Shambling With The Stars

by Jesse Petersen

  “I noticed he swiped pretty near to you,” she continued. “I’m sure you would have said something, but I wouldn’t be very smart if I didn’t ask you if he, er, you know…touched you.”

  Sven stared at her for a long, heavy moment. “Are you fucking accusing me of being one of those freaks outside?” he finally asked, his voice elevating.

  Avery looked at the others. All of them were staring at them now, which was no good. Hysteria wasn’t going to help.

  “Chill, man,” she soothed, purposefully dropping her own tone. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I just need to be sure we don’t have situation here…you know, trapped in the control room with no way out.”

  “You know if you actually think that I got scratched by that thing that what you’re really saying is that I’m a zombie. And if I’m a zombie then the CDC says that all you can do is kill me.” He shifted again, closer to Avery this time. “You want to kill me, Avery? Is this because I asked for a raise last month?”

  Avery shook her head. “You think I want to kill you over a raise? I’d have to kill everyone on staff for that, Sven. Hell, I asked for a raise last month! C’mon man. I’m just—”

  “What’s going on?” Reece asked, storming over. “Did I hear you saying that Sven is a zombie?”

  Avery turned on him with a scowl. “Not helping, Reece. I never said anyone was an anything. I’m just trying to make sure Sven wasn’t scratched during the attack from the zombie who took Donna.”

  Sven folded his arms. “Then why don’t you ask Reece? Or your buddy Kyle? The two of them were at the door, too. They went head-to-head with The Sexiest Zombie Alive, too, you know.”

  Avery squeezed her eyes shut and tried to tap into all her resources she used when dealing with diva stars. “Okay, that’s fair. Kyle, will you show me you weren’t touched by…well, I can hardly call him Chase anymore.”

  Kyle shrugged out of his jacket and unbuttoned each sleeve in turn to reveal hands clear of any injury or bloodstain. “Happy?”

  “Okay and you Reece?” she asked.

  Everyone turned on him as Reece rolled up his sweatshirt sleeves and showed clean wrists and hands, as well as forearms.

  “See, everyone else just did it.” Avery looked at Sven. He was sweating profusely. “Please.”

  He reached up and combed his finger">Avery ugh his hair. In the process his shirt pulled away from his hands and Avery saw the one thing she’d been hoping she wouldn’t. A scratch. Thin and red rimmed with blood that was already crusting a little bit black.

  “I see it!” Jenny screeched as she backed away, tripping over the chairs in her way and staggering against the soundproofed wall. “I see the cut! You were cut! That doctor said you can turn into one of those things from a cut.”

  “No,” Sven said, shaking his head hard. “No, this is from before. I cut myself at home. This isn’t from tonight.”

  “No way,” Kyle said, “That’s fresh.”

  “Yeah,” Reece agreed, stepping forward with menace. “You asshole, you should have told us.”

  Once more, Avery gathered up her “I’m the leader of this group” strength and inserted herself between the men. “Okay, okay. Let’s all calm down. Sven just got cut, but eventually he would have told us.” She gave the shaking, sweating man a meaningful look. “Wouldn’t you?”

  He hesitated for long enough that everyone knew he wouldn’t have, but then nodded. “Yeah. I would have told you. I was just freaking out.”

  “We have to kill it!” Reece snapped as he grabbed for one of the rolling chairs in front of the control equipment and raised it over his head. “That doctor said one scratch and it’s over!”

  Avery raised up her hands and kept Reece from swinging down at Sven’s trembling form. “He also said top men are working on a cure! We’re not killing anything.” She glanced at Sven. God damn but he was sweaty. “Not yet. Let’s just try to figure out what to do.”

  “I worked on a zombie movie last year,” Jenny sobbed. “You can’t cure it! You have to kill anyone infected or they’ll turn on you.”

  Avery rolled her eyes. “If we go by Hollywood rules, then Denise Richards is a rocket scientist and some guy who is five foot two is a supersecret agent. Let’s get real here.”

  “Yeah.” Sven said. “The stuff she just said. Let’s not get all killy.”

  “Look at the screen behind you,” Reece said, motioning to the carnage that was playing out both on the internal screens and the ones from the outside world. “Do you want to take a chance that Sven will end up like Blake and we’ll end up like the panel of superstars who are now bleeding all over the floor or busily trying to eat anyone who’s still alive?”

  Avery hesitated. “No, of course not. But you’re talking about beating someone to death with an office chair. I mean, that’s just crazy talk.”

  Reece’s eyes went seriously wide and he motioned to the monitors that showed the zombies out on the set. “Really? Crazy talk, Avery? Are you seeing this? Are you seeing two Emmy winners eat the scant remains of our gaffer?”

  Avery blinked as she looked at just that. She couldn’t help but wince. “Poor Ricky,” she whispered.

  “Poor all of us,” Kyle choked, turning his face as he turned a strange shade of greenish gray himself.

  “We’ll all end up like that if we don’t do something about Sven now,” Reece said.

  “Either we have to kill him or we have to let him out into the hallway with his zombie friends,” Jenny said, staring at the graphics guy with nothingness in her eyes.

  Avery rubbed her face. “Jenny, you liked Sven at some point, right? Didn’t you tell me you thought he was cute?”

  Jenny’s face turned toward her swiftly and hot red filled her cheeks. “Y-yes.”

  Sven stared. “Really?”

  Jenny nodded. “Yeah, but that was before you were going to want to eat my brains. That’s not cute.”

  “Well, shit,” Sven muttered. “That sucks even more.”

  “Why don’t we tie him up?” Kyle asked.

  Everyone turned to look at him, including Avery, and she grinned. Trust the best assistant ever to come up with a good idea. Now she just had to flesh it out (and take credit for it later. What? It’s Hollywood.)

  “Yes!” she burst out. “That would be perfect. We can protect ourselves just in case Sven does turn into…whatever. But we can save him for when the CDC gets here and they can give him a cure or something.” She looked around the group. “Is that okay with everyone?”

  After a moment’s consideration, everyone except for Sven nodded. He folded his arms with a grunt. “It’s not okay with me!”

  She glared at him. “Tied up or someone bludgeons you with a chair. Which one?”

  He sighed. “Um, tied up please.”

  “Good.” She looked around. “Okay, you sit in my control chair, it’s the most comfortable. Kyle, will you get some of those coaxial cables? They’re really strong and honestly, we don’t need to hear the zombies eating the people outside, right?”

  Kyle was already moving before anyone could answer. Sven took his place and gripped his hands around each arm rest. He looked up at her. “Actually, this is pretty comfortable.”

  “Yeah, being director has its perks.”

  Avery watched as Kyle yanked cords from the audio equipment and dragged it over to the chair. Without speaking he and Reece started tying Sven’s wrists to the arms of the chair. Once his hands were secure, Reece wrapped a cord around him three or four times and then tightened a knot at his back.

  “Okay?” Avery asked. “Comfortable?”

  Sven’s eyes went wide. “Really, Avery?”

  She shrugged. “Sorry. How do you feel?”

  “Like I’m tied to a chair.” He leaned back and closed his eyes. “Let’s just let it go, okay?”

  Avery sighed and motioned everyone away. “Okay, let’s leave him alone and see if we can figure out anything else we can do.”

  With rel
uctance, the group moved toward the door.

  “Could we listen and see if those things are out there?” Jenny asked.

  Reece’s brow wrinkled. “Soundproofing, remember. We can’t hear them out there any more than they can ombies s in here.”

  “Then maybe they forgot about us,” Jenny said and Avery saw the desperation in her eyes. She was close to cracking, not that Avery could blame her. She was due for a hysterical cry herself, she was just saving it for later.

  “I’m not going to open the door to find out,” Kyle said. “Look, Avery is right. All we can do is just wait this out.”

  He looked like he was going to say more, but before he could Sven let out a low, moaning cry. Everyone pivoted to stare at their…well, Avery guessed the cops would call him a hostage if they saw him right now. Sven was still in the chair, but he was twisting painfully, his eyes squeezed shut as he shuddered uncontrollably.

  “Does he have seizures?” Avery cried as she moved toward him. Kyle reached out and caught her wrist, dragging her back sharply and sending a twinge of pain through her arm.

  “He’s…he’s changing,” he whispered.

  She shut up, stopped moving, and watched. Of course her friend was right. When Sven opened his eyes, they were rimmed red and empty except for an increasing blood lust. He strained against the cables holding him to the chair and grunted and groaned.

  “Oh shit,” Reece said as he staggered away, all his earlier “kill the beast” bravado gone in the face of very real terror.

  “Don’t panic, he’s tied to the chair,” Avery said, even as she backed closer to Kyle. “So he’s not going anywhere, right? I mean, he can’t break through those things, can he?”

  “Don’t they get strong?” Jenny sobbed. “Didn’t someone say they get strong?”

  “Shit, I don’t know.” Avery moved forward, keeping her eyes on Sven. “I’ve got the CDC fact sheet on my table.”

  She winced as she crept closer to Sven. He hissed and black sludge sprayed from his mouth into a pool on the floor.

  “Oh, ew!” Avery squealed and half-sprinted around their zombie friend to the table behind him. She snatched up the fact sheet that her researchers had compiled for the broadcast and then scurried back to the door and the others.

  She scanned the sheet as best she could while still keeping an eye on the thrashing monster tied to the chair.

  “Um, bitten or scratched…” she murmured out loud. “…violent tendencies…red eyes…”

  “Yes, yes, we see all that!” Jenny said with impatience. “What about strength?”

  Avery scanned further. “The infected victim may exhibit signs of increased…” she was about to finish her sentence when Sven let out a roar and thrust his arms forward. The coaxial cords burst and the violent movement flipped the rolling chair backwards. “…strength.”

  “Shit!” Kyle yelped and moved for the door where Reece was already clawing to get out.

  Sven burst to his feet with another growl and then walked toward them, flat-footed and slow just like the movies. Huh, maybe Jenny was on to something with her comparison after all.

  Reece finally got the door open, but Avery screamed because there was no way out. The stupid zombies outsidewere still there, just waiting in a disorganized mob. As soon as the door opened, they roared in unison and started forward.

  “Close it!” Avery screamed.

  Kyle hit the door with all his weight and got it slammed shut but not before a few of the zombies got their hands into the space. The door shut and fingertips rained down on the black carpet. With a gurgle, Jenny turned and puked in the corner.

  “Oh great,” Avery moaned. “Puke, blood, some kind of…sludge or whatever. And Sven is lumbering toward you!”

  She grabbed for one of the chairs and swung it up above her head and then flung it toward the zombie as hard as she could. It hit his shoulder (which Avery was particularly proud of since any kind of throwing-related sports had never quite been her forte in school) and he groaned halfheartedly as he staggered head over heels to the floor in front of Kyle and Reece.

  Reece let out a primal sort of man-scream and then soccer kicked Sven right in the temple. The freshly minted zombie grumbled as part of his skull collapsed, but that didn’t seem to be enough for Reece. He swung back to kick again, but there was clearly some I want to live function (or maybe it was just, I want to remain undead, thanks) in what was left of Sven’s mangled, fevered brain because he caught Reece’s foot just before it connected and pulled it none-too-gently into his mouth.

  As Sven’s teeth crunched into Reece’s shoe, Reece let out a roar. Avery was kind of hoping it was a sound of surprise or fear, but almost immediately, blood began to leak around Sven’s lips, dripping from the fresh wound in Reece’s foot.

  “Zombies!” Jenny squealed. “They’re all zombies! We’re all going to be zombies!!”

  She rushed forward and Avery stared despite herself. What was Jenny doing grabbing for the heavy cord that fed power to the main switchboard in the control room? There didn’t seem to be any purpose to…

  Without warning Jenny pulled her keys from her pocket, flipped open a tiny pocket knife on her key ring and cut the heavy wire. The shock of electricity immediately arced through her body, making her back arch and her teeth smash together as her long dark ponytail stood straight up on her head.

  “Damn!” Kyle breathed and even Sven the zombie and Reece the soon-to-be zombie stared in disbelief at the human firework that was once Jenny. Katy Perry would have been proud. That was until the power surge triggered an outage and Jenny collapsed forward, slumping over the now-dark control panel with a few last twitches.

  Immediately, Sven, who had been mesmerized by the light show, returned his attention to Reece, digging his fingers deeper into Reece’s leg and biting his ankle. Reece bellowed out pain and terror a second time and then kicked Sven in the head with his free leg, bashing against the part of his skull that was already collapsed until Sven let out a whimper and his head dropped down in a pool of gooey brains, blood, and leaky black sludge.

  For a moment, just a brief moment, the room was silent except for the panting breaths of those still alive and the occasional snap of whatever residual electricity was left in Jenny’s cord. Then Reece slowly sunk down to the floor next to the corpse that had once been Sven. He wrapped his arms around his knees, put his head down against them, and started sobbing.

  eight="0em" width="1em">The sad wail woke Kyle from his fog first and he crouched down next to Reece and put an arm around him. “It’s okay,” he soothed quietly.

  “No, it’s not,” Reece whimpered. “I just got bitten. I’m done. I’m cooked. I’m a zombie, my body just hasn’t figured it out yet.”

  Kyle opened his mouth to say something, but quickly shut it again as he shot Avery a look. There wasn’t any answer to that claim…Reece was right, after all.

  Avery rubbed her eyes and sucked in a long breath through her nose. Then she sniffed again. There was an acrid, smoky scent in the air that hadn’t been there before. She turned toward Jenny, flinched at the dead body, and then cursed. Flames had begun to flicker where the final sparks on her cord had caused the cheap carpeting in the control room to catch fire.

  “Fire!” Avery yelled as she sprinted over to the small flames. “Get the extinguisher.”

  Kyle turned and then stopped. “It’s in the hallway.”

  Avery started stomping on the flames, but they didn’t lessen. She grabbed for what was left of her coffee and dumped it on the fire, but the few drops left of a cold cappuccino wasn’t much good for electrical fires, apparently because the sparks kept flying as the fire ate away at the carpet.

  “Okay, so the fire isn’t going out, no one but me is allowed to have a drink in the control room, and we have a potential zombie on our hands,” Avery said as she kept trying to stomp on the rapidly building fire. “I think we’re going to have to run.”

  Kyle spun on her. “What?”

/>   “We can’t stay here!” she insisted, waving at the growing fire. “Not stay and live, at least.”

  Kyle moved toward her, waving his hand in front of him to fight the smoke that was starting to fill the air. “You think we have a better chance out there?”

  Avery thought about it for a moment and then shrugged. “Yeah. Come on, Reece, get up and let’s look for stuff we can use as a weapon.”

  Reece looked up at her. “No point. My life is over.”

  Avery rolled her eyes, even though she knew he was right. “Come on, no moping! We have to try. The National Guard is probably out there waiting for you with a cure!”

  Reece glared at her. “Really, Avery? You think that doctor was lying on the broadcast tonight, that they really have a cure just waiting to be given to a graphics coordinator at NCB? Nope, I don’t think so. You guys go. I’ll just die of smoke inhalation.” He sighed. “My life was shit anyway. My wife was leaving me and I was like ten thousand dollars in credit card debt.”

  “Sharon was leaving you?” Kyle said with a sympathetic head tilt even Blake would have been proud of (right before he ate Kyle’s head). “I’m sorry, dude, I had no idea.”

  Avery’s eyes went wide. “Um, guys! Fire! Zombies! Need to find weapons!”

  Kyle shook his head. “Yeah, sorry. Okay, weapons.”

  They both looked around the room. It was pretty weapon-free. Just chairs and dead monitors. No guns or shovels or anything else you’d find in you typical zombie movie.

  “We’re screwed,” Avery said.

  Slowly Reece got to his feet. “Not if I go out first and distract them.”

  Avery stared at him. “What?”

  He didn’t answer, just turned to the door, unlocked the bolt, and ran out into the hallway. Avery and Kyle both raced out behind him. The zombies were still milling outside and they didn’t seem to notice or care about Reece. Avery shut her eyes as she realized what that meant. He wasn’t food anymore, he was friend.

  Reece seemed to realize it, too, but he kept moving forward, pushing the zombies, guiding them backward like some kind of zombie Peter Piper and giving Avery and Kyle more and more space for their own exit.