Lockdown: A collection of ten terror-filled zombie stories

by mike Evans

  We both turned and faced the door while it rattled from the continuous collisions against it. It was weird, but both of us were completely calm at that moment. I don’t know if it was the confidence the weapons gave us, or if we both snapped from the stress. I felt empowered by the melee weapons. I looked over to Ollie who was twirling around the much larger axes as if they were weightless. We knew we were trapped in the office and the only way out was through the unknown number of zombies waiting outside. We both gave each other a nod as if to confirm that we had to do what came next.

  I walked over to the door and clicked off the dead bolt. I stuck one of the hatchets in between my knees and stepped against the wall with one hand on the door handle. Ollie gave me a nod and I twisted the knob. The door flung open with so much force that it buried the handle into the sheetrock behind the door. Three of the undead rushed in.

  Ollie caught the first one with a backhand swing. The second one got an axe buried deep into the top of his skull. I hit the third one in the back of the knees with both of my weapons. It went down face first, and I followed it up with a blow to the back of its head. It all happened so fast I think both of us were shocked by how well we reacted. That almost cost us everything.

  A fourth showed up as we admired our handy work. It was our friend from the glass room. If he hadn’t been so messed up from his fight with the windows he might have gotten one of us. He lunged but, because the blood flowing from his wounds and over his eyes, he misjudged our position and dove in between us. We both realized the near miss and made up for our lapse with a quick strike to its head. The double impact eliminated any possibility of a second chance for him.

  The noise from our attacks and the unintentional squeal out of me by the near death experience attracted the rest of the creatures in the office to our location. I couldn’t see over the cubicles between me and the sound of the incoming attackers so I looked up at to Ollie.

  “How Many?”

  “Eight,” he answered, but showed no sign of worry at the numbers allied against us. “Let the first four in and then shut the door. After we kill them, we will let the other four in.”

  His statement left no room for debate. I could see the focus,and determination forming that had never been there before. I had no choice but to trust him.

  I ran to the door and yanked on it until it came free from the sheetrock. I waited and watched Ollie’s eyes as the zombies rushed us. His eyes widened the closer they came and, before I was ready, the first two sprung into the room. They both caught an axe to the head much as the first ones had. By the time they were falling to the ground, two more made it inside.

  Ollie screamed, “Now!”

  I slammed the door shut. He caught the first one right away, but the second was able to avoid his swing and tackled him. My heart skipped a few beats as I watched the two bodies tumble through the air in a deadly embrace. As I heard multiple impacts to the then closed doors, I watched as Ollie and the scantly clad female zombie tumble backwards over the desk. A scream rang out as they disappeared on the opposite side. It was Ollie and he was in trouble. I pushed my legs as fast as they could go and, when I came around the desk, I found Ollie on his back with one of the axes in his hands, holding back the chomping teeth of the zombie.

  I rushed forward and took a swing at the creatures head. I missed the head, but caught it in the shoulder. My hatchet struck deep.. It was stuck. That was all it needed it to give me its undivided attention. It jerked, ripped the hatchet free from my hands, and then lunged at me.

  As we tumbled backwards, I put up my weapon as a barrier against the gnashing teeth.

  Her head jerked violently to one side and I saw a large axe was stuck in the side of it. Her body went limp and fell right next to me. I helped it fall the rest of the way and quickly jumped up from the ground to get away.

  I looked down at it and recognized her instantly. It was Jenny. I sighed as the realization came to me.

  “Damn it. There goes any chance of that date now. Kind of kills your chances when you kill the girl you have a crush on,” I muttered.

  Even as the words left my mouth I knew it was in poor taste, but I was borderline losing my shit. What’s one bad joke in contrast to that?

  Ollie retrieved his axe from the side of her head. He picked it up and flung off the brain matter still stuck to it. With a grin, he looked at me and then to the door. If I had been paying attention I would’ve realized that he was losing it, but with all of the adrenaline and terror it escaped my notice.

  I moved into position next to the door and repeated the earlier strategy. It played out almost as it did the first time. The door flung open and the last four zombies rushed in. Ollie was a blur as he went into action. He almost didn’t need my help that time, but I jumped in anyway. I repeated my attack to the back of the legs of the zombie and ended its undead life with a hatchet to the back of the head. I looked up and watched as Ollie buried his axe into his last opponent.

  My heart raced and with the adrenaline surging through me, I felt I could take on any zombie left by myself. As the moments ticked by my body adjusted to it and I started to come off the high. I looked at the pile of bodies and started to feel remorse for the death we had dealt. Ollie, on the other hand, rode the wave of adrenaline a lot harder than I did. He had a look in his eyes that chilled me to the bone. Just as I was about to say something to him, a noise came from the corner of the office.

  I spun and noticed a large two-door cabinet in the corner of the room. It was obvious that the sound came from inside it as I could see it still vibrating and rattling a bit. Ollie came to the same realization as I did, but he was already in motion to attack it. I moved to intercept him, afraid that in his heightened state of alert he might be acting too fast and make a mistake that could cost him. I managed to grab him a step away from the cabinet. That almost cost me my life. He spun at my contact and reared his hand , readying a swing at me with his axe. I screamed his name before he could start the swing.

  That managed to snap him out of his rage and he slowly let the old Ollie come back to the surface. He shook his head before speaking.

  “Whoa, little dude. I wasn’t home for a minute there. Hope I didn’t scare you, bud.”

  “For a second there yeah, but it’s all good,” I answered as I patted his wrist.

  The cabinet shook and grabbed our attention again. He motioned for me to open the door and raised his axe up to get ready for the attack. I nodded in approval and positioned myself for the execution.

  I gripped one of the handles and hesitantly pulled down on it until I heard the click of the bolt. I yanked the door open and stepped out of the way. Ollie rushed forward swinging his axe over his head and down into the cabinet not giving our assailant a chance to attack first. The axe struck solid and made a deafening sound as it did. Then an ear-piercing scream followed. The scream was not what I was expecting, though. I leaned forward to see what had happened and was not prepared for what I saw next.

  Curled up as tight as could be on the bottom of the cabinet was a woman. The axe Ollie swung was lodged into one of the thick oak shelves above her and hadn’t made contact. Ollie tugged voraciously at the stuck axe until he realized it wasn’t coming out easily. Instead of quitting, he reached down to the floor and picked up his other axe to finish his attack. The woman didn’t move. Her lack of attacking and the fact that I could hear her crying told me she wasn’t a zombie. At least, not yet. I jumped in front of Ollie and, once again, almost became a casualty as he was back in his berserker rage.

  My attempt to block him was adequate at causing him to miss with his swing, but it threw him off balance and caused him to fall on top of me instead. I struggled to get him off me.

  “Dude, she’s not one of them.”

  My words broke through his fog and he relaxed. He stood up and, at the same time, helped me back onto my feet.

  “Man, that was brave, little dude. I could’ve crushed you.”

  I dusted my
self off and walked over to the cabinet, speaking to the woman inside.

  “You okay? have you been bit?”

  She lifted her head to look at me. Her face was badly streaked with running mascara from her tears but she looked in pretty good shape. She nodded in the affirmative and unfurled herself from the tight fetal position she was in. As she did, I recognized her, and how could I not? The enormous 38 DD breasts of hers and the size two waist were unmistakable.

  Trinity Bubbles was the biggest star from the end of the hall. Her pictures lined the walls in their office from end to end. I extended my hand to help her get to her feet. I wasn’t prepared for the extra weight her body enhancements added to her petite frame and was almost pulled down for my effort. As she stood, I found myself in the uncomfortable but enviable position of having my face at boob level only inches away. I had to step back to be able to see her face and gauge her condition.

  “Have you been bitten?” I reiterated as I finally found her eyes again.

  “No, I’m not into that kind of stuff,” she answered in a squeaky voice.

  My head hurt immediately at her comment as it dawned on me why she was in the adult film industry. Now, before anybody finds this and reads that last line, I need to clarify something. I had one of the most intelligent conversations in the lobby one day with one of the actresses employed by the porn company. She was working on her master’s degree in the field of astrophysics, but worked in the industry to pay off her school bills so I know not all the women are complete airheads. I also had to help one figure out how to push the elevator buttons to go to the floor she wanted after I watched her scream at the little speaker above the buttons for three minutes to take her to the thirteenth floor. There are all kinds that go into adult films, but the type standing in front of me was more common.

  I shook my head similarly to Ollie from earlier and tried again.

  “Did any of those creatures bite you?” I asked as I pointed to the zombies piled up around Tuck’s desk.

  “Oh God, no. I don’t do fetish movies. Too much makeup and the pay isn’t that good. Why are you filming in here, anyways?”

  My head pounded when I felt I was in a bad Abbott and Costello skit. I took in a deep breath and counted to only five instead of ten in my head. I rethought my plan and changed my questioning.

  “Why are you in here?”

  She thought for a moment and I swear I smelled smoke as the thoughts burned their way around her frontal lobes.

  “I always come in here and cry before filming starts,” she answered with a tone that hinted that this was common knowledge.

  “You come into Tuck’s office before you film every time Why do you do that?” I asked.

  “Tuck gives me words of encouragement so I can get through the filming.”

  “Why does Tuck do that?” I asked hesitantly, not sure I really wanted to know the answer.

  “Because he’s my big brother,” she said with a hint of pride in her voice.

  My jaw hit the floor and I looked over to Ollie to see if he was following this. The look on his face told me he wasn’t, but that didn’t shock me, to be honest. I turned back to her and thought long and hard about my next question before asking it.

  “Why would you come here to cry before going someplace else to film?”

  “Because it’s close to the roof door,” she said with no hesitation.

  Movement out of the corner of my eye made me turn to look at Ollie and I found him nodding as if all this made sense to him. “

  Do you have any idea what she is talking about?”

  Ollie changed his nod to a shake as I waited for him to clue me in. I dipped my head down and squeezed the bridge of my nose with my fingers as I felt a migraine coming on. That was when I lost my cool and changed my tactics.

  “Listen up, both of you. We have fucking zombies attacking us and I need some fucking answers now. Why is the roof being close to here important?” I screamed as I felt my vocal chords straining to keep up with my anger.

  “Because that’s where we’re shooting the movie at today, duh,” she replied condescendingly.

  “Who else is up on the roof? We could really use some reinforcements here.”

  “The whole crew is waiting for me up there. We’re shooting the big scene today. Wait, were you rehearsing your lines about zombies because nobody told me there would be zombies in this scene?”

  I ignored her question and looked over to Ollie for any help he could offer.

  He wasn’t paying any attention to our exchange. Instead, he was looking down at the floor with his hands up to his eyes like someone trying to see something far away would trying to shield their eyes from the sun.

  “What are you doing, man?” I asked.

  “Shhh, listen. Do you hear that?”

  I was about to answer him when a faint noise below my feet resonated upwards to my ears. I turned my ear towards the floor. At first, the sound was faint. Second by second, it grew until it was unmistakable. Screams, more specifically, the screams of the dying. One by one, calls for help rang out and they were abruptly silenced. I realized that we would be joining them if we didn’t do something. And fast.

  “Are they having a party on the twelfth floor?” Trinity asked.

  “Not even close. Listen, we need to get up to the roof. That may be our only chance to survive this.” I looked over and Ollie gave me an approving thumbs up.

  “Oh, you’re still in character. Okay, I get it.” Trinity responded before she closed her eyes and took a big breath. As she opened her eyes, she resembled someone trying to get into character. “But what about my table? You broke my table. Wait, I know how you can make it up to me. Follow me to the roof,” she said before she gave me a very bad wink.

  I thought about slapping her to get her to snap out of it, but there were two problems. The first was that I couldn’t reach her face over her enormous rack. The second, I didn’t think it would even work. So, I played along. I winked back to her and moved toward the large oak door. Thankfully, the screams from below us woke Ollie enough. He caught on very quickly to what I was doing.

  I carefully opened the large door and peeked out in the office, ready to slam it shut at any sign of more zombies. There was nothing. I held my breath as I scanned the room and was just about to relax when a large cawing sound bellowed out over the top of my head. It was the sound of a crow that almost stopped my heart. Then Ollie made the sound again.

  I looked up to find him towering above me and elbowed him in the thigh.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Just seeing if anybody is out there. Figured, if they were, they would respond back with a caw too.”

  I had no words, but the fact that there was no return sound, a caw or otherwise, told me nobody else was in the office.

  The walk through the deserted office was nerve wracking, but uneventful. I checked to make sure all three of us were ready as we approached the door leading out into the waiting room. Ollie was right on my tail, but Trinity was a little farther behind as she tiptoed trying to catch up. I could tell she was trying to act stealthy, but it actually resembled a scene from Scooby Doo. Reluctantly, I waited for her to catch up to us.

  Once we were reunited, I gradually turned the handle and peered into the waiting room. Blood trails ran across the floor and out the open door into the hallway. The knot in my throat at the sight made it hard to whisper to Ollie and Trinity. I finally forced out the words,

  “It’s all clear.”

  I slipped quietly across the room, and stood against the wall next to the open door. I cautiously peeked out and first looked towards Ollie’s office, then scanned the area leading to Trinity’s. The sight before me told a story of a massacre. Bodies were strewn throughout the corridor. With the bulk of them at the doors to the elevator and only a slightly smaller pile at the door to the stairwell. The people were torn to shreds. Arms were completely severed from bodies and lay feet away. There were bite marks where f
lesh was removed and devoured. One body, who I recognized as Ollie’s receptionist, was disemboweled and still bore a frozen silent scream on his face. The one thing missing were the perpetrators of the massacre. All the doors to the offices were shut, and I prayed they were locked inside them. I squinted down the hall toward Trinity’s office and noticed a small beam of sunlight shining from the side hall that led to the door to the roof.

  “I think the door to the roof is open, but I think that might be where the zombies went.”

  “Well, there’s only one way to find out, little man. Stay behind me and let me check,” Ollie answered. He stepped out into the hallway and held up, ready to strike.

  I followed him closely, not sure whether to give him room or not. As we made it halfway down the hallway, I turned to check on Trinity. She was still in the doorway of the office and looked about four shades whiter then she did before. She looked like she was about to scream. I nudged Ollie and told him to hold up for a moment before I rushed back over to her. I pushed her to take a step backwards into the office and out of sight of the carnage.

  “Its going to be okay. Just, please don’t scream.”

  She lowered her gaze down to me and spoke, “This isn’t a movie. This is real, isn’t it?” she asked.

  I just nodded, not sure how she was going to react to the truth. When she didn’t scream or faint or even run away, I spoke.

  “If we can get to the roof maybe your crew is still up there and we can get some help. Can you hold it together until then?”

  She didn’t say a word for several seconds. I was about to repeat the question when she sluggishly nodded her head.

  “Good. Now, stay close behind me and let’s see if we can get up there.”

  A few seconds later, we both caught up to Ollie and I motioned for him to continue.

  Carefully, we stepped over dead bodies and through the bloody remains we couldn’t identify. As we rounded the corner, I could see it was cracked open and gently swaying. On our side of the door was the body of a large man I thought I recognized from the union office. He was dead. The top half of his head had been gnawed off. Yet, he laid there against the door, slowly moving forward to the point the door would almost shut and then backward to where we could almost see what was on the other side pushing against him.