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hollow out. “I’m, I’m sorry,” she cried. She knew she had gone too far.
    I turned and headed to the darkness of the truck bay. It mirrored my feelings exactly. Travis got out the car. Tracy motioned to him, but thought better of making any more comments. I heard the car door shut softly behind me; my back up was on the way. I hopped up onto the loading dock and turned to lend Travis a hand up. I turned on my small flashlight attached to my rifle (back to the whole ‘survivalist’ aspect). It couldn’t penetrate more than twenty or so feet into the murkiness, but except for the occasional upturned box, it seemed we were alone. That was a vast relief because I knew if that shotgun went off Tracy would be up here in a flash, and our only means of a hasty escape would be unmanned. Shit, the dock was huge. I should have found out in what general direction I should be heading towards. I wanted to go outside and ask Justin, but the thought of yelling back and forth, and thus ringing the dinner bell for some unwelcome guests kept me inside. There was that, and I also had the sinking feeling that time was running out. Time felt oppressive, each second that ticked off added weight to the unseen burden I was carrying.
    “Dad, sweep the light back to the right, I thought I saw a glint,” Travis said.
    I slowly panned the flashlight to the right. I did catch a flash of light. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the glint of an aluminum ladder. It was a watch, and even from this distance I could tell it was expensive. ‘Oh why couldn’t this be a natural disaster,’ I moaned to myself. I was surrounded by flat screen TVs and Xbox 360s and some dead dude’s Rolex. That brought me back quick; attached to the watch was a three-quarter eaten employee of the store, probably a manager by the looks of the watch. As we stepped closer we could clearly see the small girl child that was chewing through his head.
    ‘Well at least he won’t be coming back,’ I thought irrelevantly. The light struck her in the face and she looked up immediately. Malevolence creased her young features, almost as if to say ‘I’ll deal with you two after I’m finished here,’ and then she turned back to the task at hand.
    Travis and I stopped, and he raised the Mossberg. I pushed my hand down on the barrel and shook my head no. First off, she wasn’t attacking us and I didn’t want the noise to bring any others, and second the thought of killing a child - even a child that had nothing of humanity left in her - just didn’t sit right. But that look, it was predatory. She knew what she was doing and she was enjoying it! God help us! God help us all!
    We moved further down the bay, always aware of what was happening to our right, but the steady slurping of blood and the crunch of bone and cartilage stayed constant. We reached the far end of the bay before we came up on the ladder. It was a big ladder but I didn’t think it was going to telescope out to the top of the roof, which I figured to be about thirty-five feet.
    “All right Trav, I’m going to grab the ladder. You’re going to have to cover us,” I said as I slung my M-16 over my shoulder.
    The ladder made a loud clanging noise as I pulled it off its hooks. The sound nearly made me drop it. My nerves were on edge and my senses were firing on all cylinders. Travis was tense and his senses appeared heightened, but he didn’t seem any worse for the wear. We slowly made our way back towards the open bay we had come in through. When we were near where I thought the little girl was, I strained my ears to hear the telltale signs of a zombie eating. It was not a delicate affair. Nothing, I heard nothing. A cold chill, no scratch that, an arctic blast crept down my spine. I knew she was closing in, and somehow she was avoiding Travis’ sweeps with the flashlight. And then I felt her cold touch against the back part of my leg. I tried to scream, I’m not proud of that, but what came out was more like a