Free All That I See - 02 by Shane Gregory

said. “It’s okay that you don’t say it back, but… Jen is gone. ”
    I stared at her, not sure how I should respond.
    “I’ll be right out,” I said, finally.
    She looked down at the floor, nodded and walked out. I heard the back door open, then shut.
    Why did everything have to be so complicated?
    I moved in close to the door, but just out-of-reach of the man’s arm. When his face came into view, I fired through the hole with the AR-15. The shot was loud and made my ears ring after. The man collapsed and was still. I didn’t hear any more movement, so I reached into the hole, found the knob and unlocked it. The door swung outward into the break room and Brenda’s body plopped down to the floor. The blood coming from her neck was just a dribble by that time.
    I stepped into the windowless room and looked around. The stench was sickening. The desk was still in there, and the computer was still in the floor in the corner. Off to one side next to some filing cabinets were two more bodies. I pointed my weapon at them, but they didn’t move. They were bloated and had already been dead a while. I went in closer to investigate. One was a man, but his face had been so badly beaten that I couldn’t make out the features enough to identify him. The other was Connie, the nurse. There was a bullet hole in her head.
    “Shit,” I said, looking into Connie’s lifeless face. I felt responsible for all of this. Connie had been willing to come with us before I’d given her reason to be afraid of me.
    Sara was not going to like this news. With her being in this new, weird emotional state, I had no intention of telling her.
    I returned to the car.
    “Anyone else in there?” she asked.
    “Two more, but they’d been dead too long to tell who they were , ” I lied.
    She accepted what I said without question, which made me feel even worse . I ’d tell her about Connie later when I thought she was up to it. She put the car in reverse and backed out past the diesel pump and through the gate. When she stopped to put the car into drive, I put my hand on her s .
    “Hold up,” I said. “Let’s go ahead and check that moving van while we’re here. Maybe they didn’t bother it .”
    She pulled the car to the rear of the little box truck. I got out and pushed the back door up. I almost couldn’t do it; I just didn’t have much strength. Everything was still in there—the little wood stove, the bags of animal feed, the clothes, boots, and tools. I went back over to the car.
    “I’m going to drive it back over to the stables,” I said.
    “Without a windshield?”
    “Yeah,” I said. “What’s the problem? People ride motorcycles don’t they?”
    She grinned a little, “Okay. You don’t think you’ll need some gog gles or sunglasses or something?”
    “ Don’t have any,” I said. “We’ll take it slow. Well, faster than the zombies, but slow. You lead the way.”
     
    We went back the way we came, staying away from the main roads. Driving without a windshield was an interesting experience and not very comfortable, but I was glad to have reclaimed those particular supplies. I had hoped the Somervilles would have returned while w e were gone, but they had not .
    It was late afternoon by that time, and Sara quietly made us dinner—a can of spaghetti and a can of pineapple chunks. It wasn’t a very filling meal, but it was all that was left of the food Sara and Mr. Somerville had collected while I was sick. We’d have to go out the next day and find more. She didn’t have much to say while we ate and had trouble looking me in the eye. We both had a lot on our minds.
    I finished first and poured each of us some of Corndog’s rum, emptying the jug.
    “I hate that hard stuff,” Sara said.
    “Well, you’re going to hate this even more,” I said. “This is cheap hard stuff. We hav e to get food tomorrow; hopefully we’ll find something a little more palatable .”
    “Are we…are we coming back here when