Zombie Theorem (Book 1): The Culling (9 page)

While Brian sat on the floor and took a breather, I walked around and finished the sweep for any more of those things. “You know what? I don’t even know what to call these damn things. I mean they can’t be human anymore not with guts and stuff hanging outside their bodies.”

“Why don’t we call them exactly what they are Boss, Zombies! I mean they are impervious to pain, dead, oh and they tend to eat people.” Brian pointed out.

“Ok fine Zombies. I haven’t watched one of those movies since my freshmen year in college. Kind of wish we had guns or something other than these damn chair leg spikes.” I said while sitting down on the edge of the desk.

Brian got a giant beaming smile on his face and stared past me. “What got you so excited? If there is a 6 foot, naked, hot, and alive woman behind me, I call dibs and you’re going to have to give us a couple of minutes.” I quipped.

He got to his feet walked past me and took down two bats. He handed one to me and weighed the bat in his hand. “Oh thank you God they are real Louisville sluggers. I say we use these bad boys to take down the next zombie.”

I stepped back and took a couple of practice swings. “I like the way this feels.” I pointed at the door with the bat.

Brian took lead again and I stayed on his heels as we left the office. I frequently looked behind us as we went searching for zombies and cute live women. Hey a guy can wish can’t he? We stopped at the printer alcove and Brian stuck his head in, found nothing, and we continued down the hall coming to the last office in the row. It was the regional VPs office. I had been in there three times in my entire career with the company. “If I remember there is a private bathroom to the left rear of the office. It’s a corner office so it’s the biggest so far.” I informed Brian.

He turned to me and gave me an awkward smile. “I’ve been to this office a dozen times in the last month alone. This is where they told me I was being promoted. Sorry to pop your self-important bubble there Boss.” He snickered and patted my head. “You’re starting to get a little fuzzy there.”

“Yeah fuck you jolly green giant. I’ll shave when we get out of here.” I reached around him and turned the knob. The door opened easily. A shot rang out, just missing me however Brian was not so lucky. As I squatted in the hallway, I looked over to Brian and saw that he had been hit in the upper bicep.

“Don’t shoot we’re alive!” I screamed and yanked on Brian, pulling him back into the hall beside the entrance. I poked my head in and saw a man standing behind a giant oak desk pointing a gigantic handgun at us. “It’s Dan Welko and Brian from operations.”

“I don’t fucking care who you are. Get off my floor. I’m not sharing anything with you. You can’t have my supplies, and you’ll only take this gun from my cold dead hand.” He shot again. The bullet shot down the hallway hitting the closed lobby door, shattering it into a rain of safety glass.

“What do we do Brian?” I asked looking around for cover. I spied the open office we just came from. I could probably get there without getting shot but not Brian. I would not leave him, I’d grown close to the psycho bear. “We need to get into that office.” I pointed to the adjacent office.

Just then I could hear pounding on the locked office door down the hallway. I looked at Brian and found him looking up at me. “I can make it. Just stay down and move to the left after you enter the office. Once I pass you slam the door and lock it.” Brian said wincing at the pain in his arm. I could see the blood soaking through the leather. If we didn’t stop it soon he could bleed to death. Brian held up three fingers and started silently counting, dropping a digit as he counted. When he got to one I stayed low and made a mad dash and dove into the office, I came up on one knee and then jumped to the side of the door just as three things simultaneously happened. First shots ripped down the hallway, too high to hit either of us; secondly, I heard the door down the hall crash open; and thirdly Brian with an unbelievable roar dove into the room colliding with the chairs in front of the desk. I lurched to the door and slammed it shut and threw the bolt. I could hear grunts, moans, and gun shots echoing in the hallway.

Chapter 13

The guy with the gun would scream, before he fired each shot. There was a brief lull then he started shooting again. Since the first shot I counted about 12 more. Next there was a blood curdling scream which I assume came from the shooter followed by moans and grunts.  I looked to Brian who had removed his leather arm covering to examine his arm.

“Fuck me what a douche bag. You ok man?” I got down on the floor and started looking over his arm. He had a five-inch-long by one-inch-deep gouge across his left bicep. He had found a souvenir golf towel on the desk and kept dabbing at the blood with it. I looked down and saw that the bullet had hit the same arm that the Zombie had bitten. He had two big half crescent bruises almost coming together to make an oblong circle.  The bruising was blue and purple and looked bad.

“I’m good, been hit worse while in Afghanistan. Here help me make a bandage or something. If he aint dead, I’m going to choke the living shit out of that selfish ass monkey.” Brain looked more annoyed then pissed.

If I had been shot, I would’ve been into throes of anger that would equal that of a scorned woman walking in on her husband fucking her own sister. I know I’ve got issues, I believe I said that earlier. “Here let me look through the office. Most of these guys are afraid of germs and may have something in here. Just hold that towel and put pressure on it.”

“Really put pressure on it? Nah fuck I was just going to sit here and squeeze it to see if I can’t get it to spurt. Fuck I’m not new to this man.” He said through clenched teeth.

“If you could get it to spurt, try getting it on a big piece of paper, maybe we can sell it as a new Jackson Pollock. Get enough money we can retire. Now just hang on a sec.” I rifled through the desk and found an unopened first aid kit. I brought it over and opened it for Brian.

“I doubt this thing can handle this wound. But since you went through all this trouble let me see the damn thing.” He took out the small bottle of saline and a couple of the antibiotic packets. Then he pulled out the three rolls of gauze and medical tape.

I sat there and watched him go through the motions of cleaning and dressing his wound. “Are you going to be able to keep fighting big man? Cause if not I don’t think I can handle whatever is on the other side of that door alone.”

He stopped turned his head to me and gave mea look that said are you stupid, insane or both. “Hey Boss I’m good, don’t worry about me. Like I said I’ve been hurt more than this before.” He wrapped all of the gauze around his arm and then used the medical tape to secure and cinch it around his massive bicep. He moved his arm up and down and in and out and gave me thumbs up. “I’m just gonna have to do the brain bashing and depend on you to do the brain pulping. So we work as a team now, unless there are more than two that is, then we just wade in and kick some ass.” He stood grabbing his bat and hoisting it onto his shoulder.

“I’m in no hurry Brian. Let’s sit here and catch our breath for a bit.” I sat in the executive chair and swung my feet onto the desk. “I always knew someday I would have an office on this floor.” I leaned back and closed my eyes trying to summon a relaxed posture.

Brian harrumphed and sat in one of the guest chairs and swung his massive size 16 feet onto to the desk. “Damn this feels good. How long do you want to hang out here Boss?”

“Fuck I don’t know, a little while I guess.” I hunched my shoulders at Brian.

“Good enough answer for me. Hey did you notice all the vending machine food was missing?” He asked.

“Nope never looked, I was busy with that zombie bitch remember?” I answered back.

“Oh yeah, you and that chair, you had me in stiches man. What were you thinking?” He gave me a hearty laugh.

“Yeah, I have no idea; I figured I could hold her to the floor between the legs of the chair and just brain her more easily. I guess I didn’t think it all the way through, but glad I could provide some levity with my awesome prowess and fighting moves, giving you the laughter you so deserve, asshole.” I kicked his foot softly with mine. Ow that fucking hurt. Did this guy have feet of steel too?

I stared at Brian for a while as he was sitting there with the bat resting on his shoulder and it finally hit me. “You look like a younger massively bearded Mark McGwire. I didn’t see it till you picked up that bat” I was laughing and pointing at a picture of Big Mac on the wall in all his A’s glory.

“I always thought I looked like a bigger more ripped Jason Momoa. Of course my hair isn’t as dark as his.” He gave me a giant grin and hitched his shoulder in a silent laugh.

“Yeah I guess if Jason Momoa got hit in the face by an ugly stick. Well more like the entire tree then you two would look alike.” I laughed harder than the quip deserved. “I’m going to take lead on going through doors from now on. You ok with that?”

“You aint no Brad Pitt either, and yeah I’ll be happy to cover your skinny ass now.”

“Really, you like my ass? I have been working out, thanks for noticing.” I gave him a wink.

“Dude you need help.”

We sat there shooting the shit and talking about sports and music. He was into country music and I into 80s and 90s hair bands. He rooted for the Baltimore Ravens and me the Oakland Raiders. We sat there for an extra hour and were kind of hoping the dude who shot at us was dead by the zombies. If he was still alive this gave him time to calm down.

Brian pointed toward the door. “Shall we get going?”

I got off my chair with a sigh and had to rub the knots out of my back. I opened the door just enough to peek out. I peeked left first, toward the lobby and saw it clear. Then I looked right, two dead zombies lay at the entryway to the office. I stretched my head further but couldn’t see all the way into the office.
Slowly I started walking, Brian put his injured arm on my shoulder to let me know where he was. A few more steps and I could see in the office. No one was shooting so that felt like finally something to put in the win column.
I stepped into the doorway and scanned the room left to right. It looked clear so I stepped further in. Brian moved his right hand to my left shoulder and closed the door with his left hand. He didn’t move his hand from my shoulder or make a sound so I figured nothing was behind the door.

“I’m going to move to the left side and clear that side, you take the right.” He spoke softly in my ear.

I nodded and moved off to my right and carefully made my over to the far wall so I was not close to the desk but was able to see around it.  There was a pool of blood and three zombies. Two were not moving but one was still alive. It looked like its left knee had been blown apart. It noticed me and started to moan and crawl toward me. Suddenly its head was crushed under Brian’s bat. “Left side clear.”

“Sorry uhm yeah, right side clear.” Suddenly two shots came out of the bathroom door. Brian dropped to the floor and I slid into the side of the desk. “Why the fuck, are you shooting at us you stupid privileged piece of shit?”

“It’s your fault they got in here. And you want to take my stuff. Its mine, go find your own.” He whined through the door. “Did I get any of you?” he asked.

“No, you, stupid waste of skin.” I yelled back.

Four more shots came through the door and buried themselves into the far wall.

“Stop antagonizing the man with the gun.”

“I think he might be running out of bullets. Why don’t you crawl over to the left side of the door, I’ll piss him off so he will keep firing.  When you hear him run out, kick the door open and I’ll charge him.”

“That sounds like a stupid fucking plan to tell you the truth. And why do you think he may be running out of bullets? Do you know what kind of gun he is using or how many bullets he has?” Brian asked incredulously.

“I don’t know guns but I can read and there is an almost full box of bullets on the floor over here and a magazine. It says .45 ACP.” I showed him the magazine and box and ammo, it gave him a big grin.

“Okay, your plan has more merit. But if I take another bullet, I’m going to shoot you in the ass.” Brian said back. He then crawled his way slowly to the left side of the door. He nodded to me and slid to a standing position, careful to keep his body away from the door.

“Hey fucktard when you going to come out and give me a handy?” I taunted.

“Fuck you man. Why don’t you come over here and let me shoot you in the face?” he yelled back.

I grabbed a stapler from his desk and hefted it in my hand. Nice weight, must be loaded is the thought that went through my mind. “Fine asshole here I come, and be prepared cause I’m going to kick the shit out of you and take your stuff.” I stomped my feet then threw the stapler underhanded at the door. Before it rebounded to the floor the guy started firing off shots.

He got about four off before you could hear an empty clicking sound. Immediately, Brian stepped to his right lifting his big foot and kicked the door clear off its hinges which collided on top of the gunman who was squatting on the floor. I roared and took off running. When I hit where the doorway was, I launched myself into the air landing on top of the door. I saw the gun come up, reloaded with a fresh magazine and point toward me. Without thinking I reached out with my right hand and twisted the gun back with all my strength. I could hear and feel the man’s trigger finger crack and collapse from the gun. I threw the gun out of the bathroom and stayed sitting on the door bouncing it against the guy under it.