Riley's POV
I watched Jacob sleep as I peeled a apple and thought about where we would head next. We usually only stayed in one spot no more than a week. The longer you stay in one place the more dead will come it's like they can smell you. She started to notice it at the second place they made camp. She recognized some of the dead and knew they had followed. Luckily they were extremely slow and dumb. She was running out of buildings that she knew about with accessible rooftops. She knew she would have to do some scouting or they would have to stay on the ground. They usually only went down when they moved or when they needed food.
Jacob whimpered in his sleep, sometimes she cried for him for his childhood. He seemed to be handling things better then me. He clutched his spear in one hand and had his other on his knife even in his sleep. After cutting the apple into slices I put half of it into a baggie for when he woke up. Jacob whimpered again and I couldn't help but how back to those first few days. We had run out of food after a week and Tyler never showed up even though I had left a note at the house about where we would be. After seeing Jacob go a whole day with no food I decided to go into the store below. I already knew the dead were inside, I had been watching them all week wandering the parking lot and going in and out of the building with no real purpose. They never made any noise either it was all very eerie how they just continuously wandered, some were missing limbs some were just dragging themselves around. It was a hard thing to except as reality.
Jacob stayed on the roof it had been safe for a week so it was a safe bet it would be safe an hour more while I went below. The sun would be setting soon, I'd been watching all day for the best opportunity and this was as good as it was going to get. I knew there were at least two of the dead inside but there could be more, a lot more. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
I climbed down the ladder and Jake pulled it back up. I found the stick I'd been eyeing and started to whittle the end into a spear I brought a extra stick over by the dumpster to pick up on my way back for jakes new spear. We were going to need better weapons eventually, some that didn't make as much noise as a gun. I'd been hearing gunshots all week and every time the dead would leave. Conclusion, we should be as quiet as possible. More of the dead always showed up though. I went to the back employee door and to my surprise it was unlocked. Forcing myself to walk through the door was harder than I imagined. Fear was paralyzing me, I stood inside the door for a few minutes and just listened. I didn't hear anything except my own breathing, it sounded erratic so I tried to take deep breaths and calm myself. I had the pistol tucked into the back of my jeans and a large bread knife in one hand and the spear in my other. As good as it's gonna get I whispered to myself as I made my way out of the back and into the aisles.
There was a abandoned cart that by a shelf I grabbed it and pushed slowly to make sure it wasn't a real squeaky cart. It glides smoothly along and I started with the first thing I saw Pop Tarts! I was so hungry but didn't want to make any noise so I put around 10 boxes in the cart and carried on. I passed a few aisles I was looking for the fruit and vegetables I wanted to get what I could before everything started rotting. The Produce section was a big open area. Oranges were first thankfully they had them already in bags so I grabbed a couple bags and moved onto apples Jacobs favorite. I grabbed a few of the plastic bags off the role and started loading them up with different kinds of apples. I was filling my second bag when someone grabbed my arm. I looked up and let out a startled scream before I clamped my mouth shut remembering not to make noise. I started to panic as I looked at the lipless mouth chomping up and down. I tried to pull my arm away. The thing holding it wouldn't let go, it's mouth wide open and moving towards my arm. I panicked and stuck my spear sideways in its mouth so it was chomping on wood. I couldn't believe what I was looking at. I just stared as it tried to chomp through my spear. The thing used to be a woman, the right side of her face was still intact she even had on a very cute sunflower earring. The left side of her face was completely missing, parts of her cheek were hanging off and slapping against her shoulder as she tried to raise her arms to grab me. I could see her skull sticking out of her forehead, I started to gag and quickly calmed myself down. I pulled my knife from my belt and stabbed it through the head. It went limp instantly and started to fall as I ripped my spear and knife from it.
Quickly I scanned the rest of the produce area, when I didn't see anything I went back to grabbing apples. I was going into shock, my brain couldn't process what had happened or what I should do know it was just moving picking apple after apple. The thin plastic bag was overly full, I forced myself to stop and breath. I tried to focus on things I needed to do. I still needed food and I knew this place had a pharmacy. I pushed the cart slowly toward grabbing bananas as I went along. There were three more in the store, luckily for me they were really slow as I long as I kept a running pace they wouldn't catch me. I managed to get a cart full of food, with the three following me. As I approached the pharmacy I left my cart by the aisle and jumped the counter. I turned around and speared two of them in the head. The third was over the counter and trying to stand up. It grabbed my leg as I speared it in the head. Breathing deeply I looked around, grabbed a basket from under the counter and started picking up anything I knew the name of and some things I didn't. As I picked up pill bottles I heard the bell on the door, rang once and then again and again. Frozen on the spot I could hear my own panicked breathing and feel my body shaking. No way could I take on any more of these things, I was going into shock, if I thought about what was happening I would break. Before I could think I jumped the counter grabbed my cart of food and ran like the wind for the back of the store. I burst through the door and out into the parking lot slamming the door closed behind me. I never even looked around to see if I was alone just ran for the ladder. Jacob! Jacob! I whisper screamed as I approached he popped his head up right away and threw down a duffle and a backpack. I loaded everything in as quickly as possible and started climbing, I handed Jake the bags and climbed over the side. Collapsing I could feel the tears pouring down the face without realizing I was even crying. Jacob just sat and stared at me as I sobbed. I sucked it up and gave Jake the slim Jim and Reece's pieces I got for him. Sleep wouldn't come that night, Jacob slept like a log after eating half a bag of Doritos and two apples and drinking a whole gator aid. I stayed up and listened to the bell dinging on the door as the dead walked in and out. As the sun rose I was slipping in and out of sleep. My eyes were closed and the world was silent, I knew Jake would wake me soon so I let myself drift off.
The sounds of cars approaching shocked me so much I shot up so fast I smashed my head into the side of the roof. I was laying down holding my bleeding head and I saw Jacob Crawl past me and peek over the side of the roof. It's two trucks mom, big trucks he said. My heart dropped into my stomach as I sat up and looked over the edge. A man stepped out of the first truck, he was huge and wearing all black, he had a shaved head and grimace on his face. Two more men got out of the first truck and three more came from the second. The driver looked exactly like the first man except he had shaggy blonde hair. They spent the day cleaning out the store, filling there trucks. We spent the day quietly packing our things. I knew they'd be back theres no way they got everything in those two trucks. Jacob and I loaded up the Jeep after dark and left for another roof. The dentist office I took jake to had a flat roof and I knew I could get to the roof from the back. We stayed at the dental office for a week and then a liquor store, which turned out to be a bad idea. A lot of shitty people came to loot the liquor store. After that we ended up here, a house it was a huge modern style house with a flat roof and water that was still running. Two weeks we've been here and I had no idea where to go next and we were running low on food. The only thing I look forward to is watching the sunrise and sunset, one perk of living on rooftops.