Zombie Apocalypse Survivor: The Office Worker

by Jason Thornton

it looked like the fat 'woman' was squeezing her throat so hard that she couldn't scream, or breath. Sheila's bright red face with it's now bulging veins had a look of true terror. Gone was the look of self serving arrogance. A third zombie showed up and grabbed one of Sheila's flailing arms. Then, in unison, they all bit into her. Two more zombies showed up. Then three more came. Finally another five arrived. By then Sheila had stopped thrashing.

  Jared watched as a mere sixty seconds after their initial attack the undead stood up from Sheila's body and wandered off. Blood was dripping from their mouths and glistening on the front of their clothes. Sheila stood up too. Her head hung at a weird angle and swayed uncontrollably in circles. All of the flesh on her neck appeared to be gone. Nothing but bare, bloody bone remained. Her flat abs beneath her too tight, too short blouse were also gone. The empty space where her abs had been now provided a window that let casual observers see the beauty of her spine and ribs.

  Fascinated, Jared watched as she turned towards the building and started walking towards the front doors. Her keys were still clutched in her hand so that she jingled as she walked. He watched as she pushed opened the door and stepped inside. Her head continued to wobble and flop in an uncontrollable circular motion but, despite that obscene motion, she still saw Jared. She let out a croak through to the ragged hole at the base of her neck, a loud and inhuman croak. This broke his fascination. He stepped forward and swung the bat sideways into her jaw. The bat connected with her jaw and the base of her skull. Her head popped loose and went flying, spinning into a cluster of desks on Jared's left. Sheila's body collapsed to the floor. Jared heard more moans from outside. He looked up and saw at least ten undead corpses making their way towards him.

  Jared reached down and snagged the keys outside of Sheila's hand, turned around and fled the Yellow Red truck company through the back door.

  The Party

  Jared walked to the end of the building and peaked around the corner. He didn't see any zombies nearby so he quickly stepped into the street and made his way across to the ALLEYWAY BEYOND.

  It was a several miles to his friend's house, but by keeping a brisk pace and avoiding the more populated areas, Jared was able make it there without encountering more than a few of the undead. When he did encounter them, if he was quick he could knock them in the head before they could call out. If they did manage to call out before he could knocked in the head, he would make the kill as quick as he could and then quickly leave the area before any others showed up. It wasn't always easy to dodge zombies when they were called in, but patience and clever hiding spots served him well. More than once he was able to avoid several undead by hiding behind a vehicle. There were just too stupid to look around.

  The situation wasn't the same once he reached his friend's neighborhood. Hunkering in high shrubs near the entry, he could see that the undead were thick in the neighborhood. They were congregating in the neighborhood park which was located right in front of him. There were at least fifty animated corpses strolling across the grass, tangled up in the chains of swing sets or stumbling up and down the playground equipment.

  About three quarters of the way down the common area of park was his friend's house. Unfortunately, Jared wouldn't be able to cut straight through the park without being seen by the zombies there. He would have to go around and the only way around meant that he'd have to go over fences and through backyards.

  Amazingly the back yards were absolutely clear of the undead. With most of the gates closed that lead to the front yards and with no living people trying to hide out in the back yards, the undead showed no interest in also being in the back yard. It took Jared almost as much time clambering over fences to reach his friend's house as it had taken him to walk all the way from his work, but finally he made it there.

  He took a few moments to rest and look around. His friend's house was a basic three bedroom home with a modern two story design. Eric had never invested much time in maintaining or improving his back yard and the lawn was a mixture of mowed weeds, brown grass and bare patches of dirt. He could see that the barricades were in place and secure over the windows and doors. The plywood was screwed directly over the vinyl siding with long golden deck screws, some of which lay scattered on the pavement. The upstairs windows weren't barricaded and Jared could see curtains fluttering in and out of the windows with the breeze.

  He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Eric's number. It rang four times before going to voice mail. He tried quietly tapping on the plywood over the back door. Hopefully they could hear him through the sliding glass door behind the plywood and over the sound of the video games they were undoubtedly playing. He waited half a minute before rapping on the wood a little harder. He was worried that if he knocked any louder that the undead in the park might investigate. He tried the phone one more time. When he didn't get an answer, he knocked once more on the plywood with the bat. The noise was astonishingly loud in the quiet of this new world that he was coming to associate with the zombie apocalypse.

  He sat motionless and listened quietly with his ear against the plywood. He could here shuffling and creaking of the fence gate as the undead came to investigate the noise. Jared waited for an eternity before he heard the zombies scuff and shuffle away.

  Jared looked back to the upstairs window and decided his best bet was to try and scale the wall and climb into the upstairs window. Hopefully the edging of the plywood sheet would serve like a ladder. The idea was a lot simpler in his mind that it was in practice. He could grab the top of the plywood sheet, but couldn't find anywhere on the board to put his feet in order to get a grip and pull himself up. Both the vinyl siding and plywood just didn't provide enough traction.

  He decided on another tactic. He took several steps back and then ran at the board. Right before he hit the board, he launched himself upwards, using his forward momentum to provide traction and thrust. Scrambling wildly, he flailed his hands forward and just barely managed to snag his fingertips on the bottom ledge of the window. Now that he had a grip on the window sill, he was able to bring his feet up to the top edge of the plywood and lift himself into the window. He pulled himself in and collapse on the floor of Eric's bedroom.

  Lying on the floor, Jared noticed that the house was quiet. Eric's bedroom door was open and he could smell the aroma of pizza and the lingering odor of cigarettes. As he got up he thought about the bat he left sitting on the side of the house and how he would have liked to have. Quietly he walked to the hallway and looked out. There were two more bedrooms upstairs, one of them being Eric's office and the other a spare bedroom. The other doors were closed but Jared was more interested in going downstairs.

  Eric always kept a mini-14 rifle at the head of the stairs. It was still there so Jared grabbed it. With the rifle now in hand, he felt a little more confident as he headed down the stairs. He came to the foot of the stairs and into the kitchen. The counters were loaded down with soda, beers and chips. From the kitchen he could see into the living room. Inside the living room were four large flat screen TV's, each set up to face one of several large comfortable chairs. Each of the televisions were showing the same, a 'game over' screen. Jared was expecting to find Eric and his other friends deeply involved in the latest thumb busting multi-player game. Instead, he found the living room empty. Walking into the living room, Jared saw empty seats, gaming headsets setting on the chairs, half eaten pizza slices on the coffee table, half drank bottles of energy drinks and his friend Romero lying face down on the floor.

  Romero was lying face down on the floor in a pool of blood. There were splatters of blood all over his ripped t-shirt and a large bullet exit wound in the back of his head. Romero's hands were curled into claws and bloody up to his elbows. Jared pulled the bolt back on the rifle and let it slam forward, loading a fresh round into the chamber. He double checked to make sure the rifle's safety switch was set to fire.

  Stepping aroun
d Romero's body, Jared checked out the rest of the first floor. At the entrance to the bathroom he found Mark's body. His throat had been torn out. There was a bullet hole in his head too. All over Mark's face were scratches and bite marks. The bathroom was empty and unremarkable.

  Jared checked out the rest of the first floor and didn't find any more of his friends. All of the barricades, front, back and sides, were in place and secure. He went back upstairs.

  The first room he checked was the bathroom. Apprehensively, he nudged open the bathroom door with the barrel of the rifle. The door creaked as it opened, but revealed an empty bathroom beyond.

  Next he went to Eric's office. Eric's office was where he kept all of his important stuff, like his gun safe, cash and stash of dope. The door to the office had been shut, so Jared hadn't smelled the pungent odor of fresh marijuana until it swung open. Eric was sitting at his desk. His favorite Glock handgun was resting in his blood stained hands which were on his lap. He had used the gun to blow his brains out.

  On the floor immediately in front of the desk were the bodies of Mike and Wayne. Mike was still wearing his gaming