The First 30 Days: A Zombie Apocalypse Novel

by Powell, Lora

  Back out in the office area, I wandered from desk to desk, searching for stashes of junk food that I knew would be in most of the desks. The brief twinge of guilt that I felt at taking the first Snickers bar was quickly buried by my hunger. Before long I had accumulated enough snack food to stuff myself with, and retreated back to the women's bathroom.

  The doors to the bathrooms had locks on the inside. Turning the lock, I settled into the couch and wolfed down enough candy to make myself slightly sick. Feeling a little better, completely exhausted, I curled up on the couch and was instantly asleep.

  What had to be hours later, I woke up, confused as to why I was sleeping on a restroom couch for several long seconds. Sitting up, the past few days came back to take my breath away. I stumbled to my feet and into the first stall. Still groggy, I splashed some cold water onto my face. It was while I was hanging over the sink, water dripping off of my chin, that I heard the voices outside of the bathroom door.

  EIGHT

  DAY 5

  “There’s someone in there.”

  The low voice carried to where I stood dripping into the white sink. The sound had my head snapping up and my gaze glued to the door. As far as I had been able to discern, the rabid people never spoke actual words, just grunted, growled, and screamed. Intelligent conversation meant hopefully sane and safe company.

  Unevenly walking to the bathroom door, I stopped to try to listen to the whispered conversation happening on the other side. All I could catch was a word here and there; it was not nearly enough to follow what was being said. I hesitated with my hand on the lock, the urge to be with other people somewhat tempered by the knowledge that they were strangers.

  The whispering on the other side of the door continued. The desire to finally not be alone in whatever was going on, won out. I turned the lock and pushed the door open.

  “Whoa! Look out!”

  “It’s coming out!”

  Two distinctly male voices shouted over each other. Frozen in the partially opened door by the sight of someone fifty pounds heavier than me brandishing a baseball bat, I cringed and waited for the inevitable sound of my own skull caving in.

  When the impact didn’t come, I warily cracked an eye open. Standing a few feet away, the two men stared back at me with a mix of alarm and disbelief. “That was close.” the thin one looked rapidly between me and the still raised bat.

  “Jesus! Don’t pop out at someone like that, especially looking like one of them!” Bat wielding guy's shoulders slumped and he glared as he gestured with the bat in my direction.

  Reflexively I looked down. The days old blood covering most of my clothes had turned a rusty brown. The long strands of my hair hung in clumps, matted with dried blood and greasy from going half a week without a shower. My missing shoe caused me to limp.

  I rubbed my damp palms on my jeans, uncomfortable with the realization that I looked disturbingly similar to Evie the last time I’d seen her.

  “Um, hi,” I had no idea what to say.

  Bat guy snorted. “Hi? I almost killed you!” He began pacing in the circle of light cast by the bright bathroom lights. That was the first I noticed that it was very dark in the office, no sunlight coming in through the wall of windows. I had been asleep for a long time. “Where did you come from, anyway?”

  I looked between the two men, confused by the hostile reaction I was getting from the one with the bat.

  Seeing my look, the other one told me, “We’ve been here since the beginning. Just us, the building was empty. We checked. You startled us when you started making noise in that bathroom. We thought a dead one might have gotten in somehow.”

  “The roof door is usually unlocked. I work here, and when I needed some place to hide, this is where I ended up. I couldn’t go home, so... Wait. What do you mean dead ones?” I ended my ramble with a question.

  “Lady, are you ok?” Great, bat guy was talking again. “Were you bitten? Do you have the fever?" The two of them eyed me like I could attack at any second.

  Keeping a close eye on that wooden weapon of destruction, I sagged tiredly against the door frame. “I‘m not ok.” Seeing their alarm, I hurried to elaborate. “I’m so confused! My roommate was sick and then she freaked out and started attacking people. I had to hide in my bathroom for days before I could get away from her. Then I got outside and looked for help, but all I found was more crazy people who tried to attack me. They chased me onto the roof. Some of them…the injuries they have…it’s not possible. I just need to know what's going on!”

  Bat guy moved a little closer. “But, you do realize what's happened, right?” When I just stared at him, he went on. “It’s a freaking zombie apocalypse. Those people aren’t sick, they’re dead. And you don’t want them to get their teeth into you. You aren’t bitten, are you?”

  I slid to my butt on the hard carpet, using my sneaker less foot to hold the door open. Zombies. It was out in the open, that word that I had been avoiding for days. Now that it was out, there was no putting it back. “No, I didn’t get bitten.” I looked up to the two men who had moved to stand nearby.

  “That's good. People who get bitten don’t make it.”

  An uncomfortable silence fell then, the three of us staring at each other, no one knowing what to say. When I couldn't take it anymore, I pulled myself to my feet and looked the guys over more carefully. Bat guy was maybe ten years older than me, probably six feet tall, and had the athletic build of someone who worked out regularly. He was wearing sweatpants and a black t shirt bearing the logo of the gym that was located on the second floor of the building.

  The other guy, shorter and thinner, had a receding hairline and was wearing typical office attire. I guess their clothing explained what they had been doing in the building in the first place. Bat guy was a gym rat. And the other one was likely working overtime at one of the cubicles currently hidden by darkness.

  Despite nearly bashing my head in, which admittedly was mostly my fault, neither of them set of any warning bells for me. And bat guy had a bat. If I was going to find myself stuck with strangers, I could have done worse than these two.

  Brushing at the seat of my pants, I stepped away from the door. “I’m Bri, and I’m really glad to have run into you two. What do we do now?

  NINE

  DAY 5

  Using his bat to nudge the door opened, Shawn led our little group into the stairwell. Behind me, Jack clicked on a flashlight and used it to illuminate a section of the pitch-black stairs.

  The guys had barricaded an office on the third floor, and that was where we were all headed. My shoe in one hand, and the stolen supply of desk snacks in an emptied copy paper box in the other, we descended two levels. They had told me that they had been systematically searching the whole building for food and water, which was why they had been creeping around the top floor.

  This descent was somehow still just as creepy as my first trip down the dark stairs, despite having a better flashlight and not being alone. The absolute black both above and below us, caused visions of something just out of view, watching. I was more than relieved to follow Shawn out of that stairwell.

  “I’m gonna take a quick look around.” Shawn glanced behind himself at us, before winding his way into the aisles of office furniture.

  Behind me, I heard the lock on the door click into place.

  “We always double check that no one else got in here when we've been on another floor. Can’t be too careful,” Jack explained when he saw me look his way. “The office we’ve been using is back here.”

  I stayed close as Jack led the way to the back corner office. The blinds covering the glass walls had been closed tightly, giving the space the illusion of privacy once we stepped inside. A small sitting area sported a leather couch and a pair of matching chairs. A huge wooden desk had been shoved to the far wall and was covered with the variety of packaged food the guys had scavenged. An office water cooler sat next to the desk, the in use five-gallon jug half full. Another o
ne, a full jug, sat on the floor.

  I watched as Jack went to the blinds over the back wall and pulled them apart just far enough to watch outside worriedly. “There's a lot of them out there.”

  I couldn't tell if his comment was meant for me or himself. Dropping my box by the desk, I joined him at the window. Jack was right; the street outside was alive with zombies. The light from the moon was enough to show me just how many of them were actually out there.

  How had I managed to make it to the building without being trapped?

  Lost in thought about my apparently incredible luck, I didn't notice at first that Shawn had come in the office.

  I jumped at his voice. “It’s clear out there. Did you lock the door?”

  “Yeah.”

  I heard the office door click softly shut and the lock on it turn too. “We try to avoid anything that could draw attention.”

  Realizing that that comment was directed at me, I let the blind close. Nodding, I turned around to face the men. Propping the bat up by the door, Shawn folded his arms over his chest and stared my way. “We stick to one flashlight at night, keep the blinds closed, and try not to make any noise. We didn't really think there was any way for someone to get inside, but you're here, so I guess we were wrong.”

  “I locked the roof door behind me.” I felt compelled to tell him that I hadn't left the door unsecured.

  “Good.”

  “We should check the news again.” Jack crossed the room in a few strides and pulled the doors on a cabinet open. Inside was a small flat screen. With a push of the power button, the screen came to life.

  “There’s still news?” I guess I was surprised to hear it. From what I’d seen, it looked like the city belonged to the dead. I moved closer to the screen.

  “Well, there hasn't been anything local for two days. But the last we checked, we could still find working stations from Europe.”

  The volume was turned down to a level that made hearing the woman speaking almost impossible. The three of us crowded close to the TV, listening to the report.

  I had been trapped in my blood-soaked bathroom by my roommate for days, spent I wasn't sure how long driving the ravaged streets of the city, and barely escaped a horde with my life; and I still was shocked by what I was hearing on the TV. It really was the end of the world. Every developed country on the planet was losing the battle to control the outbreak. Third world countries had reports of zombies too, but slow news reports from those areas made it hard to determine just how bad things were in some areas of the world.

  When the exhausted looking woman on screen reported that the US president was unaccounted for, Shawn reached up and turned the TV off. “Nothing new.”

  The guys drifted about the room, helping themselves to the sugar overload piled on the desk, and sneaking looks between the blinds now and then. I found myself perched on one end of the couch, thinking about the information that I had been bombarded with.

  At some point, the sun rose into the sky, lighting up the office even through the closed blinds. Jack had fallen asleep in one of the chairs, head lolling to the side in a pose that was sure to kill his neck when he woke up. Through the long hours of sitting, I had come to several conclusions.

  One, it was a miracle that I was alive. I should have been dead, many times over. And I wasn’t about to squander my second chance.

  Two, I was glad to have run into the two men. The only thing worse than a zombie apocalypse, was being alone in a zombie apocalypse. Surviving would take a combined effort.

  And three, there was no one coming to rescue us.

  TEN

  DAY 7

  The plan was insane. Why had I allowed Jack to convince me to go along with this suicide mission?

  I peered through the door's window, into the first floor cafeteria. Inside, round tables surrounded by ugly grey plastic chairs crowded the floor space. The outside walls were glass, letting in more light than I'd seen in days, and giving me a great view of about a dozen zombies wandering the sidewalk with that odd gait they all seemed to have.

  Our destination, the kitchen, was behind a wall to the left.

  “The electricity is still working. There should be a ton of food still good in the kitchen.”

  Crowded beside me, Jack looked through the window too. Behind us, twirling that bat in his hands, Shawn looked more than a little skeptical. Now that we were down here, I had to admit that going into an area that we were sure to be seen in, seemed like an idiotic thing to do. “I don’t know, Jack. They are going to see us.”

  “Maybe not.”

  I peeled my gaze from the window to look over at him. Yesterday we had all raided the locker area of the gym. Finally having clothes that weren’t stiff with old blood had trumped my squeamish thoughts over wearing someone else’s things. I’d even found a pair of sneakers that were only a little too big. The guys had both also found something to change into, though Jack ended up less than enthusiastic about the bright red sweats he was currently wearing.

  With our mismatched outfits that didn't quite fit, unwashed hair, and the guys’ scruffy faces, we resembled nothing more than a trio of homeless people.

  “Jack. They are going to see us.”

  “Do you have a better idea?” He flashed brown eyes first to me, then to Shawn, before looking back into the cafeteria. Neither of us had come up with a better plan and he knew it.

  Our pilfered pile of junk food was nearly gone. Even with all of us limiting what we ate, there had only been so much food hidden in the desks upstairs. The real gold mine was just through those doors, in the kitchen that had supplied lunch for most of the employees daily.

  The first floor was the one level that had been off limits. The walls were mostly glass, the curtains and blinds had been left open. The roving bands of zombies on the street would too easily be able to see anyone moving around the first floor. But now the food was running low and the reality that we were about to get very hungry was setting in.

  We were going to have to either find a way to get out of the building without getting bitten, or we were going to have to make it into the kitchen.

  I sighed. The kitchen still seemed like a better bet than going outside. “Ok. How do we do this?”

  “I think our best chance is to wait until there are as few zombies out there as possible, then just make a run for it. Once we are in the kitchen, we can stay in there as long as it takes for any of them who see us to lose interest.”

  Shawn chose that moment to step up right behind us. He looked through the window silently for several seconds, “As long as there doesn’t get to be too many at the windows, it should work.” Troubled grey eyes met mine. Neither of us was confident in the plan, apparently.

  “Yeah, ok. That's the plan then.”

  The three of us stayed crowded at the door in the dark stairwell for a long time. The zombies on the street seemed like they would never go away. And then they did.

  My muscles, already cramped from standing still so long, tensed. There was only one zombie in view, a teenage boy who had dyed his hair green in life. It was now or never.

  Glancing over at us to check if we were ready, Jack reached out and opened the door into the cafeteria.

  Moving quickly, in a single file line, we made it most of the way to the beckoning door before the green haired zombie spotted us. I knew the moment he saw us because my own eyes had been desperately glued to his bloated form every second. The zombie snapped his head in our direction.

  His blood curdling scream carried through the thick glass walls.

  “Go, go!” Shawn shoved me from behind.

  Stumbling forward into Jack, we bolted as fast as possible through the maze of tables. The kitchen door approached fast, but not fast enough.

  A spine-tingling thud sounded as the green haired zombie collided with the glass. Two more thuds immediately followed. Wide eyed, I watched over my shoulder as more shrieking zombies began to come into view, their attention fixed solely on
the cafeteria.

  Jack reached the door and ripped it open, diving headlong into the room beyond. I followed him through, and Shawn barreled in last, yanking the door closed behind him.

  Inside the kitchen the lights had been left on. Gleaming stainless-steel surfaces covered the long room. One wall was dominated by a row of ovens, the grill, and what I guessed was probably the door to a walk-in refrigerator.

  Panting a little, I swung around to try to look out the tiny window high in the door, but Shawn’s shoulders were in the way. “Are we ok?!” I needed to know if we had just made a bad situation worse by drawing their attention.

  “There’s at least a dozen that I can see. But the glass is holding. I think we are ok. We’ll just have to stay quiet in here until they get bored.” Shawn double checked that the kitchen door was securely latched before stepping away from the door.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when he turned around. There could be worse places to be trapped. At least here we had plenty of food.

  The shelves in the room had been full when things went bad. Bread and rolls, apples, and bags of chips beckoned. I grabbed an apple, happier than I would have ever thought to see the fruit after days without food, followed by days of just junk food. The first bite into it tasted like heaven, I didn’t even care that the fruit was slightly past its prime.

  Also crunching on an apple, the bat resting on his shoulder, Shawn wandered between the countertops. He stopped to read a label on a giant-sized box of something, before moving on.

  Jack had grabbed a bag of rolls from its shelf. “I bet I can find something to make sandwiches.” He grinned up at us, the first happy expression he had in the last couple of days I'd known him, and started toward the big silver door set in the wall.