“It’s a key card and only the pharmacists have it,” Keith said. “We normally place our orders from this side.”
They both looked across the room at the pharmacy counter. Bullet-proof glass stretched to the ceiling and there were bars as well.
“Well, this is going to be tricky,” Jack said, pondering the problem.
When a hand clamped around his ankle, Keith yelled and tried to pull away. Since the body it belonged to was just a head and a bit of torso with arms, it was light. When Keith tried to pull away, the partial body just moved with him. The whole time, the dead thing was doing its best to bite into Keith’s leg. Keith quickly switched tactics and used his free foot to stomp down on the corpse’s head, crushing the skull with a sound that he was sure would haunt his dreams. Breathing hard, he backed away.
“Well, lucky us, we found ourselves half a pharmacist,” he said, pulling at a bloody lab coat that was partially under the table. He carefully searched the blood-soaked pockets.
“Nothing,” he said. He looked around the room until his eyes lit on the body in the corner. When he walked over, he saw that it was actually the lower half of the pharmacist. Making a face, he dug through the pockets, finally producing a key card.
~*~
The moaning became louder. Eric slowly became aware of it, but it mixed with his dream state as his subconscious simply reasoned it away. The creature once called Mom peeked over the bed, pulling her way up the blankets with one hand, dragging the other meatless arm and legs behind her. She clamped down when she sensed she was near fresh meat, but she only got a mouthful of leather boot. She pulled on the bed sheets, slithering even closer to that thing that possessed her soul; flesh.
Eric’s mind could no longer give excuses for the moaning at the foot of the bed and the occasional bounce of the bed springs.
The duct tape must have come off Cheri’s mouth, he thought to himself, now starting to awaken. But the movements on the bed didn’t make sense. He was sure he’d securely fastened her to the chair.
Any last remnants of slumber were jarred from Eric’s body as teeth clamped onto his leg, sending pain shooting through to his brain. Instinctively, he kicked, sending the crawling cadaver flying off the bed. Cursing, he pulled up his pant leg and examined his leg carefully. It felt like he had been bitten with such force that the bone had been severed, but the thick cloth of the security uniform had kept her teeth from penetrating the skin. He could tell already, he was going to have a massive bruise.
His thoughts were interrupted by another moan. He looked over the side of the bed and saw that the creature in his mother’s body had overcome its minor setback and was again inching toward the bed. Eric grabbed his bloody sword off the floor and walked toward the aberration that had once been his mother.
“Mom, don’t take this personally,” he stated calmly as he ran the sword through her right eye, causing her to spasm for a couple of seconds, then relax. He turned to Cheri and removed the tape from her mouth. He offered her what little blood and tissue was on the sword, but she didn’t seem interested, instead focusing on Eric.
“Now you’re just being picky,” he said. Cheri responded by having some sort of spasm. Her body jerked and her jaw began to thrust forward, her head still held firm to the chair by the duct tape. A glob of undigested flesh mixed with green foam spewed from her mouth and down her gown. Eric stood back and pulled his shirt up over his mouth to try to mask the stench that followed the vomited mass.
“I take it you’re full,” Eric said.
Cheri replied by staring at Eric, jaws open.
“You may not be hungry, but I am. Surprised I’m not in a coma because of my blood sugar.”
He would have liked to stay in his little world that he had created for himself, but his hunger once again overrode his emotion. He started upstairs, but the chorus of moans coming from behind the door told him that he would be in for a major confrontation. He wasn’t sure he felt up to any heroics in his state of near starvation.
The door separating the apartment from the upper floor was metal, in compliance with fire code. Eric had argued with the inspector at the time, thinking the extra expense of a metal door was unnecessary when they had a perfectly good hollow core door in place already. It hadn’t been his money, of course, but he had known that the budget was tight and he had been concerned that there wouldn’t be enough left for him to have internet installed downstairs. Now the metal door was the only thing between him and several hungry creatures. Since it would not offer him an escape route, he would have to go out the window.
~*~
Jack looked at the crushed corpse on the floor.
“Guess I missed that one. Good thing you weren’t wearing slippers.
“We both missed it,” Keith said, glancing down at the body. “I’ll bet we won’t make that mistake again.”
“Suppose we could get Ernie to come down here and clean up before this place becomes a health hazard?” Jack asked, knowing the answer already.
Keith laughed, wiping the gore from his shoe on the deceased man’s clothing. “Maybe, if we promise him the time and a half he asked for.”
Jack stuck his head out into the hall and told Lindsey and Autumn that it was safe to come in.
Pulling out the list, Keith flattened it on the table so that they could all see it. He put a pen next to it and said, “Just mark off anything you find that’s on the list. Everything should be alphabetical except for the stuff in the refrigerator and the narcotics.”
Keith started to get the things on the highest shelves, since he was the tallest.
Jack reached into his pocket and again pulled out his reading glasses and looked at the list, then began to look for bottles on the shelf.
Autumn headed to the refrigerator. “I know what I need.”
They filled the cart with a two day supply of the items on the list.
“I wish we could clear the bottom floor, too,” Keith said as he started to push the cart out the door. “It would be nice to take in other survivors but it would be tough to get them up to the second floor.”
“Not to mention, that’s where the food is,” Lindsey reminded him.
“Unfortunately, our Follow the Leader trick wouldn’t work on the first floor and we’re just about out of ammo,” Jack said.
“Maybe we could convince Eric to bring us some, if he’s still alive, that is,” Keith replied.
“It’s worth a shot,” Jack replied, as he keyed his radio.
“Eric, you copy?”
~*~
Eric thought about the best way to satisfy his hunger. He hoped the city would be in enough chaos that he could walk into a fast food restaurant and take all he wanted without anyone, live or dead, stopping him. As he planned his escape, Jack’s voice sounded on the radio.
“Eric, you copy?”
Eric thought about ignoring it, but the temptation to sound important was too strong.
“Loud and clear, Boss.”
“How’s the outside world look? Seems as if we’re going to be stuck here for a while.”
“Looks like these things are all over, Jack, but I’ve figured out a way to dispatch them pretty efficiently. I can deal with them, piece of cake,” Eric said confidently.
“Good,” Jack replied. “You need to see if you can fetch us some ammo.”
Eric cursed himself for answering. He tried to come up with an excuse but couldn’t think quite fast enough.
“W-well, I was going to get something to eat. I guess I could cruise by the gun shop.”
“Fill your pockets. I know you can’t carry much on that sorry excuse of a bike,” Jack laughed.
“No worries, Boss,” Eric replied. “I haven’t seen any cops but I’ve got a squad car.”
He waited for the opportunity to explain his heroics, but Jack never asked.
“I don’t want to know. Get here as soon as you can,” Jack ordered. “Call when you’re in the parking lot. We’ll figure out a way to ge
t you in.”
“10-4, Boss,” Eric answered confidently. “Piece of cake!”
Keith stared at the radio in amazement.
“He should have been dead by now,” he said, almost grudgingly. “I just hope he makes it to the gun store.”
“If he gets us the ammunition, he may even get a raise,” Jack said. “He seems to finally be getting his act together.”
“True. I’ve got to hand it to him, he’s managed to get out of here and keep himself alive,” Keith admitted. “Let’s get the meds upstairs so we can pass them out.”
“Sounds good,” Jack said. “We can come back down when Wapowski shows up.”
~*^*~
~11~
Eric turned his radio off and mumbled, “Fat chance, Jack.” He grabbed his sword and blew Cheri a kiss.
“You hold down the fort, Baby. I’ll get something to eat.”
Eric’s apartment had two windows and since it was a basement room, the windows were high on the wall, putting them barely above ground level. He stood on a dresser to peek out the front window but quickly decided against that one as the street seemed to be filled with the undead. Going to the back window, he placed a chair on a coffee table, enabling him to see outside. Moving aside the curtains, he spotted a pair of bloodstained legs and quickly closed the curtains again as he tried to decide what to do. When he peeked out the window again, the legs had moved farther away, giving him hope that he might be able to make a run for it soon. He continued his vigil, silently urging the legs to keep moving, which they did, but slowly.
It was almost a half hour later when the back yard finally seemed to be clear. The window wasn’t a big one, but Eric had climbed through it hundreds of times as a child and even once or twice as an adult, when he’d been locked out. Granted, he’d put on a few pounds since then, but he wasn’t too worried about it. He quietly opened the window and jumped up, centering his midsection through the opening and effectively wedging himself there. As he jumped, he managed to knock the chair off the coffee table. He cringed as he heard the clatter it made when it fell to the hard floor.
The reaction was almost instantaneous as the sound of moans began to fill the back yard. Frantically trying to pull himself through or push himself back, Eric was making little headway and he could see the infected begin to move into the yard. Sucking in his breath, he dug his fingers into the grass outside the window and pulled. Slowly he began to ease out through the small opening as the lumbering figures in the yard moved closer. There was one not a dozen feet away by the time Eric finally finished scrambling to his feet. He ran through a group of the dead and hurried around the corner. Slowly, he tiptoed through the side yard and positioned himself behind a bush near the front of the house. Several forms wandered aimlessly about the street but the path to the car seemed clear for the moment. He reasoned there was time to reach the vehicle and get in before any of the walking ghouls could reach him, as long as the door was unlocked. Holding his breath, he ran toward the car, his feet slapping the ground loud enough for every zombie within a mile to hear. As he reached the car, he prayed it would open. It did. He quickly climbed in, slammed the door, and locked it. Eric smiled with gratification as the undead gathered around the car and began to slap and claw at the windows. He even went so far as to taunt them as they bit at the glass. His actions seemed to make them more agitated and some of them even began to climb up onto the hood in an effort to get at him through the windshield. His smile disappeared when he reached into his pockets, realizing he’d forgotten the keys.
Eric began to panic.
“You dumb-ass, where did you put those keys!” he cursed himself as he pulled his pockets inside out.
“I didn’t take them out of my pockets. I couldn’t have,” he reassured himself.
Outside, the numbers of undead were steadily growing. They seemed to call to each other with their frenzied moaning and as more of the infected arrived, they began to pile up on the hood and finally onto the top of the car. The roof started to flex under the sheer weight of bodies that crawled atop, looking for a way in.
Eric searched the cab frantically. He reached between the seats and under the floorboard.
“Okay, Eric,” he said aloud, trying to calm himself down, “you’ll just have to hot wire it.”
He had never hot-wired anything before in his life, but it looked so easy on TV. He stuck his head under the dashboard and pulled on a panel that was under the steering column.
“Ignition wires must come through here to get to the ignition,” he said aloud. As the panel came off, he could see bundles of wire everywhere. He could spend hours stripping wires and holding them together in different combinations, and he knew that he didn’t have hours. The sound of popping metal told him that he only had minutes. As he brought his head back up, a skinless face was staring into his eyes. The creature had taken advantage of an opening that was slowly developing between the top of the windshield and the frame of the car. As the unfortunate thing wedged its face into the crack, others piled on top of it, stripping the already rotting skin from the creature’s face. The bulging eyes and exposed anatomy seemed to give it a grotesque smile as it snapped its lipless jaws at Eric. The chilling display again caused Eric to wet himself. The only consolation was that if he got out of this one, he wouldn’t have to change his underwear, as he still wasn’t wearing any.
His mind raced for a solution to his crisis but all he could do was to sink lower into the seat to avoid the grinning beast that was being pushed farther into the gap with every creature that piled over it. The pressure was so intense that both eyes filled with what he could only guess were postmortem juices. Eric covered his face as one eye popped from its socket under the strain, followed by the other, seconds later. He slouched lower to avoid the eyeballs as they dangled above him.
“I guess this is it!” he cried, seeing no way out. “Mom, I hope you’re not mad, ‘cuz I’m coming now.”
As often happens when someone is faced with their demise, Eric’s pitiful life began to flash before his eyes. He remembered a show on TV from when he was a kid. A car thief in the cheesy 1980’s rerun had broken the window of a fancy sedan and had pried at the ignition with his switchblade. Snapping the lock, he had started the engine, allowing him to abscond with his prize Scot-free. The picture in his mind gave Eric one last chance. He looked for a tool. There by his side was his trusty samurai sword. It had saved him many times already. Maybe it could help him again.
He struggled to maneuver the unwieldy sword into position but his efforts were thwarted by a set of keys that were in his way. He reached out to move them and then realized what he was doing. He’d never even thought to check the ignition. It must have been stress, he told himself. He dropped the sword and turned the keys, feeling a wave of relief when the engine roared to life. He was glad that not a living soul had witnessed his blunder, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that even the dead were mocking him. He watched as the vehicle pushed piles of zombies out of his way. Several fell off the roof as he sped down the driveway and down the road. Grabbing the sword, he positioned it on the forehead of the creature that was still lodged between the frame and the windshield. He pushed, causing the zombie to fly off. He sat upright and watched in his side mirror as the corpse bounced down the road.
“No one laughs at Eric Wapowski.”
~*~
Keith exited the elevator with the cart, followed by the others. Pulling the list from his pocket, he asked Lindsey and Autumn if they’d mind helping to distribute the meds. He lowered his voice and added, “I don’t trust Marla to do it alone. There have been problems before.”
Lindsey agreed to help, deciding that she would rather stay busy than to have time to dwell on the crisis.
“Marla,” Keith said, handing her the easy list, “Autumn and Lindsey are going to help hand out the meds since we’re short-handed. Autumn is going to help you.”
He mouthed the words “watch her” to Autumn when Marla turned
her head to study the list. Keith hoped that with Lindsey’s training as a physical therapist, she could help with the patients that needed IV drugs.
~*~
Jack watched as the dead seemed to wander aimlessly around the parking lot. He wondered what they thought, or even if they thought. Some clawed at the walls of the hospital as if they knew there were people inside. Maybe they remembered or maybe they could sense them some other way. Others seemed to stagger rigidly in circles seeming unaware of one another. The streets surrounding the hospital were dotted with the lumbering infected and none seemed to be in any hurry to leave.
At times, he was convinced that there were normal people amongst the undead, until they would turn to reveal a torn out throat or a hollowed abdomen. There were also piles of moving flesh clinging to partial skeletons. These were the ones, he thought, who had been mostly consumed before they had turned. Sometimes a head would rise up from the mush, sometimes it would be an arm, or a leg. There were also smaller masses that seemed to appear wherever the creatures roamed. These smaller piles didn’t seem to move, but there was something odd about them. He couldn’t see them well from the third floor, but there were bright colors in some of them that could only be fabric, he thought. As he watched the ghoulish beings, he noticed something peculiar. Occasionally, one of them would cease its roving and have some sort of spasm. Its head would move almost in a nodding fashion then it would bend over, opening its jaws. Slowly, globs of sludge would emerge from its mouth, leaving a revolting pile on the ground. Then the creature would continue its ambling gait, dragging its feet through the mound of vomit. That, Jack thought as he tried to keep from gagging, explained the smaller piles.
~*~
Eric sped out of his neighborhood into a business area. Retail buildings and shops lined the streets and slow moving creatures milled about. Certain shops were swarming with infected trying to get in. Eric figured these were the ones that were filled with humans who were trying to stay off the menu. He had to weave past several cars that had been abandoned in the middle of the road. One in particular had the roof caved in and the windshield busted out. A trail of blood led from the hood of the car to a gathering of feasting zombies nearby and Eric shivered when he realized how close he had been to sharing the same fate. As he started to leave the center of town, he saw a fast food restaurant that served chicken. The exterior was crawling with the dead, but the building still seemed secured. He saw people inside waving frantically as he pulled into the parking lot.
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