Z Walkers: The Complete Collection

by Luke Shephard

  Like yesterday, she grabbed a weapon from the main floor, but she was too weak to carry anything more than two ten pound weights. Pathetic. She’d be the laughing stock of all the trainers when she told them the story of her survival.

  Before creeping downstairs, she checked the parking lot, and her heart sank when she saw no EMTs or police cars. Instead, she was faced with a familiar sight: lumbering cannibals, looking almost as delirious as she felt, moved through the scattered cars. There were a few less today than yesterday, and she assumed they’d just wandered off.

  Not good. The gym was situated on the edge of a wealthy suburb, and she couldn’t imagine the damage those crazies would do if they really got going.

  No. It wasn’t fair to call them crazies. Gary wasn’t crazy. Keith hadn’t been crazy. They were sick—they had to be. It was an infection of some kind, something similar to rabies. Sara leaned against the wall, already tired, and tilted her head back with a sigh.

  All quiet here, but the lower levels were probably still a nightmare. The smell of rotting bodies was at an all-time high, but she was either too hungry to care or her nose acclimatized quickly: Sara barely paid attention to the bloody corpses this time.

  She was on a mission. Food. Water. Shelter. The three basic necessities for survival, and she was going to find all of them. It was clear the emergency services were held up elsewhere, which meant she needed to hunker down and wait it out, but not starve to death in the meantime.

  Once she hit the lower level, however, some of her bravery faltered. Driven by a ravenous hunger, Sara descended the stairwell gripping her weapons with confidence. As soon as her foot left the last step, she almost crumbled at the first sound of ominous groaning. It was distant, like an echo, and she opted to take the scenic route to the break room.

  Her mouth flooded with saliva as she pictured the fridge, stocked full with lunches and dinners. No one had any dibs on anything this time around: she planned to ignore all the post-it notes that claimed ownership on certain lunch containers. Anything and everything was fair game today.

  The lower level was noisier this time, but Sara navigated the familiar space with a greater sense of confidence. Having wandered through the blood and bodies yesterday, she had an idea of where to go and what to look for—and listen for. Even the slightest sound sent her in another direction, and it took her a full fifteen minutes to get to the staff break room. Tucked away in the corner of the floor, it was a discreet room with a padlock to keep guests and clients out.

  Once she was in, she practically fell on the fridge, yanking the door open with such fervor that it pulled her along with it. She went for her leftover lasagna from yesterday—what was supposed to be her lunch—and scooped the combination of noodles, ground beef, and kale into her mouth with her hands. There was no time for niceties, no reason for manners. She gobbled it up so fast that she barely felt a change in her stomach as it filled her. Within minutes she’d cleaned out the whole container, and yet she was still on the brink of starving.

  The staff room wasn’t big by anyone’s standards, but the appliances were all top-notch, and most of her coworkers were good about keeping it clean. Aside from the table with six chairs, there were two couches and a coffee table, along with a bookshelf full of fitness magazines.

  And a private washroom. She straightened up, realizing she hadn’t actually checked the windowless room before gorging herself. Mistake. Definitely a mistake.

  Tentatively closing the fridge, she wiped her mouth and grabbed her weights, the ten pounds a little easier to wield this time, and crept toward the closed bathroom door. She pressed an ear to it, listening to rustling in the single-stall room, and then gulped when she heard nothing. At this point, she could have walked away, but she wasn’t about to have another Keith incident on her hands.

  Slowly, she turned the handle. It wasn’t locked, which could be good or bad, and biting down on the insides of her cheeks, she pulled open the door. Her heart pounded, her palms sweated, and Sara nearly dropped her weight when a hand shot out and tried to grab her. Bloody, broken nails missed her skin by mere inches, and she shrieked as a rabid cannibal stumbled out. The woman, her undoubtedly once perfect blonde hair a matted mess of blood, snapped at her, teeth chattering together loudly, and rather than trying to shove her back into the bathroom, Sara ran.

  Unfortunately, on the outside of the staff room door, four more cannibals were waiting, their expressionless eyes darting to her as soon as she stepped out. She screamed again when the bathroom cannibal wiggled through the door just as it swung shut, and without formulating even a basic plan, Sara tore off running as fast as she could. On the way, she nailed a cannibal in the face with her weight, the other one forgotten by the fridge, but she found taking the time to knock them out just slowed her down. They could track her, sure, but they couldn’t catch her—ducking and dodging seemed like her best defense.

  It was too late when she realized they were herding her, appearing at the end of a hall just as she tried to turn down it. There was nothing in those eyes—not a flicker of emotion that looked human by any means. Rationally, she knew these people didn't have the instinct to herd her anywhere, and yet it felt like they were pushing and pushing until she had nowhere left to go but the pool locker room.

  Dark and silent, the room swallowed her whole, and Sara barreled right through, aware that she had a few cannibals on her tail. If there were more in the showers or bathroom stalls, she didn't stop to check. No, Sara ran right through the chlorine-stinking place, stuttering to a halt only when she breached the doors and stumbled into the pool area.

  They weren't stopping. In the bright lights of the underground swimming facility, Sara spied two more cannibals shuffling around by the lifejackets used by toddlers for swim classes. Just as before, their attention darted to her as soon as she entered, her chest heaving with every breath she drew, and she wanted to cry when they began a lumbering march toward her.

  Unable to pause, unable to catch her breath, Sara briefly debated her plan of escape: run laps around the pool until she outran them, then scramble back through the change rooms, or take a dip and hide beneath the surface. Shaking her head, her body made the decision for her: one moment she was there, doubled over in the doorway, and the next she was hurdling toward the pool, slamming into the surface with such a clamor that her ears hurt.

  Letting out her breath slowly, she sank deeper and deeper into the water, her arms and legs limp. She could stay there, at the bottom of the pool. The EMTs would find her body at some point, and no one could blame her: she was surrounded by cannibals, for Christ's sake. Rabid, dead-eyed cannibals who were so close to catching her it hurt. Her parents would understand. They'd cry, but in the end, they'd understand why she might not have it in her to push herself back to the surface.

  Her feet touched the bottom of the pool first, then her butt, and she sat there for a few moments, bubbles drifting out of her nose and mouth. No. No, she couldn't give up like this. This was a coward's way out—help was coming. It had to be. She had to go back for Gary, just like she promised. She'd be no good to her friend dead at the deep end of their Olympic-sized pool.

  Besides, drowning seemed painful. Once she was out of breath, she pushed herself up, only to inhale a gulp of water when two bodies broke through the surface of the water. Even through all the cleaning chemicals, she saw the way the bodies made the water murky—cannibals were coming for her. So, even with the pain in her chest and throat, even with that desperate need to draw a breath, Sara pushed herself for the shallow end. The swim sapped every ounce of strength from her, but as soon as she was able to stand, she did so—quietly.

  Gingerly, she lifted just the top of her head out of the pool, the water sloshing up her nostrils as she drew her first breath. From the shallows, she watched, waiting for the bodies that sunk in the deep rise to the surface again.

  But there was nothing. A few of her previous pursuers milled around the deep end, shuffling by the water
's edge, but the two that fell passed her as she neared suffocation had yet to resurface. Drawing in a deep breath, she ducked down into the tepid water again, scanning as far as she could see. No shapes loomed. No dark figures approached.

  Maybe, just maybe, they couldn't swim. Blinking, she pushed herself back up again, still crouching down. There was a possibility that they just… couldn't swim. After all, their movements were awkward, and they couldn't run very well. Maybe something with the sickness stunted their ability to propel their bodies through the water. Maybe they weren't coordinated enough. For now, they'd sink, until eventually corpses would bob up to the surface.

  A chill ran over her. There was a decent chance she'd just found her escape from the cannibals who'd chased her in from the hall.

  Her teeth chattered as she pushed forward, taking slow, deliberate strokes to get her back to the deep end. The few cannibals left in the place were milling around by a diving board, and the two below the surface hadn't come up for air yet. She hesitated when she saw their dark shapes at the bottom of the room, but when she dipped her head under to check, she saw no movement. So, holding herself up with a sloppy egg-beater kick, Sara cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, "Hey!"

  Her voice practically bounced off the walls, and all four cannibals turned slowly toward her—and walked right into the pool. One by one, they fell, hitting the water with a noisy splash, and one by one she watched them disappear. None returned, and four more dark shapes sat at the bottom of the pool.

  Still, she couldn't hover over them—her nerves wouldn't allow it. With her heart pounding and her legs aching, she swam as fast as she could back to the shallow end, and from there she watched for the cannibals to surface with quivering limbs. After five minutes, according to the massive clock hanging overhead, she climbed out and sat on the pool's edge, ready to run back to the change rooms if something suddenly appeared in front of her.

  Nothing. Her adrenaline slowly started to fade the longer she sat there, letting back in the hunger pains and the lightheadedness she'd experienced before she made it to the staff room. When she was sure they weren't getting off the bottom of the pool—they'd be dead by now anyway—Sara got to her feet and walked back to the change rooms, a plan formulating in her mind.

  It was insane, of course, but it might just work.

  ***

  A kitchen knife and a grim sense of determination were the only two things that kept Sara going. The determination got her back to the staff room, where she sat on the floor, in front of the open fridge, gobbling up anything and everything she could to keep her body satiated. From there, she armed herself with the knife the staff usually used for slicing and dicing break meals, and crept back into the lower level labyrinth of painfully bright lighting and blood-covered walls.

  Although it was slower, she found crawling to be the method of movement that made her the most comfortable. Out of the sightline of the infected—she'd taken to calling them that instead of cannibals, because these people were sick, not twisted—and able to scurry into rooms unseen, she might have had sore knees, but at least she could travel without drawing any unwanted attention.

  And there had been the possibility for plenty of unwanted attention. The infected strolled the halls, slowly, with the same lumbering movements she'd seen the whole time. They all seemed to have varying levels of whatever infection had taken hold of them: she judged their health by their complexion. Those that were yellower were sicker, while those who were simply pale were likely at the beginning stages of the disease.

  The knife bolstered her courage. Grasping it like it was the only tool left in the world, Sara crawled from the staff room to the sound booth above the pool, ready to stab the metal blade into any infected who noticed her on the ground. From the booth, she put on a few of the CDs that were used for water aerobics, and then cranked the volume. Music blasted from the speakers surrounding the pool, rattling the windows of the sound booth. In that moment, Sara smiled—phase one was complete.

  From there, she descended the narrow stairwell from booth to floor, then darted out the door that led to the pool area. She figured noise was an easy draw for the mindless. It was a long shot, sure, but Sara was interested in surviving until the emergency services showed up.

  She grabbed a cleaning rod, extending the pole as much as she could, the little net on the end a good distance away from her. Peering over the edge of the pool, she saw the dark shapes were where she'd left them—dead at the bottom.

  It occurred to her, in that moment, that she was going to kill people. Would a jury consider it murder? Her impending act was self-defense in its most basic form, and anyone could see that she wanted to fight. She wasn't the same woman who sat in those depths, contemplating suicide. Sara had seen her survival, and it took the form of drowned infected.

  The sickness had fried their brains. They weren't the people they were when they started yesterday—those average, unassuming people were gone. Sure, maybe scientists would come up with a cure, but that cure wasn't going to keep her alive now. What would it matter to her if they found her a week from now, cure in hand, if she had half her face chewed off? Sure, they'd cure whatever fever had taken hold of her brain, but would she get a face transplant too? A new hand? A patched thigh?

  Probably not.

  She looked back sharply to the change room doors when a groan tickled her ears. In they came, drawn by the sound, their eyes wide and their mouth open. Drool dripped from their chins, mixed with blood, leaving little droplets on the tile.

  And Sara was ready for them. Gripping the cleaning rod, she pushed the nearest of the infected toward the pool, watching as the once normal man stumbled over his feet and into the water. It was… easy. Easy to push them. Easy to draw them. Easy to outsmart them. As soon as the first one went in, she took a deep breath and forced herself to focus on the others. It would have been easier to revel in her victory, to throw down her herding stick and call it a day, but with one gone, three had replaced him, and she had a lot of work ahead of her.

  It wasn't as simple as she originally anticipated. Most of the infected were drawn toward her, but others were interested in the sounds coming out of the speakers. The catchy pop tunes were nothing more than background noise—she barely heard them as she pushed and shoved and swatted at the infected. One fell into the shallows, and she held her breath, watching as the soaked woman stood. Thankfully, she slipped on the slant that led to the deep end after taking two steps, and Sara released that breath and moved on to the next.

  They just kept coming. For the better part of an hour, she pushed infected into the pool, the deep end clouded with dark bodies, the water tinged red. But as the hour struck, they finally stopped trickling out of the change room doors. Sara waited another hour still, seated on a bench by the wall, watching the clock as the music threatened to deafen her.

  She wasn't naïve enough to think she'd taken them all. Those in the parking lot could easily wander in at any point, but there were dozens of infected in the deep end now—that had to be the majority if anything. Swapping her cleaning stick for her kitchen knife, Sara still crawled as she made her way through the change room, moving from one set of lockers to another. The one she left behind was rank with chlorine and blood, while the other kept Gary in place. Maybe the sickness had passed. Maybe he was only a little infected. Drowning the others was how she'd survive in the gym—salvation loomed, and she wanted to share it with her friend.

  But her friend wasn't her friend anymore. As she poked her head into the locker room, calling his name softly, a great clatter of metal was his response, accompanied by agonized groaning. It was clear he was still stuck in the locker. He sounded… angry.

  But she might have been putting her feelings onto him—just a little. Unwilling to go inspect his status personally, Sara slowly closed the door and crawled back to the staff room. In there, she ate the remaining bits and pieces of her colleagues' lunches, knowing there'd be more food at the snack stand and jui
ce bar to get her through another couple of days.

  She could live in here. Anytime an infected appeared, she'd lure them into the pool and then carry on with her day. It was doable, and it certainly wasn't going to be forever. The world had to know what was happening to her.

  The news. There were TV channels hooked up the monitors on the treadmills, which meant she could probably at least get a subtitled version of everything from there.

  She was almost at the staircase that climbed up to the main floor when the power went out. One moment it was bright lights and blood, and the next it was total darkness in the windowless corridor. Sara froze, gripping the knife so tight that her wrist hurt, and then made her way to the stairs with tiny, tentative steps, a hand on the wall, her breath catching in her throat. Tears rimmed her eyes when she finally caught the faint light of the upper floor, and she raced up each step, not caring how much noise she made. It was roughly midday, and sun streamed in through the dozens of floor-to-ceiling windows.

  This changed everything. Trembling all over, Sara did what she could to get the power back on. She checked utilities closets, flicked on and off light switches, and tried to see if there was a code on the reception computer to get to the back-up generators. Nothing. She couldn’t stay in total darkness. A part of her thought she'd taken care of all the infected downstairs, but at the back of her mind, she knew there might be more—and she couldn't fight them in the dark.

  Just like that, the gym was no longer a viable option. Sure, there were infected in the parking lot, but she was willing to crawl under cars and finally make her break for safety if it meant she didn't have to fight in the dark.

  So, she climbed the second stairwell up to the top-most floor, heading straight for her office. In there, she loaded her backpack with whatever she thought might be necessary: her identification, her wallet, a few staplers, pens, and pencils. It would have been nice to pop back down to the snack bar, but that was now in the bowels of the gym, encased in darkness and totally off-limits. There was a grocery store up the street, right next to a "upscale" fast food place—if there was such a thing—that Sara usually avoided like the plague. Who cared about calories and carb intake now?