Grocery

         I awoke staring at the water damaged ceiling. The old, cracked drywall was illuminated by a small trickle of light leaking through the crudely barricaded window. A strong smell smell permeated the air, a smell I had learned to hate: pigeon.
         I rolled to the edge of the mattress, sitting up and stretching my sore arms. My bed, a filthy, stained mattress hauled from a few apartments over, was lying on the floor beside a far superior twin bed belonging to Aaron, my “room mate”.
         Working myself to a standing position, I walked across the small room, into the common room.
         “Well, good morning, sleepyhead!” A chirpy voice greeted me. It was Marcy, the “mom” of our group. She was well into her thirties, with soft eyes and smooth skin. She looked as dangerous as a house fly, but having seen her fight, I knew better.
         “G'morning, Marcy.” I replied groggily. “Pigeon for breakfast again?”
         “Better than nothing, right?” She said with a smile.
         “Just barely.” I joked. “Where's Aaron?”
         “Oh, he's in the other room. Tell him breakfast is almost ready.”
         Our camp was located on the top floor of an apartment building. We had decided to set up in a one bedroom flat. Finding ourselves lacking for space, we expanded into the next room via a hole in the wall.
         I found Aaron in the other room, just as Marcy said. He was sitting on the couch with a disassembled sub machine gun on the table. He looked up from his weapon when I entered the room.
         “Oh, good, you're up.” He said. “Come here, we need to talk.”
         He lead me out to the fire escape and up to the roof. A huge, makeshift water tank was situated up there, with a sheet metal funnel on top to catch rain and a brass faucet scavenged from one of the bathrooms. We had a few small plants on the edge of the roof that would hopefully sprout something edible one day.
         Aaron walked over to the railing, lighting a cigarette. I looked out over the cityscape;  crumbling buildings, ruined beyond recognition. The city was once so beautiful, so full of life, but now it was nothing but a rotting, lifeless corpse.
         “Did you notice Marcy's cooking pigeon again?” Aaron finally spoke.
         “Yeah, I'm about sick of the shit.” I replied. “I wish she'd make something else for a change.”
         “Well, in case you haven't noticed, there is fuck all else to eat around here. We finished off the last can of beans last night for dinner, and we're on our last few pinches of flour.”
         “Seriously? I thought we had enough to last a few more weeks.”
         “Did you forget about the mice? Little bastards ate up half our stockpile.”
         “Dammit. Well, what should we do?” I asked.
         “What do you think? We need to go on a supply run.”
         “Yeah, no shit. Where, I mean? We've already cleaned out every store in the area.”
         “That's what I thought, too. But look.” He handed me a pair of binoculars and pointed off into the distance. There was a small corner market a few blocks down the street.
         “How the hell did we miss that?” I asked.
         “Its not on any of the maps, the place must have been new before things went to shit.”
         “Well, when should we hit it?”
         “I'm just as sick of eating pigeon as you are, and even sicker of hunting the little bastards. If you want something other than flying rat for dinner tonight, I suggest we go this afternoon.
         We choked down what would hopefully be our last meal of bird for a while before getting ready.
         I put on a pair of well worn jeans, rough combat boots and a faded leather jacket. I dropped a few boxes of 00 buck shot into my messenger bag before slinging my shotgun over my shoulder and heading to meet Aaron at the front door.
         He was dressed in similar attire, with his sub machine gun in hand and a military rucksack on his back. Marcy was waiting for us at the front door. No matter how many supply runs me and Aaron made, Marcy was always worried sick. She made us both promise to come back safe, and before dinner.
         We made our way through the apartment building and into the street. The roads were clogged with cars, long ago abandoned by their owners. Bits of debris covered the cracked and broken road. Vegetation had begun to retake the city; bits and pieces were sprouting out of the broken pavement, and some had grown bold enough to crawl up the sides of buildings.
         We made our way through the broken city, taking in the sights around us. It didn't take too long before we were at the corner store. A dark green sign was hanging by a thread above the broken glass door: “Jamie's Corner Market.”
         The inside of the store was depressingly empty. Aside from a few odd items, the shelves remained bare. The two of us split up to search the store, with Aaron heading towards the baking isle. I lingered by the registers for a moment, tossing a few soft drinks in my bag before moving on.
         The pickings were meager. Two whole isles only netted me with four assorted canned goods and a family sized box of instant noodles. I was about to move on when I heard Aaron calling for me.
         “Hey, come here for a second.” He hollered. I found him at the opposite end of the store. His bag, like mine, was mostly unfilled.
         “Do you think there could be anything useful in there?” He asked, gesturing towards a door labeled “Employes Only.”
         “I guess there's only one way to find out.” I replied. Aaron nodded his head and swung the door open. Immediately, we were hit by a fearsome stench. I was taken aback by the odor, barely resisting the urge to vomit.
         “My god, what the hell is that?” Aaron asked, his shirt pulled over his nose. I looked around the backroom to find the source of the smell. Leaning against the wall just inside the room was a man, long since dead. The body was horribly mutilated, with half the left arm torn away and the head completely absent. Dried blood was splattered across the room, coating the floor and walls around the corpse. It was strange, though; the body did not seem to be older than a few days.
         “God damn, what do you think happened to this poor bastard?” Aaron asked, still covering his nose.
         “I don't know. He probably got torn apart by scavengers.” I said. “Come on, we still have a job to do.”
         The back room was filled with wooden shelves, each one stacked high with boxes. We began digging through the crates, which did not disappoint. There was more than enough food to fill our bags several times over.
         As I was filling my bag with rice, Aaron moved onto the shelf farthest from the door. It was not against the wall, and was heavily stocked with boxes, leaving no gaps to see through. He pulled a container labeled “Peanut Butter” onto the floor to look through.          
         Without warning, something burst from behind the shelf, toppling it in the process. Seemingly materializing from thin air was a huge beast, with black skin and a long, wolf like face. It charged towards Aaron, swiping out a massive set of claws that shredded his jacket and knocked him to the ground.
         I raised my shotgun as quickly as possible, letting out a burst of buckshot that slammed into the beast, with almost no effect. The shot bounced off its armor like skin, doing nothing but enraging the brute. It jerked its head in my direction, giving me a look of pure, burning hatred.
         With a shriek, the monstrosity charged me, running on all fours. I quickly chambered another round, but the beast was on me before I could get off a shot. It swiped the gun from my hands, breaking it in the process. Lashing out again, it struck my leg, ripping through the flesh like paper. I let out a scream before my own weight got the best of me and I hit the cement floor.
         “Hey, mother fucker!” Aaron screamed. “Come get some of this!” He let off a burst of fire from his sub machine gun. The freak bounded across the room, pouncing on my friend.
         It was all I could do the tune out the agonizing screams and the disgusting sound of tearing flesh. I had to take this opportunity to find a way out. The broken remains of my 12 gauge lay across the room, and my knife would be laughably ineffective against a creature this size.          
         Looking around the room, something caught my eye; a glint of silver. Tucked into the belt of the stinking corpse was a nickle plated handgun. It was painted in dried blood, with only a small amount of nickle exposed.
         I began crawling towards the corpse, trying to ignore that fact that Aaron had long ago stopped screaming. After what seemed to be a millennium, I finally reached the body. Without wasting a second, I reached my hand into his belt, retrieving the pistol.
         The gun, although absolutely covered in dried blood, was in good condition. The slide moved without a hitch, and six rounds of .45 sat snugly in the magazine, a seventh in the chamber.
         Sounds of tearing and chewing flesh had ceased; I could feel a set of eyes burning into my back. I turned around, facing towards the creature. It was looking right at me with a shred of bloody meat hanging from its jaws.
         The beast let out a howl, charging towards me. Before I could think, it was on me. Its jagged claws dug into my left shoulder, forcing a pained cry from my lips. The thing screeched, splattering blood and spit onto my face.
         Not letting the opportunity pass me by, I shoved the barrel of my gun into the creatures open mouth. I could feel its claws tighten inside my shoulder as it tried to bite down on the weapon. Squeezing my eyes shut, I pulled the trigger, again and again and again.
         Finally, after what felt like a lifetime passed, the slide of my gun locked back. The beast fell limp, collapsing onto me with all its lifeless weight. I opened my eyes to see the thing's head was blown to pieces, with a river of blood pouring onto me.
         It took all of my strength to push the freak off of me. I stayed on the cold, cement floor for a time. Every inch of my body was in agonizing pain. Blood, my own and belonging to the mutant had soaked into my clothing.
         Everything was so quiet, aside from the ringing in my ears. I was terrified to look around the room, to see what remained of my friend.
         Finally, I worked up the strength to stand. My legs hardly worked, and it took a time to move across the room. I walked over to Aaron's remains. He lied lifeless on the floor, not moving or breathing. His body was torn in pieces, massive cuts and gashes covering his flesh.
         Kneeling beside him, I closed his bloodshot eyes. I thought back to all the times he had been there for me, either in a fight or simply helping me cope with the situation. He was without a doubt my best friend.
         “Thank you.” I whispered, covering his bloody face with my jacket. Suppressing tears, I scooped up his rucksack and firearm and moved towards the exit, making my way home.