Jason Sanchez - When They Come

“Jay?”, Dave quietly said.

“Just keep quiet for now. We don’t need any needless confrontation. Let’s just stay quiet, get what we need, and head out”, Jason replied back while looking in the direction of the noise.

“Right”, Dave whispered.

Climbing up the escalator grew more and more tense between the two friends. The noises weren’t stopping and the voices were barely audible. All they could make out were hostile noises. It was at this point where they didn’t know if they should be more afraid of the living, rather than the dead.

“Do you think it’s pirates?”, Jason asked.

“Pirates? Like, with swords and parrots?”, Dave replied with a hint of sarcasm.

“Yeah, kind of, you know, without the boat?”

“Yes, Jay, pirates are in the mall. That’s exactly where they’d go. Not to peoples’ houses, not prying open the cars, but yeah, they’d come to the mall to steal your amazing hat. Yes, Jay, those are pirates”, Dave ranted.

“…Ass”, Jason replied back quietly.

“Hey, hey whoa! Check this out!” Jason whispered excitedly. “There are some copies of that book I wanted to check out on display; ‘Deviant’, a story of sex and sexual addiction.” Sounds interesting enough.

“Sounds kind of hot”, Dave replied, uninterested.

Flipping through it, Jason replied, “Sounds kind of boring.” And he soon tossed it aside. “Come on, one more floor to go before we hit the gun shop.”

The friends arrived at the gun shop. The store’s sign was a simple “Tanzili’s” on a dark wood background with a picture of a pistol after the S. Jason tugged at a door, only to find that it was open. The lock was broken. Ironically enough, it was shot off.

“Well, shit”, Jason said as he slowly and effortlessly opened the door.

Dave ventured inside, bat at the ready, but it didn’t matter. The store was all but empty, save for a few old and worn looking weapons. There were bullets scattered all over the floor and glass reflected softly in the light.

“Let’s take what we can and get out of here. We need to get to the army site before they leave without us”, Dave said.

Jason grabbed a 9mm pistol from the floor. “You’re right”, he said as he released the clip and checked for bullets.

“Do you know how to use these things?”, Dave said in a surprised voice. To his knowledge, neither of them had ever played with guns before.

“Well, no, but I’ve played a lot of video games”, Jason replied.

“Oh”, Dave said.

Dave looked at the walls and noticed that almost all of the gun accessories still remained. There were many holsters of different colors and textures. There were even slings left on the walls.

“Jay, look. I think we can totally make use of these”, Dave said excitedly.

“Something is kind of off, man” Jason said. “Why is there such a mess around the guns, but all the tools and accessories are fine? If the people here had ample time to get ready, you know, in a zombie-free place, wouldn’t they have taken a few things and left the store the way it was?”

It was then that both friends looked outside of the store and noticed cracks in the windows that they thought were in great shape. There were traces of blood on the floor, but not enough to be a dead body. There were also torn pieces of clothing scattered around the mall.

“Shit. Sometimes you need to be more afraid of the living than the dead in these kinds of situations”, Dave said.

“Well, I got a C in Philosophy, so I say we just take the guns and get to the army site”, Jason said back.

Dave found a few handguns left in the glass case under the counter. They were under a pile of glass which would explain why no one grabbed them in their haste. He brushed the glass aside and laid 4 of them out on the counter.

“These are all nice and simple 9mm handguns, Jay.”

“Good find!”, Jason said excitedly.

Taking two holsters each, both friends helped each other put on the gear and stored the guns they found into them. They each took a few seconds to admire how each other looked.

“We’re badass, dude”, Dave said.

“You know what would make this MORE badass?” Jason said.

“What? Bigger guns? A flame thrower? Oh! A bazooka!”, Dave said, practically jumping up and down.

“No”, Jason said as he pulled out a gun from his holster. “Bullets. See if you can find any.”

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.