by mike Evans
“You grabbed Brody’s Wayne Gretzky signed stick? Oh man, he’s going to be pissed. He almost banned me from your office just for breathing on that thing one time.”
“Well, I don’t think that’s going to be too much of a problem, little dude. Just as I grabbed it, he busted through the door and rushed out into the hall attacking our receptionist Scott. I ran over and planted the stick squarely in the back of his head. He went down and stayed down that time. It was that moment we heard a scream from down the hallway and then the alarm went off as the building was put on lockdown. All the doors are locked and the elevators ain’t working anymore. When they told us about how this building was designed, they meant it. this place is all shut down. Even the phones ain’t working, but that’s not our biggest problem. The crusty dudes are going to be our biggest issue. Turns out everyone who was attacked in the lobby had suddenly decided that we are food. That’s why I had to play whack-a-mole on ole Amanda over there. She was about to eat you like a Snickers bar.”
To say that my brain was swimming would have been a huge understatement. I heard every word he said, but my brain was refusing to go along with it. My first reaction was to look around for a hidden video camera and wait for Ashton Kutcher to come out and say I was just punk’d. But Ollie was not bright enough to pull off a performance like that. I slowly walked over and glanced at the body of Amanda to see if I could see any signs of deception. Her body was as still as it could be, giving no indication that she was still alive. I cautiously reached down and touched the bare skin of her ankle and found that she too was freezing. I jerked my hand away and turned to face Ollie.
“You do realize what you just told me is absolutely insane, right?”
“Dude, you have no idea how right you are. Man, if someone told me this, I would have the person sent to the loony bin, but I swear it really happened.” He gave me the two-finger scout salute to show me how truly serious he was.
“You also realize that what you just described sounds an awful lot like a zombie movie, right?”
A little glimmer of enlightenment flashed across Ollie’s face at that statement.
“Duuddee! That’s exactly what this is. Oh man, how could I not see that before?” Ollie swiveled his head around as if he was trying to get all of the jumbled thoughts sorted out. “We need to kill the rest of them before they can turn anymore.”
I hesitated before asking, “Wait how many of them are there?”
Ollie stared at the ceiling for way longer than I was comfortable with while he added up the living dead on our floor. He bent fingers over as he counted in The more fingers he folded over, the more worried I became. Three times he folded over all of the fingers on one hand, and I knew I wasn’t going to like the answer.
Finally, he looked back at me. “Four dudes and one dudette.”
I sighed as he spoke, then it dawned on me that the number was nowhere as high as I feared.
“Wait. Only five? That’s not so bad. You had me worried for minute with all of the counting you were doing.”
“I was counting all of the people that were okay, and then subtracted that from all of the people on the floor that I knew of,” He answered smugly.
“We are surrounded by an office full of ex-firemen, most of which are still in great shape. So, we should be pretty safe with them. It’s a whole lot better than if we were in an office full of accountants,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but several of them are out of commission after having to fight off some of the ones that attacked them. Between the bites and broken bones, there’s not that many of them able to fight now,” Ollie fired back.
“Wait, how many were bitten?”
Thankfully, he didn’t go into his long drawn-out counting regime again.
“Seven bitten, and two with a broken arm. Three scratched.” Then another glimmer of realization leapt across his face. “Oh crap, little dude. They’re going to turn into zombies too?”
“Based off what you told, me I would have to say yes. Where are the injured ones at right now?”
“Outside waiting for me to come back with you. They knew you were in here and saw Amanda go through the door, but were too hurt to give chase after the number she did on them.”
My mind raced at the thought of being trapped in the room with no escape. I also didn’t know what we were going to face if we tried to leave. I walked over to the door and listened to see if I could hear anything that would indicate a zombie waited for us on the other side. I could hear shuffling, but had no idea what it meant. I noticed Ollie doing his best to listen also. I watched his facial features to see if he heard anything that worried him, but he was always one of the hardest people to read. He could hear the heavy breathing of a dragon around a corner and he would still have that lost in the sunlight look on his face. I knew we had to get out the room. If I waited on Ollie to come to that realization, I would die from starvation first.
“Come on, big guy. We need to get out of here and try to come up with a way out of the building. Surely someone has called for help.”
Ollie looked at me like I was crazy until he seemed to remember I was in here secluded from the world the whole time.
“Oh right, there’s no windows in here,” he stated as if he was finishing the second half of a thought out loud.
“What do you mean by that, Ollie?”
“The whole city looks like it is going crazy out there man. There are fires burning and emergency vehicles are running around like mad. I don’t think we’re the only ones with this problem.”
That was when I got a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach. We were in one of the most secure buildings in America. It was designed so, in the event of a workplace violence episode, it could be locked down at a moment’s notice so that a potential shooter couldn’t make his way freely through the building. However, that also meant that he would be locked in with us. There were several safe rooms people could lock themselves in to hide until police arrived, but those were designed for only short-term use. In this situation we were probably going to be locked down for a while, with no police on their way to rescue us. And we didn’t have a shooter. We had a zombie infestation. I had to assume that, if we were in this much trouble, that every other floor of the building was probably the same. So, we were all on our own.
“All right big guy, we need to get out of here and come up with a plan to get out of the building before everyone that was bitten turns and we’re on the menu.”
Even as I said those words, I thought I was crazy.
Ollie nodded at me as he pushed me to the side so he could wrap his arms around the file cabinet to let us out of the room.
My eyes burned as light from the main room flooded into the dimly lit dungeon. I scanned left and then right, seeing no immediate danger. I heard the moans from the injured intermingled with their cries. It led me to believe they hadn’t turned yet. Now that I write that, I realize how stupid I was, using Hollywood as my barometer of what was or was not a zombie. I was almost stepped on as Ollie exited after me.
“Oh good, no more crusties out here,” he said as he rammed into me.
“You mind not squashing me down here,” I stated.
“Oh sorry, little dude. You better let me go first. I lose you when you get underneath me like that.”
I hated being so small and I really hated when people treated me different because of it, but this was one of those times that I held my tongue and let Ollie slide with his transgression. Besides, if this was really a zombie outbreak, I would rather have him in front to give me a better chance to get away if we were attacked. I still had my reservations that this was really happening. That changed rather quickly though.
Ollie led the way back to the front of the office. I stayed a few feet behind him, my nerves frayed more and more at every sound that emitted around the office. On the far-right side of the room, I could hear someone who was in immense pain, and the hushed whispers of comfort. To the left of us, I heard two of the w
omen from the office crying and asking each other what was happening. As we came upon the large glass meeting room I was in earlier that day, I saw Tuck standing over a man on the table who bled from a nasty wound on his arm. Ollie ducked down, trying to be stealthy, but bless his soul he was just too damn big to pull that off. Tuck saw him and waved frantically at him to come in. Apparently, he didn’t see me because, when I stepped out from behind one of the desks, his eyes widened at my appearance. It was hard to tell if he was happy I was safe or disappointed, but he did keep waving for us to come to him.
As we rounded the glass walls, I noticed several blood smeared windows and my eyes followed them to the injured man on the table. We made our way into the meeting room and were immediately bathed in the wails of the wounded man. Tuck waved us over to him as he kept a wad of paper towels pressed onto the mans wound.
“Well, I guess you two will have to do. I need you to hold him steady while I get this tourniquet tied around his arm to slow the bleeding.” Tuck motioned for me to take over and apply pressure. He then grabbed Ollie and directed him to hold the man down.
I did what I could from my vantage point since I was barely able to see over the top of the table. I looked down at the large pool of blood at my feet, and wondered how much blood someone could lose before it they died. There was a steady stream of blood leaking from under the towels I pressed down on firmly. Tuck yanked his belt off as Ollie pushed down on the man, keeping him in place. He slipped it around the upper arm and wrenched down on it. Tuck tied it in place and stepped away. The man settled down and slowly turned his head over to make eye contact with me. Then his eyes slowly closed. I thought for a brief moment he was dead, but the shallow up and down movements in his chest suggested that he was still alive.
Tuck took a step back and let out a huge sigh of relief before he patted me on the back.
“Thanks, short stuff and surf boy. You guys showed up just in time. If he’d lost much more blood he would’ve gone into shock.”
I didn’t think he really knew either of our names since he never used them. Most of the time it was a derogatory remark about my height and some loose reference to Ollie’s Californian past, but most of the time it was stoner boy. I slowly released my grip on the towels and reached up to grab a couple clean ones from the table to wipe off my hands.
“I have to ask, Tuck. Was he bitten?”
“Yeah, one of those damn porn sluts came into the reception room. When Nick here went to see what she wanted, the crazy bitch just latched onto him and ripped his arm apart. Then fucking Amanda ran past him and started attacking people in the office.”
“We need to get away from him. I think he’s been infected,” I said before he could continue.
“What the fuck are you talking about, dwarf boy? These bitches just went crazy. I always knew they were unstable, but even this is more than I thought they would do when they finally snapped,” he spat as he walked over to tower above me. “Actually, I was shocked when you and your boyfriend there came out of the room I shoved Amanda into.”
“You put her in there knowing that’s where I was? What the hell man?” I snapped back.
“She was tearing up the damn place, and I needed to get her contained while I figured out what to do with her. Then your buddy here came looking for you so I sent him in there too. Figured it would be a defining moment for you both.”
“What do you mean defining moment?” I asked with more than a hint of contempt in my voice.
“Figured both of your candy asses would either be torn to shreds or you would take care of her and find a set of balls between the two of you. You damn East coast fags needed a wake-up call.”
My mouth dropped open, but no words came out.I looked at Ollie, hoping he would say something to defend the both of us, but he had the same look on his face. I noticed he wasn’t looking in our direction, though. His expression was for a different reason altogether. I followed his eyes and they led over to the table where Nick sat. The look in Nick’s eyes told me everything I needed to know. Nick was no longer there behind the clouded over gaze. Tuck interrupted me before I could say anything.
“You going to say anything or you just going to stand there with that dumbass look on your face?”
I almost didn’t say anything, but the decent side of me won the internal battle. Nick started to come at me and Tuck.
“Watch out!” I warned.
Tuck was tensed up as he spun around and, when he saw Nick, he relaxed for a brief moment. That moment cost him his life as Nick dove into him at full speed and sunk his teeth into Tuck’s throat. The force of the attack thrust Tuck backwards, almost landing on me. I was front row center for the most gruesome event I had ever witnessed.
If Nick held any memory of Tuck, it was obviously a bad one as he tore into him like a kid into his birthday presents.. Ollie let loose a barrage of words that don’t need to be repeated before he took a swing with the hockey stick. The swing was solid and made direct contact with the side of Nick’s face. The great one, Wayne Gretzky would’ve been proud, but all it did was redirect the creatures focus to Ollie.
“The brain! You need to destroy the brain!” I yelled, relying on Hollywood for direction.
It took Ollie a moment to realize what I meant His eyes widened as it clicked. He hoisted the stick above his head and brought it down with as much force as he could muster into Nick’s forehead. A huge crack echoed in the glass lined room and red liquid sprayed out, coating three sides of the glass in spray. At first I thought the crack was from the hockey stick shattering, but then I saw the real reason. Nicks head was split wide open like a banana peeled apart, and the stick was buried at least four inches deep into the skull. Thankfully, Hollywood had that one correct. Nick fell to the ground, unmoving.
Ollie stood, looking impressed with his attack for a split second. Then the gravity of what just happened sunk in. Out of respect for my friend and you, dear reader, I will just say he had a moment that involved getting to see everything he had eaten in the last twenty-four hours and possibly even a penny he swallowed in kindergarten.
Fast forwarding over a few more gory details, I’m picking up at the part where Ollie and I went over to check on the body of the asshat Tuck. There was no doubt in either of our minds that Tuck was dead. His entire throat was gone and he had turned a very dark shade of purple. As we stared and wondered what we needed to do with him, a loud noise made the decision for us.
A loud thud rang out across the conference room. I turned toward the noise just as it sounded again. At the back wall of the room were two of the former firemen, pressed up against the thick glass. The fact that something was in their way didn’t even register as they rammed into the glass over and over. Each impact caused more and more damage to their faces. Noses broke and teeth shattered until one of them, being so determined to get to us, hit it so hard he split his forehead wide open. The skull held up to two more crashes before it too split open and, on the next hit, shoved the bone into the brain. It dropped to the ground and lay at the feet of the other one who paid no mind to his fallen friend.
“We need to go. Now,” I snapped to Ollie who was just as enthralled.
“Right, where we going?” Ollie answered as he met me at the door.
I thought for a brief moment, and an idea hit.
“Tucks office. Come on.”
We exited through the large door and, as it closed, I motioned for Ollie to pull the large bookcase next to the door. As the cabinet crashed to the ground. it got the attention of our friend. He started working his way around the glass walls, trying to figure out a way around the invisible barrier. I looked back one last time, making sure the cabinet blocked the door. I didn’t want to have to deal with him if I didn’t have to.
Tuck’s office was at the far side of the complex, but it was a straight shot out of the conference room. We didn’t run so much as walked quickly, keeping an eye out for any more dangers. We were almost half-way there when I realized th
e distinct lack of sounds coming from around the room. There were no more cries of pain ringing out. In fact, the were almost no sounds at all except for the constant thud still coming from our admirer against the glass. As I passed by one cubicle, I regretfully took a glance into it. One of the injured men was tearing into the body of a woman I assumed was helping him before he turned. The sight was disturbing, but motivating at the same time. I hurried my pace to keep up with Ollie, who sped up too after he saw the same thing I did.
As we came upon Tuck’s office door, we found it t unlocked and swiftly, but quietly, slipped inside before closing it. The latch made a clicking sound as it engaged. My heart stopped as I listened for any sign of being discovered. For ten long seconds, there was nothing. I deliberately turned to look at Ollie who eyed something. Just as I was about to speak, the silence was broken by a loud bang against the door at my back. I knew Ollie had great respect for me and my height challenged stature, but I wouldn’t have faulted him if he had laughed at my reaction. My little legs were struggling to get away from the door as fast as they could. It had to look almost comical, arms swinging wildly as my legs tried to get a grip on Tuck’s shiny and slick marbled floor. I finally made it several feet from the door before the second, third, and fourth bang a came.
We both eyed the large oak door that was installed in an office complex mostly made of the cheapest material possible. Tuck’s office was the exception to that rule. Everything was of the finest and most durable quality. However, the reason for going there was on the wall. Attached to the wall above Tuck’s desk was a very elaborate display made up of two Fireman’s axes and two hatchets with a plaque of The Chicago fire Department below it. Ollie was already in the process of snatching down the two large axes. After he got them down, he tore off the two small hatchets and handed them to me. We both stood and admired our new weapons. For a brief moment, we looked almost identical holding them. The axes in Ollie’s huge hands and size paired well with me holding the two smaller hatchets. Again, I wouldn’t have faulted him if he snickered at the image. I know I was thinking it.