by Zuko, Joseph
The Infected: Jim’s First Day
By Joseph “Zombie” Zuko
This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2015 Joseph Zuko
All Rights Reserved
Thank you to Josh McCullough, Kim Scheese, Linda Kim and Pam Anderson for helping me edit my book.
Thank you to my Mom and Dad for always being so supportive.
Thank you to Sam for the idea to start writing this book.
Thank you to my wife Katie Zuko. She cheers me on like I am her local sports team and thank you for not letting me give up on my dreams.
Dedicated to all three of my zombie loving children.
Cover art by Paul Copeland
[email protected]
How this whole damn thing started.
A short story about Joe Zuko.
In 1997 I was a freshman in college, had a full time job and just turned nineteen. I still lived at home with my folks and they told me that if I wanted to start building credit I should go to Sears and get a credit card. I was a man now so I needed to have credit in order to buy things in the future, right? No one wants to marry a man that isn't up to his eyeballs in soul crushing debt. At least that's what I thought back then. I ran down to Sears, applied for a card and got approved for about three hundred dollars. I didn’t need a Kenmore washer and dryer. I didn’t need Craftsman tools. I owned a TV already and computers cost too much. I did the manliest thing I could do and bought a Playstation and the game Resident Evil 2. The game scared the poopoo out of me. I played late at night in my dark room and jumped at every scare. After that I was hooked. Zombies terrified me and I loved it. The idea that anyone can get infected and be turned into a lethal killing machine thrilled me to the bone. Grandma gets bit on the hand and now she can’t be trusted. She wants to eat your face. That’s really, really scary. I don’t care who you are. If Grandma wants to tear out your guts and chew on them, that’s scarier than sharks, chainsaws, dying in your dreams or camping with a maniac. I hope you enjoy reading my nightmare.
Chapter 1
“Yes! There it goes,” I roll off of my wife.
“I told you it would be worth the wait,” she puts her hand up in the air for me to give it a high-five. It had been a full week since our last physical encounter, but she is right. It was worth the wait.
“To date night,” the palm of my hand smacks hers. We try every week to have a date night. Even if we can’t afford it we figure out some way to go out and be alone without the kids. You can’t have a wrestling match in bed if you are worried that your five year old might open the door and ask, “What are you guys doing?”
She pulls our top of the line Ikea comforter up to her chest “To date night,” she says as she turns to face me. Her beautiful mane of red hair has gone wild from our marital acrobatics. I wipe a little sweat from my forehead. I am not surprised. I sweat super easy. Sexy, I know.
“It is times like these I wished we smoked,” I mime smoking.
“We’d look so cool. Like a couple of sexy dragons breathing fire after a night of getting busy,” she copies me and pretends to smoke. We take one last fake puff and I mock blowing smoke rings.
“What time is it?” I search for my phone on the nightstand. “Oh, shit. It’s nine fifteen. We gotta jet. The baby-sitter is gonna turn into a pumpkin,” I pull back the covers and get out of bed.
“Five more minutes, please,” she drops her face down onto her pillow and acts like she is dead.
“We gotta go. Your Mom hates staying up this late,” I search for my clothes, but I can’t find them in the dark. I turn on the closet light. My wife hisses. She acts like a vampire that has been hit by a sunbeam.
“Too bright! Too bright,” she tosses and turns under the covers. I find my underwear and she props herself up in the bed. “A show?” she gets excited.
“You want some reverse stripping?” I ask as my hips begin to move, back and forth and side to side. I do a little drumbeat with my mouth. Boom, chi, boom, boom, chi.
“Mommy likey,” she claps her hands as I slowly work my clothes back on. “Put it on,” she does the drumbeat with me as I fight to pull my shirt over my head. Socks are the hard part. Have you ever tried to put your socks on and make it sexy? It is not easy, but somehow I do it. I work at getting the second sock on when I lose my balance and fall to my face.
“I’m okay,” I give her a thumbs up from the floor.
I carry my sleeping two year old out the front door of my mother in law’s.
“Thank you, Penny. We appreciate it,” I say over my shoulder to her as I head for my wife’s car.
“Thank you, Mama. I’m sorry it is so late. Say goodnight to Ganny,” my wife, Karen tells our oldest Valerie.
“Thank you, Ganny. Love you,” Valerie gives her about three more hugs before we go. She is a really sweet kid.
“You’re welcome sweetheart,” Penny’s southern accent is still strong. She has lived here in the Northwest for twenty years, but she sounds like she just stepped off the porch of an old Southern plantation. She gives us a tired wave from her doorway before stepping back inside.
I hit the button on my key fob and my wife’s PT Cruiser unlocks.
“Did you have fun?” Karen leads Valerie to her car seat.
“Yeah. I played computer. I had popsicles. Ganny said I could have two popsicle as long as I keep it secret,” she realizes what she just said. Her secret is out. Karen and I make a silly face at her. She does not have the skills to cover up this blunder.
Karen helps her out of this mess, “How many Popsicles did you have?”
I mouth the word “One.” Valerie picks up what we are doing.
“I had one popsicle. That is all,” she nods her little head at us. Like she really pulled the wool over our eyes.
We get both kids into their car seats. Valerie yawns and stretches her arms out, “I am so tired.”
“Close your eyes and go to sleepy, baby,” Karen puts her hand over Valerie’s eyes. Forcing them closed. She fakes being asleep already. Her body goes limp and she lets out some snores.
I wrestle our two-year-old, Robin, into her car seat. This is a delicate process. If she wakes up too much on the drive home or on the lay down into bed then she will wake all the way up and Karen’s night is ruined. I have to be at work early so it would be up to Karen to stay awake with this little one. Her eyes stay closed but she gets a few words out.
“Where, Ganny?” she asks.
“At her house,” I tell her softly.
“Where, Aler?” her little ginger head bobs around. Aler is what she calls Valerie.
“Right next to you. Go back to sleep,” I click the last safety harness.
“Okay,” her head drops and she is back asleep. Damn, I wish it were that easy for me. I gently close her door. We climb quietly into the front seats. I slide the key into the ignition and turn it. The PT cruiser comes alive and the radio blasts us with today’s top hits. We/I forgot to turn the radio down before turning off the car. Robin wakes up with a scream. My wife looks at me like I am a dirty motherfucker.
“Oops. Sorry,” I whisper to her.
There is levity in her voice, but she also means it, “You will be sorry,” she looks at me with a set of classic Nic Cage crazy eyes. I put the car into reverse and pull out of Mom’s driveway.
This is my family. My name is Jim.
“Sales call. Sales call! Jim, sales call one nine zero.”
I snap out of my mid workday fog and pick up the phone. “Hello, this is Jim, how can I help you today?” I
say that I want to help them, but I want them to go away, leave me alone, and stop bugging me. I do not care that your stupid appliance is dead.
“Oh, you need a new washer. Don’t want to spend a lot. Yeah, I can help you with that.” It is just another day of my life talking to people about stuff that I do not care about.
“What was that? Yes, I’m listening,” I am not listening. I am thinking about home. A beer in my hand, good movie on the TV, wife and kids on the couch. That is heaven for a guy like me. Better than any vacation. Here at work is not hell; it’s more like purgatory. Purgatory with John Mayer’s greatest hits playing on the sound system. I have been with this company for over ten years, that is one third of my life. That is over ten Black Fridays, ten Christmases, ten years of working every weekend and missing family events. The pay is good, but this line of work can be hard on the brain. It is a “Brain Drain”. That is what we call sales. Well, I am the only one that says it and I never say it out loud, but we all feel it. Tired and drained after a long day.
The customer chats my ear off. I look across the sales floor. It is a three level showroom with beautiful kitchen displays. The front of the store is all windows. They stretch floor to ceiling and look out into a busy intersection. We are located in an old part of Portland and most of the houses in this area are anywhere from sixty to a hundred years old. I get to see these large homes everyday at work. They sit only two hundred feet away from where I stand. Beautiful million dollar homes with amazing front yards and at the end of every day I go home to my crummy little apartment. My family, all four of us squeezed tightly into eight hundred square feet of living space. I have no front yard, no back yard, and no garage. We feel packed in on top of each other. I am so jealous. I can’t imagine having space. A space to call my own. A little room only for me to play in.
“Mmmhmm,” I mutter into the phone.
Across the street is a school for the gifted. I don’t mean mutants. A school for people who either have a fully functioning brain but the body doesn’t work right or the reverse. They like to eat their packed lunches on the sidewalk when it is sunny like it is today. So on one side I am wracked with jealousy wishing I had the money to afford one of those houses I see everyday and on the other side I feel blessed that I am not disabled or need to be pushed around in a wheelchair.
“Sale goes all weekend,” I regurgitate.
Kitty-corner from the school is a Jiffy Lube. The guys working there are good salt of the earth types. They are always out there on the sidewalk with a sign, trying to wave down customers. So, I have that to be thankful for too. I am in an air conditioned building, never break a sweat and those poor guys are under hot cars making half as much as I do. Oh, to be a middle aged, mid income white guy at the greatest time in history. Smart enough to know that there is more out there than this, but dumb and lazy enough not to do anything about it. I get the customer’s info, tell them my name a few times so they know to ask for me and try and get off the phone. It is lunchtime and lunch takes precedence over all things work related.
I hit the lunchroom. My coworker and friend, a skinny guy named Sam, sits at the table and delicately eats his homemade salad. The guy can eat anything he wants and never gains any weight, but he still eats salad. Motherfucker. He sports the thickest rimmed glasses you have ever seen. Like he wants to look like a nerd. Not the cool nerds that work at Apple or some Internet startup company. He looks like a caricature of a nerd.
“It’s slow out there today, man,” I drop my lunch bag on the table and take a seat. “Haven’t sold jack.”
“I had a laydown on a kitchen package this morning,” Sam gloats. “Over ten thou’ going out this month.” Sam had a crazy knack for walking into easy sick deals where the customer is ready to buy and he makes tons of money. He is the number one guy at our store. I hate him, but he makes me laugh so his lucky ass gets to be my best friend. He pulls his feet out from under the table. “Check out the new kicks.” My eyes drop down to look at his very shiny new shoes.
“Fancy,” I tell him. He is so proud of his footwear. I never make fun. Not ever. No matter how silly I think it is for a man to buy so many new shoes. I don’t say anything. “How much did they set you back?” the number will shock me. It always does.
“I got them on sale. Four ninety-nine,” he nods his head.
“Wow. What a deal,” I nod my head too and make sure there is no sarcasm in my voice at all. They look like something Clark Griswold wore in National Lampoon’s European Vacation. The shoes have sharp angles and useless straps, but he loves them.
“Yeah, my guy can totally hook you up if you ever want to dip into the luxury shoe game,” he bites the last of his low fat salad.
“Okay. Maybe. I’ll talk with Karen. See if it’s in the budget,” I smile at him, but there is no way in hell Karen would ever let me have shoes that cost more than three lap dances.
The phone on the wall chimes. “Sam, you have a customer waiting down on the sales floor.”
He gets up, puts his plate in the dishwasher, “Back to the salt mine.”
“Go sell another ten you bastard,” we fist bump. I am not a fan of this form of nonverbal communication. I prefer the high five. I pride myself on giving the best high fives. The power comes from the elbow and a good one will leave your palm stinging. He actually walks different when he has a new set of shoes. If he spent half the amount he does on new shoes he could get eye surgery and not have to wear those nerd glasses.
I crack open my lunch bag. The wife was nice enough to pack it for me this morning. Even with the radio mishap last night she still got up early to make it for me. I have been trying to lose weight so it is all healthy, organic and fresh. I hate it, but I am down over twenty pounds. You can’t argue with results. The food tastes good but I don’t like to admit it. There is something to be said about eating bad foods; it is very satisfying to finish off three thousand calories in one really sloppy cheeseburger. I can’t put my finger on what it is but it most likely has to do with the salt and fat. I am no scientist. Karen packed me a wonderful chicken salad wrap today. I can truly say my wife is the best. She is a stay-at-home mom with our two beautiful, sweet kids.
My cell says I got a text. “drink water” It’s her. She knows that I forget to drink water throughout my workday. I text her back “will do, Luv u”.
Two years ago I got a wake up call. I was topping over two ten. I was brewing my own beer and drinking six a night. I am a sucker and a chump for Indian Pale Ale’s. Karen said I needed to stop and I had to go to the doctor for a checkup. I was in high school when I had my last checkup. I found out I had crazy high cholesterol. It runs in the family. So that year for Christmas Karen bought me a month of Krav Maga classes. Here honey, here’s a present, lose weight you chubby bastard. I go and fall in love with it. Almost two years in now and I have five colorful belts hanging on the wall.
To get one of those belts you have to go through hell. It is a four-hour nonstop physical test. You have to show the instructors everything you learned over the last three months. Plus you get to do a ton of sparring. You fight people of different levels. Some are brand new and it is easy. One night I sparred with a guy that was one level away from black belt. He kicked my ass all over the mat. When you get to the end of a test you really feel like you earned it. The class itself is a lot of cardio but you do learn how to kick ass on the street. Now my weight and cholesterol are finally under control. My shoulder, chest to belly ratio is at a place where I feel comfortable with my shirt off. I take one bite of my organic fresh chicken salad wrap and the phone on the wall chimes.
“Jim, please see the manager.”
Bill has been my manager for five years now. He does this almost everyday. He knows I am at lunch but he calls me down to his office to bullshit with me. He is the best manager I have ever had. He sits back in his office all day and only comes out to tell jokes. So I pack up my lunch.
The lunchroom is on the second floor of my store. As I leave
the room I step out onto the upper sales floor. It is all mattresses and TVs. I pass by a four thousand dollar mattress and I so want to go to sleep. I share the bed with Karen and Robin. It is a rough nights sleep on an old queen mattress when a two year old keeps kicking you in the back. I cross the floor and pass by one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. It is an amazing seventy-inch super, ultra high definition TV. I want one so bad, but it does not make a lot of sense to have one that big if you can only sit five feet from it. I am almost out of the department when our warehouse man waves me down. His name is Devon. He is a man, technically, but really he is a kid. He is twenty, I think. He gives me a heavy nod when I make eye contact with him. His head bobs up and down like a silly toy from a foreign country.
“Dude, I saw a crazy one last night,” he always calls me “Dude.” He is not a surfer or a skater, but he loves the word dude.
“Really? What was it?” I nod my head to match his nod. He is talking about a horror movie. He is always talking about a horror movie. I don’t/can’t watch them anymore. I get the worst nightmares. Plus my kids are always up.
“Dude, this killer was after this girl. He like, killed her parents ten years ago and now he was back to finish the job,” Devon gets crazy eyes every time he says the word killer. “You will never guess how he kills people,” he shakes his head at me. This is the part where I get to guess how the killer kills them.
“Was it a gun?” I don’t really try anymore. I never get it right.
“No, dude. He would suffocate them with a plastic bag and then take their skin off with like a nasty old blade. It was so good, dude. I was so scared. It’s a crazy Russian movie I downloaded,” he nods his head at me and I never know what to say.
“Cool. I gotta get to Bill’s office. Talk to you later,” I head down for the stairway.