“Holy shit,” Mr. Novak said. One of the injured people – no, they were worse than merely injured, they were dead – turned to the door. One of his eyes were gone, teeth marks running from brow to cheekbone. The dead man grinned, and began to lurch toward them. Mr. Novak slammed the door and threw the locks.
“Fulgencio! Lock the other doors, now!”
Jaime Fulgencio ran to obey, just as something hammered into the door Mr. Novak locked. A scrabbling sound, like claws, pawed at the other side. It was the dead man. Clawing to be let in like a hungry dog.
“Mr. Novak,” Ricky whispered. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know. Come with me.” Mr. Novak led Ricky into the back, past the lockers and his office, to a metal grated door. He unlocked it with a heavy ring of keys, throwing the door wide. Equipment waited on metal shelving, arranged by sport. Mr. Novak picked up the half dozen aluminum bats that waited on a rack by one wall, handing one to Ricky. “You know what to do with this?”
Ricky nodded. “If one of those things comes in, I make him sorry he did.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” Ricky preened as the two of them entered the gym. Mr. Novak passed four other bats to his favorites, and Ricky was pleased to see that he didn’t ask Ricky to surrender the bat he’d gotten. He was validated. He took up a position by Mr. Novak’s shoulder. He was ready to do whatever the teacher needed of him.
A hand went up. It belonged to Jesus Reyes. “Mr. Novak? What’s going on?”
“The riot,” he said. “It’s here.”
Ricky nodded, only it wasn’t a riot. Ricky knew it better after what he had seen through that door, but they all knew it was something worse. Something Biblical and horrible. It was the last day anything would ever make sense. A single look at the three headless corpses by the side of the gym told that story. The awful scrabbling sound on the other side of the door spoke almost as eloquently.
“What are we going to do?” Jesus asked.
Ricky didn’t have to ask, because he already knew. Mr. Novak was going to figure out something to get them all out of here safely. Mr. Novak wouldn’t let anything bad happen to them. Somehow, he would figure it out. Ricky’s faith was ironclad and forged in blood. He waited for the words to come out of his trusted teacher’s mouth, the plan that would save them all and make everything okay.
Mr. Novak watched his students, his eyes narrowed, his mouth working silently. When the teacher finally spoke, after an eternity of staring at his class, Ricky felt himself falling apart.
“I have to go,” Mr. Novak whispered. Then, louder, “I have to go.”
The class started murmuring to each other, speculating what Mr. Novak meant by his declaration. Finally, Chris Brennan said, with the pathetic hope Ricky felt too, “Going to get help?”
Mr. Novak swallowed, and for the first time, he looked at the floor. “I’m sorry, men. I have to go. My wife, she’s... I have to go. I have to get to her.” He walked to the door quickly, unable to look anywhere else.
Ricky ran after him. “Mr. Novak, what are you doing?”
“I’m sorry, son. I have a family.”
“So do I.”
Ricky chased Mr. Novak’s eyes, but they darted away.
“I’m sorry,” the teacher whispered. He unlocked the door, then stopped. “Lock this behind me. Don’t let those things in.”
“Mr. Novak, please. Don’t go. We need you.”
But Mr. Novak didn’t say anything. He merely flinched once as the words burrowed into him like ticks. He was fleeing, not just the situation, but Ricky’s need. He was abandoning them to the horror.
Mr. Novak threw the door open and a dead man staggered inward. The gym teacher hit a home run against the dead man’s skull, battering him out the door. Then Mr. Novak ran into the sunlight, among the awful animate corpses. Dead people eclipsed the short man quickly, converging around the door to get at the terrified meals within. With a broken sob, Ricky slammed the door and threw the lock. The clawing sound started up immediately, echoing hollowly through the gym.
Ricky’s limbs trembled, filling with cold fire. He kept seeing Mr. Novak running. Fleeing. Abandoning. He had known hatred before, for his own father. But not like this. His father had been weak and a drunk, but leaving had been the best thing he’d ever done. Mr. Novak was so much worse. He had been stronger than anything. Someone who couldn’t break. And then he had. Leaving his class to die.
As the scratching multiplied at the door, rebounding off the walls all around, a piece of Ricky Robellada snapped like a rubber band, never again to be fixed.
About Justin Robinson
Much like film noir, Justin Robinson was born and raised in Los Angeles. He splits his time between editing comic books, writing prose, and wondering what that disgusting smell is. Degrees in Anthropology and History prepared him for unemployment, but an obsession with horror fiction and a laundry list of phobias provided a more attractive option. He is the author of more than 10 novels in a variety of genres including detective, humor, urban fantasy, and horror. Most of them are pretty good.
Justin is the co-host of Tread Perilously a weekly "worst of television podcast (featured on Fanbase Press).
4
Cookie Jars and Blue Birds
by Valerie Lioudis
Avery
The cookie jar rattled in my backpack as I tried to sneak down the alleyway. Somewhere along the way, I had picked up a companion. Rayna followed close behind me, hoping not to alert the dead that we were in the area. When the outbreak happened, I was holed up in my childhood home alone. I struggled with anxiety before the monsters came to life. The constant moaning and running caused me to latch onto something I could control. That was when the hoarding began.
The cookie jar was the last piece that still existed from my original hoard. Late one night, trapped by my piles, a fire broke out and swept through my home. Alone, and panicked, I dug through the piles of useless treasures and was able to pull the cookie jar out as I escaped the fiery prison. All the control I had managed to accumulate was gone in a flash. The only thing that kept me from lying down and giving up right there was that glass cookie jar. It was the first piece I ever found, and with it I could start all over again.
I was determined not to confine myself into a home filled to the brim with piles of items that could turn into an avalanche and bury me alive. But the pull was still there. I still needed to bring order to the chaos. The best solution I could think of was a traveling home. It took time for me to find a suitable camper. It needed to be small. I could drive, but I was no truck driver, and the roads weren't clear, so maneuverability was key. I spent a week sleeping in the office of my town's thrift store trying to scope out the perfect ride, and when I finally found one that worked, it was as if the stars had aligned to leave it there for me.
I tapped on the windows of the busted-up Winnebago. Silence. Scanning the area, I made sure it was clear to make a little more noise. Once I was sure I was alone, I banged as hard as I could on the door. If there were dead inside, I wanted to know. My life depended on my thoroughness. Nothing. I pulled at the handle and expected it to be locked. Nothing was this easy anymore.
I pulled a bit harder than I should have and the door flung out at me, along with the putrid smell of death. Not the zombie rotting kind of death, but the completely dead and rotting away peacefully kind of death. Oddly, there was a difference. It was hard to explain, but the zombies had their own distinct stink, and what hit me in the face wasn't it. I pulled a bandana up around my nose. When you get hit with the smell of death all the time, you come prepared.
On the floor in the main living area was a middle-aged woman with a gaping hole in her head. In her arms was a small and equally dead toy dog of some sorts. It was hard to pin down the breed with that much decay. Thank god animals didn't carry the zombie disease. Her kind of dog scared me more than the idea of zombie bears or lions. Just imagine a pack of the ankle biters attacking you without warnin
g. There would be no way to fend them off, and you're more likely to stumble on them.
In the driver's seat sat what I could only assume was her husband. He had a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The longer you spend wandering around in a world full of broken snapshots, the easier it becomes to imagine a back story for each scene in front of you. Karen and Jim tried to run from the zombie threat in their trusty camper. Little Fluffy was a yappy little monster who was never trained to behave because Karen treated him like a person and not a dog.
"Sheesh, Karen. If you could have just given Jim more of your love, and not flaunted your obvious favoritism of Fluffy here, maybe you would still be on the run from the monsters together." I said as I pulled Karen out into the street.
Lucky for me, Karen had a death grip around Fluffy, so I wouldn't have to drag them out separately. Jim on the other hand, was going to give me a bit of trouble. He was wedged in the seat, and death makes the body bloat. He was most likely a portly man before death, but now he looked like that girl from the chocolate movie who ate the forbidden candy. Except he wasn't purple or blue. Pop culture used to matter, but it was almost impossible to remember those details anymore.
"Geez, Jim. You should have laid off the cheeseburgers. Or, maybe you could have shot yourself over near Karen. Nobody ever thinks of the person who has to clean all this up."
It was becoming commonplace that I would talk to myself. I wasn't sure if that was a bad sign or not. It wasn't like Jim or Karen were going to jump up and start rattling off some good old fashioned small talk about the weather or the state of politics. Once the bodies were resting nicely in the summer sun, the urge to pull them a thousand feet away from the camper became a thought that I was going to have to push to the back of my mind if I was ever going to get my new rolling palace cleaned up and ready to go.
Step one would have to be airing the thing out. I didn't know how long Jim and Karen had been closed up in what essentially was an easy bake people oven, but it was going to take a few days to get their smell out. Once I got the tiny side windows and screen door moving some of the death cloud out of the camper, I could breathe again, but only because we were all a bit nose blind these days.
I prayed to a god that I hope was still listening and made my way back to the driver's seat. A sunbeam shone down from the heavens and a choir of angels sang Hallelujah in my head. Dangling from the ignition was a lucky rabbit's foot attached to the key for the camper. Thank god for small miracles. I was resourceful, but I wasn't hot wire a camper resourceful. Turning the key, I was afraid that even with all the pieces falling in place that the camper wouldn't start, but it did.
"Thanks, Jim!" I yelled out glad that he was still in earshot.
I rolled down the front two windows and popped out the ones that looked like wings. A rush of cool air blew onto my face, and I finally sat down to rest in my new home. After fifteen or so minutes, the smell overtook me again, and I accepted that I would be leaving to find some extremely strong cleaning products. I popped the keys out and danced my happy dance out the camper door.
"Thanks, guys. I'll be back tomorrow to take care of the mess you left behind. The more I think about it Jim, it would have been kinder if you would have taken care of business out here. I’ll forgive you, though, if you forgive me for taking off with your ride in the next few days."
The entire walk back to the thrift shop, I felt like I was being followed. I had taken residence in the upstairs office after my house burned, and while those kinds of shops had a mix of junk in them prior to the outbreak, my nesting had brought double the contents there for safekeeping while I hunted down a suitable long-term solution to my living situation. I could use the front door to get in, but I had become accustomed to climbing up the tree at the corner of the store onto the roof, and in through the office window.
Rituals helped me feel in control. The world outside was dying but hiding in my worn brown chair each evening as I listened to nineties music on loop made me feel safe. Climbing in the window was the way I went in the first time, so it would be the way I went in every time. I pulled myself up, and as I was closing the window a squirrel snuck in at the last moment. Startled, I froze. He bounced around the room off of each piece of furniture, finally landing on the desk and grabbing the granola bar I had waiting on the desk for me when I got back.
He snatched it up and bolted out the window again. He was gone before I could even react. It had been so long since I had seen another living creature that I wasn't sure I actually saw it happen. I slowly shut the window the rest of the way, this time locking it. I was pretty sure that squirrels couldn't open closed windows, but I didn't want to chance it. It was the first night in a long time that my rituals were unable to make me calm enough to fall asleep. So, I spent most of the evening tossing and turning before finally succumbing to darkness.
In the morning, my tiny friend was waiting patiently at the window for me. I opened my eyes and saw a small head popping up and down through the glass pane. I was a pretty cautious person, but it seemed safe enough to see what the little guy wanted. I popped the lock and slid the window open, and as soon as there was enough space for him he squeezed right in. This time he skipped all of the other furniture and headed over to the desk where he had found the granola bar the night before.
"Sorry, little dude. I didn't think to leave you out a morning snack. Wait right here, and I will grab you something from my stash."
I knew it was stupid to waste what little food I had, but loneliness will make you do weird things. My tiny friend wasn't about to be left behind in the stuffy office. As I opened the door to head downstairs, after knocking three times of course, he climbed up my leg across my shirt and onto my shoulder. We made our way through the store together, with him jumping off of me and onto the piles I had collected, then back on my shoulder.
"You're a curious little guy, huh?"
I moved the pile of empty boxes that hid the closet filled with food. I figured if anyone ever broke in, they would see all of my other piles and assume there was just more useless junk over in the corner. I was pretty good at collecting, and even with food being scarce, I had a decent sized pile for one. I loaded up my backpack with a few days' worth of food and the box of granola bars. The plan was to load the office with a bit of food, pack enough for my trip out to clean the camper today, and let the squirrel have a granola bar every time he shows up at my window. It might be nice to have a companion.
I hadn't noticed that he had crawled down my shirt to one of the shelves and was feasting on a bag of stale, and probably moldy, chips. "Dude! I'm not sure those are okay to eat." I said as I stared at him.
Who was I to take the food away from him? That shelf was all questionable food that I had no intention of eating until I had no other choice. He had been taking care of himself this whole time, I would have to trust that he was capable of knowing what food was good and which wasn't.
"Alright, bud. Let's go. I have some work to do today."
I didn't think that squirrels knew English, but he climbed right up on my shoulder as I shut the door and reset the boxes. I should have been more concerned with the fact that a woodland creature was acting more like a human than animal. But for some reason it seemed as normal as anything else in this new reality. I had witnessed the dead rise and walk among us, men with chainsaws corralled and beheaded monsters, and now squirrels could understand people. Seems normal enough to me.
We made our way up into the office, and that was where we parted ways. As soon as I handed him the treat, he was off out the window and out of my sight. I hoped he would be back, but only because he gave me the boost of interaction without the need to figure out the pitfalls I normally fall into trying to relate to other human beings. I had a mission anyway and needed to find industrial strength cleaning supplies to clean the mess Jim had made dispatching Karen, Fluffy, and himself.
A group of burly guys in trucks had cleared the area near the thrift store, including the supermarket a half
a block away. While they were still in town, I made no moves towards the store. That particular group of men, while useful in destroying hordes of zombies, were not the group I would want to run with, not if I wanted to stay safe and happy. Once they pulled on towards their next destination, I did a careful pass through the store, and was happy to see that no dead had found their way back in.
It took a full day of work, but I was able to shore up all the windows and doors. There wasn't much left in the non-perishable food section, it was looted long ago when there were still enough survivors to raid a store. The perishables were long spoiled and kept away most sane people with working noses that may still be hanging around in the shadows. But on a day like today, when I needed something that hadn’t been a high priority when the outbreak first began, it was the first place I would try.
I still did my signature triple knock and was happily greeted with silence. With a store of this size, though, I walked up and down the walls I had in place checking to see if there were any breeches to my defenses. It was weird, but I could swear that I was still being watched. Paranoia might be setting in. God knows that my mind wasn't healthy before this all began, and the high level of stress I had been running at was eventually going to break me. Hopefully later, and not sooner.
The shelves slid over easily. In all reality most zombies were creatures who hunted by opportunity and ease. If there was something in their way, and they didn't think there was a meal behind it, they ignored it. So, the walls didn't have to be strong, just complete. The smell dropped me to my knees. I had forgot to pull my bandana up over my face and pulling it up before I hurled seemed like a bad idea. So, yet again, I let my hard-scavenged breakfast come up, and then tried to move on without chastising myself too hard.
Undead Worlds 2: A Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Anthology Page 3