The yelling and commotion inside the small storefront started to attract a large number of undead to the front doors and windows. The zombies were unable to see their prey because of the temporary partition walls blocking their view. Still, they beat frantically on the glass with their fists, wanting to reach the sounds of human voices. Gradually, the undead horde grew as more and more zombies were attracted by the noise. The banging and moaning continued to grow louder, causing the remaining survivors to become even more mentally unhinged and panicky with each passing moment. Rational and clear thinking began to ebb away. The people in the room regarded one another with suspicion and fear.
The blonde woman reached down into a discarded Wendy’s bag lying on the floor and, after pulling out a couple of soiled napkins, started wiping the blood off her hands. The others in the group stood in silence watching her actions; the men glared and muscles tightened as they gripped their weapons.
The man with the tie was the first to voice a comment, “You touched his blood.” His voice rose as he repeated himself. “You touched his blood! His blood is all over your hands!”
“He’s right! That was tainted blood.” You could have been infected, too!” cried the Hispanic man.
The hearts beating in the room matched the rhythm of the violent beating on the glass outside. Hot blood raced through arteries. The tension in the room was like a dam ready to break.
“Ah, hell no! Are y’all folks nuts? We need to get the hell out of here, not kill each other,” cried the black woman. “All of us got blood and gore on us. Are y’all just going to kill each other? Hell, just open that damn front door. Those ungodly things will save you the trouble.”
“She’s right, maybe we all are infected,” stated Peter matter-of-factly.
“Maybe, maybe not. But, we do know for sure she touched tainted blood,” screamed the Hispanic man.
“Just look how pale she is. Look at her eyes. She’s turning, I can see it!” yelled the man with the tie as a crazed look filled his eyes.
The attractive blonde began to edge near the other woman. The fear of violence gripped her insides as she nervously watched the men’s movements. She wanted to scream out and defend herself against the asinine accusations. However, realizing the slightest provocation would make this volatile situation explode, she decided to pray silently instead.
The five remaining survivors stood in silence, eyeing each other with caution. A Mexican standoff took place. In a voice barely loud enough for everyone to hear, Peter whispered, “We all need to hold it together. Everyone just relax and breathe. If we quit making noise, those things will lose interest in us and go away. The more noise we make, the more creatures we attract.”
Peter’s clear, thought-out reasoning took away a small but noticeable edge of tension from the group. Heartbeats in the room slowed down as the silence continued. One by one, the undead out in the street lost interest in the storefront’s interior. Without any victims in view or noise coming from inside, the creatures once again began their aimless, mindless shuffle.
“My God, it’s working,” whispered the blonde. Feeling safer now, she left the other woman’s side and crept towards the partition wall. After a few moments of hesitation she peered through the gap in the wall panels. Only a couple of creatures now stood outside the glass looking in, while a small number of others shuffled around in the street behind them.
A tear ran down the attractive woman’s cheek as she thought about her husband and young son. At that moment, a small, pitiful-looking creature shambled to the glass doors and gazed inside. The creature with torn and bloodied flesh had once been a young boy. The sight of this small creature caused the woman’s mind to snap. The woman jumped back from the wall and screamed. Reacting to the woman’s behavior, the others tightened their grips on their weapons as she mindlessly dashed in the direction of the other survivors. The woman just needed to run somewhere, anywhere away from that sick reminder of her loving son.
The bewildered woman took three strides before the first blow sent her to the ground. She lost her breath when the baseball bat struck her ribs the second time. As the axe came crashing down, she raised an arm in a feeble display of defense. The tie-wearing man and the Hispanic man beat and chopped at the body until there were no more signs of life.
“I told you she was infected!” cried the man holding the baseball bat.
Waving a piece of pipe in front of her, the black woman shouted, “Y’all keep back. I’m out of here before I’m next!” Without turning her back to the men in the room, she backed her way to the rear exit.
The two attackers took their eyes off the fleeing woman as Peter approached them. Standing over the dead female, Peter raised his boot. In one fluid motion he drove his heel down onto the woman’s skull, smashing it.
“I told you to destroy the brain,” Peter barked.
“His leg. Look at his leg,” screamed the man with the tie. He pointed to Peter’s ripped pants leg that exposed a small and bloodied gash.
“No! I gashed it when we jumped the fence. You both were there. One of you had to see it happen,” Peter cried in panic. Then Peter saw the large Hispanic man lunge towards him, axe poised to strike.
* * *
The sunlight reflected off the soiled glass panes before beginning its descent behind the city’s tall, obtrusive downtown buildings. A middle-aged man wearing a torn and bloodstained security uniform slid a flat and thin metal pry bar between the set of locked glass double doors. Using only one shaking hand, he tried to pry the deadbolt over enough to force the doors open. He worked quickly and intently to open the entryway, mumbling in frustration and anger with each failed attempt. After he failed to unlock the doors on the third try, he threw the large bloodied flashlight he held in his other hand to the ground. Now he had the use of both free hands to manipulate the deadbolt. As sweat ran down his face, it burned his eyes, and his stomach tightened with each passing second. Time was a luxury he did not have and could not afford.
“Fuckin’ hurry up!” screamed a man’s voice from behind him. The voice was filled with fear and a tone of urgency.
“I’m trying. Just one more…I got it! Come on, hurry,” the security guard shouted as he yanked open the vacant store’s glass doors.
A much younger man and woman dressed in matching Wendy’s uniforms dashed into the door opening behind the security guard. They swiftly turned and grabbed separate door handles, pulling the doors shut. The older man reached past the other two, and with a smooth twist, the lock clicked into place securing the entrance once again. The deadbolt had just slipped past the strike plate as the first zombie crashed into the glass doors. Instinctively, the three jumped back. The doors vibrated upon impact, but the metal frames and shatterproof glass withstood the blow. They all breathed a collective sigh of relief now that they were behind locked doors.
The undead creature moaned and slapped its bloodied hands against the glass attempting to reach the living. Streaks and splatters of blood soiled the glass as the zombie continued to reach for the people on the other side. One of the creature’s eyes that protruded past its socket seemed to lock its gaze upon the survivor’s warm flesh. The thing’s cheekbone was smashed inward, forcing the eyeball to protrude. Shards of shattered bone were exposed through the torn facial skin. A large gaping wound on the side of its neck with strips of hanging flesh flopped in the open air to the rhythm of the creature’s beating hands, evidence of how the once living became one of the undead. The nightmarish abomination kept beating and beating on the glass with its bloodied hands.
“It’s almost like they can still think. God it freaks me out,” cried the woman in the Wendy’s uniform.
The commotion and noise near the store’s entrance snapped Peter out of his reverie. Peter, unnoticed behind the partition, eyed the three strangers standing by the entryway. Fools! Just a goddamn bunch of fools, Peter thought as he watched the three strangers in silence. He continued ranting to himself as he kept a wary eye on
the newcomers. You stupid people think you’re safe now, don’t you? Safe behind locked glass doors. But you will never be safe! Don’t you realize that if those things don’t kill you, you’ll kill each other? There’s a new moral code based on fear, suspicion, and hysteria.
“We got to see if there’s another way out. They’re going to bust through that glass soon. It can’t hold up against that many of them,” the security guard shouted. He spun around, facing the partition walls. The guard gave the center partition a powerful kick sending it crashing to the floor.
“Holy shit!” shouted the young man in the Wendy’s uniform.
The three survivors stood frozen as they viewed the horrific scene that lie before them. Corpses and blood littered the floor.
Lifting his arm up and pointing to one mutilated body, the young man said, “Shit, look at that poor sap.”
“What happened to your arm? You got bit, didn’t you? You got bit!” screamed the security guard when he noticed the other man’s bloodied arm. An intense anger flashed in the man’s eyes, and he tightened his grip on the bloodied flashlight.
“He’s just cut,” cried the young woman.
“Yeah, it’s just a cut! I never got bit,” pleaded the young man as his heart began to race.
Here we go again, Peter thought while viewing the very familiar scene before his eyes.
The guard started to raise his flashlight overhead when a large cracking noise erupted from behind him. The frantic beating finally broke the framing that held the solid sheets of glass. The panes of glass fell inward as they broke away from their frames. The undead poured into the building quickly, never giving the three people a chance to react. Screams of pain and cries for mercy were drowned beneath the groans from the undead horde. The men and woman were manhandled to the ground by the frenzied mob. The zombies tore and bit into their victims with ravenous delight, splattering bits of flesh and warm blood around the room.
Peter quietly watched as a chunk of flesh ripped from the young woman landed near his face. He watched the blood glisten and roll off the warm flesh. Rolling his eyes to his headless body lying on the floor, he released a mental sigh. Flicking his tongue out towards the bit of flesh before him in an attempt to reach it, he thought, there’re things worse than death.
He was just so damn hungry. If only he could get just a small taste, one itsy-bitsy taste.
Death By Dad
By Lisa Conger
Chapter 1
God, is it eight already? I feel like I hardly got any sleep last night. How come I put the alarm way across the room? Oh yeah, so I couldn’t push the snooze button. Which is totally something I would do right now. Okay now that I am up I gotta get Jill ready for school. I wish it was the weekend so I could sleep. Well, at least today is Friday so I can sleep in tomorrow. Jake is already off to work which is good. I don’t remember him leaving, so I guess I did get some sleep. I stumble over to the dresser and stub my toe on the bottom as I reach for my glasses. I hate being blind, but if I listened to the eye doctor when I was younger and wore my glasses, I wouldn’t be in this predicament right now. I walk to the bathroom and step on the icy cold floor. It is always so cold, I should lay a carpet or something, but I am over it when I realize I need to pee really badly. I do my thing and brush my teeth. I then head over to Jill’s room, wake her up, and herd her to the bathroom to do the same thing.
While Jill did her thing in the bathroom, I got her clothes ready for the day and put them outside the bathroom door for her. I knock slightly and let her know her clothes are there for her. Next comes the coffee. I can smell it brewing in the kitchen, and I can tell I am going to need the pick-me-up only coffee can do today because I am dragging butt badly. So off to the kitchen I go. I turn on the news as I walk through the living room so that I can catch up on what’s going on in the world today. That is when I heard it. Well, not it, but the first sign of it that I can think of. The news broadcaster said that all schools were closed today because of the infection going around. I heard that the Swine Flu was going around, but really, closing the schools…isn’t that dramatic? I knew I wasn’t sick, and Jill seemed fine, so I guess I should keep her home today. I know I don’t want the Swine Flu.
I return to the bathroom to let Jill know that there is no school today. Knocking quietly, I wait. Nothing. I knock again and still get no response from Jill. I am starting to get worried when I hear the new broadcast; a ‘Breaking News’ story. I turn my attention back to the TV and wait for what is so important. The TV announced that this infection was no way related to the Swine Flu and that everyone should lock their doors and windows and stay safe. Well, if this was not the Swine Flu, then I wonder what was going on. I look at the bathroom and knock again on the door. Still no answer. I try the doorknob and it is locked. It’s now 8:30, and usually Jill was out of the bathroom by now. In the back of my mind I hear the TV explaining about this new infection and I start pounding on the bathroom door in hopes that Jill will answer. I am really starting to get worried. I put my ear to the door and listen for a minute…and that is when I can hear pounding coming from the bathroom. The weird thing was that the pounding wasn’t coming from the door, but from inside the bathroom.
I realize now that I have to get into my bathroom. I run to the bedroom and open my closet. I have got to have a wire hanger in here somewhere. I eventually find one; hanging from it is my wedding dress which I don’t think twice about before throwing it on the ground. I straighten out the hanger and run to the bathroom. There was no more pounding coming from inside the bathroom. I knock again and holler for Jill. Still no answer, and the pounding starts again. I stick the hanger in the doorknob and I am able to get the door to open.
There she was, covered in blood, laying there motionless on the floor. My mind cannot comprehend why she is laying there motionless, and where all of the pounding is coming from. I look at the bathroom window and see that someone is out there. The window was one of those windows that you can’t see out of or in. I walk over to the window and open it a crack to yell at whoever was out there. I look out the window into a face I once knew. It was Jake! He was covered in blood and had a nasty bite mark on his face. I could see him clearly, and I could also see that he had someone’s arm in his hands. He was chewing on it like it was a drumstick. I must have gasped or made some noise, because he looked me right in the eyes and started to bang on the window, trying to get it open. I was just able to get it closed and locked before two more fists joined in with the banging.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
I jumped so high, that when I came down, I slipped on the blood that was pooling on the floor. I lay there staring up at the ceiling thinking, I am laying here in my daughter’s blood.
I roll over and grab my daughter’s hand trying to feel for a pulse: nothing. I can’t lose her, too, I just can’t. I felt her neck…there it was…a slight pulse. I picked Jill up like she was a baby again, grabbing some towels and heading for the couch. I closed the bathroom door on my way out, I don’t think I will ever be able to pee in there again. Jill was now on the couch and I had covered her head wound with the rag and covered her with a blanket. I sure hope she didn’t lose too much blood.
Chapter 2
It is night now, and I haven’t left the house. The news said to stay put until help comes, so that is what I am doing. Jill is still on the couch, but I got the bleeding to stop, and her pulse seems stronger. I dribble orange juice into her mouth with a dropper to help with her blood. Jake is now on the front lawn, so I was able to clean the bathroom and go pee. I know I said I wouldn’t be able to go in there, but nature called and I had to answer some time. Jake had taken down a mailman earlier today. I saw him tackle the mailman and that was all I could watch. There are more out there, I watch them chasing after animals and pounding on houses. Some of them I know, but some I don’t. I really don’t like to think about it much because I feel like if I do I will break down any minute now. I don’t think I will sleep very well tonight, e
specially without Jake. I have tried not to think about it because I need to think about Jill.
I decide I will sleep in my bed with Jill because there is a lock on the door. The news has not said much. They are probably told to not talk about it…to keep people from freaking out. Though I am sure it has affected them. For one, there has not been a change in crew. It has been the same people all day. They have all quit smiling, not even those fake smiles. They talk about everything but what’s really going on. At around nine I decided to head off to bed to try and forget today and secretly I hope everything is back to normal tomorrow. Also, it is like those things kind of hibernate at night they just stand there in place waiting for something. They are still awake, because they chase anything that moves. Other than that, they just sit there.
Jill was easy to move, and I was able to block my door with my dresser and my window with my night stand. I don’t think I will be sleeping in tomorrow, probably not a good idea. After I got everything secure, I lay there in bed thinking, I could not help but think about Jake outside waiting for light to chase another mailman. I think it is okay to cry now, but the tears don’t come. I don’t feel anything anymore except my stomach grumbling. I haven’t eaten anything all day because I was afraid to leave Jill’s side for too long…or the TV. I had to know what was going on.
Sleep came with the dreams that will haunt my life. I see Jake standing over me, dripping with blood. He bends down and eats something. I glance around for what he is eating. Then I see her…Jill…she is on the floor bleeding. Then I am in the bathroom again looking at her bleeding on the floor and Jake is outside pounding on the window. I stay there trying to be quiet, to stop the pounding, but it doesn’t stop. Pain. Why was I hurting? It didn’t make sense. I open my eyes and feel pain in my arm. I look over and there is Jill. She was awake now. I had put my arm under her like I did Jake in the middle of the night, and now she is chewing on my arm. I jump up and pull away from her. She was still lying on the bed. I could see her head turning, but her body wouldn’t move.
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