The Horror Squad 2 by TJ Weeks

laughing at
Gizmo’s stern look telling Tina to leave the
shoes alone.
    We moved on from store to store going the
same way as the girls had, making our way to
Sears while gathering up necessities.
    We soon came to a small camping store.
Guess I had never seen a camping store inside a
mall, but it was there. We made our way inside
and started gathering everything we could.
Howard and Bo began to gather all of the
batteries near the counter, Donald and Gizmo
were enthralled with the small kerosene
lanterns and gathered all of them along with the
kerosene for them and I moved straight to the
guns that were on the racks. I began searching
for the ammo that went with them. I got behind
the counter and stepped on something that was
not that of the floor texture. I looked down to
see a man lying on the floor looking up at me.
He didn’t look to be changed, he looked
normal. He had blood running from his
shoulder where he had been bit and was
reaching to me with his other arm.
    “What the fuck!” I whispered.
Donald rounded the counter. “Oh shit!”
    The other three made their way. I started
scanning the store looking for what bit him.
They had to be here, his bite looked fresh. He
had survived all of this time here and now he
gets attacked? That means that there are rotters
here and that more than likely they are ones that
had not found him after all of this time until
now.
    I plowed my way through the guys and stood
in the middle of the store turning circles pulling
out my knife. Donald, Bo, Howard and Gizmo
followed suit and we all stood back to back
ready for them.
    I slowly crept around a tent thinking I heard
a quiet chomping. Sure enough, there it was, a
rotter laid on top of an older woman chomping
at her insides. I dropped my head and my knife
to my side wishing we had been able to find
them sooner.
I pushed my knife into the rotters head and
slid it back out.
    “I’m not sure if there
are any others, so keep
your eyes open.” I told the rest. “I guess
someone needs to go check on the girls, while
we gather the rest of what we can here.” I
suggested.
    “I’ll go.” Gizmo volunteered.
“I’m on it.” Bo followed.
“I don’t need you saving me all damn day.” I
heard Gizmo tell Bo on the way out.
“Apparently you do. Third time is a charm.”
Bo laughed.
    I smiled at the two going back and forth as
they left. Howard, Denson and I gathered tents
and knives and anything else that we could
from the store. Anything here would end up
being helpful. We set it all by the door. We had
cleaned out the full stock of inventory,
including the small back storage of boxes. I
looked down the corridor at the large sign that
read Sears.
    “Finally, the end of the mall
. I have always
hated malls. Too many damn people in them.” I
told the guys. “Plus we need to find everyone
else, since they seem to be lost.”
    I figured that we needed to gather everyone
back up to go get the vehicles and start loading
everything.
    Our small group rounded displays and racks
that were empty and finally found the escalators
that of course no longer worked. We made our
way up the one time moving stairs and to the
top. We saw the group all laid up on already
made up beds in the bed department.
    “Are you fucking kidding?” I asked.
Heads popped up on each of the beds.
“Babe, come check this out!” Kris hollered
from the last bed on the row.
    I walked to my wife, not being able to help
but smile at her lying sprawled on the king
sized bed. I laid next to my wife and kissed her
cheek. I snuggled close to her for a moment and
felt the urge to need to get out of bed with her
since an audience wasn’t the ideal situation on
what was coming to my mind.
“Let’s go!” I stated to the group.
    Everyone raised from their lounging and
made their way over to where I stood except for
Tina and Gizmo.
“Where the hell are they?” I asked.
Karen pointed to a bed behind a display
where