Lockdown: A collection of ten terror-filled zombie stories

by mike Evans

  “Who are you people?” Doc questioned before they could answer, walking into the office.

  “I’m Stacy McGruder,” the girl answered, her voice quivering with near panic. “This is Sam Thornton, my boyfriend.”

  “What happened to you?” Maggie asked again, this time in a firm voice.

  “One of those people tried to attack me,” said Stacy as the two women maneuvered the almost slack body of the young man into a chair. “Sam fought him off, but another one jumped on his back and ripped a hunk out of his neck.”

  “How did you escape?”

  “I’m not sure,” Stacy answered. “All I know is we fought back, and somehow we got into this building, before security blocked off the entrance. A bunch of those crazy people followed us, but the security people fought them off and pushed them out of the building. Some of them got hurt, and so did a bunch of other people who had made it into the lobby before it was sealed off. They were treating people for their wounds, but there were too many, and I didn’t think they would get to us fast enough. You wouldn’t believe the people, the blood. There were so many others who looked much worse than Sam, but they weren’t my boyfriend.” The girl looked at Maggie for a moment, the shimmer of tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry, but they aren’t the person I care about.

  “I got us into the elevator,” she continued. “I thought we better come up to this floor, after seeing you listed in the lobby.” Stacy let herself fall into the chair beside Sam, her body shaking. “Are you a medical facility? Can you help Sam?”

  “We’re a medical supply house,” said Maggie, shaking her head, then taking a close look at Sam. He was not looking good, and she had an idea of what was coming next. Something like what she had seen on the street through the window.

  “I can at least sew him up and treat him for infection,” said Doc. “And give him something for pain.”

  “I’m not sure we should do that, Doc,” Maggie said, narrowing her eyes as she looked at the injured teen. “We might want to get him out of here before…”

  “Before what?” Stacy cried, getting to her feet. “If you don’t help him, I’m afraid he’s going to die.”

  “Don’t worry, young lady. We’ll get him fixed up.”

  Doc helped the young man to his feet, then half dragged him through the door to the storeroom. Maggie followed, and intended to argue some more. The feeling that something really bad was going to happen was growing. With the young man, and not just to him. To all of them. She found Doc helping Sam up onto a gurney, the kind they sold to hospitals for moving patients that needed more than a wheelchair. There were no sheets on the device, and Doc was not going to take the time to get any. As soon as the young man was on his back Doc looked through shelves for a surgical kit.

  “I could use some help over here,” the older man said, looking at Maggie.

  “And I could use some help getting ready for the worst,” she answered, pulling some disassembled poles down from the shelves, then ransacking several surgical kits to get bone saws and other sharp implements to add to what she already had. To someone who had been in the shit, it didn’t look like much, but it might have to do. She added some bottles of acid to the group, not sure if it would stop what appeared to be the living dead, but willing to give it a try. She was still trying to come to terms with the possibility of life after death. She was a confirmed atheist, and didn’t believe in magic or the supernatural. But as someone famous once said, give them proof in the supernatural and they would change their minds. Now she was being given proof, and the afterlife she was seeing was nothing she wanted anything to do with.

  “I’m so damned stupid,” she blurted out, thinking of a perfect weapon that she had forgotten. “I’ll be back.”

  Doc nodded but stayed focused on his work, stitching up the bite in the boy’s neck. Sam looked even paler, if that was possible, and he was shaking. Maggie didn’t like the looks of it at all, scenes from multiple movies running through her mind. She wanted to tell Doc and the girl to get away from him, so he could be isolated in another room. Perhaps the bathroom. Or out in the hall. She wasn’t even sure that would be enough, but it was better than having whatever was going to happen occur while they were in the same room with him.

  Maggie ran out of the office and into the hall, near to the elevator bank. Her eyes searched for a red box on the wall, the one she passed every day and hardly noticed. Yes, she thought as she opened the box and saw what she hoped would be there. A fireman’s ax. It wasn’t a weapon she was used to using, but it definitely was a weapon.

  The arrival bell chimed on the elevator bank. Maggie looked up in time to see the indicator for one of the cars light up, arriving at their floor. The police, she thought, or maybe fire and rescue? She would take either one. What she didn’t want to take, but what she got when the doors opened, was a six pack of shambling creatures who were only superficially human.

  The first, what had been a large man, shuffled from the elevator car. His gait was much like that of someone who had been exposed to too much Thorazine. Not fast moving, but that he was moving at all was bad news. The security uniform showed that he had been one of the building protectors, and the scratch marks on his face indicated the sight of transmission. The other five shuffled after, for all the world looking like a bunch of shoppers trying to get at the last sale item. And that item would be her.

  How in the Hell did they get the damned car to come up here? she thought as she jerked the ax free from its holding hardware and ran toward the door to the office. Thought of a million monkeys on typewriters formed in her mind, that if something could happen it would.

  The zombies all alerted to her motion and started after her, their shuffling picking up speed. They would never catch her on a track, but then again, she had to get through the closed door and get it locked behind her.

  One of the smaller zombies, a young Asian man that was, short but muscular, whose head had been caved in on one side, pushed past another Caucasian man whose throat was slit. Then he came around the big security guard. He started to close on Maggie before she could get to the door. She swung the ax into its side, breaking its forearm and flinging it away to the side. She turned quickly, the flesh on her back crawling at turning away from the threat, and she pulled the door open. She spun as soon as she was in and slammed the door shut. The large creature slammed into the door an instant after she engaged the lock. She was afraid its mass alone would break through. She engaged one of the top bolts before it hit again, causing the door to shudder. The other bolt clicked into place, and the door was as secure as it was going to get.

  It was a sturdy door, made of thick wood, its only weakness the large frosted glass window in the upper half. Wires crisscrossed the glass which made it a barrier against the casual thief. Against these things she wasn’t so sure.

  The desk, she thought, running up to the heavy piece of furniture. She got on the other side and started to push. Not a weak woman, she still couldn’t budge the hefty piece of wood. I need help, she thought as the monsters started to pound on the door. She could see their partially obscured figures through the frosted glass. That glass cracked from a blow, still held in place by the reinforcing wire. How long that would last she didn’t know, and really didn’t want to find out.

  “Doc. I need your help,” she called out as she ran out of the office and into the storeroom.

  “I’m a little busy here,” Doc said, ripping away the shirt of the young man, and then starting to push on his sternum. “There’s no way he should have suffered cardiac arrest. No way. He’s young and healthy. And it was only a bite.”

  It was more than that, Maggie thought as she looked at the ax, trying to get ready for what she knew was coming. “We need to get rid of that body, Doc. And we have trouble at the door.”

  “Get me a defib kit, stat,” Doc ordered his partner. “I’m not about to give up on this boy.”

  “Doc. Listen. He’s gone. And we’re going to have a bunch of the t
hings that killed him busting in here any second.” From the look on Doc’s face she could tell she wasn’t getting through to him. He had seen the same things she had, but his mind was not able to come to terms with the evidence.

  “I’ll get it myself,” Doc retorted as he sent a glare Maggie’s way. He hurried away from the table, moved around one of the shelves, and then hurried back with a kit in hand. He unboxed the defibrillator and unwound the wires from the paddles.

  “We don’t have time for this, Doc,” Maggie yelled. She could hear the pounding on the door in the office. “Crap.”

  Doc started to attach the electrodes that would monitor the boy’s heart, showing when it was again functioning. Only she was sure it wasn’t going to again.

  She ran out into the office, shaking her head. The door still held, but the glass insert had been cracked through and through. The internal wiring was still holding it together, but barely. As she watched a big hand struck the window once again, and part of the glass against the frame came loose.

  “Dammit,” she blurted, looking once again at the desk and giving up on that barrier. Without help it wouldn’t budge, and there was no way she would get the other two to leave Sam. Looking around, she assessed the room and what she might be able to use. She ran to a file cabinet and started to push it toward the door. It was difficult to move, and would slow them down. She had no doubt they would eventually get through it. Maybe if she piled more furniture against it.

  A scream from the storeroom made her grab the ax and run toward the other door. She burst into the room to see Doc fighting with Sam, who was growling like an animal and pulling at her older partner, slavering teeth attempting to get at his throat. The leads from the monitor trailed from his chest, holding the defibrillator box in the air.

  “Don’t hurt him,” Stacy screamed as she huddled in a corner with her hands over her face, peeking through her fingers. “Oh please, don’t hurt him.”

  Maggie wasn’t sure which him the girl was referring to. From the look in his eyes, Sam was no longer among the living, and he was trying to pull Doc into the darkness with him. Doc was fighting for all he was worth, while trying not to hurt the boy he had just been trying to revive. It was a losing situation for the older man, whose arms were being bent back. Doc fought to get his hands onto the boy’s face, trying for the grip that would get his attacker off him. One hand got too close to Sam’s mouth, and Doc cried out as the sharp teeth of the boy bit into his thumb, gripping and cutting in with his incisors.

  “Get him off me,” Doc yelled, trying to get his thumb free from the hungry maw. “He’s going to bite it off.”

  For a moment, Maggie was back in the Sandbox, the smell of blood in her nostrils and the crying of wounded men ringing in her ears. The soldiers with her were all hurt, leaving her the only able bodied soldier in the squad. And there was only one thing she could do, if she wanted to be able live with herself after it was all over. Fight for those who couldn’t any more.

  Maggie swung the ax with every ounce of strength in her body. The blade struck into the flesh of the boy’s left shoulder, cutting in and breaking both clavicle and shoulder blade. He released his hold on Doc’s thumb and turned toward her. The wound should have pumped blood around the blade. Instead there was a sluggish flow. Another sign that the heart was no longer beating. The ax was wedged in its body, and the handle slipped from Maggie’s grip as the creature turned to reorient itself and come for her. She backed away, trying to figure out what she was going to do to keep the thing off her. She didn’t want to touch it, not really. She knew that getting a wound would be really bad. How much of a wound? Any kind? Scratches had seemed to do it to the security guard. What if she got any of its fluids on her, whether through a break in the skin or not? Not something she wanted to find out.

  Then her back was against a shelving unit, and there was no more time for thought with the creature almost on top of her. Its hands attempted to claw at her face, its mouth wide open, and an unbelievable stench coming out of it. An animalistic growl issued from the orifice, sounding like nothing human. One hand touched her face, and only the fact that the young man had worn his nails closely clipped prevented it from raking her and puncturing the skin.

  With a scream and a rush of adrenaline Maggie knocked one of the hands aside with a forearm block, and then launched a sidekick into its knee. The knee bent back with a pop, and Maggie was sure she had broken the joint. A living man would have been howling in pain, unable to put weight on the injured limb. The boy simply stepped forward in a leg flopping step and started to go down when all of its weight transferred to that leg. Started, but didn’t continue the fall, and as it grabbed onto Maggie’s blouse jerked itself upright.

  The mouth came at her, and she tried frantically to free herself from the monster’s grasp. The creature jerked back as if something were pulling it. The ax blade seemed to appear in the top of its head, splitting open skin and bone. Warm liquid splashed on Maggie’s face. The creature lost its grip on her blouse, then all the strength went out of its limbs and it stumbled forward, the dead appearance in its eyes changed to something that seemed even more lifeless.

  Maggie pulled her arm away and ducked under the creature, which fell into the shelving unit and rebounded, falling to the floor. Doc held the handle of the ax and jerked it from the skull. Maggie reached up and wiped at her face, gagging as her fingertips encountered some gelatinous matter that turned out to be the brains of the creature. Meanwhile, Stacy continued to scream, yelling out Sam’s name.

  “Jesus, Doc.” She started for the bathroom. She wasn’t sure what the fluids and brain matter of the creature would do to her, but she really didn’t want to find out what an extended exposure would cause.

  “I didn’t want him to tear into you too,” Doc defended, letting the ax drop by his left side while he held his other hand up. “The damned freak almost bit my thumb off.”

  Maggie worried about that wound to Doc as she washed her face. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen to her, but she had a good idea what would happen to Doc.

  “Why’d you have to kill him?” Stacy shouted.

  “He wasn’t alive, girl,” Doc responded, lowering his hand and turning to look at the young woman. “I don’t know how he was moving, but he wasn’t alive.” He looked back at Maggie as she walked out of the washroom, a pained expression on his face. “He was hooked up to the monitor on the defibrillator, and by God, he never showed a heartbeat. Even when he opened his eyes and attacked me, he had no heartbeat.”

  “You believe me now?” Maggie asked, looking around for a moment, then moving to get the shovel she had put up earlier. “How bad is that thumb?”

  “Bad enough,” Doc answered, “considering I was bit by a goddamn zombie. From what we saw on the TV, and the street, I guess I’m doomed, huh.”

  “We could try an amputation,” Maggie suggested, not thrilled with the idea of trying to take an arm off with inadequate pain medication. Especially when she would be the one doing the cutting. Doc was not a young man, and not in the best of health, and a traumatic surgery like that could kill him outright.

  The sound of breaking glass came muffled through the storeroom door. The wired glass was made to frustrate burglars, which meant to slow them down to the point where they gave up while the alarm sounded. The zombies had no give up in them, and they definitely wouldn’t be worried about the police showing up.

  “I’m pretty sure whatever agent they put into the victim’s body is already through mine,” Doc assumed, shrugging his shoulders. “I guess I’ve got maybe twenty minutes, an hour at most.”

  Stacy said nothing, just stood off by herself with her eyes locked on the body of her boyfriend as tears rolled down her cheeks. Maggie wished she had something she could say to comfort the girl, but had nothing. Her attention came back to her partner, a walking dead man who would soon really be that very thing.

  “Doc.”

  “Don’t. We need to figure out a
way to isolate me from you two so when I turn, I won’t take you with me.”

  “Doc.”

  “No. I’m gone. We might as well face it. I really didn’t want to believe this shit, but seeing that boy with no heart beat wake up and attack is enough to convince even me. There is life after death, and from what I’ve seen, it’s nothing to wish for.” He looked over at the storeroom door. “What the Hell?”

  It sounded like the zombies were still attacking the office door. There was a loud thunk, interspersed with a crunching noise.

  “They’re through the window,” Maggie cried, going for the storeroom door, shovel in hand.

  She opened the door to a scene of pure horror. The window was laying on the floor. It would have been in pieces if not for the reinforcing wire running through it. One zombie was halfway through the window, head pointed down at the floor while it squirmed its body further into the office. The wood on the door was splintered in several places, and it didn’t look like it would be long before it busted out of the frame. And moans and groans were coming from the hallway. A lot of them.

  Doc ran forward with the ax raised overhead. He brought it down on the back of the zombie, cutting through clothing and skin and splitting bone. He jerked the ax free, and the zombie continued to squirm, pushing more of its body into the room.

  I should have thought of this sooner, Maggie thought, going for the portable security viewer on the desk. The unit was a battery powered wireless television screen that could be switched to one of the several surveillance cameras that were part of the security system Doc had installed. Normally the cameras were powered from the building, but they had back up batteries as well. Right now it showed a slice of the storeroom, the body of Sam lying unmoving on the floor while Stacy knelt down beside it, crying. She picked up the unit and ran through the menu, switched it to the hallway camera, and almost dropped it as the view down the hall appeared on the screen.

  Doc had thought of everything, it seemed, except keeping a supply of weapons and ammunition. Next time, she thought, wondering if there would be a next time as she looked at the small screen.