Henry was running towards Meri as she was approaching the side of the cart coral, the two zombies that were following her were now within 20 feet of her while the other zombie had made it to the other side of the coral and was waiting for her to come around the corner.
"Meri!" He yelled from a distance. "Stop!"
Meri turned around and looked at Henry coming towards her. A sense of panic came over her as she saw the look on his face, he was waving his arms in the air trying to convey some message to her. She turned her head to one side, trying a new perspective on his actions to make some kind of sense of them.
She looked to her right and saw that two zombies were coming from the direction where she came. She looked back at Henry and pointed at them with two fingers.
Henry had tried to tell her to turn around and come towards him, he waved his arms towards himself as he was running, but he just could not get her to understand the gravity of the situation she was currently in. Henry tried yelling again, but his voice was getting hoarse from sprinting this much distance. He could run the distance with ease; he could not do something else at the same time, any time he tried to text and run, he always tripped over something.
He saw her glance towards the two zombies that had been following her and then realised that she knew that one of them was missing when she was pointing at them with two fingers.
Meri began to turn around in a frantic circle, trying to spot where this other zombie could be.
"Oh, my God. Oh my God." She repeated over and over.
The two zombies following her had gotten closer and closer, they were now within a dozen feet of her. She could not waste any more of her precious time, she turned to look back at Henry who was now running with his arm extended, pointing to just over her left shoulder.
Meri slowly started turning to where he was pointing and noticed a pair of eyes peeking through the carts at her. The other zombie had crouched down next to the end of the carts and was waiting for her. She put her hand over her mouth and started backing away from the cart coral, towards Henry. She had given up on getting that extra weapon.
Dennis was walking as quickly as his heavy work boots would allow through the parking lot, heavily winded from his brief run as he tried to match the speed that Henry was running. He was well over half-way to the cart corral by the time that Meri had finally spotted the hiding zombie and was backing away, an indication that she had seen it. Dennis was not sure that he'd be able to continue on without her right about now.
Henry continued to sprint towards Meri as she was backing towards him, leading the trailing two zombies directly into his path. Henry rotated the hammer in his right hand so that the claw end was pointing out and focused on the two zombies he had to contend with first.
"Duck!" Henry yelled as he was closing in on Meri, the zombies were almost on top of her by the time that he had made it to her.
Meri was barely able to understand the words he said to her before he shoved her out of the way and jumped into the two zombies swinging his hammer at the closest zombie while extending his leading leg and kicking the other zombie in the chest, sending it sprawling onto the pavement.
Henry landed on his feet and continued running, dragging the zombie behind him for a few strides before he was able to shake the head from the end of the sharp hammer. Henry came skidding to a stop and turned around, his chest heaving as he took in as much oxygen as he could manage, congealed blood and brain matter dripping from his hammer making a thick wet sound as it landed on the ground.
His eyes were focused on the sprawled zombie that was trying to stand up again. The zombie stood and looked at Henry, with the shirt sticking to the large indentation was in the middle of its chest from the impact that Henry's foot had made when he kicked it. Rib bones were poking out through the shirt that was starting to make Henry queasy again.
Henry and the zombie both heard a muffled cry just behind it, and they both looked towards it. The zombie licked its lips as it saw Meri trying to crawl away from it a few feet away.
Henry noticed the change in its demeanour and lunged at the zombie striking out at it with the hammer only to have the hammer turn in his hand and the broadside hitting the zombie as it continued towards the slow moving meal.
Meri let out a little squeal as she heard the sickening smack that the hammer made on the skull of the zombie. She heard the zombie groan as it still came after her.
Henry grunted in frustration as his hammer caused no damage to the zombie with the first strike and he lashed out at it again, this time holding the hammer with two hands. The force and frustration that he put into this swing caused the hammer to penetrate the top of the skull and continue until the hammer stopped at the ear.
The zombie fell to the ground with a dull thud.
Henry stood over the zombie and kicked it's lifeless body.
"Stupid thing." He said as he turned his head and threw up a little on the ground beside him.
Meri turned around to see him wiping the bile and vomit from his chin with the sleeve of his sweater.
"Thanks." She said to him as she pushed herself up. Admiring her hands and pants for blood after being shoved to the ground by Henry.
"No problem." He said back smiling a little.
Dennis arrived on the scene and looked at Meri, "Are you OK?"
"Yeah, I'll be alright. A little shocked is all." She said to him.
Henry walked over to the fallen zombie and grabbed his hammer by the handle and pulled on it. The zombie's body jolted upwards and fell to the ground with the hammer still stuck inside it. He put his foot on the shoulder of the body and pulled again, the head turned a little upright, but the hammer would not budge from the head.
He bent down to look at the body and noticed a blunt object in the mouth of the zombie. He turned the head using the handle of the hammer to get a better look. Henry saw that the hammer was lodged in between a few of the vertebrae in its neck and the flat end was in the mouth.
Henry yanked at the handle of the hammer and twisted it back and forth trying to dislodge the hammer from the mouth. After a few more twists followed by a loud cracking noise, Henry was finally able to get the hammer out.
"Damn. That was in there good." He said as he stood up and looked to Dennis.
Dennis glanced at him and then returned his gaze to the cart coral. Henry followed his gaze and noticed that the middle-aged rocker zombie was slowly trying to crawl towards the piece of pipe that Meri had been trying to go after.
"That's odd," Henry said as he stepped next to Meri and Dennis.
"You're telling me. It's been crawling towards it that slow for the past couple of minutes." Dennis responded, "It's like she's trying to remain invisible."
"Let's go take care of her then and get to the front door." Henry motioned towards the Wholesale store with his head.
"Yup." was all Dennis said as he started forward towards the crawling zombie.
Dennis started towards the zombie when it suddenly turned its head and hissed at him. The zombie started crawling faster towards the pipe on the ground as Dennis and Henry began to hurry to make up some of the distance between themselves and the zombie.
The rocker zombie made it to the pipe and put it's hand over it as it let out another hiss and groan at the approaching men. The zombie closed its fingers and tried to pick up the pipe, but it fell through its grip and hit the ground with a clang.
Henry reached out and put a hand on Dennis' chest. "I want to watch this."
Dennis grunted but stopped walking forward. He was steadily swinging his crowbar back and forth in anticipation of the fight that was to come.
The zombie reached towards the rolling pipe and put one hand over the top of it and slide the other hand underneath of the pipe and rolled it onto its waiting hand. It grinned as it looked towards the two men and closed it's fingers around the pipe and held it in front of its face.
The end of the pipe started sagging towards the ground as the zombie did not have th
e strength necessary to hold the pipe with any threat.
"Well, that's not good," Dennis said as the zombie began to approach them, swinging the pipe wildly back and forth, pointing towards the ground.
Dennis reached out with his left hand and caught the pipe. He ripped it from the loose grasp of the zombie, and she charged at him with her arms up reaching for his face. Dennis swung the crowbar that was hanging down by his side and hit her squarely on the front of the head, caving in a good portion of her skull and sending her flying across the pavement. Her body stopped skidding across the asphalt and twitched a few times before it stopped moving.
"The more of these we see, the scarier they're becoming," Dennis said as he offered the pipe to Meri.
"Would you like this now?" He said to her with an extended arm.
Meri reached her hand out and took it in her grasp. The metal felt cold against her skin but refreshing with the small cuts that covered the palms of her hands from the accidents she's had in the past 5 or 6 minutes.
The pipe was a little heavy for her at first but the more she carried it and waved it around a little the better it felt to her.
"How does it feel?" Dennis said to her as he watched her move around with it.
"Not too bad, going to take a little getting used to carrying this around." She said as she put the bar over her shoulder, just the same way that Dennis carried his crowbar most of the time.
"Good. Now hopefully we won't have to worry about you as much now," Dennis said back.
"You should be worrying about yourself. You almost got eaten twice back there after I left." She smiled, "It's like I'm your good luck charm."
Dennis laughed at her comment. It was the first time in almost 24 hours that he laughed.
Dennis stopped laughing when he saw the look on Henry's face.
While Meri had been testing out the pipe swinging it around and getting used to it. Henry had taken the time to survey the area to keep an eye out for danger now that they were so far out in the open now.
At first, he did not believe what he had seen initially and shrugged it off as a mirage.
He kept glancing towards it as he was watching the other buildings in the area for movement. It was not until Dennis had laughed that he actually understood what he was looking at.
"Guys...." Henry trailed off as he was looking in the distance.
Dennis turned towards the buildings that they were walking beside when he saw it.
Walking towards them was a group of 40 or 50 zombies, all starting to spread out as they made it past the edge of the building. The zombies initially huddled into a group of 5 or 6 grew bigger and bigger with every zombie that made it past the corner.
"... We have to go. Now!" Henry turned and started for the front door of the Wholesale store.
Dennis turned around and put his hand on Meri's shoulder as she began to turn around.