“It smells out here,” Nicole said.
“Daddy said it smells like a dead skunk,” Joey giggled.
“Your daddy is right,” Nicole smiled down at Joey.
Carl walked out of his room holding a can of beer.
“I couldn’t find my shirt,” Carl smiled, “I hope I don’t offend anyone.”
Dave laughed, “I just glad you found your pants. How’s your head feeling?”
“Great, thanks to Bud Lite,” Carl replied, “It works every time.”
“We’re glad you look better than you did this morning,” Maggie added, “You were starting to turn green.”
Carl laughed.
A loud banging noise sounded from the office.
Everyone turned and could see two people in the office.
“I’ll get it,” Shirley said. “It could be a customer. Besides being locked up in that small room, I need to get out and talk with someone.”
“Thanks Shirley,” Adam replied, “but I doubt it is anyone looking for a room. I don’t know where everyone is, but I haven’t seen anyone around this area for two days now.”
Shirley started walking towards the office while the others continued to talk quietly.
When Shirley was twenty feet from the office, the people started to come outside.
Shirley froze as her eyes made contact with the three eyes that were staring at her.
Chills ran through her body as she looked at the two people in front of her.
They looked like they had just crawled out of an automobile accident. Their clothes were bloody and torn. One of the people had a broken arm. The upper arm bone was protruding through the bloody fabric of his yellow shirt.
The other person had a large chunk of flesh torn from the side of his face. The left eye was no longer there, apparently torn out along with half of his face.
Three milky white eyes and an empty eye socket were staring at Shirley.
Shirley didn’t know what to do.
Shirley gasped as the creature’s jaws opened and two sets of bloody teeth began to snap open and closed, making a grisly clicking sound.
Then the two creatures opened their mouths wide and let out the most eerie unhuman sound Shirley had ever heard.
Dave, Maggie, Adam and Nicole all stopped talking and turned towards Shirley when the strange moaning started.
As they all turned, the creatures raised their arms and lunged at Shirley.
Shirley began to scream as the creature’s grabbed ahold of her. She began to frantically struggle and scream in agony when the creatures began to bite into her arms and neck, tearing out large pieces of flesh.
Blood began to spray over the creatures, the palm trees and the parking lot by the office.
Maggie screamed and pulled Joey against her side as Dave and Adam ran to help Shirley.
When they reached Shirley, the two creatures were on top of Shirley, savagely biting and tearing at her body.
Dave could tell they were too late to save Shirley.
Her eyes were open as she lay motionless on her back, her lifeless eyes stared into space, seeing nothing.
Dave grabbed one of the creatures by the shoulders, pulling it off of Shirley and throwing it to the gravel in the parking lot.
Dave looked horrified at the blood and pieces of rotting flesh that covered his hands.
“Don’t touch them,” Maggie shouted.
Dave looked over at Maggie with a stunned look on his face.
“They’re zombies,” Maggie yelled. “Hit them over the head with something.”
“What?” Dave asked as he glanced at Maggie.
“This is no time for that shit Mag,” Dave yelled back at Maggie.
His attention was quickly brought back to the creatures on the ground. The one he had pulled off of Shirley and thrown to the ground was now crawling towards him.
He looked down at the bloody face. Half the face was gone, one eye was missing.
The creature’s cheek bone was pushed out through what remained of the things cheek. But the creature didn’t seem to care.
It’s one dead milky white eye was focused on Dave.
Dave could also see two rib bones sticking out through the side of the bloody Anna Maria Island T-shirt it was wearing.
“You have to hit it over the head,” Maggie screamed.
Dave had seen enough.
He reached down and picked up the end of the post that was lying on the ground, the post that Carl had knocked over with his trunk when he came home drunk the other night.
Dave lifted the post over his head and brought it down with all of his might, caving in the skull of the mangled creature that had just grabbed onto his foot.
The creature dropped flat on the ground. The bloody mangled body was now motionless.
Dave picked up the post, walked over to the creature that was still tearing at Shirley’s body and rammed the post into the creature’s head.
Dave stood and looked down at the grisly scene on the ground in front of him.
Dave didn’t know how long he was standing motionless, staring at the blood and gore.
The next thing he knew, Maggie was standing beside him. She had grabbed one of the motel towels and was yelling at him to wipe off his hands and keep them away from his mouth.
Almost without knowing what he was doing, he felt himself using the towel to clean the blood off of his hands.
The next thing Dave remembered was Maggie shouting.
“These aren’t people, they’re zombies,” Maggie shouted.
“Maggie, there is no such thing as zombies,” Dave replied. “There has to be something else to explain this, but I have no idea what the hell it would be.”
Adam walked over next to Dave and Maggie.
Nicole stayed over by the main building, holding onto Everly and Joey.
“Do these things look anything like what you uncovered up on the north end of the island?” Adam asked as he stared at the two gray bloody bodies.
“This all started after you uncovered those coffins Dave,” Maggie added, “Maybe that is what happened to the original settlers here on the island. When the settlers got sick they turned into zombies, the two guys that survived buried them on the island. When you uncovered the coffins, they were set free.”
“Maggie, you’re letting your imagination get carried away,” Dave answered. “This is sick and I don’t know what the hell is going on, but these aren’t the people we uncovered.”
Carl walked over and looked down at the bodies.
“Definitely not the bodies we uncovered,” Carl said. “The guy on the left with the broken arm, that’s Bob the bartender from the Bridge Tender. I was just talking with him last night. I hope this doesn’t mean the Bridge Tender is going to be closed.”
Carl turned to walk back over to his room, but he almost fell when Shirley’s arm reached out and grabbed him by the ankle.
Her eyes opened, now a blank milky white color, as she rolled over and began to pull herself towards Carl’s legs.
A low moaning sound was coming from deep in her throat.
Carl yanked his ankle out of Shirley’s hands, cursing as he backed away from her, staring at her bloody clothes with huge chunks of flesh missing from all over her body.
“She’s dead,” Adam said nervously, “but she is still moving.”
“She’s doing more than moving,” Carl said, “She’s trying to eat my damn leg.”
“She is a zombie,” Maggie shouted. “The island is being attacked by zombies. It’s the only thing that can explain what is going on. The army shooting at all those people but it doesn’t stop them because they are already dead. Those aren’t people, they are zombies. That is why they walked and acted like you told me. Something has turned all these people into zombies.”
Dave stared at Maggie.
“This has to be what is happening,” Maggie said. Her eyes wide with fear. “You have to believe me.”
Dave picked up the post again
and walked up behind Shirley’s crawling body.
He looked at Adam, “She is your employee and your friend. It’s your call.”
Adam nodded his head and then turned away.
He lowered his head briefly at the sound of the post crushing Shirley’s skull.
Dave looked at Maggie, “I’m not sure what to believe, but until we find out something different, I guess we appear to have a zombie problem.”
Dave next looked at his hands, “Is there any bleach or something strong I can scrub this shit off my hands?”
“I’ll go get some laundry detergent,” Nicole answered from where she was standing by unit 3.
“What do we do to protect ourselves from,” Adam hesitated, “zombies?”
“We asked Maggie,” Dave replied. “She’s our zombie expert.”
Chapter 11
Everyone sat around the table in the cottage. A stunned look covered everyone’s face, but they knew they needed to talk about what they had just seen.
What they all had witnessed was unbelievable.
Maggie suggested they all go up into the cottage to talk. She said that it would be safer up in the cottage than being in one of the ground floor rooms. It would be safer because she said zombies couldn’t climb.
They had all seen zombie movies. They all knew according to zombie movies that zombies couldn’t climb. But climbing and all the other facts about zombies that they had seen in the movies, they all knew were just fantasy, things someone had just made up to make the movie scary or more entertaining.
None of them took the movies or any of the so called zombie facts very serious, they were just make believe entertainment.
Besides, there had never been any real zombies for these ideas to have been tested out and verified before being used in the movies, portrayed as true zombie facts.
A disclaimer stating the following scenes and events are true, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent, would never be associated with any of the zombie movies they had ever seen.
Dave was sure that he would have never seen the show Myth Busters do a piece on zombies. There would have never been a three part series asking the questions: Can zombies really climb or is that just a myth? Do zombies prefer brains or do they enjoy flesh from a human leg just as much? Can a zombie be electrocuted or can they only be killed by crushing their skulls? Will a zombie eat you if you smell as bad as they do? Today on Myth Busters we will prove what is fact and what is fiction. We have smeared cow manure all over Bob. After the commercial, Bob will walk into a room full of zombies. Will they just ignore Bob or will they eat him? Find out after the break.
Dave usually would have laughed at the thoughts passing through his mind. But after what he had seen and what he had to do in the parking lot a few minutes ago, he didn’t feel much like laughing.
He still wasn’t sure the dead bodies outside were anything more than diseased people, driven completely insane by some rare virus or something.
All he knew was that until he had a rational explanation, it couldn’t hurt to follow Maggie’s instructions on how to deal with zombies.
As unbelievable as it was, her explanation as to what those people were, was as good, or even better than anything anyone else had come up with to explain what had just happened.
Besides, even if these things weren’t really zombies, hopefully Maggie’s ideas on how to survive the zombie apocalypse would also work with these creatures.
Dave had to admit, even if those bodies lying out in the parking lot weren’t zombies, they did look and act like the zombies he had seen in a few horror movies that he had been forced to watch with Maggie.
Dave sighed and thought, “At least it is a plan. Up until now we have been wandering around aimlessly not knowing what to do. We have to start doing something before it is too late.”
“I’m still not sure I believe in zombies,” Dave said, “but after seeing what we saw today, I have to agree with Maggie that we would all have a better chance up here in the cottage. If enough of those people showed up, they might be able to get into the rooms on the ground floor by breaking the windows or by breaking in the door. They don’t move very well, so even if they can climb the steps, it should be fairly easy to knock them down the stairs to keep them from getting up in the cottage.”
“I can’t believe we are really talking about how to fight off zombies,” Adam exclaimed.
“Well if these people act like zombies,” Dave replied, “then maybe Maggie’s zombie tactics might actually work, unless anyone has a better idea.”
“The army didn’t look like they were having much luck blockading the bridges,” Adam added, “so I guess we better have a plan because I’m sure there are going to be a lot more of these people coming through here.”
“What’s it going to take for you to believe these people are really zombies,” Maggie asked. “We all saw what they did to poor Shirley and then Shirley turned into a zombie and tried to bite Carl.”
“I’m sold,” Carl jumped in. “Shirley trying to eat me made me a believer. Too bad, I kind of liked Shirley, in fact I had been thinking about asking her to go down to the Bridge Tender with me to have a beer.”
“Carl!” Maggie said sounding disgusted, “I think Shirley had kids and a family.”
“That was OK,” Carl replied, “I wasn’t thinking about getting married or anything. I was just looking for a drinking buddy.”
“Well that’s all water under the bridge now,” Dave said, hoping to change what was becoming a gruesome subject.
“Yea,” Carl sighed, “The Bridge Tender doesn’t have a bartender now, I’m not even sure if they will be open anymore. I wonder if Bob locked up before the zombies got him. I’ll have to go down and see if I can get in. If the place is unlocked, I really don’t need a bartender for beer, I can help myself.”
“Let’s change the subject,” Dave finally said. “I think we have more to worry about than beer.”
“Yes, Maggie,” Nicole frowned, “What do you think we should do. I’ve seen zombie movies, but after what just happened outside, I can’t remember seeing anything in a zombie movie that would help us. All I can remember from those movies is zombies pulling the intestines out of screaming teenage girls and shoving them in their mouths.”
“I remember seeing that one,” Carl smiled. “I liked that one. I think they were camping and were all sitting around the campfire drinking beer. I couldn’t believe all those girls got so drunk on only three cans of beer.”
“Maybe the first thing we should do is not drink any beer until the zombies are gone,” Dave grinned.
“Maybe the first thing you guy’s should do is forget everything you have seen in all those low budget made for teenage boys zombie flicks, like Bikini Zombie Beach and Attack of the Zombie Cheerleaders,” Maggie smiled as she looked at Dave.
Carl smiled, “I saw Zombie Cheerleaders, twice.”
Dave just shook his head, “I’m sure you did.”
“Besides keeping the guys away from beer drinking teenage girls in bikinis,” Nicole said, “seriously, any ideas that could actually help us?”
“I think we need to get something to use as a club so we can protect ourselves,” Maggie said, “then we need to round up some food.”
“That makes sense,” Dave smiled, “no matter what we are up against. Plus we don’t know how long we are going to be stuck here. If enough of those people come around, we could be trapped up in the cottage for days.”
Everyone nodded.
“Adam, you know the area around here, we will have to rely on you to tell us where we can go to find a grocery store,” Dave said.
Adam nodded, “I also have some tools in the shed behind the office that we can use as weapons.”
“We need to have a look out too,” Maggie said. “If we spot a zombie we need to hide inside until they go away.”
“With a good club we can go out and kill it,” Carl replied.
“If it sees us, it w
ill start to moan,” Maggie replied, “The moaning will attract more of them. If they know we are in the cottage those things will stand out here and moan all day and then they will never go away.”
“How do you know that?” Carl asked.
“It’s one of the main themes in all the zombie books I’ve read,” Maggie replied.
Dave thought to himself, “On today’s episode of Myth Busters, can zombies communicate with each other? Today Bob will poke a zombie with a stick and make it call out. Will the other zombies come to its rescue? We will find out after the break.”
“That’s good to know,” Carl said. “Seeing one of those things is bad enough, if we had a whole mob out here, it could be days before I could go down to the Bridge Tender. I better go down and bring back a couple of cases of beer to hold me over, just in case.”
Dave was going to suggest that Carl might want to consider moving into the Bridge Tender, but a scraping noise coming from outside distracted him.
Dave stood and slowly moved over to the door.
When Dave looked outside, he quickly pulled the door to the cottage closed.
Maggie noticed Dave closing the door and asked quietly, “Did you see something?”
Dave signaled for everyone to be quiet.
“There are six more of them down in the parking lot,” Dave whispered, “They seem to be interested in Carl’s truck,”
“They must smell that can of beer I spilled on the seat,” Carl whispered back. “You might be right about beer attracting zombies. I never thought about that before.”
“On today’s Myth Busters, do zombies like to party and drink beer?” Dave thought, but quickly pushed it out of his head.
Everyone moved over next to Dave and crowded around the window to look around the curtains so they could see down into the parking lot.
Now It Begins Page 12