“Danny,” I ran back to find him.
*
Danny
I leaned against the wall, wondering why the hell Jack had brought us here. Was she hoping to get her last paycheck? I had a feeling that money wouldn’t matter much soon.
The office was quiet. Too quiet. After a few minutes passed, I decided to go looking for her.
I saw movement to my left, in the opposite direction from where Jack had gone. In a room down the hall I could see movement behind the glass wall and a strange light.
Heading towards it I saw a sign on the door that said Photocopy Room. That was what the light was. Someone was inside using the copier. So there were people here.
I should probably tell them to get out of here.
I opened the door. A man was standing staring at the copier, his back to me. Sheets were printing out and falling to the floor. He made no move to pick them up.
“Hey, buddy, there’s some crazy stuff going on outside, you might want to get out of here.”
He raised his head and turned it to look at me – a little too far. His head twisted at nearly 180 degrees, he hissed at me.
Stumbling backwards, my foot caught on a box of copy paper and I fell on my butt. The man’s body twisted to follow his head. He grabbed my foot and tried to bite through my shoe.
Flailing wildly, I grabbed for the door for leverage and managed to shut it instead.
He pulled me across the ground, fingers digging into my ankle. I howled in pain as he dug them in. His grip was like a vice.
“Jack,” I yelled.
I shook my leg and managed to pull my foot free of my shoe. The zombie fell back against the copier. As it tried to right itself, I got up and pushed it hard. I lifted the lid on the copier, pushed its head down onto the glass and slammed it the lid down over and over again. It thrashed about, but I kept going. Blood sprayed up the wall, dripping off onto the floor.
“Just die!” I screamed.
It finally stopped moving. I staggered out of the room to find Jack outside.
“What the hell happened to you?” she asked.
I threw my hands up in the air, “Don’t ask.”
“Where’s your shoe?”
I looked down at my foot. Storming back into the room, I found my shoe still clutched in the zombies hand. I gingerly tried to get its hand open to release the shoe. Its arm convulsed and I leapt back. Grabbing the lid again, I brought it down with a crack.
The shoe dropped to the floor. I scooped it up and left the room.
“We are leaving,” I said.
“We can’t,” she said.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten so I wouldn’t snap at her, “Why not?”
“Because I need something and it’s in my boss’ office.”
“Well go and get it.”
“The doors locked,” she said.
“I’m sure we can break it open,” I said, pulling my shoe back on.
“Yeah, uh, my boss is inside.”
I gave her a so what look.
“He’s a zombie.”
“Great, just great,” I muttered. Where there anymore surprises?
I looked around for some kind of weapon. Which I realized should have been our first goal of the day. Always be prepared and all that.
I found an autographed baseball bat hanging up on the wall of one of the cubicles.
“That was Will’s pride and joy,” Jack said.
“Now it’s going to be used to bash your boss’ brains in. Things change.”
I headed across the room, pausing when I saw a body on the ground that was missing a leg. Poor sucker. He didn’t seem to be getting up for the moment.
Jack directed me to the office. A blonde girl popped up from out of nowhere and I swung the bat at her head.
She screamed and threw herself to the floor, covering her head with her hands.
“Danny, no! That’s Nancy,” Jack cried.
Nancy got back up, “Are you crazy?” she said.
“Sorry, I thought you were one of them.”
“I forgot to tell you about her, sorry,” Jack said.
“Who’s he?” Nancy asked.
“Danny, he’s a friend,” Jack told her. A friend? Interesting choice. I don’t know what I expected her to say though. We were friends. Sort of.
I saw the boss pounding at the glass in the office. The door looked solid, it would be easier to take out the glass and go through it. Once it was broke though, he could get out as it ran to the floor.
“Stand back,” I said to them.
I swung the bat at the glass and it rebounded. I managed to crack it, but it wasn’t even close to breaking.
“It’s reinforced,” Nancy added helpfully. “Also why the hell are you trying to break it? One of them is inside.”
“So is my stuff. I have to get in,” Jack said.
Whatever she wanted from in there better be worth it. I swung the bat again, widening the crack. The noise seemed to excite the zombie. He began hitting the glass too. Maybe he could do the job for me.
After several more attempts I had created a small hole, but most of the glass was still intact. The zombie had his face pressed to the hole. I could see one of his eyes as it swept back and forth, watching us, sizing us up.
“Jack, this is going nowhere. Whatever it is, you are going to have to do without it,” I said.
She nodded, but I could see how upset she was.
“Yeah, let’s get out of here,” she said.
We passed a row of vending machines on the way to the elevators. I smashed out the glass and grabbed a load of snacks and put them into my backpack. Food was also going to be a priority.
“We’re going to need them,” I said.
Nancy reached in and snagged a Twinkie for herself. She unwrapped it and started eating it. She was jumpy, but I think she was glad there were more survivors.
As we waited on the elevator, I glanced at Jack. She had her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes were welling up.
“What was it? That you needed?” I asked.
“It’s nothing. It’s stupid.”
“Tell me,” I said.
She sighed, “It’s a picture. The only one I had of my mom. I carried it everywhere with me and I just wanted it back.”
“You have no other pictures?”
She shook her head, “No, they were lost over the years, we moved so much.”
I went back to the office.
“Danny? What are you doing?” Jack called.
“Getting your picture.”
“No, just forget about it. It doesn’t matter.”
I lifted my foot and kicked the office door as hard as I could. Crippling pain shot up my leg, but it swung open.
Jack’s boss appeared in the doorway. I was ready for him. I used the end of the bat to drive him back into the office. He bumped into the desk and tipped over onto the floor.
I brought the bat down on his head and he collapsed.
There was a box sitting on the floor by the desk. I lifted it up and rifled through it. There were superhero bobble heads, a couple of flash drives, a cell phone and a picture of Jack when she was a kid with a red haired woman.
“This what you’re looking for?” I asked.
She took it from me and clutched it to her chest.
Without warning, she threw her arms around my neck and kissed me. My arm went around her waist and I pulled her against me and kissed her back.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Hell, if I’d known it would take kicking in a door to get you to kiss me, I would have done it sooner,” I joked.
She rolled her eyes at me. Just like old times.
I tried my best not to limp as we went back to the elevator. Before I could press the down button, the lights went out, leaving only a few emergency ones on.
“That isn’t good,” Nancy said. Understatement of the year.
“It must have spread through the building,” Jack said.
<
br /> “We’ll have to take the stairs,” I said.
I went first since I had the weapon. The stairwell appeared clear. We started down.
When we hit the fifth floor, the door behind us crashed open. A man staggered out clutching his face.
“He bit me!” he howled. He moved his hands and blood sprayed Nancy in the face. She squealed and backed away.
He collided with Nancy in his haste to escape and sent them both over the railing.
“Nancy!” Jack screamed.
The man fell five floors, but Nancy managed to grab the railing and was now hanging from it.
“Help me,” she cried, kicking her legs wildly.
Jack leaned over the rail trying to grab her. The door opened again and a zombie appeared. I attacked it with the bat, trying to give Jack time to pull Nancy up.
“Come on, Nancy, grab my hand,” Jack said.
“I can’t,” she wailed.
It took several blows to the head to bring this one down. I rushed back to help Jack.
She had hold of Nancy’s wrist, but before I could get to her, Nancy slipped and plummeted to the ground below.
Chapter Twenty Three
Jack
“No!” I screamed as Nancy’s hand slipped from mine. I couldn’t pull her up with my bad arm. I saw the look of fear on her face as she fell five floors to the ground. I ran down the stairs, hoping that she was still alive, although I knew she wasn't.
She was sprawled on the ground beside the man. Blood pooled around her head.
“Nancy?” I knelt beside her. Her eyes were still open.
“She's gone, Jack,” Danny said.
I closed her eyes and stood up. As we walked away, I heard a groan as one of the bodies got up. It was the man. I snatched the bat from Danny, turned and brought it down on the guy’s head. Pain ripped through my shoulder, but it was worth it. He went down.
“We’re going to need more weapons,” I said.
Back in the lobby Martin was on the phone, “I don't know what's going on. The powers down and no one is answering their phones. Should I evacuate?”
He saw us coming toward him, “What’s going on up there?”
“Get out of the building, Martin. There's a virus on the loose. Go home and lock your doors,” I said.
“Are you serious?” he asked, lowering the phone.
“Yes, get going.”
He seemed reluctant, but when a car crashed right outside the building, he grabbed his stuff and ran.
“Where can we go? It's chaos out there,” I asked Danny.
“I can think of a few places we can lay low. But we should make a pit stop for supplies first.”
I needed a weapon, so we headed for a sporting goods store a couple of blocks away. The doors were unlocked but several people were huddled inside.
We ignored them and headed into the back to the sports equipment section. I checked out the range of tennis racquets, baseball bats and hockey sticks.
“Pick your weapon,” Danny said. I played hockey in school, so I chose a black and green hockey stick.
As we headed back out, Danny raided a display of power bars.
“Uh, you have to pay for them,” a girl wearing a nametag said.
I lifted the hockey stick and rested it on my shoulder, glaring at her. She shrank back against the wall.
We left the store. I looked to Danny to show me what direction to go in. He pointed left so we went left.
*
Danny
Cutting through several alleys, we came out in an area that seemed to be unaffected for the moment.
I recognized the area, “This way.”
I led Jack to a neighborhood several blocks away that was mostly deserted apartment buildings. They were due to be demolished soon. I had crashed there for a couple of nights last month. It would give us a place to stop and come up with a plan.
I found the back entrance to one of the buildings still lying open from when I was here last. I doubted we would be the only ones in the building, but we didn’t have a choice.
Moving slowly through the building I spotted a few homeless people in the rooms. They looked fearful and hid as I passed them. I found one at the end that was empty. We went inside and I wedged some furniture against the door to keep anyone out.
The main room was empty apart from a soiled looking mattress. I sat down on it and patted the spot beside me.
Jack didn’t look happy about it.
“It’s fine, sit down.”
She lowered herself onto it gingerly.
“What are we going to do? I mean is this ever going to end?” she asked.
I put my arm around her, “We’ll be fine. I promise.”
“How can you say that? It’s loose in the city. It’ll spread fast and the place will be overrun with zombies,” her shoulders started to heave, but she got herself under control
I didn’t know how to reply to that. She was right and I knew it. The truth was I was terrified too, but I didn’t want to show it in front of her.
“We’ll get some rest and move out when it’s dark. We’ll leave the city, go somewhere remote,” I said. I read somewhere once that if there was ever a zombie attack, the best place to go was the mountains. To think I had laughed when I first read it.
We went over plans for the next few hours on where we would go and what supplies we would need. Jack fell asleep for a while, but I couldn’t relax.
When it grew dark, I left the apartment and went up onto the roof of the building. I hoped everything would look normal, but even as I stepped out onto the rooftop, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I could smell smoke in the air and see several choppers flying around. The air was filled with the sound of sirens.
I moved to the edge and looked down. Burning cars, people running in panic, the whole city was in chaos. How many had been turned already? Hundreds? Thousands?
How many people had been attacked by loved ones, friends and family? Everyone would try to flee the city and probably take the virus with them.
Staring out across the skyline, I saw the logo of Gene Pharm lit up against the night sky. It was still intact. It was like they were taunting me. Look it’s the zombie apocalypse and we’re still standing. They did this. They killed us all.
I felt fear and panic surge through me. I couldn’t turn. I was the only person in the world who couldn’t. What would that be like? Being the only human in a world full of the undead?
I couldn’t do that. Couldn’t live like that. I would have no one.
“Danny?” I looked over my shoulder to see Jack.
“I woke up and you were gone,” she said.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, I just wanted to take a look and see what was happening.”
“And?” she asked.
I shook my head, “You don’t want to know. We’ll get a car and get out of here.”
There was no way I could do this alone. I had to make sure Jack survived too. All my life I avoided having ties with anyone, now there was the potential that there wouldn’t be anyone soon. We were in this together. Screw the movies, this was real life. We would survive this. We were a team.
She shivered in the cold, “Breton will keep looking for us.”
“He has bigger problems right now. We’ll be okay, Jack. I promise.”
I pulled her into a hug and she buried her face against my chest.
“We just have to keep one step ahead of them.”
After Zombie Series (Book 2): Before Page 15