Free Alone by Gary Chesla Page A

I want to give you a whole box of granola bars, but I promise I will not come out of the warehouse. I just want to help you. If I promise I won’t come outside, will you wait until I send you out the bars?” Tony asked.
    “I don’t know.” Trish replied. Her instincts were telling her to run, but her mouth was watering at the thought of an entire box. Then she thought about going back without any thing to offer to Roy and Tom. She was worried about what they would do to her.
    “Shit!” She swore under her breath.
    “Trish you can watch me at the window the entire time. You won’t have to worry about me coming out. OK?” Tony asked.
    Trish didn’t know what to do. Maybe if she could see him at the window it might be OK. The day was getting late, she wouldn’t have time to find anything else before she went back. Maybe she would have a better chance of getting the bars and running before the guy came out after her than she would have going back empty handed.
    “OK.” She answered reluctantly.
    “Good. Give me a few minutes to get rid of Farmer George.” Tony said.
    “Who is Farmer George?” Trish asked. Was there someone else around that she hadn’t seen. Were there two of them?
     
    Tony pressed the button and laughed. “Sorry. It’s the name I have for the big zombie at the front doors. He’s too big to be brought down with my little pellet gun. I’ll have to try to get him with an arrow. I hope I can do it.”
     
    Trish breathed a sigh of relief. “Maybe he is in there by himself.” She thought, but she watched the warehouse carefully, in case it was a trick. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had tried to pull a trick on her.
     
    Tony grabbed a half dozen arrows and crept to the corner of the window and looked for George.
    He spotted George standing and staring at the front of the warehouse.
    Tony set an arrow on the bow and shot at George. The arrow hit about four feet behind George and lodged in the head of one of the dead that laid out front. George turned and took a few staggering steps towards the arrow and just stared.
    Tony almost gagged as a breeze pushed the heavy odor of the dead into his face. Tony had almost become used to the foul smell of the dead as they stood in front of the warehouse. The hundred or so of the dead that Tony had downed, after laying in the hot sun for the past few days, smelled worse than he remembered the dead ever smelling.
    Tony took a breath inside the room, then took aim. He let go of the arrow and watched as it hit George square in the middle of the back.
    It must have severed the spinal column and George went down.
    He watched as the big creature squirmed and wiggled. It wasn’t dead, but it was unable to get up and move around.
    It wasn’t what he had wanted, but for what he needed. It would work for now.
     
    Tony quickly left the room and slid down the metal ladder to the floor below. He ran over to the sporting goods shelves and grabbed a hundred foot spool of 50 pound fishing line, a box of granola bars and a box of beef jerky. He turned and ran back up the ladder to the room.
    “I hope this will work.” Tony thought as he unrolled the spool of fishing line. When he had it lying all over the floor, he took the end and tied it to the latch on the window.
    After following the line for a few minutes, he found the other end and tied it to the end of an arrow.
    He stood at the window and shot the arrow at a spot on the ground below, about seventy-five feet out from the warehouse. It stuck in the grass at the end of the parking lot.
    He stood and looked around the office. Next he ran over to the coat rack and grabbed two wire coat hangers.
    He used the duct tape to tape the bottom of the hangers to the granola box and the box of beef jerky.
    He took the boxes over to the window, hung the box of granola bars on the fishing line and let go. He watched as the box slid down the line, picking up speed as it went, finally crashing into the grass. Next he