The mother’s screams echoed through the abandoned convenience store and was quickly taken up by her daughter. Outside of the unlockable doors, more zombies joined in the attempt to push through the makeshift holds.

“Keep working here,” Brown ordered. “If there are some of those things inside of the store, we need to deal with them first.” Then, without waiting for an answer from Trevor, he raced in the direction he had heard the screams.

As he neared the end of the aisle, the girl raced by him. Damn, I’m going to need to learn their names, if any of us live that long. Looking down the aisle, he saw the mother throwing item after item at the stumbling figure. What was once probably the clerk that worked there had become a bloody ruin. Gore covered his right arm and it looked like a wound on his upper left shoulder had painted his once white shirt with a wide streak of red.

“Run,” Brown called out. “Get your daughter.”

She stared at him through a moment of indecision, but then ran off to do what he asked.

Trevor cried something, but Brown didn’t have time to listen for the beast man was almost upon him. He just hoped the kid could hold the door. Being currently weaponless, didn’t help things, so Brown backpedaled to give himself more time to think.

He noticed that the next aisle over was the automotive section and hurried down it. I should be able to find something here. I just… But then he saw that the thing hadn’t followed him, but was once again looping toward the girls.

“Crap,” he said, before looking down. He would have liked to find a tire iron or a crowbar, but neither was seen. So instead, he settled on two big gallons of anti-freeze. With a shout, he exited the aisle and headed toward the sounds of female cries. The zombie, or whatever it was, ignored his yells and stayed focused on the girls. Brown rushed up behind it and smashed it in the side of the head with the anti-freeze. It went tumbling off its feet and fell into a potato chip stand.

Brown didn’t stop there. He hit it in the face with the container, again and again. The woman screamed at him, but he did not stop. The corner of the container tore open and splashed the green liquid everywhere, but Brown kept swinging. Eventually it stopped thrashing and Brown moved away while gasping for air.

He shared a look with the mother. Her once prim face and hair had become disheveled and he eyes bored into his over the cowering form of her daughter, who was clutched to her bosom.

“We need to find more weapons,” Brown said more to himself than to the mother and leapt over the checkout desk. Visions of shotguns and pistols were quickly dispelled, but he did find a huge stained baseball bat, which he grabbed.

He had just jogged around the side of the counter when Trevor started screaming. “It isn’t going to hold. It isn’t going to hold!”

Looking the teen’s way, he saw that Trevor had already fled from the front doors and even as Brown watched, the accumulating mass of zombies were pushing their way through the doors until the last of the bungee cords broke. At least a dozen moaning zombies forced their way into the store. The woman cried out again and before Brown could even say anything, Trevor had already rushed by him.

“Get to the back of the store!” Brown shouted. “Find an office or something. Get ready to lock it, but wait for me.”

He waited until the pair run by him and then flung his remaining gallon of anti-freeze in the lead zombie’s face. It fell back fouling up three of his kind and buying Brown a few seconds, which he used to hurry after the others.

To be continued next Saturday!

You can find out more about Brown and the Eternal Aftermath here!