Caz

They walked for two hours, keeping an eye on their surroundings as they made their way along the side of the road, in case they need to run into the forest and hide. There were no zombies when they reached the town, which was strange as there were some when they left, but when they finally reached the parking lot, it was dead silent. They made their way over to the jeep, keeping low in case someone else then zombies could be wandering around. Caz opened the door on the driver’s side and climbed in, checking the fuel and noticed it didn’t have any keys in it.

“Fuck,” he cursed as he frowned, but he didn’t get out, instead he decided to see if there was anything useful in the car, maybe the keys were laying somewhere. He checked the glovebox, which didn’t contain much, only a few pieces of paper, an empty bottle, a pair of leather gloves, which Caz stuffed into the pocket of his hoodie, and a compass which he also pocketed. There was nothing on the back seat and he couldn’t see anything else useful, so he got out of the car and crouched down, making his way to the back of the car where Keith was crouched, keeping a look out.

“There is no keys, so either we can try to ignite it our self, which I don’t know how to, or we could go back inside and look for the corpses of the men to see if they have the keys,” Caz suggested in a hushed voiced.
Keith looked at him like he was insane, frowning. “What? How can we be so sure we will be able to find them? Wouldn’t it be better if we just try to ignite it? It can’t be that hard,” Keith said as he glanced at the car then around the parking lot before his eyes went back to Caz.

“You are welcome to try, but I rather not risk breaking anything,” he shrugged as he gestured to the car. Keith hesitated for a moment as he contemplated if he could do it or not, before he let out a big sigh and ran a hand through his hair, which could use a good shower, along with a good brushing.
“Fine, but we better hurry then, this place is giving me the creeps,” Keith said, and Caz agreed. It was strangely quiet, almost too quiet and Caz felt like an ambush could appear at any time.

They made their way carefully to the mall, keeping an eye on their surroundings as they entered through the entrance, the doors gone because of the screaming zombie. They turned on their flashlight and shone it into the darkness, but they couldn’t see anything. Being here the first time didn’t feel nearly as eerie as now, and Caz took a deep breath to calm his beating heart, which was beating fast in his chest. They slowly made their way into the mall, towards where they last saw one of the men, and found him with ease.

He was laying on the ground on his stomach, eyes wide and mouth open, almost like he was frozen in time, with the rest of his torso torn apart, split wide open and chunks of flesh were laying on the ground, his spine missing. His arms were also gone, the only part of him that was intact was his shoulders and head, but even that had scratch marks all over.

Finding the key on him would be impossible unless it was on the floor somewhere, as his clothes were almost non-existing. Caz covered his nose as he walked closer with Keith close behind.

“Ugh that is so disgusting,” Keith complained through his sleeve.

“Yeah, but we need to check him. If you check the left side I’ll take the right, and check the surrounding area, in case he had the keys and it’s now on the floor somewhere,” Caz said before he started to head to the right side, checking the floor both near the corpse and the surrounding area. Keith followed his lead and started to check the floor too, but they didn’t find anything. They recouped a bit away from the body as it smelled bad and they rather not look at it while talking.

“I think we have to go deeper in, from the direction of where he had been dragging himself,” Caz said and shone down an almost black hallway. Keith shone down into it too as he frowned, clearly not up for it, but he let out a sigh in defeat.

“Fine, I just hope they aren’t too far away, if we can even find them. I mean, what if the zombie has eaten all of them and the key is now in its stomach?” he asked as he glanced at Caz. Caz looked into the hallway thoughtful, chewing his bottom lip.

“Well if that’s the case, then all we can do is try to ignite the car ourselves.”

“Right,” Keith responded, “let’s hope their bodies is somewhere near and they have the keys,” he said and started to move.

The sound of their feet was the only sound they could hear, as it echoed into the vast darkness, while they carefully walked through the hallway. The mall might not have been the biggest mall, but walking in the darkness, moving at a snail’s pace, made the mall too big for Caz’s likings. Every store they passed, where they had a chance to enter, they had to check out in case one of the bodies were in there. Doing so they decided to grab some things.

When Keith walked over to a section of a clothing store and saw the baby clothes he stopped up and looked confused at it. “Did we ever get Ella some clothes?” he asked. Caz thought back to their last trip here and realized they hadn’t, as their main concern was toys, diapers and things to calm her down, but clothes weren’t one of their focuses and he felt guilty, as they had solely focused on themselves when cloth shopping.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said and looked at the baby outfits.

“What do you say to grab whatever we can? I mean she needs clean clothes too right? Especially if she had a mistake or something,” Keith said and started to grab different outfits for her. Caz agreed to it and decided to join Keith, where they managed to grab several pants, socks, t-shirts, long-sleeved shirts, sweaters, slippers, two pair of shoes and underwear, all the clothes were maybe slightly too big for her, but they knew that she would grow, and they didn’t want to have to go back.

After filling up their bags, which were starting to get pretty full, they continued their search for the bodies and after what felt like eternity, they found one of the bodies in an electronic store. This body was of an elderly man, his hair greyed with age, his arms and legs were ripped apart and one of them had landed on a shelf, while the others were scattered on the floor, like the zombie had decided to immobilize the body. Caz couldn’t help but make a mental note of it, as it meant that the zombie had been calculated, which was a scary thought. A zombie who could think like that wasn’t a good sign, as it meant they were getting smarter. The man’s torso was intact beside what looked like a hole into his chest, just missing his heart but hitting his lungs. This was the second body where the legs were missing, and Caz wondered if the third body would look the same.

Caz decided to get closer to the corpse, looking at the surrounding area before his focus went to the body. His clothes were mostly intact, which mean there was a chance he had the keys. Caz crouched and started to search through his pockets, trying to ignore the churning of his stomach, as nausea caused him to have a lump in his throat and a nasty taste of bile in his mouth. But he was out of luck. The man didn’t have the keys, so they had to look for the last body when Keith suddenly spoke.

“Wait, I think I heard something,” Keith whispered and shone his flashlight at the end of the store, scanning the area when another sound was made, this time Caz managed to hear it. They slowly made their way over to where the sound was coming from and they were met with the third body, except this guy wasn’t dead yet. Blood from dripping out from his mouth, his one arm was missing but a thin rope was tied around the knob of it to stop the bleeding. A huge gash on his stomach had stained his grey shirt almost black and his legs were twisted in the wrong direction. His eyes were glassy, a clear sign he didn’t have much life left in him, but he slowly turned his head to look at them and a smile almost tugged on his bloodied lips. His other arm, which was still intact lifted a little, shaking with effort as he tried to point at something.

They shone in the direction he was pointing and saw a gun not far away and Caz knew what the guy wanted. Caz went over to the gun and picked it up, checking that it had bullets in it, before he returned to the man and looked at him. The man closed his eyes, the smile clearer now and Caz raised the gun, pointing it at the man. For a moment he hesitated, as he knew what would happen if he hit the trigger. Not only would this guy get relief from his suffering, but if there were zombies nearby hidden somewhere, shooting him could cause them to appear and attack them, so he lowered the gun and pulled out his dagger instead. This time he didn’t hesitate as he stood over the man, who looked at him slightly confused when Caz crouched, holding the dagger.

“I’m sorry,” he said before he grabbed the guys hair and forced his head back, and then slit his throat, the cut deep, a gargling sound coming from the guy as he tried to speak, blood running down from the cut.

“Jesus Christ Caz!” Keith cursed as he took a step back covering his mouth and nose. Caz stood up and watch as the man bled out before he stepped away from the body and over to Keith.

“What? You rather want the zombies to find us and attack us? Because that is what would happen if I used the gun,” Caz said, his voice hard and cold. Keith glanced at the body before he looked at Caz, he could see the frustration in his eyes as he realized Caz was right. “And now we have one more gun,” he said and checked the ammo. It didn’t have much, only five bullets, but it was better than nothing. He gave the gun to Keith before he went to check the guys pockets. He didn’t find it at first then when he pushed the guy over to check his back pockets of his jeans, he could see he had something in one of them, the lump reminding a lot like a key. Caz dug his hand into it and pulled out a set of keys and grinned as he got up and turned to face Keith.

“Got it, now let’s get out of here,” he said, and pocketed it into his front pocket of his pants. Keith was smiling in relief and turned to exit the store when he stopped and shone onto something. It was a glass monitor which was mostly intact, only a few cracks here and there, but Caz could see why he was shining on it. Inside was a foldable solar panel which was something they deemed essential and decided they could always use more of.

“Grab something we can break the glass with,” Caz said and looked around, grabbing a box which contained a keyboard, thinking the length of the box could help prevent his hands from coming too close to the glass. Keith found a metal piece, which looked like it belonged to one of the shelves and they both hit on where glass was already cracked, causing it to break further, but it took several hits before the glass wanted to break completely. They scraped off as much glass as they could, and Keith carefully picked up the solar panel and pulled it out without getting hurt by the glass.

“Perfect, now let’s get out of there,” Caz said and they hurriedly exit the store and headed towards the entrance, as quietly as they could when Caz stopped. Something felt wrong and he wasn’t sure what, but it made the hair on his neck stand on end and he grabbed Keith’s arm, forcing him to stop, just as a wet crunchy sound echoed into the hallway and they both froze in their spot.