Zombie Complex:
The Battle for Chattahoochee Run
by Alexander Pain
copyright 2017
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead, or undead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.
Chapter 1
The Coca-Cola was just sitting there in the cup holder. That Coke was cold. I wanted it. I had wanted it since we stopped at the front gate to our apartment complex. I lusted for it as the gate opened for us. I lusted for it as we passed the trash compactor, the mailbox hut, and the tennis court. When we came to the bottom of the hill, I stared at it. As we took the left onto the horseshoe-shaped drive that was central to the community, my beautiful wife Karen said something magical.
“Kill it, we’re almost home.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I’m not going to drink it.”
“Cool, I love you!”
I pulled out the beautiful, medium McDonald’s cup that had just a few sips of the precious elixir. It was all mine. According to my doctor, I wasn’t supposed to drink Coca-Cola. I weighed nearly 400 pounds and my fat ass certainly didn’t need it. But, this little bit wouldn’t hurt and it was all mine. Then, I glanced up.
“Watch out! Walkers!” I yelled grabbing the “oh-shit” handle in our 2006 Toyota Highlander with my right hand.
“Damn it!” my wife Karen yelled as she stomped on the brakes. “I'm not going to hit them!”
With the sudden stop, Dale, our basset hound golden retriever mix, hit the back of the driver’s seat and ended up standing on the floor of the mid-sized SUV. It had happened before. It would probably happen again as long as my wife, our dog, and me lived in almost any Atlanta-area apartment complex. While our dog was blessed with a golden retriever's good looks, he was cursed with short little basset hound legs. He wasn't getting back up onto the roomy bench seat without a little help. I slurped down the rest of the Coke.
“Sorry Dale,” she said. “Jake, can you put down the drink and help him?”
“Yeah, let me reach him.” I replied trying to twist my too tall, too big, and too fat body around to reach our dog.
As I lifted him up with one arm, the walkers just kept strolling along, four abreast, pushing a baby carriage, in the middle of the road, right down the main drag of the complex: Chattahoochee Run Luxury Apartments. They were a whole Indian extended family from Grandma and Grandpa to husband and wife, to baby in a stroller. For some reason, they had a knack for lurking around blind corners or just walking right down the middle of the road. Now, they were giving us some sub-continental version of the evil eye.
“Why, for the love of God, can't they use the sidewalk?” Karen asked.
“I don't know. They must not have them in Mumbai.”
“This is Atlanta. This is America. It's not friggin' Mumbai.”
It was one of the many annoying cultural differences that the human resources people don't cover in their mandatory training videos. For us, it was just another frustrating night in the big city. Come home. Go out. Get fast food. Go to another fast food joint to get a milk shake for dessert. No matter what we'd either get nasty fast food or nasty milkshakes. Usually, there was not enough chocolate. Sometimes we got the wrong milk shake entirely. It was always something. We'd get pissed. Then we'd go walk the dog in the park. We'd reach some sort of uneasy equilibrium and come home. We'd vow to never eat fast food again.
We drove on quietly from our “walker” encounter, around to the opposite side of the horseshoe drive. We lived in the “O Building” located around back and across the street from the 40-foot tall concrete and aluminum noise abatement wall that separated us from Atlanta’s perimeter highway. It was sad to see our once middle-class, predominantly American, apartment complex taken over by foreign guest workers and their families. The complex now spent so much on pest control that all the amenities that we used to count on were in decline. There was no more top-notch landscaping. There were no more towels in the gym. Unfortunately, there wasn't much we could do. Since our complex was right next to a big corporate headquarters, contracting companies could fill the complex with guest workers and the complex didn't need to do much to attract business from anyone else. It was starting to suck. But, we could still afford the rent. Barely.
“Yeah,” I said. “Don't tell that old dude. He'll stop wearing his dress.”
I'd used that line before and it didn't get a laugh now.
“I'm sick of them.”
We didn't actually hate the Indians. It wasn't their fault that they did their math homework, had a no nonsense educational pathway to a computer science degree, and had large multi-national employers lined up to hire their entire graduating class for technology jobs. Their culture and education system worked for them. Unfortunately, our culture and education systems were no longer working for us. The big companies that imported the Indians on H1B work visas mashed our cultures together and pitted one against the other. The Indians thought they were doing jobs that Americans were too lazy and stupid to do. We thought they were doing jobs that the big companies were too cheap to pay Americans do do. It was a frustrating situation. On top of that, there were a thousand little things that we wished the companies would teach the guest workers about America so that they could fit in better and adopt more of our customs. American customs like - “Get the hell out of the road!” - would be a start.
Karen parked our aging dark gray SUV right in front of our three-story walk up building. It was a typical garden apartment building with stucco facades, brick sides, and cheap vinyl siding around back where no one but residents could see it. We stepped out of our vehicle and right into a wall of powerful curry smell. On a bad night without much breeze, the pungent odors of the subcontinent could extend about 50-feet out into the parking lot.
“Great,” she observed sarcastically. “They are cooking again.”
The smell crowned another “perfect” evening. We were already in a bad mood. We took the nearest of two staircases, climbed up two flights of steps to the top floor, caught our breath, and then made our way along the dusty breezeway back to our unit. We were both chunky monkeys and the stairs were kicking our asses. But, no one should ever live under an Indian family with small children. Our apartment was a roomy two bedroom model with two bathrooms, a dining area, a kitchen, a huge living room, and a spacious balcony. If it weren't for the odd smells, odd neighbors, beeping fire alarms, and occasional bugs, it would be a very nice place. Once we got inside, Karen disappeared to the back bathroom. She emerged with a handful of towels and wash clothes from the linen closet.
“Smell these!” she demanded. “I just washed these towels!”
“That's okay, babe,” I replied. “I know they smell like curry.”
“You need to get us out of here!”
Fed up with my refusal to sniff test the towels, she stomped off to the dining room to fire up Facebook. I spent most of the evening on the couch with a laptop surfing the job boards in search of a better life.
Later I walked the dog and returned to spend a little time rubbing Karen's shoulders to help her calm down and unwind. Despite her fiery disposition, she still had a beautiful smile, a twinkle in her eyes, and a crazy sense of humor. It was February 21st, I remember the night clearly because it was the night that we first heard about zombies. We were getting ready for bed and I just happened to flip on the super late re-run of the 11 o'clock news.
"Oh turn it off," my wife p
leaded while doing her nightly bedtime routine. "There's nothing on there but murder, robbery, rape and other negativity."
Noting that she was foaming at the mouth from her toothpaste, I partially complied by putting the TV on mute while she returned to the bathroom in the interest of good dental hygiene. I left it on mute until the banner, Zombies in Jamaica, flashed across the screen.
The coy blonde anchor in a tight red dress arched an eyebrow and said, "This just in from Jamaica: Zombies!"
“Turn it off. You just want to see your girlfriend!” Came the order from the bathroom.
“No babe.” I replied turning up the volume. “Listen to this!”
"Zombies have been reported roaming around the island of Jamaica. Sporadic reports have claimed that corpses of the recently deceased had animated and were terrorizing islanders."
The news then cut to video of Jamaican Prime Minister Nigel Winston at a press conference.
"Zombies are simply an element of our island folklore." He told local news shows after initial reports reached the media. "They have no basis in reality."
The news cut back to the studio where the typical generic male co-anchor dismissively chortled. "What are they smoking down there?"
I wondered about it briefly and dismissed the story. Every few months, the same station would fill time with a Bigfoot sighting or Chupacabra story and I figured this was more of the same. In a few weeks, I found out I was wrong. Really wrong.
Chapter 2
Life returned to normal. We advanced into March and even more of our “walkers” filled the streets of our apartment complex. As temperatures rose, the Indians lurked behind blind corners and in every spot where it was completely inappropriate for a pedestrian to be. They stared at us for driving too close to them. They thought we drove to fast. We stared at them for not being on a sidewalk. The world went on like normal. Work was normal. Fast food was normal. Even the dog was pooping on a regular schedule. Then one night, I heard a scream from the bathroom.
"Oh my God," Karen screamed. “Oh my God!”
I figured she had seen another big ass bug. It was Georgia and our unit backed up to the woods that ran through the center of our complex. From the sound of her cry, it wasn't a run of the mill spider or silverfish. I got up and hauled ass to the master bathroom. At least, I ran as fast as a nearly four hundred pound, middle-aged, guy could run. I'm sure the downstairs neighbors appreciated it. But, then again, we didn't appreciate their curry smells in our bath towels either.
“What? What? What?” I asked bouncing off of beds and dressers and racing the dog.
"Do you think this is for real?"
"What? What? What are you looking at?" I exclaimed entering the bathroom to get at her cell phone.
"This video!"
“What?” I said with a tone of exasperation.
I hadn't even given zombie story a second thought. We had work to do, a dog to walk, and bills to pay. We hardly ever watched the news. All of the Atlanta crime stories really were too depressing.
"It's eating him. It's eating him. I think I'm going to hurl!"
But, there it was right on the Internet. It was a video showing a human figure eating the entrails of a fallen man. A Facebook friend had posted the video without any warning. It purportedly showed a zombie attack in Jamaica.
Fortunately for our stomachs, but unfortunately for an unsuspecting public, the footage was very poor quality cell phone video taken at night. It sure looked like a person was being eaten.
"Do you think zombies could come here?"
"I doubt it," I replied as I quietly wondered if we were ready for disaster. I wondered how many bottles of water and how many cans of soup we had in the pantry. Back in those days, I used to read gun magazines and backwoods survival magazines. I even read up on “prepping” and being prepared for disasters. It was easy to read up on how to be prepared. But, it was hard to be prepared on a tight budget.
Still, on our very next grocery run, I vowed to quietly increase our stockpile of emergency food. Unfortunately, our budget was still very tight. It had been since the dot com bust and the H1B guest worker boom. We were fighting for survival every pay period. But, no matter what our situation was, we really needed to get some food into our pantry. We needed to start eating at home. It was a mantra that we repeated every week. But, if zombies were coming, I meant it.
Chapter 3
We weren't really in position to stockpile anything. Still, when we went to Le Big Box, we managed to add a dozen cans of beans, a dozen cans of chili, five packages of Swedish Wasa bread, and an extra case of bottled water to our basket. The purified drinking water was the cheapest. We also bought a gallon of basic bleach in case we had to purify our own tap water. Of course, we also bought our regular load of scented candles. Our downstairs neighbors were cooking a specialty dish that smelled much like split pea soup, curry, and fresh dog feces. Fortunately, the Le Big Box card gods smiled upon us, approved our purchases, and we even saved five percent. We were in a no man’s land over the credit limit again, but we could purify water and eat for a few days if there was a disaster.
Every few nights the news carried a disconcerting zombie story from Jamaica and the West Indies. But, the Jamaican government continued to completely deny the existence of Zombies. To make matters more confusing, no one had any more actual footage of zombies.
The Jamaican Prime Minister again took to the cable news shows and exclaimed, "Zombies are no more real than Bigfoot!"
The Jamaican tourism board even sponsored an ad campaign with low cost air fare and hotel rooms. A few right wing pundits began to call for a quarantine on Jamaica. But, they were quickly labeled racists. The bloggers, twitter fiends, and Craiglist trolls were all over the story, but they didn't have reporters or travel budgets. They merely made matters worse by digitally editing old vacation photos to add zombies.
Some media executives realized that zombies and controversy could help them score points in the ratings. Soon the cable networks started devoting shows to zombies. But, none of the networks actually sent any reporters to Jamaica. Apparently, reporting from the field was considered an expensive and an unnecessary part of the 24/7 news cycle. It was much less expensive to simply talk about the story in pundit round table talk shows. Medical experts sat around in studios telling everyone how preposterous it was to even think that zombies could ever exist. Then, they explained how experts at our leading hospitals could quarantine victims and treat them in isolation wards. They said America was completely safe. They said that the medical profession was on the case. It was hubris. Experts say many things. At least, until they get bit by a zombie.
Chapter 4
With all the coverage, Jamaican zombies were the talk of the office for a couple of weeks. Every cube had a different opinion.
"It's all bull," my Americanized co-worker Aref exclaimed before quieting his voice for indoor conversation. "Those whores on television invented zombies for ratings!"
“Aref is crazy,” other co-workers would say. “But, he might be right.”
Since there had never been any zombies in the past, the official opinion among the supervisory set was that zombies were nonsensical, not worth planning for, and not something that would give us any time off. Zombies were just like the killer bees. They were always reported to be on the move, but they never seemed to get here.
I got the sense that mentioning zombies to anyone in management would be a career limiting move. It would be like planning for a Bigfoot or a Chupacabra attack. Management couldn't even envision a zombie attack. The thin little security memo on workplace violence was ridiculous. It focused on strategies like run and hide.
Fortunately, management could envision a fatal flu pandemic or an earthquake. There were some rudimentary plans in place for disaster recovery and business continuity. But, we didn't drill for them and we didn't drill with the idea that half the work force was dead or otherwise incapacitated. Work from home plans were in place primarily so
that we could talk to our global workforce in India during the wee hours of the morning and before the working day started. The company loved for us to have meetings with the offshore teams from 7:00 to 8:00 a.m. and then to chastise us for not making it to the office by 8:30 a.m. It was something for them to bury in our personnel files for the day the offshore team could do our jobs.
While my company wasn't planning for a zombie apocalypse, I still kept it in mind. Whenever we went to a dollar store to stock up on toilet paper, I'd throw in a can of Chef Boyardee for the pantry. I also threw in a big 1.5-liter bottle of drinking water from time to time. By early-March, we had built up a small stockpile. But, it still wasn't more than three or four weeks worth of food. I consoled myself with the knowledge that I had four new truck tires on the Highlander. The raised white letters and snow-tire treads made the grocery-getting SUV look a little more rugged.
Finally, in late-March, the most sensational reporter from the most sensational news network announced that he was taking his crew to Jamaica to get to the bottom of the whole zombie business. On April first, he would be hosting a one hour special called The Great Zombie Hunt live from Jamaica.
Chapter 5
"Is the popcorn ready?" My wife called from the living room.
"Almost," I yelled over the roar of the hot air popper. "Is the show on yet?"
Karen was parked on the couch so I rousted the dog and joined her with popcorn. Dale made a big production out of taking my big recliner. Like most Americans, we were all glued to the television for The Great Zombie Hunt. It was going to prove or disprove the existence of zombies in Jamaica by revealing them live on the air on national television. It was going to be a huge ratings sensation for the network and it was going to give the rest of us some piece of mind.
The report opened with the grainy video shown on the Internet. Then, they explained Zombies in island folklore. Just when you thought they would reveal to actual zombies, the show cut to commercials. It progressed through the typical talking heads segments. The pundits argued what Zombies would mean to political parties. Then they promised to go to the original location of Zombies and cut to commercial. Of course, they didn't just cut to one commercial. It seemed like they had five full minutes of commercials. Finally, the reporter interviewed two dread-locked men who had reportedly seen zombies. The men swore that they had seen zombies and they agreed to take the television newscaster to see the town where the zombie attacks allegedly occurred.
Zombie Complex | Book 1 | The Battle For Chattahoochee Run Page 1