Donna of the Not Undead (...of the Not Undead Book 1)

by Bryan Mosier

  “Uh, that was…something” says Bryan.

  Hey, where’s Justin?” asks Brandon, huffing with adrenaline fueled excitement.

  “Shit! I forgot, he went in the ditch over there.”

  Running to where the other a.t.v. sits awkwardly in the drainage ditch they find Justin laying face up, in the ditch unmoving.

  “Shit, is he dead?” asks Brandon

  “Oh man I think he’s dead!” says Bryan, the panic in his voice rising.

  Stand back, says Brandon, as he lifts the katana blade over his head.

  “What the fuck are you doing, we don’t know if he’s dead. He might just be unconscious.”

  “We don’t want him coming back and being one of those ass biters.”

  “He wasn’t even bit, he won’t be a zombie” declares Bryan in a desperate attempt to de-escalate the situation.

  “Can’t take the chance, we gottado this.”

  As Brandon draws the sword high over head the others stand dumbstruck by the scene. In that moment, seeing the determination on Brandon’s face and feeling the dread in both their hearts, Alex and Bryan are relieved when they both hear the low, groaning sound as Justinmurmurs“MutherFuckerSonofBitchwhat just happened?”

  Realizing that Justin is still very much alive a feeling of joy comes over Alex, Bryan and Brandon, whose stoic face masks an intense sense of relief.

  After Justin manages to get to his feet, the four finally are able to take a moment to assess their situation. Looking at the wreckage of his own vehicle, Alex comes to the quick realization that his a.t.v. is obviously a complete and total loss and after pulling Justin’s from the ditch they realize that the front end is bent in such a way that steering the vehicle would be impossible.

  “Fuck, now what are we gonnado” declares Bryan, the worried tone returning to his voice.

  “I don’t know but we gottabe going soon, we’re easy pickins sitting out here in the open like this” says Alex as he instinctively scans the surroundings for anymore would be threats.

  “How much farther is it to Maynard’s?”

  “Not much. It should be just over that hill, maybe a quarter a mile or so.”

  “Well, that shouldn’t be a problem, we can walk that easy. Let’s go.”

  “Yeah, um,….yeah.Um…letsbe going then” says Alex, the hesitance in his voice belying the unsureness he feels for their current situation.

  “Who wants to ride with me.”

  “Oh no, that is okay you just, uh, you just kindascout ahead” says Bryan.

  “Yeah, but don’t go too far” adds Alex.

  With an excitement that revealsjust a little too much enthusiasm, Brandon simply yells“Woohooo” and zips off down the road.

  With a cautious look between them, it’s Bryan who puts to words what they’re all thinking“There’s something wrong with that boy”.

  Chapter 9

  Ragged, sore and limping, as the boys approach Maynard’s hardware store the unnatural silence becomes discomforting and the feeling that they are exposed out in the open space of the parking lot makes them nervous.

  “Dude, we need to get inside. We’re easy pickinsout here” says Bryan, looking round nervously, scanning for any would be zombie attacker ready to spring forth from around every corner.

  Walking up to the entrance of the store there is no clear evidence of anything being other than the norm. The dark tinted glass with the faded red letters of“Maynard’s Hardware” scrawled in a hand painted script is the same as it was every time one of the boys was forced to come with his father to get some tool or device to do yet anothertedious job that was really just another poorly veiled attempt at father/son bonding. Putting his face to the glass with his hands cupped at either side to block out the light, Justin tries to peer inside but can’t make out anything other than the fact that the glass doesn’t seem to have been cleaned in years.

  “Anything?” asks Alex.

  “I cannot see anything in there. For all we know it could be empty or it could be full of zombies. There really isno way to tell without going in.”

  “Okay, well then I guess we just have to go in then. Let’s just be really quiet until we scope out the situation.”

  Gently, Alex grabs the tarnished metal handle and slowly starts to open the door. As he pulls the door wider he begins to squeeze his way into the store until suddenly the silence is broken with a loud“ring a ling a ling”.

  “What the fuck!” exclaims Bryan in an angry whisper.

  Having forgottenabout the old Christmas bell that hangs year round over the entrance to Maynard’s that had become a make shift alarm for anyone entering or exiting the store, the boys jump at the sudden clanging of the bell. With a hushed“Shit” Alex tries to grab the bell to silence it but his frayed nerves coupled with his innate nerdish clumsiness he fumbles it awkwardly with the net effect of even more noise. In a last ditch effort to silence the bell he rips it from the single rusty bent nail holding it and wraps his arms around it using his body to muffle the sound. After a few moments of tense waiting to see if the noise attracted the attention of any would be undead assailants and coming to the conclusion that all was clear the boys enter the building. The image they find behind the tinted glass in one of complete and utter shock.

  As they enter the building, the bright fluorescent lights and gentle melody of canned music throws them off guard for a moment. It’s as If the world had not changed within the walls of the store. The shelves, neatly arranged with all sorts of things one would expect to find in a hardware store fill the aisles, stretching the full length of the building. Every aisle and shelf, labeled with each type of item that you would need to complete all sorts of mundane home improvements or repairs, are in immaculate order. The floor, the pale green and white tile cracked and broken in places, looks to have been mopped recently with no evidence of foot traffic to mar it surface. In fact the only thing that seems out of the ordinary is the absence of the gaggle of old men who routinely packed the space around the front counter to speak with Mr. Maynard about any and everything, hardware related or not.

  As Alex takes in the surrealnessof the moment his trance is suddenly broken by a cacophonous clattering sound behind him. Turning with a hard jolt, he looks to find Bryan, his accoutrement of defensive gear piled on the polished tile floor. “What are you doing?” he asks.

  “Dude, I drippinballs here” exclaims Bryan as he wipes streams of sweat from his forehead. “How does anybody wear this stuff and play sports? It’s freakincrazy.”

  Nodding in agreement the others shed their respective“armor”. Finding a box of heavy duty lawn trash bags they each store their gear, stashing it behind the checkout counter. Taking in the scene it’s Bryan who is first to note,“Okay, this is weird.”

  “Yeah, it’s like…I don’t know…kindalike everyone just disappeared and…and everything just stopped.” Shaking off the chill creeping up his spine, Alex refocuses,“Okay, well, I guess we need stock up then. Let’s split up and find some gear and meet back here in, say 10 minutes.”

  “Sounds like a plan” says Brandon as he starts to walk away.

  “Not you, Bub, I want you with me” says Alex, putting his hand on Brandon’s shoulder.

  “What?I can take care of myself!”

  “Maybe so but I don’t wanna take any chances. Mom would kill me ifI let you get eaten by zombies” he says with a slight smile, hoping to lighten the mood a bit.

  Upon the mention of his mother Alex sees that he has achieved the opposite effect. With the mention of their missing family horrible thoughts begin racing into Brandon’s mind that he had been trying to suppress all day. Seeing the concern in his little brother’s expression, Alex tries toreassure him,“Mom is fine. And so is dad and everybody else. We’ll find them soon enough.”

  “You don’t know that, for all we know they’re…they’re all arealready…”

  Its then that Alex realizes all the bravado of the past morning’s events has really
been a way for Brandon to keep his mind off what he was really trying to not think about. As tears start to well up in his brother’seyes Alex says,“Hey we know that they weren’t in the group of zombies at the house, right?

  “Yeah” says Brandon

  “And we know that the car wasn’t in the driveway so they had to have been able to get away if they needed to.“

  “Yeah.”

  “And that old clunker of dad’s is like a tank. Ain’t no undead piece of shit gonna be able to get at them in that behemoth.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right. Now come on you little taint licker, let’s get to work.”

  “Okay ya big taint licker.”

  With a smile and the obligatory“Not…a taint licker” Alex puts his arm around his little brother as they start walking down the aisle labeled ”Plumbing” when Brandon says,“Hey look, maybe we can find something to fix that leaky anus of yours”.

  As Justin walks down the aislelabeled in bold yellow block letters“Power Tools” all sorts of possibilities start flashing through his mind. A cordless power saw with the safety guard removed has potential for doling out some serious facial trauma. Unable to resist the moment, Justin picks up the little orange device, putting the end of the bar with its razor sharp teeth up to his face. Dropping his voice by several octaves he quietly, but with mock swagger says to himself“Grooooovy”. Looking it over, considering the pros and cons of the device he decides that it’s not for him. “No, that would require being a little too close to the enemy for comfort and besides, what happens if the battery goes dead right in the middle of a melee.” Looking over to the next shelf he sees the tried and true staple of zombie movies, the ever popular chain saw. Pontificating to himself he continues,“Everybody knows that the chainsaw is a rube’s choice for any kind of zombie killing action. For one, it is noisy and that is most definitely going to draw in more zombies. Also, it requires two hands to use. You can only deal with one undead at time and that leaves you open to attack from other directions. And, like the power saw, it is an up close and personal type of weapon. Not ideal when dealing with more than one or two enemies. Now here we go, the bastard cousin of the chainsaw, the tree trimmer. Not nearly as noisy and with the neat little chain saw at the end of a telescoping arm to keep the biters at a safe distance it makes liberating any flesh eaters of their cranial burden a much safer endeavor. But what about gas? Hmmm, surely there is still plenty of gas around, right? Maybe we could siphon it from a car or something, I mean they do it in the movies all the time. How hard could it be? That isdefinitely a maybe.” As he turns the corner his eyes fall upon what he instantly assesses as what might just be the perfect zombie killing apparatus. With a look of lustful awe Justin sees hanging from the shelves a beautiful yellow and black example of engineering genius, a cartridge fed air nailer. “Oh myyyy, my. Hello there you beautiful thing you.” Lifting it from the shelf with a gentleness befitting an instrument of surgical importance, Justin pauses to consider the possible functions of such a beautiful contraption. “As is you simply put it to the forehead of any would be undead assailant and bam, instant cerebral perforation but with a few slight modifications to disable the safety mechanism it becomes a decent, albeit short range, projectile weapon. The air cartridges are fairly small and with plenty of ammo it should be easy to carry. A piece of cake. Well after reading the instructions and figuring out how the whole thing works that is. Oooh, and there istwo of them so you know what that means…DUAL WIELD! And you know what that means. Double the damage bonus!”

  Lost in the euphoric wonder of his find and imagining the jealousy of the others when he comes back with such an awesome weapon, Justin fails to notice the slight movement of the display banner hanging over his head, as if a small gust of wind had caught it. Loading up his arms with his bounty he catches a slight movement of something resembling a human figurereflecting in the chrome of the tools hanging in front of him. As he turns he starts to say“Hey guys, I got dibs on this stu…” Catching a glimpse of a dark figure as it seems to be swinging a baseball bat at his head Justin feels a sense of confusion and disorientation just as a searing pain shoots through his head. Then his world goes dark.

  Bryan, having commandeered a shopping cart finds himself walking down the hand tool aisle with a casualness that belies the apocalyptic state of the world outside. Looking over the selection of tools neatly hanging from the white perforated peg board of the metal framed shelves he finds himself in somewhat of a conundrum of having too many options to choose from. From the long pointed screwdrivers to the heavy crow bars to the unwieldy sledge hammers he is presented with a smorgasbord of potential weapons of mass zombie destruction. “Ooh, that looks nice” he says to himself, having spied a beautiful Eastwing claw hammer, it nickelplated metal head and blue rubber grip shining like a new penny in the fluorescent light. “That will surely ruin the day of any zombie that gets within arm’s reach” he says as he drops it into the already heavily burdened shopping cart, the metal clanking as it comes to a rest. “I still want something with a little more flair. That’s a nice looking hatchet there, might be good in a pinch” he says to himself as he picks one up and throws it in his cart.

  As Bryan approaches the home maintenance section, his eyes fall on the very item he’s been looking for. “There we go, now were talking”. Reaching over a pile of loose wooden replacement handles for an assortment of different home and garden tools Bryan pulls the last of an odd looking, long handled device from a bin that once held a plethora of identical tools. Letting his eyes slowly caress the object of his desire, its five foot brushed metal aluminum handle capped with a black ergonomic foam grip is perfectly engineered. Culminating at the other end in a four-inch razor blade mounted onto a heavy steel blockarmature, it’s the perfect weapon for fighting off the undead.“A floor scraper! Freakin A! Just like the one Fredhad!” Fred was the elderly custodian at school whose job it was to keep the school looking presentable. Not an easy task when you have nearly six hundred raving lunatics a.k.a. teenagers roaming the halls creating havoc and chaos on a daily basis. Fred could be seen wandering the halls throughout the day with his floor scraper in one hand and a can of compressed liquid coolant in the other. Every few steps he would bend over and spray the coolant on a spot on the floor and the use the scraper to get the now frozen wad of heavily trampled bubble gum off the floor.“Wonder what happened to Fred?” he asks aloud. Carefully peeling off the protective rubber strip to expose the razor sharp edge underneath, Bryan begins to daydream about the many exciting ways he can use this treasure to relieve a host of zombies from their undeadness.

  Lifting the scraper he grasps the black foam grip with both hands, extending the razor sharp end outward as if holding a sword. Slowly he starts to sway the sharp metal blade side to side creating an imaginary infinity symbol in the air with the bladed end. “Shhhzwoooom….Shhhzwoooom. Luke, I am your father” he says out loud, his voice a taking on a deep resonating tone.

  Lost in his imaginary world of science fiction glory, Bryan is unaware of the approaching figure slowly stalking up behind him. With a gentle tap on his shoulder, Bryan is jerked from his daydreaming splendor and turns to see a dark figure standing before him. Standing silently the figure calmly stares at Bryan, their eyes lock for a brief moment. Dressed in what looks like bulky army fatigues, with the notable addition of a knit black ski mask that reveals only a pair of starkly piercing green eyes still locked on him, the figure does not present as that intimidating of a physical threat. Covered in a bulky coat buttoned up tight and cargo pants with knee high military style boots, this masked individual is obviously very slight in frame standing just over five feet tall and probably weighing barely a buck ten at best. After the initial jolt of being startled subsides, Bryan hesitantly starts,“Uh, hello. Um, you’re, like, not a zombie right? Slowly tilting its head to the side, the figure’s eyes change focus, seemingly looking through Bryan, it’s only movement a slight
nod. Bryan continues“Hey, me and my buddies aren’t here to hurt anybody. We just…” but stops suddenly as he feels a sharp pain as if something had hit him hard against the back of the head. Grabbing the back of his head in pain he looks at the figure, trying to make sense of the situation. With his eyes losing focus as he begins to fall into unconsciousness his confusion only increases as he sees the dark figure in front of him leap into the air completing a perfect pirouette that ends with a foot planting firmly against his chest. Feeling the hard rubber sole of the boot planting hard against his sternum and with the vertigo of a sudden sensation of falling backwards he feels himself landing hard into the shopping cart behind him. As the darkness finally takes hold he hears a soft voicesay“That’s two, only two left. Let’swheel this one back and get him stowed away”.

  When Alex and Brandon began making their way down the plumbing aisle, it wasn’t’ long before Alex started to think that maybe they chose the wrong part of the store. Full of nothing but different types of plastic and metal pipes and a bunch of assorted fittings and clamps he has no idea what they went to or were used for. Quickly deciding that they should move on to a different aisle he nudges Brandon on the shoulder indicating that they should move on to a more lucrative part of the store. Brandon on the other hand seemed to be perfectly fine with their choice and was quickly grabbing all sorts of seemingly random odds and ends from the shelves.

  “Come on, this stuff is useless” whines Alex.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about” says Brandon,“This is a gold mine.”

  “It’s just a bunch of stupid pipe and junk. What are you gonna do, make a blow gun? That’ll really take a zombie down” say Alex in a mocking tone.

  “That’s actuallynot a bad idea” says Brandon, lifting up a long piece of rigid plastic pipe and placing it to his lips before giving a quick puff of air to test its effectiveness.“Maybe if we had…” he starts but is quickly lost in thought as something else catches his attention.