by H. L. Murphy
A flash of dark color drew His attention, though He could not single out any particular object as having moved. The world through His eyes was colored in shades of red, primarily crimson, but was no less detailed for it. One item drew his focus and the flesh He once was identified it as a hat, particularly a fedora. In the memory of the flesh He once was, the Other wore such things upon his head. The Other would enter this structure wearing it, then placed the object next to a soft shell mobile containment device. The containment device was not where it should be. Had that been the flash of color He had seen? Was the Other in the small space next to the storage area?
Simple enough for Him to discover. He stalked over to the padlocked doors, little more than plywood nailed to a two by four frame. With a bellowed roar, he drove his fist into the three quarter inch plywood. Into it, and straight through.
The Other released a verbal outburst comprised of obscenities. He removed His fist slowly to peer within the small space. The Other lay not upon the floor in a broken mass, but crouched upon a steel shelf several feet above the ground. The Other swung the mobile containment device onto his back before looking straight into His eyes.
“Finnegan,” He wheezed out in recognition. The Other was covered in blood, fresh blood, and He smelled viscera recently exposed to open air. It was then He noticed the blood coated assembly laying upon the floor. He roared, drawing His horde to Him. The primary cycle had already completed, the Other could now pose a serious obstacle. Sound unlike anything the flesh He once was ever heard rattled the plywood door, the metal shelves the Other stood upon, and caused the flesh near Him to bleed from their ears as He bellowed His will.
The Other mimicked His roar, though in a truly inferior fashion, before performing some primitive hand gesture which held no apparent meaning. He cocked His head to one side, unsure what the Other was trying to convey. The Other spat more obscenities, took hold of the hat covering, and leapt from the metal shelving onto the office ceilings.
He drove His fists into the plywood over and over until nothing barred his way. The Lesser swarmed around him into the small space. He directed the Lesser to clamber onto the metal shelving after the fleeing Other.
Chapter Five
My eyes came open almost immediately. At least, I thought it was immediately, but since I came awake with part of an hydraulics subassembly through my side I thought I could be excused for my lack of precision. The reality of flesh eating zombies had not escaped my thought processes, hence the whole not screaming five kinds of bloody murder as the excruciating pain registered. I dared to touch the subassembly, only to discover it was indeed possible to achieve an even higher plateau of agony. The intake of a single breath nearly caused me to black out.
Breathing caused the steel tubing pierced through my side, and probably something soft and squishy inside me, to vibrate. Vibrations sent waves of truly unbearable pain through every cell of my body. I couldn't move without the tubing inflicting debilitating pain, so it had to come out.
My shirt was a ruin of stained material and had two matching perforations, which I used to rip my button down shirt from my body. Shaking with the pain, I pulled my shirt into strips to act as bandages once I got this damned tubing, hydraulic line part number 50070-20340-101 was printed along the side of the subassembly, out of my body. I ground my teeth as I braced myself for the mind breaking pain to come.
I wrapped one hand around the tubing and placed the other on the entry wound. As I pulled, it's everything I feared it would be and more. My vision whites out as my nerve endings relayed how very much my violated flesh objected to having the hydraulic line pulled back through. Halfway through removing the line I remembered to take a deep breath before I passed out. Out the line came with a sickening, slurping pop as my flesh finally released the invader.
The hydraulic line, part number 50070-20340-101, fell from my trembling hand to clatter on the cold concrete floor. I took several deep breaths before I pressed the make shift bandages against my bleeding side. It hurt, though not nearly as much as I thought it should. Could it be that I had finally reached the point where my resistance to pain had been exceeded? Could blessed shock be rearing its dangerous head at last? I knew I felt the line brush against something deep inside me as it came out. Maybe that did it.
Oh, Jesus fuck, what if I was bleeding out internally?
Fuck, which organs are situated in your right side?
Small intestines, large intestines?
Where the fuck is your liver?
Kidneys?
Spleen?
FUCK!
Dredging up the last of my flagging courage, I lifted the makeshift bandage to check the bleeding…only to find I wasn't bleeding anymore. For some reason, this scared me more than if I had been gushing blood. I slapped a hand against my chest to feel for my heartbeat, which was currently thundering away. Fingers quivering, I slowly probed my wound. The hole wasn't nearly as large as it should have been, nor did it lance pain through me when I touched it. Where I should have been able to reach into the wound to feel parts of my body never meant to be touched, I felt only chords of muscle. Okay, so you weren't really supposed to be able to feel the actual muscle fiber either.
“What the fuck?” I whispered while I probed the exit wound on my back. It, too, seemed to have sealed itself. Right about then my stomach cramped, badly. Like I hadn't eaten all day, for several days. I couldn't stop a low groan from escaping my lips. The cramping eased soon enough, and I struggled to my feet. Dizziness hit me like a sledgehammer in the forehead, and I stumbled into the storage bins. I felt like I was on the backside of a major drunk, only without the happy buzz and with flesh eating zombies and self healing wounds. What the fuck was that about? Wounds don't just randomly regenerate.
I didn't know what happened, but I did know Lizzy and Hermione were waiting on me so I didn't have time to sit around whinging and whining. I reached for my cell, only to discover it was cracked in half, completely dead. Yet another subject Madalina fucking Hurgoi and I were going to discuss once I caught up with her, Cooms be damned.
Originally intended to store large sub assemblies and specialized tools for building helicopters, the bins were modular in design which allowed for variation in shelf height. Lucky for me the shelves weren't very far apart. I managed to get my aching frame to the top shelf, which was practically level with the top of the lockers on the other side of the wall. Popping, tearing, cracking sounds drew my attention to the dividing wall and I saw the security door and doorframe pulled from the wall. Whether or not it's a conscious or unconscious decision, I began to repeat the Lord’s Prayer. Couldn't really say why since I hadn't seen the inside of a church in practically two decades. Maybe you can't ever completely escape the major elements of your upbringing. Strangely though, I felt comforted by the words, even if they were in Latin. Old school Catholic priest who didn't hold with new fangled ideas like holding Mass in English, or women's suffrage, drilled it into my skull. Made me wonder how the old priest would have viewed that particular nightmare. Probably would have called for the nearest single woman living on her own to be repeatedly dunked to determine whether or not she was a witch. After that, it would have been a depressing downward spiral into trepanning and blood letting.
I was digressing again, because I really didn't like what I was seeing. Undead were pouring through the new opening much faster than they had been moving. Worse, they were moving with a purpose. Groups of five or six undead rush to reinforce the zombies losing their battles to the living. Valiant living men and women were overwhelmed as they simply could not gather anymore strength to hold off the inevitable.
I broke away from the nightmare taking place to crawl over to my bag. My keys were the first thing I went for, jamming them into my blood soaked front pocket. I could have left the bag at that point, but I had some other things in the bag I might need. A sharp crack brought my eyes down to the WIP crib door, where I watched as a pale, splitter covered fist drew back throu
gh a narrow opening. The door was three quarter inch plywood over a two by four frame.
Who the unholy hell can punch straight through that?
The retreating fist was replaced by the face of Pee Wee Miller, although his flesh seemed to be shot through with black and dark green lines and his blood red eyes roiled and bubbled with unnatural life. What the serious fuck?
“Finnegan,” Zombie Pee Wee actually fucking wheezed at me. The zombie actually fucking spoke my name. What the serious fuck is a fucking zombie doing speaking my name? That wasn't fucking disturbing in the least. My bladder really wanted to empty itself all over my pants, but I conquered my bladder’s fear long enough to snag my new hat.
“I'm the fuck out of here,” I shouted and leapt onto the ceiling of the visitor’s reception room. “Fuck you, Zombie Pee Wee.”
Before I've even moved ten feet I realized I had been munching on a protein bar. Where the fuck did that come from? I kept half a dozen protein bars in my bag in case of emergency. In case of emergency? Jesus fuck, Finnegan, what do you think this is? The thing was, I started to feel much better the more of the protein bar I devoured so I shoved the rest of the bar in my mouth and chewed like there was no tomorrow. The moaning from behind me spurred me forward, and I started running. There were no ladders leading off that ceiling, but the reception room opened into a large common hallway. In the hallway, on the far side was a maintenance balcony complete with a ladder bolted to the wall. I figured the hallway was about seven feet wide, hopefully not too wide. Junior high school, yes I was old enough to have gone to a junior high school, physical fitness tests proved beyond all doubt that Angus Finnegan would never set long jump records. The running start helped, and I managed to make the leap and hold onto the rusted steel railing.
Really? Multi billion dollar corporation and they couldn't be bothered to do simple rust prevention? This was Florida, bitches, rust was an everyday concern.
Zombies began popping their ravaged faces up over the ceiling, seeking whom they may devour. It took less than a second for a zombie to spot me, it's disgusting maw dropped open to sound the hunt.
“Nobody likes a fucking snitch,” I spat at Zombie McSnitch. I couldn't really identify the zombie snitch, but I was more than willing to bet the fucker was Johnny the Pigeon, so named for his proclivity to snitch his Union brothers to supervision. “I'm a goddamn Union brother for fuck’s sakes.”
I hit the floor hard as I dropped straight down, but didn't break anything. Lady Luck finally smiled down on me, and I didn't waste a second of my head start. The echoing thumps of my boots as I ran down the hall seriously freaked me the fuck out because it was the only sound beside the moans and screams. There was no talking, no whir of machinery, not even the music from the facility gym. The pounding, wall shaking music was always playing, always. If the main lighting hadn't still been on, I would have sworn the power had been cut. I thought it was pretty odd, but as so many bizarre, terrifying things had happened I just kind of filed it away. The heavy outer door practically flew open as I hit it at a full run. Not terribly bright since I very nearly rebounded onto to my ass.
Oh, nice move Finnegan. Way to almost throw yourself to the zombies. Try explaining that to St. Peter, if your lucky enough to make it to the gates of heaven.
“So tell me the manner of your death, Brother Finnegan,” St. Peter would request over a nice cup of tea. Hey,it's my fantasy, and in my fantasy St. Peter drinks tea and sounds like Ken Watanabe from the Last Samurai.
“Well, I kind of got eaten by zombies,” I would hedge around the embarrassing details. “It was all very unpleasant, I don't like to dwell on it, St. Peter.”
“That does sound very unpleasant, and sadly, all too familiar of late,” St. Peter responds gently while gazing at an impossibly lengthy shower of perfect cherry blossoms. “How exactly did you meet this most untimely end? The Archangel Michael believes you died protecting the innocent, while the Archangel Gabriel ardently states you met your death attempting to carry out a secret mission to save all mankind. Of course, it would be a simple matter to ask Azrael, the Angel of Death, how you died, but not very sportsmanlike.”
“Sportsmanlike?”
This would be where my piss poor attitude would have landed me in trouble.
“Why, yes,” St. Peter would smile, pluck a cherry blossom from the air, only to drop it into his never ending tea cup. Have I mentioned how much I hate tea? “The fate of man is entirely in his own hands. It's what makes watching you so entertaining to the varied choirs of angels.”
“Yeah, I got that, Pete,” I would sneer,”but, where does sportsmanship come into it?”
“The Archangels have a wager going on every soul that comes to us since the Zombie Apocalypse began.”
“We’re fucking pay per view? The dead are rising to consume the living and the highest fucking choir of angels are laying bets on who did what? Are you fucking kidding me, Pete?”
“Peter. My name is Peter. Only that cockwit Judas ever called me Pete,” St. Peter's calm begins to suffer at this point. Slightly less educated London, and a little more Joe Pesci from the poor neighborhoods of Brooklyn. “And the Brothers have a wager, not a bet. It's not as though they're calling a bookie to lay two yards on college football.”
“Is that the voice of experience there, Pete?” I would just keep winning friends and influencing the keeper of the gates of heaven. “Are you in deep? How does collection even work when you lose? Does your bookie send a couple of guys with cauliflower ears to remind you its in your best interests to pay up? Or does he/she cancel your debts when they arrive, provided you slip them in one the sly?”
“I don't bet on college football, you potato eating Paddy,” St. Peter the touchy snaps. “Now, if you don't mind answering the question. How did you end up taking a dirt nap?”
“Dirt nap? Dirt nap? I didn't take a dirt nap, asshat, I was eaten alive by fucking zombies,” my legendary temper would be in full swing by then. Mouth breaking new ground in the sacrilege category at near light speed.
“But what exactly led to you becoming whiskey marinated zombie chow?” Apparently, St. Peter isn't afraid to break out the hurtful stereotypes. I guess once you've had your card signed off by the Old Man’s kid, you're golden.
“Fine,” temper in full swing, brain disengaged. “I ran into a fucking door, bounced off, and got eaten by the worlds slowest fucking zombies. Happy now, you Galilean twat? I knocked myself out, and got eaten.”
“Dude, that was a little uncalled for,” Peter the touchy looks as though he just caught me humping the Virgin Mary in the Pope’s bed. “I don't think we can have that particular brand of blasphemy cavorting about, corrupting the pure of heart.”
“Pure of heart? The fuck are you talking about? Hippy Jesus told that thief next him he was welcome in Big Daddy’s house,” my mouth just keeps running. “Oh, and you're here despite how much of a shitheel you were to Mary Magdalene. She wasn't a whore, and she wasn't crazy either. She was an independent woman at a time when you fucking primates were still wiping your asses with your hands. Hey, rumor has it JC treated her with as much, or maybe more, respect as he showed you. Come to think of it, maybe that's why you're answering the door and not sitting at the Big Man’s table.”
Yeah, I was pretty sure I was going to hell just for calling Pete a Galilean twat, even if it was just in my thoughts. Yay me! That whole messed up dialogue ran through my head as I ran to the turnstiles. It wasn't until I reached the nearest that my lack of a security badge became noticeable.
“That is what you get for calling me a Galilean twat,” I heard Pete the vengeful whisper in my ear.
“Lady Luck, you're a cheap, clapped out whore,” I shouted to no one. Next to the turnstile was a closed rolling gate reserved for delivery trucks, but it was close enough to the aluminum fencing separating the walkway from the asphalt that I was able to make it over both. “I take it back, you beautiful bitch!”
What did I get for escapi
ng the tomb of the undead?
A chance to run some more. Jesus fuck, I wished I had done more cardio.
The parking lot wasn't nearly as crowded as it should have been, making me think it was probable some of my coworkers managed to escape as well. It was also full on nighttime. How the fuck had it gotten so late? How much fucking time had I lost standing there in the parts crib?
My Jeep rumbled to life with a single turn of the key. Cold, hard steel wrapped in leather sat on my hip again, and I had begun to feel safe again when I felt a tickle at the base of my spine. Slowly, I turned and saw Zombie Pee Wee standing on top of the turnstiles, two hundred yards away, glaring death at me. His jaw started to work, as though he were speaking but I was having none of it. Creepy Zombie Pee Wee can keep whatever he was saying to his goddamn self. I want to say I burned rubber all the way out of the parking lot, but let's be serious. I drove a old Jeep Cherokee, not a brand new, paid for by her last boyfriend, Mustang like the Gypsy. Speaking of which, I passed her still parked car on the way out. A part of me hoped they made it out, but most of me pictured Zombie Pee Wee as he devoured the bitch.
“Fuck you, Zombie Pee Wee,” I shouted at the staring, unmoving form atop the turnstile. “And you can suck a dick, Madalina.”
Which, in retrospect, sounded like I was handing out praise for a job well done. Like,”Hey! Well done, you can really suck a dick. For a minute there I thought you were going to pull my bladder out the suction was so great. Let me get you a towel.” Having had no experience of the woman, I couldn't really speak to her oral skills. I would have changed it to “eat a dick”, but in the zombie apocalypse that might have been taken literally. Maybe I should have called her a Galilean Twat? No, Pete might have gotten jealous.
