Decay: A Zombie Story (5 page)

I got up and looked around. I couldn’t sit around forever in a locked walk-in refrigerator waiting for someone to find me.

I took a large bread roller in my hands and slowly went to the door to open it.

MIKE

K
elly and I walked through an empty town, keeping distance from anything or anyone we saw moving off in the distance as we attempted to digest the information we were just fed over the radio. Eventually, we came across a seemingly untouched building with the lights still on. If you blocked out everything else, you could’ve looked at this establishment and thought that everything was normal in suburbia.

We slowly approached and went inside the ‘24-Hour Laundromat.’ At first, it didn’t look as if there was anything of use or interest, as the place didn’t even have a bathroom or vending machine—never mind a phone. But just as I began to write the place off as a waste of time, Kelly spotted a door in the back with a sign:
Keep Out – Office Space
.

We approached the door and heard absolutely nothing coming from the other side, and decided it was worth a look. Of course, the door was locked. Kelly pushed her small frame against it a few times. It wasn’t a huge door, but it wasn’t budging either. I had to help—regardless of my previously dislocated shoulder. We took down the door with a synchronized three-count. Thankfully, we found a small room with a desk, piles of paperwork—more than one would expect a laundromat to produce, and an old rotary phone.

I took the plunge and made a call to my house. It went through and rang for a minute until it went to voicemail. After the ‘beep,’ I sat there silently, just waiting and thinking. Kelly was off in the corner, trying to make it look like she was doing something, but I’m certain she was just trying to give me space. After a moment, I hung up the phone and she slightly glanced up at me. I shook my head and for the first time began to break down a little.

She came over and put her hand on my back. At this point, I dropped the picture I’d taken from my car, of my daughter. She picked it up and stared at the photo for a moment before turning it over and reading, “
Ellie–Christmas 2009
.”

She handed me the picture as I struggled to say, “It’s my…my daughter.”

“Just because there wasn’t an answer doesn’t mean anything,” Kelly explained. “I mean, we’re not at
our
homes and we’re okay—well, sort of okay.”

I smiled at her and nodded.

“You heard all of the safe zones they mentioned on the radio?” Kelly asked. “They’re probably at one of those.”

She was probably right; at least I wanted to believe she was. Kelly was an awesome person from what I could tell. We were stuck in an extraordinary situation together as strangers and it seemed I’d developed a better relationship with her than with any other female since my ex-wife, Ellie’s mother. Of course, who knows if Kelly was feeling the same way. For all I knew, she had a boyfriend—or a girlfriend. In another time or place, perhaps we would have talked about it.

The ‘moment’ was cut short when we heard noises coming from outside the office. Kelly quickly peeked outside the door and saw a couple of infected stumbling about. Then I realized the word ‘infected’ wasn’t the most correct word to use. ‘Undead’ would work just as well. I decided it didn’t really matter and either description was apt.

I held the broken door closed as we discussed a plan of how to handle the infected/undead people.

As we spoke quietly to one another, an infected man over by the washing machines must have heard us, came over to us, and soon enough began slapping his lifeless hands against the door. Kelly and I looked at one another and knew we’d run out of options. We either had to get the hell out of Dodge or we were going to become lunch for this ghoul.

We decided to act.

I remained at the door as Kelly got the shotgun ready. She nodded and I grabbed the doorknob and slowly pulled the door open. The undead man stumbled into the small office, almost falling to the floor. Quickly, Kelly took the shot, and as the shotgun recoiled, the blast broke straight through the seemingly fragile skull and destroyed whatever brain the man had, sending the undead thing back to the dead.

“Good shot,” I said to Kelly, trying not to think about the fact that a dead man lay right between us with half his head missing. She nodded, and without saying a word, looked out of the office where two more undead people were stumbling towards us. They were moving slowly between the benches and washing machines, and we had a relatively clear path to the exit.

“We need to move,” she said and held up the shotgun. “I don’t want to use this if I don’t have to, or I’ll run out of shells.”

I nodded and began to step to the door. She grabbed a broom leaning against the wall and handed it to me. “Keep them back with this,” she said.

We evacuated the building as quickly as possible. Kelly used her shotgun to push one of them back. It fell over a bench and landed hard on the floor, but was unfazed by the bump it had taken. The thing got back up slowly and continued its pursuit of us. By this time, though, we’d escaped the laundromat and were running down the street, looking back at the handful of infected that were being drawn in our direction after all of the commotion.

As we ran, we passed confused-looking people who had been infected, stumbling by themselves aimlessly, and worst of all, feeding frenzies with nearly a dozen at a time huddled together eating someone. These primitive creatures barely noticed us as we ran by stealthily. And, if they did notice us, we outran them until they lost interest. We decided to be as quick and quiet as possible until we came to a good place to rest.

We ran through many streets as my legs cramped up as bad as some of my worst bike races, but I didn’t allow myself to stop. Finally, Kelly began to slow down in front of me—several yards in front, as I simply couldn’t keep up with her.

“Look, it’s a school,” she said. “Should be a good place to take a break.”

It was brilliant thinking. A school during the summertime was bound to be empty. We quickly walked around the perimeter of what looked to be a junior high school, seeing no signs of the living—or the dead. We stopped at the back of the school near a loading dock and took a rest. It was a fenced-in area on three sides so we figured, short of being inside the building, it was the safest place we could be from any wandering infected.

Kelly sat down on the loading dock and put down the shotgun. I attempted to stretch out my cramping legs as well as tend to my shoulder, which still felt quite tender after the bicycle crash from earlier.

We discussed the possibility of hiding inside the school but were unsure of our method of entry considering the only doors nearby were locked. As I brought up the idea of once again taking another walk around the school to survey the different entrances, we began to hear a shuffling noise coming from somewhere close by.

Kelly and I looked around, our eyes darting left and right. There were lights on around the building, so it wasn’t too dark. We couldn’t see anything coming from any direction and I began to wonder if it was simply an animal somewhere.

Kelly looked at me and smirked. “I think we’re okay.”

As she began to let her guard down, there came a scratching noise followed by a bloody arm reaching through the side opening of a dumpster a few feet from Kelly. The man was fast, faster than I would have expected. He lunged from his hiding place and grabbed Kelly’s arm. She screamed as the man pulled her towards the dumpster.

The tearing of flesh and cloth came from behind the dumpster as the infected school janitor attacked Kelly, his teeth tearing into her arm. She quickly reached for her shotgun and in the struggle, knocked it off the loading dock and to the ground.

At this point, I ran to the shotgun and grasped it in my hand. As I picked it up, I witnessed what was left of the janitor curl his dried lips up and over his blood-stained teeth, and in one fell swoop, bit through the flesh of Kelly’s neck. She screamed in horror as I yelled in fear. The janitor looked at me with Kelly’s blood dripping from his mouth. With no hesitation, I pulled the trigger and sent his lifeless carcass back into the trash heap.

While holding her torn neck, Kelly fell to the ground. Blood poured through her fingers. I dropped the shotgun and rushed to Kelly’s side. She looked at me as tears streamed down her face.

“Get out of here, Mike,” she said to me through bloody bubbles. A large blood pool was beneath her, and I knew she was bleeding out fast.

I shook my head and tried to pick her up, but she gently squeezed my hand and looked at me for a moment before letting it go. Then her eyes closed and her body seemed to go limp as she let out one last breath.

I knew what would happen if I stayed and I didn’t have the heart to shoot her when she revived as one of them.

I backed away, turned, and once again began running with the shotgun in my hand. I ran for what seemed like miles without thinking until finally I saw a small building with the lights on. I had no idea if it was safe or not, but my legs just stopped and I dropped to my knees, staring at the lighted building ahead.

JEN

S
am seemed okay other than some bumps and bruises. She hasn’t said anything at all in relation to Robbie since arriving at the hardware store. Pete took her into the back and made a makeshift bed for her out of a fire blanket.

The infected man that had been outside and banging on the door finally wandered away and for the moment the street was empty.

In the meantime, I decided to stay by the front windows to see if anyone came by that could help us. I was hoping for a police car, ambulance, or a fire truck, anything to help the situation. No one came. That is until I saw a different man stumble into the parking lot and then into the street. He had some blood on him but he moved in such a way that I could see he wasn’t one of them. He was carrying a gun, too - a shotgun by the looks of it.

“Pete!” I yelled. “Come quick!”

Of course, in a situation like this, he came running as fast as he could. Realizing he probably thought I was hurt, I quickly added, “There’s a man outside and he looks okay!”

Pete joined me at the window and looked out at the disheveled man. Fido began barking from the manager’s office where Peter had placed him when we’d arrived, in an effort to keep him quiet.

The man looked up and shook his head no and gave us a
thumbs up
. At this point, Peter and I ran out to him. Peter took the shotgun out of the man’s hand, and we helped him into the hardware store.

He nodded slowly in response and seemed to struggle to keep his eyes open. At this point, Peter and I helped him to the back where Samantha had fallen asleep.

He smiled at us as he lay down on floor, using some cardboard for bedding. Peter and I returned to the front window and continued our vigil.

TARA

I
fought my way out of the walk-in fridge and past several sick-looking customers until I came across Teddy in the kitchen who was now covered in blood and growling and reaching for me. As he came around the counter, he lunged violently in my direction.

I pushed him back with the bread roller and proceeded to hit him hard in the jaw with it. It looked as if his jaw broke in two as he fell hard into the metal counter top once covered in pizza sauce and now covered in blood. I ran for the exit and tossed the bloody bread roller on the ground.

As I left my workplace—possibly for the last time ever, I ran through the parking lot repeating to myself, “The movie theater, the movie theater…” I was going to find out what happened to my boyfriend before anything else.

As I approached my car, I realized, I did not have my keys with me. I didn’t have anything except my work uniform and my cell phone. I looked back at the restaurant and saw Teddy coming out the door after me. I took off running at this point.

I quickly ran a couple blocks, past such surreal scenes that I could barely comprehend if they were real or not. For the most part, the streets were abandoned with crashed and idle cars strewn about.

Eventually, I came across his car, sitting with the driver’s door ajar in the middle of the road. As I approached the car, I found his cell phone laying in two pieces on the ground. I continued walking to the car and saw no signs of blood around—which gave me some hope, but not much.

As I got to the car, I heard the soft beeping sound that cars make when the keys are left in the ignition while the door is open. I hopped in and turned the key. The engine took a second to roll over as I noticed the gas light had come on.

I began to drive in the direction it looked like he had gone. There was no sign of anyone anywhere. I continued to drive, looking for anyone that could be of assistance.

I didn’t make it far before the engine began to sputter as the gas tank was on empty. I coasted the car into a hardware store parking lot where I was shocked to see two people watching me from the front window of the store.