Free Trying to Survive (Part 1) by C.J. Crowley Page B

office.
       The double glass doors were broken out, and the one on the right was hanging wide open. Once I got a little closer and was able to see inside, I was greeted by a pack of the infected standing around the completely trashed store.
      I was starting to realize that we wouldn’t be able to get inside any of the stores unless we did it at night. If we tried during the day, I doubt they’d all come out. The ones near the back of the store probably wouldn’t even react until the sun was down.
       Fuck… this is looking worse by the minute, and we really need a new car. This one’s old as shit and the other one is about to fall apart from running over so many of those damn things…
       As I continued on, I began to notice that almost all of the cars had something in common. Whether they were just sitting there, part of a wreck or crashed against a tree – the doors were just hanging open... And I couldn’t imagine why anyone would just stop in the middle of the road and get out of their car at a time like this. In my mind, it had to mean they turned…
       The entire area was just dead, completely silent and inactive. All the store windows were shattered, cars were flipped over on the sides of the roads, and large signs and light poles were knocked down. There were scenes of a slaughter almost everywhere I looked, and I was still having a hard time accepting that any of it could actually be real.
       Even though I knew there had to be other survivors, everything I was seeing truly did make me feel as though we were completely on our own. As far as I could tell, I was witnessing the end of mankind. I was even starting to believe that we had no chance of survival – that we’d eventually make a mistake and pay for it with our lives.
       It was one thing to think we were all alone, but to find out it was actually true brought me to a whole new level of unbridled pessimism. I lightly laughed as I thought to myself – Why couldn’t it have been an asteroid… or even a nearby supernova?
       All I could do was push aside my growing sense of doom and keep going. Even though trying to survive was starting to seem pointless, I still had Walt and the others to worry about. And I planned on fighting to the very last second.
       I drove slowly and kept the front windows down so I could listen for gunshots or other cars in the distance, but I never heard a sound. I also began to notice that the usual array of wildlife was nowhere to be seen. The sides of the roads were always teeming with squirrels, rabbits, birds and even deer.
       It does make sense that the infected would eat all of the animals… Though how would they catch all the birds? Could it be that everything just left to seek refuge in the forests?
       I decided to check the main grocery store since it was right near the highway. It was another place we’d want to hit when we leave. After what I’ve seen along the way, I already knew it was a waste of time, but I went ahead and pulled into the shopping center anyway.
       The parking lot was almost completely full – further suggesting that very few people escaped or didn’t turn. The few infected people that were hiding in the shade next to cars jumped up and began staggering towards me as I drove by, but they posed no real threat. I just had to make sure one didn’t climb in through the back window again.
       As I expected, the large glass doors had been smashed out and it was almost completely full of them – making it impossible to ever set foot inside during the day.
       I began shaking my head and then pounded on the steering wheel several times. “Can’t even catch ONE fucking break!?”
       The fact that they grew weaker during the day and sought shade wasn’t going to help us at all… It was actually going to hurt us in the long run. And it also told me they would eventually try to break into that Vet’s office. The more of them that gathered in the area, the