Lockdown: A collection of ten terror-filled zombie stories

by mike Evans

  Alessia

  Derek Black's rubber mouse pad made an excellent grip and insulator against the charged doorknob. But, Alessia's grip on Derek's hair was faltering. She worried his hair would fall out or she would drop him. Luckily, even if she dropped him, he wouldn’t roll well. She dreaded having to help Laurel shove Fayth Michelle at Abie. They didn't know what else the old mad man had up his sleeve or whether he knew that his granddaughter was ready, and more than willing, to be reunited, especially with his face.

  Alessia coughed. Her eyes watered and burned. She didn't have time to second- guess herself. This reminded her of when she went to the crack house with her friend Patty and it ended up getting raided. They had been told it was a house party, some house party. The fumes from that were a fucking nightmare, and this was ten times worse.

  "Are you ready?" She looked back at Laurel. It was almost comical. Fayth Michelle's arms flapped desperately like a flag on a pole while Laurel struggled to keep her up.

  "Yeah, the quicker we get this done, the better. Did you notice the Black brothers are ready to come out of the closet?"

  Blue tinted fingernails poked out from underneath the closet door.

  "Let's just do this." Alessia focused on the doorknob. With one swift turn, the knob twisted with ease. Without further thought, she immediately tossed Derek Black's head out. Her highest hope being that it would land in the old monster’s lap.

  Instead, the head smacked the opposite wall, leaving a trail of blood as it rolled to the floor. Its teeth chattered excitedly, and its eyes moved rapidly back and forth.

  "Ah, dammit."

  "What?" Laurel asked, her voice breathless as she tried to keep Fayth Michelle upright.

  "He's gone. The only thing out here is the crispy-fried customer service rep," Alessia said with disgust. She'd wanted to see the old man shriek with terror as his son bit the shit out of him. Alessia poked her head further out the door. The dark grey carpet couldn't conceal the bloody mess that had happened in the hallway.

  "Well, what are we going to do with her?" Impatience and struggle filled Laurel's voice.

  "Let's just use her as a poop-stick." Alessia said.

  "What?!" Laurel coughed out.

  Alessia stepped back into the room, avoiding the reach of their newly developed weapon. She joined Laurel in holding the coat rack. Relief flooded Laurel's face. Together they slowly guided Fayth Michelle's feet to the floor. She began to put one foot in front of the other, ready to charge toward anything living.

  "You grew up in the Midwest and you don't know what a poop-stick is?" Alessia cracked a smile. She couldn't believe a country girl like Laurel didn't know this.

  "Uh, no."

  "It's when somebody dips a stick in a large dog turd, then runs around chasing everybody with it."

  "Is that what we’re going to do?" Laurel asked.

  "I think our poop-stick has a radar for fresh meat. We're going to use it to get that old fuck."

  Alessia held the heavy weight at the base of the coat rack while Laurel guided Fayth Michelle. Maneuvering the coat rack out of the room was the worst part, but Alessia knew there was more to come. Abie wasn't going to let them get away easily. As they walked past Derek Black's chattering head, she wondered if everyone could come back to life or only those who were bitten.

  "Where did the bloody half-corpse go, and what about the poisoned guy?" Laurel asked.

  Laurel

  Laurel felt relieved to have fresh air in her lungs. Her face still smelled of spit, but she didn't care. The rotting corpse on a stick smelled worse. At least she'd remembered to put her 24-hour deodorant on this morning. She wasn't sure if it or if she would last longer if the day kept on the way it was.

  "Hey, watch where you're going," Alessia said from behind.

  Laurel looked up to see Fayth Michelle's shoulder bump the wall. She steered her back towards the middle of the hall.

  "Thanks," she mumbled. Relief had distracted her, but, relief wasn't going to keep them alive. Alessia depended on Laurel to be as good as her, if not better. Laurel wanted to be a badass. Her parents had prepped her whole life for this-- from anthrax to a supervolcano. She was supposed to be able to outwit them all.

  Laurel stopped. The coat rack jolted in her hand as Alessia and Fayth Michelle abruptly followed her.

  "What now?" Alessia asked impatiently. Fayth Michelle gave out a half-whine, half- groan in protest.

  "Did you ever watch horror movies growing up?"

  "What kind of dumb fucking question is that?"

  Laurel closed her eyes, trying to maintain her patience. She drew out a long breath. "My point is, doesn't this remind you of a certain horror movie?"

  Alessia crossed her arms, "What? Fucking Chainsaw Massacre or Saw? Big fucking deal, some psycho is trying to kill us. Don't matter which movie it is."

  "No. I mean, look at Fayth Michelle." Laurel pointed to the undead girl attempting to wiggle her way off of the pointed end of the coat rack.

  Alessia stood silent for a moment. She looked at Fayth Michelle, then Laurel, then back to Fayth Michelle.

  "It occurred to me that we have more than one problem which is why no one is in the hallway." Laurel looked over Alessia's shoulder to the burned customer service rep. "I'm not sure why she's still on the ground."

  "Well, who knows why this one is up and walking around," Alessia shrugged.

  "My best guess is biological warfare." As far as Laurel was concerned, it was the most probable cause of any apocalypse.

  "It doesn't really matter though, does it? It could be space aliens for all we know. But we are locked up here on the sixth floor with the Tall Man and at least three of his mobile undead relatives. Who knows who else is going to pop off especially if that crazy ass is killing them!" Sweat trickled off of Alessia's brow.

  "Are you okay?" Laurel didn't want to point out the obvious or seem like a total ass, but Alessia had seemed fine until this point.

  "I… ugh." Alessia adjusted the weight of the coat rack base and wiped her forehead with the hem of her shirt. She blew a couple large breaths out of her mouth, "My family takes the dead coming back to life very seriously. Ever heard of Day of the Faithful Departed? Those traditions were in South America before they even spoke Spanish. Plus, is it just me, or is it getting hot in here?"

  Laurel hadn't noticed in her daze that the hallway's temperature had steadily increased.

  "What do you think he's going to do next?" As quickly as Laurel said it, she got her answer.

  Several of the customer service representatives walked out of the bathroom. They didn't look alive.

  Alessia

  Just when Alessia thought there was a plan, it was snatched away. It'd been like this at survival camp when the counselors had taken all of their supplies, ran off, and then chased them around. The cat-and-mouse game was exhausting. Luckily, it had only lasted two days. This was a nightmare she was afraid wasn't going to end until they were dead and walking around like the rest of these assholes.

  The customer service reps weren't walking very fast which gave them a few moments to spare.

  "What do we do?" she asked Laurel. Logic told her to run, but the intuition that had kept her alive in sticky situations said to start cracking skulls.

  "I don't think we have a choice. We're going to have to put them down. I just don't know how. I mean they’re dead but walking around. What do you do with that?" Laurel looked as scared as Alessia felt.

  Alessia hated the idea of the dead coming back to earth. Her mother had sworn before she left El Salvador, she'd seen her dead sister walking in a field. Her aunt's face had been partially blown off, her dress torn, and when her mother had walked toward her she'd growled a terrible noise. Her aunt had been killed during the civil war in 1984. Her mother saw her in 1993.

  Alessia thought her mother was crazy, paranoid, and riddled with trauma from her life before coming to the United States. At the least, maybe she’d seen a ghost, but it sure as hell
wasn't someone walking after death and eating flesh.

  "I don't think we have a choice but to either dismember them or impale them to the wall. They want to eat anything living." Alessia tugged on the coat hook as she backed up. Laurel followed her lead. They’d been in the process of making weapons when Abie had derailed them. It was time to get back to it.

  "Do we really need to keep her?" Laurel nodded towards Fayth Michelle. Alessia had to admit the undead woman's body and the coat rack were a real pain in the ass to navigate.

  "Nah, but what do we do with her? She's proof that ramming them doesn't really do anything." Alessia wasn't sure what the answer was.

  "What if we bashed her head in?"

  Alessia stared at Laurel. It wasn't a response she expected to hear from her, but Laurel didn’t stop there. "Or cut her head off?"

  Alessia turned to the closet, "I doubt it’ll work, but we're definitely going to mess some shit up."

  She set down the base of the coat rack and went into the closet to survey their arsenal. They were down one mop stick from earlier. Laurel had dropped it near the elevator. There were still two broom handles, a mop bucket, chemicals to clean the carpet and windows, a wiper blade, a toilet plunger, a snake for drains, and tons of paper towels for them to use.

  "Here," Alessia said as she handed Laurel a broom. "We don't have time to modify this right now. Just beat 'em over the head."

  Laurel nodded in agreement.

  Alessia tossed everything she could in the mop bucket. They needed to be mobile and still keep all their supplies.

  Thwack!

  The quick rasp sounded like it had hit bone. Alessia peeked out into the hallway. Laurel stood sheepishly in front of Fayth Michelle.

  "I wanted to see if I could hit someone in the head with the broom."

  "Well, apparently you can."

  The customer service reps edged closer.

  "Are you ready to fight the rest of them?"

  "Ready as I'll ever be."

  Alessia hoped they were ready. It seemed like every time they had a plan, something else got in their way.

  Laurel

  "How many hits did it take to bring that one down?" Alessia asked. Laurel thought about it for a minute. She couldn't remember for sure; she'd just kept throwing whacks until they stopped moving.

  "I'm going to go with thirty-seven." Laurel looked down at the bloody mess at her feet. She'd only met this guy twice. His unruly brownish-blond hair had fascinated her. He kept it off the collar, which was the only requirement for the dress code, but it was still at least a good three to four inches long. Now the hair was speckled with blood and white gooey bits of his brains. Laurel frowned. He shouldn't be dead or even dead again. It was obvious that Abie had something to do with his first death, his eyes bulged out and though his teeth had chattered like the rest of them, he as well as the other customer service reps, all had tongues that were swollen. They'd probably been gassed while they were in the bathroom cleaning up.

  Laurel felt Alessia behind her.

  "At least we got them," Alessia said.

  Laurel shrugged. "Yeah, I guess we did. But where's Abie?"

  "And how many more of these dead walking are there?" Alessia finished Laurel’s thought.

  Laurel turned toward Fayth Michelle. Her body was limp on the coat rack. The hit Laurel had given her to the center of the head had pushed the hook up through her skull. She'd stopped moving then. It was a relief and a shock that damage to the brain would stop them. It hadn't stopped the creepy body parts when the head was active. Laurel suspected if they’d crushed Derek Black's skull, his hand would have let go of her.

  "I can't remember how many people came off that elevator, honestly," she admitted. Laurel felt like a fool for overriding the lockdown protocol. Those people may have had better luck in the lobby than they had up here. It might have been easier to take Abie down, or at least she thought it would.

  "Well, where do you think they went?"

  Laurel looked around the office. She didn't know. It was so hot now that she couldn't really think. Her arms ached from the repetitive motion of swinging the broom.

  "Can we go to the break room?"

  She walked off, not waiting for Alessia. All Laurel wanted was to turn on the air conditioning and to drink some cold water. Her clothes stuck to her skin. If she found Abie, she'd beat him with his own cane for making them suffer like this. Who knew if he'd randomly placed poisoned bottles of water in the vending machine, but she was willing to chance it.

  The break room was dark. There were no windows to let in natural light. She slid her hand against the wall, fishing for the light switch. She'd be crazy to walk in blind. If she could see, she had a good chance of smacking something square in the head or at least keeping it off of her.

  "Doesn't this room have those sensor lights?" Alessia walked past Laurel into the room.

  "Uh, yeah, but don't you think Abie could have disabled them?"

  "Maybe, I don't know. I'm so thirsty I could drink a thousand gallons of water. So, I'm willing to take a--" Alessia stopped mid-sentence as the lights popped on. Laurel watched as Alessia did a little wiggle dance in celebration of the illumination.

  "Oh gawd," Laurel said without thinking.

  "What?" Alessia stopped dancing. "There's a fucking dead walker behind me, right?"

  Laurel nodded. She couldn't bring herself to tell Alessia there were actually four.

  Alessia

  Alessia took a moment to say a prayer. She'd done it in the past, and it worked. Hopefully, today was no different. Why it was in her nature to be so damn cocky and then need to pray herself out of trouble later was beyond her. She accepted that a higher power probably had it sorted out for her. They had to. Her experience had always been that she'd be doing all right, and then she’d go do something stupid.

  "Where are they?" Alessia asked. Laurel's expression told her it wasn't good.

  "I'm trying to decide what I should tell you."

  "I like the idea of running." Alessia moved slightly toward Laurel, and heard a shuffle behind her. She assumed they'd go straight at her.

  "Walk towards me." Laurel beckoned Alessia like a mother would a small child.

  With small steps Alessia started towards Laurel. She stopped confused as Laurel strode over to her.

  "What? Stay over there."

  "No, turn around and look. They aren't moving."

  Alessia turned around. Four of the dead stood motionless. Their teeth didn't chatter and they rocked back and forth.

  "They're asleep!" Laurel whispered.

  "Why are you whispering?" Alessia returned with a hiss.

  Alessia watched, horrified, as Laurel poked one of them with her broomstick. The undead didn't flinch.

  "What do you think wakes them up?"

  "Dude, how the hell am I supposed to know?" Alessia said. Laurel kept poking at them. Alessia didn't want to go over and take away her weapon from her, but it was like she was asking for a fight with the flesh eaters.

  "It’s probably the dark. Maybe their bodies need sunlight to work?" Laurel said.

  Alessia winced as Laurel stood on her tiptoes, peering into the face of a taller man she'd never seen before. Since he wasn't wearing a shitty yellow Bee-Prepared shirt, she assumed he wasn't one of the regular team.

  "Well, do you think we should take them out and put them in the sunlight to see if they'll start trying to eat our faces off?"

  Laurel pinched the arm of a guy with unnaturally black hair and thick plastic eyeglasses, who Alessia suspected hated his job more than she did. The few times they'd interacted he seemed to either be pissed or stoned.

  "Maybe we could put some kind of leash on them? Guide them around like we did with Fayth Michelle? We could study what happens to them."

  "No way. We don't know how long we are going to be stuck here. Plus, these assholes aren't coming back. Given the chance, they will eat us. You can bet on it." Alessia looked at the broken mop handl
e she'd fashioned as a weapon. She knew if the four stayed still, she and Laurel could probably disable them. Her biggest concern was they'd wake up all at once and they wouldn't be able to fight them off. All she really wanted was a tall cool glass of water.

  "Ah what the hell," Alessia said. She stood behind the tall stranger and with one swift thrust, she shoved the mop handle into base of his skull. The crunching sound made her stomach lurch, but she held it together as she pulled out the stick. He fell forward to the floor taking two of the others with him.

  "What'd you do that for?" Laurel asked.

  "Because leaving them up and walking is like leaving a bunch of time bombs laying around. Who the fuck knows when they’re going to go off." Alessia systematically shoved her mop handle into the skulls of the other two on the ground. She felt a pang of guilt at the unfair fight. But, it really was kill or be killed. A couple of her old crew had said that many times, but she'd never felt threatened enough to do more than whip somebody's ass.

  Laurel sighed. Alessia watched as her new crewmember bludgeoned the guy with the thick eyeglasses until he finally toppled to the ground.

  "Do you feel better now?" Laurel asked, throwing her broom to the ground.

  "No."

  Alessia sat down at the lunch table and laid her head down.

  Laurel

  Laurel kept a careful eye on Alessia as she searched the break room for food and water. Focusing on survival basics made her feel in charge instead of completely useless. It had only been fifteen minutes since Alessia shut down, but time wasn't on the same schedule as usual. The day kept speeding up and slowing down. Laurel didn't think she had any more adrenaline left in her body to crank out. She opened the cabinets above the sink. The contents were sparse: concentrated dehydrated coffee creamer, a small container of sugar, some cheap coffee, and stir sticks. Laurel arranged the contents of the cabinet on the nearest table trying not to disturb Alessia.

  She looked over at the pile of bodies and clenched her teeth. There was a part of her that admired Abie for the stories from Vietnam. He'd killed people to survive, or at least the way he told the story he did. After finding out about his twisted side, she suspected he may have run off to kill for pleasure.