Clear Water, Hidden Danger

Chapter 51 – Didn’t See That Coming

The first blast of rot hit us like a punch from a god that hated produce.

Everyone reflexively staggered back. Even Jackson flinched — and the man had an immunity to emotion that should’ve been studied in a lab somewhere.

Hawk gagged into his sleeve.
Medeles took three steps back and announced, “Nope! Nope! That’s a felony smell.”

Behind us, the rifle teams snapped their weapons up, thinking we were running from Zerkers. We immediately threw our hands up.

We all immediately pivoted and ran back out of the store. Behind us, the rifle teams snapped their weapons up, thinking we were running from Zerkers. We threw our hands up fast.

“HOLD FIRE! No threat!” Hawk yelled.

“Just every piece of produce in Nebraska committing mass suicide!” Medeles added.

Rifles lowered.
Faces twisted.
People nodded in horrified agreement.

Neal waved everyone farther back. “Absolutely no one goes in until that place stops trying to kill us.”

“Thirty to forty-five minutes,” I said. “We’ll hit the back bays, force a cross-draft, and clear most of it out.”

“‘Most’?” Alex asked.

I stared at her.
“Baby… something died in there. Many somethings.”

We circled around back with three IBF firefighters — Medeles, Hough, and a mountain of a man who looked like he could bench-press a single fire engine himself.

The service bay doors were sealed tight. The firefighters wedged crowbars into the lower seam and pried. Metal shrieked. One hinge snapped. Then the door rolled up with a metallic groan that sounded like it regretted existing.

The smell hit again.
Worse.
Wetter.
Like rotten fruit had declared war on the senses.

Medeles bent over like he was about to lose his entire breakfast.
Hough just whispered, “Holy hell.”

We inhaled clean air once. Just once.

Then ran inside.

The plastic curtain strips hung across the warehouse doorway — ten to twenty columns of thick, gum-glued vinyl, each one trapping the smell like a seal.

We ripped them down in clumps of two, three, four at a time. They tore free with sharp pops. The firefighters dragged the whole melted bundle outside and dumped it in the gravel like a giant dead squid.

Airflow kicked in immediately, pulling the stench backward in a heavy, ugly wave.

After ten minutes, it dropped from “chemical warfare violation” to “if you breathe shallow, you might live.”

We jogged back around front.

The moment the rifle teams saw us running, barrels lifted — then immediately dropped when they realized it wasn’t Zerkers, just us fleeing the ghost of bad fruit.

“No threat!” Medeles shouted again, hands up.

“Just trauma!” Hough added.

Everyone relaxed — cautiously.

Neal looked at me. “We staying outside?”

“Everyone stays out until the cross-draft finishes. Kids too.”

No one argued.

Nobody wanted to argue.

For forty-five minutes the building exhaled — rancid air rolling out the front doors, clean air pulling through the back.

When it finally settled to tolerable, I checked the team.

“We sweep it first,” I said. “Me, Jackson, Bilew-Jackson, Hawk, Medeles. No one else enters until we call all-clear.”

People nodded.

They didn’t need convincing.

This wasn’t bravado.

This was survival.

And now, finally, we were seconds away from sweeping the quietest, deadliest, and only grocery store left in the region.