Life After the Undead (Completed)

PART 13: Shopping Spree .5

Connor's P.O.V.

Thirty minutes into that trip, it became clear that Rebecca wasn't going to let me do any of the things I wanted to do. So I broke Evelyn's second rule.

I left her behind.

I ended up hitting up all the game stores and book stores that I wanted to within twenty minutes. If Rebecca had just come with me it wouldn't have taken that long, I don't know why she felt the need to fight me on it so badly.

I was going to all the stores that Rebecca had called Nerd Stores next. And it was while I was doing this I noticed that Godrick and Evelyn were in a Footlocker.

Except they weren't shopping. They were moving things.

I changed my direction immediately. I wanted to be included in whatever adventure this was.

"Whatcha guys doing?" I asked them. I had gotten to them just as they had moved the last shelving unit away from what turned out to be a door.

"There's uh... there's something off. I'm trying to figure out why that is," Evelyn said as she looked the door in front of her up and down as if it held all the answers.

"What do you mean something off?"

"Zombies aren't freely walking around, not sure why," she said absently. "Odd blood trails are crisscrossing through the mall, not making any sense. And this barricade wasn't here before."

Alright, couple things there.

Firstly, Evelyn, who said she hated malls and never went into them, was lying. She did come to malls, cause she knew this barricade was out of place. Secondly, everything she just listed were all signs that someone had swept through here and maybe locked all the zombies in there.

"Right. Okay, well, if all your missing zombies are in there, opening the door probably isn't a smart idea."

"No, all the zombies are in the parking lot," she snapped and that surprised me. How the hell did she know that? Did she go back to the parking lot while we were separated? Had she noticed that when we first got here? If so, why didn't she say anything then?

I mean, I noticed a lot of zombies shuffling around, but I hadn't realized they were the ones that were supposed to be inside, which brought me back to wondering how she knew which zombies were supposed to be inside or not.

I didn't get to ask her that though because she had just continued on talking. "They've run from something. I want to know what it is. Don't you?"

"No," I said to her because why would I? If they've run from something we should take a cue from them and run too.

At that point Godrick slapped my shoulder to get my attention. Unbeknownst to me he had looked around to see where my buddy was and had established that she wasn't there.

"Where's Rebecca?" Godrick asked while Evelyn continued to stare intently at the door that had been barricaded.

"Oh, she was annoying me so I left her behind."

I probably should have not announced that to the group, especially the person who had given me the rules in the first place, but it didn't matter cause she wasn't listening.

I watched as Evelyn tested the knob and found it unlocked. At that point Godrick was lecturing me about the rules and how I never should have left Rebecca behind. Except he didn't know how annoying she was and I was busy watching as Evelyn opened the door quickly and stuck her head in. She must not have like what she had seen because she quickly shut the door again.

Godrick turned quickly to Evelyn. "He left Rebecca on her own, I'm going to head out to find her. You good here? You good with him as your buddy."

But she turned wide eyes to him and the offer to leave died on his lips. He didn't move, he just stared at her.

"What?" he asked and she shushed him.

"Shut up. Go find the others we gotta get out of here," she ordered her voice a low whisper. "You," she said to me. "Help me get this barricade back up."

"What the hell is in there?" I hissed to her as Godrick turned to run out of the store. She waved me off and went about putting the shelves and the boxes back in front of the door.

She clearly wasn't going to answer me right at that moment so I just went to helping her. The only reason I stopped because I could hear something. Some kind of scraping. Evelyn, however, didn't seem to hear it. She was too engrossed in what she was doing.

I put a hand to her to stop her and she turned to me with silently judging eyes.

"What is that sound?" I asked her and we both went silent to listen to it. She must have realized what it was because her eyes bugged out.

"Run," she hissed. And then without waiting for me she turned around and sprinted away.

I wasn't stupid though. Brandon had trained me well and I always ran when he told me to. So the second she took off I followed after her.

Just as whatever was in that store room broke through the door.