by James Barton
Cole broke free of his stupor and ran to the control panel in the room. Where the console had been, now was a fragmented pile of computer parts. He scanned the room, looking at the other hardware. All the computers had been smashed as well. Without a way to send a new command, the pumps would run until they overheated, or something broke on a mechanical level.
Cole realized that he was currently the butt of an epic, state-wide joke. The apocalypse had begun and he somehow missed the memo and continued to show up for work. Regardless of the irony, he knew that if he didn’t stop the water flow, people would soon be drinking parts of a former person. He looked around, noticing that in addition to the severe damage done to the electronics, even some of the valves had been broken. As he surveyed the area for a way to shut everything down, a figure caught his attention.
He tightened his grip on the crowbar as a woman stepped out from one of the small interior offices. She swayed gently for a second and began sniffing at the air. She wore a green blouse and a long green dress bottom. The well-dressed middle-aged woman looked incredibly out of place in an industrial facility. In her hand she limply gripped a ballpeen hammer.
“What have you done? Why the hell have you broken the computers?” Cole shouted angrily.
She twisted her head toward him and a grin stretched across the right side of her mouth. She sniffed loudly once and grunted. “Wah-tur,” she spoke in a hoarse tone.
On the outside, she looked human, but her mannerisms and words were all so alien. She was clearly a monster, draped in human skin.
Cole took one step forward, gripping the crowbar tightly. He had never hit anyone, not a woman, well … at least not with a crowbar, but at this moment, he felt that he had no other options. Kill the monster, shut down the power, then get the hell out of here. That was the plan at least. As he took his third step toward her, a small train of zombies poured out from the office. Sunken dead eyes and grasping hands; it wasn’t an image he could confuse. They pushed and stumbled around her. Her green blouse slowly disappeared as a small horde of people rushed for Cole. Some of these people were still in their uniforms.
A door stood on each side of Cole. It was almost as if the world had given him two clear choices. On the left, the exit door, and on the right, a door that led deep into a maintenance hallway. Cole pivoted for a second, contemplating his options. “Fuck this,” he mumbled. Cole started for the left door, the exit.
The pipes in the control room made a hearty hum as hundreds of gallons of water rushed by. He was suddenly overtaken by a vision of his daughter. She was filling a glass of water and adding drops of pink lemonade mix from a small dropper. It was almost the only thing she drank other than a big 2-liter soda on pizza night. Cole glanced down at the tank and a fist-sized gob of flesh came loose from the creature. It jiggled as it was pulled into the grate.
Cole tilted his head to both sides, letting out an audible crack. “So, it’s going to be one of those days,” he mumbled to himself.
One of the zombies rushed ahead of the crowd. It stumbled and nearly fell on him, but before it could reach him, Cole brought the crowbar down in a two-handed swing that sent blood all over his blue work shirt. He wasted no time and dashed into the right doorway.
Cole quickly shuffled down a dimly lit hallway that was barely wide enough for him to walk comfortably. At the end of the hallway, a single floodlight illuminated the electrical panel. He stepped up to it and examined it, trying not to look behind him. A small lock hung from the handle. Without thinking he swatted at it with the crowbar. The lock remained unbroken, but the entire handle came dislodged and fell to the ground with a metallic plink. The sound of flowing water could be heard gently humming through the pipes that crisscrossed the ceiling. He reached out and grabbed the main power breaker with a trembling hand. He could hear footsteps echoing down the hallway. The hallway was so terribly narrow, for a moment he could have sworn the walls were slowly closing in on him. Cole winced when he realized that turning the power off would kill all the lights, leaving him in darkness, alone with these advancing creatures. He took a deep breath.
Through the maddening drumbeat of many approaching footsteps, the bloused woman yelled out.
“Stahp!”
Cole turned. He kept his finger on the switch, but something made him pause.
Other zombies seemed to file in behind her and they tried to shuffle past her, but she blocked them in the narrow passageway. She moved her mouth, but, at first, no sound came out as her lips and tongue behaved like those of a person drugged from the dentist.
Then, “Penn … lez,” she grunted.
Cole blinked hard. “What?”
“Pannlez”
Cole tried to understand.
“Painless?” he asked.
The bloused woman smiled and extended her arms. It wasn’t immediately apparent what she was showing him, but he soon noticed that unlike the other zombies, she wasn’t bloody. She didn’t have any wounds … no bites. She had been turned without a bite or scratch. Had she drunk the water, maybe from a different place? Were other plants being targeted? It would be impossible for him to find the answers.
“Painless or not, this stops now,” he said. Part of him felt stupid for even trying to communicate with her.
It felt like minutes passed between each struggled word, but the bloused woman spoke one last time. “I’ll … torn … beck … on,” she smiled and pinched at the air.
If he died in that hallway, being eaten alive in the dark, she could restore power. Cole couldn’t remember if the pumps would then revert to the ON or OFF position. Cole wasn’t a hero, he honestly would have left the building, allowing others to become infected; if it hadn’t been for his daughter. His daughter though, she was someone he couldn’t fail … not anymore.
“Guess I’ll just have to take a page from your book,” he said. She tilted her head, not quite understanding him. Bold words from a man like Cole, but inside he was shaking. He never asked for this responsibility.
Cole flipped the master power switch and it made an unsatisfying click. The sounds of the pipes went silent as he was consumed by darkness. The woman at the other side of the hallway let out an inhuman wail.
“This is for you, baby girl,” he whispered as he brought the metal crowbar crashing into the electrical panel. A single flicker of light flashed in the gloom before Cole descended into his own final darkness.
Ryan walked over to the stainless-steel sink and filled up his drinking glass. The faucet filled the glass halfway and then sputtered and coughed up its last few drops. He looked at the glass, disappointed.
“Ryan, what’s wrong?”
“Water’s out. Oh, don’t worry, I’ll share.”
How the Cornbread Crumbles
The infestation had traveled a long way. Even with its rather inconsistent and sometimes chaotic modes of delivery, it seemed that when push came to shove, most people were not equipped for the situation. Too many people made poor choices, the kind of choices you scream at when watching the protagonist of a bad horror movie. Too many people held onto loved ones just a minute too long. Too many people hid their wounds, just to cling to life for a few more minutes. Some people had spent their whole lives wasting time; now they would give anything for just one more minute.
Small groups of survivors quickly took shelter in places they thought would be safe. Restaurants, stores and homes, but sometimes the safest places made the biggest targets.
“We should have never let him in here in the first place,” David said.
“He is trying to help; can’t you see that?” Kayla replied over the sound of gunfire.
David winced at the sound, but did not turn to the shooter. He ran a hand through his combed-back brown hair nervously. “Help? He brought twenty of them right on top of our heads!”
“Two by the blue car!” Russel, a younger man in a black T-shirt, shouted to the shooter.
“On it,” the man responded before pulling the trigger on a
n old hunting rifle with a large black scope. Each shot echoed hard against the fake log-cabin wallpaper.
“You act like you have some sort of claim to this place. I’m the one that opened the door in the first place,” Kayla responded from behind the cash register. She was an attractive woman in her early twenties. Her hair was jet black with thick streaks of gold. Her face hid behind bangs and dark gothic-inspired makeup. She still wore her work outfit, a green collared shirt with the words “Smith and Fields” written across it.
Kayla had shown up to work the day of broadcast. Everyone had left without a word, even management decided it wasn’t worth hanging around. Kayla had just broken up with her girlfriend and had been staying at the motel across the street until she could find her own place. She did the math and decided if this whole thing really was going to be the end of the world, that shacking up in a restaurant wasn’t such a bad idea. Over the next few days, she had let in the least violent-looking individuals. She never regretted her decision.
“You have to admit we would be safer leaving him out there,” David said.
“Would I have been safer if I left you out there?” Kayla folded her hands in front of her, but winced once more at the sound of gunshots.
When, finally, the echoes of the last shot faded into the morning air, all that remained was a faint ringing in everyone’s ears. Russel, the man that had been helping the shooter, walked over to the two arguing.
“I’m just glad someone finally has a gun,” Russel said.
“Russ, no one has ever attacked us. If we go waving that rifle around, people are then going to have a reason to attack us,” David said.
“Are you fucking stupid?” Russel said, offended. “When people get hungry enough, they will come kick that door in. No amount of nice words will stop that.”
“Fuck you Russ, you know that’s not what I meant.”
“I really don’t know what you meant, to be honest. It just seems like a bad time to complain about having guns when my old neighbors are trying to eat us!”
“Sorry, guys, one more,” the shooter said.
As promised, there was one more shot and the room itself seemed to be ringing.
“I really am sorry that I brought that to your front door,” the shooter said. “I haven’t had a chance to introduce myself. I’m Ian, and this weapon couldn’t be in safer hands,” he said while ejecting the chambered shell casing.
“I’m not trying to be cruel,” David began. “It’s just that the food here is limited, and now we have another mouth to feed. The more people come inside, the sooner we will run out of food. Then, hell, I don’t know what we’ll do.”
“I hate to break it to you, but the amount of food isn’t going to be the issue. People will come for it before you run out. They won’t ask nicely,” Ian said.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. When that time comes, you’ll be glad I’m here. If everyone wants me gone, then I can leave after things settle down out there.”
David’s face lit up slightly, but as he scanned the others’ faces, he realized that his opinion was the minority.
“Where did you learn to shoot like that?” Russel asked excitedly.
Russel looked like he was in the military. He had the customary short haircut, was clean shaven, and even wore camo printed pants. To people like Ian though, he reeked of pretend soldier. Endearing sometimes, grossly offensive other times, and Ian hadn’t decided which category Russel fell into yet.
“War,” Ian replied simply.
“Oh, yeah, of course. Y’know I was going to join after I got my GED. I mean, that was before all this shit happened. I wanted to go Marines; is that what you are?”
“What I am now, is retired. I’m sorry, is there a bathroom here?”
“Back to your right, but the water is out. So, if it’s a solid, you gotta force-flush it with one of the buckets of rainwater in there … you’ll figure it out,” Kayla said pointing to the sign that read Little Piggies Room.
Ian left the group and entered the bathroom, his duffel bag still hung over one shoulder, his rifle in his hands.
“We need to talk about this,” David whispered.
“There is nothing to talk about,” Russel said. “He’s staying with us.”
“Of course, you love him, you’re the token wannabe soldier townie,” David said.
“Whoa, whoa, David. Trim those claws,” Kayla said. “Look, as much as you might disagree with him, he’s right. The food won’t matter if people come at us with guns. Just think of it as protection money.”
“Isn’t protection money normally just extortion?” David said and rolled his eyes.
“Well you know what I meant. Let’s just settle it with a vote. Raise your hand if you want Ian to stay.”
Ian stayed.
Kayla and David had gone through the supplies and tried to get everything sorted. The tragedy of being a barbeque restaurant was that very few items remained after the electricity went down. After the freezers lost power, it didn’t take long for the pork to sour. Kayla had thrown the rancid meat out the back, and to her surprise, no zombie gave it a second glance. The gas stove still functioned and Kayla was able to throw together dinners made almost entirely of sides. Cornbread, peanuts, vegetables, fruit cups, and biscuits were just a few of the items that survived.
“… And the last step of course, is to open the packs of butter,” Kayla said as everyone watched her put the finishing touches on dinner.
The four sat around the circular table, with a single camping lantern in the center.
“Thank you, Kayla,” Ian said.
“Don’t get used to it, I’m off duty. I taught you guys, so now we can take turns. Trust me, I’m not mothering you all,” she said and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Kayla fussed, but in truth she had enjoyed making dinner, it reminded her of when she made her little brothers mac n’ cheese while her mom worked late. The thought made her turn away and frown as she tried to push away worries about her family. Best not to think about it now.
“Fair enough,” David said. “I think we should all give thanks. We are lucky to be here.”
“Can we not do the whole religion thing today?” Kayla objected.
“It doesn’t have to be religious. I’m just thankful I found you guys. That we have shelter, food, and yes, even protection,” he said and nodded to Ian. “I’m glad you joined us.”
“Amen,” Russel and Ian chimed in.
“Guess I can’t argue with that. Now, let’s not get sappy and just eat,” she said through a mouthful of cornbread.
So, they did.
A few days passed and the residents of the Smith and Fields restaurant managed to keep it civil. Russel followed Ian like a lost puppy as he rigged some basic defenses. Kayla and David amused themselves by coloring on the menus. They talked about their lives before the collapse and just generally tried to stay amused with no electricity and a bunch of dead phones. The previous day they even managed to find a can of spray paint and made a banner, “Retired Sniper” to warn any would-be attackers. It wasn’t the perfect group, but, all things considered, what family was?
Late that afternoon, Ian was in charge of heating up and serving a mountain of carbs.
“Anyone have a good survivor story?” Ian asked.
“David does,” Kayla said, nudging him lightly.
“It isn’t really a good story. I was just in the Medina hospital, visiting my … friend. Suddenly, everything went to hell. This was such a new thing; you couldn’t tell who was infected and who wasn’t. Some of them didn’t even look bit. I escaped out of the back fire exit, with a whole crowd of panicked people before it swept through the entire building. I just got in my car and drove. It still gives me the willies to think how close I came to buying it right there,” David explained.
“You know, someone once told me that if this shit ever happened, the most important people would be doctors and soldiers, y’know,” Russel butted in with s
omething entirely unrelated.
“Uh huh,” Ian said as he peered out the window. He seemed distracted.
“Man, I don’t know though. We need like a class clown, like an entertainer. I’m losing my mind from boredom. Someone who could like, act out a show or tell jokes.”
“A jester?” Ian asked.
“Nah, more like someone who just like, amuses us to provide entertainment.”
Ian was older, but he couldn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes like a moody teen.
“Hey man, have you ever used a flamethrower?” Russel asked.
“Shut up a second,” Ian hushed him and pointed.
A man limped around the corner, as he entered the parking lot, he began to scream for help.
“Someone please let me in. My vehicle went off the road and now I’m being chased by the dead.”
The others stood and began to peer through the covered window.
“Russel, go watch the back door. Don’t let anyone in,” Ian commanded.
“What is going …”
“Go now, please.”
“Is he hurt, should we let him in?” Kayla whispered.
“He could be bitten,” David responded.
“It’s not bites, he was in an accident. I heard him say that,” Kayla chimed in.
“Please!” the man cried. “Please let me in before they catch up to me. I don’t want anything; I just need a place to hide.”
“What do we do?” Kayla asked as the man began to beat on their door, which, thankfully, was now boarded up.
“It’s a trap,” Ian said calmly and picked the rifle off the floor. He began scanning the area and periodically looking through his scope.
“Please, someone! Please!” the man screamed louder this time.
“We have to let him in,” Kayla said.
“There is a zombie coming for him,” David said, pointing.
“I’m letting him in,” Kayla said and began moving toward the door.
“I’ve got you in my sights, son,” Ian shouted through the slightly cracked window.
