then…” Blake suggested and slid down the thick and high wall that prevented them from falling over. Zac sat down next to him.
“How did things go so wrong?” Zac asked.
“I don't know. Literally anything could've happened up there. Probably an experiment gone wrong or something?” Blake said.
“Most likely.” Zac said and looked up above him, but then closed his eyes.
×Ｏ
Richard took a deep breath as he prepared to knock on Jeremy's office door. “Just knock…” He told himself. He did.
“Come in.”
Jeremy looked up to see Richard opened the door. “Richard, everything okay?” He asked.
“Yes. So far, yes.” Richard said. “How is the weapons coming along?”
“Wonderfully. The first flamethrower is completed. My team is working on building others.”
“Okay, good. Thanks.” Richard said, desperate to leave
“Richard, wait!” Jeremy said and caught up with Richard and grabbed his wrist.
“About the other day…” Jeremy began.
“It was an accident. It didn't mean anything…” Richard said, but then saw the redness on Jeremy's face. Aw, he's blushing...WAIT! NO! NOT, AW! DAMNIT RICHARD!
“I know and I don't want an accident to make everything awkward. We are colleagues.” Jeremy said.
“Well, yes. Of course. Definitely.” Richard wanted to smack himself for agreeing three times in one sentence.
“Uhm…hi.” Jeremy turned around to see one of the scientists that worked under Jeremy.
“Hi. Can we help you?” Richard asked, thankful for this disturbance.
“I have a question for Dr. Tristan regarding the mechanisms of the flamethrowers?” The girl said shyly. Dr. Tristan stepped closer to her.
Jeremy turned to face Richard, but he's gone.
“Okay. Thank you.” The girl said with satisfied smile and left.
So he went Lucy.
He walked towards her office, entering. “Lucy…” Jeremy said which made Lucy look up at him.
“Something wrong?” She asked.
“Do you have time?”
“Yeah, for now.” Lucy said as she looked at the time.
×Ｏ
Zac and Blake arrived back at the hideout, trying to catch their breath. “That…was too close for comfort!” Blake said as his chest continuously raised and dropped.
“Yeah!” Zac agreed.
“Uh, Are you two okay?” Zac looked towards the source of the voice to see Diana sitting on one of the crates.
“We're fine.” Zac said as he dropped the bags he carried, still trying to catch his breath.
“Echo! They're back!” Diana shouted. A little after Diana shouted, Echo rushed up the stairs that came from the basement.
“Goodness, what happened!” Echo asked as they went to the young men and made sure they were okay.
“We're okay. We were almost zombie food, but we escaped…untouched.” Zac said.
“If one of you turns, we won't hesitate to torch you.” Diana said, not wavering one bit.
“Why do I believe her?” Blake said.
“I don't know…come on. We need to pack these bags.” Zac said and went up the stairs that lead to the roof and into the little area that was made up there.
“You two spend an awfully a lot of time up there…what are you doing exactly?” Diana asked with a suspicious look on her face.
”Nothing, you loud idiots are down there.” Blake said as he shrugged and making his way to the staircase.
Blake disappeared through the door that lead to the roof. Diana shrugged and jumped off from the crate she was on.
Diana watched as Echo went back to the basement. When she was sure she was alone, she pulled out the radio that Zac had left behind for in case they didn't make it. The radio would at least be with Diana to stay in contact with his father.
“General…” She said lowly into the speaker.
“Charlie Delta…report.” Richard answered immediately.
“It would seem that Zac and this Blake boy has a…romantic interest in each other and on top of that, Zac isn't sharing everything he knows.”
“Continue.” Richard said.
“The hand that was chopped off…the alien known as Echo chopped it's own hand off to replace Zac's hand.” Diana quickly explained.
“What?” Richard said.
“What's your plan General?” Diana asked. As Richard explained his plan to get Echo and Blake to force them to come with the team, Diana smirked.
“How are you going to fix the affects of the brainwashing?” Diana asked.
“Nothing good old conversion therapy can't fix.”