by Chris Welsh
Chapter Twenty-One. 06:20pm
FOOD, MEDIOCRE FOOD.
It was disgustingly easy to reach the coffee stand, tracking through the sea of death like a sailboat avoiding floating ice-slabs. They'd shut down, lost their edge. Tired or too hungry, or just bored. Some lay in puddles of slowly leaking reddish liquid, just there, face down, doing nothing of note. The lack of movement and moaning turned our journey into an eerie stroll through silent statues, hearts in our mouths, ears pricked for the slightest hint of aggression.
Near Susan's abandoned desk I saw the hole the big zombie had made when it crashed into the foyer. The sliding doors I entered every morning were strewn around the floor in pieces, as was a large section of brickwork. A crack ran up the wall like a vein, ending at the tall ceiling. The expansive office inside, where I used to call home, drowned in blackness, lit only by fading natural light eking in through windows. I stared into the wretched abyss, trembling at thoughts of the big guy's reappearance.
It felt like a forbidden land, like we were trespassing behind enemy lines. The foyer no longer belonged to us, although not one of the milling beasts so much as glanced as we crept through. They posed no immediate danger, it was just a feeling of threat, a sense of unease, some automatic urge from my internal GPS to U-turn and head out and away.
The steps to the mezzanine were empty except for some broken bodies, remnants of the crew that attacked me earlier when I played hero. Many displayed numerous bites and chew marks, their remains presumably picked at by curious passers-by.
Up on top was thankfully quiet; the group that chased us into the elevator had either wandered off or now languished unseen in a corner somewhere, which gave us free reign over the snack bar.
It was modelled like an olde-worlde Pilgrim wagon, the type that crossed America in rolling convoys, except it was made of fibreglass and had three huge TV screens stuck to the side. They usually displayed a menu, prices and infomercials about the 'Fair Trade' coffee. Pictures of foreign farmers grinning like maniacs interrupted flashy graphics and 'Did You Know' facts about coffee beans and trade laws. Now they were black mirrors, rectangles of nothing.
There was a bar next to the wagon, sprouting from the side like an abnormal limb, with a swinging door at one end and a sign that read 'No admittance beyond this point'.
Silver chairs and tables littered the floor nearby, giving patrons a place to sit and eat or drink. I knew of office managers who held meetings at these tables, hoping to conjure a friendly vibe in which to berate or belittle their staff. A pleasant place to relax under other circumstances.
Now it was positively grim.
The main lights were off and only two spotlights on the side of the wagon lit anything up. Stuart found a switch and killed them too, fearful of them acting like beacons to the flesh-eaters.
The large windows covering the building did an admirable job of letting in much of the dying, evening light, but shadows forged their way and created blocks of black here and there. Only a few upended chairs and two easily ignored bodies sullied the otherwise peaceful area. At least, I easily ignored them; Susan postponed the food rush to instead walk softly around and examine both of them. One table had tipped and now balanced on the lip with a zombie hewn in two beneath it. Big boots had crushed the thing's head and bloody footprints trudged toward the foyer stairs alongside uneven drips of blood.
"It's destroyed!" she said, kneeling down beside it.
"Well, yeah, it hasn't got a head and it's in half. Who did it?"
I hung a few yards back, eager to get into the wagon to stuff my face with gregariously priced snacks but uncomfortable leaving Susan alone amid even supposedly-dead bodies.
"No idea. But I mean, like the bits that aren't smashed to bits. Destroyed in sort-of a natural way. Its arm looks totally fucking gross. All saggy and limp. The skin is kinda see-through and seeping a bit, some pearly white fluid."
She lifted it up by the wrist and immediately regretted it. It folded in half and caused a new batch of putrid insides to pour out of a hole near the neck. She gagged and dry heaved her way back to the coffee stall, covering her face until her stomach quit doing flips.
"It's like Nelson's mum said. There's no longevity. They're turning into mush, decomposing from the inside out. No bones left. That's like a fucking water balloon."
She spoke from behind a clasped hand, as if removing it might unleash a stream of bile.
"Try not to think about it. And stop touching them, you mentalist. Would you like a bag of crisps?"
Stuart was already busy behind the counter, foraging like a good little bear cub. He'd built a small tower of food near the till which included a variety of sandwiches (triangles of bread filled with salad things, wrapped tightly in cling-film), healthy fruit 'n nut bars, and five packets of Prawn Cocktail flavoured potato chips.
"Fucking... prawns?" I said, pushing away the nearest bag like it might pop open and murder me. "Is there anything else?"
"Nope," he said, ripping open a pack for himself. As he finished off the bag, I tore the cellophane off a sandwich labelled 'HAM', which was actually ninety percent salad, nine percent bread and less than one percent 'HAM'. Even in such a situation where pickiness was inherently ridiculous, I felt hard done by. My years of ignoring this place as a viable lunch option were vindicated, rubber-stamped. The feeling of food passing down my throat was heavenly though, even if it was terrible rabbit food. The healthy nut bar was a giant disappointment however, on the scale of the Titanic's maiden voyage or that Guns 'n' Roses album that took eleven years to make.
"Come on, there must be something good here. How do they make any money with this shit?" I asked, choking down another bite of dry, compressed nuts held together by dust.
"They do bagels in the morning. I sometimes get one with cream cheese and slices of smoked ham. They're really good," Susan said.
"Fuck bagels! They're just terrible doughnuts for old people! I want chocolate! And proper meat. Any meat. And good crisps. A man can't live on health food alone."
I was approaching tears by this point, sullenly eyeing up a sandwich labelled 'QUATTRO FROMAGE', when Stuart turned the handle of a well-concealed door. I hadn't spotted it, hidden cleverly in the design of the wagon's shell. It was a thin door, labelled 'Staff Only', and it was locked.
He fixed that with a shoulder slam and took a step inside, then searched for a light switch with great trepidation; the look on his face said 'Please don't be full of scary bugs'.
