Lockdown: A collection of ten terror-filled zombie stories

by mike Evans

  Danny, made his way over to Gunther and started work on his arms. He had the saws which was good, but he knew he needed to come up with some other ideas. He looked around the lab and tried to come up with some concepts out of what he had available. In the dream Gunther had been able to shoot fire, but there was no way to make that happen with what he had. But he could replace the pincers with something Gunther could swing like a hammer. He went through the left over pieces of metal lying around and pulled out parts that seemed promising. He knew he could make a hammers head from those but he needed a hardy shaft that wouldn’t bend after being swung numerous times.

  “I’ll form the head first and then worry about that.”

  He took the heavy pieces to an empty table, that he had used as a bed earlier and worked the parts till he seemed happy, and then bolted them together. He stood back and looked over his new invention and seemed happy with it. He knew the aluminum poles would work for a couple of swings but would bend after a while. Then it hit him. The lab table legs were made from steel. He pushed over a small table and used his tool set and detached one of the legs. He knew it would be prefect even though it was a foot too long for Gunther to swing it with any success. But how was he going to cut down the leg to the size he needed? He hit himself in the head

  “Sometimes I am an idiot. Gunther has a saw blade that would do the work.”

  He ran back, initiated Gunther’s program and waited for him to power up. He slid the leg into a vise and marked the cutting area with a sharpie from his desk drawer. Gunther powered up and moved his head to track Danny.

  “Danny, my diagnostics have found some alterations to my body and systems. It seems my power and form has been upgraded.”

  “Yes Gunther, I have done some upgrades to you. I need you to use your saw to cut this metal pole down to a predetermined size.” Danny stepped back and gave Gunther room to work.

  Gunther disconnected his power and communication leads, and moved toward the leg and looked it over. His arm with the saw came up and the blade rotated out and was replaced with a new one. “Danny, there will be sparks and this is unsafe with you standing so close. Please move back an additional ten feet.”

  Danny did as he was told and watched as sparks flew up and out as Gunther commenced cutting the steel leg down to size. When he was done Gunther moved back and then motored over to his cradle. Danny examined the new handle and was happy to see that it was a perfect size. He needed to figure out how to connect it to the hammer head. If only he had a different welder for that. He walked to his work bench and drilled two sets of holes on the head and holes at the end of the newly cut shaft. Using some hardcore bolts and some left over metal he created a bracket which would hold the head securely. The opposite end of the bracket was smaller and allowed the shaft to slide in securely. He bolted them in place and then took a couple of practice swings.

  “God that is heavy. Glad I don’t have to swing it. I don’t think it will last forever but should be good for what it needs to do.”

  He took the improved hammer over to Gunther and showed it to him.

  “Gunther use your pincers to grasp this please.” Gunther reached out and took the improvised hammer into his pincers. “I’m going to move out of the way after I gain a good safe distance please swing this around at an average head height please.”

  “Of course, Danny.”

  Danny moved to the other side of the lab and watched as Gunther swung the hammer around slowly.

  “Gunther increase speed till you reach enough energy to crush a human head.”

  He increased his speed and power and was able to do so at any axis or height. The hammer seemed solid in his pincers.

  “Cease exercise, Gunther. Keep the hammer and move back to the cradle. Reconnect to power. I need to write a new program for you and alter some of your code.”

  “Understood, Thank you, Danny.” He maneuvered around the lab and back into his cradle, reconnected his power and communications cables and powered down.

  Danny stood and thought about what he was about to attempt. He sat in his chair, cracked his knuckles, and pulled up Gunther’s program. He went through each line of code and had to check with his notes to make sure he knew what each one meant. Then he went to work on the code, making changes as he went. For the next three hours, he finished off the chips and drank two more giant cups of coffee. When done he sat back in his chair, sighed, and closed his eyes. This time his dreams let him be and he only slept for thirty minutes this time, just enough to allow him to refresh his mind and energy. When he awoke, he jumped back into his work and started writing new code. First, he decided to make sure Gunther’s program for protecting human life was changed to only include Danny. Next, he modified the video system so he could watch it live and added a voice system so he could direct Gunther during his attempt to clear the office floor. Once finished, he felt sure he had done the best he could and hoped it was going to be good enough.

  He uploaded the new program and altered code and powered Gunther up, then sat back and watched as the robot came to life.

  “Danny, the new programming has been successfully uploaded. Ready to proceed.” He disconnected his leads and rolled out of his cradle.

  Danny set his tablet so he could watch through Gunther’s eyes and made sure the communications were working properly. Then he moved to the door with Gunther in tow. “Gunther I am going to open the door, do you understand your new programming and parameters?”

  “Yes Danny, I am to clear the floor of any moving obstacle so that you will be able to move freely without danger.” He positioned himself near the door, switched blades on his saw, and raised his hammer.

  “Very well, Gunther. Once you are through the door I will be closing it, but will be in contact through my tablet.” Danny grabbed the big wrench he had earlier and slid his key card through the doors access reader. The locks clicked open and Danny opened the door quickly, expecting to be rushed. Nothing came through the door as Gunther rolled out into the office. Danny slammed the door quickly and listened as the locks reengaged themselves.

  He lifted his tablet and was assured everything was working. He watched through Gunther’s eyes as he moved forward, then stopped in the middle of the hallway, swiveling his head and locking in the numerous monsters into his targeting system. Three of his former coworkers Rosie, Charlie, and he thought the last guy’s name was Patel, move toward Gunther slowly. Gunther wasted no time as he raised his hammer and swung at Rosie as she was first to reach him. He scored a direct hit to her head, the blow strong enough to explode her head in a brain, tissue and bone shower as her body flew back and landed on the ground four feet away.

  “Yes” Danny said to himself.

  Gunther moved in on Patel and Charlie as they came to him at the same time. The robot used the hammer on Patel as he used his mechanical hands to lift Charlie off the floor by his head. The hammer did its job on Patel’s head, but instead of exploding it like Rosie’s, it knocked it off his neck and across the room. The body fell lifeless to the ground as Gunther crushed Charlie’s head flat and threw the body behind a set of cubicles.

  The rest of the monstrous coworkers came at Gunther and crowded around him. He fought hard and broke heads and bodies with the hammer, sawed through necks and heads with his saw blades, and used his hands to grab them as they tried to climb onto his body, throwing them against walls and cubicles. It was gory and Danny watched it unfold on his tablet’s screen. He became sick to his stomach and threw up in a waste basket nearby. He knew there were at least fifty people working today and felt like he had to continue watching the screen to make sure it was safe before he could leave the lab.

  Gunther ran over those who had fallen before him as he rolled through the office destroying the monster’s bodies and more importantly their heads.

  “Gunther can you hear me?” Danny asked into the tablets microphone.

  “Yes Danny, I can hear you. What are your commands?” he reported back and came
to a standstill.

  “I want you to sweep through the rest of the floor including bathrooms and offices. Once you clear those, comeback to the lab door and await new orders,” Danny ordered.

  “Yes Danny, I understand.” Gunther reported back and then continued following his orders.

  Danny watched as he opened office doors and rolling in and checking around the rooms. Danny felt elated that everything was working better than he had hoped. At that pace, Gunther would be done in twenty minutes. Then Danny could finally use the restroom and empty his bladder and bowels. He was then going to raid the cafeteria lunch room, eat anything he could find and finally have a soda.

  He watched as Gunther found more creatures in offices and one in the women’s restroom. He swept by the lunch room and cleared it also. Gunther did as he was instructed and came back to the lab door and waited. Danny unlocked the door with his key card and opened it. Gunther stood there with smudges of red blood and a black substance smeared onto his metal frame.

  “Gunther, return to your cradle and recharge, but do not power down, I may need you again.”

  “Yes Danny I understand.” He rolled past Danny and did as he was told rolling into his cradle and reconnecting his power leads.

  Danny raised his wrench and slowly made his way through the office afraid to touch any of the bodies on the floor, on guard just in case Gunther missed one or two targets. He opened the men’s bathroom door, moved to the first stall, and took care of his business he had been holding for a long time.

  “How long has it been anyway?” he asked aloud as he sat there.

  He finished and washed his hands in the sink and thought about the time he had been locked away. With the hours he had worked and the naps he had taken, he guessed it must have been close to the next morning. That’s when it hit him that he was wearing a watch, he looked down at it and saw that it was three in the morning. He left the bathroom and made his way to the lunch room. The place was a mess like the rest of the office. Blood was pooled on the floor and pieces of flesh were on the walls and tables.

  “I am not cleaning this up. I don’t get paid for this.”

  He opened the fridge and grabbed someone’s lunch. It happened to be a tuna sandwich and he hated tuna, but was so hungry he didn’t care. He tore open the Ziploc bag and devoured it in three large bites. He did that for the next two sandwiches he found in the fridge as well. One was peanut butter and grape jelly, the other some kind of cheese and salami. Feeling thirsty, he reached in and took out three cokes and opened them chugging them as fast he could. He belched a couple of times, felt a thousand times better, and hoped he could keep it all down with the disgusting mess throughout the floor.

  He strode around opening cell phones he found on his coworker’s desks and tried making calls. None of them had a signal and would not dial out along with the desk phones. He tried the internet and found it was also down. He walked over and tried the elevator’s call buttons. None would light up meaning he had to take the stairs. This worried him, as there may be more of the monsters in there and in the lobby.

  “I guess I could have Gunther roll onto the landing and check. Then maybe he could clear a path for me. He would be nice to have in the lobby too.”

  He raised his tablet and checked Gunther’s vitals. He was not powering up all the way and sat at only eighty percent. One of his batteries must have been damaged. Danny worked his way back into the lab pulled open the battery compartment, and saw that one of the batteries had turned black.

  “Well that is not good.”

  Danny spent the next twenty minutes looking around the lab for an extra battery but found he didn’t have anymore.

  “Okay so we will have to be fast then.”

  He removed the damaged battery after powering Gunther down tossed it aside, and rewired the rest of the batteries. He guessed he probably had less than an hour of power for Gunther to use before he had to be recharged.

  But he knew he didn’t have a way to stop during a battle to recharge him. He turned Gunther back off and left him to finish charging as he walked around the office to peer through the windows. He was heartbroken over what he saw. Fires raged in the parts of the city he could see from the second floor. There were crashed cars in the street, but he didn’t care about that. One thing he had done for himself when he got his last bonus was to buy an awesome Ford F250 four-wheel drive behemoth. He just had to reach it, get out of the city, get home, grab Heather, and then head out to his parent’s house which lay at the outskirts of the suburbs. Maybe they could run to the hills to their cabin. Maybe wait it out until the military got this under control. He felt his hopes lift as he thought about his plan. He knew the first step was to get out of the building safe.

  Danny walked back into his lab with a small spring in his step and reactivated Gunther.

  “Gunther, I have a new plan. Can you execute without a new program?”

  “Danny, you have changed my code to follow your voice instructions without the need of a new program. Relay your orders and I will execute to the limits of my hardware will allow.”

  “I had to remove one of your batteries due to it being faulty. So we will need to execute this plan as fast as we can. I want to you to gain access to the stairs and clear my way down to the lobby. Can you do that?”

  “My treads have been designed for me to ascend and descend the stairs. It will be a tight fit but I will be able to fight and clear the stairs. What are my commands when I reach the lobby?”

  “To secure the area and allow us an escape to the outside. There may not be power in the rest of the building to raise the security gates so I may need you to cut through them to gain access for both of us.”

  “I am ready to execute your commands Danny.”

  “I will follow you on my tablet and once it seems clear I will follow you down.”

  Danny walked through the office as Gunther followed him to the door that led to the stairwell. He opened it and Gunther rushed out, pushing back two monsters that had been standing there. Danny slammed the door closed and watched Gunther’s progress on the screen.

  Gunther made quick work of them and then proceeded down the stairs. He moved slowly so as not to become stuck and then stopped on the next landing to look up as sounds came to him. Six fiends came down the stairs stumbling while trying to hold their balance. Two fell and rolled down in front of Gunther who easily destroyed them. He then hammered the other four that followed him. The stairway now looked like a slaughter house with brains and blood painting the walls and stairs, not to mention Gunther himself. Gunther continued down the last set of stairs and gained the bottom floor. He moved to the lobby door, opened the access and rolled out.

  The lobby looked like a war had taken place. The security desk was torn to pieces and lay in a heap. The leather couches and the rest of the furniture were also in bad shape and destroyed. Danny had a feeling the lobby would be the worst of it all, and covered in those things. And he was right. Gunther had tracked forty of them. Some wearing security uniforms, some in business clothing, and others in casual apparel. Ages and race varied, the only thing they shared in common was their condition. They all had been turned into one of those things. Blood poured from open wounds, some were missing arms or legs, and one had a hole all the way through its torso that you could see its spine through to the other side. Danny felt nauseated and his screen became fuzzy as he started to lose reception. He had to move into the stairway and down if he was to see the coming battle.

  He grabbed his wrench and checked his pockets to make sure he had his keys for the truck.

  “That would’ve sucked to make it all the way down to the truck only to not have my keys.” he muttered to himself.

  He opened the stairway doors and slowly made his way out, nearly slipping in the blood left on the ground by the creatures Gunther had destroyed. Danny tried to watch the tablet’s screen to see how Gunther was doing, but he needed to watch his step so he didn’t slip in the gore all over
the stairs. He also needed to keep looking up so he wouldn’t be surprised by one of those things coming down after him. He felt torn on what to do and stretched beyond his limits. He was no good at multi-tasking but this was way beyond anything he had ever done. Throw the fear on top of that and he felt like he was going to explode.

  He made it to the next landing and stopped for a second, wanting to glance at the tablet and check on Gunther’s progress, but he couldn’t tear his eye and attention off of the stairs above him. He was sure he heard something moving. He grabbed the railing and looked up hoping to see something. And what he saw scared him and made him jump back. One of those things were falling down the middle opening and coming toward him head first. Danny hugged the wall and tried to make himself as small as he could. He watched as the thing flew by, then he heard a sickening crack as it hit the bottom landing. Danny took a look at his screen and caught glimpses of Gunther fighting, he then checked Gunther’s power meter and saw it was at forty percent.

  “Damn he is using his power way too fast.”

  Danny hurried his steps downward and came to the bottom landing, making sure to skirt around the thing on the landing covered in blood with its limbs in awkward positions. He lay motionless. Danny figured it must have landed on its head or received enough damage so it couldn’t hurt him.

  “Gunther, am I safe to come out to the lobby?” Danny said into his tablet.

  “I have them occupied. I count three left. Power is now at thirty percent and falling fast. I believe one of my batteries has become damaged.”

  Danny opened the door and slipped into the Lobby. He could see Gunther still fighting with the monstrosities by the front doors. Danny checked his surroundings and finding them clear moved out further into the lobby.

  “Gunther move toward the gate and start cutting while you continue your fight. If you run out of power, I will be stuck here.”