Megan and Eaves were a punk couple that worked in the processing area of Death’s realm. One was the savior sibling, one was just around.
Usef led Lindsey and Julie into one of the apartments that served as the waiting room for Death processing. Death processing is nothing like it sounds and everything like it sounds, and far too complicated to get into here when a lesser writer is doing the writing.
Maybe I will hire a quality writer to explain it in the future.
The room they first walked into when entering the apartment was about the size of most master bedrooms. It contained one large couch that lined every wall of the waiting room and was only broken in two places: the front door and the door into the main processing area, into which Usef ushered Lindsey and Julie.
Inside they saw two young people sitting on a bed playing old video games. Each one of the pair appeared to be around twenty-five years old. The video games were a lot older than that.
These were the type of old games were tennis was two bars and a dot.
Remember those? …. Stop making me feel old.
Megan turned seeing them in the doorway and nodded with her yellow teeth and wide smile. She was a lanky, skinny young woman dressed in thrift store punk style.
She was sitting cross legged on the bed beside Eaves, who did not even acknowledge the presence of Usef, Lindsey, and Julie.
Eaves looked like he walked out of the nearest mall after being forced to buy one thing from each and every store. His style was a mixture of female and male clothing. Throw in a mohawk and you had Megan's lover in black makeup.
Usef fake coughed, trying to get their full attention.
Usef fake coughed again and the video game system they were playing exploded suddenly.
They both stood up from the far side of the bed picking each other up after falling to the floor during the small explosion.
‘Hey Usef. What's up?’ Megan said with an even wider smile than before but this time with a slight hint of fear.
Eaves crawled over to the smoldering game system, ‘Man, you know he won’t get us another one. Fucking living here without games is hardly bearable.’
Usef straightened his shoulders and tilted his head slightly in an I-have-no-time-for-this manner.
‘Megan, Eaves, this is Lindsey and Julie. They will be working with me in the master’s library. Lindsey, Julie, this is Megan and Eaves they work in death processing and I have no idea why he keeps them around.’
Megan walked over and greeted Lindsey and Julie while Eaves just sat on the floor sulking.
‘That's harsh, Usef,’ Megan said.
‘He appointed us to these positions.’ Eaves added.
Usef bent down like a wooden toy soldier leaning over to be face to face with Eaves, ‘Only after you two flunked out as my assistants. You have no further to fall, just remember that.’
Eaves lip began to twitch a little. He did not care for Usef, ‘What about Baumgardner and Seely?’
‘Who are Baumgardner and Seely?’ Lindsey asked.
Julie was still in a state of trying to wrap her mind around everything that was happening so she wasn’t saying much at all; which was worrying Lindsey a little.
Usef stood back upright, ‘They are the groundskeepers. I guess you should meet them also before starting work. Follow me.’ And with that he ushered Lindsey and Julie out from the death processing area.
Once they had all left Megan kicked Eaves in the back of the head.
‘Hey!’
‘You stupid idiot. Do you want to be sent to Hell?’
‘Usef can't do that.’
‘No, but Jack can and I have never seen him in the mood he’s been in lately.’
Eaves shrugged, ‘I agree with you there sis.’
Chapter
Fifty-One
Baumgardner and Seely are stoners. I do not have it within me and I do not think any writer does to describe them better than with that one word.
A pair of misfits is also appropriate when talking about them but in a way that is how you could describe all of those who have come to work for Death.
They also were chosen by Jack to train under Usef but they got busted for trying to sneak into a forbidden area where only Death and Usef were allowed to go; so they were relegated to being groundskeepers for the whole realm but mostly on the baseball field and the area surrounding the dwellings of Death’s home; which is separate from the rest of the realm.
Today they were dragging the infield of the baseball field when Usef came walking from one of the dugouts with Lindsey and Julie following him.
Baumgardner was the first to spot them, ‘Damn. Look at the hot pie with Usef.’
Seely looked up from racking the dirt, ‘Shit, man, you think they belong to Usef?’
Baumgardner hit Seely across the face, ‘When have you ever known Usef to have any visitors or to have any sort of activities besides that fucking library?’
By this time Usef, Lindsey, and Julie had reached where Baumgardner and Seely were standing.
Let me describe the two groundskeepers a bit. Seely and Baumgardner are twin brothers. Same mom, different fathers, and no idea who the fathers are at that. The truth is their mother was a witch, and that is how they were twins but born separately, with no father whatsoever, ever, will, or could exist, and going beyond that would be a waste of your time because I do not believe I will ever mention their parentage again in the future.
They basically both looked like side-of-the-road prison workers.
Seely was the more friendly of the two and he went up to shake Usef’s hand, ‘Good to see you Mr. Usef. Nice day isn't it?’
Usef just sneered and gave him a look, ‘The day is not nice when I have to venture outside my books to be among the other help.’
Baumgardner walked up and joined his brother, ‘Just remember you’re help just as much as we are.’
Usef shunned Baumgardner in the sort of way someone does when he cannot be bothered with further talk between himself and the person he is speaking with. In this case he could not be bothered with Baumgardner and in the case of most everyone else he could not either, unless it was Jack.
Seely smiling shook the hands of Lindsey and Julie who smiled back at the younger of the brothers.
Baumgardner demonstrated that Seely was also the nicer of the two by the way he greeted them, ‘Bout time we got more women around here to look at besides that whore in processing.’
Lindsey took him out with one punch knocking him cold. That was some saved up aggression that need to get out.
Seely, Usef, and Julie stood over him.
‘That's my brother,’ Seely said sounding slightly scandalized.
‘He has never looked better,’ said Usef.
‘That's my woman.’ Julie
Chapter
Fifty-Two
Zombies are supposed to be slow and drag a leg behind them like in the old mummy movies. I might be mistaken, because I am not a huge fan, but aren’t they supposed to move slowly? Isn't that what they teach us in all those movies and comics?
……………………. So I guess you’re telling me there are movies and such with “Fast moving zombies”? Isn’t that like saying “Honest politician” It’s so not fitting into the shape that you should just subcategory it into a new species?
These zombies I’m about to write about probably aren’t like any notion of what a zombie should be but for the sake of laziness I’m going to call them zombies nonetheless. I mean that’s how people come to refer to the living dead as zombies in the first place when a real zombie isn’t dead at all. I walk myself into a rich tradition of lazy writing.
These zombies are showing great athletic skill and agility as they attack patients and staff throughout Neil Brown Hospital. They came from deep down within the hospital and are now running amok as the deep night moves on.
I think the highlight of my writing career may be one day looking back and know that I found a way of fitting "running amok" somewhere i
n a story.
Not the first of the patients the zombies attacked, but more like the twentieth, counting hospital staff, was a young woman who lost her right arm in one of the grenade attacks.
My sentence structure borders on the insane.
She had been out running as she was just starting a new health kick. She needed to get into better shape after two years sitting in an office trying to track down pedophiles on the internet.
She pulled her right arm out from the chest of the zombie who had started attacking her a few minutes before. She punched a clean hole right through it.
And aside is the fact that she didn’t have a right arm a few minutes ago.
She had been sleeping away in her hospital bed enjoying some dream about some English footballer when she suddenly awoke with an intense pain in her right arm. Her first thought was basic. But I don’t have a right arm anymore? But when she pulled the sheets back she found growing from her shoulder a new arm that appeared to be made completely of bone.
Though before she could even start to think any more questions about her current situation her current situation changed as that now holed out zombie burst into her room.
After the drama of an attacking zombie she ran into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. Smart girl as most hospital doors are pretty solid. Too bad most of the people in this hospital would not show such intelligence. She planned on staying in the bathroom forever if need be.
Ready to eating soap and shampoo until things changed.
Her name is Sarah Heap.
Way to be smart, Sarah Heap.
Chapter
Fifty-Three
In other parts of the hospital zombies continued to attack killing and creating more zombies. The zombie fest was now in full gear.
Pull up a bucket as this may get a bit gross.
Jeff Stanford was caught right in the middle of one of the grenade explosions. More to the point, he was quite plainly at ground zero point for one of them. It hit literally at his feet while he was chaining his bike to a trash can. He was on his way home from another day in the retail game selling women’s underwear. He was very good at his job.
It disturbs his mother, his skill at his job.
Only a week into his life living in Chicago, after moving from Indiana where he grew up as a country boy, he was now laying in a coma in the hospital.
Walking with crawling legs into the room where Jeff slept came three zombies. As the zombies slowly approached Jeff’s bed, a miracle, or what would appear to be a miracle, happened as Jeff suddenly and for no reason medically or otherwise awoke from his coma.
The zombies were climbing onto his bed. One of them grabbed him with both hands by the throat and began choking him while the other two started chewing on his arms.
With a flash of light the zombies were thrown away from Jeff’s bed and onto the floor of his room with a loud thud.
When they stood again in the manner only zombies can stand and regained their dead footing the zombies were dazed and you know something has to be pretty fucking amazing to stun zombies. They stood still and just looked on as the body of Jeff Stanford slowly, brightly, and violently split into two people who now stood beside the bed.
One of the former one and now two was a much younger looking Jeff Stanford, as he would have looked at an early age, maybe around twenty-two, and beside him stood a young female who was his sister. A sister that had been dormant inside his body since he was born.
Now they were connected for life, by spirit, and with great power all thanks to a grenade.
The zombies got over the sight of what had just happened and moved forward to attack Jeff and his sister.
Let’s call her Jennifer because it will make things easier for me.
As the zombies approached Jeff and Jennifer’s eyes began to glow orange. The whole room also started to smell like freshly bakes bread for unknown reasons.
Jeff leapt over the bed tackling one of the zombies.
Jennifer approached the other two zombies in the room and shoved her hands through their chests. The zombies just stared down as she pulled her hands out from their chests. She grabbed one of the zombies by one ear and rammed its head into the wall until its ear came off in her hand. Then suddenly she shoved it down the throat of the other zombie and pulled out its windpipe while there.
Jennifer turned to see Jeff beating the third zombie with its own arm until it was a bloody zombie mess of meat on the floor.
Chapter
Fifty-Four
In another room as zombies roamed the hospital one particular zombie was eating the arm of a screaming cancer patient. Guess the cancer wasn’t that bad, comparatively speaking.
And is my bad tasteless zombie joke for this book. Every zombie story needs at least one.
Though now thinking it really wasn’t a tasteless joke but more a tasteless comparison?
Chapter
Fifty-Five
In the maternity ward little zombies were going out in search of their mothers.
It’s not to the facts but I liked the way it sounded when I wrote it.
Got to merchandise that image though.
Packs of them where crawling through hallways and along corridors. Little hands were slapping fat palms against the cold floors in search of warmth because warmth means life and that’s what they are hungry for.
All of their skin cover is geared towards seeking out warmth; while their eyes look for movements and their ears for sounds of things looking to escape. It’s a design with a purpose. A purpose of chaos.
A baby zombie is the same as an adult one. Once things tick over for them they know to the fibers of their being what to do. Caught at the moment before death that is when the new gene coding rapidly consumes the old.
So take in the sight of this group crawling into a dark office where a doctor was catching a quick hours sleep with music playing into his ears to keep hospital noises from waking him up between his double shift in surgery.
Chapter
Fifty-Six
In the emergency room, the ER, the only place without bad tasting zombie writing.
Wait, was that in bad taste or just a bad pun?
These zombies are so much more than just semi organized blood blobs of dead flesh. They are perfect to what they were supposed to be. They think as well as convert and kill and eat.
Let’s hope they don’t form a religion.
Wait…
Ok, I’m not going there because this story needs to move on quick.
Within a few hours the zombies had all of the exits blocked and as the night went on more and more zombies were created. They had made this a contained nightmare still unfolding.
Chapter
Fifty-Seven
Sarah opened the bathroom door just a little. The little being enough for her to barely see out into her hospital room. Barely seeing gave out a little comfort. I said a little because she next shut the door, braced it with more metal objects, and climbed back into the shower to make the world go away for a while.
Hospital shower heads can be good relaxing.
I bet nobody has ever thought if they were ever to come face to face with a bunch of walking dead zombies they would distract themselves from the horror with masturbation but Sarah has found it is one of the few things that can take her mind off life.
May seem strange to others but what the hell, I say whatever works for you.
Chapter
Fifty-Eight
Jeff and his newly reborn sister Jennifer weren’t self-satisfying or anything like that. They were just sitting against the back wall of Jeff’s hospital room. Over twenty more zombies had tried to attack and kill this brother and sister one…two ma….two person zombie killing team.
Inside the room there were scattered dismembered zombie parts. Any other zombie passing by got a sixth zombie sense to let it know to just keep walking or it could lose an arm, leg, finger, group of fingers or something else because even to a zombie bein
g dismembered was not cool.
Part of the job description but still not cool.
Chapter
Fifty-Nine
The remaining members of the ER staff and the surviving patients finally fought off the zombies that were attacking the ER and had been able to seal off the area from the rest of the hospital.
The front double doors to the ER had already been sealed off by a group of zombies when they sneak attacked the ER through them.
The only members of the ER staff still alive were Dr. Ward, the front desk receptionist Megan Anthony, and a nurse named Diana Stone.
The surviving ER staff was trapped with Johnny Lee, Orlando Keith, Neka Post, Preston Gates, and Francine Pop. Here is a kicker of information: all of them are survivors from the grenade attacks who only received mild injuries and were treated and ready to leave the hospital when the zombies attacked and blocked off the only escape route.
Dr. Ward was sitting on the receptionist’s desk having just come back with Orlando and Preston from safely storing away the bodies of victims from the zombie attacks who did not turn into zombies themselves.
I guess not everyone is good enough to be a zombie.
I bit I would be turned down from being zombiefied.
‘Well, that is at least something we know.’ Dr. Ward.
‘What?’ asked Megan.
‘It seems like only one out of every four or five of those killed by these zombies becomes a zombie itself. Maybe each one only has so much venom or a kind of egg count?’
‘Could it be some kind of virus?’ asked Diana.
‘That would be my guess just by what I have seen but it could be anything. It could be some sort of reanimation of corpses, some sort of sub-life after death we did not know about, and then it could just be something we will never know the answer to.’
‘Doctor?’ whispered Neka as she sat on the floor across from the him.
‘Yes, Ms. Post?’
‘These things can’t be movie zombies. I mean they planned things like the barricade on the ER doors and cutting phones and electricity. Do you think maybe they aren’t dead?’
‘Could be? Maybe I’m just seeing zombies because that is what they appear to be.’
‘Doesn’t really matter does it,’ asked Johnny as he walked over and sat on the floor beside Neka.
Tin Universe Monthly #1 Page 9
