by Brett, Cal
As they went, they found that each unit had been staged in a different but very luxurious style. Each one looked, and was equipped, as if it were ready to appear in an episode of one of the high fashion living shows on HGTV. Aside from the dust and spider webs of course.
As they queued outside the door of what the sign described as the Valencia floor plan, Robbie read from the glossy brochure, “…this is their largest and most deluxe model. Ready?”
“I’ve got to pee,” Kelly replied.
“You’ve been saying that for an hour,” Robbie sighed.
“I keep forgetting,” Kelly said.
“Can you hold it a little longer?” Robbie asked, wondering how anyone could “forget” that they had to pee.
“Sure.” Kelly confirmed.
Robbie pushed open the door revealing a short hallway leading into a larger living area. The room was well lit, as all the others had been, with large windows looking out over the river. Robbie stepped over the threshold, glanced around and listened but heard only his own breathing. Looking back at Kelly he said. “How do you forget to…”
“Look out!” Kelly shouted as a thin figure lurched from around the corner ahead of them and charged at Robbie. It lunged with its mouth wide and teeth exposed.
Robbie was unprepared and off balance, so even with its small frame, it crashed into him with enough force to knock him off his feet. He was just able to raise an elbow up to block its snarling jaws from snapping onto his face as he went down. Once on the ground, the thing began clawing and flailing as it tried to tear into him. He kicked and squirmed in a panic as he struggled to fight it off.
The two bodies were entwined and squirming frantically on the floor making the thing an impossible target. Kelly couldn’t swing without hitting Robbie so she jumped behind them, grabbed under its arms and heaved it as hard as she could down the hall. Perhaps it was the adrenaline, or maybe the thing was just skin and bones, but it flew at least 10 feet. It tumbled and rolled to a stop, but instantly spun around and began scampering back towards them. This time Kelly was ready, as it charged, she raised her staff and hit it in the head as hard as she could.
Kelly saw that it had been a woman with brown hair, as its skull twisted around nearly backwards from the blow. The force spun it around but, with the ferocity of a wild dog, it swung back around and came at them sideways. She braced to hit the thing again but suddenly Robbie was there cleaving in its head with his machete.
“Bitch!” he yelled as sank his blade down with a dull thunk. The ferocity instantly vanished from its face and the zombie fell directly to the floor.
They both stepped back from the dead woman and began scanning in all directions for others. They listened but could only hear one another’s heavy breathing. Kelly realized her hands were shaking as she tried to keep aware of everything around her all at once. Seconds ticked by and they waited for the sound of hands pounding on doors as the undead awoke all around them. But none came.
“Shit!” Robbie said finally. “What the fuck?!”
“Dammit, Robbie,” Kelly said as she turned back to the open room. “Pay attention! You damn near got us both killed!”
Robbie turned to face her. “Yea, crap, I’m sorry,” he said, obviously shaken. “Everything was so quiet I lost my focus.”
“Robbie,” she said, staring at him intently. “What is that?” She pointed at his head. Robbie put his hand to the side of his face and came away with red liquid streaming down his palm.
“Did she scratch you?!” Kelly cried and stepped toward him.
“No,” he stepped back from her, “no…I…I’m fine. I hit my head on the door when she tackled me.”
“Are you sure?” Kelly stammered and stepped toward him again. “Let me see it.”
This time he let her get close. “Yes.” Robbie said wiping at the blood. “She didn’t bite me. I hit it on the door.”
“Come inside and let’s take a closer look,” Kelly pulled his arm towards the apartment. “There’s not enough light out here.”
“We need to clear this place first,” Robbie said with a hand to his head. “We don’t need any other surprises.”
As soon as they had cleared the rest of the rooms, Kelly shut the front door and ordered Robbie to, “Sit down! We need to get you patched up. You’re bleeding all over.”
Robbie flopped down onto the couch and let Kelly disinfect and bandage his cut with her first aid kit.
“It doesn’t look like a bite,” she said.
“It’s not,” Robbie countered offended, “I told you I hit it on the door.
“I know what you said,” Kelly countered, “but she could have scratched you, I don’t know. It happened so fast.”
“I’m ok,” Robbie said holding the side of his head.
“I believe you,” she tried to say calmly but, couldn’t hide her concern. “Look, I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day. Let’s button up here for the night and we can finish clearing this floor tomorrow?”
“Good idea,” Robbie agreed leaning back onto the couch cushions. He looked over at the sliding glass door leading to the balcony and noticed it was smeared with finger marks and zombie sludge, as if the undead woman had been standing there clawing at it. The glass was smudged and stained up to the height of where the creature’s hands would reach. “Hey, look at that.”
“What?” Kelly said as she repacked the medical kit.
“The door is all smudged up,” Robbie pointed, “like she really wanted to get out onto the porch.”
“Probably got locked in here and that was the only source of movement,” Kelly opined as she glanced over.
Robbie stood and walked towards the door but stopped. The wooden flooring in front of the door was as stained and bloody as the glass. “Looks like she must have just paced back and forth in front right here. Notice everything else in the room is clean?”
Kelly snorted, “You think she’s been standing there at that window for all these years?”
“That’s what it looks like.” Robbie guessed.
“I guess it’s possible,” Kelly said joining him. “Those things don’t seem to recognize doorways unless they are following something. If there was no noise in the hall this may have been the only source of entertainment.”
“Yea,” Robbie agreed. “Welcome to your sucky afterlife. Stuck in a high rise condo forever.”
“Probably better than being outside,” Kelly opined. “At least she had a nice view and the birds weren’t trying to eat her eyeballs.”
“Ew,” he said, “I guess the zombie afterlife sucks no matter where you end up.”
“True,” she agreed walking back to their packs and pulling out an energy bar. “Are you hungry?”
“Not anymore,” Robbie replied but made his way back towards the kitchen. A long granite counter top separated the galley kitchen from the large living room. He walked in and began checking the cabinets. “Check it out. Cardboard food.”
Kelly joined him and laughed that the cabinets were stocked with cardboard facades of food boxes. The refrigerator was the same, even including a large box with an image of a cooked turkey. The end of the island had two bar stools on each side and was decorated as a breakfast area. She pulled out one of the chairs to sit down and noticed that underneath the island were a pair of dark blue women’s heels and two purses pushed neatly up against the cabinet’s base. She picked up one of the shoes and looked it over.
“She had good taste in shoes,” Kelly said as Robbie continued to rifle through the cabinets. “These are Jimmy Choo.”
“Jimmy who?” Robbie looked up confused.
“Jimmy Choo.” Kelly said with a sigh. “Very expensive back in the day.”
“Oh,” Robbie said disinterestedly and returned to exploring the drawers.
Then Kelly stopped and looked back down “Two purses…”
“Is that another type of shoe?” Robbie asked.
“No.” Kelly continued. “There are two
purses. That means there were two women here.”
“Not in here,” Robbie said. “We checked already. Maybe the other one left before it started?”
Kelly picked up both bags and started rifling through them. “Definitely two women.”
“How can you tell,” Robbie asked.
“Different types of make-up…” she answered as she looked through the contents of the bags, “different types of jewelry, two wallets, two sets of keys. Nice rides.” She held up the two key fobs. “One is a BMW and the other is a Range Rover.”
“Um, that’s not a good sign,” Robbie said. “If her car is still here then she is still here somewhere. Maybe in one of the other units.”
“She may have run out when her friend turned,” Kelly guessed. “She couldn’t get back in so may have tried to get home another way.”
“That would be hard without her wallet,” Robbie said. “She wouldn’t have gotten far on foot. Especially without her shoes. Not that day.”
“Yes, but if she took off in a panic she might not have thought of that until it was too late,” Kelly conjectured. She pulled the wallets out and lay them on the counter top beside each other. Both were high end brand names. One was a grey alligator style. The other was caramel brown and she could smell the leather. Opening them up she found two driver’s licenses with the smiling faces of two women who could have come off the covers of fashion magazines. It was hard to comprehend how one of them could have been the wild haired cave woman who attacked them in the hall.
“Maria Isabella Cortez,” Kelly said reading the ID information next to the picture of a woman with jet black hair and rich tan skin that strongly suggested a Hispanic background. “Twenty six years old, five feet five inches tall, requires corrective lenses and an organ donor.”
“And, Taylor Michelle Fuller,” she said looking at the other ID. The woman had blonde hair and blue eyes with the high cheek bones and pale skin Kelly thought might be from Germanic genes. “Thirty two years old, five feet six inches tall and lives at 532 Bayside Drive.”
“Bayside Drive,” Robbie chimed from across the room. “Swanky part of town. Over by the Yacht Club, right?”
“Yep,” Kelly affirmed.
“I wonder what they were doing up here?” Robbie asked. “The outbreak hit overnight and by morning the city was in chaos. Who goes condo shopping before sunrise?”
“Ah,” Kelly answered as she held up a card pulled from one of the wallets. “They were with the realty company selling the building.” Looking at the card she read, “Maria Cortez – Senior Vice President for Sales – Riverside Condominiums, Inc. I bet they got here early to set up for the day’s potential buyers. One of them got bit on the way in and turned after she got here. The shit hit the fan and the other one hauled ass.”
“Sounds plausible.” Robbie said. “Well, I hope her friend got out ok but let’s not take any chances. I don’t want to risk her busting in on us in the middle of the night. Help me move this dresser against the front door.”
“I have to pee,” Kelly said.
“Will you go take care of that already?!” Robbie said exasperated.
“I think I will,” Kelly hopped up from her stool and walked purposefully to the bathroom. Under the cabinet, she found an unopened roll of toilet paper and strode back out holding it up like a trophy. “Behold! Mana from heaven!”
“Good for you,” Robbie said still struggling to shove the chest across the floor.
Kelly stopped and frowned at the thick layers of grime, blood and zombie slobber coated over the glass door and handle. She walked back to the kitchen and looked under the sink. “Voila!” she said pulling out a full bottle of Lysol cleaner, a container of Clorox wipes and a box of yellow kitchen gloves. She then marched back to the door and gave the area a thorough scrubbing. When she was done she opened the door, stepped out onto the balcony and flung the used gloves and wipes off into the air.
“Litter bug,” Robbie called out as he watched her from inside.
Kelly gave him the finger and took a look around. The balcony was about five feet wide and stretched nearly the entire length of the apartment. Each condo on this level had a similar terrace with a narrow gap between them. As this was the top floor, the only thing above them was the roof. She glanced up and verified nothing looked like it might fall. Outside several patio lounges, chairs and tables had been staged while all the cushions had been piled together against the railing. Kelly took it all in before strolling to the far end.
Chapter 15
There was a time not so long ago, when she would never dream of relieving herself over the edge a fancy condo balcony in the hip part of downtown, but those days were in the past. She pulled one of the fancy teak chairs over for balance, climbed up onto the railing and wrangled her pants down. Hanging her bottom over the outside, she checked the wind direction and let loose. After holding it for so long, it was pure bliss and she sighed with relief.
She sat there and enjoyed the view. This high up, much of the destruction was not so obvious and she could almost imagine it was just a nice normal day before the end of the world. In the distance to the north, the iron girders of Century Bridge stretched out across the river. Its wide lanes connected Fort Garcon to the beaches further west, and the state capitol to the east. The setting sun sent a golden glow over the river, shining in the windows of the buildings on either side. She saw groups of figures moving along the sidewalks in the distance and imagined them to be regular people out shopping rather than the undead, that they most assuredly were. To the south, the city gradually gave way to commercial wharfs and piers before returning to long and winding stretches of green as the river ran down to the Gulf.
She finished up, hopped down and was reattaching her belt when she spotted something odd among the piles of cushions. Kelly clicked her belt in place, grabbed her staff and stepped closer. A black high heeled shoe seemed to be wedged between the cushions. Kelly used her staff to move the top cushion and reveal the rest of the shoe; a boot actually. She slowly shoved the other pieces out of the way until her suspicions were confirmed.
“Hey Robbie!” She called, “I think I figured out what happened to Taylor Fuller.”
“Oh?” Robbie queried as he walked to the door and saw the body, the fully dead kind, laying among the faded cushions. “Oh.”
“Yea,” Kelly said. “Out here the whole damn time.”
“Man that would be a fucked up situation,” Robbie said looking back at the bloody streaks along the inside of the glass. “Your friend turns into a zombie and chases you out here. But there’s no way down and you can’t get back in. She was trapped. I think I would just jump and got it over with.”
“Maybe she was waiting for someone,” Kelly said, “…thought she could wait it out for help to come.”
“But from up here she could see the whole thing go down,” Robbie countered. “When the sun came up she would have a bird’s eye view of the whole nightmare unfolding.”
“Some people don’t quit easy,” Kelly said looking down at the drawn and emaciated corpse. “She probably piled the cushions on herself to keep warm.”
“Smart.” Robbie said sadly. “Too bad help wasn’t coming.”
“Yea.” Kelly replied.
“How do you know it’s Taylor?” Robbie asked.
“Can’t for sure,” Kelly said but nodded to the corpse’s matted blonde hair. “Taylor had blonde hair in her driver’s license photo. The one in the hall had dark hair, right?”
“I think so,” answered Robbie. “I wasn’t paying close attention to that while she was trying to bite my face off.”
“How long do you think it would take to die from dehydration and exposure out here?” Kelly asked, and then answered herself. “Three days without water and your body starts to shut down. A week or two maybe? Laying out here with no cover, getting weaker, hoping for a break, praying your homicidal friend inside forgets about you and wanders off, hoping somebody shows up to save you. But
nobody does.”
“Well,” Robbie interrupted Kelly’s morbid narrative, “she’s at peace now, right? Why don’t you come back inside? We’ll bury them tomorrow.”
Kelly had started to sweat and felt her stomach getting queasy. It wasn’t the corpse. She had seen thousands of those. It was as if she could feel this woman’s final moments of loneliness and despair in her heart. The ache reached down into her intestines. Before she knew it, she was leaning over the railing puking down the side of the building.
“You ok?” Robbie came over to her when she started heaving.
Kelly nodded. “Yea, sorry, just got a little overwhelmed.”
“C’mon.” Robbie rested his hand on her back and noticed she felt warm. “Why don’t you come in and lie down. Let me help you.”
“I can do it myself. I’m ok,” Kelly said as she stepped back from the rail and made her way back inside. She lay down on the couch feeling suddenly drained and tired. Robbie grabbed a canteen of water from his pack and handed it to her. She drank it deeply. “Don’t ever leave me like that Robbie. Ok? Promise?”
“Sure Kelly,” Robbie said kneeling beside her. “I won’t. Where would I go?”
“I know, right?” She said and smiled. “I’m really tired all of a sudden. Would it be ok if I just lay here for a bit?”
“Yea, no problem,” Robbie answered. “I’ve almost got the place buttoned up. The sun is setting. We can’t do anything productive until morning anyway. Just lie here and relax.”
Robbie checked that the front door was locked with the dresser firmly braced against it. He then walked through the house, re-checking in all the closets and under all the beds until he was confident there was nothing that would go bump in the night. As late afternoon shadows fell, he pulled the heavy blackout curtain so that it covered most of the wide windows.
“Don’t close it all the way,” Kelly requested as he got close to the open sliding door. “Let’s leave a little open for the view and to keep some air flow.”
“Yea, ok,” Robbie agreed and stepped out onto the balcony to look down at the river front as the last light bounced along its empty streets. “Hey, hear that?”
