Free Safari - 02 by Keith C. Blackmore

the other direction, the corridor darkened, with one distant wall made out of glass. Placing the butt of the Benelli against his shoulder, he slinked toward the glass wall. He turned right, following the direction of the hallway, and saw rows of empty computer terminals just beyond the glass partition. A moment later, he came upon a door with a sign designating the room as the student computer lab. Gus didn’t see anything of use inside, so he focused ahead on the deepening dark. The snow wasn’t squeaking underfoot anymore, but the gloom still played with his fears of things unseen and nubs of rotting teeth eager for meat.
    Gus crept further down the hall until he came to a beige doorway. He cracked it open and saw shelves of books draped in near blackness. A whiff of aging paper accosted him. Turning his attention back to the hall, he proceeded to a stairwell that went down another level as well as up several. Leaning over the metal railing, Gus saw a rash of daylight from above. Pointing his shotgun ahead, he moved toward it.
    He stopped at what he remembered to be the main floor. He edged out of the stairwell into a room with sparse lighting coming from the far wall of windows. Long bookshelves divided the level into aisles, while in some of the more open sections, broad tables with books still on their surfaces cluttered the floor. Chairs covered in cheap vinyl faced the wall of windows, giving students a beautiful view of the university grounds. Gus stopped and stared out the window for a moment, seeing his truck two stories below. Beyond that, snowy trees lined the main road. The scene looked like a frozen oil painting. He listened, but heard nothing. The place seemed deserted.
    It would be easy to find out if it wasn’t. One yell was all it took to bring the dead out to investigate. However, he wasn’t ready for a full-blown hunt. Not yet. But soon.
    Pulling back from the window, Gus skulked toward where he remembered seeing encyclopaedias. Whether he could find anything of use in those books, he didn’t know, but they were a good place to start. Moving past empty tables and chairs and feeling as if ghosts might inhabit the place, Gus entered the main entryway to the library and the front checkout desks. Offices were behind a long brown counter cut with slots for designated book drop sites. A dead elevator lay to his right, as well as another bank of computer terminals, but then he found the books he wanted.
    He went looking for the volume with the letter ‘P’ on it. He pulled it from the shelf and took it to a nearby table. The paper smelled old, the scent hitting him in the face as he went through the pages.
    Painkillers. Also known as analgesics. Gus smiled. Was it time for him to have some luck after all? He started reading the entry and soon found opiates, as well as an explanation for codeine. Codeine, Percocet, and Tramadol jumped out at him. Those names were enough for him. Gus regarded the heavy, cumbersome book. He tore out the page, the ripping noise cutting through the silence of the library loud enough to make him freeze. Tension-filled seconds passed while he waited to see if anything would appear, but nothing did. Not wanting to waste any more time, he stuffed the paper inside his coat and left the book open on the table.
    Mission completed . He’d be lucky indeed if that drugstore he’d seen on the way in had any of what was on the page.
    He moved past the front checkout counters and back into the main area.
    He heard a squeak.
    Gus brought up the Benelli and looked around, searching the spaces between the shelves.
    Another squeak. Longer this time. Definitely movement.
    And unquestionably behind him.
    Gus turned around and looked at the doorway he’d just come through. The squeaking came from beyond, like a wheel that had grown cranky with rust.
    When the cause of the noise came into view, Gus’s jaw dropped.

6
     
    The guy had died in perhaps the strangest position. The zombie, dressed in