Rafiq Chedidi
“Sssht, be quiet.”
The five men went silent. They had finally pierced through the wall, creating a small gap between the two adjacent buildings. George had crouched down next to it, trying to listen for any form of walker activity on the other side. If there were undead in the shop next to the spa, they had better know before they tore down the wall completely.
It had taken the five of them, Rafiq, George, Henry, Wayne and Diego (who had joined a while later), longer then they had hoped. They had been unable to find quite the proper equipment; most tools they had found were used to hang paintings on a wall, not to break things down. The best they had were a couple of claw hammers. Still, they had managed. Thankfully, the wall had been made of drywall, wood and insulation material. Had it been anything sturdier, they might have been in trouble.
“Do you hear anything?” Wayne asked.
George held up his hand, ordering Wayne to stay silent. The pilot closed his eyes, trying to listen more intently.
After thirty more seconds or so, he finally shook his head. “I don’t hear anything outright. You would expect with the noise we’ve been making that all the walkers in that room had made their way over here. But... there is something in there that’s making a noise. It’s distant, but there.”
Diego shrugged, “It’s probably a bird or something. There is pet store next door.”
Glaring at the Brazilian, George picked up the claw hammer again. “You could have told us that earlier.”
“Sorry dude, didn’t cross my mind.”
Now that Diego mentioned it, Rafiq thought he could indeed hear some type of animal sniffing. It wasn’t a bird, but possibly a hamster or guinea pig. Those poor creatures probably hadn’t eaten for days.
Now that they had created a hole to the other side, the rest of the work became easier. Using the gap as leverage, the five men were able to pull down large chunks of wall at the same time. At some point, Tara dropped by and watched for a bit, but she didn’t say much, only that she had checked in on Sam and the others and that the boy was still alive. Then she left again.
At last a large piece of wall gave way and the hole became big enough to fit a person through. Rafiq went through first, as he was smaller and more nimble then the rest of them. The pet shop was dark and it smelt musty. The smell of uncared, dying or possibly rotting animals was far from a pleasant one. Rafiq could feel his stomach reflax, but thankfully he kept it down. Wayne, who had followed him through the hole, wasn’t as lucky and ungraciously puked on the floor.
“Urgh, what a stench...”
“Thanks for adding to it,” said Rafiq more sourly than usual, as he had an intense disgust for any type or form of vomiting. He didn’t really know why, but it always made him freak out. Apparently, the end of the world hadn’t changed that.
When Diego came through, he clapped Wayne on the shoulders. “Maybe you should go back to the others and guard the place or something.” Wayne nodded to the man gratefully and slipped back through the wall.
They had been right about the fact that the place was walker-free, unless, as Diego jokingly said “one is hiding in the closet”. Rafiq took a look in one of the cages and thought for a second it was empty, until he saw a small hamster shivering in the corner under a heap of straw. It was a sad thing to see.
“Guess that answers that question,” Henry said, as he stood next to Rafiq, in front of another cage.
“What question?” Rafiq asked.
“Whether animals get affected by this zombie thing too,” Henry responded, pointing at the dead rabbit inside the cage. The creature had empty eyes and a couple of flies were crawling over it. It was clearly dead for a couple of days, but it showed no sign of any undead activity. Rafiq hadn’t really thought about whether animals could become infected as well, but at least it was a good thing they weren’t. Well, at least rabbits aren’t.
George stood near a couple of other cages and had opened one of them. When Rafiq came closer, he could see that the pilot was gently stroking another hamster.
“It’s unfair,” the pilot said in a tone that Rafiq hadn’t heard from the man before.
“I know.” Rafiq needn’t mention Charlie, but he was sure that was who the Brit was thinking about.
“You guys go on with the next wall. If you don’t mind, I’d like to set these little fella’s free. You know, give them some sort of chance. At the least, their deaths would be less cruel.”
Rafiq nodded as he understood. It wasn’t like they needed four people full-time on the wall anyway.
He told Henry and Diego they needed to move on and so they went to the other side of the shop and checked out the best spot to continue. Unfortunately, the shop had used that wall to place the aquariums and terrariums against. All of them were bolted against it and it would take a lot of time to remove them. The only free area was behind a poster behind the counter, but that was awfully close to the front door.
“What if the walkers hear us?” Rafiq asked.
“Do we have another choice,” Henry said gloomly.
“Maybe we can go outside now and just run...” as Diego said it, he peeked through the blinds, which made him stop his sentence. He turned around and grinned that usual grin of his, “Never mind. It’s still snowing. Or falling. Fallouting? Whatever. Still, can’t see any walkers nearby”
Rafiq sighed, “I guess we just have to hope for the best. You guys get started, I’ll check around the store. Maybe they have some better equipment lying around.”
He walked to the back, where he guessed the storage room was located. On his way, he could see George opening up the bird cages and some of them had already flown out. It was kind of strange to see the man this... human. Everyone had it soft spots, Rafiq supposed.
The storage room was smaller than Rafiq had suspected, but he looked around it thoroughly anyway. There was a lot of feed, a desk with papers and a table the employees had used for their breaks. Some of the coffee cups were still in the sink, unwashed. In the corner was a broom and a...
“I’ll be damned,” Rafiq muttered. He eagerly picked up the sledgehammer. That would come in handy.
Happy at the prospect of doing the work a lot faster, he nearly walked into George, who was dumping out some of the animal feed on the floor. Or at least, he had been, but something had made him stop.
On the floor were three hamsters, tearing the flesh from a fourth one. Rafiq had heard hamsters sometimes cannibalized each other when under great stress or hunger, but... It was like a gruesome miniature version of what they all had been through.
“It’s ironic isn’t it,” George said, “you try to save them and they get hurt anyway.”
Rafiq didn’t know how to respond to that and decided it was better not to.
He left the older man alone with his thoughts.