by Dallin Smith
“My friends are in there.”
“Doubtful, there’s no motorcycles nearby,”
“Well no one called me, they were supposed to call me.”
“Serious question, do you have cell reception? Before I lost my phone I didn’t have any reception.”
“Huh, didn’t think of that,” Tudson said as he fumbled for his phone. “Nope, no bars. Odd, you figure phones would still be working at this point.”
“Yeah, good question. I lost service almost the minute the attacks started,” Tommy said.
“Me too…” Jason said. “Was…was this whole thing some kind of attack?”
“What?”
Pacing, with his hand curled around his chin, Jason mused, “Phones are down, zombies everywhere suddenly. What if this was an attack?”
“Well, tell you what, you can make some tinfoil hats while we figure out where to go next,” Tudson mumbled then he spit trying to dislodge something annoying from his tongue.
“Never mind, look we aren’t too far from Brewvies. I suggest we check it out,” Jason said as he realized they equally as far away from his house. “Lets get in the car and go there now!”
“Hell no, man. If my crew is long gone then I’m getting out of here. We agreed to stick together as a unit, to survive. Without them I’m in trouble,” Tudson said.
“That was not the deal man! We went with you to your “home base.” Nobody here to help. Nobody here at all but the next stop, regardless, is Brewvies, that was the plan remember? Besides without me and Tommy you’re in trouble. A broken leg won’t do much good in this world if you’re planning to get out of this car ever.” Jason was flinging his arms ever which way and was turning red in the face. He stopped, took a deep breath and then said,
“ Look, we get to Brewvies, we hole up, your leg heals a bit and then we go.”
“Heals a bit? My leg is broken; you’re looking at months of recovery.”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad. Let me see it,” Jason said,
“What are you a doctor? Look, let’s just- “The words were interrupted by the sharp crack of pistol being fired. Jason looked over his shoulder and down the road a half a block , to see a middle aged woman laughing hysterically as she fired her pistol at a few zombies. She had stumbled out from one of the nearby buildings and was randomly attacking the undead. Her shots were fairly accurate as she waited until a zombie was right in her face before shooting it.
“Now that’s odd,” Tudson said. “She looks crazy.”
“She’s got a gun though,” Jason murmured. “We should see if she needs help or something.”
“I ain’t talking to her, she’s laughing like a maniac,” Tudson protested. Jason glanced at the woman. There was blood all over her and she seemed to be quite content to just attack any zombie close to her. She was laughing hysterically as she continued to shoot.
“Alright keep an eye out, Tommy, follow me. Don’t drive off,” Jason said as he rushed towards the giggling woman. She immediately turned and aimed the pistol right at his head. “Whoa, hey, take it easy!” he said. “I’m a friend! Friend!” She glanced at him and shook her head back as she laughed again.
“Uhhhh, are you okay?” Tommy asked as she lowered the gun. She shook her head and began snickering again. Her eyes looked incredibly tired and despite her laughter, Jason could see that there was a deep sense of sorrow in her eyes.
“Hey listen, can you speak? Words?” She grinned at that. Jason frowned. “Alright, look we’re heading to Brewvies, that might be a place we can hole up in for a while, if not we can figure something out from there. At least there will be food. Want to come with?” The woman smiled at that and giggled a little more. “Is that a yes?” he asked. She merely laughed at him and walked past, moving towards the car. “Alright, uh okay.”
“Hey, she’s coming towards me, what do I do?” Tudson cried from the car.
“Let her in,” Tommy said.
“What if she shoots me?”
“She can shoot you outside the car too,” Jason said. “I’m sure it’s fine, let’s move before those gunshots get more of those things over here.”
They all piled into the car, Tommy and Tudson were in the front and the laughing woman was in the back with Jason.
Looking in the rear view mirror while unconsciously pounding the steering wheel with his hand, Tudson said, “All she’s doing is laughing, what do we call her?”
“I dunno. Giggles? Chuckles?”
“Ugh, great. Rolling through a zombie infested city with a broken leg, a woman that won’t stop laughing and a guy who can’t come up with an original name. Just great.”
Jason pursed his lips and hissed, “Shut up and drive, Tudson. Before that horde gets any closer.”
“I got it!” Tommy said smiling showing his perfect teeth, “let’s call her Jane! Like Jane Doe.”
“Oh yeah, really original,” Tudson mumbled as he took a sharp left to avoid a zombie. “Really original.”
The Undead Feast
Jason sighed as he they pulled closer to Brewvies. The streets were littered with wrecked cars and the road was so clogged that their car was moving much slower.
Pop! Screamed the car right before it died.
“Tudson, why did this piece of shi-“ Jason paused and glanced at Tommy who was glaring at him. “Piece of crap car die?”
“Hey my Betty runs fine but I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to just plow through at least six walking corpses per hour.”
They all got out of the car and waited for Tudson to inspect it. “Why are you all looking at me?” he asked. “I’m not a mechanic.”
“I thought you were a biker, aren’t you handy with cars?” Jason asked.
“No, I’m handy with bikes, I don’t know the first thing about cars,” Tudson replied.
“Enough, look we gotta get moving. Brewvies is close, about five or six blocks, we can walk.”
“Walk? There’s dozens of these savages wandering the streets. If we meet one horde we’re utterly fu- I mean screwed.” Tudson replied.
Jane laughed in agreement at that. Jason shrugged, “Hey, look I don’t know what you want from me here. The cities growing worse by the hour and we’re smack dab in the middle of this place.”
“I want to get out of here in one piece,” Tudson muttered.
“So do I, but without a clear plan we’re dead. Regardless of whether Sarah’s in there or not, we’ll barricade it and hole up. Then we figure out a way to get out of this place for good.”
“Still I don’t get why we want to hole up in a movie theater,” Tudson grumbled
“It’s a cinema restaurant thingy, they got food there,” Jason snapped. He hadn’t eaten all day and was growing more agitated by the minute. Tudson never seemed to stop complaining and Jane’s constant chuckling was wearing his patience thin. Only Tommy seemed genuinely interested in helping the situation.
“We all need food!” Tommy said, “every diner, restaurant and food place we’ve come across so far has been packed with these creatures, most people went to grab food ended up dying in there. I’m willing to bet most people won’t have thought to check a movie theater!”
“That’s true, I could eat,” Tudson replied.
“Isn’t it weird how many of these things there are?” Jason asked as he glanced forward. He could see the cinema barely three blocks away by now, but the streets were littered with the undead. They were staggering around and moaning relentlessly. Some wore theater staff clothes, others were in nice business suits and a few were in hotel service garb.
“I told you, some of those hordes are moving like something’s directing them. They probably rolled in from out of town somehow. Came through the interstate or something. Maybe the sewers,” Tudson offered.
“Okay they did not come from the sewers,” Jason snapped.
“You don’t know that!”
“Alright! Enough! let’s try to figure out how to get to Brewvies.” Jason said as
he glanced around, looking for a clear way through to the cinema. The streets were littered with the undead but they weren’t moving around much. The zombies seemed to grow more inactive as time passed without anything catching their interest but the moment they heard a noise they would grow very agitated.
Jason took stock of his crew’s supplies. They had one gun on hand, a tire iron and two machetes but the blades were wearing out pretty bad on them. An overturned bus that had been blocking the car from getting any closer to Brewvies provided them cover as they scouted out the area.
“Alright, look let’s try to go quietly, okay? Just move in slowly. Tommy, you help Tudson walk, Jane keep your eye out for any ones that try to charge us and don’t use your gun unless you absolutely have to.”
Jane nodded at that and put one finger to her lips. Jason was taken aback by her gesture and looked at this wild eyed, dirty gray haired woman and he thought she could be someone's grandmother. He could actually picture her sitting, rocking, and crocheting a baby blanket or something. He wondered what her story was.
“Right, okay, I’ll try to keep the path clear and get the door open. Get ready to hustle,” Jason said.
“And if the place is swarming with undead? Look your plan is stupid at best, guy. Here’s a plan, me and Chuckles here will climb up on this bus and wait until you scout things out. That place could be packed to the brim with the undead, I don’t want to cleave our way through a bunch only to get mobbed by hundreds of walking corpses inside.” Tudson nodded his head as if to imply that was it, the last word on the matter. He sniffed loudly and glanced around before bringing his eyes to meet Jason's.
“Yeah I guess that makes sense,” Jason said. He was really hoping he wouldn’t have to go in there alone but the plan did make the best sense. He would have preferred to take Tommy with him but he was worried about Jane getting all crazy on Tudson and decided he’d let Tommy stay behind to keep things in check.
“Alright, you all stay here, I’ll go check it out. If I don’t come back in an hour, assume the worst.”
“I’m assuming the worst after twenty minutes, pal. Make it quick,” Tudson replied as he handed the tire iron to Jason. “This should do you more good than that worn out blade.”
“Thanks, be careful guys,” Jason replied as he took the weapon in hand and began advancing towards the cinema. Brewvies had been relatively well known in the city as having a great combination of beer, food and dozens of enjoyable movies in rotation, some old, some new and the movies had been where he had first met Sarah. She had been working there for almost five years and usually worked late night shifts there to make sure everything was perfectly clean and kept together. She had been gunning for management and dreams someday of being in charge of the theater. He knew that if there was any hope of finding her, it would be at that theater.
A few ragged zombies staggered towards him, they moaned and reached for him but he was faster. He was beginning to notice that some zombies were much slower than other kinds. The fast ones died quickly and would rush at a moment’s notice, but the slow ones seemed to be stronger. He had learned that the red eyed ones were fast and the regular eyed zombies were slow. With the slower ones it was easier to dodge them than to fight them.
He effortlessly slipped through the four zombies and rushed to the entrance of the theater. The glass door was thankfully still intact and he pressed his face against the glass, hoping to see something, anything. The interior looked rather empty; at least there wasn’t a few hundred corpses shambling towards him to devour his flesh. He quickly pulled on the doors only to discover that they were locked. “Crap!” he muttered as he tried to pull harder but they didn’t budge. A few more zombies had taken notice of him and were moving towards him. “Ah, this sucks!” he said as he looked around to figure something out.
He saw a few tables were still upright within the outdoor porch area where smoker’s usually gathered to have a few drinks and talk about the movie they have just watched. He quickly scrambled atop them, smashing in a small side window that led into the main bar. Before more zombies could reach him he climbed through the small hole and hit the ground with a hard thud. He stood up and dusted himself, trying to get the glass out of his arm. He looked around in a daze to find a gun pointing right at him.
“Back off punk!” said an elderly man. Jason looked up to see an old man in a beat up trucker’s hat and faded blue uniform standing nearby. Jason recognized him as Frank, one of the regulars who stopped by on a daily basis since the theatre had first opened . Jason slowly raised his hands after he realized that Frank still hadn’t taken his finger off the trigger upon seeing his face.
“Whoa, hey! Take it easy! Take it easy, Frank! It’s me! Jason.”
The old man looked up and down at Jason and nodded. “So? Is that a good reason not to shoot?”
“I’m looking for Sarah, is she here?”
“Yeah, she’s here. Doubt she wants to see you though.”
“She’s really alive?” Jason felt his heart begin to pound even harder at the thought of seeing her again. He had been desperate to see her but hadn’t actually allowed himself to fully believe that she was still alive.
“Yeah. I’m alive. Barely, but still alive,” Sarah said as she emerged from behind the counter of the cinema’s bar.
“Sarah! Sarah!” Jason shouted as he rushed past the gun wielding old man to hug her. She seemed taken by surprise by such a maneuver and pushed herself away from him.
“Jason, I never thought I’d see you here of all places,” she said, coldly. He noticed that she was wearing a hatchet on her hip and had several deep cut marks all over her body. She had a sheen of oil on her face while under her eyes was black from her unwashed off makeup that pooled there. She was the most beautiful sight to his eyes right now.
“I came to find you,” he said.
“Did you?” she said, her voice filled with indignation. She shifted her weight to one foot bending the other knee and ran a dirty hand over her hair.
“Yeah! Look, when all of this happened I…I realized how petty my problems were and how badly I wanted to be with you,” Jason said as he tied to look deep into her green eyes. She didn’t meet his gaze however and turned her back.
“Look, I don’t have time to worry about you. We’ve finally got a radio working and there’s a transmission coming from the Temple. They’ve got food, weapons and supplies in there. Seems the local police force decided to set up a shelter in there. They’ve been transmitting updates via radio for some time but…but they went silent about three hours ago.”
“How much have you been outside?” Jason asked.
“Not much. I was here when the attacks happened, the news hit and we barricaded the place. Me, Frank, and the others. Well…there were more of us when we first started but we let some survivors in shortly after the attacks started and…one of them had a gun and wanted to be in charge. Another had been bit. Frank and I are the only ones left who didn’t die, turn or run,” Sarah said as she shook her head.
“That’s not good,” Jason muttered. “Hey look I got some friends hiding outside, let me bring them in so we can figure out our plan.” He turned towards the door then back to her.
“Our plan? What, you just think you can walk in here and take control?” Sarah hissed. She was far more hostile than Jason had fantasized that she would be. “Frank was in Vietnam and Korea, yeah he’s old but he knows what he’s doing. We listen to him.”
“Alright, alright fair enough. Frank what’s the deal?”
“Well, if you got people outside you should bring them in, but only if you trust ‘em. Folks are getting crazier out here, what with all the violence and attacks. The military should be arriving soon, I hope. If not…well, I don’t know what to tell you. Just get your friends in here and we’ll figure something out, together,” Frank turned to Sarah. “And I don’t care what issues you have with this ticket forging weasel, you keep it to yourself until we’re out of this. I won’t have
anyone here bickering pointlessly, understood?” Frank's eyes, which were normally half closed, opened wide emphasizing what he stated.
Sarah grimaced at that and turned away. “Yes, sir,” she muttered.
“Good, now Jason, bring them in and quickly. We don’t want to get caught when another wave of those things rolls through. There’s an alternate exit in the back that shouldn’t be too hard to get through…”
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Jason could not believe what he was eating as he tore into the artisan pizza that Sarah had prepared for the group. It hadn’t been easy getting Tudson and the rest in but in the end they managed to get in without anyone dying. Brewvies was usually a very lively bar. The smell of the popcorn machine making every moviegoer’s favorite snack, the sound of the South Park pinball machine being played by competitive friends and the witty banter between the bartenders was the usual norm. However since all the attacks all the familiar sounds and sites were gone. They all sat together at the bar eating quietly. Frank watched the outside like a hawk, refusing to join the group.
“So, she doesn’t talk at all, huh?” Sarah asked as she worked on cleaning Tudson’s leg. He had been cut up pretty bad and it was starting to look infected.
“Not one bit. Just laughs,” Tommy replied in between bites. He glanced at Jane who hadn’t touched the food. She just stared off in the distance as if she were watching something. It was deeply unsettling.
“Probably trauma, PTSD or something,” Sarah mumbled as she tightened a makeshift splint around Tudson’s broken limb.
‘Ow! Hey easy!” Tudson complained.
“Sorry, but I gotta get you able to walk here.”
“Where’d you learn all this anyway?”
“Well when you’re in a relationship to a degenerate who spends a lot of time making bets he can’t pay up, you learn how to fix up a broken leg or two,” Sarah replied.
Tudson shrugged at that. “I suppose. So what? We just wait it out here?”
