Aurora Sky: Blackout (Completed)

Chapter 12

Fifteen more miles of silence had passed. Before they knew it, Home Depot was in front of them only a few hundred yards away. Isaac braked slowly, allowing himself some time to assess the situation as he crept in. The streets were empty but several parked cars sat in the parking lots of the vacant stores around the shopping center. The hardware stores physical condition appeared stable, but most of the smaller restaurants and storefronts had collapsed or were nearly obliterated. It felt like a ghost town.

He parked the Chevy on the street across from the store providing a complete view of the parking lot and the former busy streets in front of it. In the parking lot, infected lay on the ground surrounding what looked to be a few corpses. Are they dead or alive? Isaac figured it would be best to assume they were alive, so he attempted to get a headcount. He had a hard time getting an exact count, but it looked to be at least a dozen or more.

"I'm not sure if they're alive or dead," Isaac said to the others in his car, "But I counted at least twelve."

"I got thirteen," said Rob who staring intently ahead at the parking lot. "Think you and Sean could take them if they're alive?"

Isaac turned around to Sean in the backseat, "What do you think?"

Sean turned his head from the parking lot and looked at Isaac, nodding his head, "I think we'll be fine, they move slow. As long as we stay close we should be good."

"How about this, Cameron, why don't you drive from here?" Rob suggested taking charge. "Isaac, get in the backseat with Sean. We'll drive to the edge of the parking lot and let you two out. You two are gonna lead the way while we follow you slowly to the gardening center, that's where we'll make our entrance into the store when we get through. You two do your thing if they're still alive, but if you can't handle it and they start to overwhelm you, just turn around and come back to the car and I'll pop out with my rifle to cover you."

"Sounds good to me." said Isaac, "I'm gonna hop out and tell the others behind us."

Before Isaac could get out, Rob stopped him and said, "Do me a favor. Tell them to make sure they stay back here in case we do get overwhelmed. I don't want to have their big ass trucks get in the way of our escape if we need to bail. But if we clear it out and get through, you two wave to them to come in. No need for us to honk the horns and let the world know we're here. We gotta do this as quiet as possible."

"You got it." Isaac opened the door and leapt out from the drivers seat to run towards the two vehicles behind to let them know the plan. Larry and Warren both agreed to stay behind and wished them good luck. He sprinted back to the first car, holding the sword sheath behind his back to keep it from bouncing, then hopped into the backseat.

Cameron approached the edge of the shopping center parking lot with caution and halted the SUV abruptly to allow Isaac and Sean to make their move. The two lightly jogged ahead doing their best to keep quiet while the Equinox followed them from behind steadily. Rob had the front passenger window rolled down and rested his rifle and sights in the direction of the pile of infected to back up his two friends as they approached the danger.

The pile of infected laid still around the bones of a few eaten corpses. Isaac looked closer at the dozen on the ground and noticed their stomachs lifting and lowering indicating that they were still alive and breathing. He sprinted ahead, pulling out his katana from his sheath behind his back, holding on tightly the grip of the blade in his hand. Sean quickly followed suit unsheathing the greatsword from the black and red hilt on his belt, twisting it in a circle with the flick of his wrist before grabbing the sword guard with both hands. The golden Freemason pommel reflected a small light from the headlights behind them.