What happens next?

Having now buried Face and forgotten about him, the others get more and more ridiculous in their greed, bringing TV's, dining sets and alike up to the top part of the mall. Makes you wonder why they didn't just set up a place in one of the large department stores, but hey, this ways gotta be easier, right?

Hannibal has three boxes and hands one to both of his remaining men and keeps one back for himself.

"What's this?" BA asked.

"Gas masks." Hannibal explained.

"Oh right, in case the zombie outbreak's caused by some kinda toxic gas from a failed top secret government experiment." Murdock enthused.

"No. It's just in these small quarters you don't wanna share the same air as another two men who are on a bean diet." Hannibal explained.

"Why is that again? There's loads of other food downstairs. We've taken everything else, why not the food." BA queried.

"Sorry guys, I guess I'm just thinking like I was still at war. I'm rationing us. Never know how long this'll last." Hannibal said.

"Do you think anyone else we knows survived?" Murdock asked suddenly.

"Well, we don't know many people. Most are dead and we hardly ever mention relatives." Hannibal said.

"True. Hey, what about Amy?" BA asked.

"No, there was no Amy. I've never met an Amy in my life. You're thinking of Tawnia." Hannibal said, changing from Amy quite quickly. If they ever found out what he'd done to her...

"Think Tawnia's OK?" BA said, falling for Hannibal's clever trickery.

"Maybe she's out there somewhere, maybe even in a mall like this. Dribbling, shuffling along. Not even able to speak properly." Murdock said somberly.

"Just another zombie." Hannibal said.

"Who said anything about being a zombie?"

"Oh, hey, we best start some of these helicopter lessons before we kill you ... er, I mean, you die." Hannibal said.

"Up to the roof then?"

"Yeah. But I wanna play tennis first." Hannibal mentioned.

"Yeah, Ok, seems reasonable." BA said.

So now, up on the roof, Hannibal's playing some solo tennis. Disaster strikes when he strains his wrist. The others, being very familiar with wrist strains (there's no dirty joke there, anything dirty is in the readers mind), check it over.

"Hannibal's that's a real bad injury." BA said.

"Remember when I strained my wrist real bad that time and couldn't fly for months?"

"No, not really." Hannibal replied, keeping the pained acting suitably low key.

"Oh, well it that's cause I just made it up to share your pain. It's to get to the twist in the next few lines."

"What twist?" BA asked.

"Well, Hannibal's injury is far too severe. I can't allow him to fly. BA, I'll have to teach you to fly. Now that's a twist!"

"I ain't getting' in no plane!" BA said, fiercely. "Not til I get my shirt, anyway."

"Didn't we get it when we went down into the mall during the boring shopping scene earlier?" Hannibal asked, the pain from his injury having completed subsided.

"Ironically, it's the one thing we forgot."

"Ok. Shirt first, flying lessons for BA, and then kill Murdock." Hannibal said, running through the list of things to do.

"Ah man, he's on the jazz." BA said, sharing a groan with Murdock.

"So, Hannibal, I gotta ask, why have we come down to the mall all tooled up? There's nobody in here." Murdock asked.

"Now, Murdock a good leader will always be prepared."

"I thought that was boy scouts?"

"Yeah, them too. And you know what, they grow up to be good leaders. Anyway, the shop we have to go to is right near the front entrance of the mall, so be careful."

"But we locked the doors." BA mentioned.

"Guys, who's the leader here?" Hannibal said, moaning a little.

"You are." They both said together.

"Right, so come on, lets get this shirt. BA, I want you to wait at the stores entrance. Murdock you need to cover me while I locate the shirt. When I've found it, I'll bring it back to BA. Clear?"

Both men nodded with the instructions they'd been given.

Hannibal carefully made his way past rows and rows of shirts, none of them what he was looking for. A sleeveless pink shirt in size XXXL wasn't easy to come by.

Finally spotting the shirt he was looking for, he searched the rack for the right size. Murdock carefully covered Hannibal, waiting for the unexpected to leap out at him.

Grabbing the shirt off the rack, he and Murdock raced back to the door where BA waited.

"We got it." Hannibal yelled. A smile found it's way to BA's face.

BA took the shirt off the colonel but his face suddenly fell. Murdock picked it up for and handed it back to him.

"What's wrong, BA?" Hannibal asked.

"Look, the seams come un-done. Won't last five minutes, not with how tight I like my shirts." He sighed.

"Triple-XL is tight for you!" Murdock said, amazed.

"Shutup fool! You don't know what I've had to go through. Favorite shirt ruined, covered in all yours and Faces blood. It ain't easy man." BA said, his anger and grief mixed.

"I'm sorry." Murdock said sincerely. "I promise if anything happens to either me or Hannibal, we'll try and you know, bleed away from you."

"Thanks crazy man." BA said. Looking back down at the inadequate shirt in his hands, BA couldn't help but let out another large sigh.

"Right, BA give me the shirt back. I'll go see if I can exchange it."

"Hannibal, we haven't got time for this! The zombies are getting riled up." Murdock said.

"Captain, I promised BA a shirt and I won't fail him now."

Hannibal ran back into the shop, leaving Murdock and BA at the door. Once he found the Exchanges and Refunds desk, he joined the back of the queue and waited to be served.

Almost twenty minuted later, Hannibal was being tended to.

A large lady stood behind the desk far too superior for someone who was in charge of faulty goods.

"Can I help you, Sir?" she asked, her name tag read Hilda.

"Er, yes. I purchased this for a friend and he's noticed that there's a problem with the seam right here." Hannibal pointed to the area that was affected.

Hilda took the garment and inspected the area closely, almost as though she thought it may disappears if she looked long enough. "Do you have your receipt?" she asked.

"No, I got it after the zombie invasion, so there were no checkouts open."

"So, you haven't paid for this item?" she continued.

"Not technically, but I have the cash right here."

"Save it, mister. I'm calling security." With that, she called security over the tannoy and two large men appeared and took Hannibal to a room.

"Someone will be with you in a minute." Security Guard #1 said.

They both left and Hannibal sat on the hard plastic chair provided for him.

The door opened then and the head of security for Shirts R' Us came in.

Hannibal grimaced.

It was Decker.

TBC.