Island of the Dead

Chapter Eleven

June 6th 9:42 am

Damon and Lauren were posted outside of an electronics store near the edge of town. They had stopped to see if there was any batteries they could grab for their walkie talkie.

Damon looked in the window to see if there were any infected inside. He saw a few bodies lying around but nothing standing up. He motioned for her to follow him and they went around to the back. When he saw it was clear, he snuck to the back door and checked the handle. Luckily, it was unlocked, so they went in.

They entered a hallway with two doors on either side. The power had been cut out and the only source of light was the large glass windows in the front of the store. Damon slowly made his way to the nearest door which, upon opening, he found led to an office. He told Lauren to watch his back as he went in.

In the room was a desk with a computer and some paper, a few filing cabinets, and two chairs facing the back of the computer. Inspirational posters lined the walls.

Manager's office thought Damon.

He looked around for anything that would be battery powered but found nothing. It looked as though the room had already been ransacked and Damon lost hope of finding anything useful. After a thorough search of the room yielded nothing, Damon went to the next door across the hall. When he tried the handle he found it was locked so he moved on to the next door. Behind this door was a dark stairwell leading down. He took note of this and moved to the last door. Inside was a bathroom. He quickly looked around, found nothing, and then exited. They snuck to the front of the store and quickly realised it was a bust. Bodies littered the floor and most of the shelves had been picked clean with what little remained being broken. Damon motioned for them to go back the way they came.

"That stairway may lead to storage. Or at the very least someone might have dropped a flashlight or something. The only problem is we can't see."

"I think we should just leave."

"This might be the last place between here and the bunker that we will be able to find batteries. We can't just leave." He grabbed her hand reassuringly. "Just stick close."

They slowly went down the stairs, Damon with his rifle shouldered and Lauren with a handgun drawn, Damon had taught her how to shoot back before everything went to hell. They slowly descended the stairs, careful not to misstep, and made their way into a small room. Damon pulled out a lighter and tried to look around. He found a lone light bulb attached to a string. He took a deep breath and pulled it. To his relief the light bulb sputtered for a sec and then brightened up the room. Damon looked around and saw it was a janitor's storage. The room was no more than 20 feet long and about ten wide. There was shelves on either side with a trunk in the far back. Mops, brooms, and various chemicals filled the shelves and lined the walls.

"Alright," Damon said, "You search that wall and I'll search this one."

The went from front to back and searched for anything that would use batteries but came up empty handed when the reached the end of the shelves. They both looked at the trunk. Damon lightly kicked it to make sure they wouldn't be surprised when they opened it. With no response he unhitched the locks and opened the trunk. His heart sank when he saw rags and towels.

"Nothing." Damon closed it and looked back at the stairway. His breath got caught in his chest when he saw a woman standing in the doorway. She was pale and had vibrant blue veins. She was in a security guard uniform with the store's logo etched onto the right sleeve. Her left arm was missing, blood dripped from a stump where it used to be. She began to growl and then let out a horrible scream. She lunged forward and Damon instinctually shouldered his rifle and shot. It was a clean shot straight through the lady's head, lurching her head backwards and sending her sprawling on the ground. They heard rustling and growling from upstairs.

"Come on!" Damon grabbed Lauren's hand and tugged her toward the stairs.

"Wait." Lauren slipped from his grip and went to the corpse. She grabbed something and ran up the stairs with Damon. The infected in the store had gotten up and were stumbling towards where Damon and Lauren were standing. Damon raised his rifle and shot the closest infected. Lauren went outside and called for Damon to follow her. They ran a few blocks down the road and found an empty yard where they could catch their breath.

"What'd you grab?" Damon was looking around, making sure that they were not going to get snuck up on.

"This." Lauren held out a small flashlight she had grabbed off the dead guard. It was silver with a lanyard attached.

Damon let out a small chuckle.

"How did you see that?"

"I saw the lanyard sticking out of her pocket."

She opened up the back and pulled out a small battery pack with 4 AA batteries. She popped out the batteries and handed them to Damon who put them into the walkie talkie. He turned it on and turned the channel to 132.

"Damon to Alpha Bunker, Damon to Alpha Bunker, come in Alpha Bunker."

"This is Alpha Bunker. We read you Damon."

Damon didn't recognize the voice. "Who is this? Where's Milton?"

"My name is Dax Tobin. I'm the head guard at Alpha Bunker. Milton's on break right now. Are you close to the bunker?"

"No, we are still a few hours out but we're heading your way."

"Alright well call up again when you get close so we can open the doors."

"Will do. See you in a bit."

Damon looked at Lauren and smiled. "You ready to go?"

"Yeah," She straightened her shirt and put her backpack back on. "Let's go."