This Would Be Paradise (Book 1)-A Zombie Novel

Chapter 17

We crashed through the doors like a couple of battering rams. I felt Ethan's hand grab my arm and yank me to the left, just as I started to contemplate which direction we should go. The narrow back room was lined with jam-packed shelves as high as the warehouse ceiling which made it difficult to run in. I heard the sound of the plastic doors swinging open again as the mini-horde pursued us.

"Get behind me!" A familiar southern accent rang out.

We spotted John and his worn cowboy hat just around the west corner. Once we were clear of his line of fire, he raised his gun to eye level as the infected approached in a crowded mass. The narrow back ways made it difficult for them to all pass through; some fell to the others insistent shoving and some to the littered alleyway. Muffled shots came from John's raised weapon and soon a blockade of dead infected clogged the passage.

"Did you alert every one of those things in the store?" John asked us and he reloaded his gun.

"They were hidin' in the aisles," Ethan said indignantly.

"Where's Taylor?" I asked, noticing it was just John.

"Unloadin' some of the pallets we found. Come on, I'll show ya."

So we followed him around to the other side of the backroom. Taylor was slicing up one of the shrink-wrapped skids of product with a Xacto knife.

"Found a whole bunch of protein bars," Taylor beamed at his find. "Should last us a good while too."

"Now that we made sure the back is clear, we should move the truck 'round back to load this stuff in," John suggested.

"Well I'm sure as hell not lugging it all out the front door," I said as I eyed our year supply of protein bars.

Ethan and I headed back into the main part of the store, a lot more alert this time. We stuck close to the outer walls just in case there were more lurking inside the aisles. Luckily we made it all the way back out and to the truck with no more infected but I'm sure there were some left inside, we would just have to stay on our toes.

The massive steel loading door squealed as John and Taylor tried to open it up. There was a manual pulley system that required two people to tug on the rusted silver chains just to lift it a little. Ethan backed the truck right up against the loading dock, which was about three feet higher than the bed of the pickup. Together we tossed the protein bar cases in the back in a matter of minutes.

"We also found a flat of water and some dried goods we can use," Taylor huffed as he lifted the wooden pallet outside and out of the way.

We kept a wary eye on the back lot just in case some roaming infected decided to stop by. There was just one out there so Ethan jumped from the dock and took the thing out with his machete, leaving a nasty stain on the tarmac. He grimaced at the mess that now coated his weapon and he flung it to the side to dislodge the decaying matter.

"Now, should we just load up what we can find back here or look around?" John asked.

"We're here, we might as well grab all that we can." I shrugged.

I desperately needed new clothes and hygiene products. You would be surprised how rough living out in the sticks and washing on a scrub board, like a house wife from the 1800s, can be on your clothes. Plus we needed deodorant and trust me that was a necessity not a luxury. John glanced down at his watch,

"We don't have many daylight hours left. Maybe we should make camp here?"

A supermarket and now a hotel chain? Wal-Mart really did have everything. Ethan looked around nervously,