Affliction

Chapter 4

"If I have to hear about the last Dallas Cowboys game you saw one more time, I'ma grab that shotgun and stick it down my own throat, ya hear me?" I grumbled to Dawson as we trecked across the gravelly ground, going somewhere South from where we started today. All three of us tried to get our mind off the dead statue just a few miles back.

Avery and Dawson walked a few feet behind me, probably glad to get the hell away from me. After getting his ass chewed out by me, Dawson went on another rant about the mountains and how he went to the Rocky Mountains with his parents once when he was a kid. I looked up at the mountains we were a few miles away from, wondering if these were those same mountains.

Honestly, after the outbreak, and after people were too scared to step outside, much less work on keeping the power going after storms kept hitting, you can't really tell where you are. I mean, unless you got those fancy maps from the early 2000s with you. Those would keep you goin' at least a little, but in the city, I doubt you'd get much anywhere with those. The layout of land changed way too much since those things were actually used, much less printed.

The three of us approached what looked like a rundown store. Seems like the windows were boarded up to keep out infected. From the looks of it, it doesn't seem too effective. Looks like it's been vacant for quite some time now, so I don't see any harm in checking it out. I glanced at the others behind me. They nodded, adjusting their neck gaiters and made sure their sleeves were down to their gloves, covering all skin, apart from the eyes, from getting possible blood, or bacteria, on it. The worst part was probably the bacteria. The fact that you can't see it.

But that's the reason why I brought my tester out. The one that you put to your forehead. It actually, surprisingly, can check the air around you as well. It can't make sure it's completely clean, but it can at least make sure no bacteria are floating around and will get in your eyes and give you the long-awaited Cure.

I pressed the button, holding the tester to the air. This kind of tester looked more like the thing you used to scan things with at a grocery store back 10 years ago, before the modern way of paying came out. It was the things you would use when your pack of water wouldn't fit on the conveyor belt, or you just didn't want to grab a thing of laundry detergent and just scanned it in the basket. Yeah, those.

The screen flashed green, and I pocketed it, giving the go ahead to Avery and Dawson and stepping into the building, the boards already having been on the floor for, probably, about a year now, or more.

I heard and felt glass crunching beneath my steel-toed boots. I looked around, being cautious for anything that could jump out, hoping no silverbacks were waiting in the back, or having a fucking seance without me. The bell atop the door jingled when Dawson bumped into it, being a fuckin' giant and all. I glanced behind me at him, annoyed that we might have just lost the element of surprise if we really need it.

As if that weren't enough, Avery slammed into a shelf, as if on fucking cue, probably slipping on a puddle or something. I scoffed, scowling at them. "We might as well be dancing in fuckin' tutus and performing in the nutcracker with all this noise you're making."

I was about to turn back around to look in front of me when Dawson snickered at my remark, only ticking me off a bit more. I looked at him again and pointed a finger at him angrily. "You can shove that shotgun up your ass, Riley fuckin' Dawson."

I looked forward again before they made the whole store collapse with their clumsiness. I held my axe in front of me, checking each isle, though it wasn't a big store, and walked to the back. The door had a scratched-up sign that read employees only, with the word only written out and instead the word boning. I rolled my eyes at the incredible show of maturity as I turned the doorknob, slowly.