Dead End Job (Book One of the 'Zombino' series)

by Chris Welsh

  Chapter Nine. 12:10pm

  MOUSE OF THE RISING ELEVATOR.

  I opened the door myself, heeding my note about letting Stuart near the head of the group. Every nook and every cranny enjoyed a thorough visual going-over before I felt confident enough of a clear route. I whispered, though I'm not one hundred percent why; sure, I didn't want to broadcast our presence, but I mainly did it because it felt correct.

  And it was kinda fun.

  When sneaking, whisper. When charging, shout. That's how it works.

  We slunk close to the wall. The door closed louder than I liked but the busy nervousness on Susan's face suggested the door wasn't top of her priorities list. The walkway was clear, quiet, six feet across and covered in shining purple tiles. A long wall ran along the right side split by elevator doors, and ending where another corridor went off at an angle. Another office door sat directly ahead, leading to some dedicated conference rooms. On the other side stood a waist-high wall overlooking the coffee stall on the mezzanine level, which in turn had a balcony that overlooked the main foyer area, with Susan's desk and the main entrance down below. This route was more direct than going through each floor individually. We were still technically on the fourth, but only two sets of stairs away from the ground, thanks to the outrageously high ceiling of the foyer.

  From this level, we got a good view of the large piece of 'art' hanging down from up on high, all metal pieces painted different colours which twisted around each other in a vague cone shape. Apparently, once upon a time, it spun and tiny lights provided a bit of a laser show, but it hasn't done anything that impressive in all the time I've worked in the building. It's possibly broken and no one knows how to fix the infernal thing.

  -

  "If we go down those stairs there, we'll be by the front entrance, near all the terrible paintings," Stuart said, bringing his taste in art up in my estimations.

  "I know Stu, I work here too," Susan reminded him.

  "Yes. Sorry. I'm a nervous narrator."

  She ignored him and glanced over the small wall, then sat down with a thump.

  "...I don't think we can do that," she muttered, her back against the wall.

  I looked myself, and collapsed with my head in my hands.

  "Well, we're fucked."

  There were loads of them; a decomposing-zombie-bastard jamboree. A fucking dead convention. I'd never seen so many staff in one place when alive, except when they crammed into the shuttle train. Stuart poked his head over the wall and let out another of his trademark squeals, followed by a sigh, followed by a deep breath and a whimper. He was trapped in an emotional cacophony of noise, skipping between despair and terror.

  "Yep, fucked. Fucked. There's no way past them, is there?" I said, considering throwing myself to the horde. "And I'm starving. This is the worst day ever."

  Thoughts of brioches and sandwiches haunted my mind; dreams which shattered like poorly handled candy canes.

  "The café wagon is right there if you want to nip down and grab something," Susan said, her words infected by sarcasm. She popped her head over again. "I see...a soup machine and a rack of nut bars near the till."

  "I'm fine," I said. Sulking nourished me more than soup ever would.

  "Well, there might be a way through one of the other offices, there's one at the end there. We might get by unnoticed if we're careful. Find a fire escape or something."

  Our best hope was another nondescript stairwell that ended in a little-known fire escape.

  "Alright, deal," I said.

  The building was such a maze of offices and misplaced corridors that it was entirely possible, but I would have much preferred definitive knowledge of where I was heading. I elected to crawl, army man style, with my axe in hand, whereas Stuart crept on all fours. Susan crouched as low as her high heels would let her and shuffled along.

  I signalled for her to take them off to avoid the clack-clack noise as she walked but she didn't understand what I was inferring.

  About half way along, Stuart grabbed my leg and flapped his hand about in a way that indicated he wanted me to come close. He did the same to Susan and we huddled up for a team talk.

  "We're still pretty well armed. An axe, stun guns and... a pair of heels. With a bit of luck, could we smash through that crowd? Outside looks empty...I doubt 'they' will handle those heavy glass doors too well, not the ones that open inwards."

  Stuart's optimism was refreshing, and it'd be the easiest option. However, I saw two major problems with his plan.

  "I see two major problems with your plan," I told him. "Firstly, there are loads of them. We'd need a way of driving the majority back to form a monster-free path from the foot of the stairs to the door. I have no idea how we'd do that. And secondly, similar but bear with me, there are fucking loads of them. If we don't make it, we're fucked. It's a massive risk."

  "Yeah, you're right," Stuart said. He'd become quite the action star within two short hours, undergoing a full transformation from the man shocked out of his skin by a flickering light.

  As Susan began to chime in, a zombie hobbled around the corner and sliced our discussion time to nothing. A further five or six followed the first. They didn't notice us right away and moved slower than most we'd dealt with. The more decomposed they appeared the worse for wear they were, it seemed. And this group were rotten; faces like discarded apple cores.

  "Well, that gives us choice. I'm against the idea of running into the throng down there, so...we can either leg it back to the filing room and figure out where Nelson went or burst through the group over there. Might not be any straddlers around the corner."

  Susan's eyes closed as she said this, as if she couldn't quite believe the nonsense spouting from her mouth.

  Something in my head clicked. I heard it, like a physical pop then the fizz of a soluble tablet. Adrenaline surged through me like a crack of lightning.

  "Fuck it. Throng!"

  I filled my words with false determination; enough that it'd spill over and fuel my companions into similar action. I jumped to my feet and bounded heroically down the stairs, detouring past the first group of zombies. A pool of blood covered the floor near the coffee counter, almost artistic, coupled with the sorrowful silence of the mezzanine. I'd never been there, can't stand coffee, but as I passed I spared a thought for the latte dispenser lady who probably lost her life that day. It spurred me on, encouraged me to stage-dive into the group of waiting zombies from the fifth step from bottom.

  "Latte lady revenge! Tim revenge!"

  My impact after flying through the air bowled a handful of them over; I caught one with a knee to the chin, knocking the lower part of his jaw off in the process. It was becoming somewhat of a theme for me, a special signature. Even with my amateurish antics I landed almost perfectly on my feet. Any panel of judges would have held up sevens across the board.

  There I stood in the self-made clearing, heaving my chest and baring teeth.

  I held an axe. I was a warrior. Invincible and unstoppable.

  I had a bit of a sore ankle, from the jumping.

  The milling creeps didn't notice me that much. The one I'd flattened lay on the floor, arms waving like a baby grabbing at clouds.

  I caught the next guy unawares, swinging at his face and knocking his head clean off, using the heavy wooden handle of the axe like a bat. The second zombie proved difficult as I foolishly and through untrained misuse lodged the axe blade in its skull. It had been a woman once, and she seemed reasonably pissed off by my actions, thrashing her arms like a karate novice. I held her at bay with the axe and kicked at her stomach. In the three-to-four seconds it took me to knock her over and reclaim the weapon, a small crowd formed, closing in. We were, indeed, fucked.

  I turned to grab the others and head back upstairs, only to find myself entirely alone in the middle of a growing zombie party. The thumping bass soundtrack I heard in my head faded to background noise, then vanished.

  "WES!" Stuart yelled, leaning
over the balcony edge, his face a flustered shade of pink. They hadn't followed me, not one step. "GET BACK UP THESE BASTARD STAIRS!" he shrilled, providing encouragement I didn't need. I dodged a lunge from the nearest creature, which wrong-footed it and surprised it so much it made an 'urk?' noise as it toppled over. I bounded up three stairs at a time to find Susan poking intently on the 'Lift Call' button, pointing a shoe at the encroaching horde like a sawn-off shotgun. I blindsided the herd, jabbing one in the temple with the chunky axe handle to get it out of my way, and joined the frenetic blur of activity that was Susan.

  "The lifts are working!" she said, pushing the button like it dispensed good luck. "Lights are back on!"

  They were indeed. The illuminated numbers above the doors descended painfully slowly from ten. It was currently at eight, dribbling down to us with no urgency whatsoever. Given the circumstances I thought it'd skip the tension-building and set about rescuing us. Susan called it for everything, inventing new insults every few seconds. I made a mental note of 'Pisswhistle', which she used in the elegant sentence 'Hurry the frig up, you suspended, tin pisswhistle'.

  The small crowd filled out to form a full mob, with reinforcements dragging their heels around the corner the same way school kids did on the way to early morning classes. They hadn't developed any real speed in the time it took me to jaunt down the stairs and back. They had, however, realised we were there and showed a bit of muted interest, aiming to attack us but not right away. We would die on their terms.

  Despite taking two down easily, the sheer numbers of the foyer-based group left me quaking in my Teflon trousers. I was amid them for the briefest of moments but my gut needed time to recover from the lurch it'd undergone upon realising I was alone. The lift hit the sixth floor and paused there an uncomfortably long time. Susan pelted it with fresh, rude names (shit-basket, mechanical bell-end) and hammered more on the button, willing it down another couple of floors as the creatures closed in.

  Stuart lunged and gave the nearest one a short, sharp shock with his electric jabber, sending it stumbling and slowing down the group. It didn't react a whole lot to the voltage shot, as I expected it to. No wild shakes or screams of pain; it took the jolt like a light jab to the ribs. A foul stench intoxicated the air but it was difficult to tell if it was the burning of skin or their unnatural odour.

  "Make that lift hurry the fuck up!" he screamed, standing in an attacking pose but hopping from foot to foot, operating on nervous energy, strung as high as overhead power lines.

  Bing!

  "Doors Are Open," the calm lift announcer proclaimed. I wanted to kiss that disembodied voice, if only it had lips. I wanted to take it out for dinner and apologise for Susan's foul-mouthed outbursts.

  What I didn't want to kiss, however, was the zombie that tumbled from the lift doors as they sidled open. It was dead (properly deceased, this time) and landed with a splash on the tacky carpeted floor, spraying blood in every direction. Its chest folded when it hit the ground, cracking many ribs and jabbing bits of spine out through its back. For some reason it was topless; every inch of its blotched skin was bitten or flaking, torn like wrapping paper. A second monster stared at us, face and hands covered in the blood of the first. It lacked steady control of its legs and was off balance from the moment it took a single step. The dormant body on the floor proved too tricky, causing it to trip and fall at Susan in a last-ditch lunge.

  Stuart plucked it from the air by its waist and hurled it forcibly at the approaching death-troupe. There were groans and angry hisses as they fell like bowling pins, bones snapping and flesh splitting from the impact.

  They really were fragile beings.

  The door we passed through earlier punched open. Despite that section of the building being empty as a wild-west ghost town only minutes earlier, a swarm of zombies poured out, bumbling over themselves like clumsy elephants on stampede, filling the doorframe and hemming us in.

  As much as a nature documentary on these creatures would be fascinating, I couldn't stand to be so close to so many of them for long. Their mouths were hydraulic clamps that gnashed and snapped at the air, their bony fingers clawed at us. I dragged the destroyed corpse out of the way and bundled Stuart into the lift. Susan entered of her own accord and again abused the buttons in an effort to make them notice her existence. She still hadn't grasped that pressing a button several hundred times did not make the lift work any quicker than ordinary. If anything it would likely confuse the mechanism, get it all flustered.

  "Work, you bastard!" she screamed, hammering on every button; the one marked with an alarm bell didn't do a thing. The 'close doors' button took the worst of it, sure to wake up sore the next day.

  The doors trundled closed eventually, thirty sickening seconds after we piled in, just as the leader zombie reached the threshold. Impeccable suspense-filled timing from the elevator again.

  "What floor're we heading to?" I asked, slouched down to the floor for a bit of a breather. I massaged my closed eyes, coaxing them away from 'bewildered'.

  "Well, I pressed all of the buttons, but only floors six and ten lit up. We're going back up. Bollocks."

  She pressed more buttons to light them up, but nothing happened. The lift was taking us where it wanted us to go, we were passengers trapped along for the ride.

  "We're escaping, not starting over! This is hopeless!" Stuart bemoaned, as the lift dinged its way past level five. "We can't go back up!"

  "Never mind that, we had nowhere else to go. Let's be ready to get out wherever it stops. We don't want to go down to the foyer, that's for certain."

  I composed myself and tightened my grip on the trusty claret-stained axe. Such a simple yet elegant weapon, enjoying all the functionality of a big stick but with the added benefit of a sharp chunk of heavy metal. A Big Stick 2.0.

  -

  The light glowed over the 'Six' sign as the lift slowed to a halt. Soundlessly the doors slid apart, with all the speed and grace of an inmate strolling to the electric chair.

  We found ourselves staring at the backs of a dozen zombies crammed into a narrow corridor.

  Somehow, they missed the 'Bing!' and the monotone voice announcing the obvious and were oblivious to our arrival. Red, sticky blood doused the walls and floor of the corridor. Even a bit on the ceiling. Body parts, bones and scraps of clothing lay strewn around the mass of standing bodies. The crowd had recently finished a vicious mauling, evidently, tearing a number of people limb from limb and dashing their innards against every surface. Or something like that. I didn't understand why they all faced the same way like soldiers awaiting fresh command, minus the weapons and uniform dress. It was a terrifying and confusing sight. The smallest of noises could alert them, at which point they'd all turn, look at us like free taster samples and skin us to eat our meat. And I had the most meat.

  Susan slapped a hand across Stuart's mouth before he emitted one of his trademark squeals, but otherwise both remained absolutely still. I crouched, axe propped up in my hand, with my back pressed against the side of the elevator, furthest from the buttons. Susan and Stuart cowered on the floor where they'd taken refuge; she inched her free arm up slowly, finding the buttons, politely encouraging the door to roll closed. I couldn't breathe; even blinking felt too loud for the situation. A wicked itch infected my ear, begging to be poked and prodded but I refused, enduring the wriggling sensation and hoping it wasn't anything real. My throat suddenly felt scratchy and raw, urging me to cough.

  My body was trying to get me killed.

  A faint squeak from somewhere in the mess of bodies reached my ears and the strange feelings dispersed, like they ran to hide. The sound set off a bunch of fireworks inside my brain, bursting with colourful blasts of fear-infused adrenaline.

  Squeak squeak. Squeak.

  A little repetitive noise ignoring any tune and without a visible source, threatening to alert any one of the ghouls and convince them to attack us before the tardy doors got a bloody move on.

  I
t sounded like, well, it was a...it was a mouse. A jittery little fat thing with white fur scurried around the foot of the nearest stationary zombie, dragging a creepy, curling tail. It paused every few inches and sat back on rear legs, searching the air with vibrating whiskers and squeaking like it was bellowing a battle-cry. I swear it made eye contact, its eerie red bulbs staring at me as if weighing up its chances of taking me down. There was a menace about it, encouraged by the blood stains on its tiny paws and around its mouth and the way it moved in jerky, jagged bursts littered with unpredictable pauses. Stuart lifted his arms as a shield against the mouse, blocking it from his vision. His scared eyes glowed like full moons above tired, puffy bags.

  We proved unexciting for the mouse and it turned away, running a figure-eight around the legs of the first man, carefully examining every angle before latching on to a trouser leg with sharp claws. It climbed all the way up, squeaking with exertion before pausing near the pants pocket and sniffing vigorously at the air.

  With ballerina-like grace it sprung off the fabric and twisted, sinking two front teeth into the forefinger of the zombie's dangling hand. It hung there for a few seconds, transformed into a few hours by the way time slows down as the stomach lurches, swinging from the digit as a strange gloop seeped from the wound like tar. It was purple-ish, with hints of brown and a thicker viscosity than one would expect from regular, old, human blood. It ran across the face and into the eyes of the determined mouse and still it didn't let go. The finger stretched like rubber, gaining an extra half inch in length.

  Then the animal appeared on the floor with a confused look on its face and two knuckles of rotted finger stuck in its protruding teeth. After taking a second to steady, the mouse sat back and clutched the meat in two adorable hands and nibbled as if the finger was a cob of corn smothered in butter. The bone crumbled like chalk dust. It dropped the remaining segment of bone to the carpet and rubbed its paws across its face, cleaning itself but doing a poor job of it.

  The injured zombie faced forward as if an audacious beastie hadn't climbed their leg and stolen a finger for lunch. Sickly liquid dripped from the torn hole in its hand and formed a pile next to its foot like a cowpat.

  Susan focussed on silencing the wide-eyed, freaking-out Stuart. Her other hand had given up on the buttons, relocating to clamp across her own mouth as she struggled with a complicated natural urge, desperately trying to gag herself until a gush of puke spurted from between her fingers. The pressure of the clasped hand propelled the liquid further than it had any right to travel. It splashed all over the mouse stationed a yard out of the door, who simply continued to clean itself, unperturbed by the setback. Most of her spew cleared Stuart, but a small amount crash-landed on his legs and his short-haired head was the unwelcoming recipient of several drips. He tried his best to kick out and dive into a wild protesting frenzy, but Susan's relentless grip pinned him down, trapping his head between her bosom and her powerful hand.

  A second regurgitated stream hit the wall below the buttons. She mouthed the word 'sorry' to me, tears streaming down her rosy-red face. One final splurge escaped and fouled her own sleeve.

  The stench battled my sensibilities but I stayed strong, holding in the half-digested chocolate despite the wild urge to expel everything I'd ever eaten since birth.

  Susan fought her gag reflex and made unpleasant yet thankfully dry heaving sounds from behind a thrashing Stuart, still unable to escape her vice.

  Then the worst thing happened.

  Both the rodent and the nearest creature became agitated.

  The mouse nudged at the stripped finger bones until satisfied that no food remained, then timidly turned its attention to us, glazed in some of the worst fluids the human body generated. The zombie tried to turn and investigate Susan's noises but suffered from muscles too ineffectual to comply with its wants. Its frustrated grunts caught the attention of others, spreading the news of a fresh food delivery to every deceased denizen of the hallway. Like clockwork they turned to face us, all clumsy, sputtering movement at odds with how a human should move. Otherworldly, like a puppet show without the strings. Marionettes with a taste for flesh.

  The mouse entered the lift with us.

  I stomped down on the thing with exactly no results. It barely reacted. I slammed my foot down again and again to the general apathy of the animal.

  "Kill it!" Susan yelled between vomity hacks.

  "I am!"

  "You're not!"

  There was a rabid anger in her voice. Stuart emitted a prolonged but muted scream from behind his mask of palm and fingers. I ignored them both and put extra effort into destroying the stubborn furry bastard under my foot, then under the sharp end of the axe. It became a matter of principal. Sadly, the blade bounced off the rodent like it was made of impenetrable steel built specifically to survive attacks from an axe in an enclosed space, but a final kick sent it sailing through the air and into the chest of the zombie turned to face us. It dropped to the floor and shot off in the opposite direction, winding through the shuffling feet until it vanished. The bloody, sicky outline of a mouse imprinted the lift floor. I'd squashed it good but hadn't done a jot of damage.

  After another beard's age, perhaps the longest ten seconds in recorded history, the doors again slid shut as the nearest creature toppled towards us; arms stretched like a drunk reached for the last shot of whisky on the bar. I scrunched my eyes but heard the nauseating pop of fingertips crushed by meeting metal. Spits of deep red/purple/brown bloodgunk sprayed into lift, some landing on Susan's ankle. She reached instinctively to swat it away but thought better and withdrew her hand. Her own vile emissions stringed her fingers.

  The dawdling lift juddered upwards and Susan's face burst with committed, ear-shredding screams.

  On top of her need to project her feelings regarding the horrific mouse and the finger, it was clear that Stuart had bitten her hand with a fear-induced crocodile-strength chomp, after she hadn't let him move.

  "AAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH STUART LET GO OF MY HAND YOU PRICK." Every ounce of stored pain let loose from her lungs. She yanked it free of his teeth as Stuart writhed to escape her headlock.

  "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU BIT ME!"

  "YOU THREW UP ON ME!" he bawled, tossing his arms in the air like crude semaphore then feverishly scraping the puke from his head and neck where it'd slopped down. Cleaning himself, like the mouse.

  She held up her hand to show the damage; he hadn't broken skin but he'd come close. A skilled dentist would ascertained the state of Stuart's teeth by glancing at the imprint. A terrible, red circle formed at the base of her thumb. In retaliation, he held up his dripping fingers. An especially poignant chunk fell to the floor at the exact right moment.

  "I'm sorry," they said in unison after a second of icy nothing.

  On the face of it, I'd say they both meant it.

  Even Stevens.

  Good to know that 'biting' is equal to 'vomiting on' in the grand scheme of 'offensive things you can do to a friend'.

  "Hey!" I said, leaving my corner now the puke had stopped flying and my companions had given up yelling. "Susan, whatever you threw up stinks worse than puppy sick, which as you may know, is the foulest substance ever to grace the Earth. Utterly rancid. Stuart, you bit Susan, you can't go around biting people. You made her scream, which is like...a fucking cardinal sin when you're trying to stay quiet and not be eaten. Plus it hurt my ears. Drop your stupid argument and let's focus on me for a change."

  I meant it as a joke and it had the desired numbing effect. They mumbled further apologies and the chill of the room thawed. "So. Everything okay?"

  "Sort of," Stuart said. He held up his stun gun, showing the crushed, dented case. Plastic fragments fell from his hand.

  The lift passed the eighth floor.

  "Lucky I didn't have a finger on the 'stun' button..." he murmured, examining the remains. Then he pressed it, like a goddamned fool, to see if it still worked.

  It did.
<
br />   Flickers of blue shot out, and he dropped the whole thing in shock. It zapped empty air, broken enough to maintain the connection that fired it up without anyone pressing the button. Susan screamed and tried to climb up to the ceiling like a lizard.

  Stuart put an end to the thing with the thick rubber sole of his boots, having more luck than I did with the indestructible rodent.

  When the blue flames vanished, Susan gave him a look simultaneously capable of freezing and melting things. A look that could build and destroy empires, mixing determination and fury in a way only a woman furious at a fool of a man committed.

  "Sorry...again..." he croaked with a broken voice, his vocal chords scared off to the far recesses of his throat by her explosive glare.

  "No longer even," she said, eyeing both of us. "Stop fucking about."