Zombie Ever After

by Carl S. Plumer

She was gone. Lost forever.

  “Don!”

  Through his tears and sniffling, he imagined her melodious voice.

  “Don!”

  That’s a lot louder. Not quite as melodious. He didn’t know why he was fantasizing a less appealing voice now.

  “For God’s sake, Don-o-van! Hey, Donovan. Hey, fool!”

  Donovan turned, gazed, blinked, gazed again, rubbed his eyes, and this time remained staring at what he was staring at. Cathren had emerged from behind a large pile of rocks up the shoreline.

  “Where have you been?” he called out as he stood up. He sounded more angry than he’d intended.

  “Whoa, calm down, cap’n,” she said, walking up to him. “I’ve been on a scavenger hunt the past couple of hours while you’ve been dreaming. Searching everywhere for breakfast. In fact, I was coming back to check on you, to be sure the San Francisco Bay hadn’t sucked you back in.”

  She gave him a quick kiss on the lips, and his anger at her vanishing act—or was it his fear, or his guilt?—melted away.

  “So what did you find on your walkabout?” he asked her, taking a deep breath and rubbing his eyes with thumb and forefinger.

  “Here. Look.” She held out both hands like a cup. “See?”

  “What’s all this?”

  “A bunch of different types of berries. I know a couple for sure. I was hoping you’d recognize some of the others.”

  “Nope. Not a clue when it comes to berries.”

  The sun was almost overhead now and the day was getting hot. The air hadn’t moved much since all the troubles had started, so, lately, every day was filled with damp, sticky heat.

  Donovan brushed the sweat out of his eyes. San Francisco and humidity: that’s new. “Let’s move to the shade,” he said.

  “Sure.” Cathren walked with him toward the shadow of a large tree up ahead that bowed over the small, rocky beach.

  “So what do you think about the berries?” she asked, getting excited. “Pretty good, right? I swear, they look cultivated. They’re too big for nature, too bug-free.”

  “I don’t know. Doesn’t seem logical.”

  “Well, anyway, these are huckleberries, for sure,” she said, rolling a couple of berries in her palm with her forefinger. “And these might be gooseberries. I don’t know what the bright red ones are.”

  Donovan sat on a large rock in the shade of an old fig tree. “Ah, this is better,” he said, wiping his forehead with the back of his forearm. “What do you think it means, though, all this fruit?”

  “It either means that this fruit was cultivated a long time ago and has survived over time miraculously well, or…” Cathren paused. “Or, we may not be the only ones on this island.”

  Donovan was too tired to give her remark much brainpower. The couple leaned back in each other’s arms and soon drifted off to a restless nap.

  As the sun was starting to set, Donovan and Cathren awoke, feeling somewhat revived, despite eating only a few berries. They got up and Cathren led the way back to the berries she’d found earlier. She may be right, Donovan thought when they arrived. Rows of berry bushes spread out from where they stood in what had to be cultivated lines. He recalled hearing somewhere that there were no straight lines in nature.

  The two quickly ate their fill of those berries that they recognized. After about twenty minutes of gorging on fruit, they both turned and looked up at the sky. Something occurred to Donovan as they stood there, wrapped in each other’s arms, watching the sunset. While the day was gray and the night dark as hell, each morning the sun rose with pink promise, and each night it set with red remorse.

  But the point was, it was color. Almost the only color in the gray sky anymore. Donovan decided to take it as a sign of hope. These days, he had to have something to cling to.

  Cathren clung to him as darkness fell, and he clung to her, too.

  As they stood watching what passed for a beautiful view these days, back in the dense trees and bushes behind them, dark faces hid in the shadows.

  Watching.

  Chapter 57

  As the couple hacked their way through the overgrowth to the prison, a strange uneasiness crept over them. They approached the structure, which loomed ahead of them like a medieval castle in the mist, dark and hulking, an intimidating presence.

  “Whoa,” Donovan said as they broke through the undergrowth and stood looking at Alcatraz Prison. Not the most eloquent response, but Cathren knew what he meant.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Whoa.”

  It was odd, funny almost, that the prison spread out before them was the exact same Alcatraz in his mind’s eye, thanks to films like Escape from Alcatraz and The Rock. Donovan recognized the place right away when they’d approached land last night.

  As they made their way closer, the hollow silence struck Donovan. Not that he expected anything but tranquility. After all, they were the only ones on this island. So who would expect to be greeted by any kind of noises? Especially nonhuman noises.

  This silence, however, seemed like more of a negative stillness. The quiet left behind after all noises had been sucked out of the air. A black hole of sound.

  The sides of the building appeared slippery as they approached. Damp, slimy. Many of the bricks were moss-covered.

  “Ewww,” said Cathren. “Kinda creepy.”

  “Yeah,” Donovan said.

  A soft, yet hot, wind blew, wicking the moisture from their skin. More like walking past an exhaust fan outside a funeral parlor than a comforting breeze. They trudged around to the front of the building. Donovan hoped the place was open. He was not sure he had the requisite skill set for breaking into prison.

  After the couple finally made their way through the brush onto the decaying sidewalk and up to the entrance, they found the doors were shut. Donovan tried the door handle. Locked.

  “Let me try,” said Cathren. She pulled on the door, but the heavy thing didn’t budge. “Hmmm.”

  “I wonder…,” he said, thinking aloud.

  “What?” She put her hands on her hips and blew the hair off her forehead.

  “Maybe we can still find a way to break in, just not through the front doors.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Catherin said, taking a deep breath. “You want to break in to one of the most famous prisons of all time?”

  “Uh, yeah. That’s right.”

  “If there were a way to do that, don’tcha think it would have been tried already? I mean, inmates breaking out.”

  “Not necessarily. Might be a whole different thing going from the outside in,” he said.

  Donovan grabbed her hand and they left the sidewalk again. Overgrown weeds and brush grew thick and heavy along the side road to the rear of the building. They had no choice but to hack their way back into the bushes.

  They pushed through the overgrowth and onto the road. Why were the wild things that grew around abandoned buildings so damn thorny? They watched their step as they went. The sky had grown much darker, and the walkway was pitted with holes.

  After about fifteen minutes of trudging across overgrowth, weeds, and deteriorated concrete, they arrived at the back entrance to the prison. The entrance was surrounded by a tall, perhaps twelve-foot high, chain-link fence. Barbed wire coils slithered along the top of the fence as expected. Didn’t seem as if that was going to work after all. Donovan wasn’t interested in climbing the fence and dealing with that barbed wire. Especially because of the rust. Lockjaw? No thanks.

  “Hey, look at this,” Cathren said.

  Donovan pulled his gaze down from the threat of the barbs to check what Cathren pointed at. A gap in the fence like a small tunnel opening among the weeds and overgrown prickly brush. The chain link had been cut and part of it pulled back. Someone had excellent fence-cutting equipment, that was for sure. The opening appeared large enough for them to crawl through.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “Let’s go for it.”

  They got d
own on their hands and knees and inched their way through the opening, Cathren first, then Donovan. On the other side, they stood up and surveyed the area.

  “Well, we’re in,” Donovan said, brushing the mud and dirt off his pants.

  “Inside the fence is better than outside, I guess,” said Cathren. She had a small cut on her cheek from the fence and mud in her hair. “We still need to get into the actual building, though.”

  “Yeah,” Donovan said. He turned and studied the back entrance. A large metal door stood rusting in the shadows. Donovan eyed the outline of the door, looking for some sign of vulnerability along the edges, but found none.

  “This is so frustrating,” Cathren said. “How exactly are we supposed to get in that place?”

  “It’s not as if you expected the door to be unlocked, did you?” Donovan said. To make his point, he reached over and jiggled the handle, never taking his gaze off her.

  The door clicked open.

  Donovan stared in disbelief. He smiled back at Cathren and shrugged. She shook her head at him, smiling, then they slammed the heavy metal door wide open and marched inside.

  Chapter 58

  The damp interior of the building reeked of mold and rat feces, both of which were in evidence everywhere. Donovan and Cathren stepped into the entrance hall: a waiting room with an opaque, sliding glass window on the right. A few gray metal and plastic chairs were scattered about. Straight ahead, a second steel door blocked their way. They proceeded to the door, determined to get into the building’s main area.

  “What do you think?” Donovan asked, grasping the handle and smiling at Cathren.

  “No way,” she said. “Not twice. We should be so lucky.”

  “Well, maybe our luck has changed,” he said.

  “Why don’t I try it this time?” Cathren said.

  She marched up to the door as Donovan stepped aside, then grabbed the handle and gave it a little jiggle. “Hmmm,” she said. “Sounds okay. Here we go...” She pulled straight down, until she met resistance. “Damn.”

  “Let the master give it a try,” Donovan said.

  “It’s locked. Trust me.”

  “Yeah, well, let me at least try.”

  They switched places, and Donovan took a turn. “You’re right: locked.”

  Cathren stared at him. “No shit, Sherlock.”

  “Okay,” Donovan said. “I’m an asshole, message received. But I only wanted to make sure.”

  “Fine. Now what?”

  He searched the vestibule, hoping for a sign. Or a magic wand. “Check around—and yes, I get this is crazy—see if you can find a key or something in here. You never know.”

  Cathren laughed. “Stranger things have happened.”

  Donovan looked under the chairs and beneath the damp, rotting rug in the places where he was able to pull a section off the floor. He even investigated the narrow tops of the door jambs.

  Meanwhile, Cathren did most of her searching with her eyes. After a bit, she took a couple of deliberate steps over to the dirty window and shoved. Years of rust and crud in the track put up a respectable fight before yielding.

  “Hey, I got this thing open,” she said. “You won’t believe this.”

  Cathren leaned into the opening so far that her feet came off the ground. She lay on her belly across the window opening and extended her right arm. Grunting, she stretched across the small space for something on the opposite wall. Her feet dropped back onto the rug with a thump and she turned to Donovan with a big smile on her face.

  Cathren held up a giant key ring, jammed with keys.

  “I’ll put money on it that one of these keys is the key we’re hunting for.”

  “Nice,” Donovan said, smiling. “Looks like there’s at least—what?—fifty keys on that thing.”

  “A hundred, possibly, or more. This is the biggest fuckin’ key ring I have ever seen,” said Cathren, grinning. “A key to every door in Alcatraz.”

  “Every door in San Francisco more like,” Donovan said.

  They busted out laughing.

  “Well, let’s get started,” he said. “We have a lot of keys, and the darkness is growing.”

  “Right,” she said. “We’ll start with this one, only because it’s not as rusted as all the rest.”

  “Good as any,” Donovan said. “Why don’t you try ten keys, I’ll try the next ten, and so on?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” she said. She took the first key and jabbed it at the keyhole. “Nope,” she said. “The stupid thing won’t even go in.”

  The second one had the same problem, as did the third. But the fourth fit the lock. Only the thing wouldn’t turn. So things went, through her first ten attempts, then his first. Then through her next set of ten, until …

  Click.

  The key in Cathren’s hand turned the lock before either of them, in their dazed “going through the motions” condition, realized it was happening. They became aware they’d succeeded only after the loud “click” snapped them out of their exhausted reveries.

  “Wow,” Donovan said. “You could knock me over with a feather.”

  “We’re in,” Cathren said, almost whispering in awe. She pulled the key out and scraped the top a couple of times on the metal doorjamb to scratch an identifying mark in it. “Done,” she said. “That will help us find the key next time.”

  “Yeah, good,” Donovan said, smirking. “We’ll know because it’s the one with a scratch.”

  She looked at him as if she had no idea what he was talking about and then the light dawned. She started giggling. “Right, well, it’s the key with that particular fresh scratch on it, anyway.”

  She grabbed the handle and turned it free. Donovan reached above Cathren’s head and helped push the door wide.

  “After you,” he said.

  She stepped in and he followed.

  They were immediately enveloped by a deep, disturbing darkness and the smell of death.

  Chapter 59

  “Welcome home,” Donovan said, only half-joking. “This could well turn out to be our address for some time to come.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Cathren said, disappointment dripping from her voice.

  After a brief period of silence, as they took it all in, Donovan spoke. “Nonetheless, let’s see what’s what and find a place that feels good enough and safe enough to sleep in.”

  They strolled along in the quiet, their steps echoing along the empty corridors. They scanned row after row of empty prison cells in the last of the light. Eerie didn’t begin to explain the sensation. Unnerving. Spine-chilling. If they were ever going to believe in ghosts and the supernatural, now would be the perfect time to start.

  After about ten minutes or so of searching, they found a room with actual windows and a wooden, rather than a metal, door. Inside were a couple of chairs, a bulky oak desk, and a bookcase. Some books speckled the floor like little forest plants.

  “Warden’s office, I bet,” Donovan said.

  Everything had deteriorated to a large degree. As the light faded altogether, Donovan caught a glimpse of a lamp on its side in the corner of the room. He moved the lamp to the desk. It turned out to be an old-fashioned hurricane lantern.

  “They’ve had electricity on this island for decades, so why the oil lamp?” Cathren asked.

  “I don’t know,” Donovan said. “Maybe for blackouts from storms or mechanical problems or something.”

  He opened a few drawers in the desk. They slid open grumpily to reveal their inner contents: broken pencils, dog-eared message pads, phone books, various typed and handwritten papers. In the top drawer, along with a copy of the Examiner folded to the crossword, he found what he searched for: matches.

  They seemed dry enough, although still a bit damp, like everything else in the place. Donovan lifted the lamp’s chimney to expose the wick. He struck a match. Nothing happened. The match head was too soggy. He tried another, which sparked briefly before flaming out.

  “We’re g
etting close,” he said, smiling. Cathren pressed next to him in the encroaching gloom but said nothing. Donovan lit another match, this one a winner. It stayed lit long enough for him to apply the flame to the lamp’s wick. He twisted the knob to raise the wick and increase the flame. The room emerged from the darkness and achieved a warm, orange glow.

  “Thank God,” said Cathren. “You know, this is almost cozy.” She looked up at Donovan and grinned. “Not.” She wrinkled her nose and scanned the walls, floor, and ceiling. “Yep, still yucky, despite your ‘romantic’ lighting.”

  “Well, compared to sleeping on a literal rock on the Rock, I think this is an improvement,” Donovan said.

  “Why don’t we investigate some of the other buildings, instead? I don’t like this prison, babe. Not at all. I remember reading there was once a bowling alley on the island. Even a soda shop,” Cathren said excitedly.

  “Talk about ghosts. No, no. Tell you what, we can explore further in the daylight tomorrow,” Donovan said. “But I picked this prison for a reason: Safety. It’s mostly made out of cement and steel. Not indestructible, but pretty damn close.”

  “I guess, but still…”

  “Most of the other buildings on this island are made of wood. Some have burned down, others wasted away. I think we’re better off here. Trust me.”

  “Let’s go see if we can find up something to lie down on, and maybe even something to eat,” Cathren said.

  Donovan grabbed the lamp and followed her out into the hall.

  They scoured the cells around them with no luck. Any beds that had been there either had deteriorated into splintered wood or were missing altogether. So the couple expanded their search to the cells in the next block. Still nothing. At last, they came across a locked door that wasn’t a prison cell, but appeared to be a regular room.

  “Here, let me,” said Cathren. She handed Donovan the lantern and took out her immense key ring. She started flipping through each one, trying the lock and moving on in succession until one worked.

  Click, again.

  “All right!” she said. “Oh, please.” She squeezed her eyes shut and crossed her fingers. “Let this be where they kept the snacks. Candy, chocolate, red licorice, yum.”