Beyond the Barriers by Timothy W. Long

climbing over it, and then over each other. One was just about to reach the top when the leader stuck his hand in the air and pulled it down. A crackling sound erupted from the other side of the building, and a low hum that made me want to bite through my gums sounded.
    The zombies stuck to the fence were fried. The fence was apparently electrified, and it wasn’t that stuff they ran through animal deterrents—the little buzz that warns them to stay back. This was a full-on, nasty jolt that stuck many of them to the fence. Most were silent as they stood transfixed, like men and women at the Rapture. They shook and shivered, and the sound of crackling energy buzzed through the air.
    They cut the power after about thirty seconds, and bodies slumped to the ground. Some remained stuck to the fence, but the others, ones that managed to avoid the fence, snarled and then slunk away. The smell of cooked meat made my nose wrinkle, but it also flooded my mouth with saliva.
    “They never learn.”
    The leader walked toward the entrance once again. I turned to Pat, the guy who had saved my life. Well, I guess it was a trade, more or less. He had a shotgun slung over his shoulder, and if I didn’t know better, I would’ve guess it was the same one I handed him six months ago.
    “Come on, Erik, I’ll show you around.”
     
    * * *
     
    The leader’s name was Thomas, but he said he wasn’t really the leader. He had been a cop when the world changed, and he was used to walking onto a possible crime scene and taking charge. He said that people seemed to like that, to respect it, so when he started to organize the Walmart, they just kept him on.
    The large store had two main entrances, but one was completely boarded up, so there was only one way in the front. The inside had been rearranged so that racks formed a maze at the door. The first few had somehow been welded together to make them reach to the ceiling. The back had racks, but on the front, they were flat and bare. I suspected that there was a shelf especially built on the other side, so gunners could sit up there and pick off anyone coming in. Pretty smart design. Then it was a veritable maze of shelves from here on that would funnel any invaders through a killing screen.
    Once we navigated the maze, I found the area behind it to be neat and orderly. There was a section with a guard posted that had been set aside for food. Boxes and crates of canned goods were stacked high, as were giant bags of dog and cat food. Familiar brands like Purina, Iams—stuff that was obviously saved or set aside for the time they ran out of regular food. I found my mouth filling with saliva at the thought of something to eat. The emergency food on which I had lived for the last few weeks, while nutritionally sound, left me feeling strange, like I was buzzing. It also tended to give me terrible diarrhea.
    There was a large section of tents, where everything in the store had been shoved aside and people set up their little houses. There were batches of flashlights taped together that pointed at the ceiling to provide light. I saw a kid running between them, picking up each bundle and then shaking it violently up and down to recharge the internal batteries. Clever.
    There was another section covered by white sheets that were run up on poles or hung from the ceiling. I got a peek inside, and there were rows of cots, ten or so, with sleeping bags on them—this must have been the triage area.
    “We don’t have to use that much, scrapes and bruises mostly, but occasionally we get into it with the natives and people get hurt.”
    “Bites?”
    “We don’t let them in. Everyone here understands that if they are bit, they are dead. Most elect to take the quickest way out. Some don’t, and we take care of the problem.”
    I didn’t comment.
    A woman joined us. She was probably in her mid-forties and had long, auburn hair. She grinned at Thomas and pecked him on the cheek. Attractive, she possessed an