Faith in the Apocalypse - Pt. 01

Without a word, he handed Faith first her father's wallet and wedding ring then her mother's ring and necklace then he chivied them to the grave and stepped back a few paces to give them a semblance of privacy. He kept the man's keys.

Faith hugged the two blonde-haired children tight against her and all three stared down at the mound of earth marring their father's perfect green lawn with tears streaming down their faces.

No-one spoke a word but Faith stooped down and scooped a handful of earth and then stood and let it stream down into the middle of the mound.

"I'm gonna miss you Mommy and Daddy," she whispered, her voice catching in a sob at the last word.

The two children copied her and then all three turned and looked up at the enormous fat old man.

The little girl, tugged on Faith's shirt to get her attention.

She leaned down and the girl whispered in her ear, just loud enough for Scorn to make out the words.

"Is that Santa?" she asked innocently, never taking her wide eyes from the old man's white-bearded face.

Faith laughed and gave her another quick hug.

"No, he ain't Santa, but he's a good guy and he's gonna help us," she said looking up at him, her voice rough from crying.

"Right?" she asked Scorn.

He nodded, looking down at them seriously then he motioned to the house.

"Go pack up your stuff," he said quietly. "Get everything you need now because we ain't coming back."

Faith ushered them into the house. She went to a store room and dug out a large set of luggage and led the way upstairs where she helped them pack.

Scorn looked around and found a large wooden cabinet. It was locked. He dug out the man's keys and tried several until he found one that unlocked it.

It was a gun cabinet and the man liked his guns.

Weapons were lined up neatly in an especially built rack. There were two high-end scoped.30-06 hunting rifles the same caliber as his, a Benelli 12-guague pump action tactical shotgun, an AR-15 style.223 caliber assault rifle and a dozen 9mm,.40 and.45 caliber pistols, extra magazines, holsters, magazine pouches and thousands of rounds of ammo, enough to start a freaking war.

Three full size pistols had tactical red dot sights and small but powerful flashlights mounted under the barrels. There were three compact, medium sized pistols and three subcompact concealable pistols.

These weapons would come in pretty handy in this new world.

While the three were upstairs packing, he went into the garage and found a couple of plastic tubs filled with Christmas decorations. He dumped them on the floor and filled them with the contents of the gun cabinet. He found hard cases for the rifles and shotgun.

He'd built up a large stockpile of weapons and ammo over the decades but as far as he was concerned you could never have too much ammo or too many weapons.

That thought made him straighten. That's what he had to do. The small town had a huge gun store filled to overflowing with weapons, ammo, knives, bows, camping gear, cold weather clothes, and all kinds of other stuff. It even had an indoor rifle and pistol range.

That would be their next stop and after that, they'd pay the local Costco a visit to grab all the toilet paper and food they could carry and bring it back to his place.

Besides weapons and ammo, he'd also built up a huge stockpile of food and necessities in his underground bunker to survive for years, but with three other mouths to feed, it'd be best to stock up as much as possible.

Scorn opened the front door and stepped out with a heavy tote in his hands, his slung shotgun dangling from his shoulder.

WHAT THE FUCK!

He let the heavy ammo-filled bin fall to the ground and reached for the shotgun as four zombies who had been shuffling around in the yard drawn to the earlier sounds of his digging, raised their heads and lumbered towards him, moaning their undead hunger.

He shot one in the head, then another, then the third and the fourth was three steps away when its head blew apart in a splatter of bone, blood and brains.

The echoes of the shotgun blasts lingered in the air along with the familiar smell of spent gunpowder, and then he heard the faint sounds of whines and moans from all around.

OH SHIT, he thought. Those shots are going to bring these things out of the woodwork.

"GET A MOVE ON!" he hissed loudly up the stairs. "WE GOTTA GO!"

"We're almost done," Faith said from one of the rooms. Her voice was high and strained with fear and relief that he was alright.

"MEET ME IN THE BACK YARD. DON'T GO OUT THE FRONT DOOR."

It wouldn't do for a pair of little kids to see four dead people with the heads blasted off their bodies littering their front yard.

He opened the door, peeked around and seeing nothing, picked up the plastic bin and made it to the Bronco, stepping around the bodies and gore pooled on the ground.

He put the bin in the back, got in the driver's seat after taking a quick look around and drove onto the lawn and around the side of the house until he was parked close to a set of sliding glass doors.

He fetched out the other tote and the hard rifle cases, fetched the shovel, no need to draw any more attention with gunshots, and went up the stairs to hurry things along.

The girl and the two children were in one of the bedrooms, half a dozen filled suitcases of all sizes littering the room around them. Faith was zipping the last one closed when he walked in.

"Let's go," he hissed urgently, grabbing the largest and pulling it behind him, down the stairs, and tossing it in the back of the Bronco, but not before glancing around to make sure it was safe.

The young woman and the two kids weren't far behind.

"Get in the car and lock the doors," he said. "Hang tight and I'll go get the rest of your stuff."

Looking around once again, he ran into the house, up the stairs, huffing and puffing like a steam train, dropped the shovel and grabbed up the last two stuffed suitcases. He went back down the stairs and looked around once again before stepping out of the house and tossing the suitcases in the back.

He'd learned THAT lesson quick... don't step out blindly without looking around for possible danger.

He took a moment to shove shells into the shotgun hanging from his shoulder before tapping on the driver's side window.

"Can you drive?" he asked the girl after she skootched to the driver's side and lowered the window a few inches.

Tears of sorrow were pooled in her eyes, but she nodded yes.

"Alright, I'm driving your dad's SUV, follow after me when I crash through that fence," he said pointing to the back wooden fence.

Faith nodded her understanding and followed close behind when he plowed through the fence, which exploded outwards in shards of wood.

Scorn drove to the gun store with Faith and the two children following close behind in his beat up old Bronco.

They passed the occasional shuffling zombie and even a few raging infected but they left them all quickly behind, losing them in the maze of streets.

The gun store was on the edge of town, off the beaten path, where the sound of gunfire wouldn't disturb anyone.

Scorn backed into the handicapped spot closest to the entrance. He took a moment to look around, checking to make sure it was safe before getting out. There were only two other vehicles in the parking lot, one was a late model Honda sedan and the other was a white four-door truck with the words "Commercial Cleaning Services" stenciled on the doors in big bold letters.

"Stay in the car and lock the doors," he said. "I'll come get you when it's safe."

Hefting the shotgun in both hands, Scorn looked around warily once again and went to the door. He pulled on the handle, expecting it to be locked, but the door opened easily with a faint hiss and felt a cool air-conditioned breeze from inside washed over him.

He stepped warily inside, his head swiveling from side to side and his ear cocked for any sound.

The store was a gun owner's paradise. The bright overhead lights illuminated a high-ceilinged series of rooms with glass cases, shelves and clothes racks. A third of the store was dedicated to weapons, another to camping equipment and the last to clothes and a number of adventuring accessories.

He'd been here before. This is where he bought his ammo. It was the go-to place for any number of needs for someone who, like him, lived the life of a self-sustaining hermit.

His sharp ears caught the muffled sound of several infected whining in hunger somewhere off to his right, in the direction of the door leading into the shooting range or maybe the door leading to the store's administrative offices.

He couldn't make out how many or where they were exactly, but he knew there was more than one.

Crouching down, he walked slowly, careful to put each booted foot down outer-side first and then rolling it inwards towards the arch. He'd learned a few things about being stalking other humans in the sweltering jungles of Vietnam.

The further he moved, the more he was sure the infected were in the office space. The stout door, which opened inwards, stood wide open. He'd only ever seen it closed and locked. The only way to open it was by punching in a code on the little black keypad mounted on the wall next to it.

Scorn knew it would automatically lock if he closed it, trapping the infected people inside.

That was the best plan of action... as long as they didn't hear him.

He crept forward and peeked around the edge of the door. The office space was fairly large with light gray dividers partitioning the room into half a dozen cubicles. At the far end of the room was a closed door. Four people paced before it whining and occasionally scratching at the door.

Three wore blue t-shirts with the words "Commercial Cleaning Services" stenciled in white on the back and the other wore a black polo shirt and khaki pants. The three people in blue were middle-aged Hispanic women and the man was tall, white and almost skeletally thin.

All four people were red-faced and their bright bloodshot eyes shone with relentless hunger. The fronts of their shirts were splattered with gore and one of the Hispanic women looked severely injured, one of her arms was broken in several places and shards of bone had pierced the skin. She seemed unaware of her injuries though she seemed weak from loss of blood.

Every one of them looked like they'd had bites taken out of their torn and bleeding flesh.

As he closed the door, he paused when he heard a choked sob echo faintly from behind the closed door and the four infected went wild and crowded each other around the door, smashing face first into it over and over again and raked at his with torn and jagged nails.

Fuck!

Could he leave whoever was behind that door at the mercy of the mad infected?

He felt his skin crawl in self-loathing at the thought of walking away. He was no fucking hero. He actually didn't even like people all that much. An image of the beautiful young blonde girl waiting in the car outside lying naked on his bed made him re-evaluate that statement... he liked some people very much.

Shaking his head, he assessed what he needed to do. He didn't necessarily need to kill them right away, he needed to immobilize them first and then he could finish them off with the Colt M1911.45 caliber pistol holstered at his waist.

He pulled it out, made sure a round was chambered and it was off safe and re-holstered it.

It was now or never.

He straightened, took a deep breath, put the shotgun's stock to his shoulder, aimed it downrange and shouted "OVER HERE MOTHERFUCKERS" at the top of his lungs.

Their reaction was almost comical. Their flushed insane faces turned towards in him in astonished surprise, their eyes wide and their whines of hunger completely choked off in what sounded like a Scooby Doo "rrrugh?" which went low then high as if in question.

Then they were off to the races. With loud screeching whines they ran towards him in a group, surprising him with their speed and fervor.

They were too far away for the shotgun to be effective, so he waited, his balls drawing up close to his body, his mouth dry as a desert and his hands shaking with fear at the look in their glazed red eyes, their wide gaping mouths and blood-smeared faces twisted in a matching rictus of ravenous hunger.

He pulled the trigger and the woman with the broken arm was knocked off her feet to fall face-first on the ground as he shot her knees out from under her. He racked a shell and did the same to another woman and another.

Then the man was almost on top of him and he raised the muzzle and shot his head clean off in a shower of blood, shredded bones and gooey brains.

The details that came to his attention as the man came within five feet of him were almost eerie. He'd heard the jangle of keys in his pocket, the squeak of his shoes and the black name tag on his left breast that declared him JIM.

Heart hammering in his chest he looked around then stepped forward.

He still had a shell chambered but he decided to sling the shotgun. Instead he drew out the.45 and shot the woman crawling closest to him in the forehead, making her head snap back and her body fall suddenly lifeless.

He drew a bead with both hands on the weapon and shot the other two raging women in the head as they tried to crawl on busted-up shredded knees to reach him. Their piercing whines were cut off so suddenly that the hum of the overhead lights in the resulting silence seemed as loud as feedback from speakers in a rock concert.

Scorn then put his back against the wall, where he had a good view of the door and the office room, held the weapon out in front of him, stood still and listened. There were no more whines, no moans, only the humming overhead lights and an occasional quiet sob from behind the closed door.

He went back to the skeletal man and took out a ring of keys, probably the store keys, a key fob, a single large key with raised letters spelling Chevy on the fat part of the key and shoved them all in his pocket. The headless man also had a card dangling from his left breast pocket. He yanked that off too and shoved it in his pocket.

Stepping gingerly over the bodies, he made his way to the door and knocked gently.

"Hello?" he said in a quiet reassuring tone. "They're gone. It's okay to come out."

He turned the knob and found the door was unlocked. It was dented and bloody, but it was not locked.

He opened it a crack and looked inside. A dark-haired woman was in a fetal position in the far corner of the windowless room. Her arms were wrapped around her drawn-up legs, her hands were tangled in her hair, her face was pressed into her thighs, her blue black hair was draped like a curtain over her and she gently rocked back and forth.

She was sobbing quietly, but occasionally one came out louder than the others. That one louder sob had revealed her presence and it was the reason he'd decided to help her.

He holstered his pistol, went inside, closed the door behind him and sat on the carpeted floor with his back braced against the wall facing her. It was at that point he realized he was still breathing hard and he felt lightheaded, his body had come down from the adrenaline rush.

"It's okay," he wheezed gently. "I took care of them. They're not gonna hurt you."

He looked closely at the girl. She didn't look hurt. There was no blood on her dusky skin or on her clothes. She wore a blue t-shirt and jeans.

She raised her head and when her tear-filled swollen eyes caught his, she shot up and ran to him, falling into his lap and hugging him tight, babbling in panicked undecipherable Spanish the whole time.

"Los monstruos atacaron a mí y a mis compañeras," she sobbed raggedly. (translation: The monsters attacked me and my companions.)

He wrapped his arms around her and engulfed her in a warm and reassuring hug while her small body shuddered and trembled with the intensity of her sobs. Her slim brown arms were wrapped tight around his neck.

After a few minutes her body began to relax and her shuddering sobs turned into little girl hiccups.

He tried to push her away so he could stand up but she only tightened her arms around him.

She was a tiny little thing, no more than five feet tall, slim but solid with muscle, maybe 22 years old or so. Still, she felt light as a feather so he struggled to his feet with her in his arms with her hot little face pressed firmly to his chest.

Cradling her tight against him, making sure she couldn't see the gory scene on the other side of the door, he carried her out to the main store like a child in his arms and shut the door to the office and the blasted sad bodies of the infected people he'd killed. He checked that it locked behind him.

Every time he tried to put the girl down, her arms tightened around him. He still somehow managed to reload the shotgun and slap in a full magazine into the.45 ACP. He kept it out and walked around the rest of the store carrying the girl the whole time. He checked every room, even several locked store rooms opened with the skeletal man's ring of keys, as well as the back docking bay which had a long white Chevy cargo van parked inside along with a forklift and other stuff.

Once he made sure the store was free of zombies or infected, he went out to the car, looking around warily for danger, with the girl still cradled in his thick hairy arms. Faith and the two children looked at them curiously as he motioned for her to lower the window.

"It's clear, c'mon inside," he said.

Once inside, the girl looked embarrassed and motioned for Scorn to let her down.

Once he set her on her feet he walked away and examined the contents of the glass cases and shelves. There were weapons of every caliber, whole walls of new magazines and accessories, rows upon rows of ammunition on the shelves and larger boxes of more common ammo stacked on the endcaps and on floor displays.

There were thousands of rounds of every type. He was gonna stock up good.

But first.

He drew out the Chevy key, walked to the white cargo van in the loading dock and unlocked the driver's side door. The white windowless van was long, high and completely empty except for the driver and passenger seats. It was perfect. He'd be able to drive it through the woods and straight into his little compound filled to the rim with all the goodies in this place.

But not before paying a little visit to Sam's Club too.

He shoved the key in the ignition and turned it. The dash lights lit up, the familiar loud dinging filled the empty hollow vehicle and he waited while the gas needle quickly rotated to the F, showing it had a full tank.

Fuck yeah! It's on!

He shut it off, opened the back and slid open the side door on the vehicle's right then he went to find a way to pack up all the shit he'd take.

He found a large stack of thick, transparent plastic bins and wooden crates. They were larger and more stoutly built than the ones he'd used to pack up Faith's father's weapons and ammo. He'd use some of both. He put three plastic bins on a large, flat, wheeled cart and trundled it through a wide door leading to the main store.

When he stepped inside pushing the rattling cart ahead of him, he saw the dark-haired girl, Faith and the two kids were in a tight group hug. They were all crying and blubbering.

He left them to their grief and wheeled the cart to the ammo shelves. He loaded all three bins and then three more with thousands upon thousands of rounds of FMJ and hollow point.22LR, 9mm,.40,.45,.308,.30-06, 5.56,.223, and 12-gauge shotgun shells. He found several pallets of bulk ammo and even a few buckets of loose 9mm rounds that weighed quite a bit. He loaded it into the van.

Ever since his Nam days, he'd been a gun enthusiast and had piles of "Guns and Ammo" magazines in his bunker, so he knew what weapons to get and went through the cabinets, unlocking them one at a time and setting the brand new weapon cases the bins.