The Walking Dead_ The Road to Woodbury - By Robert Kirkman Page 0,47

but faint, so faint it’s impossible to identify.

Josh whispers, “Bob, where’s the shotgun?”

“Left it up front, with the wheelbarrows.”

“Great.”

“What if it’s Megan?”

Josh thinks about it. He gazes out at the stillness of the store. “Megan! That you?”

No answer.

Lilly swallows air. Dizziness courses over her. “You think walkers could push the door open?”

“A stiff breeze could blow it open,” Josh says, reaching behind his belt for the .38. “Bob, how handy are you with that bad-ass pistol?”

Bob already has one of the ammo boxes open. He fishes for bullets with trembling, filthy fingers. “Way ahead of you, captain.”

“All right, listen—”

Josh starts to whisper instructions when another noise fills the air—muffled but distinct—clearly the sound of frozen hinges rasping somewhere near the entrance. Someone or some thing is pushing itself into the store.

Bob fiddles bullets into an empty magazine, his hands shaking. He drops the magazine, the clip hitting the floor and spilling rounds.

“Dude,” Scott comments under his breath, nervously watching Bob on his hands and knees retrieving the stray bullets like a little boy madly gathering marbles.

“Listen up,” Josh hisses at them. “Scott, you and Bob take the left flank, head toward the front of the store through the grocery department. Babydoll, you follow me. We’ll grab an axe from home and garden on the way.”

Bob, on the floor, finally manages to get the bullets into the clip, then slams the magazine into the pistol and levers himself back to his feet. “Gotcha. C’mon, junior. Let’s do it.”

They split off and move through the darkness toward the pale light.

Lilly follows Josh through the shadows of the auto care center, past ransacked shelves, past heaps of litter strewn across the tile flooring, past home and office, past crafts. They move as quietly as possible, staying low and close together, Josh communicating with hand gestures. He has the .38 in one hand, the other hand coming up suddenly and signaling for Lilly to stop.

From the front of the store, the sound of shuffling footsteps can now clearly be heard.

Josh points at a fallen display in the do-it-yourself department. Lilly creeps around behind a display of lightbulbs and finds the floor littered with rakes and pruning shears and three-foot-long axes. She grabs one of the axes and comes back around the lightbulbs, her heart hammering, her flesh crawling with terror.

They approach the front entrance. Lilly can see an occasional flash of movement on the other side of the store as Scott and Bob close in along the west wall of the grocery department. By this point, whatever it is that’s slithering into the Walmart seems to have fallen silent and still. Lilly can’t hear a thing other than her chugging heart.

Josh pauses behind the pharmacy counter, crouching down. Lilly joins him. Josh whispers to her, “You stay behind me, and if one of them things gets past me, give it a good whack in the center of the head with that thing.”

“Josh, I know how to kill a zombie,” Lilly retorts in a harsh whisper.

“I know, honey, all I’m saying … just make sure you whack it hard enough the first time.”

Lilly nods.

“On three,” Josh whispers. “You ready?”

“Ready.”

“One, two—”

Josh stops cold. Lilly hears something that doesn’t compute.

Josh grabs her and holds her steady against the bottom of the pharmacy counter. Paralyzed with indecision, they crouch there for a moment, a single incongruous thought screaming in Lilly’s brain.

Zombies don’t talk.

* * *

“Hello?” The voice echoes across the empty store. “Anybody home?”

Josh hesitates behind the counter for another brief moment, weighing his options, his brain swimming with panic. The voice sounds friendly … sort of … definitely male, deep, maybe a little bit of an accent.

Josh glances over his shoulder at Lilly. She’s holding the axe like a baseball bat, poised to strike, her lips quivering with terror. Josh holds his huge hand up—making a “give me a second” gesture—and he’s about to make his move, letting up on the pistol’s hammer, when another voice rings out, instantly changing the dynamic.

“LET HER GO, YOU SONS OF BITCHES!”

Josh lunges out from behind the counter with his .38 raised and ready to fire.

Lilly follows with the axe.

A group of six men—all heavily armed—stand in the vestibule.

“Easy … easy, easy, easy … whoa!” The leader, the guy standing out in front of the pack—a high-powered assault rifle in his arms, the muzzle raised menacingly—looks to be in his late twenties, early thirties at the most. Tall, rangy, dark complexioned, he wears a do-rag on his head. The sleeves of