by Lynn Main
Outside, it’s still broad daylight . All of the artificial light probably once made it seem very bright. To avoid becoming as jumpy as a kid, I start humming the theme song from the old Batman TV show. Nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh Batman!
I walk past the strobe light and back into the dark and hear a gasp. I reluctantly turn back to see that they have all stopped at the edge of the light. I motion for them to come, holding out my hands. But Kevin shakes his head violently, refusing. I walk back and kneel in front of him. “Take my hand and then shut your eyes tight. Don’t open them until I say. Then it won’t be scary because it isn’t dark. It’s just that your eyes are closed. Okay?”
Standing and holding my hand out for him again, I wait. He holds his up toward mine and squeezes his eyes shut. I turn back to the darkness and Jason quickly grabs my other hand and I start forward, leading the boys. I can feel Kim clutching the back of my shirt as we inch through the darkness. Faith has pulled the group in tight. I can hear her light breathing practically on the back of my neck. I wonder if any of them have their eyes open. There’s a closed door with a round glass porthole on the left side of the hall. The room is lit and Faith pulls at my sleeve, directing me towards it.
“It’s just through there.” Faith says. I can’t find a handle, so I push. It swings on a hinge and we hurry into a lounge with a table, chairs, counters and a sink next to a fridge, with couches beyond that. There are three doors in the wall to the right and Faith moves toward the one on the far left of those.
“Wait, let me go first” I say.
“It should be okay . I doubt any zombies are hiding in the locker room when they could hide in the showers.” she laughs and indicates the door on her right. She then disappears into the room. I follow her into a normal looking locker room. No zombies; the only real damage is one of the rows of lockers has been upset and is leaning up against the next.
Faith climbs onto the upset row of lockers and scans the numbers as she crawls from locker to locker. She grabs one of the combination locks and releases her breath. The lock is neon pink and flower shaped. She begins spinning it slowly, then back the other way only a few notches, and then whips it back around and pulls. The lock slides open with a click.
She flings open the locker and starts pulling several items out of it. Sitting everything aside, until she comes to a white lab coat. She jumps off the locker and pulls it over her shoulders, pushing her arms through the sleeves and slams the locker shut. She turns to me reaching into her pockets and winks before pulling an overburdened key ring out. “Got them!” She says, grinning as she takes the lab coat off and tosses it aside.
I look around the locker room. Not really at the lockers but at the walls. There are vents but otherwise they are just white painted concrete. There is only one entrance pretty easy to block off. “Faith,” I say with a questioning look as I turn back toward her. “Are there any other doors into the locker rooms or the lobby out there?”
“Of course not, these are the locker and dressing rooms for all the female nurses and doctors, but even in the men’s there’s only one entrance.” She says. We walk out and I look around the lounge area again. At the other end of the room there’s a door open wide enough to expose a small toilet closet. I turn back around and stare at the swinging entrance door. This place could be perfect. The entrance door might be a problem but I think I can rig it so it will only open out. Those turned over lockers give me the idea.
“If I can drag those lockers out to block off this door, there’s no reason we can’t stay for a while.” I say finally.
“ That sounds great but we need to get the medicine and it’s in the basement.” Faith replies. I look at the dried caked-on smeared blood on my hands for a second and then stride briskly toward the center door of the three…the one with the label ‘Showers’ above it.
Pushing through it, I’m hit by the smell of soap. What a beautiful smell. I run my hand along the wall beside the door and feel a light switch. I flick it and stare, dumbstruck. I smell a bit of mildew but after all that we’ve been through it’s almost a welcome aroma. I turn back and Faith’s right behind me in the doorway. I have another grin for her, more mischievous than the last. “You think these will work?”
“No reason they shouldn’t.” She walks over to a shower head and turns the water on. It sprays right out with a healthy flow, and is so hot steam begins rising in the shower room instantly. My muscles and bones ache to be under that shower head. She turns back towards me grinning.
I have made up my mind. As bad as Mr. Petrova and his crew think this place is overrun, and as bad as it looks from the outside, it’s an ideal place to hide out. “We need that medicine but not this second, Faith. We need rest, some food, and to give these kids a little time to relax. We could take showers and find clothes in here and then we could go down to the basement.”
She nods and then turns off the shower. “I’d like that.” She walks back to me and lightly pushes me back out the door and flicks the lights off as she follows me through, “Let’s find some food.”
I survey our intended haunt. There are two couches and a recliner. They all look plush and lumpy. There’s also a refrigerator, a coffee pot and a microwave next to a sink. It’s almost utopic. It makes sense I guess; I doubt anyone was running for a coffee break when the place was coming unhinged so there was no one in here to attack, which equals no blood in here or zombies lying in wait.
I walk over to the fridge where a plain piece of paper is taped with handwritten black lettering reading: ‘If it does not have your name on it then it is not yours. Do not eat it.’ I rip it off and toss it aside, then open the fridge. My heart melts, and my mouth and eyes water simultaneously. The air rolling out of the fridge is stale, but crisp and gloriously cold.
The food within, all in rectangular odd shaped and sized clear Tupperware containers with red and blue lids, may still be edible, and there are quite a few of them. I grab the closest one and tear its lid off.
“Food !” I exclaim turning back to the others with the cold dish of macaroni and cheese in my hand tilted down so they can see its contents. Faith had been crouched down looking through the cabinet under the sink. She jumps up with a wanton expression of glee and I can hear a faint bubbling in her belly. Kim and the two little boys were sitting on the couch but when I turn the container to them they all nod and grin. Kim rises and starts toward me and the boys run past her.
I reach in with my cupped bare hand and take some macaroni and cheese out of the dish and stuff it into my mouth and pass the container to Faith. She scoops and heaves its contents into her mouth and hands the container over to Kim, who passes it to the boys. They hold the dish between them with one hand each and pull out a handful with the other and then pass the container back to me. I look at Kim but her expression keeps me from offering it to her again.
I’ m still chewing when I get the nearly empty container back. The bit of congealed cheese and pressed together macaroni noodles in the corner would not amount to the portion I took in my first bite. I shake my head and pass it straight back to the little boys, “You finish it.”
I reach into the fridge for the next container. It is also pasta – little shells- but with a white sauce and strips of carrots and green peas mixed in it. I take a smaller bite of this one. It seems a bit less fresh, but still only tastes delicious in my starving mouth. I pass this container directly to Kim as Faith has already ducked under me. She is leaning a quarter of the way into the fridge, pushing containers around.
She comes out with a Diet Sprite and pops the tab. She gulps greedily and then hands the can to Kim. I look in the fridge again and grab a container with a green lid. I open it and almost drop it on Faith’s head as the rancid smell of rotten meat rolls out. It had been some type of meatloaf and the lid was not green…it was mold.
“I think we should try to steer clear of meat.” Faith says with a funny voice because she’s pinching her nose and has her hand cupped over her mo
uth. I laugh as I carefully reseal the container and sit it up on the counter. We find a few more containers of pasta and finish them off in a round a piece. Finally I grab one out and look in at week-fresh spaghetti and decide I am too full for another bite.
I offer the container to Faith but she holds a hand up to me and shakes it away. She is still chewing a large bite and takes another swig out of one of the water bottles she found in the drawer at the bottom of the fridge.
I open up the ice box on top too but quickly reclose it. Apparently the power has been intermittent enough to well-thaw out all of the frozen foods. The mixed smell is just another on the long list of horrendous stenches that have accompanied the zombie apocalypse.
Kim
After we finish eating, we are all standing dumbly in a loose huddle around the fridge. I decide to go try out the soft chair and the boys follow me. They both sit down on the same couch right by the arm and stare over at me, giggling. Kim sits by them on the couch against the wall. The other couch faces it with a small coffee table in between. The chair I’m in sits between them at the end of the coffee table and faces the three doors to the locker rooms and showers.
Faith comes and sits on the closest cushion of the other couch and holds her hand out to me. I take it and squeeze her fingers a moment. I stare dumbly at it as she looks over her shoulder. I look up and our eyes meet and then hers divert quickly and I flaccidly drop her hand but leave mine lingering close. We all sit silent for several moments and it starts to become awkward. I clear my throat several times but can’t think of anything to say.
Kim breaks the silence. In a soft and serious tone she speaks and all the rest of us regard her mutely. “My parents were born in Korea. In Seoul, my father met my mother while attending college. My mother wanted to design beautiful dresses. She begged my father to come to America, to New York City so she could follow her dream. It caused a lot of problems in their families back in Korea because my mother was 6 months pregnant with me.”
“My father says he is a proud man, a fair man, and a sensible man but there was never anything he could deny her. Despite the fact that neither of them could speak English, they moved to America before I was born. This outraged my Grandfather.”
“He got over it though…eventually. He came to visit us here in America. My grandfather does not speak English, but he did learn on a trip to Disney World to say, ‘I Love Mickey!’” She stops for a moment, chuckles, then sniffs, and I watch her eyes envision her grandfather happily getting his photo taken with Mickey and Minnie.
Twin streams of tears roll down her cheeks , “I only lived in New York when I was little. My mother found work in dress shops. There was not much money in it though. My father started working at a construction company though and did well. He started as a helper –a common laborer- and rose to ownership.
“He was eventually moved to New Jersey and then V irginia to oversee some large construction jobs for the company. Then in Virginia he opened his own company. We moved to Sarasota a few years later. I lived in South Hills not far from downtown off of Fruitville for most of my life. Not more than a few miles from here.” She points over my shoulder to the east. “But it isn’t really there anymore.” She stops crying and looks up at me soberly, “It was not like we were at that place with Mr. Petrova by choice. We just didn’t have anywhere else to go…”
“I know…” I reply softly, looking down at my knees.
Kim continues, “I wasn’t home when the…zombies attacked. I was at school. School was not let out that day either. There was no bell; there were no special instructions from the school or government; no plan…it just sort of…ended.”
“We were in fourth period when I heard the screaming start. We just walked out of class. Hundreds of students wandering into the hallway to see what all the commotion was about. There were people running up the halls from the cafeteria, screaming that we were under attack.”
“I was frightened but not panicked…I hadn’t actually seen any of them yet. I just followed the crowd that was running out into the student parking lot. I got in my car and got in the line of honking vehicles and drove away. It wasn’t even noon but I didn’t know what else to do so I drove home. There were fires on the streets. Cars were on fire in the streets…and other things…maybe people.”
“My neighborhood looked deserted. I pulled in my driveway and right away I knew I should leave. Both my parents’ cars were there. My father’s Camaro had blood on the window. The front door of the house was standing open. When I cut my engine, I could hear something inside. It sounded like cheering. I remember thinking that everything must be okay if dad was still sitting in his chair watching baseball. He loved baseball.”
“Our house has a large entranceway with a high arched roof and a chandelier just inside the front door. The chandelier had fallen. The glass in the door was broken and there was a small pool of blood just inside. A coat rack stood next to the door but it had been knocked down and leaned on the chandelier. In my father’s sitting room, just to the left about twelve feet down the hall, I could hear the cheering. I crept over the wreckage and as I got closer I realized the sound was not cheering. It was just fuzz.”
“I looked into the room and the large flat screen on the wall above the fireplace was buzzing with no signal. It worked despite a crack right down the center of the screen. There was also a round red spot on the screen with lines running down from it. I just opened my mouth and whispered abeoji and someone jumped out at me from down in the dark room where it had been hunched over…something dead.”
“I don’t know w hich one of them it was because the face was so covered in blood that it was black…but I am certain it was one of my parents, and I knew right then that both of them were dead. I turned screaming and tried to vault through the entranceway, but tripped on the chandelier. I should have gotten up and continued running, but I didn’t.” She stops and wipes the backs of her palms against her cheeks as fresh tears stream down.
“Kim you don’t have to tell us this if you don’t want to.” Faith says.
“No its okay…I…I want to.” Faith gets up and walks over to the counter and plucks two tissues from a grey box with light blue paisley. Kim says ‘I’ a few times but can’t get farther until Faith returns and holds the tissues out to her. She takes them and says thank you and wipes at her cheeks delicately.
After a moment she starts again, “I just laid there and cried. It was right on top of me. I suppose it would have killed me, but then Nick was there. He was running through the door and grabbed me and was screaming for me to run. I remember thinking that this was his first time in my house and then I was through the door and outside.”
“He was behind me, pushing me toward his car. We got in and started down the driveway just as some of them were coming around the side of the house. There were maybe 10 and I recognized one of them as the girl that lived next door. She was my age. I don’t remember for how long but after that we just drove around Sarasota for a while. Where we could…it was like…it was like…a dream.”
“Is that when you went to the mortuary?” I ask.
“No, we decided to go back to the school. By the time we got there it was abandoned. We went upstairs to the math department and spent the night there. The next day, driving around was not so easy. We had heard a lot of gunfire in the night and several explosions, but we had no idea that the town would be so different…it was like a real war zone…well you know.” She finishes.
“You ended up at the mortuary the same way we did then.” Faith says, nodding with her chin resting on her fist.
“No , the town had exploded overnight. We could barely get out of the parking lot. We ended up trapped on top of a bus on Tamiami. That is where Patrick found us. He and Mr. Petrova saved us. They said a group of survivors was in a safe place and we went with them.” She stops again and this time she’s finished.
“How did you meet?” Faith leans over and asks the boys.
Kim looks
over at them. “They were on vacation with their family here. They lost their parents. The two of them were running in the streets a few days before you two showed up, scavenging for food like wild animals.”
“They’re very lucky to have you to look after them.” Faith says solemnly. She looks like she’s choking back tears.
Ghostly
We’ re all sitting silently, just drifting in our thoughts, “It’s time to see how well those showers work.” Faith announces. She stands and goes first into the shower room then comes out. She scavenges through both the locker rooms, all of the cabinets under the microwave and beside the fridge again. I stop paying attention and almost fall asleep when she steps in between the couches and says, “Okay, I have found towels and scrubs to wear. Kim will shower first, then Kevin and Jason, and me last.” She didn’t mention when I would shower, I notice. But I decide not to comment. I have something to do anyway.
I stand and walk over to the door we came in through. There is another sign taped to it that reads: Leave the lounge lights off if unoccupied. Thanx, Mgmt. That gives me an internal chuckle. They had to put up signs to stop doctors and nurses from stealing each other’s food and wasting electricity. Signs are worthless now; it doesn’t matter what they say. Sometimes they say stop, but I can’t stop. Sometimes they say one way, but I have to go the other.
I push the door open, step into the empty hall and let it swing closed behind me. I stand as still and silent as possible until all I can hear is my breathing. I hear the shower kick on through the wall. It’s faint but unmistakable. I continue breathing and listening. My heart is pounding louder but I start to notice faint and far away noises. Somewhere there is a scratching sound and an occasional crash. There is also a low murmur. It’s like a thousand people talking but in a basement far away. This is a tall building and a large complex. This hallway is quiet…ghostly now…but how long will it stay that way?