22. Store Front & Store Back
Store Front & Store Back
The vehicles stopped a block behind the sporting goods store.
From the front, the building was like every other business they'd seen since the world ended.
The automatic glass doors were shattered, shopping carts lay strewn across the parking lot—several frozen into snowdrifts—and a faded banner advertising a Labor Day Sale still fluttered weakly above the entrance.
Behind the building, however, everything was almost untouched.
The loading dock was hidden from the main road, tucked between the warehouse and a line of dumpsters.
Just as Cade had spotted from the rooftop, one section of chain-link fence leaned inward where someone had forced it open long ago. The receiving doors remained shut.
Seth killed Beast's engine.
No one moved. The silence pressed in, broken only by the engine's ticking as it cooled.
Jay kept his voice low. "What do you think?"
Seth scanned the rooftops one last time. "I think if this place has been hit, it wasn't from the back."
Cade nodded toward the loading dock. "Let's find out."
Seth's eyes flicked to the vehicles, then back to Cade.
It was all the plan they needed. Jay would stay with the vehicles.
Cara would begin loading once the building was secure.
Josie would hold position just inside the loading dock with her rifle, covering the rear while Seth and Cade cleared the warehouse.
Seth looked at Josie. "If you hear shooting—"
"I'm getting to cover."
"If you hear me yell?"
"I'm coming."
He sighed. "I knew you were going to say that."
She tilted her head. "And yet here we are."
"Here we are," he agreed, the words resting uneasily in the quiet air.
Their eyes met and held for a heartbeat before Cade quietly interrupted. "You two done?"
Seth rolled his eyes. "For now."
The Marine slipped a pry bar beneath the loading door. Metal groaned, and everyone froze—but nothing answered except the whistle of the wind. He lifted again, rolling the door upward just enough for them to slip beneath.
The air hit them first—stale. Dust, rubber, old canvas. Not the sweet, metallic tang of decay. Seth met Cade's eyes in the gloom, a silent acknowledgment passing between them. The place was empty.
Flashlight beams swept through the warehouse, illuminating towering shelves stacked with unopened boxes, still waiting to be unloaded from the day the world simply stopped.
Cade raised a closed fist. Stop.
Both men listened. Nothing. No shuffling feet, no low growls, no movement at all.
Seth pointed left. Cade nodded and disappeared down one aisle while Seth took the other, each careful step echoing across the concrete floor.
A forklift sat abandoned in the middle of the warehouse, keys still dangling from the ignition, a clipboard resting on the seat with inventory sheets dated eight months earlier.
The last normal workday.
Seth cleared the receiving office, finding it empty.
The break room was likewise deserted, though telltale signs of a hasty departure remained: coffee cups on the table, one tipped over, its contents long dried into a stain across forgotten paperwork.
Someone had been in the middle of lunch when everything ended.
He swallowed hard. "CLEAR!"
His voice echoed through the cavernous space. A moment later, Cade's reply came from the opposite side. "Clear!"
Together they moved toward the double doors leading into the retail floor. Seth silently counted down: Three. Two. One.
The doors burst open. Rifles up. Corners first.
Nothing.
Rows upon rows of camping equipment stood untouched. Backpacks lined one wall, hiking boots another. Fishing rods reached toward the ceiling, and sleeping bags hung neatly in colorful rows. The entire store looked as though employees had closed for the evening and simply never returned.
Jay ducked inside a moment later and stopped dead. "Holy..." His voice rang through the empty store, earning a sharp glare from Seth. As Cara and Josie followed, a collective, stunned silence fell over them. Jay turned in a slow circle, his voice a disbelieving whisper. "It's untouched."
Seth, however, wasn't looking at the shelves. His eyes tracked the exits, the windows, the ceiling—every place danger could hide.
Cade noticed. "So?"
"So far..." Seth lowered his rifle slightly. "...I don't like how easy this is."
Cade gave a single nod. "I was thinking the same thing."
Jay had already planted himself in front of the ammunition counter. "Guys..." He looked like a kid on Christmas morning. "There has to be fifty thousand rounds in here."
"More," Cade corrected. "They stocked before hunting season."
"We hit the lottery," Jay said with a laugh.
Cara opened her notebook and took command. "Alright, let's stay focused." She pointed around the store as she rattled off priorities. "Cold-weather gear first. Sleeping bags. Boots. Propane. Then food. Medical can wait until the pharmacy."
Everyone split up, moving with a controlled efficiency born of necessity.
Jay and Cara loaded carts until they overflowed—heavy winter coats, insulated gloves, thermal socks, propane cylinders, water filters, portable camp stoves, axes, hatchets, knives, every quality backpack they could find.
Seth and Cade moved aisle to aisle ahead of them, checking every corner before waving the others forward.
At one point, Jay emerged wearing a ridiculous orange hunting hat with ear flaps. "What do you think?"
"You look like an angry pumpkin," Cara said, bursting into laughter.
"I feel tactical."
"You look ridiculous."
A rare smirk touched Cade's lips. "It'll keep your ears warm."
Jay tossed two more into the cart. "Worth it."
Josie paused by a display of children's sleeping bags. She ran a hand over a small one decorated with cartoon bears, the guarded lines around her eyes easing for the first time. A faint, almost pained smile touched her lips before she decisively added three to their cart.
He met her as she turned, taking the sleeping bags without a word and adding them to the growing pile. No questions, no teasing. She met his gaze, and in the quiet look she offered him, he saw all the thanks he needed.
As the last of the backpacks were loaded onto flatbed carts, Cade drifted toward the warehouse windows overlooking the parking lot. His expression shifted—subtly, but Seth caught it.
"What is it?"
Cade didn't answer immediately. He watched the empty street, waiting, listening. Finally he spoke. "Nothing's moving out there. Not even the birds."
Seth stepped beside him, and neither man said another word.
Outside, snow continued to fall, covering their tire tracks, covering the blood from yesterday's ambush, covering the broken world one flake at a time.
Inside, surrounded by enough supplies to keep dozens of people alive through many many winters, Seth couldn't shake the certainty that somewhere beyond those silent streets, someone was watching.
The last of the supplies had been loaded into Beast and the Suburban, the trailer and the horse trailer they borrowed from the ranch. Jay slammed the tailgate shut with a satisfied grin.
"If the cabin can't make it through winter now, we're doing something wrong."
Cara made a final, decisive slash across her notebook. "That's it. Everything we came for."
Jay patted the side of the Suburban, the sound a punctuation mark on their success. "And then some."
Cara looked over the mountain of supplies and let out a slow breath. "We've done more in five hours than I thought we'd manage all week." She smiled at Seth. "You picked a good first stop."
Seth didn't answer. He stood at the edge of the loading dock, his gaze sweeping the empty parking lot where the only movement was snow blowing across the asphalt.
Cade walked up beside him, his voice flat and certain. "You feel it too."
Seth nodded almost imperceptibly. "It's wrong."
The younger Marine folded his arms against the cold. "We've made too much noise."
Jay climbed down from the truck. "We haven't fired a shot."
"No," Seth said. "But we've had engines running. Doors opening. Five hours of loading supplies." He looked toward the highway. "If there are people nearby, they know someone's here."
Silence settled over the group. Even Jay's grin faded.
Cara closed her notebook. "So what do we do?"
"We don't assume we're alone."
Seth scanned the rooftops across the shopping center, and suddenly every dark window looked capable of hiding someone, every parked vehicle turned suspicious. He glanced toward Cade. "What do you see?"
Cade didn't answer immediately, sweeping the district slowly with his eyes before speaking. "When's the last time you heard an infected?"
Jay frowned. "...What?"
"The last growl. The last moan. The last one wandering into view.”
No one answered—they couldn't remember. The entire shopping district had gone completely still.
Josie looked toward the street, understanding arriving cold and sudden. "They're gone."
"No," Seth said. "They moved."
The realization settled over everyone at once. Infected didn't disappear. They were drawn by sound, by movement, by them. The silence wasn't an absence of threat—it was a relocation.
Cara's whisper was barely audible. "They know we're here."
A metallic clang echoed somewhere beyond the neighboring buildings.
Everyone froze. The sound wasn't theirs. It came from farther down the block. Another clang. Then silence.
Seth shouldered his rifle. "Cade."
The other Marine had already begun moving. Without a word, the two men crossed the loading dock and slipped between the buildings, rifles raised.
Jay watched them disappear. "They don't even have to talk."
Cara offered a nervous smile. "Let's hope they know what they're doing."
Josie remained by the trucks, her eyes never leaving the alley where the men had vanished. Minutes crawled by. The wind picked up, drifting snow through the narrow passage, and her knuckles white on the rifle as she listened to the silence.
Then Seth reappeared and motioned them forward. "You're going to want to see this."