The Home:
A Zombie Survival Short Story
By Chris Stoesen
November 5, 2015
Version 1.02
Copyright © 2015 Chris Stoesen
All rights reserved.
Dedication
Thank you so much to my wife and son for their love and support. I could not hope for a better family. After all, they put up with my nonsense constantly. Thank you to my cabin mates at Camp Nanowrimo. Without your encouragement, the idea for this story would never have been possible. A special thanks to Philip McClimon. Your zombie stories were a great setting and thanks for letting me use your world.
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Introduction
This book is the result of a conversation between friends during a summer writers challenge. I was in the middle of attempting to get my mother into a memory care facility. My friends were both sympathetic to what I was going through, but also helped me to laugh. The second helped me more than I will ever know.
Given that two of the authors that I was conversing with having written books in the zombie genre, comparisons between some memory care facilities and the genre arose. I can appreciate dark humor at time and this was one of them. A parting comment at the end of the discussion resonated with me, "this could make a great scene in a story."
It took a couple of weeks, but the story did indeed come out of that conversation. The thoughts that drove it were what would happen to people that need essential services once a major catastrophe like a zombie apocalypse occurred? What would happen to diabetics that were dependent on their medicines? What would happen to the elderly that are not able to help themselves any more?
Furthermore, the story had to have its lighter moments. I have visited many nursing and retirement homes. One of the authors described one of the funnier moments he had while visiting a home. All of these elements started to congeal and this short story just flowed out from it.
This may not appeal to hardcore fans of the zombie genre. There is little in the way of the typical blood and gore. I had honestly hoped to have it included in a larger work, but it took on a life of its own. So here it is.
There are many worlds that already exist for zombie stories. There are more flavors of them than Baskin Robins has ice cream flavors. I decided to adopt a world to base mine in. Philip McClimon's Nicole's Odyssey: A Journey Through The Zombie Apocalypse and its prequel Substation: The Last Stand of Gary Sykes are the basis of the world in which this story resides.
I hope that you enjoy this short story and will take a look at some of my other works.
Thanks,
The three sat panting behind the brick sign. The opposite side of the sign faced the street and illuminated by the hidden lights at its base. It read Brighton Commons Memory Care. To the group's left was the driveway that swung in a small loop. This was to allow ambulances access to swing around by the front door of the building. That front door was now some hundred yards in front of them. Inside the loop of the driveway was a nicely kept lawn with a flag pole in the center of it. The parking lot was simply a bulge in the driveway to the left of the building with a mere dozen spaces.
It was getting dark. The sun's rays still poked out above the top of the building in front of them. There were some lights on in the building as well as the perimeter lights. But much of the area was shrouded by shadow.
The blond girl was in her early twenties. She was gasping for breath after her recent run. With a flushed face, her hair was stuck to her forehead with sweat. Her eyes were wide with panic. The man with them placed his hand on her knee.
"Shhh. It's going to be OK, Mikayla. Relax, we can find what we are looking for inside."
The girl on the other side whispered towards them, "How the hell do you know that? This is an insane asylum. We just went through the wreckage of three drug stores and nothing. If we had been there last week maybe, but now there is nothing left anywhere."
"Shut it, Meredith," the man said with a good deal of heat in the whisper. He squeezed Mikayla's knee again before reaching down and picking up the machete.
Using the blade as a pointer, he pointed across the parking lot. The parking lot had a small bus in the parking lot. There was also a single car in the parking lot as well. It sat across three parking spots with the front right wheel up on the grass behind the parking spot. The driver's side door was open. The interior light of the car had died out before the three had arrived. There were no other vehicles in the lot. Silence and stillness were the only features of the lot in front of them.
"Inside that ALF is medicine. They keep plenty of it on hand. My aunt and uncle are or were in there. Aunt Jenny is a diabetic too. I know they will have insulin. I have no idea why there is still power on everywhere, but for whatever reason, it's on. That means the insulin in there is still good."
"ALF? What the hell does a really bad old TV show have to do with this?" Meredith sneered.
For her part, Mikayla looked puzzled as well.
With his left hand, the man pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
He sighed and said, "An ALF is an Assisted Living Facility. This is a retirement home for people with dementia and Alzheimer's. There is a medical cart in there and in the kitchen there is a medicine refrigerator. There should be everything we need in there."
He rolled his neck, "We need to get in there. The damn doors are always locked though. We will have to kick them in. Any of those people inside there, will be fucked if we open those doors. Then again, I have no clue if any of them are really alive anymore. The staff must have fled when this started. If anyone turned inside there, we could be in for a rough time."
Pointing to the car, Mikayla pointed out, "that car might be usable, Mr. Carlton."
"Please do not do that again, I told you both, just Carlton. You both make me feel ancient."
A smile broke across both girls' faces. Mikayla said, "We have known you since we were little girls. It is hard to think of you any other way."
He just gave each girl a hard look that made them giggle more.
"OK, we are going to check out that car first. Follow me."
He ran for the car and glanced through the passenger window. Inside was an all too familiar sight. Leaning across from the passenger seat was an infected woman. The back of her head was torn open. There were specks of dried blood and brain tissue on the roof of the car and only a bit on the window. She was lying across a body of a man.
Carlton moved around the car and saw the man lying outside of the car. The dead zombie was in his lap. The head of the man was in ruins. His right arm was curved up to his head and still held a small frame snub-nosed revolver. It must have been a .357 given the damage from the two shots that he could see it made.
Reaching down, he removed the pistol from the man's hands. He saw the Smith and Wesson logo on the side of the frame. Opening the chamber, he saw that only two of the five rounds had been fired. He worked the ejector and picked out the two spent shells and dropped them on the ground.
Mikayla gagged as she rounded the car, "I don't think I can ride in that. I can barely stand near that stink. With all that has happened, I have no idea how I still am not used to this."
Meredith
also had a look of revulsion on her face.
Sticking the small J Frame Model 360 revolver in his back pocket, he whispered, "keep a sharp watch."
He then unslung his pack. Unzipping the side pocket, he withdrew some yellow rubber kitchen gloves. Grabbing the man by the shoulders of his shirt, Carlton dragged the body of the man out of the car. He was thankful that neither person was sear belted. He saw the bite marks on the arm of the dead man. She must have bitten him and he decided he would rather be truly dead rather than the ambulatory kind.
The woman was far nastier. But she was not the worst zombie that they had seen. She must have turned in the car ride. There was a single bite mark on the woman's ankle. She wore a short dress with sandals. Carlton grabbed her arms and pulled her out of the vehicle, being careful not to get any fluids on himself. Once the two were laid out on the grass, he moved back to the car.
The keys were in the ignition and turned to the start position. There was no gas. The car had sat idling in park until it ran out of gas and then battery.
Carlton muttered one word, "Shit."
Meredith just started to laugh. Both Carlton and Mikayla shot her looks.
"Hey, in the past forty-eight hours, I have heard you say more bad words than I have the previous fifteen years."
That had Meredith start to laugh.
"Shut it, you two. You are worse now than when you were in my fifth grade Sunday school class. Come on. This car won't get us anywhere."
Crouched low, Carlton moved towards the front door of the ALF. The girls followed behind them. Meredith was in the rear. She scanned behind them as they quickly made it to the door.
She whispered, "Clear," when they got to the door.
Carlton looked through the windows. He could see movement inside. There were two sets of glass doors. The pair on the outside of the building were always unlocked. He popped the door open and stepped into the small foyer. It was these second doors that were locked to keep the patients inside. To the left, he could see that there were shapes moving inside. Through the door, they could hear a moaning noise.
With a quick glance to the right, he could see the alarm panel and a green light beside it. If he understood it correctly and based on his previous visits, the alarm was turned off. He slid the machete back into its sheath on his hip and rotated the strap for the short rifle on his back.
Whispering to the girls, "someone left the door alarm off. They never do that. The staff must have left in a big hurry."
Carlton carried an AR-15 with a short ten inch barrel. Screwed into the end of the barrel is a foot long suppressor. The barrel was thicker than a normal AR barrel as it was chambered for the 300 AAC Blackout round. The heavy, sub-sonic rounds it fired were some of the quietest that Carlton had ever fired. The ammo was hard to come by though. He was down to his last hundred rounds.
He checked the chamber to make sure that the weapon was loaded. He looked to the girls and saw they had armed themselves as well. Mikayla carried a baseball bat in her right hand with the barrel resting on her shoulder. In Meredith's hands was a tire iron. Both girls had pistols, but they were not suppressed. They left the pistols in their back pockets. No need to call more attention to themselves with a pistol shot if they don't need to.
Mikayla whispered, "You never did tell us where the gun with the silencer came from."
"This, my dear, is not a gun. A gun is an artillery piece of greater than fifty-caliber. This is a rifle. It does not have a silencer. It's a suppressor. There is no such thing as a silencer. You can only suppress noise not eliminate it completely."
He gave his speech as if he were correcting an intelligent student that muttered an asinine question. Both girls rolled their eyes and sighed.
"Whatever. Where did you get it, Mr. Sunday School Teacher? Were you running guns as a side job to working at the church."
He turned and looked at them with a puzzled expression. His eyebrows knit above his eyes and his brow furrowed in thought.
"I never worked for the church. I just taught Sunday School. And no, I didn't run guns for a living. I am a software developer."
"But you were at church all the time. They did not pay you?"
Carlton laughed quietly and shook his head from side to side.
"No, never was paid a dime. I did it because I really enjoyed teaching. I was studying for myself anyway. Why not share. Besides, the stuff y'all came up with was always interesting. I think I learned more from my students than I ever taught you. When you cut out all the foolish nonsense, y'all could ask some insightful questions that made me think pretty hard."
"OK, but what about the rifle?" The last word was said with great exaggeration. Mikayla wanted to say gun again, but really did not want to hear the lecture again.
"Right, well, I have hobbies. I compete in three gun competitions and I like to hunt."
The two girls stared at the back of his head, willing him to say more. When none was forthcoming, Meredith cleared her throat.
He turned back to them, "What?"
"Hunting we get. What the hell is three gun completion?" exclaimed Meridith.
"Oh, that. It's basically a marksmanship competition where you use three firearms: a pistol, a shotgun and a rifle."
"Wait, you said a gun was artillery, none of those are artillery," said a rather smug Mikayla.
"Smart ass. It is a dumb name but it is quite fun. You have a course that you move from target type to target type and shoot. I built the rifle for that competition. I have a couple of different uppers for the rifle based on what I want to do with the rifle."
Meredith interrupted this time, "uppers? What do drugs have to do with this?"
"Nothing. I am referring to the upper receiver of the rifle. It is the part that holds the bullet before it goes boom."
"Now who is being a smart ass," said Mikayla dryly.
"Anyway, you shoot different targets with the different weapons. I had just gone hog hunting a week before the trouble started. I had this in my trunk as I hunt not too far from a subdivision. There is a farmer that pays me for each hog that I kill on his land. The suppressor ensures that no one from the subdivision calls the cops on me. It worked out well so far, but I am running out of ammo. It is not the most popular round, so Wally world and other big box stores don't carry it."
Both girls responded together, "OK, sorry we asked."
He looked at them, but they were both smiling.
Turning more serious, he whispered, "When I open the door, an alarm may go off. The alarm light is green so it shouldn't, but you know how our luck has been."
With both girls nodding, he grabbed the handle of the locked door. It was a brass plated door handle with a cheap and simple locking mechanism that was not very strong. No one tried to break into these places. They only needed to be strong enough to hold in elderly patients with dementia.
He pushed down on the handle with all his weight behind it. He could feel the metal straining within the door handle and felt the cheap metal give way and the door opened. Easing open the door, he raised his weapon and stepped in.
The facility had an open floor plan. There was one large room that was separated off by low, half height walls. Off to each corner of the large room was a hallway to the individual patient rooms. The main room was open ahead of them and looked upon a large atrium. The atrium had the low walls that made for a TV room off to the left and an activity room to the right side. To the back of the main room, were the dining rooms.
The central part of the atrium had skylights in the ceiling with a live tree below them. There were a few dozen leaves lying at the base of the tree that were visible from the moonlight coming through the skylights.
The entry way that they were standing in had rooms to the left and right. To his right, there were two offices. Both had closed glass doors. It was too dark to see into the rooms. To his left there was a library. It had large windows inside looking into the room. It too was dark.
The first thing that st
ruck them was the smell. The place was absolutely rank. There was the smell of death that had become increasingly common in their lives. Next, there were the dual odors of urine and poop that reminded the girls of bad babysitting jobs.
They heard the moaning noise again along with a shuffling sound to the left. Reaching up to the barrel rails with his left hand, Carlton activated the flashlight. A beam of bright light poured out from the end of the barrel. The library was empty.
To the left, they could hear a new noise. It was a light rustle of cloth and then a liquid sound. He swept the beam across the open atrium looking for targets. There were three occupied wheelchairs in the atrium. The occupants were unmoving. Ensuring that there was nothing close, he stepped forward and angled the weapon around the corner.
There was a tall man standing there. He was bald, black and wrinkled. Carlton estimated the age at somewhere close to 80 years of age. His pants were down around his ankles and he was busy urinating on the wall. He was the source of the moaning.
Carlton chuckled and whispered, "Jerry, you know better than that. Where is Penny? She would have taken you back to your room."
Hearing the voice, Jerry, turned to look at Carlton and lifted a left hand and waved at him and smiled. The stream of urine followed his turn and left a wet line across the wall as he moved. The stream slowed and stopped. Jerry reached down and pulled his pants up. Carlton thought he would fall over, but the man managed it. He buttoned his pants and much to Carlton's chagrin, left his fly open with the horse out of the barn.
Carlton ignored Jerry and continued to sweep the room looking for any other movement. There was a light on in the kitchen area. That illuminated the dining areas of the home. There were two bodies seated at the tables that were unmoving as well.
From behind him, Carlton heard Mikayla gasp, "Zombie, oh, shit."
Spinning around, he quickly spoke, "No wait! It's Jerry. He's a resident here. Trust me, he's harmless."
The Home: A Zombie Survival Short Story Page 1
