After a few minutes, Meri's sobs start turning into sniffles, and her breathing returned to normal.
She looked off into the distance as she tried to regain her composure. She did not like having emotional outbursts, especially in a crisis like this. She raised her hands to her face and wiped away the tears that were still running down her cheeks.
Meri realised that she had been leaning on Henry's shoulder as she cried and pushed herself away.
"I'm sorry." She said looking towards him. She blushed when she noticed the small puddle of tears that had appeared on Henry's shirt from her outburst.
Henry looked down to his shoulder and casually wiped at his shoulder making the wet spot larger.
"I was a history teacher before all of this, I'm used to making teens cry around exam time." He flashed a smile at her.
She grinned back as she returned her gaze to her shoes. Her fingers fumbling with her laces.
Henry's gaze returns to the front door.
Seeing all of those lost and hollow faces looking back at him sent a shiver down his spine. Henry shuddered on the floor as he locked eyes with one of the zombies at the front of the pack.
From the parts of its body that Henry could see, there appeared to be nothing wrong with this person. The with the lack of light illuminating his face, the pale complexion that he had been used to seeing up to this point was not visible. His clothes, what looked to be a uniform for a sporting goods store from across the parking lot seemed to be in good condition as well. Henry gazed at this man up and down trying to determine if this one was a zombie when Henry noticed that he was no longer looking at him. Henry followed his gaze down to the handle of the door as the zombie's bloody hand slowly started reaching forward towards the handle on the other side.
Henry gasped with panic as he could no longer remember if he locked the door when they came in a few minutes ago. Henry quickly got to his feet and put his hands in his pockets looking for the keys that they found. His hands started to pat down all of his pockets as he tried to remember where he left the keys.
A look of concern crossed Meri's face. "What's wrong Henry?" She asked as she watched Henry looking back at her with concern on his face.
"Where are the keys?" Henry asked.
Before Meri could answer, Henry heard the clicking of the trigger on the handle of the door.
Click. Click. Click.
Henry turned his head and watched as the zombie had manoeuvred closer to the door handle and had both hands wrapped around it as it pulled against the door. Henry's heart sank as he saw the door begin to move outward before it snapped back to place.
Henry sighed.
"You dropped them by the door when we slammed the door shut behind us," Meri answered, now watching the door carefully as Henry had been.
Henry looked down at keys faintly glistening in some of the morning light coming in through the door.
He walked towards the door and to retrieve the keys.
Henry started to become more aware of the increased activity of the zombies as he got closer to the door. He stopped as he approached the key and looked at the door, the zombies in the front were sliding their faces along the door, leaving a bloody and disgusting trail as they opened and closed their mouths on the Plexiglas. Small bits of steam could be seen on the glass as the breath escaped the lungs of the dead pressed against the glass. The ones further back were reaching for him with their outstretched hands, trying desperately to get him. Henry was aware of the subtle sound of fingers scraping on the glass as they reached for him.
Henry bent down to get the keys. He froze with his fingers brushing against the key ring and looked towards the lower pane of glass to see the sporting goods store employee looking at the keys as well. Henry glanced at the bottom of the door and saw the fingers of this creature trying desperately to get to the keys by reaching under the door.
Henry smiled at him. "Your fingers are three feet too short."
With that said scooped up the keys and looked at the key ring again.
"I wonder what the rest of these keys are for?" He said as he flipped through the keys one by one looking for any indicator as it's purpose. "I think this one was for the front door, it probably works in some of the other doors."
Henry held that key in his fingers as he continued to look through the rest of the keys.
Henry looked up quickly at the sound of a heavy boot echoing across the store towards them. He motioned towards Meri and she quickly got up and stood beside him.
Dennis came to a stop as he came around the corner.
"What did you see? Is there anyone else here?" Henry said excitedly as he welcomed his friend back.
Dennis gave a nervous smile back to Henry and stumbled to find his footing, catching himself on the door.
"Are you OK?" Meri asked as she stepped forward to catch Dennis.
"Yeah, I'm OK. Just hard getting used to the light out here after being in the dark for so long in there." Dennis said as he stepped back a little towards the darkness of the store.
"What aren't you telling us?" Henry asked, with his concern growing by the second. "Were you bit?"
Dennis put his hands up towards Henry, "Look. No scratches or anything." Dennis turned his head to one side and then the other to show the lack of any damage to his body.
Henry almost missed the signal that Dennis gave him when he turned his head to the left, towards the direction he came. Being observant was one of the key traits that Henry cherished while being a teacher, the old saying that you needed eyes in the back of your head to be a teacher was certainly true for Henry. There was not much that happened in his classroom that he missed; whether it was a paper aeroplane, a note, a kiss shared between students in the back row.
As Henry clued into the possibility that they were not alone in the store, he began to work quickly to remove some of these keys from the ring in case they needed to escape later. The keys began to jingle slightly as Henry nervously began to fumble with them.
"I'd stop doing whatever it is you're doing right this minute." Said the man with the shotgun who emerged from around the corner. "I think those are my keys."
The man came around the corner holding a shotgun and swinging it so that it pointed directly at Henry's chest. He could have been exactly what nightmares are made of. He was above-average in height, slightly balding with a scraggly beard that was growing in patches. He was wearing a black leather jacket that had some kind of insignia embossed on the arm, he had a stained button up shirt half-tucked into his pants with his belly showing between the places where his shirt was not buttoned up all the way. His eyes darted around the room, not really focusing on any one thing at a time.
Henry stuttered and dropped the keys as he looked up towards the voice.
"Ummmm... I-I-I'm Henry." Henry said, trying to find his confidence back.
"I don't give a crap who you are right now. All I know is you entered my quiet place and brought those things to you." The man's voice began to rise with each word. "Who gave you the right to enter a locked building in the first place!? I didn't invite you here! I should throw you back out on the street with the rest of that filth."
The man's face started turning red with anger, and his words were piercing Henry like daggers.
"Well?" The man said as he wiped the frothing spit from his mouth. "What do you have to say?"
Henry took a step forward, raising both of his hands towards the man, showing him that he had no weapons. "We did not mean to intrude, the parking lot was empty, so we didn't think anyone was in here. We just want a safe place to stay until these things lose interest and find something else to do."
The man's eye twitched as he stared at Henry and then noticed the teenage girl standing next to him. Henry watched as his gaze travelled to the girl. Meri groaned with discomfort as she was under the gaze of the man holding the gun.
"Don't let him..." Meri whispered to Henry as she tried to hide behind his back.
"Where d
o you think you're girl!" The man yelled as he motioned the shotgun towards her.
"Just leave her alone," Henry said as he stepped towards the girl putting himself between her and the gun.
A smiled crossed the lips of the man, and his body began to shake in a fit of laughter. The man bellowed a hearty laugh as he lowered the gun towards the floor.
"You didn't think that I was gonna?" The man said as he continued to smile. "I would never...."
Henry shot Dennis a concerned look. Dennis shrugged his shoulders and took a step away from the man.
"I'm Gilles, and welcome to my oasis." The man said as he opened his arms towards the visitors. "Come on in, and I'll show you around."
Henry grabbed Meri by the hand, and she squeezed it hard, refusing to let go for anything.
Henry took a step forward and bent down to pick up the keys.
"I think I'll be needing those," Gilles said to Henry as he stood up.
Henry had noticed that Gilles had casually pointed the gun back towards his hand as he grabbed the keys from the floor.
"Uh... sure," Henry said as he dropped the keys into Gilles outstretched hand.
Gilles closed his hand quickly on the key ring and stumbled getting them into his pocket.
"Thank you kindly," Gilles said as he smiled at Henry.
Henry nodded back to Gilles.
"Where are your manners?" Gilles said sternly to Henry. "The proper thing to say is 'You're Welcome' when someone says 'Thank you'."
"Uh... y-y-you're welcome," Henry said cautiously back to Gilles.
"Don't bother now, the sentiment is wasted," Gilles said as he rolled his eyes at Henry and began to walk away.
"What an inconsiderate bastard," Gilles said as he turned around and walked away.
"What the hell was that?" Henry said as he stepped close to Dennis.
Dennis only shook his head and nodded into the shadows as another man stepped forward with a gun and motioned to the group to follow.
Henry's eyes opened wide as he looked towards Dennis again. "I think we're better off with them." Henry motioned to the door to the outside with the zombies pressed against the glass. "If we stay here, we're fu.."
"Are you coming?" A voice boomed from the darkness. "I don't have all day."
The group of friends took one look over their shoulders before they stepped into the darkness of the expansive store.
As they rounded the corner, they passed from the light of the entry into the darkness of the warehouse. Henry wasn't sure exactly where he was going, but he was only following the sounds that Gilles made as he walked.
The group walked in total silence for what seemed to be an eternity before they found that they could start making out shapes of the shelves and cash registers as they walked. Henry looked up and noticed that the ceiling had about 16-20 medium sized skylights that were illuminating the interior of the store just a little.
Henry grabbed hold of Dennis' elbow as they walked and continued to look around the store, beginning to notice the layout and the piles of boxes that were starting to form at the front of the store by the first set of aisles. The light was too dim for Henry to read the writing on the boxes but with the type of merchandise that was sold here, it could have been anything from liquor to bullets. Either of those options did not leave a good feeling Henry when he thought about it.
His guides in the darkness slowed down, and Henry turned his attention towards the front as a flashlight was turned on and shone in their faces.
"Just checking your complexion to make sure you ain't a creature that's out there." A voice from the other side of the light said. "Show us your hands and arms."
The group of friends rolled up their sleeves and showed the voice their hands.
"Please lift up your shirts now." The voice requested.
"Hey!" Meri shouted in protest.
"We ain't going to look at you like that." The voice said. "You can lift it up to your bra if you like and then pull down your collar some. Would that make you feel better?"
Henry thought the voice sounded a little immature and condescending towards her.
Meri complied, lifting her shirt up all the way to show off her back and then lowered it down when she turned around to the front.
Henry thought he could hear the voice sigh with relief when she turned around to show her stomach.
"That looks good." The voice whispered.
Gilles stepped in front of the flashlight as it was turned off and the group struggled to see now that they were thrown back into the darkness.
Gilles motioned towards the rest of the store.
"Do you hear that?" Gilles put his hand to his ears and turned in a semi-circle. "Those are the refrigerators. We still have electricity here, but we are not turning on any lights, we were doing well at keeping those things away."
Gilles turned back towards the group. "Until you got here!" He spun around and pointed at the group.
"Everything that you see here is mine. I'm willing to share it with you, if you're ready to cooperate, that is. Here is how it works: you work, you get rewarded; if you don't work, you get punished. It's simple really." Gilles said. "If I need a drink, go get it for me. If we need the bathroom buckets emptied, do that too. If there's an unexplained death in aisle 4, clean it up. It's easy really."
Gilles pointed to the boxes that Henry had noticed when they walked in. "Those boxes there, are full of candy, marshmallows, granola bars, among other things. Those are my boxes of food. If I see you looking at them when you're working, I will throw you outside without even thinking twice about it. Got it?" Gilles glared directly at Henry with that last point.
Henry nodded in agreement.
"I didn't hear you," Gilles said as he walked up and bumped into Henry causing him to take a step backwards.
"Understood," Henry said back, not taking his eyes from Gilles stare.
"Great," Gilles said smiling.
"I've been wracking my brain with what to do with you since you crashed our simple little party here. I think you need to be punished for attracting so much attention, but my good friend Justin here thinks you should be put to work and earn some trust." Gilles said and pointed towards the small man holding the flashlight and looking sheepishly at his feet.
"I don't feel like listening to reason right now," Gilles announced as he stepped away from Henry. "Empty your pockets into the basket that Justin is going to bring around. It's time for you to have some alone time until we decide what to do with you."
Justin stepped forward as Dennis emptied his pockets in the basket. Dennis moved his shoulder suddenly, pretending like he was going to throw a punch. Justin dropped the basket and recoiled away from the man.
Gilles turned around, "What's going on over here?"
"N-n-n-n-nothing sir. Just lost my grip on the basket." Justin answered as he bent down to pick up the basket again. "I wasn't expecting his wallet to be so heavy."
Henry fished around in his pocket and found the couple of keys that he had managed to take off the ring before losing it to Gilles. He palmed the keys - bringing back memories of his junior high parties where he performed magic shows - and placed the change and cell phone in the basket before anyone noticed the extra keys that he was trying to keep hidden.
Justin moved to Meri and stood in front of her. He licked his lips as he waited for her to check her pockets. He jangled the basket in front of her, signalling his impatience.
"Done yet?" Gilles called out from somewhere ahead in the darkness. "I think I'll put you with the rest of those losers."
Justin walks behind Henry and nudges him forward with what could have been a gun, or a piece of salami. At this point, Henry had no idea what was happening anymore.
Meri and Dennis took Henry's lead and began walking in the dimly lit store towards the sound of Gilles singing an old Johnny Cash song. Henry recognised the song but could not understand any of the words that Gilles might have been singing.
&nb
sp; Henry remembered the place where they were headed, he had been to this store enough when he was a teacher to know that they were being taken to the pharmacy to be put into isolation. Henry wondered what other kinds of people were going to be kept here with them and if there were dangerous at all.
Gilles stopped singing suddenly as the group approached.
"We've already taken the liberty of emptying the shelves in here, so I wouldn't be looking for a way of overdosing on anything." Gilles pushed Henry into the room. "I hope that you find the accommodations acceptable and that your roommates don't bite."
Gilles laughed as Dennis and Meri walked into the room with Henry.
Dennis turned around and opened his mouth to say something just as Gilles slammed the door closed. Dennis' head snapped back from the force as he clutched his face in agony, tears began welling up in his eyes.
Gilles fumbled with a few keys and locked the door and walked away.
Henry and Meri turned towards Dennis and put their hands on his elbows and guided him towards a place to sit down.
"Is it broken?" Meri asked from Dennis' right.
"I don't think so," Dennis mumbled from beneath his hands. "I don't even believe that it's bleeding either."
Dennis took his hands away from his face and held them out underneath his chin, ready to catch any blood that decided to run down his face.
"Over here seems OK," Henry said from around the corner to his left.
Dennis and Meri followed the sound of Henry's voice as he continued to talk in a very hushed tone.
"There are other people over here," Henry said. "They're the ones that Gilles was talking about before."
"Yeah, we're the 'other losers'." One of the men in the small group said. "I'm Malcolm."
"I know who you are!" Meri gushed. "You're Malcolm from 99.9, you do the evenings. I listen to you all the time!"
Malcolm laughed. "Yeah, that's me."
"Why are you folks holed up in here?" Henry asked.
"We were the ones who brought everyone here and organised this place." Malcolm said, "That was until Gilles, and his sidekick showed up and started shooting."
Chapter Twenty-Three