by J. R. Knoll
Regardless of what had happened or what day it was, it was time for her to take her medicine, so she entered the house and made her way to the kitchen, finding it a mess.
She stopped in the middle of the kitchen and looked around her, taking mental inventory of everything that was out of place, the unattended dishes still in the sink and the food that was still out. The knife block was overturned and two knives were missing, one the big butcher knife. The little breakfast table in the middle of the spacious kitchen was also strewn with items that did not belong there and her thoughts shifted in that instant. Setting the bear and the pillow case on a clear spot on the table, she scanned the kitchen once more before she reached into the bag and removed two prescription bottles, shaking a pill from each into her hand, then she froze as she looked down at her hand, then the other.
Her skin was gray.
Panic surged into her and she backed up a step, and then another. She looked to the sink and her thoughts shifted back to what she had to do. Striding that way, she opened the cabinet door, selected a glass, then she walked over to the refrigerator and held the glass under the water dispenser, filling it about half way, then she popped the pills into her mouth and chased them with all of the water in the glass.
Now her ritual came into full swing. It was Wednesday and her turn to clean the kitchen. She had not eaten yet, but she needed to get the mess cleaned up.
In short order she was done. The dishwasher was loaded and running, everything had been put away and she was wiping down the last of the cabinets. With all of this done, she hung the towel up where it went and looked around her. She was feeling hungry, but her gray skin distracted her again and she looked down to her hands, her arms, down at her legs. Lifting her shirt, she looked at her belly and saw it was gray as well, then she turned her puzzled eyes across the kitchen. Reasoning this out was way beyond her and she would not even try, instead turning to the doorway that would lead into the living room.
Entering the room, she found it a mess as well. Chairs and the coffee table were overturned and lamps and vases were broken. She could see the front door from where she was, smashed in and knocked from two of its three hinges, barely hanging upright from the bottom hinge.
Looking around her again, she called in a meek voice, "Mommy?"
No answer.
Surely they would not have left without her, but that terrifying thought sent a little surge of panic through her cold, half numb body and she drew quick, fearful breaths as she called again, "Mommy?" She looked to the hallway across the living room and walked that way with unsteady steps, her voice more of a little girl's as she said, "Mommy, I'm all gray. What do I do?"
Hearing the creak of a door opening at the other end of the dark hall, she stopped and her eyes widened as she called, "Daddy? Steve? Is anyone home?"
She strode forward with awkward, hesitant steps, her eyes fixed on the door at the end of the hall, the door to her parent's bedroom.
"Mommy?" she called.
Slowly, the door opened. It had been forced open the day before and was cracked and the hinges creaked. There was a light on in the room somewhere, one that looked like it was shining up from the floor.
Zoe stopped, her eyes fixed on the creaking door.
A hand reached from the inside and gray fingers grasped the edge of the door, gray fingers with black fingernails.
A breath shrieked into the girl and she took a step back, her eyes somehow widening further as the door opened fully to reveal a large man in a dress shirt that was stained rusty black and red all down the front. His black trousers were tattered and torn and he was missing a shoe, though he did not seem to notice as his hollow eyes fixed on Zoe. His pupils reflected yellow. The corneas of his eyes, the colored parts, were a pale color, gray or blue. Something had run out of his mouth, something black or very dark red and that's what seemed to stain his shirt. Even from down the hall she could tell that he smelled of death and she felt her heart start to pound within her chest as he moaned that undead moan and staggered toward her.
In a blind flight, she turned and ran to the kitchen again, grabbed the pillow case and teddy bear and darted out the back door, freezing just outside as she saw two more zombies, a thin man and woman, already there, and both turned toward her.
Her next realization was a blind sprint through the house, out the front and down the sidewalk. They lived on a street that seemed crowded with houses, all of which had very small front yards with small, young trees out front. Cars were parked along the sides of the road and a few others had crashed into some of them. A delivery truck had run through a yard across the street and into the house there.
Knowing to stay on the sidewalk, she ran to the end of the block, stopping to look around her. There were people moving slowly about down the street toward the highway. She had always been able to hear the traffic on the highway, but today it was eerily silent. The people she saw milling about moved in clumsy, jerky ways that did not seem natural, and squinting slightly to see them better, she realized that all of them wore tattered, dirty clothing and their skin was gray.
Two of them looked toward her.
A crying sound like a child would make forced its way out of her and she turned and ran the other direction, unaware that her legs were working normally again and not even noticing that the feeling was beginning to return. The school was three blocks from the house in the opposite direction of the highway and she instinctively headed there. During the school year she had attended a few special classes there and by her sophomore year had entered many mainstream classrooms, and had done very well. She was to be a senior the next school year and busied herself with summer activities until school was back in, but now it seemed like a safe place to go.
Running tirelessly all the way to the school, which was a rather large, two story building, she found herself running toward the front entrance, which was brick with formed stone columns that held up the overhang of the roof that projected over the sidewalk out front almost all the way to the circular drive where buses would pause to unload students. Cars were parked here almost randomly as well and a few looked like they had crashed, one into the side of the school building.
One of the doors was standing wide open and she ran inside. In her mind she would find some of the staff she trusted in the offices she was used to. The main office was down the main hall off to the right and she ran toward it. Reaching the door, she pulled on the handle and found the door locked.
Looking through the window and into the office, she banged on the door with her fist and called as loudly as she could, "Miss Simpson! Miss Simpson, open the door!"
A big, gray hand slammed into the window from one side and Zoe screamed and back pedaled, her wide eyes locked on the zombie that moved into view on the other side of the window. This was another big one who wore a business suit and still had a tie on. He had the same pale gray eyes as the one she had seen in the house, but his pupils were very small, unnaturally small.
Her gaze locked on his, she backed away, halfway across the hall before running into something, and she spun around to find herself face to face with yet another zombie. This one was dressed in the denim coveralls of someone who worked in landscaping and had thin and scraggly looking white hair. He was a horrifying sight as he stared down at her and she screamed again and sprinted blindly away from him.
Finding an open classroom she was familiar with, she ran inside and turned to close the door, backing away from it as she struggled to catch her breath. Any second she expected one of the gray skinned zombies to come in after her and she spun around, looking for a way out should they find her. The desks were still lined up and awaiting students, the teacher's desk facing them with the white dry erase board clean and ready for the next school year. She found nobody inside and felt those pangs of panic begin to grow worse.
A moan outside of the door drew her attention and she wheeled around, backing away as a shadow fell over the door's window. Backing into a desk, she shr
ieked as it made a horrible scrape on the floor, then she turned back and fixed her horrified eyes on the shadow that moved across the doorway. That child's terrified cry sounded from her as she watched the door handle shake, then work downward. Desperately, she looked around her, and fixed her attention on one of the windows with a book shelf right below it. Sprinting to it, she brushed the few books from the top of it and climbed onto it, setting the pillow case down just long enough to unlatch the window and push it up. When the door latch clicked loudly, she looked over her shoulder with wide eyes and a scream exploded from her as she saw it slowly pushed open.
Hurling herself out the window, Zoe landed awkwardly and came to rest on her side. Hitting the ground like this did not hurt like she expected it to and she scrambled up, and as she started to run she stopped and wheeled back to the school, back to the window where she could still see her bag on top of the book shelf. Her eyes found the zombie as he stood in the doorway and just watched her and she reached through the window and snatched the pillow case before turning to run as fast as she could away from the school.
A long run was ahead of her back toward her house and she found herself standing at the end of the walkway to the front door, staring into the darkness of the house through the broken in front door. She was sure there were more zombies inside and was terrified at the prospect of them seeing her. Her gaze swept her street, looking for any movement, but there was none. The only sounds that reached her were birds and the wind in the few trees. She felt alone and afraid and tears filled her eyes. She also felt hungry. Looking back to the house, she knew she could find food in there, something to fix herself for dinner.
Too scary.
Hearing a muffled moan from inside the house, she backed away a few steps, then turned and trotted down the street.
There was one place she had not visited yet, a place she had always been made to feel welcome.
About an hour before sundown, the grocery store door slid open in front of her as it always did. She always watched it, just wondering what made it open when she walked toward it, and this evening would be no different. As she walked into the store, she turned and watched it close.
"Three seconds," she said absently. "It always takes three seconds." Looking down to her watch, she read the time aloud. "Seven twenty-four." Her eyes scanned the inside of the store and she absently said, "Spaghetti-O's are on aisle twenty-nine."
She knew the quickest way there and strode with purpose in that direction, stopping right in front of where she knew them to be. Absently, she had observed what a mess the store was, but something was on her mind, a specific mission that consumed her. Now, her objective was in her sights, right in front of her.
Zoe picked a can up and looked it over. No pull top on this one and she did not have a can opener. Putting it back in place, she reached to the smaller cans on the shelf right below, the single serving cans. She took a few seconds to look around her to be sure nobody was watching, then she slipped it into her bag and turned to leave the store.
Halfway down the aisle, she stopped and looked back to the shelf she had gotten the can from. Even with everything that was going on, she was afraid of getting caught. Drawing a breath, she tucked the bear under her arm and took the can from the bag, staring down at it for long seconds before she grudgingly took it back toward the shelf.
And there she stood, torn between her worsening hunger and her fear of punishment. Looking to the shelf, her brow shot up as she saw the can that included meatballs! Putting the first can back, she took a single serve can with meatballs and stared down at it for a few seconds before she slipped it into her sack, then another, and another.
Kitchen wares was surely where she could find a spoon and a bowl. Somehow, she finally had convinced herself that there was nobody in the store to scold her and slowly walked down the aisle where she could find a spoon and a bowl. The spoon was easy, but came in a pack of a hundred. She only took one. The bowl was a different matter. There were too many to choose from, and this was giving her a difficult time. A little further down her mind was made up and she smiled as she saw the pink plastic bowls in a neat stack one shelf over her head.
Surely the break room in the back had a microwave.
Entering cautiously, Zoe looked around to be sure the place was empty. Confident she would be alone within the large break room; she still entered hesitantly, her eyes panning back and forth for anything that might surprise her from the shadows.
There! At the end of the room on a kitchen counter near a single bowl sink was a small white microwave oven. She stood in front of it for a moment as she studied it. It had a dial on it, not buttons like the one at home, and she found herself trying to figure out how to operate it. Trial and error worked and she figured out it would turn on automatically when she turned the dial.
With her Spaghetti-O's sufficiently warmed in her pink bowl, she found a table nearby and sat down to eat, only to realize that she had nothing to drink. Looking to the door, she realized that she would have to brave the horrors of the open store to find something, but it seemed worth it.
Moments later she returned with a small bottle of strawberry milk and sat back down. While she ate, she took the time to study the room and found herself staring at a comfortable looking couch. That might be a good place to spend the night.
Once meal time was done, she decided it was time for cookies!
Evening fell with four half empty packages of cookies on the table and a girl slouched in her chair with something of a belly ache. Looking down to her gray hands and arms, she wondered if her natural color would return. Her body still felt strange, different somehow, and she had no way to reason out why.
Deep into the night, her eyes grew heavy and she looked to that deep cushioned couch again. It was inviting and she was sleepy.
But, first things first. She cleared her table, put the cookies in a cabinet above the microwave, her unused cans of Spaghetti-O's beside them, washed her bowl and spoon and dried them with paper towels beside the sink.
The abandoned coat she had found near the lockers smelled a little funny, but she could stay warm beneath it. Curled up on one end of the couch and beneath the coat, she laid her head on her teddy bear and drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER 2
The grocery store was home for the next few days. She had not even seen another zombie since arriving and felt comfortable and relatively safe within. There was plenty to eat, snacks, sodas… Everything she was not allowed to have at home. While she thought of her family often, she found ways to occupy her time.
She made frequent visits to the magazine rack, taking one back to the break room, reading it, and then returning it to the exact place she had taken it from. The book display also held some promise, but she had other magazines with many colorful pictures to look at, and the teen magazines turned out to be her favorites. The gadget aisle offered more amusement, though she did not stray far from the break room for very long.
Zoe had managed to settle into a new routine once again, one that was similar to what she had at home. She meticulously cleaned up after herself and made certain that the store outside of the break room also stayed in order. The only real problem she had was in the restroom. She could not look at her reflection in the mirror. Her gray skin and the darkening around her eyes made her look like one of the gray skinned people she had been hoping to avoid. Eventually, she covered the two mirrors that were over the sink in the lady's room with paper towels so that she would not have to see herself as she was. She had also tried to wash the gray from her skin, but to no avail.
One afternoon, days after finding the abandoned grocery store, she was on her way back to aisle twenty-nine for yet another can of Spaghetti-O's. It was eleven thirty and time to prepare lunch. With her ever present teddy bear under her arm, she took a can from the shelf, showed it to the bear and smiled as she turned toward the front and headed that way for something to drink from the coolers there.
Nearly to the che
ck-out lines, she stopped as she heard the hiss of the front door closing. Frozen where she stood, she stared toward the front of the store with wide eyes, too afraid to move or make a sound. Listening hard, she could hear nothing for a few terrifying seconds, nothing but the pounding of her own heart.
A shuffle from the right drew her attention and her eyes panned that way, though she could not bring herself to move otherwise.
Now she knew she was no longer alone in the store.
Another noise reached her, a muffled moan that she knew to be one of the zombies. A quick breath entered her, then escaped slowly. Another shrieked slightly as the air passed through her throat and her chest heaved up. Panic and terror were welling up within the frightened girl and she dared to take a half step back. She heard another moan from the left and her head turned ever so slightly as she looked that way. She could see a few of the check-out stands in front of her, could see the front of the store, but she could not see any movement. There were shuffling footsteps to her right again and something in the next aisle was knocked over and she slowly retreated, her eyes darting about as she backed away. She knew she had to retreat to the back, but the door to the break room would not lock.
When she had backed about halfway down the aisle, she froze again as one of the zombies turned into the aisle, and she gulped a shrieking breath as he looked right at her. Like many others, his white button up shirt was stained black-red down the front. His skin was a darker gray and he had no hair. He was big, thickly made and moving with jerky motions as if he was having many of the same difficulties she was with her motor skills.
As he staggered into the aisle after her, she backpedaled away again, spinning around to run, but she ran right into another big zombie, this one in a tattered black tee shirt and blue jeans and her nose bounced off of his chest.
