Free Undead 02 The Undead Haze by Eloise J. Knapp

flights of stairs until we were in the bottom story. When I first arrived, I figured out the bottom level was a tutoring center. Empty chairs and desks were scattered throughout the first half of the large room, then doors led to what I assumed were more offices. They had been locked, and I hadn’t bother trying to open them.
    The windows didn’t illuminate much, so we relied on the white light of Beau’s lantern to get us through. It cast hard shadows onto the motivational posters and the effect made me nervous. Nothing could be in there, though, since Beau had been in the room. Any undead would’ve come out before now.
    One door was open. A short flight of steps led upwards into a high-ceiling storeroom. Orange glow sticks were everywhere, giving me a good view of the place. There were stacks of metal shelves loaded with boxes. On the far wall were two loading docks, void of trucks. Everything looked normal.
    “What’s the surprise?” I asked.
    “This.” He walked over to an open box on the ground.
    Inside were four tightly packed silver cans. Beau moved the light closer so I could read the labels. They all said vegetable soup, followed by nutritional information.
    When on the move, finding food in the outskirts of cities wasn’t too hard. Stopping in smaller gas stations or houses that looked safe always produced needed goods. It was the cities themselves that were raped. People scavenged from what was closest to them, but the supermarkets and stores soon emptied. Because of traffic jams left with no one to clean up, most didn’t make it out of main thoroughfares. So if you were stuck in a city, eventually it grew harder to find what you needed. You had to travel farther every time you raided.
    Being cooped up in a school with no access to anything but chips and candy sucked. Beau didn’t have much food on him when he showed up, and we were running out of everything from the bookstore. We both knew there was no point in searching the immediate stores and houses for food. It made our situation all the worse.
    “What else is there?” My words came out a bewildered whisper.
    “I looked at the boxes on the shelves. There’s canned fruit, vegetables, and more soup.”
    How could the day get any better? I had the apocalyptic version of a spa waiting for me, and now we had substantial food again.
    “Are those loading doors locked? Or can we open them?” I asked, drawing my thoughts away from the pleasantries.
    “They have padlocks on them, but I’m sure I can find something to pry them open. If not, I could try picking them. They look simple enough.”
    I nodded. “Let’s bring up a few cans of food then figure out what we’re going to take.”
    “We don’t know if the truck will run. It’s probably been almost a year since the engine turned over last. It probably isn’t worth it to get stuff ready until we have a ride.”
    “I guess,” I said. “We need to find a ride anyway. If we can’t get the truck, it should only take a day to find another car somewhere.”
    That’s optimistic, Cyrus. You couldn’t find one to get you to Everett.
    “It’s lunch time then,” Buford said.
    I laughed. “How do you know what time it is?”
    He raised his wrist, showing me a digital watch.
    “Why bother? Time doesn’t matter.”
    “Keeps me sane,” he said. “It’s the little things that count.”
     
    * * *
     
    Despite the occasional frozen chunk in the vegetable soup, lunch was delectable. Even had dessert: pears. We’d retired to our respective offices to eat in solitude. The storm outside brewed into a disaster while we’d been exploring the loading bay. I heard it raging through the windows. Hail pelted and wind whistled through the broken glass down the hall.
    It’d been pretty quiet since we came back upstairs. If I leaned back, I could see into his office. He sat at his desk. Instead of turning on a lantern, he remained quietly eating in the dark. There were no windows over there.
    I took a