Duality : Book 1 of Codex Elysium

Chapter 10 (edited)

Chapter 10

Standing outside the supermarket Cassie stares thoughtfully at the door. Alexia is pressed up against the glass peering into the gloom.

"No signs of any zombie dudes."

Cassie tried the doors but they were completely rusted shut and wouldn't budge. She moves down to one of the broken windows and kicks out the remaining glass. Alexia flinches at how loud the smashing glass is. Cassie carefully climbs inside and Alexia follows. They head over to the shopping trollies which are in a sorry state. They are all badly rusted and look ready to fall apart. Cassie tugs on one of the handles but the trolley doesn't budge. She tugs harder and the handle snaps clean off.  Alexia giggles at the look on Cassie's face.

"Shall we try a basket?" Alexia asks.

Cassie throws the handle away and says, "yeah sure."

The baskets are in just as bad a state, Cassie picks one up and the handles snap off and the basket crashes to the ground with a load bang. With a frustrated sigh Cassie kicks the basket hard and the whole thing disintegrates on impact.

"Okay, just what can we carry then?"

Alexia giggles and sets off into the store...

 Over to one side there is a row of derelict checkouts. Some of them have queues. There is no one to operate the checkouts but the Passus queue anyway, they have nothing in their hands and just stand there staring lifelessly into space.

"I guess some things never change?" Cassie mutters quietly.

The first section the girls reach is the fruit and veg section. All the shelves are bare but for a thick layer of dust. Some of the shelves do have little black shrivelled lumps which may have once been a fruit or a vegetable.

"Okay, slow start. Let's move on," said Cassie. 

The next section is the fridge/freezer section. The whole place stinks of rot and mould. Every freezer is full of green furry mould and black mildew.  Alexia screws up her face and says,

"let's move on quickly!"

"Agreed!"

The meat and deli sections are just as bad and the girls begin to despair. They encounter a few Passus staring at empty shelves and rotten fridges but they shuffle on without hassling the girls.

"Now we shall see one of mankind's greatest inventions," Cassie announced as they reach the tinned foods aisle. The shelves were fully stocked with rusted tins which had no labels.  Cassie continued in a hushed whisper,

"I once watched this program about an old bomb shelter from World War One which had been dug up. Inside they found tins of food which were like eighty years old, when they opened the tins guess what they found?"

"Maggots? Rotten food? Nothing?" Alexia whispers back.

"No, the food was perfectly preserved!"

Alexia looked at the rusted tins on the shelf doubtfully and shook her head. "Wait here a sec, don't move or make a sound."

Before Alexia could reply Cassie turned and trotted off into the gloom, leaving Alexia alone.

A few minutes later Cassie reappeared with some bottles of water and a rusted can opener. Picking a tin at random Alexia hands it over for Cassie to open.

"Well at least it's preserved," Cassie whispers.

Alexia glanced into the tin and wrinkled her nose in disgust.  She whispered back, "I'm not eating dog food! I would rather starve."

"Don't worry, that makes two of us, we need to move down the aisle a bit."

After some trial and error the girls finally find some decent food and made a picnic out of cold fruit and meat. They ate it all hungrily and washed it down with the water. As they were just beginning to relax and enjoy themselves, shuffling footsteps interrupted their meal. The Passus were closing in on them from both ends of the aisle.

"Well it was fun while it lasted!" said Cassie as she jumped to her feet. 

Alexia got up and faced the other way.

"Might be a good idea to draw your sword?"

"I don't need it, I can do magic, remember?"

"Oh, not this again," groans Cassie as she draws her own sword and charges at the Passus in full attack mode. 

Alexia watches for a few seconds then turns her back on the fight and kicks the bottles of water over. Cassie hacks and slashes wildly, blood and body parts start flying.  A rusted can comes flying from the crowd and hits Cassie square on the head. " Son of a ..." she cries out and carries on fighting.

Alexia focuses on the puddle at her feet and with a simple flick of her wrist she made the water rise in a huge wave. The size of it startled her, considering how small the puddle was but Alexia shrugs it off and sent the wave crashing towards the oncoming Passus. The wave slammed the Passus all the way down the aisle and sent them crashing through a window. Cassie cut down the final Passus in front of her then turns at the noise of smashing glass and water. Breathing hard she asks, "what the hell was that?"

"Magic! I told you!"

They both look out the broken window, in the street the Passus are beginning to stand up and head back towards the girls. Behind Cassie all the fallen Passus begin to reassemble themselves and rise again.

"Um, behind you," said Alexia.

"What?" Cassie whirls around and comes face to face with a crowd of fully reformed Passus. Swearing violently, she launches into the attack again.

Alexia pauses and thinks. An idea occurs to her and she quickly empties a couple more bottles onto the floor. The wave rises again and sends the Passus flying out of the window but this time the wave doesn't follow them out. Alexia holds the wave at the window and concentrates hard, she begins drawing the wave back towards her with the intention of helping Cassie. As the wave surges, back down the aisle towards her Alexia realises that there is a flaw in her plan and braces herself to get wet. Just before the wave strikes it parts like curtains around the girls then seals up again and slams into the Passus.

"What the hell was that?" Cassie screamed. "How are you doing this?"

"I keep telling you it's magic!" Cassie looked down at the wet and battered bodies, they were beginning to stir and rise again. Grabbing Alexia's hand and tugging her towards the window Cassie says, "we need to leave now!" Holding hands, the girls jump out into the street, the mangled Passus try to grab their feet and legs as they run by. The girls flee across the street and down a side road. If they had stopped for a second and looked up the street they would have seen grim parade heading their way.