Twelve Days in Hell

bottom of the mountain. The kids were getting restless and hungry. The cars were in need of fuel.

  They stopped when they found the tanker truck sitting in the parking lot of the gas station. “That's our refill station” Danny said.

  He grabbed his cross bow and pulled in next to the tanker truck. He saw how, earlier, the cars that had used the truck had left the hose and the empty containers.

  He got out of the car and scanned the area for the living dead. Then he placed the hose in his gas tank, twisted a knob on the end of it, and fueled his car up to F again. The church vans also fueled up and so did the individual cars.

  Danny hobbled inside to turn on the pump so the church bus could be fueled up. While he was in the store he saw that they had plenty of candy and snacks for the kids so he got a few bags and filled them completely with candy and other sweets. He also grabbed all the freshest sandwiches he could find along with apple pies, bubble gums and sodas.

  From the bathroom he heard a scratching sound. He thought it was all in his head until he heard the unforgettable chattering sounds. He rushed out the store as fast as his crutches could carry him and told everyone to get back into the cars.

  The zombie did not come out of the rest room but he didn't want to take the chance.

  “It seems that zombies can't open doors” he said to William, Mark and Samantha.

  He ran the candy to the bus and he kept the sandwiches and pies. He also put the sodas in the bus for the children.

  There were not enough for everybody so he told them to take a sip and pass it around.

  The children were happy to get their sugar high.

  Once the bus was completely filled up the line of cars took off again. Now they were on their way.

  They pulled out a map and looked for the closest town. They found that the next large town was 20 miles away.

  Surely help would be found there. So they kept driving until they reached the place.

  No signs of life. No Army or anything. They drove around town until they found another Buy-Right super center.

  They had no way of knowing who or what they would run into there but with their hopes smashed they pulled into the parking lot. There were bodies littered all on the ground, a lot more than at the last Buy-Right.

  “I have an extremely bad feeling about this.” said Samantha.

  “So do I.” Danny, reluctantly, admitted to himself that maybe he had made the wrong call. Maybe they would have been safer in that Buy- Right store located on the top of that mountain in the middle of nowhere.

  Danny, Samantha, William and Mark climbed out of the Neon as silently as they could.

  Danny asked for all the hunters to take up their weapons and then he asked all the newest members to join them if they had weapons. Forty people with guns started filling their clips, and Danny loaded his crossbow.

  At the sound of the first clip a zombie sprang to life, and made a chattering whimpering sound, and then another ten zombies stood up

  “TAKE EM DOWN!” Danny shouted, He fired the crossbow, hitting a zombie in the spine.

  The sound of gunfire filled the parking lot. Danny loaded another arrow and took aim, shooting a zombie directly in the eye. He had to look away, because that was how he'd killed Tom.

  Round after round, the zombies were falling to the blacktop, never to get up again.

  There were so many zombies left that Danny was afraid they wouldn't make it. To make matters worse the sun was sinking fast. Soon they would run out of light and be outnumbered.

  Danny dropped his cross bow and ordered everybody back into their vehicles, and they all obeyed.

  Danny climbed on the bus and told the children not to worry. He than asked the youth pastor to start running over the zombies.

  The heavy bus lurched forward and plowed it's way through the zombies. Blood and guts were all over the parking lot. The smaller cars joined in the zombie hit and run game.

  The bus made its way to the other end of the parking lot and turned around and started down a new line just like it was trying to mow the grass.

  The other vans and cars were mowing them down the same way. Soon the parking lot was free of the living dead, but it was a mess of zombie corpses.

  Danny, Samantha, Mark and William walked all sides of the massive store in a search for an entry point. The store was completely dark. They tried going in through the auto repair shop but the door was tightly locked.

  Next they thought maybe the lawn and garden could be opened like the last store. Mark was the one that climbed the fence. He went to the sliding glass door and pushed hard. Nothing happened.

  They made their way to the front of the store and saw that all doors were locked and the bars were in place on the windows and the doors.

  They decided it would be best if they got back to the lawn and garden section, and this time William, Mark and Samantha climbed the fence, and they shot out the sliding glass door. If zombies couldn't climb they wouldn't need that door anyway. They made their way into the new Buy-Right super center.

  They called out into the store and heard nothing but the echoes of their own voices. The shined their flashlights across the store. Nothing moved. No scary, wide eyed monsters came out of the shadows.

  This store was twice as big as the last store!

  They made their way to the front and unlocked the doors from the inside. As soon as the people in the bus, vans, and cars got word on their radios, they all headed into the Buy-Right super center.

  “It's dark in here, one of the children cried.”

  “It's OK” Danny said as they closed and locked the doors after all the people had swarmed inside.

  Danny, Samantha, Mark and William made their way to the breaker box and turned on the main power. The electronic buzz was heard throughout the whole store, and one by one the lights began to flicker on.

  The children began to laugh and feel like they had at the other store, nice and safe. Once again Danny went to the nearest phone and pressed intercom and his voice was heard loud and clear over the stores speaker systems.

  Again he asked for volunteers to do shopping, cooking, and of course some to move and hook up stoves. The same volunteers as before plus a few new ones came to the back of the store. They got right on working because it was almost time for them to start dinner.

  Danny made his way to the break room and saw that this store also had a smoking section. He walked in and closed the door and lit yet another cigarette.

  He looked around the break room. It was so much larger than at the other store! It even had three stove top ovens six microwaves, four coffee makers, and two large screen TVs.

  Samantha, Mark and William came into the break room. They all went inside the smoker's section.

  William asked about Danny's ankle, and the other two wanted to smoke.

  Danny told William with the ankle brace, the crutches and the pain medications he was better than he had been for a few days now.

  Samantha, Mike and Danny enjoyed their time smoking together. When went back into the main store they found everyone having a good time and doing what needed to be done.

  Danny hopped his way into the restroom and searched for a water faucet for a water hose. He found it and then it was time for him to go shopping again. He found an electrical cart charging at the front of the store where the rest of the shopping carts were.

  He hopped on the cart and made his way to lawn and garden section where he picked up two water hoses. Then he went to the guns and ammo, looked into the drawers next to the cash register, and pulled out the keys to the knife box and gun case.

  He steered the cart to the revolving gun case and tried the keys, The third key opened the case.

  He found a phone next to the hunting register and called for all the hunters and sharp shooters to come pick out their new weapons. They made their way back to the hunting goods section and piled up on new guns and ammo.

  The kids had brought some of the small hand held game systems fr
om the last store but now at the new store there was enough of the systems in the storage area and on the store floor for each child and teen to have his or her own! There were plenty of games to choose from, as well.

  Again some people were setting up computers and running new games on them. Others were reading the latest in fiction novels. Others were setting up the TVs to play game systems on. They were all trying to distract themselves from all they had seen.

  ————

  Dinner was almost ready at 9:30PM. The children were still going through their bags of candy and trading this piece for that one.

  Finally dinner was ready and all were ready to eat. People came into the break room to fill their plates with the green bean casserole, corn, corn bread, rice and baked French fries. Then they would wonder out of the break room and take it to their own place to eat it, wherever in the store the wished to be.

  Samantha, Mark, William and Danny went back into the smoking section eating their food and talking about the day.

  They were really getting to know each other well. It was hard to believe that they only met each other about three days ago, It felt like they had spent a life time together as best friends. Danny knew if he lost them there was no going on with life. He was sure they all felt the same way about him. When they finished their cigarettes and their food they made their way back into the store.

  Danny picked up the phone and hit intercom and once again his voice flooded the store. This time he was looking for someone to replace the lawn and garden door. He didn't think the zombies could climb the 12