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Picture Credits:
So far, I had made it from my college to my friend's house to the Wal-Mart to the mall. In the course of my adventure Death and I had met many times, but somehow we avoided shaking hands. After fleeing Wal-Mart in the nick of time, I had to fight my way across parking lots filled with fleeing humans and advancing zombies. By running and gunning, I had made it to the mall completely exhausted but physically intact. A burning question was simmering in my mind: How long could I keep running from place to place?
As I sat briefly on a bench to recover from physical exertion I would otherwise not do, I heard a loud voice scream "Barricade the doors!" A group of four security officers started to push benches and planters to block the doors. A man said "Get up! We need your bench!" Another said "If he made it through the mob at the door, let him have it! He's obviously a survivor..." Pointing my shotgun barrel down and using the weapon as a crutch, I wearily pulled myself up and let the officers use the bench to secure the doors I had recently dashed through.
While three of the officers and I covered the doors, the fourth ran up and locked them, an action that would buy a little more time for escape in case of a breakthrough. An officer holding a H&K MP5 submachine gun, who seemed to be the leader, said "My name's Bill Watley. What's yours, son?" Bill was a 6'0" man with short black hair, green eyes, an athletic appearance (muscular arms and legs), and a SWAT uniform on. I replied "I am Jordan. Nice to meeet you, Bill..." With a surprisingly warm smile and friendly facial expression, he shook my hand vigorously.
"That's a Remington 1100 12-gauge shotgun you have there..." an officer holding a SPAS-12 shotgun said. "My name is Lindsay Veronica Barton, but everyone calls me Veronica..." she said. She was a 5'8" woman with blonde hair, blue eyes, thin and athletic-looking, and a SWAT uniform. "I'm a weapons expert and I specialize in door-busting assaults. Bill's my partner in those actions, and he does his part well!" she said to me. Veronica shook my hand with as much vigor as Bill did, which caught me off guard.
"You're gonna need more than that Beretta 9mm and Remington 1100, son..." opined another man. He was clad in a gray camouflage uniform, a matching vest, wore a black beret, and carried a .357 Colt Python in his hand and a M-16 on his back. He was 5'10" with brown hair, blue eyes, a slim but athletic build like Bill and Veronica, and a ragged scar on his neck. "When I was 18, I got depressed over a girlfriend I broke up with and tried to hang myself with a rope. I survived but got a nasty scar that has lasted ever since that day." His distinct scar and piercing blue eyes lent him an intimidating quality, but he soon gave a slight smile and said "My name's Matthew Wayne Burgoyne, but my friends call me Clint because of the rope scar."
A man guarding the door suddenly turned to face us. He was clad like Clint and had a .45 SOCOM in his hand and a M-16 on his back, but his physical appearance was different from the rest. He was 6'0", but he had brown hair and brown eyes, a slim build, and wore thick glasses with a black frame. "I am named Mark Daniel Maxwell, but because of my marksmanship, ambidexterity, and skill with electronics I am known as Dexter." "He's a crack shot with any rifle and almost any handgun you can name..." spoke Clint as if to testify to Dexter's claim. Picking up my Beretta 9mm, Dexter said "This bore is dreadfully dirty! Let me clean it!" With that he opened a box he had nearby, took a slender tool of some sort, disassembled the pistol, cleaned the barrel, and put it back together in less than five minutes.
Dexter handed it back to me and said "It's clean now! That should keep it working for a while longer!" I thanked him and turned to Bill, who said "Now that you've met the crew, let's secure the other entrances!" As if on cue, a screaming woman ran by with a bite wound on her arm. "Bring her down NOW!" shouted Veronica, but it was too late for either Clint or Dexter to get an accurate aim, so we chased her to the Belk's section of the mall. By the time we got there, we watched as she hurriedly pried open the door and ran out... into a horde of bleeding, light blue zombies! They grabbed her and mauled her from all sides, blood spraying everywhere and ending up on the glass windows and doors.
At this I turned away because it reminded me of Josh's grisly demise. But the trouble did not end there... about fifteen zombies made it through the door the woman opened and were pushing through the second set of doors! "Get ready everyone..." Bill said with a firm voice. Leading the group, Veronica got within 10 paces of the door and told us to stand beside her and cover the doors. We did so and Veronica began firing her SPAS-12, blowing seven zombie heads into fertilizer and slowing the flow of zombies while Bill covered her and picked off five that made it though Veronica's barrage.... until his submachine gun jammed!
"I've got the last ones Bill!" Clint said as he coolly aimed his Colt Python and fired three headshots by the time I could level my Beretta at them. "Cover the door Dexter and Jordan!" shouted Veronica as she and Clint grabbed tables and made to barricade the outer set of doors. Clint took a metal pole and rammed it through the gap in the handles, which added strength to the already formidable barricade. Then Veronica and Clint repeated the process on the inner set. "That should slow their advance..." remarked Bill with a trace of frustration in his voice.
"Your weapon jammed... you can't help that!" I said, offering encouragement. He shouted "I got lucky Clint was covering me! I can't afford ANY MORE MISTAKES!" I turned to Veronica and she said with a sigh "He's a perfectionist and kicks himself relentlessly if anything goes wrong." Dexter asked "Do we need this section of the mall? If not, we can close the rolling gate and further fortify defenses..." Clint said "I don't have any use for it, but first let's secure the area..."
We went on a section-wide zombie sweep, making all manner of noises to lure any hiding zombies out, but none appeared.
"All is clear..." chimed Dexter.
"I see nothing either..." added Veronica.
"No signs of them." gruffly said Bill.
"A-OK here!" crowed Clint
"I checked everywhere in the main part, and I see no signs of them. However, I DID see some bloodstains around the fitting room entrance." I said.
"Let's investigate..." ordered Bill. Clint and Veronica went to investigate the area while I led them to it. While they went in, Dexter and I remained outside. We heard Veronica open doors, then a shot at the second door. They opened the third door and another shot rang out.
"Good thing you led us here. There were two zombies in the dressing rooms!" Veronica said to me. "I have an eye for detail..." I humbly replied. Clint opened the cylinder of his revolver, dumped the empty casings and inserted six more rounds with a speed-loader he took from a pouch at his side. "Now that we've secured the dressing rooms, let's check the other places..." Dexter declared. So the four of us went through the side corridors, checked the bathrooms and behind the return desks, and found three more zombies in the bathrooms. Those were readily dispatched by Veronica's SPAS-12 and Clint's .357 Magnum, as their reports indicated.
"Now if I have to use the john, I don't have to worry about a zombie bite..." joked Clint. After checking everywhere, the four of us reported back to Bill, who was busy barricading another set of exterior and interior double doors. We told him of the encounters in the bathroom and dressing room, and he replied "We need to check EVERYWHERE before we say an area is clear!" So we shut the roll-down gate leading into Belk's and proceeded to the center of the mall, where there were boxes of shotgun, pistol and revolver ammunition stacked on neatly arranged rectangular tables. "We managed to bring these in before the invasion really began..." said Veronica in response to a question I had yet to ask.
Ammunition was not a problem, but food might prove to be. But by scouring a restaurant, Dexter found ten large bags of rice and a closet full of ramen noodles and spices needed for Chinese cooking! "We're set here!" he exclaimed. So the five of us ate rice for our first night enduring a zombie siege. I walked up to the barricaded glass windows and doors and looked out at the bloody, pale blue faces and exposed teeth. "If they weren't out to kill us, I'd almost feel sorry for them..." remarked Dexter with a trace of sorrow.
I heard the perpetual moaning of the zombies outside and an occasional scream as another unfortunate human was being eaten outside. The full moon cast a pale light through the skylight, bathing all it touched in a white shroud and lengthening their shadows. As I walked through the mall I spent more carefree days in, I hardly recognized the broken store displays, bloodstained tile floors and shadowy entrances as places I once loved to walk by and observe the human life within. In the place of lively humans in the shops, I saw dead bodies that had yet to be buried. And the most disturbing aspect was that their expressionless faces and unblinking eyes seemed to be staring RIGHT AT ME!
Almost running away from the makeshift morgue that The Shoe Department had become, I quickly walked to the center where the other four were waiting. Clint asked me "How did you manage to survive this far?" I replied "It took a lot of courage and luck. Many of my college friends did not make it, and I do not know where two others went." He patted me on the shoulder and said "Good work making it through the zombies in the parking lot!"
Then as Bill, Veronica, and Clint prepared to go to sleep, Dexter walked off to keep watch over the main entrance we had barricaded. Being unable to sleep, I followed him and decided to have a conversation. He turned to me and asked what time it was.
"12:15 a.m." I said as I looked at my watch.
"Time truly passes when your life is in danger! I got here with Clint around 3:30 p.m. while the zombie menace was still light. Bill and Veronica arrived at 5:00 p.m. If I'm not mistaken, you got here at 11:00 p.m." said Dexter.
"Fortunately for you, we had swept most of the zombies from here by the time you arrived. A few hours earier, you would have been food for those... those... things!" he added.
"Thanks for the warning!" I said as I looked at the floor and noticed numerous bloodstains near the door I rushed in.
"No problem... say, do you know if the Wal-Mart not too far from here is still safe?" he asked.
"That was where I came from before I got here. Zombies broke through and were overrunning the place when I retreated here. I managed to get a shotgun, ammunition, snack food and water before they entered." I replied.
"Say... do you have Peanut Butter Nekots?!" he asked as he looked me in the face.
"I have plenty... want some?" I asked as I produced two packs from my backpack. He thanked me and we leaned against a wall while eating them and watching the zombies pound ceaselessly at the door. We watched them until 2:30 in the morning, when Dexter and I decided to take a chance and return to the center to sleep near the others. Dexter went promptly to sleep, but I remained awake mentally recounting the day's horrific events.
I had survived a few brushes with a zombie army and made it to a mall. While I had lost three friends, I seemed to have found four new ones. Better yet, I did not have to fear being alone in the midst of a zombie siege, for I had four other humans by my side! Though greatly encouraged by these things, old questions still demanded answers. Even with five armed defenders and barricades on the entrances, how long could the mall last? And was there a safe escape route should the barricades be breached?
As if in reply, my shotgun glistened in the moonlight. Whether the answer was in the affirmative or negative was beyond my understanding at the moment, but it was somehow reassuring, as if fate had not given up on me just yet. Finally falling asleep at 4:30, I trusted my new friends and fate to keep me safe a while longer...
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