Lockdown: A collection of ten terror-filled zombie stories

by mike Evans

  Ollie moved cautiously to inspect it, and we followed. making sure to give him room if he started swinging his axes. As I stopped short to allow him his room. Trinity almost knocked me to the ground. I caught myself and turned to look at her.

  “Sorry. I can’t see you so well down there,” she whispered as she pointed to her bosom.

  I almost laughed, but it was at that moment I heard the gargled throaty growl of something on the other side of the door.

  Ollie peered through the crack and before I could ask him what it was, he turned and screamed, “Run!”

  We made it back to the main hallway when I heard the door slam open and more growls join the first one. As I was about to turn and head back to Amanda’s office, Ollie’s large hand clamped down on my shoulder. I was shoved to the side and, before I could ask what he was doing, Trinity was pushed into me. We were both shoved into the small gap that used to hold a water fountain around the corner.

  “Stay there. I’ll lead them away. Get to the roof and wait for me.”

  He grabbed the fake plant that stood next to the elevator door and slid it to over to hide us.

  If there had been more time to argue with him I would have, but the first zombie came around the corner. Ollie took off down the hallway, screaming and waving his arms in the air. I felt Trinity shaking from fear, but I had to hand it to her. She held it together and didn’t make a sound as zombie after zombie shuffled past us. A couple of them brushed up against the fake plant and it almost fell over. I was able to grab one of the branches and pull it back into position before it did. I counted as each one passed by. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and then no more. I could still hear Ollie screaming to them to follow. After several seconds passed and I didn’t hear anymore footsteps coming, I slowly pushed the plant out of the way and stepped out of the nook. I leaned over and looked down the hall to where Ollie ran, but saw no sign of him. Trinity joined me and then we looked around the corner to the roof door. It was wide open and quiet. I ran as fast as I could and, as we approached the door, I saw what was playing counter balance to the man on the door earlier. It was one of the film crew, dead with his face completely eaten off. I could only tell that it was one of the film crew by the t-shirt he was wearing that had the image of the porn studios Camel mascot on it. I tried to move the body, but in its blood covered state it was too slippery and heavy for me to move by myself. Trinity pushed past me and hurried up the stairs, calling out for the rest of the crew as she did. I tried to shush her, but the loud stomping and her calls drowned out my voice. I knew we had to get that door shut or we would be open game for the zombies if the returned. Then I heard them.

  The growls came first and then footsteps as they sloshed through the viscera covering the floor. After a few more tugs I realized I wasn’t going to be able to move the body. I gave up and headed for the roof. The scene up top mimicked the scenes in the hall. The film crew was decimated and I found Trinity on her knees sobbing. Knowing I didn’t have much time, I scanned the roof for anything that would help. The first thing that caught my attention was a helicopter sitting in the middle of the roof. Then I saw tarps and tents set up with different sets in each of them. There was one made to look like a kitchen, one like a bedroom, and one that looked like a back patio with a hot tub. There was a table in the middle that was covered in every imaginable toy you could use in an adult film. At the end of that table were three large one-gallon bottles with a push down spout. At first, I thought they were bottles of hand sanitizer but upon closer inspection, I read the words Evans Water based lubricant and the slogan below them, “Nothing is slicker than Evans.”

  I almost laughed at the sight of that much lubricant. Then it hit me.

  I picked up two of the bottles and ran back to the stairwell with them. I unscrewed the caps off and placed them at the end of the first step. Then I waited.

  The footsteps and groans grew closer and I found myself holding my breath as something finally came around the corner. It was Ollie and he was covered in sweat and gore. I breathed out a small sigh of relief.

  “Come on, get up here. I have a plan, I yelled out.

  Ollie turned to face me and the look he gave me told me everything I needed to know before I ever saw the large chunk of meat missing from his forearm.

  “Too late for me, little dude, but I’m going to take as many as I can before I go.”

  He then turned and started swinging the one axe he had left as zombie after zombie came into view. He got five more before they overwhelmed him.

  He screamed once and then no more as the last two dove on top of him and tore out his throat with their teeth. The scene left me frozen, and I almost fainted when Trinity came up beside me.

  “What are you going to do with those?” she asked pointing to the two bottles in front of me.

  That snapped me out of my daze and I leapt into action. I picked the bottles up and walked down as far as I could with them. Then I started pouring them onto the stairs, sweeping side to side as I coated each one completely I repeated the action until both bottles were empty and I standing on the roof.

  The sun glistened off of the lube-covered steps and I threw one of the bottles down the stairs, hitting one of the zombies in the head with it that was still eating my friend.

  “Fuck you. Fuck you all, you stupid mother fucking monsters.!” I screamed as the emotion of the day finally boiled out of me.

  I stood there, ranted, and spit for several more minutes. I didn’t realize the hilarity of the plan until then as the zombies tried over and over to come up the stairs, kept slipping and falling each time. By the time my rant ended, my voice started to crack and I felt the anger of the moment starting to pass. It was then that I noticed there was only one zombie still trying to come up the stairs. The other one had finally taken such a hard fall that he cracked his head wide open and spilt his brains all over the floor.

  Trinity nudged me and wrapped her arm around me. We walked over to the edge of the building, looking out over the city of Chicago. Buildings were on fire and the streets below were filled with abandoned cars and dead bodies. That was when I realized how big this really was. Nobody was going to be coming for us. There would be no rescue attempt. It was going to be up to me to get us off that building.

  Trinity stood there with her big Bambi eyes, looking at the same thing. I wasn’t sure she really knew what was going on. I glanced back at the helicopter behind us and hoped it wasn’t just a prop put up there for movie making.

  “Do you know if that thing works?” I asked her.

  “Yeah, they just flew it up here today,” she answered.

  I grinned for the first time in hours. The helicopter flying lessons I took last summer were going to finally pay off. I thought about jumping straight into it and flying us out of there but, as I looked around the roof, my grin grew wider.

  I’m trapped on a roof with a porn star and three porn sets. Plus a full gallon of lube. What the Hell am I in a hurry for? Might as well enjoy the apocalypse with a view, I thought as I looked over at my fellow survivor.