The Walking Dead_ The Road to Woodbury - By Robert Kirkman Page 0,44
did ya?”
He hops to the ground. He catches his breath, his eyes shimmering with excitement. “No, sir, didn’t even find the goddamn crick.” He manages a gap-toothed grin. “But I did find something better.”
* * *
The Walmart sits at the intersection of two rural highways, a mile north of the train tracks, its tall interstate sign with its trademark blue letters and yellow starburst visible from the elevated trestles along the woods. The closest town is miles away, but these isolated big box stores have proven to be lucrative retail outlets for farming communities, especially ones this close to a major interstate like U.S. 85—the Hogansville exit only seven miles to the west.
“All right … here’s what I’m thinking,” Josh says to the others, after pulling up to the lot entrance, which is partially blocked by an abandoned flatbed truck, its front end wrapped around a sign pole. The cargo—mostly lumber—lies strewn across the wide lanes leading into the vast parking lot, which is littered with wrecks and abandoned vehicles. The massive low-slung superstore in the distance looks deserted but looks can be deceiving. “We check out the lots first, make a few circles, just get the lay of the land.”
“Looks pretty empty, Josh,” Lilly comments as she chews on her thumbnail in the rear berth. For the entire fifteen-minute journey across dusty back roads, Lilly has chewed every available fingernail down to the quick. Now she gnaws on a cuticle.
“Hard to tell just by looking,” Bob pipes in.
“Keep your eyes peeled for walkers or any other movement,” Josh says, putting the truck into gear and slowly bumping over the spilled lumber.
They circle the property twice, paying closest attention to the shadows of loading docks and entranceways. The cars in the lot are all empty, some burned to blackened husks. Most of the store’s glass doors are blown out. A carpet of broken shards glistens in the cold afternoon sun across the front entrance. The store inside is as dark as a coal mine. Nothing moves. Inside the vestibule, a few bodies litter the floor. Whatever happened here happened a while ago.
After his second sweep, Josh pulls up to the front of the store, puts the truck in park, leaves the engine idling, and checks the last three rounds nestled in the cylinder of his .38 police special. “Okay, I don’t want to leave the truck untended,” he says and turns to Bob. “You got how many shells left?”
Bob snaps open the squirrel gun with trembling hands. “One in the breech, one in my pocket.”
“Okay, here’s what I’m thinking—”
“I’m going with you,” Lilly says.
“Not without a weapon you aren’t, not until we know it’s safe in there.”
“I’ll grab a shovel from the back,” she says. She glances over her shoulder and sees Megan’s face in the window, owlish and expectant as she cranes her neck to see through the windshield. Lilly looks back at Josh. “You’re gonna need another pair of eyes in there.”
“Never argue with a woman,” Bob mumbles, jacking open the passenger door and stepping out into the windy, raw air of the late-autumn afternoon.
They go around back, open the camper’s rear hatch, and tell Megan and Scott to stay in the cab with the truck idling until the all-clear signal comes; and if they see any trouble, they should blast the horn like crazy. Neither Megan nor Scott puts up much of an argument.
Lilly grabs one of the shovels, and then follows Josh and Bob across the cement threshold of the store’s front façade, the sounds of their footsteps crackling over broken glass drowned by the wind.
Josh forces one of the automatic doors open and they enter the vestibule.
* * *
They see the old man without a head lying on the stained parquet near the entrance in a dried pool of blood—now as black as obsidian—the ragged threads of his viscera blossoming out of his neck. Pinned to the little blue greeter’s vest, the name tag, which is askew and partially visible, says WALMART on the top, and ELMER K on the bottom. The big yellow happy face insignia is stippled with blood. Lilly stares at poor headless Elmer K for quite some time as they make their way deeper into the empty store.
The air is almost as cold as outside and smells of coppery mold and decay and rancid proteins like those of a giant compost pile. Constellations of bullet holes crown the lintel above the hair care center to the left, while garish Rorschach patterns