Fort Supermart Chapter 3: Building the Fort

Building the Fort

We stood at both sides of the door. William and I held pistols. Zach stood at the other end of the back room, holding a rifle. Harriot was in the process of moving the pallets again with the forklift.

“Ready?” said Harriot.

“Ready,” I said.

The zombies knocked against the doors.

Harriot moved the pallets. The doors swung open. Two undead creatures staggered in. All three gun holders opened fire. The undead took dozens of bullets to all parts of their body. Finally, one of them fell to the ground. It was too difficult to figure out how we had done it.

The second creature continued to walk towards us. William and I backed up, step by step, saying out of the range of the monster’s grasp.

“Reload!” yelled William, trying to put another clip into his gun. He fumbled and dropped the loaded clip. “Shit,” he said.

“Back away!” said Zach. He continued to fire into the remaining walking dead.

I backed away as well.

Finally the monster dropped. We still couldn’t tell what had done it.

Zach approached the bodies.

“Woah,” said William. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Zach knelt down to the furthest one. “Close the doors,” he said. “There’s more of them, for sure. If they can hear gunshots …”

Harriot closed the doors and pushed several shelves in front of them.

Zach examined the corpse of the furthest creature. “It looks like we hit it dozens of times,” he said. “I still can’t figure out what brought it down, finally.”

“Maybe they have a tolerance for punishment that just gives out when they take enough damage,” said William.

“This isn’t a video game,” said Harriot. “They don’t have health bars.”

William shrugged.

Zach continued to examine the corpse. “It looks like its blood has turned to paste,” he said. “Black paste. It’s disgusting.”

“Don’t touch it,” I said, just as Zach was about to touch the blood.

Zach pulled back his hand. “Good idea,” he said. “We don’t know how communicable the disease is.”

“Were these people alive when we shot them?” said William.

“I sure hope not,” said Zach. He stepped away from the bodies. “We’re going to have to burn these. We can’t risk whatever’s inside of them leeching into the ground water.”

“We can’t burn them in here,” said Harriot. “The smell alone will kill us.”

Zach sighed. “Okay. Once we secure the outside, we can burn them there.”

“And how are we going to do that?” said William.

“We have guns,” said Zach. “And these things do die, eventually.”

“Do we have enough bullets?” said William.

“Plenty, in my car,” said Zach. “I have food too. And medicine, as well as other things.”

“Then let’s secure your car first,” said William.

William and I took positions at the sides of the back garage door. Harriot opened it. Zach peered through as it opened.

When the door was open enough to let someone pass through, it became clear that there were no zombies in the back parking lot.

Zach walked to his truck and took out several ammunition crates. We reloaded our guns. Afterwards, we went around the building to the front parking lot.

The interstate, which was just visible from the parking lot, was a mess of activity. Hundreds of cars sat bumper to bumper in visible range, with thousands more probably spread out through the whole area. The panic was palpable. However, no one seemed to be paying this particular store any heed.

It had been looted, after all. The front plate glass windows were all broken. There were blood stains in the lot and at least a dozen zombies wandering between the remaining cars.

The three of us looked around and then made our way to the empty grass lot to the south of the Supermart. To the north was a small strip mall with a shoe store, a dollar store, and a pizza place, in front of which a car burned. Smoke spiraled up into the sky.

We returned to the back of the store and entered through the garage door.

“It’s too dangerous to burn them now,” said Zach. “We’re just going to have to put up with it.”

“I think I saw someone inside the shoe store,” I said. “Do you think we should try and rescue them?”

“Rescue them, and then what?” said Zach. “We’re in the same situation they are.”

“But we have a plan,” I said. “Did you see those trucks? If we took their payloads and formed a wall with them, we could have a fort on our hands.”

Zach thought for a moment. “That sounds like a crazy plan,” he said, “But it might just be crazy enough to work. We’re going to have to find something to move those payloads with.”

“How about the forklift?” I said. “If we empty the trucks before we use them to build a wall, the forklift could support their weight.”

Zach scratched his chin. “That might just work.”

“There’s still a mess outside,” said William. “You saw all those people! There were hundreds of them. If we try to build a fort now, everyone will notice us.”

“Then we’ll give it a day,” I said. “By tomorrow, everyone will have either left or hunkered down.”

“You’re the man with a plan today, aren’t you?” said Zach.

“I think about these things,” I said.

Zach looked intently at his rifle. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll give it twenty-four hours. If everything calms down around here after that, we’ll begin Mark’s plan. Is everyone in agreement?”

“We’re going to need more manpower,” said William.

“Right,” said Zach. “Having a fort is probably going to be a good attractor. We’ll recruit the people inside the shoe store, and whoever happens to still be around by then.”

“How are we going to deal with the zombies?” said William.

“I have enough guns to kill the ones who are meandering about the lot,” he said.

“We can dedicate a portion of the people to defense when we finally start building,” I said.

“Good idea,” said Zach. He looked between the three of us. “Before we build a fort out there, we have to clear the store front. If we arrange the shelving right we can build a wall where the plate glass façade used to be.”

“I’m staying here,” said Harriot. “It’s too dangerous outside. And these monsters. They don’t die.”

“If we hit them enough they will,” said Zach. “We’ve proved that.”

“But we might run out of ammo,” said Harriot.

“We won’t,” said Zach. “I have enough ammunition in my truck to hold a sustained firefight.”

William and I looked at each other, and nodded.

“There’s still one zombie left inside the shop,” said William. “Last I checked.”

“There could be more,” said Zach. “We go in prepared. The gunshots will probably attract more. We’re going to have to build that barricade fast.” Zach paused. “You two get the makeshift barrier up. I’ll hold off the beasts.” He cocked his rifle. This one, a different one, had the distinct look of an assault rifle. I was no gun buff, but with that thing having my back, I would go in confidently.

“Is that thing even legal?” said Harriot.

“It’s been grandfathered,” said Zach, with a wink. I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

Zach, William, and I entered the store proper. The third zombie was ambling about the lingerie aisle. Unsurprisingly, the looters had not stolen all of it. I mean, what are you supposed to do with bras and undies in a crisis like this?

William and I approached from different sides.

Zach opened fire. The gun chattered with an explosion of sound. The zombie, hit at least a dozen times, staggered backwards. However, it still stood.

William grabbed a baseball bat from a rack in the nearby sports section and rushed the beast. He smashed it in the head, causing it to spin, and then continued hitting it until the skull split open and brains spilled out. The brains, surprisingly, were a deep red color that resembled, not blood, but some sort of jam paste.

“That’s not a normal brain,” said Zach, as he approached the body. His motions were careful, deliberate.

“Don’t touch it,” said William.

“Cleanup on aisle twelve,” I said, deadpan.

William and Zach stared at me.

“What?” I said.

Zach shook his head. The three of us approached the broken plate glass windows at the store’s front. Five zombies were heading towards the opening from the parking lot.

“I’ll hold them off!” said Zach, taking aim.

William and I dragged as many shelves as we could to block out the broken plate glass windows. My heart beat with heavy thumps as the gunshots rang out around us.

We managed to get all the glass facades walled off in about ten minutes. During that time, Zach seemed to have spent at least a crate of ammunition, and made enough noise to wake the dead. I could see hoards of zombies approaching the store.

“You might not have enough ammo to deal with that,” said William. He grabbed a number of shopping carts. “Help me build a bigger wall,” he said.

“How much ammo do you have left?” I yelled, back at Zach.

“Plenty!” returned Zach. He continued to shoot.

Eventually the hoard of zombies thinned out as Zach continued to mow them down. Each zombie took dozens of bullets to bring down. If they were all this tough, then how would we survive?

Finally the gunshots petered out and we had a relatively calm parking lot to look out over. William sat down and sighed a huge sigh of relief. The piles of bodies only spoke to Zach’s skill with a rifle.

The store we were at had a classic Supermart build. An entrance on each of the north and south sides, each one containing about twelve meters of plate glass and automatic door. Both entrances were now heavily blocked with shopping carts, shelves, and anything else we could find.

Zach lowered his gun and approached us. “Do you think we should try and save the people in the other stores?” he said.

“Let’s go,” I said. “We need more manpower to make my plan a reality.”

“I’m sorry,” said William. “I can’t go with you. I’m too, um, too shaky.”

“A normal stress response,” said Zach. “Don’t worry. I don’t think less of you.”

I looked at Zach. “Let’s get going.”

Zach and I went back through the employee entrance and left the store via the back doors, as the front doors were barricaded. We went around the store to the north and came to the front of the shoe store. Paymore Shoes. I looked inside and saw at least a dozen people hunkering down between the rows of shoes.

We knocked. The people looked at us. Zach gave them a thumbs-up. They came to the front and removed the barricade on the side of the door.

“Hey,” said Zach. “We’re here to help.”

The man who opened the door looked about as afraid as one would expect.

“Do you have any experience with a forklift?” I said. “Or a CDL?”

“Yeah,” said the man. He pointed to one of the dozens of trucks in the lot. “That one’s mine.”

“We’re planning on building a fort,” I said. “Can you help us?”

“Of course,” said the man. He looked around. “My name is Aron. I’m willing to help.”

I looked at Zach. “You take care of these people. I’m going to check on the other stores.”

In the end we had about thirty people who were hunkered down in the various shops. Zach distributed guns to those who seemed the most put together, and then we grabbed the three forklifts that we were able to find. We began building the fort right away, covering the entire parking lot, behind the buildings, and the empty lot to the south.

By the end of the day we would have ourselves a fort.