After a moment, I approached where the sound came from. I held my shotgun up, ready to fire. Suddenly, I came across a man, probably around my age, maybe a little older, laying on the ground. He seemed to be knocked out cold.
Laying a mere few feet away was a bicycle with a heavily-warped front tire. I deduced he was probably thrown from the bike and knocked out when his head hit a rock. I don’t know why, but part of me wanted to just walk away after everything I’d seen so far, but I decided to stay. I took a seat on a moss-covered lawn and waited for the man to wake up.
TARA
I went out to the restaurant floor; people at two tables were getting up and leaving somewhat frantically while three other tables were already empty. After avoiding the hungry and angry runaways, I went to Table 28 and greeted a sweaty, portly, middle-aged man.
“Welcome to Georgio’s, sir, I’m Tara. I’ll be your host this evening.”
Instead of responding, the man looked down at the table. He began swaying slowly and randomly in his seat. Unsure if something was wrong or if he was just annoyed and trying to decide what to eat; I tried to gain his attention.
“Do you need another moment to decide, sir?” I asked while subtly waving at him.
He started coughing and spat up blood all over his menu and the table. I stared at him for a moment, confused. Then I looked around at the other tables still occupied with customers. They were all staring at the sickly man and whispering at one another.
“Are you all right, sir?” I finally asked.
Suddenly, he fell right out of his chair to the restaurant floor!
“Paul!” I shouted and looked around at the customers as several of them gasped and stood up.
“I’m calling 9-1-1!” shouted a man at another table.
Paul came running out as Teddy watched from the kitchen doors.
“What happened?” Paul shouted and knelt down next to the man. “Tara!” he shouted again.
“Sorry,” I said. “I…I don’t know, he just fell. He threw up. I think he spit up some blood maybe. He’s not well.” I was frantic; I didn’t know what to do. But Paul did. “Okay, Tara, calm down. Go in the back and get the first aid kit. Hurry,” he said.
I was unable to move. Then, out of nowhere, the seemingly disease-ridden man’s eyes opened. He got to his feet and bit Paul’s neck! He took a chunk right out of his throat!
Paul fell to the side, screaming. Then, as customers began running to the nearest exit, the man started grunting—or moaning—and staring at me. Without giving it a second thought, I ran to the back of the restaurant. I ran past Teddy and to the coat racks, to retrieve my keys from my jacket.
“Hold up, man!” Teddy shouted to the sick man.
I heard a gargling scream and looked back. The man had tackled Teddy and was biting him, too. I could hear yelling from the dining room, the customers probably.
The man left Teddy alone as he bled out on the floor and turned to face me. I was trapped in the hallway, with Teddy dying on the floor and this man stumbling towards me. I did the only thing I could and ran to the walk-in refrigerator. Immediately after going inside, I jammed the door handle with a broomstick.
Then, with the screams softened but still audible, I sat down on a box of processed shredded cheese and cried.
MIKE
I opened my eyes slowly; the unfamiliar surroundings were fuzzy and dark. I moved my head around and heard the crunching sound of dead leaves beneath me. Once my eyes began to focus, I saw a silhouetted figure, a woman, standing over me, holding something.
“Get up,” I vaguely heard her say. “Get up.”
As I tried to stand up, I focused in on her. She was a young woman with short hair, dark clothes, and, most importantly, was wielding a shotgun.
“Who are you?” I asked with barely enough strength to get the words out.
It had become dark since I took my nap on the forest floor and I couldn’t see her face.
“I’m Kelly,” she said and extended her hand to me. She helped me up and smiled at me. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said. “And not one of them.”
I assumed she was talking about the people on the highway, the sick people. However, I didn’t know what to say to the comment, so I simply began the slow and painful process of getting to my feet. Scared that I might have broken something, I braced myself with my arms—bad idea. Turns out, I dislocated my right shoulder. As I tried to pick myself up, I fell flat on my face and ended up with a mouthful of those wonderfully crunchy and decayed leaves.
Kelly helped me up, and having dealt with the same injury before in my tenure of racing, I showed her what to do, and she popped my shoulder back in place. I’m getting older now and the injury would likely cause me some lagging pain, probably for a few weeks.
We made our way out of the woods quietly and tried to find somewhere safe from this chaotic nightmare. She led the way. While we walked, we told each other what we knew, which wasn’t much. I told her what I saw on the highway and briefly heard on the radio.
Then she told me she thought it was a virus of some kind, a sickness that had spread through the area making people lose control. We both thought of terrorists, maybe something biological. That would explain the erratic behavior exhibited by the people on the highway.
She seemed as confused as I was throughout all of this, but kept her cool. Soon enough, we came across a car that had smashed into a street lamp on the edge of the forest opposite the highway. There was no driver in sight. The keys were still in the ignition, and a deflated airbag was on the driver’s seat. There was no blood. Perhaps the person had gotten away? There was no way to know.
Kelly and I surveyed the area but it was devoid of life. We made a decision to see if there was a phone or anything in the car. We both looked but were unsuccessful. I didn’t have one and Kelly didn’t have a phone either—she apparently left her apartment in a hurry.
She turned on the radio to see if we could find out what was going on. She was right; a virus of some kind had swept across most of the country. The reports seemed sketchy, and we sat there in silence, listening anxiously as the broadcaster spoke about the disease and rabid tendencies of those infected, such as biting and scratching—things you’d expect from the Sci-fi movie of the week. Safe-zones had been set up around New England—Massachusetts and New Hampshire mostly.
“And the end begins…” Kelly said softly with a blank look on her face.
PETER
I drove Robbie’s car through town, using complete tunnel vision, not seeing or hearing anything around me. I barely remember most of the ride. Jen, Sam, and Fido were whimpering and crying in the back seat. I didn’t even have it in me to try and comfort them.
I remember shapes moving along the road and people reaching for the car as we drove through town. Then, I suddenly snapped out of it and began taking in my surroundings when we were closer to the hardware store. Turning the corner, I found myself driving straight for a guy stumbling through the street.
“Pete!” Jen screamed when she saw the man.
I swerved out of the way, hitting the curb and steering the car sideways into a telephone pole. Suddenly, we were upside down in Robbie’s car. I was okay and Jen and Fido seemed to be fine as well. Samantha, however, lost consciousness when she hit her head on the window.
My window had shattered in the crash, so I unbuckled myself and began to crawl out of the car. Other than a few scrapes, I was unhurt.
“I’m gonna get you out of there,” I told Jen. “Just hold on.”
“Okay, I’ve got Fido,” she said. “You need to get Sam out of here first.”
As I got to my feet, I saw the man I almost hit stumbling towards us. The thing was, though, he wasn’t a man. Well, not anymore. He was one of them now. It made me wonder if it would’ve even mattered if I’d just hit him and kept on going. The disturbing thought was probably the first time I realized exactly how messed up things were.
Luckily, the back windows wer
e also smashed. I quickly grabbed Fido from Jen and she crawled out of the car, her hands landing on the small shards of safety glass.
I glanced in at Sam, slightly bloody on one side of her face. It didn’t look like she was buckled in.
“Sam?” I said, curious if she would respond. As I expected, she didn’t. She remained motionless, and if it wasn’t for the very slight up-and-down movement of her chest, I would’ve assumed she was dead.
Suddenly I heard growling—I looked up to see Fido fidgeting in Jen’s arms, growling at the monster of a man stumbling towards us.
“Jen, get to the hardware store!” I shouted.
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me! Get to the store and lock yourself in!” I told her.
Reluctantly, Jen pulled the keys from her pocket and ran across the road to our hopeful safe haven. As she ran around the man, his lifeless eyes followed her every step.
I watched her closely as she easily outran him. Fido’s growling and barking seemed to draw the man’s attention as he staggered away from me and towards Jen. I began to think that this could work to my advantage in giving me some time to get Sam out of the car.
Soon enough, Jen reached the hardware store. With the man several steps behind her, she fumbled with the keys and quickly got the door open and ran inside.
I sighed with relief and began focusing my attention on getting Sam out of the car safely. I reached through the shattered window and grabbed her by the arm, once again saying her name. She didn’t respond, but when I gently shook her, I heard her moan slightly—giving me a little more hope.
I quickly looked back at the store to see the man slapping his blood-covered hands on the glass door. Jen was on the other side, anxiously waiting for me to pull Sam free. I took a breath and dragged Sam up towards me. She was pretty light and surprisingly easy to lift out of the car.
I got her out of the car and held her unconscious body in my arms. As I was about to head to the store, I realized the infected man was still at the entrance. Immediately, I thought of him following Fido’s bark and I shouted at the top of my lungs, “Hey!”
The man looked over at me with a lifeless look in his eyes—his mouth agape, his eyes strange and lifeless, dry blood covering much of his pale skin. Sure enough, he began stumbling in my direction.
I was pretty confident that these things were incapable of reasoning, so I shouted, “Unlock the door Jen!” The man was fixated on me and slowly began its pursuit. As he stumbled back across the road, I tried my best to egg him on, “Come here! Come on, asshole!” Although, it probably didn’t matter what I said, so long as I made noise.
As he got about ten feet from us, I began to move as quickly as I could around him—moving towards the store, yet keeping my distance from him.
“Come on, Pete!” Jen shouted from the door.
I looked over to see the door open and Jen waiting for me to get inside with Sam. I tried to move faster while still holding her in my arms.
The man reached his arms out at me as I ran a semi-circle around him and made my way to the door. Jen guided us in and quickly locked the door behind us.
Fido continued barking as he watched the infected man walk back to the door, and began banging on it again. I laid Sam down on the floor and let out a sigh of relief. For now at least, we were safe.
TARA
As I sat in the middle of the walk-in fridge, I began wondering if this was really happening. So many things ran through my head. I wondered if the cops would come or if an ambulance was on its way. I wanted to tell my boyfriend what was happening, to see if he knew anything more than me.
Suddenly, I realized my cell phone was in my apron pocket, something I didn’t normally carry with me at work. I immediately took it out and saw a large ‘X’ where the service bars should’ve been. It made sense; not many phones are likely to get service inside the thick insulated walls of a double-XL refrigerator.
I began pacing through the small, cold room full of cheese, frozen pizza dough, and metal shelving, holding my phone as if it were a compass.
Only the ‘north’ I was looking for was any kind of cellular service. Finally, when I got close enough to the vent, one tiny bar of service popped up in the top corner of the screen. I flipped open my phone and tried to call him. As the call attempted to go through, my phone began to ring in my ear. Startled, I almost dropped it, and then I looked at the screen and saw it was my boyfriend!
Immediately, I answered it and nearly screamed his name with joy. However, I was greeted with nothing more than a broken-apart voice trying to say, “Hello?” I had slightly moved during all the excitement and lost the signal. So, I sat atop one of the shelves and nearly stuck my head into the vent, where the walls were the least thick, and once again attempted the call.
Finally, I got hold of him. He was calling to see if I was okay and told me that something bad had happened and was all over the news. But he wasn’t able to tell me exactly what was going on as every station seemed to be broadcasting the events alongside theories—mostly wacky theories. He did tell me about the commonality of biting during all of this, which confirmed that the same thing had happened here.
Soon enough, I explained my current situation to him, and he said he was already on his way to rescue me. He attempted to call the police, but the lines were busy—this really was a slap of reality, showing how serious this situation had become. I was nervous.
I lost service a few more times, as it was hard to keep my phone in the right place. Eventually, I lost service and was off the phone for a few long minutes. I broke down; I didn’t know what to think. I cried. It was quiet.
I could hear someone moving around on the other side of the fridge door. I pressed my head up against the cold door and listened. It sounded like someone was moving past it, possibly dragging something on the floor. I listened intently, wondering what was happening, trying to picture the state of things now—where I once worked and mingled with friends—now riddled with blood and bodies.
Suddenly, my phone, which was sitting by the vent, rang again. I ran to it and answered. It was my boyfriend. “I’m by the movie theater,” he said. “There’s a bunch of people up ahead. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Do you think it’s safe?” I asked.
“Well, there’s so many of them, maybe they’re trying to get something organized. I’m gonna try to get through.”
I sat and listened to what was happening. I heard him yell to someone, “Hey! Sir? Excuse me?” I waited anxiously to hear a normal and healthy voice respond. But it was to no avail as I only heard someone shouting, followed by my boyfriend’s voice coming back on the phone. “Something’s wrong with them!”
“Get out of there!” I screamed.
He sounded panicked and I heard the screeching of his tires quickly pulling away. I heard something—a bang or a crash—then, nothing for a moment until I heard heavy breathing coming from someone. I sat and listened, trying to figure out what to do. I heard him again. “Oh shit!”
At this point, I began shouting his name, but his voice sounded far away, as if he were holding his phone or had it in his pocket. Next, I think I heard his car door swing open followed by quick footsteps. It sounded like a quick gust of wind and the call ended. I stared at my phone for a moment, wondering if I should call back. I tried and it went straight to voicemail. I had no idea what just happened. I sat there, not sure of what to do next.
I got up and looked around. I couldn’t sit around forever in a locked walk-in refrigerator waiting for someone to find me.
I took a large bread roller in my hands and slowly went to the door to open it.
MIKE
Kelly and I walked through an empty town, keeping distance from anything or anyone we saw moving off in the distance as we attempted to digest the information we were just fed over the radio. Eventually, we came across a seemingly untouched building with the lights still on. If you blocked out everything else, you co
uld’ve looked at this establishment and thought that everything was normal in suburbia.
We slowly approached and went inside the ‘24-Hour Laundromat.’ At first, it didn’t look as if there was anything of use or interest, as the place didn’t even have a bathroom or vending machine—never mind a phone. But just as I began to write the place off as a waste of time, Kelly spotted a door in the back with a sign: Keep Out – Office Space.
We approached the door and heard absolutely nothing coming from the other side, and decided it was worth a look. Of course, the door was locked. Kelly pushed her small frame against it a few times. It wasn’t a huge door, but it wasn’t budging either. I had to help—regardless of my previously dislocated shoulder. We took down the door with a synchronized three-count. Thankfully, we found a small room with a desk, piles of paperwork—more than one would expect a laundromat to produce, and an old rotary phone.
I took the plunge and made a call to my house. It went through and rang for a minute until it went to voicemail. After the ‘beep,’ I sat there silently, just waiting and thinking. Kelly was off in the corner, trying to make it look like she was doing something, but I’m certain she was just trying to give me space. After a moment, I hung up the phone and she slightly glanced up at me. I shook my head and for the first time began to break down a little.
She came over and put her hand on my back. At this point, I dropped the picture I’d taken from my car, of my daughter. She picked it up and stared at the photo for a moment before turning it over and reading, “Ellie–Christmas 2009.”
She handed me the picture as I struggled to say, “It’s my…my daughter.”
“Just because there wasn’t an answer doesn’t mean anything,” Kelly explained. “I mean, we’re not at our homes and we’re okay—well, sort of okay.”
I smiled at her and nodded.
Decay: A Zombie Story Page 3