by Jeremy Dyson
I can’t stand to watch anymore, but I can’t turn away either. My mouth hangs open in shock, and I get the nasty metallic taste that comes just before I throw up. I swallow and bury my mouth in the crook of my elbow when I start to gag.
“Look,” the blonde woman blurts out and points at the street. Incredibly, a screaming obese woman in a bathrobe runs right passed the guy being eaten alive. She doesn’t even glance at the gruesome scene. The zombies get back to their feet, soaked in blood, and begin their slow pursuit of the woman.
Blood spreads in a pool around the tattooed man lying in the street. I stare at the ugly tattoos that cover his unmoving arm, the faded images destroyed by numerous bite wounds. I wonder how long it will take before he gets back up. A hand clasps my shoulder and startles me.
“It’s okay, man,” says a deep voice. It’s the black guy in the track suit. “You tried to tell him.”
I look down at the gun in my hand, thinking how strange it looks to see my hand holding it. I put it down on the desk and turn away from the window. Though it must look like it, I don’t feel guilty at all. I am just feeling sick from the horrors of this day. I don’t know how to handle this insane world that didn’t exist a few hours ago. Mostly, I’m afraid. Afraid of what I might have to do to stay alive.
“That fool made his own choice,” he says. “Quentin,” he says.” He holds up a hand. It seems like such a meaningless gesture right now, but for some reason, I feel immediately reassured by the small, familiar civility.
I reach to clasp his hand briefly and introduce myself, and then I think about it and add, “Thanks.” I nearly apologize when I notice how damp with perspiration my hand is in contrast to his.
“Don’t sweat it, man,” Quentin says. He wipes his palm against the fabric of his pants, then uses it to open a drawer of the desk and starts digging through the contents. Even when we were sprinting through the grandstand for our lives, this guy didn’t break a sweat. Somehow he seems to be handling everything with a calmness I have trouble comprehending.
The blonde woman returns to the table and removes her blazer and drapes it over the back of a chair. She retrieves another skinny cigarette from her purse. “That’s great you all are friends now, but can we get back to figuring a way out of here before we all end up like that guy?”
Danielle whirls around from the window and opens her mouth to say something back at the blonde woman. They lock eyes for a moment, but Danielle bites her lip instead. She rolls her eyes as she turns back to look out at the street again. “He’s getting up,” Danielle reports softly.
I’m surprised at how quickly that happened. It’s only been a couple of minutes since he stopped moving. None of us can resist taking another look outside. Maybe it’s curiosity or disbelief that makes us need to see the man return from the dead. The corpses ate much of the muscle tissue from one side of his neck, so his head tilts in that direction. He lingers at the gate and stares at the security building, his pale face jawing at the air. It’s like somehow he still remembers we’re inside. I have a strong urge to go out and put a bullet in his head, so I don’t have to see him standing there anymore. After a few moments, guilt forces most of us to turn away again. Danielle remains watching him at the window for a moment longer than the rest of us, and then she steps back and seats herself at the table next to the blonde woman.
“That poor man,” Danielle mourns.
The blonde woman scoffs and turns away in her chair. I can’t say I blame her for not wanting anything to do with the rest of us. When people are dying all around you, it seems pointless to bother getting to know anyone. If any of us thought we could make it on our own, we would probably try. But going alone won’t get you very far. We already saw that for ourselves.
I pull out a chair and sit down next to the blonde woman. Though she looks only a few years older than Danielle, she seems to regard the younger woman as a child. The gray designer business suit and pixie hairstyle match her dour demeanor. She emits an exasperated sigh and avoids making eye contact with anyone. “Miss… whatever your name is,” I begin to say.
“Dom,” she snaps.
“Dom,” I say. I lower my voice to a whisper and try to sound cordial. “I’m just as thrilled as you are to be locked in here. So, let’s just all try to get along for awhile.”
“Sure,” Dom answers. “Whatever.”
Quentin finally stops searching the drawers when he locates a couple of flashlights. He removes the batteries and installs them in a little radio sitting on the desk. Quentin has to turn up the volume to hear over the police siren that is still blaring somewhere nearby. The room fills with the white noise of static. He scans through the stations and stops at an emergency alert.
“…avoid all contact with affected persons,” a robotic voice states. “Seek shelter immediately. Martial law will remain in effect until further notice. Stay in your homes and await further updates. This is not a test. A national state of emergency has been declared by FEMA and the CDC. An unexplained occurrence is causing bodies of the recently deceased to reanimate and attack the living. Citizens are advised to” The same message repeats again and again, but it doesn’t provide any information as to what is causing this or how they plan to stop it.
Joey opens a refrigerator in the kitchenette and starts poking around the meager contents. “I would have brought something for lunch if I knew I’d be fucking trapped in here all day,” he says. He removes a brown bag from a shelf and reaches inside. “Frank just brought a little microwave burrito and a fuzzy avocado or something.” He holds up a kiwi then tosses it back into the brown paper sack.
I realize by his disappointed expression the security guard isn’t trying to be funny. Quentin glances up from messing with the tuner on the radio to look at Joey. He shakes his head and goes back to twisting the dial.
“Poor Frank,” Joey laments. The kid stares at the items left behind by his deceased partner with a sorrowful expression. It took a while, but the loss of his buddy Frank is hitting home. That’s what it seems like until he says, “He never had anything good to eat for lunch.”
I stare at the kid in amazement as he closes the fridge and slumps down in a chair at the desk. It’s hard to believe someone can be so oblivious. He swivels from side to side in the rotating seat of the chair and spins his pistol around his finger by the trigger guard as we look on in fear. The kid looks around and realizes everyone is staring at him and stops spinning the pistol.
“What?” he asks.
“Are you really that stupid?” asks Dom. “Seriously. I can’t believe someone actually gave you a gun.” She smashes another thin cigarette filter into a nub, then drops it on the floor and flattens it with her foot.
Joey calmly slides the weapon back into the holster on his hip and watches until Dom turns her head away. Then he mutters to her back, “Lesbian.” Her face tightens with anger, but she refuses to acknowledge the comment. She just reaches for another long, skinny cigarette from the pack on the table.
Quentin gives up finding a different station, and so we listen to the radio repeat the same message again. The radio tells us to stay off the streets. I guess it makes as much sense as anything for now. We can’t stay here forever, though. There’s essentially no food or water. Eventually, we have to come up with some sort of plan. Instead of putting my fear and anxiety aside long enough to think rationally, I fidget and twist the platinum wedding band around and around on my finger. When I sit back in the chair and put my hands in my pocket, I feel my phone and check it again. It still has no signal. My eyes gaze at the background photo of my wife and daughter once more and then set the phone down on the table. I force my eyes closed and try to put all of that out of my mind. I need to focus.
“Why do you keep looking at your phone?” Danielle asks. Her eyes glance down at the screen of my phone.
“Just seeing if I have a signal,” I lie. I immediately realize that she isn’t buying it.
“Are they okay?” she asks. “You
r family. I just happened to see the picture,” she adds by way of explanation.
“I don’t know,” I admit. I hand my phone to her so she can see the picture if she wants to. She looks at it for a long moment as if she is studying their faces.
“They look sweet,” she smiles.
“Yeah,” I sigh. I realize I sound a little annoyed. I notice creases forming above her brow, and realize her genuine concern and my voice softens. “Sorry. I’m just trying to figure out what to do next.”
“No, it’s fine,” she says. “It’s not my business anyway.”
“Shhh,” I say. Over her shoulder, I notice a shadow passing across the outside of the window.
Quentin flips the radio off and for the next hour, we hardly make a sound. At first, it seems like just a couple of them have managed to find their way through the racetrack to the security office. As more time passes, more and more shadows fall on the windows. I can’t understand what is drawing them close to the building.
Without air conditioning, the temperature climbs inside the cramped security office. It’s getting pretty uncomfortable, but we don’t dare open a window. Maybe they can smell us in here. Maybe that is what draws them. Who knows.
Morning drags into the afternoon, and when I peer through blinds again, I see around twenty corpses walking around. I realize they are probably wandering towards the sound of the police siren, heading towards the noise until they reach the closed gates and have nowhere to go. Occasionally, one stumbles into the building, and then we wait in horror for more sounds that indicate they are trying to get inside. I wonder how much longer we should stay here now. If they keep coming there will be more than we can handle soon. It’s just a matter of time before they discover we are inside this building.
“We need to come up with a plan before they figure out we’re in here,” I whisper.
“The radio said to stay off the streets,” Dom reminds me.
“Yeah, I know,” I concede. “It’s a risk we have to take. There’s no food or water here, and if we so much as sneeze those things will be all over us.”
“Alright then,” Quentin agrees. “You got someplace in mind?”
“No,” I admit. “We’re just going to have to see what we find out there. Let’s think one move at a time,” I say. “The most important things are water and food. Two blocks from here over the expressway, there’s a gas station.”
“We don’t need gas for the truck,” says Joey. “It’s full.”
“Damn, boy,” says Quentin. He shakes his head in frustration.
“They have food and water there,” I repeat. “At least, enough to last us a few days.”
“Might be people there too,” Quentin says. His tone indicates that people could be more trouble than anything else.
“It won’t be any safer there,” Danielle points out. “I’m really not sure about this.”
“I’m not going to say it isn’t risky,” I concede. “If anyone has another idea, I’m listening.”
I wait to hear out any other opinions, but no one has a better option.
“If we do this, we’re going to need more guns,” adds Quentin. “We won’t be getting very far with what we got.”
I can’t think of any store nearby that would have guns, but I remember the courthouse is a block in the other direction. There are always county sheriff patrol cars parked in the garage there.
“I have an idea for that,” I whisper. “The courthouse. There’s lots of vehicles. We can probably find some guns there too. We’ll go there first.”
“That’s in the opposite direction. How many stops are we planning on making here? What about waiting for help?” Dom asks. “I thought that was the plan?”
“The gates are closed on this side of the park. They’re collecting outside like fish in the bottom of a net,” I say. I peer out the edge of the window and count about 40 corpses outside now. “There’s already twice as many as there was an hour ago. The longer we wait, the more there will be outside when we try to leave.”
“Unless we give them something to chase away from here,” Quentin rubs at the goatee on his chin as he thinks. He stands up and takes a look at the truck outside. “I think I have an idea.”
Four
The door to the security building flings open and Quentin steps out, firing off three rounds to the left. He whirls around to the right and fires three more quick shots, then moves to cover the back of the truck. I take a deep breath and charge out behind him, expecting the dead to be right on top of us. I glance around and realize Quentin has already dropped any corpse near the doorway. There are half a dozen bodies sprawled on the ground. The guy didn’t even waste a single bullet.
“Damn,” I gasp. For a moment, I lose focus and just watch him put down several more of the undead. The guy makes it look so easy.
“Watch my six,” Quentin barks between shots.
“What?” I scream.
Quentin stops shooting. “My back! Watch my back.”
I move to the front of the security vehicle and can feel the eyes of the approaching dead fix on me. Joey dashes between us and fumbles with the keys to open the door of the truck. I raise the gun and aim at a chubby Hispanic guy dressed in a uniform from a fast food burger joint. A greasy white apron smeared with wet blood hangs from his neck. My first shot misses the guy completely, but somehow takes out a corpse ten feet behind him. I aim for the stupid, pointy paper hat on his head and shoot again. The next shot tears a hole in his shoulder. As bad as I am shooting, I feel like I am getting the hang of handling a gun. I fire again and hit him right where his heart should be. Then I shoot him in the leg. The corpse collapses from the last shot, but it keeps crawling towards me. I finally put a round through the paper hat and it explodes like a packet of ketchup. The damn thing finally collapses on the pavement and stops moving.
I glance around at the other undead, realizing they are getting too close. My eyes keep returning to the body on the ground. With my aim, I don’t have time to waste. There are still dozens of corpses shuffling around the body of the cook. I point the gun at the closest of the dead, a redhead in a floral dress, but can’t pull the trigger for some reason. Now, I know damn well that cook was dead before I shot him, but putting a bullet in someone still feels so wrong. I never killed anything before, except a few houseflies or a spider. Maybe this isn’t any different, but it sure does bother me a whole lot more than squashing a bug. I try to steady my hand and take the shot, but before I do the head of the woman snaps back, and she collapses to the ground.
“What the fuck you doing?” Quentin roars. He stands next to me, loading a full magazine into his handgun, his eyes darting from left to right.
“My gun jammed,” I stammer. I can be such a liar sometimes. Especially when I don’t want to seem weak.
Quentin looks down at the gun in my hands and scowls. He pulls back the slide of his pistol and fires off several more rounds into the approaching dead. The truck engine roars to life as the mob of corpses close around us. I tap Quentin on the shoulder, then retreat inside the security office. He keeps firing as he backs through the doorway, then slams the door shut as the first corpse lunges at him. Quentin leans back against the door as the dead moan and pound away at the steel. The banging sounds cease after several seconds. The moans of the dead fade to a distant murmur.
After a few moments of silence, I peer through the blinds. Joey eases the truck away even though several corpses claw at the vehicle. A few stragglers remain in the vicinity of the security office until Joey honks the horn. The sound helps draw the rest of them away. Then I notice the dead body of the cook again. He might have been a bastard for all I know, but nobody deserves to go out like that. I don’t know why, but I imagine what his life was like. I always beat myself up with stupid thoughts like that when someone dies. Even someone I never met. It’s like I feel guilty for not giving a damn about anyone until it’s too late.
“What the hell was that all about?” Quentin asks me. His
voice startles me, and I pull my hand away from the blinds. He scrutinizes me through narrowed eyes for a moment, then drops his gaze to the floor and shakes his head. “I thought you knew how to handle a gun.”
“Just want to figure out what it takes to stop those things,” I lie. “Now we know we have to go for the head.”
Quentin sighs and massages at the muscles on the back of his neck. “Next time do me a favor and let me know before you go and do something stupid like that,” he pleads. “You feel me?”
“Sure,” I agree. After his shooting display outside, this is not a guy I want to piss off.
Several long minutes pass. We wait and listen for the sound of the truck approaching.
“What’s taking him so long?” Dom complains.
“Something must have gone wrong,” Quentin whispers. “We should move while it’s still clear.”
“Shhh,” urges Danielle. She cocks her head to one side and listens.
I hear the distant squeal of tires, followed by the roar of the engine. The tires squeal again when Joey slams on the brakes and the truck skids to a stop outside the security office. I push through the door and move to cover the front of the truck. The plan worked better than I hoped. The area surrounding the office is entirely clear of the dead. Quentin slides around to cover the rear of the truck. Dom and Danielle heave a couple of duffel bags of supplies into the trunk. As soon as they close the hatch, Quentin hops in the passenger seat, and the rest of us crowd into the back. Joey floors the gas pedal, veers right and accelerates towards the fence. I clench the front seats and brace for the impact.
The security truck plows through the metal, tearing fence posts out of the ground. Once we clear the fence, Joey wheels the truck hard to the left to make for the road. The uneven ground of the field is full of holes and mounds of dirt. The truck bottoms out several times and I feel the undercarriage scrape against the ground. The violent movements toss us out of our seats. I grip the armrest on the door and hang on for dear life.
