Chapter Text
The sidewalk was covered in grunge and cracked with weeds pushing through, the yellow flowers drooped over. Bushes were overgrown and intruding into windows, doors, spilling out onto the road. Some had even engulfed a car or two, much to Call’s amusement. There was a Ferrari, that had been once upon a time driven by some top-notch, high-end citizen that was now the breeding ground for a bush (the citizen no doubt had fallen to something else that had fed on it). Call liked to think of it as an example of some twisted form of justice, or in a Robin Hood sense. Give back to the poor, but in this sense it was a bush taking justice. It worked for Call.
The faces of the buildings were quickly deteriorating and succumbing to the weather, windows busted out, doors eroded and some hanging open limply. You could catch a glimpse of a couch, a dinner room table sitting empty (and would stay that way), a now-green glass still sitting out from where someone had last placed it. It was weird, Call thought. Would the person, knowing that the world was going to be overrun by the walking dead who happened to be hell-bent on eating their once-fellow people, still had left it sitting out or would have put it in the dishwasher where it belonged? Knowing his dad, he’d probably make him put it away.
Thinking about his dad made Call’s heart pang against his rib cage, so he stopped.
Call limped down the barren street with the anarchy bushes and open doors, hands shoving deep in to his pockets. It was starting to get cold - he’d have to go winter clothes shopping. Plus he needed to restock on food. He was running low on his main man, Chef Boyardee.
With a huff, Call turned down the block to be met with a run-down Target. Carts were haphazardly thrown around in the parking, being kept company with long-abandoned and some dismantled cars. He picked his way slowly around the lot, pulling out his crowbar that he kept with him at all times, even at night. It was his first true love. He kept an eye out, slowly advancing to the front of the store, watching the face of the murky windows carefully. He hadn’t seen another person in this town for at least three months, but you could never be too safe. (True, he probably could’ve picked a better way than to go straight up to the front, but 1) too lazy and 2) he had a bad leg (also really lazy))
He pushed open the automatic door with a squeal that made him flinch and then left it slightly cracked. Easy escape, just in case. Call moved to the front of the registers, twirling the crowbar between his fingers. He found a cart and laid the metal across the child seat and began to push it, humming softly. He was just turning down the canned foods aisle when he saw it out the corner of his eyes.
And his heart stopped.
There, sitting gloriously and not run-down or obviously broken, was an automatic cart.
With his heart now beating a galloping rhythm in his chest, he took his crowbar and shuffled closer. All four wheels? Check. Steering device? Check.
Power?
Call sat down in the seat, stretching his bum leg out. With a deep breath, he flipped the power switch. And a green light flickered on.
Check.
A wide grin stretched across Call’s face as he gave the cart a little ‘gas’, resisting a whoop as it lurched forward, trucking along diligently. These suckers could cover ground.
It got even better when he pretended the abandoned carts left in the aisles were other cars and began to GTA his way through Target, using his crowbar as a fake-glock, even going as far as to threaten an over-sized teddy bear with lumped fur for some cash. Basically what every kid wanted to do if they were the only one in a store.
He took to the food aisle, pushing the cans into his backpack, making sure to note the slowly-dwindling supply. He got in a good amount of cans that wouldn’t slow him down too much and moved down an aisle to grab some toilet paper. He wasn’t that low, but he just wanted to be in good stock. He did not want to go caveman and have to wipe his ass with a leaf (and if he had an irrational fear that it would be poison ivy, he wouldn’t mention it).
All he had room left was to swipe a bulky looking jacket before gunning it to the front of the store. He was at least pushing five miles an hour on this bad boy. But when he got to the front of the store, he paused. Leave the cart for a maybe next time or ride home in style?
“Fuck it,” Call said, a little too loudly in the still air, and gassed it out of the store on his new whip.
He made his way down the streets, cart rattling slightly over the cracked pavement, yet never let up.
And then he heard the gurgling groan. Call rolled his eyes and turned his head to look at the figure stumbling towards him. It kept tripping over its own dead feet and uneven concrete, falling before pushing itself back up. Its flesh was decaying and split open, gray in color and just ugly.
“You want some of this?” Call waved his crowbar threateningly. Or tried to as he sped away on his cart. The zombie muttered a deep groan and kept following on.
“I’ll have you know I’m nothing to mess with, alright? I almost fucked up a bear in that store.” The zombie seemed unimpressed by his grunts and faceplants.
Call sighed. It seemed luck just wasn’t his side. He stopped the cart and then went in reverse, turning around to start heading towards the reeking dead man. He held the crowbar out as if he was about to joust and even went so far as to shout an “En garde!” before whacking the knees (literally) from under the zombie. It fell to the ground groaning.
That was the good thing about the long-dead. They were extremely slow as it was hard to move their decaying limbs and function. It wasn’t that hard to kill them individually - actually, it was extremely easy and kind of fun. It kept Call from getting too bored. But a bunch of them would overwhelm you easily. They’d be coming from every direction and, in your panic, you’d make a dumb decision with the end result being your face as a tasty snack.
Call circled around the zombie in his cart, avoiding the black fluid seeping from its legs. “Gross,” he commented.
The zombie groaned in resignation, arms moving feebly, grasping for Call, who promptly ran over its fingers (or what was left of them).
“You fought well, brother,” Call whispered, squinting as if it wasn’t the sun in his eyes but tears, as he swung the metal over his head and into the zombie’s. It gurgled out one last groan before lying still.
Shrugging, unconcerned anymore about his fallen ‘comrade’, Call turned the cart back in the direction of his shelter. And stopped.
Standing in the middle of the road, was an Asian-looking boy around his age, and he was pointing a gun right at him.