Into Hell

by James Roy Daley

  She noticed a pair of corpses she hadn’t seen before.

  Wayne Auburn had long sideburns and a round potbelly. He wore a red-checkered shirt that looked like a tablecloth and jeans that were two sizes too tight. His skull was opened up like a Venus flytrap and his brain was wedged into the gap between his eyes. Looked about fifty-five.

  Wayne stood next to a man named Gary Wright. Gary was lying on the floor wearing a cook’s uniform that was covered in ten years of food stains and five minutes of bloodshed. He had a gold tooth near the front of his mouth that shined in the florescent light. His hair was short, his nose was long and both of his legs had been chopped off at the knee. There was a trail of blood behind him four feet wide.

  Behind Gary was Dee-Anne, the waitress with the broken nametag.

  And behind Dee-Anne, zombie-Susan was still holding a broken pencil in her hand like a knife. Stephenie wondered if she wanted to play another round of ‘ram the pencil in the ankle.’ It seemed as though she did.

  Zombies were doing a good job of blocking the main exit, so Stephenie moved away from them. She remembered the restaurant had a side door, and when she looked across the room she spotted it near the woman’s washroom.

  She hobbled nearly six feet before she suffered her next attack. She knew it was coming. Lee Courtney, David Gayle and Alan Mezzo were all––in one way or another––blocking her newest plan for escape.

  Lee grabbed her first. Lee, whose neck looked like it had been chopped with a full-sized axe, grabbed her by the shoulders. He had strong hands and a firm grip.

  She tried to push him back but was unable. She tried to pull his hands away but it seemed to be impossible. They staggered towards the bathroom doors together, zombie and woman, Stephenie screaming in pain now, screaming––not because of the hold he had on her but rather the inferno inside her ankle. The pain she felt was horrendous, incalculable. Like she had one foot burning in Dante’s Inferno, the outer ring of the seventh circle. The pain, she feared, may be her undoing.

  She looked over Lee’s shoulder and saw David Gayle less than three feet away. He was dressed in a nice looking suit and walked like a man with a shattered spine, with his weight lumped on one side. An arm dangled uselessly. It looked like a fish on a line.

  Beside David was Alan. Blood boiled from the huge, clam-shaped hole in his face.

  Lee slammed Stephenie against a bathroom door.

  She felt it give, and a moment of inspiration came. She dropped her arms to her sides, slapped her hands together, raised them in front of her face and pulled her arms apart.

  Lee’s fingernails scratched her skin as they were forced away from her. And now she had a moment, a single moment.

  She pushed Lee. Hard.

  Lee tumbled, staggered and growled, but he did not fall.

  But Stephenie was in a better position now. She had enough time to slip into the woman’s bathroom without having a zombie clinging to her like dirt on a rock. And that’s what she did. She slipped into the bathroom.

  7

  Stephenie saw the blur of the restaurant, the zombies, a ceiling fan turning in a slow moving circle and the door’s casing. The wall inside the bathroom came next, looking oily and off-white. She turned herself around and put a hand on the door. It made a BANG when she rammed it closed. Another sound came when she slammed her back against the wood. She screamed a little, but then her voice trickled off and her scream became something that resembled a cry. She breathed heavily, worried heavily, thinking the living dead would force their way into the room and tear her limb to limb. She pressed her back against the wood with the bulk of her strength, and braced her undamaged foot against the floor. Squeezing her teeth together, she lifted her wounded foot off the floor. It swayed left and right gently, dribbling blood.

  Nothing happened.

  She inhaled a deep breath. The smell of all-purpose cleaners and disinfectants remained strong, but now it was mixed with something she couldn’t quite recognize, something bad.

  She thought about the zombies and the door that separated her from them. It was the door keeping her safe. And praise God, it didn’t move––not a little, not a lot. Nothing was fighting its way in yet. But still, how long could it be?

  Maybe they forgot about me, she thought.

  But no, that idea was ridiculous. Soon enough, those fuckers would push their way inside, and what would happen next? They’d rip the meat from her bones, suck her eyes from her head and gobble up her intestines like a home cooked meal. And with that, she’d die, she supposed––unless she could escape somehow, but how?

  She looked across the washroom, hoping to find a window. And there it was, sitting in the far wall between the stalls and the sinks, taunting her.

  A joke, that’s what it was. The window was the size of a goddamn shoebox. She’d have a hard time wedging her head through the opening; forget the shoulders. And that was assuming she’d be able to pull the prison-style screen from the window’s casing. That alone would take an hour. She wondered what kind of asshole designed such a thing. If there was a fire, the bathroom was a textbook deathtrap.

  Waiting.

  Waiting.

  The door never moved.

  Her suspended foot continued to sway.

  Blood continued dribbling.

  Maybe the door isn’t going to move, she thought. Maybe I’m safe.

  She wondered if her thoughts were logical or if she was caught up in a bout of wishful thinking? Wishful thinking, she decided. But still, she couldn’t help but wonder.

  A thought: if the dead were mentally slow, which they seemed to be, maybe they forgot she entered the bathroom. Perhaps they had no memory at all, and were surviving on instincts alone. Was it possible? Yes, of course it was. But was it likely?

  Stephenie tried to think logically, despite the illogical situation.

  She almost didn’t want to admit it but––yes, perhaps it was likely. Maybe the zombies forgot about her. That would explain why they didn’t attack the door to the storage room, wouldn’t it? Out of sight, out of mind. Could it be that easy?

  Stephenie pulled her back away from the door, testing the situation, balancing on one foot. She counted to five, and when nothing happened she felt satisfied. She leaned against the door again, just to be safe.

  Better safe than sorry, her late husband Hal sometimes said.

  Don’t think about him.

  She closed her eyes and organized her thoughts. She was trying to find a solution, trying to remember those old zombie movies she watched as a child. She had only seen two or three, had no idea what they were called. Night of the Zombies? Night of the Dead? Something like that. Zombies of the Dead… maybe?

  “You have to kill their brain,” she whispered, hunting through the filing cabinet in her mind for information that might be helpful.

  Then stall-door number three rolled opened, making a sound that could straighten the whiskers of an alley cat.

  CREEEEAAAAAAAAAKKKKK––

  Stephenie froze. Her eyes ballooned to the size of pint coasters and she bit her bottom lip hard. She wanted to say, who’s there? But didn’t need to. She could see who was creeping into view and she didn’t like what she could see.

  Angela Mezzo.

  Angela stepped from the stall with her back twisted awkwardly. Her white dress shirt was red with blood, especially on her right side where the torn fabric was still drenched. She wore a black miniskirt, which sat high upon her legs. The skirt might have looked nice given a different set of circumstances––a lunch date, a business meeting, something like that. But here and now it only added to the obscurity of the moment. When the dead woman smiled, or grinned, or did whatever it was she was trying to do with her teeth, the blood rolled off her bottom lip in a stream. Above her blank, dark eyes––eyes that seemed to be bulging from her skull––her hair was pasted against her forehead in a shape that resembled a lightning bolt. Her skin seemed to be changing, turning moldy and grey right in front of S
tephenie’s big round eyes. Angela was rotting. That was it. She was rotting and little pieces of withered flesh were peeling away, falling from her body like thick wet snowflakes.

  “Do you like this?” The corpse woman said, pushing her chest out. “Do you?”

  Her tone was soft and lustful, yet the syllables she forged were fraying at seams. The words ‘Do you like this’ sounded like Doquo lietis. Stephenie couldn’t understand why she understood the woman at all.

  And as she spoke those words, those lustful, awful, implausible words, her hands cupped her breasts. She pushed her bloody shirt against her tainted skin. Fingers that became more skeletal with each passing moment slid along the fabric, touching her top button. She unfastened it and slid her fingers to the next.

  “Oh my God,” Stephenie said, pressing her back against the door harder now than before, like she wanted to become one with the wood. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Angela was more ghoul than girl, unsettling on several levels, none of which were good.

  “You do like this,” Angela mocked, sounding the way that she did, answering her own question with a nod and a grin. She licked her top lip suggestively, unfastened a third button, and then a forth. She wore no bra. “You like this and you like me. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “Get away from me,” Stephenie said, forcing her words out in a whisper. Her mouth felt dry. “Leave me alone.”

  Angela unhooked her final button, pulled the shirt from her body and dropped it to the floor. It landed with a wet sounding FHWAP that sent little dots of red soaring.

  Stephenie shuddered.

  Angela’s body was twisted strangely; her rotting breasts were exposed. Her right shoulder had obviously suffered a terrible blow, Stephenie could see; it looked like someone had chopped it with an axe. There was a thick flap of meat dangling near her ribcage and a broken blade of bone sticking through her shoulder.

  Angela moved closer, decomposing quickly now. Her eyes were falling into her head and her hair was dropping to the floor in light, feathery clumps. Her lips, which had once seemed beautiful, were withering into twisted worms.

  If Stephenie could disappear, she would. She didn’t want to see this, not any of this. This was horrendous. This was insane.

  “You like me?” Angela asked. Her voice was soft and lustful, but she was gurgling little chunks of tissue. She slid a hand between her legs and lifted her skirt up high, exposing the putrid flesh beneath.

  Stephenie’s eyes shifted and turned away. She thought she might be sick. “What are you doing?”

  “Do you wanna touch me, touch it?”

  “Oh God,” Stephenie cried. “No!”

  “Do you wanna kiss me, or lick me down there?” She moved a little closer, then a little closer still.

  “No!”

  “Please Stephenie, taste me. I taste good, I promise you. Fall to your knees and put your lips to my lips. Taste the meat of yesterday.”

  Stephenie closed her eyes, but only for a moment. She had to get away from this woman, this nightmare, this… thing.

  Of course, that meant entering the restaurant again, which she didn’t want to do. But her priorities were changing; she felt that she had no choice. She couldn’t stay in the bathroom much longer, could she? No, of course not. And besides, Carrie was waiting; they were cutting off her fingers.

  “FUCK!” Stephenie screamed.

  She lifted her hands, spread her fingers apart (which were in perfect condition, adequately manicured and all accounted for––thank you very much) and pushed Angela Mezzo as hard as she could.

  Angela went flying towards the far side of the bathroom with her arms extended and little pieces of flesh falling from her body. For a brief moment she looked like the reversed version of Dracula rising from the grave, then her feet got tangled and she crashed against the wall hard.

  A SNAP was heard, might have been Angela’s back. Or neck.

  As it happened, Stephenie staggered forward, shrieking in pain as her ankle shot daggers of agony up her leg.

  She caught an unexpected glimpse into the first stall.

  Angela’s son, Mark Mezzo, was sitting on the back of the toilet with one knee at his chest and his arms wrapped around it. He looked the same as before: like the boy in the Omen movie, only dead. And as Stephenie stumbled into a stable stance, he lifted something up and flaunted it proudly as it dangled from his fingers. He said, “Baby Jesus loves all the little boys and girls.”

  Stephenie looked at the child before she eyed the item in his hand.

  It was the portrait of Jesus––the one from inside her car, the gift from her mother that had been hanging from the rearview mirror.

  Impulsively, she said, “What?”

  Mark giggled.

  And that’s when the bathroom door blasted open.

  8

  Lee came charging in unthinkingly, arms out, fingers extended, snarling like a dog with a bad case of the fuck-offs. Stephenie spun around quickly and gave his left shoulder a shove. Lee’s body twirled one-hundred-and-eighty degrees and before she knew what she was doing, Stephenie had wrapped an arm around Lee’s neck and was pushing him forward like a gangster with a hostage. She yelled something. Inside her mind it was something like ‘GET BACK’, ‘LOOK OUT’ or maybe even ‘OUT OF MY WAY ASSHOLES’, but all that came from her mouth was “YARRRRRREEEEHHAAA!’’

  At the same moment, Alan shuffled into the bathroom, slumping to one side like a poor-man’s Quasimodo. Drool hung from his mouth in a fat red string.

  Stephenie wasted no time slamming the two zombies together.

  Zombie-Lee, meet Zombie-Alan.

  Zombie-Alan, meet Zombie-Lee.

  Lee, who was a little taller than Alan, slammed his chin against Alan’s forehead.

  Alan staggered out of the bathroom backwards, grabbing at nothing as he fell. He fumbled into David, knocking him down in the process.

  Now, with two zombies sprawled on the floor and one being used a human shield, Stephenie was in the best position she could hope for. She held Lee tighter now, ignoring the fact he was shrieking, and groaning, and an all around pain-in-the-ass to hold onto. She moved him towards the dinning area and made for the restaurant’s side door, screaming in pain and screaming for the sake of screaming.

  Craig stepped into her path. Blood poured from his chest in comical proportions. He had one hand over his head and one hand held low. He looked like a zombie bear trap.

  Stephenie slammed Lee into Craig and hoped for the best.

  Craig stumbled and moaned but unlike Alan, he did not fall.

  Lee, on the other hand, unexpectedly did.

  He growled, spat, and fell hard, slipping from Stephenie’s grasp. A CRACK was heard as he shattered his left knee. Blood smeared across the floor; almost looked like a magic trick.

  As Lee went down, Stephenie tripped. She knocked Lee on his face and released a new batch of screams as her ankle endured more pressure. Once she was done screaming she looked up.

  They were coming: Jennifer Boyle, Susan Trigg, Eric Wilde, Wayne Auburn (with his Venus flytrap head), and whoever else was hungry for action.

  Stephenie scrambled across the floor like an iguana, with her head waving left and right. She grabbed a chair and used it to pull herself to her feet, cursing when it slipped forward an inch.

  Lee, still on the floor, reached a hand out; his fingers briefly tickled the side of Stephenie’s foot. She stepped away from him, only to have Craig Smyth lunge forward. His hands wrapped around her neck and a moment later he was squeezing her, choking her, making her vision blur.

  Ignoring his assault the best she could, Stephenie pushed towards the door. Once she arrived she opened it up and stumbled outside, into the dark, into the unknown.

  Zombie-Craig clung to her and a half dozen more were close behind.

  Shadows were long; night had fallen.

  Outside now, outside and tumbling towards the long unkempt grass at the side of the restaurant and whatev
er lay waiting. Stephenie felt fingers at her neck tightening as her knees buckled from under her.

  She wondered if the end was upon her.

  9

  When Stephenie hit the ground she had her arms extended; a cry escaped her lips.

  Craig fell in the opposite direction with teeth snapping in the air. He landed on his side, flipped onto his belly, slammed his face into the earth and bit the lawn. When he lifted his head he had dirt rolling from his mouth.

  Stephenie shuffled away from him, watching his besotted display as she moved. She opened up her mouth and out popped another scream. She screamed in pain, yeah sure, but mostly she screamed because of the nonsense she was witnessing. How do you fight against something like this? How do you fight against something that bites the lawn?

  The restaurant door closed, only to be swung open once again.

  The Alan Mezzo zombie bumped into the doorframe twice; then he staggered outside like the town drunk on welfare day.

  Craig slammed a fist against the earth. A second later he bit his knuckles.

  Stephenie pulled herself to her feet. And with a great amount of effort she started to run. Every time her wounded foot hit the ground she allowed another shriek, another cry, another wail. Tears exploded from her eyes. Running. Running. Out of the short cut grass and into the field. Grass, knee high, made her journey more challenging. Screaming in pain as she looked over her shoulder. Running.

  Three zombies now. Not two, but three. Alan Mezzo, Craig Smyth, and Lee Courtney. Yes, Lee was back, looking for more action, more blood. The zombies were coming, oh yes. As sure as a longhaired dog has shit beneath the tail, they were coming, but they were none too quick about it. They were sluggish and senseless, moving with no grace whatsoever. Feet shuffled, knees knocked together and arms flapped around like slow-moving chicken wings. At one point Lee grabbed himself by the face and hauled himself to the ground.