Zombies Part 7

When they broke away, Jace looked around. "Where did everyone go?"

"Probably back into the locker rooms."

Sure enough, that's where everyone was. "We need to barricade the rest of the exits," Jace announced.

Kristi managed a slight smile. It was just like Jace to think everything through. Two others volunteered to help---a guy and the girl who'd been really helpful throughout the whole ordeal. (Let's call her Mishelle.) They split up into two teams, Mishelle and her partner checking for any weak spots on the first floor and Krisit and Jace taking the second floor.

Jace cautiously opened the door off the narrow spiral staircase. "Clear," he whispered.

The doorway was at the corner of an L intersection, so Kristi went left and Jace moved forward. She stifled a yelp as she turned the corner into the kitchen and almost ran into a zombie. Luckily, it was facing away from her, shuffling around and looking quite lost. Kristi squashed any pity she felt for the monster and drew the knife she'd taken from the Commissary downstairs. They had agreed before then that they would only shoot the zombies as a last resort. They didn't want the noise to bring the other zombies running.

Kristi braced herself and sliced at the zombie, aiming for its neck. The blade cut into the flesh, but the zombie still swung around and lurched toward her, wrenching the knife free. Kristi managed to keep hold of the weapon and, choking back bile, she sliced at the zombie again and again until it fell to the ground and stopped moving.

Kristi avoided looking at the motionless lump of flesh and moved forward. She went to the far left side of the kitchen and checked the small bakery---a room off the larger kitchen. It was empty, so she continued on to Teriyaki Stix. The store was open to the backroom, but not to the customer part of the Cougareat, excepting a small window. She'd always thought that strange, but it made it easier to look for zombies. None were in there.

Kristi discovered another zombie in the long, narrow hallway where the sub boards and shifts for each store were posted and quietly dispatched it. Now for inside the stores themselves . . . That would be hard to do without being seen. She'd seen Jace on the other side of the backroom a couple times---he had checked the dish room and helped her secure and fortified the double door on the other side of the kitchen---and knew he was ready to sweep the stores as well.

Kristi first studied the door on her side of the backroom from the safety of the kitchen. It was closed and intact. Her radio crackled softly. "The door over here is pushed sideways out of its frame," came Jace's voice.

The memory of the first zombie coming toward her filled Kristi's mind. "They were trying to get me and I ran through that door. They must have pounded on it for quite a while." Trying to reach her so they could tear her apart and eat her brains. That's what zombies did, right? Kristi shuddered at the too vivid image. Sometimes her imagination ran away with her.

"I'm really glad you're okay, Kristi . . ." She heard the slight catch in his voice. "We'll barricade it after we clear the stores of zombies."

"Okay."

Crouching down, Kristi half crawled on the ground so no zombies would see her over the counter. She started at Subway, which was separated by a wall from the other stores. Subway was free of zombies, the two backdoors there untouched. She left Subway and passed Teriyaki Stix, entering Freschetta. A zombie stood there. Now Kristi was faced with the dilemma of how to kill the zombie from her place on the ground. It didn't seem to notice her, even though she lay on the ground in front of it. Stupid creature. She crawled closer to the zombie and its eyes focused on her. It opened its mouth, but she swept its feet out from under it and began to furiously stab at it. She had to kill it before it made too much noise. Kristi thanked her lucky stars that the zombie hadn't hit anything and made a loud noise as it fell. That hadn't been very well planned out.

The zombie finally lay dead and she continued into L&T, where she met up with Jace near the entrance to Tomassito's. There had been more zombies on his side. Crawling together, they made their way to the broken door, then carefully pushed it back into place as much as possible. Jace held it steady while Kristi placed enough objects to keep it from falling too much. Then he helped her find more things from the dish room and the kitchen, and they barricaded the door as best they could. They followed suit with the other doors and also stacked objects in front of the two large freight elevators, just in case. The kitchen had plenty of large and heavy equipment, and Kristi tried not to think of how expensive it all was. Their survival had to come first.

Kristi and Jace went back in to the spiral staircase and up another flight, barricading the door up there. It was much more difficult to do in the enclosed space. After they finished, Kritis slumped to the ground, exhausted. She didn't like zombies at all, she decided.

Jace put his arms around her and gazed at her searchingly. "Penny for your thoughts."

"My thoughts are worth more than that." She punched him playfully, and he assumed an overly wounded expression, the corners of his mouth twitching with a smile.

Kristi smiled slightly, then turned serious again and stared at the wall with unfocused eyes. "Jace. Rachel was out there---she would have died if we hadn't found her. There's probably more people scattered out there, hiding." She finally met his eyes, the determination in them clear. "We have to find them. And I told Rachel we would look for her parents."

Jace nodded. "I thought you would say that. I'll be with you the whole time."

She smiled and hugged him tightly.