wrong, baby?”
“You didn’t apologize.” Reidy could hear the pout in Becca’s voice. “I said I got in trouble and you didn’t say anything about it.”
“Hey, I’m sorry.” Drew kissed her. “I’m stupid. I’m sorry. Listen, I’ll make it up to you. I’ll only get the type of booze you like, okay?”
“Okay. But no brown stuff. It makes me puke. And I want vodka. And O J. Drinking it straight gets me drunk too quick.”
“Anything you want, babe. C’mon, the place is about two blocks away.”
The pair, hand in hand, turned and rushed past Reidy. They didn’t even notice him. As they scampered away, Reidy considered whether he should follow them or not. Would it be worth his time? Recalling Giselle’s comments, the kids did fit the profile of the victims. He’d also already spent enough time following them that he might as well see it through the night.
A short walk later, they approached an old convenience store nestled in the bottom floor of a run-down apartment building. There was a neon sign that had to be older than Reidy. Only three letters of Ben’s Corner Store were lit up. There were two handwritten signs taped to the door of the convenience store. The first read, “Check all bags at the counter” and the other, written in bold, angry letters, stated “NO MORE THAN TWO TEENS IN THE STORE AT ANY TIME! NO EXCEPTIONS!”
The young couple stood a half block away from the store while Reidy hid in the shadow of a doorway across the street. With his arms flying and gesturing wildly, Drew described something to Becca. She nodded her head in understanding several times during the talk. The girl had a look of apprehension and excitement at the same time like she was about to embark on a grand adventure. Once done with whatever he had to say, Drew gave his girlfriend a quick peck and headed to the store’s entrance. Just before the boy pulled the door open, he paused to turn around. His face twisted into a mask of disgust. Shaking his head, he entered the store. Becca tapped her foot and waited for nearly thirty seconds. Then she took a deep breath as if to steel herself and marched to the door. In roughly the same spot Drew had paused and made the odd expression, Becca covered the lower half of her face and exclaimed loud enough for Reidy to hear, “Oh, my God! What is that?”
As Becca entered the store, Reidy contemplated if he should return to his car again. He could leave the kids to their petty crime and continue searching for the unknown threat lurking somewhere in the vicinity. He had to admit that he was more than just a little upset Drew wasn’t a vampire. He didn’t follow the kid because he was like the other teens that went missing. He did it because Drew was pasty and a part of Reidy wished he was a vampire. Was his hatred of vampires so strong that he’d seize any chance to fight one? Bitterly, he shook his head in disappointment. The answer to that question was a resounding yes. There was something in him—something dark and full of anger. It was a hunger that was ironically similar to a vampire’s hunger for blood.
The windows of Ben’s Corner Store were too dirty for him to see through. All he was able to make out were three blurry forms walking around in the store. One of the blurs—which Reidy assumed was Becca since this blur had striking purple hair—was directly in front of a particularly round and pink form. The third shape was slinking down one of the aisles in the back. Reidy guessed that Drew’s talk outside the store was the boy detailing his plan where Becca would distract the storeowner while he stole some booze.
Since the kids were nearly finished, Reidy figured they’d head straight home with their pilfered booze. He might as well stick around a little longer before returning to his search.
Inside the store, Becca was attacking her task of distracting the owner with gusto. Reidy could see the girl’s head bob and bounce as she spoke animatedly to the man. At one point, she held an orange jug of some kind in front of his face.
The wind changed direction. The breeze, which danced along the sun baked buildings and roads, blew hot air in Reidy’s face. A foul stench carried along the wind hit him. The reek of decay filled his nose. For a brief moment, Reidy wondered if there was a slaughterhouse nearby. Then he realized the offensive odor was emanating from Ben’s Corner Store. Now he understood why the kids had reacted the way they did when they approached the door.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood and a chill raced up his spine. Reidy knew that smell. It wasn’t some meat rotting in a trash bin. It was death. It clung to the store and seeped through the bricks.
Suddenly, the round, pink man grabbed Becca. Reidy saw the girl struggle against the man. Jumping out of the shadows, Reidy raced across the street. The stench and the owner’s actions spiked Reidy’s suspicions. Was this store the place he was looking for? Was the smell of death coming from half-eaten, decomposing teenagers lying within? Was the owner dragging Becca to a terrible fate? Reidy was going to find out.
Throwing the door open, Reidy rushed into the store just as the fat man was dragging and pushing Becca down the aisle toward Drew.
“Lousy fucking kids!” the enraged fat man snapped.
“Ow!” Becca cried out. The plastic jug of orange juice fell from her hand and ruptured on the floor. “Let go of my arm! You’re hurting me!”
The interior of the store was filthier than the windows. Paper and candy wrappers littered the floor. Reidy crumpled them under his boots as he rushed after Becca and the fat man.
“Hey, man, you’d better stop or I’ll kick your ass!” warned Drew. He was pointing at Ben while holding a bottle of vodka in his other hand. He raised the bottle threateningly over his head. “I swear to God, man, let her go!”
“Stupid fucking kids think you can rob from me and I wouldn’t do anything?” The man, who Reidy assumed was the Ben of Ben’s Corner Store, spat as he spoke. With his attention focused completely on the kids, Ben had yet to notice Reidy running up behind him. “You’ll learn! You’ll all learn!”
Reidy reached for Ben. If his fears were wrong, and if that smell that permeated the store was in fact just some rotting meat, he’d apologize for butting in. Then he’d suggest they call the police and let them deal with the kids. His instincts reassured him that he was not wrong. Before Reidy could stop the man, Ben roughly pushed Becca at Drew. She crashed with an oof into her boyfriend. Next Ben grabbed a lever hidden beneath one of the shelves and pulled. A trapdoor below the teens swung open and, with a scream, they fell.
“Take that, you little fu—” Ben’s taunt was silenced when Reidy struck the man in the back of the head hard with his elbow. The fat man fell with a pathetic whimper to the floor.
Looking down through the trapdoor, Reidy saw a thick stack of old mattresses directly below the opening. The kids continued to scream. There were other sounds Reidy could hear over their screams—a series of growls. These didn’t come from an animal nor did they come from a living person. There was something inhuman under the store with the teens.
Zipping open the gym bag, Reidy jumped through the trapdoor. As he fell, he started to pull the sub-machine gun out. His bad knee screamed in protest and the metal brace surrounding it creaked when he landed with a muffled thud on the mattresses in the middle of a dilapidated storeroom. Old, weak fluorescent tubes lined the ceiling and washed the room in a dull, green light. A number of empty, dust-covered racks surrounded him and there were things moving behind the shelves in jerking lurches. To his side, Becca screamed and Reidy heard a wet, crunch. Reidy tumbled off the mattresses and leveled the Kriss at the source of the girl’s screams.
Something that resembled a person was standing in front of the two teens. He was wearing a replica Michael Jordan jersey. A massive chunk the size of Reidy’s head had been torn out of the jersey wearer’s side. Exposed, broken ribs jutted out of mangled, black and green skin. Fragments of intestines dangled like old, dried sausages from the gaping wound. There was no way a human being would be able to survive that type of injury. The jersey wearer growled and took a staggering step toward the kids.
Reidy fired the gun and three phosphorous-coated bullets left a
glowing red trail as they rocketed toward the target. The slugs slammed into the jersey wearer’s back, punching holes through skin, muscle and bone. He jerked with each shot but did not stop or fall. Reidy re-aimed and fired a single shot that tore through his skull, turning his brain into mush. At last, the thing fell in a heap.
The kids were huddled together in a corner with their eyes wide in terror. Becca was clutching her hand to her breast and Reidy saw a trickle of blood.
More growls behind Reidy drew his attention from the teens. He turned and saw more than a dozen shapes slowly approaching from several directions. Lumbering, shambling people with open, decaying wounds stared at Reidy and the teens behind him with dead, bloated eyes. Zombies. They shuffled and lurched on legs that no longer moved properly. They growled and moaned, opening their maws and revealing black, decaying tongues.
Reidy recalled the tiny stream of blood on Becca’s hand and hoped she had cut herself in the fall. He’d have to worry about that later. After securing the gym bag over his shoulders, Reidy backed up to stand in front of the young lovers and commanded, “Stay behind me!”
Becca’s small hands fisted in the back of Reidy’s T-shirt and Drew pressed up against her.
As the zombies got