The previously deserted library was more crowded than she had ever seen before. A few teenage boys were standing in the small lobby and staring outside through the closed glass doors. Two of them were holding baseball bats, one aluminum, the other made of wood, and both pieces of athletic equipment were filthy with what appeared to be splatters of red paint and tufts of hair stuck on the surface. The teens were talking quietly, as if the library rules of silence were still in play, as they kept intently watching the entrance.
She heard a soft whirring motor nearby and turned to watch a skinny boy steer his wheelchair past her. Behind the chair a typical looking child's red wagon was pulled along by a length of twine. Inside the wagon, she glimpsed several shiny golf clubs, squirt guns, and a collection of library books.
She was going to ask the boy in the wheelchair something, though the questions were still forming. What the heck is going on? Or maybe she'd mention that it was against the rules to bring that wagon inside the library when she heard someone gently, yet insistently, whacking the bell at the Circulation Desk.
I HATE that damn bell, she thought while turning toward the desk. More often than not, when it was dinging, she'd either be using the bathroom or shelving books. Her back hurt, she was tired and irritable, and the injuries to her midsection made moving quickly an impossibility. “STOP that! I'm coming!” Brianna yelled furiously.
Despite the unusual presence of what looked like a dozen or more kids and teens busily moving about and gathering books the library had been nearly silent, except for the bell.
Her shouting caused several of the children and teens to leap as if genuinely terrified, but then most of them turned and appeared furious as they loudly whispered at her.
“Shush,” was what she heard mostly. Although one of the older teens standing near the doors glared at her and whispered angrily, “Shut the hell up, stupid.”
She was tempted to say something back but wasn't exactly sure how to respond.
The boy who was ringing the bell smiled up at her as she got behind the circulation desk.
He spoke in a hushed voice. “Hi, my name's Jack. Here's my library card. We need help gathering up some books.” He held out a plastic library card and a slip of crumpled paper with a long list of scribbled book titles. She took the list and saw several titles that were unknown to her: ‘Valley of Death- Zombie Trailer Park? Zombies of the Caribbean? Foxfire Survivalist Series’, and a few others. Many other titles were generic and more like simple subject headings: ‘Makeshift weapons, first-aid, maps of Southern Louisiana, and the occult.’
These kids are nuts, she thought and turned to the land-line phone. She ignored the boy as he urgently whispered, “We're kind of in a hurry.”
Brianna grunted in disgust after dialing 911 and got the same infuriating recorded message then after being automatically put on hold she heard a muzak version of Henry Mancini's Baby Elephant Walk begin playing.
There was a metallic clinking noise near the windows and by the time she turned nearly all the metal blinds had been lowered by other kids and blocked out the sunlight.
“Do you have these books? We really don't have much time. Our scout leader is out picking up the rest of our Wilderness Scout tribe and we need to hurry things up. Her bus will be pulling up soon and then we've got to get out of here,” Jack impatiently whispered.
Brianna hung up the phone and said, “I've had a bad day, kid. An old man I know has... apparently gone crazy and attacked me. You kids should just leave now in case he gets loose.”
Jack's eyes opened wide and he turned toward the trio of baseball bat toting teens. “Travis, I think there's one of them in here. Hurry up and go check it out.”
“You're not my boss,” Travis said while cautiously walking into the library then asked, “Where is he?”
“He's trapped in the Youth Section, but don't go there. I'll call 911 again.”
Travis grunted, “Yeah, good luck with that,” before hurrying toward the Youth Section.
“Lift your shirt up,” a girl carrying a first aid kit said to Brianna.
“How long ago were you bitten?” Jack asked?
“I'm not lifting my shirt up, and I wasn't bitten. He just sort of ummm-,” gummed at my butt for a while is what she almost said then went with, “...he sort of clawed and tickled my sides.”
“Jack, go help the others find the books,” the girl said as if understanding that Brianna didn't want to lift her shirt in front of a young boy.
Jack nodded but before leaving the desk he said, “Alright, but listen, if this lady starts acting weird or gets bitey, get away from her and let the guys at the door take her out.”
Brianna hoped she misheard or misunderstood what the boy just said. “Ummm, who the heck are you guys?” She asked after Jack left to follow Travis toward the Youth Section, and the girl lifted up Brianna's shirt enough to see the scratches and scrapes on the left side.
“I'm Cathy, that was Jack, and we’re members of the Wilderness Scouts, tribe 1301,” the girl said then opened a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and poured some onto a gauze pad. “This might sting a bit,” she added before applying the pad to the scrapes.
“CRAP!” Brianna shouted, which prompted another chorus out shushing noises from the kids.
“You really need to be quiet. There were a bunch of them wandering out in the park when we got here. That's why we shut the blinds,” Cathy whispered.
“There was a bunch of who in the park?” Brianna asked as the girl taped a fresh gauze pad over the scratches she'd just treated.
Cathy didn't answer immediately. She just moved to Brianna's other side and said, “You're lucky, only a couple of these are very deep. How do you feel? What's your name? Do you know today's date and where you are?”
“I'm... I'm confused. Of course I know who and where I am. This is the Charenton Public Library, right here in Louisiana, and I'm the librarian. Miss Brianna Keene. Now you tell me, who was there a bunch of out in the park?”
Cathy poured more hydrogen peroxide on a fresh pad and warned, “Don't yell this time,” before applying it to the untreated scratches.
Brianna gritted her teeth and recalled what Mr. Schwartz said the day before after watching a news update. “Idiots. Trust me on this, Miss Brianna, the government is like a clogged, overflowing, toilet filled with the most idiotic people on God's green earth. Guess what some over-educated jackass from the Environmental Protection Agency just said at a press conference? Professor Jackass said the EPA is convinced, without any scientific evidence mind you, that the rioting and craziness breaking out all over the world is a result of global-fucking-climate-change.” He'd laughed for a few moments and shook his head in disbelief before continuing. “It doesn't matter what happens- earthquake, too much rain, not enough rain, someone eats a bad meal and has explosive diarrhea, crazy people running around killing and even sometimes eating each other, whatever it is going wrong they blame it on cows farting and everybody screwing up the environment. Trust me, on this. Even if Jesus Christ appeared surrounded by a heavenly host of angels and said climate-change is a natural part of his father's plan and human activity doesn't hurt earth, them over-educated idiots would still cling to their crappola faith in Gore.”
She only smiled and nodded at the time. There were many things that seemed goofy to her regarding politics and climate-change rhetoric but she still liked the idea of less pollution. Although the belief that the weather and temperature changes could somehow explain the growing number of riots, violence, murder, and apparently even cannibalism, did indeed seem idiotic. But one of the last things she remembered him clearly saying yesterday was nearly identical to what Cathy said while taping on a fresh pad. “Those crazy people running around on TV aren't alive. There are zombies everywhere, even here. Out in the park there's got to be a few dozen running around.”
Brianna saw the girl appeared close to crying and promised with an assurance she didn't feel, “No, whatever is happening, it's no
t zombies. It can't be.”
“Your shirt is ruined. Have you read any of the books about the characters printed on it?” Cathy asked with an upraised skeptical looking eyebrow.
Brianna considered her shirt with the names printed on the front: ‘Sherlock Holmes, The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, Miss Marple, Mike Hammer, Hercule Poirot’, and the question ‘Haven't got a clue what to read?’ She nodded and said, “Most of them, yes.”
“Listen lady, I didn't want to accept reality either. But I saw my dad last night. He was bleeding when he got home and barely made it inside the house before he fell dead. There were bites all over his arms, big chunks of muscles had been chewed away, and his veins were visibly shredded. I knew there was nothing I could do to save him. He just died, right there on the living room floor. My mom kept calling 911 and saying everything would be alright. I was crying and ran to the kitchen to throw up in the sink. Then I heard my mom screaming.
What's funny is even before all that happened; some of the guys in the tribe were already saying what was on the news looked like a bad zombie movie.”
“From where I was in the kitchen I saw my dead father, my definitely dead father, grabbing and biting into my mom's chest. I ran away and found my scout leader. She's the only reason we're all still alive. So, listen up, lady. When I tell you the town and the frigging park is full of gosh-darn zombies don't you dare look at me like I'm crazy.” Cathy's voice sounded choked up as she told her tale and tears rolled down her cheeks.
Brianna glanced over at the closed blinds covering the row of windows, saw shadows cast over them from what might have been people moving around outside. She didn't want to believe that there were actual zombies wandering about just beyond the glass and blinds. It was difficult to accept and she started walking over to see for herself. After taking only a single tentative step she stopped and took all the evidence into consideration, including her encounter with the apparently dead yet still sort of alive Mr. Schwartz. The news casts, the cities full of murderous cannibal maniacs, all the children in the library gathering books on survival and zombies, and then she shuddered as it finally sank in and began to take root. A part of her, the most stubborn and skeptical part, valiantly struggled to come up with another possibility. But nothing else made sense or fit the evidence.
A series of frightening, gross, and violent images from a myriad of films and television shows flashed through her mind as she realized and accepted the unlikely fact. There really are zombies, and this is just the beginning. She was a bit surprised not to feel her stomach churn in response to the thought then whispered a quote she knew by heart that was spoken by Detective Sherlock Holmes. “When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
“Congratulations, ma'am.” The raincoat wearing TV detective said. “Seems to me you've not only survived a battle against a real monster, which I'm not sure I could have pulled off, but finally managed to face the hard truth. I knew you could do it. After all, as my wife sometimes tells me, denial ain't just a river in Egypt.”
William Bebb
Founder of Hands on Productions and Publications- HOPP -William Bebb enjoys basket weaving and spinning tales about tiny aliens, Sasquatch, giant pink rabbits, and, of course zombies.
"I've always enjoyed a well written story or film that involves 'the living impaired', or mores concisely normal folks struggling against the undead. To date, I've savagely pounded my computer keyboard until eight novels vomited out and were placed online. Some are absolutely free, others not, but I'm very proud of all my books. I believe at this time three of them are FREE to download and read. If you enjoy the tales perhaps you'll suggest them to your friends...or enemies if you have no friends.
https://sites.google.com/site/hoppublications/home
The Worst That Could Happen
By Glynn James
Alice slumped forward, exhausted, but then almost immediately pulled herself back upright again. It was too uncomfortable to just hang there.
Bastards, she cursed, though she wondered afterwards if she’d said the words aloud or thought them. Bastards.
How long had it been since they took the chair away? Ten hours, at least. It had to be that long, though it was becoming more difficult to judge time with each passing minute. She’d thought her situation was bad, but taking the chair away had made it much worse.
She guessed she’d been locked in the room for a minimum of two weeks. The only light in the place was from the bulb, hanging in the middle of the room, and they only switched that on when they came to check on her or feed her. Other than that, she could see a thin strip of daylight along the bottom of the door at the other end of the room, some thirty feet away.
Her fault, he’d said – the man she now called BugFace on account of his strange eyes. They seemed to bulge out of their sockets so far that she wondered how they didn’t fall out. He was a creepy looking guy – very tall, with a shaven head and a bushy beard that nearly reached his waist. All of those things would have made her nervous around him but those eyes were what really did it. It was difficult to tell whether he was angry or just plain crazy.
Her fault.
This was about as shitty as it got. This was the worst that could happen.
But don’t worry about it, she told herself. After this, everything else in life is going to be easy. This is as bad as it can get, and you can get through it.
She supposed that if she hadn’t been caught trying to escape then they wouldn’t have taken the chair away.
At least they could have fetched a different one – one that didn’t have a sharp edge on the back. It’s not like they could blame her, really, was it? Two weeks tied up in that room, barely spoken to, and fed mush every few hours. It would be enough to send anyone nuts.
The other guy actually made her more nervous because he was good looking. Sure, he was a little short in her opinion. Of course, his looks had been the problem, hadn’t they? She had spoken to him in that bar, and now he wasn’t a cute guy trying to talk to her. He was some crazy, who, with the help of BugFace, had brought her to this…place.
She’d wondered many times during her captivity where the place was. She spent most of each day alone. The two men didn’t stay in the building, or if they did they made no noise, and she couldn’t hear traffic outside, only the wind. The room wasn’t in a house, she thought. It looked more like the back room in a warehouse somewhere, or maybe a barn. Litter was strewn across the floor, the carpet was worn and dirty, and the paint on the walls – once a bright blue, she thought – was now cracking and falling off in strips.
She felt a drip of sweat fall from her chin and run down the front of her shirt. Ten hours. That was longer than usual. At least one of them would normally visit her every couple of hours. It was hot in the room, and she’d nearly fallen asleep several times just sitting on the floor. But the bugs put her off.
Cockroaches. I hate cockroaches, she thought.
There were dozens of them wandering around, skittering into holes in the wall and then skittering back out again.
At least they’re free to come and go, she thought.
The creatures’ constant presence was what had kept her awake. They hadn’t bothered her when she was sitting on the chair, even when she slept, but for some reason if she fell asleep on the floor at the foot of the pillar, where the men had moved her after her little escape attempt, the nasty things crawled all over her. Waking up to find one of them on her face was not a memory she would enjoy.
She dozed again, hanging forward with her feet against the base of the column. It meant she was straining her arms, but at least it kept her off the floor. But she couldn’t last very long like that. Her arms started to throb. Before she closed her eyes, she noted a single cockroach on the carpet in front of her, sitting right in the middle of a stained but elaborate pattern of swirls in the crusty pile.
She snapped awake, wondering how long she had been asleep. She glanced do
wn and found that the cockroach in the middle of the carpet hadn’t moved. Wait. Maybe it had moved a little.
Just a few moments, she thought. You weren’t out for very long.
She cringed, pulled herself back up onto her feet, and groaned at the ache in her shoulders.
They have to come soon, she thought. I’m starving.
There was noise in the distance, and Alice sighed with relief.
How could you be relieved that they are back?, she thought. Assholes. Asshole kidnappers.
But the noise was there again; the grating sound that usually came when they were opening a gate outside or maybe the main gate to the building. She didn’t know, but it was a sign that they were coming and would be there soon.
At least they haven’t done anything to me, she thought. During her first few days of captivity she had been terrified of that. The younger guy – the looker – she had definitely caught him staring at her chest a few times. But after a couple of days he stopped doing it. He seemed to have lost interest. She’d named him Gawk.
I must stink, she thought. And I’m dirty. Damn, I need a shower.
The door opposite finally opened and the two men bustled in, but they weren’t carrying anything with them. No bag with food or drink in it, nothing.
“Holy fuck, man,” said the younger guy, the one she thought of as Gawk. “Did you see that shit? Did you see it?”
BugFace was cursing, and he slammed the door as he followed Gawk into the room. “See it? Look at my fucking arm, you eejit. That fucker bit me! I mean. You know? He actually bit me. Drew blood and everything.” He held up his arm and pulled back his sleeve to show Gawk.
All Things Zombie: Chronology of the Apocalypse Page 7