— Beca —
We made a few successful stops on our way out of Georgia, and as we finally passed into North Carolina I finally felt the last of my tension following the chase with the van dissipate. Of course, there was nothing to say that they couldn't track us this far. I had no idea really what tools they had at their disposal, nor how determined they were, but it felt good to think that we'd crossed a border, though that was a meaningless enough distinction these days. Everyone seemed brighter and more cheerful after an uneventful few days. We managed to get hold of some decent food supplies on our stops, and barely encountered any infected, which was a welcome break in itself. We took to stopping to cook our meals the way that Jesse, Chloe and I had in the start, and we began to fall into the comfort of routine. It was nice. We told stories, made jokes, did party tricks. Amy started doing her own version of standup comedy, and it turned out that Benji was an amateur magician, and he succeeded in impressing us all with disappearing tricks that none of us could figure out, much to his amusement. He and Jesse had taken to talking at length about things Jesse should have been learning at college, and it was nice to see them with some focus. Cynthia-Rose was likewise teaching Donald how to look after the vehicles, and Aubrey, Stacie, Amy and Chloe had their singing to occupy them. They would occasionally sing through an old song from their repertoire when they felt like it, and I would always add new layers in my head as they did so, imagining what other elements I could add to it if I were making a mix. It was good to rest, too. After everything, I was finally healing. Some of my injuries were already fading into scars, and my bruising was almost imperceptible now. I felt good, and had taken to getting some exercise in during my watch shifts at night. With so much time in the car, I felt like it was important that I keep my cardio up so that I could still run when I needed to. Chloe would sometimes join me, but more often than not she preferred to just sit and watch me do push-ups and jumping jacks, teasing me every now and again in a flirty kind of way. Occasionally I would think about the type of intimacy I still longed to have with her, but there wasn't really any space for that in our current existence. We made do with holding each other close at night, whispering questions to each other about our past lives, back when things were 'normal'. It was tough to do this without bringing up certain difficult memories and emotions, but it was good to learn about each other. I loved hearing about her writing, and her plans for after college.
"I wanted to write a novel, right out of college. I know that's probably what everyone says, but I had a great idea for it. It would've been big, I know it." She smiled ruefully.
"What was the story?" I asked, and she scoffed, gently batting at my shoulder.
"I can't tell you that! You'll have to wait to read it one day." I liked that she could still think that way, still imagine a future in which she could sit down at a desk and finally write her novel, and then I could read it and fall in love with her all over again. It was a nice thought, so I didn't press her, despite my curiosity. I wanted to hold out for that future too. She, in turn, was desperate for more details about my music and my life in London.
"It's sooooo cool that you moved there to do music! Like, so cool. Very rock and roll." She giggled, and I couldn't help but laugh too.
"Yeah yeahhhh, it was you know. I was sharing a flat with this guy called Luke, he was real rock-star material. You'd have liked him." She laughed again.
"A flat, listen to you. Good thing you came back here before you went fully British on me." I blushed, and laughed with her. And so, piece by piece, we pulled together a portrait of each other's lives before all this. It was strange to think that we'd never get to really experience one another in that kind of context. I mean, I suppose there was no way to say that for certain, but it felt almost impossible to imagine that we'd ever go back to exactly how things used to be. Looking back on the fragments of my life as I lent them to her, I wondered what image of me they created, and how that differed from the real me. Part of me still worried sometimes that I'd let her see too much of myself, and that one day she'd decide she didn't like me. It was a childish thing to worry about, or so I told myself. But still, doubt lived on somewhere in the back of my mind. Thankfully it was never enough to derail me completely, and I still felt happy in her estimation of me. Maybe she saw me for exactly who I knew myself to be. I hoped so in a funny kind of way.
Finally, a few days of laid-back travel later, we came to Franklin, North Carolina. I could see road signs up ahead signalling turnings for various parts of the town centre, but we turned off towards Aubrey's Walmart, hoping that we'd still be able to do a supply run before heading back into the wilderness, maybe for good. I felt relieved that we had all arrived here together, but it was still nerve-wracking coming this close to a medium-sized town after everything. Besides, after the last few successes, it almost felt like we were due a setback. I tried to push that from my mind as we pulled to a stop in the parking lot, the furthest side possible from the store itself. I exited the car warily, casting my eyes across the empty lot. There were certainly no signs of anyone having been here recently. Abandoned shopping carts stood dotted around where they'd been left at some indiscriminate point in the past, some empty, some full of sun-bleached items and mouldering food. It was sights like this that really drove home the scale of what we were currently living through. I shuddered. Still, it was a good sign. This looked to me like the undisturbed aftermath of the initial fallout from the virus, and hopefully, that meant that nobody had been here since. I nodded to Donald, who was behind the wheel of the truck, and he and Cynthia-Rose got out to meet me. The others all followed suit, from the car and from the truck's container, and soon we were all huddled round, readying our weapons.
"Okay, I wanna take this nice and carefully, just like the last few places. Stacie and Amy, you two are with the vehicles." Stacie was still not able to fully use her left arm, and Amy was the loudest. With Stacie behind the wheel of the automatic car and Amy in the truck, if anything went wrong for us they'd be ready for a quick getaway, and if anything went wrong on their end, Amy would let us hear about it. They nodded, Amy reaching over for a fist-bump with Stacie, who smiled. I continued, "Then we're gonna split into two groups, one for entry round the front and one round the back. You know the drill with infected or other people - escape and evade wherever possible if it comes to it. Otherwise, we'll be close by to help out. Any questions?" They stared at me blankly. After the last few days of runs in smaller towns, they were prepared for this. I was the most nervous I had been, but as always didn't let that show through. Rationally, I was sure things would be fine. There was no reason to expect anything bad, after all.
We split into two teams, Jesse leading Donald, Cynthia-Rose and Aubrey round the back. Chloe, Benji and I took the front, slowly creeping along the front wall until we reached the entrance. We were able to pry open the automatic doors which had long since given up the ghost, and then we were in. The first thing I noticed was the smell. It hung rancid and thick in the air, immediately clogging my throat. We all coughed and gagged as we filed in, pulling our shirts up to cover our noses. What was that? I struggled to retain my composure as we began to look closer at our surroundings. Everything was trashed. What shelves were left standing were bare, their contents piled on the floors below, trampled and shredded. Most shelves had been pushed over entirely and lay haphazardly across one another, covered in a thick layer of dust and a dark sludge.
"What happened in here?" whispered Benji, horrified. I shook my head.
"I don't know, but I don't like the look of it." He was leaning forwards now, trying to see if there was anything still worth taking.
"Benji-" I tried to call after him as he leant over one particularly high pile of cardboard boxes which claimed to contain canned soup. All of a sudden, it went crashing to the floor, sending up a thick cloud of dust which we all immediately turned away to shield ourselves from. The noise scared me, but that worry shot from my mind the moment I turned back and saw what lay underneath.
— Jesse —
We circled round back and quickly entered through the delivery door, with Cynthia-Rose picking the lock in record time. It was dark and dusty inside, and there was nothing that immediately caught my eye as being particularly useful. We picked our way slowly across a mountain of broken-down cardboard boxes, heading further into the back rooms of the store.
"Hey, check this out!" It was Donald, standing over near a big metal door fitted into the wall. I moved over to meet him, Aubrey and Cynthia-Rose close behind.
"I think this is their freezer room, and it sounds like it's still running!" He whispered excitedly. I leant in, and found that I too could hear the electric hum of power running somewhere behind the door. I grinned, catching his excitement.
"If there's food left in here and it's still frozen we might actually get some decent stuff out of this for the next few days!" I said quietly, the others eagerly agreeing. We tried the large handle and found it locked, so Cynthia-Rose set to work on it once again. It took her fractionally longer, but finally with a satisfying 'click', it was unlocked. I gestured to Donald to do the honours, and he quickly pulled back on the handled and heaved the huge door open. I poked my head inside, excitedly peering into the blue-green light that flickered into life. And then I gagged, and turned and stumbled backwards, knocking into Aubrey who had been trying to peer over my shoulder. We fell to the floor with a crash, knocking up a cloud of dust and dirt and startling the others, who rushed to pick us up and dust us off. My head was spinning, and I wasted no time in running for the back door. The others, confused, followed, trying to whisper urgent questions at my back as I ran. I couldn't say anything, I just ran. What I had just seen was worse than seeing my sister bleeding in that chair back in the hospital, and it scared me more. We were definitely not safe here. We had to get back and warn the others, then get the hell out of here as quickly as we possibly could.
— Chloe —
"Benji-" Beca called softly, but it was too late. The pile tipped over, and we all turned away from the dust. Coughing, I felt Beca turn back beside me, and then heard her gasp with horror. Before I could look up, I felt her hands on my arms, turning me back towards the door. I looked up to see her grab Benji by the back of his shirt and pull him with us, and suddenly we were pushing back out into the sunlight, coughing and confused. She let go of us, but carried on marching back over to the vehicles, and we jogged to catch up, totally bewildered by her behaviour.
"What the hell was that?" I asked, somewhat put out by being dragged out like that. She shook her head, her eyes fixed straight ahead and her hands clenched tightly at her sides. She'd seen something in there that had totally freaked her out, and it was freaking me out that she wouldn't say anything now.
"If you don't tell me right now what you saw in there, I'm gonna go back and take a look for myself-" I started, and she spun to face me, her eyes suddenly blazing.
"Chloe, please, trust me. You don't… you don't want to see that." She replied, her voice wavering ever so slightly. Benji and I exchanged a nervous glance.
"See what, Beca?"
"The bodies."