by R. M. Smith
“So you’ve seen a few. I guess that makes you our expert,” Cindy said.
“He’s guessing,” Mindy said. “Damn Cindy, what’s wrong with you?”
“I’m scared, ok?” she said, covering her mouth, tears welling in her eyes. “I don’t get this.”
“None of us do, hon,” Ski said, putting an arm around her. “We’re all scared. None of us know what’s going on – and it doesn’t help arguing about it. We need to be careful and watch each other’s back, ok? Dan’s not causing any trouble here, hon, he’s just,” he shrugged his shoulders “trying to help.”
Ski went over to the desk. Shuffling through it he found a bullet in the right hand top drawer. “This might be better than your tire iron,” he said as he tossed it to me.
“What?” I asked, somewhat confused.
He gave me the gun that the man had dropped, too. “Now you’re armed.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“You bet,” he said. “Now let’s get out of here before someone follows the sound of my shotgun going off.”
“Ok,” I said pointing to the dead man on the ground, “it looked like this guy was the store manager – and if he was then who is the guy at his desk?”
Everyone looked at the kid with long hair at the desk. Shot in the head.
Mindy said “Maybe the manager shot him. Maybe the manager thought this guy was trying to take his food, too – like he thought we were.”
“We don’t know who any of these people are,” Cindy said. “C’mon let’s get out of here.”
We went down the stairs.
At the bottom, we found the deads who had attacked the manager.
We bolted for the doors.
There was a swarm of deads at the base of the stairs. Ski was at the lead, slamming through them, using his shotgun as a ramming pole. I was behind the two girls. Mindy was running with a little bit of a limp, something I hadn’t noticed before. We were running a little behind the other two.
Ski slammed through the loading dock doors. Outside, the swarm of deads was much bigger. Quickly he pulled the loading dock doors shut. “We need to go out the front!” he yelled at us.
Mindy and I made a quick left turn which put us in the lead. We ran through the store full of toppled shelves. Ski’s flashlight was the only light we had. They were behind us – our shadows danced ahead of us as Ski ran. It had gotten full dark outside while we were dealing with the manager.
We made it to the front doors. All of the glass in the front windows was gone. I leaped like a prize track runner through one of the windows. Ski caught up quickly. He helped the girls over the broken glass.
In the darkness, I could hear the groaning slipping feet of deads as they approached. I couldn’t tell how far away or how close they were. The darkness was tricking me.
A set of headlights illuminated the darkness. My shadow was thrown onto the broken window panes of the grocery store. Ski, followed by Cindy and then Mindy all came out into the parking lot, questions on their faces as well as fear.
Someone shouted “Get in!”
It was a pickup truck. All four of us hopped into the bed of the truck. We drove away into the night.
“Name’s Marge,” she hollered at us through the open sliding back window of the pickup. “I used to work here. Place is all gone to hell now.” She was a manly woman. She wore Army fatigues, but I knew she was too heavy and too old to be in the Army. She had very short graying brown hair. “I come back lookin for Bob. He was my boss. I figured if he was anywhere, he’d be here.”
“Everyone here is dead,” Ski shouted back.
She drove us to a land-fill on the west side of town. We really didn’t go far. I was concerned that the swarm of deads would be showing up soon. It seemed like we only drove four or five blocks.
“We gonna be ok here?” I asked as I slid out of the bed of the truck. “We need to get away from here fast.”
“We’ll be fine, cowboy,” she said. “Ain’t none of them found me here yet.”
“Yet,” I repeated soberly.
She nodded to me as she put her hands on her hips. “I got some food downstairs if ya’ll are hungry. Got some cots down there too. It ain’t home, but it’s workin.”
We followed her down some steps to a heavy door. Once we all were inside, Marge shut the door behind us and bolted it. There were also three sliding locks that she latched closed. She turned around looking for me. “See? None of em found me here yet.”
“Nice,” Ski said over my shoulder. “Where’s the food?”
My guess was that this place was an old break room. I asked Marge if this business was a landfill. She said no it was a salt plant and this was the break room for the employees.
The room had a worn chipped cement floor with ghosts of coffee spills all over it. The place smelled of cigars, cigarettes, and maybe a hint of reefer? There was a magazine rack full of yellowed newspapers as well as a broken TV on a stand. In one corner there was a dirty looking refrigerator and an old stove where Marge had some soup cooking. In another corner there were some cots with blankets. A single toilet was in a small smelly attached bathroom. The light in the rooms came from a few single string light bulbs with pull chains.
We all sat around an old picnic table in the center of the room. Marge was standing at one end, the pot of soup in one hand, a ladle in the other. Mindy and I were on one side, while Ski and Cindy were on the other. We all were snacking on a few loaves of bread with butter, too.
After I introduced everyone and told Marge our story of how we arrived here, Marge told us what had happened to her the day the earth went upside-down.
“The whole morning was off. Bob was out of sorts. He told me to go to the bank and make our deposits, but he knows I only do that after work. I don’t know what he was on about - sayin something about that Rodney kid at the store - anyways; I went to the bank. Bob’s my boss. I gotta do what he says. On the way there I was tryin to think what to say when I got there ‘cause they knew I did the deposits at night but then the whole world went upside-down. I swear it on Mary and the baby Jesus’ head that’s what happened.”
I had to smile to myself. Watching Marge talk and swing the soup ladle while she talked was truly a sight.
She went on. “The whole world did a flip. I seen the horizon flip all the way over. Luckily my pickup’s a four wheel drive, or I’d be covered in daisies now. I teetered on two wheels, felt it goin over, but I yanked the wheel hard and it went back on all fours. I sat and watched all these other people crashing. Some old boy went head first through the post office front window. And then it got real quiet. Seemed like the whole world went dead. I couldn’t even hear a dog bark or a cricket sing.” She started ladling soup into our bowls. “I drove around looking at all the destruction. I couldn’t believe it, but one of the grain elevators south of town fell over. Never woulda believed it if I hadn’t seen it. I got out of my truck to get a better look at it and some man walked up to me – looked like he was sleep walkin - he came up to me and tried to grab me. I shoved him away right quick. He kept at it, so I threatened him and told him to stay the fudge back. Buzzard didn’t listen, was like he didn’t even or couldn’t even hear me. Then I realized he wasn’t even alive. He had lotsa blood all over him. He was growling at me. I realized he was a zombie or something so I hopped back in the truck and drove off.”
“How did you find this place?” Cindy asked.
“I used to bring my daddy lunch here. This here is a salt plant break room. My daddy worked here after he got out of the service.” Her eyes were serious. She set the ladle down on the picnic table and looked at all of us before she continued. “You folks know something about those sleepers? They rise up quick! They die their normal life, and then they get up. I saw a lady out by the railroad tracks get careened by a train years ago. She laid there for the longest time while the EMTs tried to get her up. But just a while ago, shortly before I found you folks up there by the grocer, I was hoping to maybe
find some food up there – and I did in Michael J’s – but there was a lady out there, still alive. I wanted to help her, but I laid low. I didn’t wanna get bit! But I watched her cross the road aways down from the grocer, and she walked right into a group of the sleepers. Was like she wanted to get eaten. She went in there on purpose. And they attacked her. They laid her out. And it wasn’t in minutes that she was up walking with them and going after more live folks.”
“It was like that at the plane crash,” I said. “People who died in the plane came walking out of the plane on fire. They were dead, but they turned to deads in minutes.”
“Do you think anyone who dies turns into a zombie?” Mindy asked.
“Seems that way,” Ski said as we all started to eat our soup.
“Zombies. Deads. Sleepers. We all have our own names for them, but we know what they are: undead.” Cindy said. “What do you guys think caused all this to happen?”
“God’s plan for all of us,” Marge said matter-of-factly.
“Oh don’t give me that shit!” Ski said. “This has nothing to do with God. This had to be man-made. Probably some government thing gone wrong.”
“Maybe it didn’t go wrong.” I said. “Maybe it was done on purpose.”
“But what would cause the world to flip over?” Mindy asked.
I ventured “A pole shift?”
“You mean like the North and South Pole shifted?” Mindy asked.
“Maybe. Maybe that’s what we all saw. Maybe it caused people’s equilibriums to flip, too, and give them bruises.”
“But what would make some people turn into zombies? I mean, we didn’t get turned into zombies,” Mindy said.
“I don’t know.” I said. “I don’t know if anyone knows…or if we ever will.”
“Someone’s got to know something,” Ski said. “Someone somewhere is alive and either laughing at us or saying ‘oh fuck, what did I just do’?”
“We’ll never know, Ski,” Cindy said. “How could we ever find out? And if we did, what could we do about it?”
“Think there’s a cure?” Ski asked, looking at me.
“I have no idea, man. I’m just a computer geek.”
Ski laughed, “And I’m just a gym teacher.”
“And the bruises on people’s heads,” Mindy added. “It seems like only zombies get them.”
We all sat there silent for a minute, eating.
“What about all the people?” I asked. ‘Doesn’t seem like there are many around.”
“They’re all sleepers now,” Marge said.
“No, there has to be more people alive like us,” Ski said. “They’re probably in hiding like we are.”
“Or they were taken,” I ventured.
“Taken by who?” Mindy asked.
“I don’t know, maybe the military took them to the base in Moses Lake. Maybe they’re holding all of the survivors in a safe location there.”
Marge shook her head slowly. “No. Moses Lake isn’t a military base anymore. It’s a privately owned landing strip now.”
Finally Ski said “Well look, at least we’re safe here. Let’s not get too worried about where everyone else is. Marge, we’re going to Richland. We’re looking up a friend there. Would you like to join us?”
“I’ve been to Richland,” she said. “It’s flooded. The Snake and Columbia Rivers come together there, ya know. The whole area looks flooded.”
Mindy’s eyes dropped. “Richland’s gone?”
“No, it’s not gone, hon, just flooded. I went down there the day after the pole shift – or whatever we called it. I had relatives down there. I got as far as Etopia. I could see floods in the distance. I didn’t want to take any chances so I came back.”
Ski said “Well so much for Paranoia, then.”
Marge asked “Paranoia?”
Ski told Marge about Mindy and Paranoia’s online communications. He acted like it was a joke and not to take it seriously.
Marge said “Oh I’m computer illiterate. I don’t know what you’re even talking about.”
“You know that’s not really very nice, Ski,” Mindy said, hurt. “I liked him a lot.”
“You didn’t even know the bastard. All you knew was his online name! For all you knew, the fucker could have been a child molester or some 500 pound man in his underwear hitting on innocent girls on the net.”
“I spoke to him, Ski. We talked a lot on our cell phones.”
“Oh so you knew him by his voice! That’s nice. Did you even know what he looked like?”
“Yes he sent me pictures of himself.”
“Were they naked pictures?” Ski joked.
Mindy was shocked. “No!”
“Wanna buy some?” He laughed.
“Fuck you, Ski. I don’t know why you have to be so cruel about it.” Mindy got up from the table. She locked herself in the bathroom. Ski looked around at us with a smile on his face. None of us were smiling. He quickly dropped his head. He asked “Ok then, so what’s our plan?”
I said “Survival.”
“Well folks, it’s late and I’m beat. I’m gonna pull up a cot and lay down for some shut eye,” Marge said.
“Good idea,” Cindy said as she grabbed a cot, too. “Thanks for the soup.”
Ski got a cot, too. He put it next to Cindy’s. She rolled over the other way when Ski lay down next to her.
I put a cot closer to the door of the bathroom for Mindy to find when she came out. I got another cot and put it near the picnic table. That would be my place to sleep.
After everyone was settled, Mindy came out of the bathroom. She lay down on the cot I set up for her. Marge stood up and turned off the lights.
“Good night, folks,” she said quietly.
It was very dark except for a little light coming from under the door leading outside.
It didn’t know if it was sunlight or moonlight.
I had a dream. In it I was back on the yacht, safely floating across the ocean. The skies were clear. Seagulls flew overhead. The ocean was calm. I looked toward the beach. I saw millions of deads flailing their arms at me, crying, screaming to come out to the yacht, wanting to eat my flesh, but they couldn’t. Water was something deads could not overcome. They could not swim. As long as I was on the yacht, I would be safe.
I also saw Tara on the yacht with me. In my dream she was my lover on the yacht, my friend and companion. I saw her standing on the front of the boat, a margarita in her hand. She was facing into the wind as the yacht sailed into the warm ocean breezes. She had let her hair down. It was blowing in the wind. She had a towel wrapped around her waist. It, too, was blowing in the soft breezes.
I left the helm of the yacht and walked to the front of the boat to be with her.
“Tara, I am here,” I called to her.
She turned to me. She had a smile on her face. “Dan” she whispered. I saw that she wasn’t wearing a bathing suit. I looked down at her. Her body had been eaten away. Her skin was jagged, ripped apart, covered in dried blood and teeth marks.
I woke up, sweating.
The room was dark. Still the only light came from under the locked door.
I got the chills.
Later I woke to the smell of eggs cooking.
“Good morning, cowboy,” Marge said. “We all wondered if you were gonna sleep all day.”
“What time is it?” I asked, wiping my eyes.
“Mindy said it’s almost 2 in the afternoon. Least, according to her cell phone it is.”
Mindy held up her phone. “Yep. 2:15.”
“I’m still amazed that thing works,” I said, getting up sitting down next to her at the picnic table.
“Me too. It still has like 75% charge, too.”
I said, “Try and call someone. See if it works.”
“Ok.” She looked through her contacts. “I’ll try Paranoia.”
Ski sighed loudly. Marge smiled at the eggs cooking. Cindy was in the bathroom freshening up.
“That
cot wasn’t too bad,” I said. “I slept like a log.” I didn’t want to tell them about my dream.
“I got his voicemail,” Mindy said. “No one answered the phone.”
“His voicemail? How could that be working still?” Ski asked.
Mindy shrugged.
“Try someone else,” I said.
She looked through her contacts again. “I’ll try Jenny.”
“Oh Jesus,” Ski muttered.
“Would you stop?” Mindy smiled. “She’s a friend from Spokane.”
“Yeah I know who she is! We dated remember?” Ski said - glad Cindy was still in the bathroom.
“Oh yeah.”
The phone rang. Twice. “Hello?”
Mindy sat there, her mouth hanging open. “Jenny?”
“Oh my God! Mindy you’re ok?”
We all were shocked to see that her phone worked – and surprised that there was someone alive on the other end. Even Marge turned from the oven to look at us.
“Jenny where are you? Are there other people with you? How did you survive?”
“I’m in Moses Lake. It’s safe here, but it’s so crowded. There’s all kinds of people here. I’m at the Air Force base. They saved Owen and me. I am really surprised to see my phone working, Mindy!”
“Owen is alive too? That’s awesome! I’m here with Ski and Cindy and two other people we’ve met.”
“Where are you guys? Are you ok?”
“We’re in Connell.”
“Is it safe down there?”
Mindy said “We’re in an underground thingy. It’s safe.”
“We’re on the Air Force base. We have all kinds of weapons and food. We all have our own rooms with water and electricity. One of the guys from the base is trying to radio for help. He hasn’t gotten any responses yet. You should come up here and join us.”
“I’ll talk to these guys. We’ll see if we can make it up there,” Mindy said.
“Ok. We’re on the base. It’s right north of Moses Lake. Just follow 17 off of 90 and you’ll be here.”
“Ok Jenny. Stay safe!”
“You too, Mindy!”