Zombies in Paradise (Love in the Age of Zombies Book 2)

by James K. Evans

  “Before you two men say another word, if you’re going to the school, I’m going with you. I’m not staying behind any more. I’m pregnant, not incapacitated!” Kevin glanced at Doc and saw him slightly nod his head in affirmation.

  “So after I haul off the bodies, I say the three of us should check out the school and then come home and pack. It’s going to be tough to decide what to take with us. I think we should leave for Frankfort as soon as we can. There’s no point in staying here when Michelle potentially needs medical attention and Frankfort definitely needs our help.” Kevin went on to remind them of what he’d seen while he was there: one doctor, overworked nurses, and a shortage of even marginally experienced health care workers.

  Doc and Michelle agreed, so while Kevin hauled off the bodies, Doc and Michelle tidied up after breakfast. Doc had only eaten half his food. Kevin returned a half-hour later and suggested they take the Jeep to the school.

  “How much gas do we have left?” Doc asked.

  “The tank’s a quarter full and I have two five-gallon gas cans left, plus the gas we siphoned from the boat. That makes twenty-five gallons. I had to refill the tank twice on the way up, so we should be able to get there on less than fifteen gallons, even allowing for unpredictable detours. I’d like to spare your leg today, and I think we have enough gasoline to rationalize it.”

  Doc was tempted to snap that he didn’t need to be babied, but his leg hurt, and the thought of a four mile round-trip hike was a bit daunting. So he nodded in agreement. They discussed emptying out the Jeep first so they could bring back any supplies they found, but after a short discussion agreed it would be pointless. Since they were planning to leave in the next day or two, there was no reason to stock up on supplies.

  They secured the trap door and locked the house, then clambered into the Jeep. Doc asked to ride in the back so he could prop up his leg, while Michelle insisted on getting behind the wheel. “After all, I’m the only one without experience with the Jeep,” she argued, “and there’s no telling when I may need to drive.” That seemed logical, so she drove while Kevin rode shotgun. Literally. He carried a shotgun in his lap while Doc had both a shotgun and his revolver in the back seat. They also had their axe and a couple of baseball bats. They hoped for a quiet trip but were prepared for the worst.

  Their worst fears were allayed when they saw very few zombies on the way to the school. Their diligence in eliminating many of them during the winter had paid off. Although zombies were once again migrating from all directions, their numbers were still low.

  Michelle didn’t say much as she drove. In truth, she was on alert for trouble but also appreciated the beauty of a Michigan spring. Of the three, she had barely been out of their neighborhood for the past eight months. The trees were budded out, many of the spring perennials were in full bloom, and the sound of songbirds filled the air. Life goes on, with zombies and with or without people, she thought both hopefully and sadly. Passing a house with a beautiful flowerbed of mixed-color tulips, All this beauty, and no one to appreciate it but me.

  The drive didn’t take long. On one block Michelle had her first experience driving the Jeep off-road, as a large oak tree had fallen across the road. She had to leave the road, drive across one front lawn and two back yards to detour around it. Again, she didn’t say much but, truth be told, she thought it was kind of fun. She was in a good mood, behind the wheel of a powerful machine, chaperoned with two companions, and Kevin’s baby inside her.

  Chapter thirty-nine

  They pulled into the parking lot of the school and Kevin directed her to circle the school. Kevin pointed out the discreet security cameras mounted on the building and in the parking lots. The three of them scrutinized the school for any signs of danger, but there was nothing to see. One zombie had found its way onto the athletic fields, but the only other movement they saw was from birds and squirrels.

  Michelle pulled the Jeep within five feet of the door Kevin had seen Don use, driving over the curb and past the flower bed with the empty flag pole standing mute. “I don’t know if this is a master key or if it only works on this door, but there’s no point in finding out right now,” Kevin said as he held the key in his hand, the chain encircling his wrist.

  They approached the door with the ubiquitous All Visitors Must Report to the Office! No Exceptions! sign posted at eye level. As they stood looking at the door, Michelle handed Kevin the baseball bat she carried and placed her hand on the stock of the gun in his hands. He rolled his eyes and reluctantly surrendered the gun. Doc stifled a smirk. They knew Kevin was pretty inept with a gun.

  “Be on your guard,” Kevin warned. “We don’t know what we’ll find in there.”

  “You have an amazing grasp of the obvious,” Doc grumbled, then began coughing. Kevin unlocked the door and pulled it open. They peered inside as Doc shone a flashlight over the walls and down the corridor. It was dim and quiet. It looked for all intents and purposes like a school during an unusual fall vacation. The cinder-block hall in front of them was empty. A bulletin board near the door was decorated with autumn decorations, Harvest Time in Michigan! spelled across the top. Pictures of apples, grapes, pears and other local fruit gathered around a friendly looking scarecrow.

  They stepped into the hallway and cautiously entered the school. They carefully checked the first few classroom doors, but they were all locked. Kevin used his key (it turned out to be a master key after all) to open a few doors, but after seeing nothing but empty desks, silent chalkboards, and a few lifeless computerized Smartboards, they soon quit bothering to do more than check the doorknobs to ensure the classrooms were locked.

  True to his word, Don had done his job until the end. He had dust mopped the halls, so there was little dust on the dim floor and no footprints. As they came to the first intersection, they noticed a plaque on the corner. CAFETERIA, it said with an arrow pointing left. Underneath that was GYMNASIUM with an arrow pointing right. Beneath that were the words OFFICE STRAIGHT AHEAD.

  “I doubt he’d have much reason to spend time in the office,” Kevin suggested in a whisper, “let’s check out the cafeteria. That’s where the food and kitchen will be. Or we could split up, and each of us could check a different area.”

  Michelle glared at Kevin and smacked his arm. “Doofus. Like I’m going anywhere without you guys. It’s spooky in here!”

  “I don’t recommend splitting up either,” Doc replied quietly. “We just have one flashlight and besides, there’s safety in numbers.” He didn’t tell them that he suddenly wasn’t feeling so well. He wondered if his leg was getting infected.

  “It was just a thought!” Kevin protested.

  “Doofus,” Michelle mumbled again. Without another word they entered the dark hall. Doc’s flashlight was bright, but it wasn’t as if the lights were on. The light reflecting off the various surfaces caused some eerie shadows to play on their imagination. But despite their wariness, they moved quickly and quietly down the hall, checking each door. Doc walked with a barely perceptible limp.

  Kevin was momentarily surprised when he checked one classroom door and the knob turned. “Psst!” he hissed. “Over here!” Doc and Michelle gathered around him, and Doc shined the flashlight through the glass window running down one side of the door. This room, like the rest, was empty of occupants, but there were no desks. Instead there was a collection of what looked like odds and ends from a garage sale. Seeing no movement from inside, Kevin slowly opened the door and they cautiously entered.

  The room smelled like a dog. Light from an overcast sky filtered in through the bank of windows. “Look at the windows,” Doc murmured. What Michelle had at first glance assumed were brightly colored glass vases silhouetted against the windows turned out to be a variety of phallic sex toys.

  Eww! Michelle thought. At the base of the windows was a mattress, some blankets, a double dog dish with food and water, and stacks of magazines. Closer inspection showed them to be porn magazines.

  Leanin
g against one untidy stack of magazines was a framed 8”x10” portrait of a woman’s face. It looked to be a standard school portrait. The woman was perhaps in her mid-thirties, with auburn hair about the same color as Michelle’s, but a shade lighter. Kevin looked at the photo, then at Michelle, and back to the photo. “She bears a passing resemblance to you,” he said.

  Doc shone his flashlight around the rest of the room. One corner was heaped with book bags. Kevin noticed a few Hello Kitty bags mixed in with various Star Wars and Marvel comic characters. There was also a pile of stuffed animals, their garish colors and nearly manic yet vapid smiles giving Kevin the willies. He never did like stuffed animals.

  One entire wall was filled with cabinets, interrupted only by a small sink. Doc flashed the light into the sink then moved on, but quickly moved the light back to the sink. At the bottom of the dry sink was a discarded piece of cloth. It had dark stains. “Looks like blood,” Doc commented. The room suddenly felt darker and more dangerous.

  Once they had made a cursory examination of the room, they went back into the hallway. After passing a few more classrooms, they came across the wide doors to the cafeteria. Like the classrooms they’d looked at, the lunchroom was neat and orderly. The floor was swept, the chairs pushed neatly against the long rows of tables, evenly spaced. They passed the serving area and into the kitchen proper. There they found a treasure trove.

  Shelf after shelf was stocked with non-perishable food. Regular and institutional-size cans of vegetables. Legumes of all types. Tomatoes, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes. Dozens of varieties of soup. Industrial-size cans of nacho cheese sauce. Canned chicken, tuna, ham. Cake mixes. Canned fruit. Dehydrated potatoes, carrots, and jerky. Soft drinks. Box after box of ramen noodles. Pasta. Spaghetti sauce. Ketchup, mustard, pickles. Flour, sugar, salt, spices. Cereal, potato chips, candy bars. It was like being in a grocery store.

  A number of sealed Rubbermaid containers were stacked against the wall. Kevin glanced inside one, then resealed the lid. “Dog food.”

  Doc let out a low whistle. “Looks like he was a busy boy. Other than the big cans, this stuff was probably scavenged from houses.” Industrial-size pots, pans, and cookware of all types and sizes had been thrown into one corner, perhaps to make room for more canned goods. There were also several large sinks and a professional-quality dishwasher. Next to the dishwasher were neatly stacked rows of lunch trays. The stainless steel freezers and refrigerators stood silent, and none of them felt like opening their doors to see what rotted foodstuffs were inside.

  “You know,” said Kevin, eying the supplies, “If we weren’t planning on leaving, I’d consider moving in here. It’s secure, has plenty of space, and if the perimeter were fenced off, the land around the school could grow crops to feed hundreds of people! If we had access to more solar panels, they could easily be installed on the roof! We could activate the security cameras I noticed outside, have a security team . . . this place is nearly ideal! We could even have a hydroponic garden in the courtyard!”

  “Let’s leave those plans for another day, please,” Michelle suggested. “I want to finish up and go home. Something about this place creeps me out. I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “Hah! That’s what Han Solo said when they were approaching the Death Star,” Kevin laughed. “Remember?!”

  “Kevin, Star Wars came out the year I was born. I don’t know it line-by- line like you sci-fi geeks.”

  “And I was just starting my practice. Star Wars wasn’t even a blip on my radar. Even so, always trust a woman’s intuition. Let’s move on,” Doc said, trying to squelch his nausea.

  “Trust the Force, Luke!” Kevin said under his breath. They ignored him. “Let’s check the gymnasium.”

  Gymnasium . . . didn’t that crazy guy who attacked me say something about the gymnasium? Michelle thought. As they left the cafeteria and headed back the way they’d come, she tried to recall . . . then it came to her. It was when she tried to tell him he was confused. “Guys, I don’t know if it means anything or not, but when that man attacked me, he kept calling me Ms. Tracy. When I told him he was confusing me with someone else, he called me a liar. He said liars go to Hell or to the gymnasium.”

  “How is a gymnasium like Hell?” Kevin mused. “Back when I was in high school and was being picked last for basketball, gym class felt like Hell, but what could he have meant by it?”

  They reached an intersection and continued straight. As they proceeded quietly down the hall, Michelle suddenly stopped. “Wait! Listen . . . ” They stopped in their tracks.

  “I don’t—” Kevin began.

  “Shh!” The three of them stood still.

  “I hear it now,” said Kevin, hearing a low rasping, buzzing sound. “It’s coming from straight ahead. What is it? It doesn’t sound like any kind of machine . . . or insects . . . ” They continued on even more cautiously. Doc pointed the flashlight straight ahead. Soon the flashlight dimly revealed a set of double doors at the end of the corridor.

  “The gymnasium, I expect.” Doc murmured. The closer they moved, the louder the sound became. “I hear it now. These old ears don’t work as well as yours.”

  They approached the double doors nervously. By the time they got close enough to touch them, they were even more confused by the sound. It sounded like the low murmur of a large group of people, and yet . . . not like that at all. As if the voices were distorted somehow. Doc shined the flashlight through the glass plate on the door, but all they could see was an eight- or ten-foot cinder-block foyer. At the end of the foyer was a set of doors. A door was centered in each of the walls leading to the gym, one labeled Gym Coach, the opposite door marked Equipment. As Doc’s flashlight played over the small corridor, Kevin checked the latches on the doors. They were both locked. He tried his key; it fit.

  “Now what?” he asked. “Should we go in?”

  “Let’s not be hasty,” Doc suggested. “Let’s look around.” Doc used the flashlight to illuminate the walls and corridors around them. He stopped when the light revealed a small floorplan mounted to the wall. “It’s a map of the fire escape routes,” he announced. A small You Are Here dot indicated their position.

  “Look, it shows a stairwell leading to the gym balcony,” Michelle pointed out.

  “Wouldn’t they have bleachers? Why a balcony?”

  “This is an elementary school, not a high school. I doubt they had a lot of sports competitions in a gym this small. From what I see on the floor plan, there’s no access to the balcony from inside the gym. Let’s check it out.”

  The map guided them to the stairwell. Above the single door was a plaque reading Gymnasium Balcony. Kevin tried the door. It was unlocked. He pulled it open and the three of them looked at each other, bewildered. The stench wafting through the door was exceeded only by the increased volume of the buzzing sound and high pitched rasping.

  “That almost sounds like—”

  “Zombies,” Michelle said, eyes wide with horror. “Zombie children.”

  “Many zombie children,” Doc chimed in, feeling sicker by the minute. Kevin pulled the door open and they looked into the dim stairwell. The odor was so strong Doc began to gag. Together they walked through the open door.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  James is a writer and graphic designer who spends much of his time engaged in his favorite hobbies; photography, singing bass in several choral groups, hydroponic gardening, brewing and drinking beer, and perfecting his Zombie Blood hot sauce (“Reanimate Your Taste Buds”). He lives in Athens, Georgia, with his wife, Gretchen.

  For news about the continuing saga of Love in the Age of Zombies, including bonus material and information about the finale, Zombie Destruction, scheduled for release in October, 2016, join the author on www.jameskevans.com.

 

 

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